recipe

Blue Cheese Bacon Coleslaw

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The Reason:

Well, first off, I’m not sure you need a reason for Blue Cheese Bacon Coleslaw. Blue Cheese Bacon Coleslaw IS the reason. But this recipe has always been a hit, including Grandma Butterfly’s birthday, and I might also remind you that this was the #1 recipe at baconfest.

The Journey:

Well, there’s not much of a journey here. I don’t really remember why we made this the first time we made it, but you could see by looking at the recipe it was going to be good. Somehow, though, it’s even better than it looks!

I’m not even that much of a coleslaw fan, but this one I can guarantee.

The Verdict:

Awesome. Even ants love it, based on what happened when I spilled a bowl of it on our back porch and summoned every ant in a 10 block radius. They kept waiting around, hoping I would drop more, so I eventually had to poison them before they carried me back to their underground ant kingdom, to slavishly make Blue Cheese Bacon Coleslaw for the rest of my life.

The Recipe:

Recipe originally from Bon Appetit.

  • 8 bacon slices, chopped
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 16 ounces purchased coleslaw mix
  • 1 cup crumbled blue cheese

Make sure the bacon is nice and crisp, and then dry it on paper towels. Whisk the mayo, vinegar, and honey in a large bowl. Stir in coleslaw, cheese, and bacon. Cover and chill.

Don’t dump the coleslaw in before whisking the other ingredients or Sara will be very mad at you.

Vanilla Coconut Ice Cream

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The Reason:

Well, first off, do you really need a reason to make ice cream? I don’t. But I guess if I had to have a reason, just having a nice sunny day seemed reason enough.

The Journey:

Sara heard a rumor that you could make ice cream without any cow’s milk, so we wanted to give it a try. Instead of milk, you use coconut milk, which we happen to have around the house for various reasons.

We have a human-powered “ice cream ball” that can be used to make ice cream without the use of electricity. Basically, instead of having a motor-driven paddle which mixes the ice cream, you have to do the rolling/shaking/what have you yourself. We bought it thinking that we could take it camping with us and make ice cream around the campfire. However, that never actually came to pass, because usually when we are camping we are with a big group, so this little ball doesn’t really make enough ice cream.

For just our family, it makes just the right amount, and kids are a better source of energy than electricity anyway. It gives us an excuse to be outside on a nice day, followed by a nice cold treat.

The Verdict:

Excellent! I don’t think I’d want coconut ice cream every day, but it was a nice treat. The vanilla is an important part of it, since it tones down the coconut a little bit. This would be perfect to make when camping, because it is much easier to transfer canned coconut milk than regular cow’s milk that has to be refrigerated.

The Recipe:

Recipe from Go Dairy Free.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups coconut milk (full fat)
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Stir the coconut milk and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Add the salt and vanilla and freeze in an electric or hand operated ice cream freezer.

Artichoke and Walnut Pesto Pasta

/ Shane / 3 Comments

The Reason:

Well, we really just needed something that was as different from pancakes as possible. This is a nice, summer-y sort of pasta salad that we have found extremely useful for potlucks.

The Journey:

I’d say one of the best parts about this recipe is that it has a lot of greens in it. Throw in whole wheat pasta and walnuts, and it’s decently healthy. Just look the other way when you put in the oil and parmesan cheese!

I’m a guy who loves me some pesto, but this pesto is really nothing like what you would traditionally consider pesto. It’s very thick and pasty, and it isn’t a basil-based pesto, so it doesn’t have that distinguishing taste.

We often make it with spinach instead of arugula, but I think the arugula does add a little more flavor. Of course, you might want to chop it up a little bit if it is too big for a bite.

This recipe makes a lot of pasta. Even when it’s gone over pretty well at potlucks, we still have a lot of leftovers afterwards. It works pretty well cold though, so it works well as something a little extra in your lunch.

The Verdict:

To be honest, I think it could use a little something extra. It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, which is maybe surprising considering how many delicious ingredients you put in it. Looking at that list, you’d expect it to be pretty flavorful. On the other hand, you have a lot of healthy ingredients in there too, so it’s a pretty good way to get a lot of greens! (parsley, arugula and artichokes)

The Recipe:

The recipe is originally from the “Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats” cookbook.

