Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with No Eggs

Life is Good: we're making special breakfasts together!

Oh, my. 

SO much has been going on around here. It's hard to believe that Fall is upon us when it feels like summer was just a blink away from today.

Back to school has been wonderful for the big kids at our house. They wake up happily and skip off to school. They come home with smiles on their faces and stories about the day's fun. My biggest complaint is that they don't eat their lunches. The Big Kid looks at me with big eyes and a smirk, "But, mommy, I have lots of talking to do at lunchtime!" The Little Kid's reasoning is similar--"I didn't eat all of my lunch because I was showing (classmate's name) a magic trick!"

While he has enjoyed full reign of their bedrooms & their toys while they aren't home, our Littlest One has really been been missing his brothers. And frankly, I have, too.

But we had a blast this summer. "It was full, but not busy," I say when people ask. We had tons of fun, went lots of places, vacationed, enjoyed a couple of camps, played with tons of friends, ran through the sprinkler no less than fourteen thousand times, swam & swam & swam & swam, but all at a very enjoyable pace. I declared it a 1980s summer the day ours began. I wanted it to be innocent and low-tech like that of my childhood---lots of imagination and feel good-ness and...no screens! And besides watching The Twins play and some episodes of Chopped Junior here and there plus the Peanuts movie (I think?), it was screen-free for the kiddos and that was just fine with them!

One thing that we did a lot of this summer was cook and bake. We adjusted my eggless pancake recipe to create Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. And let me tell you that, accompanied by the glaze, these pancakes smell and taste like cinnamon rolls! Oh. My. Gosh. They are good! I've had to go gluten free in response to some postpartum physical health issues that just haven't quite gone away but the one pancake I allowed myself was worth the inflammation! (Well, maybe not? It's hard to say!) (Next up...gluten free pancakes?)

Here is our recipe:

Susie's Eggless Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
(adapted from this recipe)
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted (you don't have to, but it makes them fluffier)
7 teaspoons baking powder, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I like Pink Himalayan)
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups milk (I use organic whole)
6 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup (heaping over) applesauce (I use organic, no sugar added)
1 Tablespoon vanilla (I prefer Madagascar)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of baking powder into the applesauce and set aside. This will mimic 2 beaten eggs in the recipe.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour (or at least distribute evenly), SIX teaspoons of baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.
3. Pour milk, vanilla, and melted butter into dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Add applesauce mixture and mix well.
5. Oil (or butter) a griddle or fry pan. When heated, use a Tablespoon to measure out your pancakes. These are fluffy pancakes, so they need a lower heat and longer on the griddle to cook all the way through. Use the first couple of pancakes to experiment how long it takes on each side to cook all the way through without scorching the outside of the pancake. For me, it takes a couple of minutes on each side with a medium heat on my gas stove.
6. Serve with my simple glaze and enjoy!

Susie's Simple Pancake Glaze:
1. Pour 1 1/2 cups powdered (confectioner's) sugar into a small mixing bowl.
2. Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla (I like Madagascar)
3. Add 1/8 cup of water
4. Mix well until there are no lumps
5. If you still have some dry parts, add another 1/8 cup of water and mix well
6. Look at the glaze, taste the glaze. If you want something the consistency of syrup, keep the glaze as is. If you want a thicker glaze, add another 1/4 cup of powdered sugar
7. Using a whisk, pastry brush, or fork, drizzle over your pancakes

NOTES:
This recipe makes between 24-30 half dollar-sized pancakes. It depends on what you use to measure out your pancakes.
IMPORTANT: if you have small children, I would decrease the cinnamon amount to 1/2 teaspoon. Cinnamon can be "spicy" to small children and they might not enjoy this full-throttle. You might not either! My 8-year old said we should INCREASE the cinnamon. Herbs and spices are really a matter of taste (pun intended!) so adjust this to your own palette's preference. 

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Eggless Zucchini Bread

Life is good: thank goodness for chocolate! 

This past year, we were so fortunate to enroll our oldest child in a magnificent preschool. All of the staff were joyful, kind, nurturing, and encouraging. To top it off, the school had a carpool lane, which meant that teachers stood out in the rain and snow and everything in between so that parents didn't have to. I felt especially grateful that I didn't have to get our littlest in and out of the car to drop off the big kid during inclement weather. So the last week of school, I made some chocolate chocolate chunk zucchini bread for the teachers at his preschool as a way to say, "Thank you!!!" for weathering the carpool lane (pun intended!) as well as creating an atmosphere of safety and fun for our child.

Eggless Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

2 C flour

2 C sugar

3/4 C cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

mixture of 3/4 applesauce and 1/2 T baking powder (mixed together in a separate bowl until foamy)

3/4 C canola

3/4 C buttermilk (I have often used milk and it has turned out well)

3 C grated zucchini

3/4 C chocolate chips or chunks (My friend Merie used a 1/2 bag rather than measure them)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease and flour two loaf pans.

3. Mix applesauce and baking soda together in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

5. Add applesauce mixture plus oil and buttermilk into large bowl of dry ingredients and mix well.

6. Mix in zucchini and then chocolate chips.

7. Pour into pans (half of batter in each) and bake. In my oven, this recipe is done after about 45 minutes. However, all ovens are different, so I suggest that you start checking the middle of the loaf with a toothpick or cake tester after 38-40 minutes.

Notes:

I leave the cocoa powder out of the recipe when I make this bread for my kids since they are allergic to nuts. Most cocoa powders are processed in facilities where nuts are present. The absence of cocoa powder doesn't affect how delicious it is. However, the addition of cocoa powder kind of "takes the flavor over the edge", if you will, and makes the bread much, much more rich. Try it both ways and see what you think!

