Vegan Pancakes with Strawberry Cashew Cream Sauce

Haha, here I go with the vegan again, right? There is a good explanation...the weekends are reserved for more thoughtful breakfasts since I actually have time.  These pancakes just happen to be one of my favorite recipes and it just happens to be vegan, and the post I did last night about the raw taco salad I got it from Oh She Glows and she included a post about different things to do with the leftover cashew sauce, so I just added some strawberries to it and voila, yummy breakfast!

Fluffy Vegan Pancakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup almond milk (or soy milk)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center.

Measure the milk into a measuring cup. Add vinegar and ground flax seeds, and use a fork to vigorously mix the ingredients until foamy. This will take a minute or so.

Pour the milk mixture into the center of the dry ingredients. Add the water, canola oil and vanilla and use a fork to mix until a thick, lumpy batter forms. That should take about a minute. It doesn’t need to be smooth, just make sure you get all the ingredients incorporated.

Preheat the pan over medium-low heat and let the batter rest for 10 minutes.

Lightly coat the pan in oil. Add 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake, and cook for about 4 minutes, until puffy. Flip the pancakes, adding a new coat of oil to the pan, and cook for another 3 minutes or so. Pancake should be about an inch thick, and golden brown.

Rest pancakes on a cooling rack covered with tin foil until ready to serve. To reheat, place pancakes in on a baking sheet covered with tin foil in a  300 F degree oven for 5 minutes or so.

The recipe below is for the entire recipe, I just used about 1/2-3/4 of the recipe and blended with about 6-10 strawberries.

Strawberry Cashew Nut Cream Sauce

 

• 1 cup macadamia (or cashew) nuts, soaked in water for 2-8 hours
• 11-12 tbsp water (use as needed to achieve desired consistency)
• 2-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice, to taste
• fine grain sea salt, to taste (I used just over 1/4 tsp)

Drain and rinse the soaked nuts. Add them into a processor and process. Stream in about 1/2 cup water and a couple tbsp of lemon juice. Add more water as needed to achieve your desired consistency. The nut sauce should be super smooth and not grainy. Add salt to taste.

Raw Taco Salad

Ok, so let's start this off by saying I am not vegan, vegetarian, or a raw foodie, however I love incorporating these new (to me) and unique ways of cooking. I just love food, so anytime I get the opportunity to try something new I'm all over it!

This is a raw dish, thanks to Oh She Glows website. I follow her blog and I have tried several of her recipes. I have been going back to this recipe several times ever since she posted it on Tuesday and finally decided to make it. 


What you will need:


1/2 walnuts soaked for 2-8 hours (I had them soaked for about 10 while I was at work and they were just fine.
1 cup of cashews soaked for 2-8 hours (same thing as above)
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin 
salt to taste
cayenne pepper to taste
1/2 cup to 1 cup of water (for desired consistency)
2-3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
Any lettuce you prefer (I used romaine)
Any veggies you want to put on a taco salad (I used tomato, green onion, corn and avocado) Black beans would be good, I didn't have any :(
Tortilla chips

First things first is to make the walnut taco meat.  Rinse and drain the soaked walnuts and put in a food processor with the chili powder, cumin and salt. Pulse a few times to combine the ingredients, but be sure to keep the walnuts chunky.

See it even looks like taco meat huh?


Next, make the cashew cream sauce. Rinse and drain the soaked cashews and put them in the food processor, start the food processor and pour in the water and lemon juice while it's still going, you want to achieve a smooth consistency, like salad dressing, not grainy. 

Last, all you have to do is assemble your salad and I topped mine off with tortilla chips for a yummy crunch.

 

 

Roasted Chicken With Green Beans and Potatoes

Ok this is going to be one of those posts that you will just have to "wing it" with the recipe. A pinch of this, a dash of that...sometimes that's just how I do it LOL. 
I have this spice mixture that my best friends mom makes that I put on basically everything, but I'm not sure what is in it, it's her secret recipe (which I am out of btw, I need to place another order) But that was almost the base of this entire dish, so I'll try to offer some suggestions for replacement.











1/4-1/2 cup of olive oil (You can always add more as you go)
2 lemons
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of black pepper
3/4 pound of trimmed green beans
8 small red potatoes cut into a little bigger than dice sized pieces
2 bone-in chicken breasts (the ones we had were huge and we had enough for three people, plus leftovers)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Drizzle about 1 tbsp of the olive oil on the bottom of a baking dish. You can slice the lemons and place them on the bottom of the pan if you wish, but I found that it didn't really contribute to the flavor that much. 

In a large bowl combine the rest of the olive oil (again if you want to start out with a little and add more you can), garlic, salt, pepper, and here's where it gets tricky...this is where I added the "secret spice mixture" but I would incorporate some Italian seasonings maybe some basil and oregano, or if you have an Italian Seasoning blend that would work well. I would add maybe 1 tbsp and a half of that to the olive oil mixture.

Now that the olive oil mixture is ready, add the green beans, coat and put in the bottom of the baking dish. I used a slotted spoon to pull them out so the olive oil mixture can drip back into the bowl because after the green beans, you will toss the potatoes in that mixture too. 

Repeat and add the chicken last. Keep an eye on the mixture, if you need to add more oil and spices. When the chicken is good and covered place them on top of the veggies and pour any remaining oil mixture over the chicken.

  

Leave it uncovered and put it in the oven for 50 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken they might cook faster.  Just use a meat thermometer and when the chicken reaches 165 degrees you can take out the chicken and place it on a plate covered with foil until the veggies are done. I made the mistake of cutting the potatoes too large and so by the time the potatoes were finally done, the beans were a little overdone :( but, it all turned out fine.