1 lb whole wheat spiral or penne pasta

4 oz. walnuts
15 oz. artichokes
1 clove garlic
zest from 1 lemon
1/4 cup parsley
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
black pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 cups arugula (or spinach)

Cook the pasta. Combine all the rest of the ingredients except for the arugula into a food processor until a thick paste forms. Combine the warm, drained pasta, pesto and arugula into a large bowl (arugula will wilt slightly). Add pepper to taste.

Coconut Pancakes with Pineapple Sauce

/ Shane / 3 Comments

The Reason:

I swear I didn’t intend to do another pancake post. I’m going to have to rename the feature to First Friday Pancakes! I planned to do an item from baconfest, but, sadly, none of the recipes were really phenomenal enough to blog about (plus the pictures didn’t turn out that well).

So here we find ourself with yet another pancake recipe, but I promise you, this is one you don’t want to miss!

The Journey:

Some people are turned off by the fact there is coconut in this recipe.Do not come in expecting super coconut flavor! This isn’t an Almond Joy. The coconut flavor is very mild, although some people don’t like the texture of coconut, so in that case I guess this might not be for you. However, I’ve served these to many self-proclaimed coconut-haters, who ultimately love these pancakes.


The other interesting part is the pineapple sauce, which you use instead of syrup. To me this is the best part. You could really put the sauce on any pancakes, but it does seem to go especially well with the coconut. The whole thing is sort of a tropical, island-y theme.


As to the pancakes themselves, they are very thick, so you have to cook them for a long time. Because of the coconut, they don’t bubble up like regular pancakes. I find it’s best to cook it for a while on one side, flip it and pat it down, cook it on the other side, and then flip it back to the first side again. Otherwise it can be difficult to make sure everything cooks through.

The Verdict:

These are HEAVENLY! I might go so far as to say these are the best pancakes I have ever had. They are also a very nice change of pace, since they are different than any of the other pancake recipes in our stable. They’re also pretty dense, and vegan to boot! What’s not to love?

The Recipe:

The recipe is originally from the “Vegan with a Vengeance” cookbook.

Coconut Pancakes:

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 t nutmeg
1/3 cup water
1 1/4 cup soy milk
2 T maple syrup
1 t vanilla extract
2 T canola oil
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, followed by the wet ingredients, followed by the coconut.

If you don’t know how to cook pancakes by now, you’re coming to the wrong blog.

Pineapple Sauce:

20-oz can of crushed pineapple
2 T arrowroot powder (we substituted 2 T corn starch)
3 T sugar
1 t vanilla extract

Cook the sauce for ~7 minutes, until it thickens. Make sure you stir this a lot, or it will burn to the bottom of the pan.

Slow-Rise Pancakes

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The Reason:

As has been established previously, pancakes are very serious business in our house. Though we have a couple of good solid base recipes, we are always on the lookout to try something different. As always with new recipes, you win some and you lose some.

This one was a winner!

The Journey:

The interesting thing about these pancakes is that you use yeast. I’ve seen a lot of pancake recipes, but this is the first one I’ve ever seen that requires yeast. It doesn’t really rise, per say, but you do end up making something that is more of a dough, not a batter. It’s more like frying bread dough.

You can try to thin the dough with a little bit of milk, but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, so I don’t know if it is even worth it. Basically, the whole thing is just very different than making regular pancakes, so you can’t really expect the batter to be the same consistency.

The other very appealing thing about these pancakes is apple slices! Sure, you could put apple slices on any pancake, or you could put something besides apples on these pancakes, but they looked so good in the recipe, that I just went with it and it worked.

The yeast makes this like a chemical reaction, changing the consistency of things. I think it actually makes the dough sweeter, but it also makes very thick pancakes. You have to make sure you flatten them a lot when you flip them over. Also, because they’re so thick and chewy, they are hard to cook through, especially where the apples are. So you want to be careful to make sure they aren’t too doughy in the middle.

The Verdict:

These things are rib-stickers! Very filling, in addition to being delicious. The apples are a really good idea, though as I said, you could really do that on any set of pancakes. These won’t replace our baseline pancakes, but they are definitely now a part of our normal pancake rotation. You do have to start them the night before, so they take some pre-planning.

The Recipe:

The original recipie can be found at Vegan Yum Yum (which is pretty awesome by the way).

2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 T vital wheat gluten
1 1/4 t yeast
1/2 t salt
2 t sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 T oil
1 egg

Mix the dry ingredients first, and then mix in the milk, oil and egg. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge overnight.

If you’re going to be doing the apples, try to cut them thin so the pancake underneath will still get some heat.

The rest is just like making regular pancakes.