The original recipe calls for 1 tsp of cinnamon, but it makes for a very obvious cinnamon taste and I prefer it more subtle, especially when leaving out the cocoa powder.

This recipe was originally a cake made with eggs that my friend, Merie, who happens to be a marvelous and adventurous cook, posted on Facebook a few years ago. (Thank you, Merie!) I adapted it to be eggless and the result was more of a bread than a cake, so I bake it in loaf pans, but if you want to try it in a cake pan, go for it!

I made two different recipes--one with cocoa powder (for the teachers) and one without (for my kiddos). Here is a pic of both recipes in the dry ingredient stage.

In this pic, the batter is ready to be poured into the loaf pans.

Here is the Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Zucchini bread version...

And the Chocolate Chunk Zucchini bread version (I used Enjoy Life chocolate chunks.)

 

Eggless Meatloaf Recipe

Life is Good: dinner's ready!

I can remember, oh so heartily, sitting at the dinner table pleading with my mom to let me leave the meatloaf on my plate untouched because I just could not bring myself to eat it. It looked weird! It smelled funny!

Well, the recipe below is not my mother's meatloaf recipe! With all due respect to my mom, of course...she's a celebrated cook and baker to everyone who knows her. And don't worry, all of those feigned attacks of nausea and pleading served me well in high school theater class. ; )

Neither the hubs nor I have ever been fans of meatloaf, but I am always looking for something that I can double the recipe and put half in the freezer. This is one of my secrets to organized living! On those days when you have to eat especially early so that you can run out the door to a soccer lesson or you had a baby up teething the night before, pulling something out of the freezer and sticking a salad with it can be just like an answered prayer.

I found this meatloaf recipe on epicurious.com. It's from an old Gourmet magazine, so I trusted that it would be great. I have made it with and without butter as well as with and without the bacon (and when I used bacon, I used turkey bacon) and I will admit that it tastes better when you leave the butter and bacon in there! However, if you are watching your calorie/fat/cholesterol intake, you can omit these things (using olive oil for butter) and it is still yummy. Below, is my adapted version:

Eggless *Rainbow* Meatloaf
Ingredients:
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/4 cup whole organic milk
1/2 medium onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 carrot, minced or finely chopped (I do this with my mini Cusinart)
1 cup **vegetable pulp from juicer** (may be omitted)
2 Tablespoon unsalted butter
2 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
quick dash of nutmeg
3 slices of turkey bacon, chopped
1/3 cup golden raisins, chopped
1 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
1/3 cup natural, no sugar added organic applesauce
salt and pepper

"Spicy Sauce"
Ingredients:
Equal parts ketchup, deli mustard, and sriracha sauce
For kidlets who are really young or less adventurous, I would omit the sriracha, which is a very spicy, hot pepper sauce.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

2. Cook onion, garlic, carrot, and vegetable pulp (if you have some) in butter (or olive oil) in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. 

3. Cover skillet and reduce heat to low, then cook until carrot is tender, about 5 minutes. 

4. Remove from heat and stir in Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoons pepper. 

5. Finely chop turkey bacon and raisins (or prunes) in a food processor, then add to onion mixture along with beef, pork, and applesauce and mix together. Be careful not to over mix.

6. Add panko breadcrumbs and milk (one spoonful at a time as you may not need all of it. keep your mixture solid and not soupy since you don't have the egg as a binder) and mix all together with your hands (it is gentler).

7. Pack mixture into a 9- by 5-inch oval loaf in a 13- by 9-inch shallow baking dish or pan or a muffin pan (I get 10 "muffins" from this recipe.)

8. Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meatloaf registers 155°F, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let stand 10 minutes before plating.

9. Layer sauce over individual servings.

*Rainbow* refers to the multi-colored pulp from our juicer! For this one pictured below, I juiced 1 apple, a handful of kale, two handfuls of spinach, and a carrot.

Here are all of the veggies together...

Here is what it looks like once you have added most of the ingredients...

Then into the muffin pan (remember to oil the pan!)...

And here they are, topped with Spicy Sauce. Now that's what I call a "Pleasant Meal"!

NOTES:
I adapted this recipe to fit our family's needs. You can find the original recipe here.

I omitted eggs due to our kiddos' egg allergies. Also, I added the pulp from the "green juice" I made in our juicer. All the pulp does is add fiber and nutrition (plus color/rainbow effect). Stick it in with the veggies and butter. If you don't have a juicer, the recipe still works. You could chop other veggies in with your carrots, such as broccoli, celery, and red/orange peppers if you want to have a "rainbow" effect. (Calling it "Rainbow Meatloaf" is how I first got my 5-year old excited about trying this new entree!)

I have also substituted ground turkey for the ground beef/pork combo and it worked just great.

I haven't had prunes on hand when I made this, so I have always substituted with golden raisins.

The original recipe calls for allspice, but I am not sure my kids can have it due to their allergies, so I substituted cinnamon, which I think is a nice flavor accent for beef (it works well in the ground turkey version, too). I once read that you should always use a dash of nutmeg if you use cinnamon in a recipe, so that is where that comes from.

I have made this recipe a couple of times. I will admit that when you do a traditional loaf shape, this recipe is not attractive at all. It is not a meal I would serve to guests. However, I have put it into a muffin pan with a sauce and it looks great! The kiddos like having "meat muffins", too! Everyone in our family--adult to toddler--have been satisfied with this meal.

As with any recipe, the first time is always an experiment. It takes longer to make and you have to figure out how your oven reacts, etc. I encourage you to hang in there and try recipes a second and third time. It always gets easier. For sure, the second time around, this recipe is a breeze and it freezes and reheats well. I hope you enjoy it!