Tag Archives: cannellini beans

Blondies – easy, healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and very yummy!

Posted on by October 4, 2018
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Blondies!

My kids and I love the blondies from Simple Pleasures bakery which is inside a gluten-free Indian buffet restaurant that we love, Earthen Jar, here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Out of love of their blondies, I started experimenting with making my own blondies at home.

These are very easy to make, healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and delicious! And they mix up really, really quickly!

They are very gooey and dough-like when they first come out of the oven. Later on in the refrigerator they firm up a bit.

I haven’t tried making a nut-free version, but you should be able to replace the nuts with soybutter or Wowbutter. If you do that, please post here about how it worked! Sometimes nut-free nut-butters turn baked goods green (!!) , so you would want to try baking this first for people who don’t mind unexpectedly green food. Or bake it for Halloween or Saint Patrick’s Day.  :)

You can use other beans in this recipe instead of the white beans. Darker beans taste fine, but they visually look chocolatey, and if your eaters think that these look like chocolate but actually they aren’t, that sets them up to be disappointed. Chickpeas in this recipe taste a bit like hummus, and, while I love hummus, it is decidedly strange in blondies, so I don’t recommend using them here. So my suggestion is to use white beans, but it’s definitely okay to experiment.

This recipe is loosely based on Flourless Chocolate Chip Chickpea Blondies with Sea Salt from Ambitious Kitchen. I’ve changed which type of beans to use, removed salt, added ground flaxseed to make the blondies more cohesive, and removed baking soda and baking powder. Whew!

Yum!!!

On another topic: If you do a web search for “Valerie’s Recipes,” Google can’t find it. I think the problem is that too many websites have similar names. So I am thinking about renaming this blog to have a more unique name that Google might find. Maybe “The Painted Lentil” — or “The Lentil Rainbow” — or “The Rainbow Lentil”? What do you think?

Blondies - easy, healthy, vegan, and gluten-free!
 
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Oooey gooey Blondies! Healthy, flourless, gluten-free, vegan, quick to make -- and totally delicious!
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 16 blondies
Ingredients
  • 1 15-ounce can white beans, such as cannellini, great northern, or navy beans (or 1 1/2 cups cooked and cooled white beans -- cooled because you don't want the batter to melt the chocolate chips) (don't use chickpeas unless you want your blondies to taste like hummus)
  • 1/2 cup of pecans, or other nuts, or nut butter such as almond butter or peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup real maple syrup or agave nectar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1-2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds (optional - helps keep the blondies from falling apart)
  • a few drops of oil, or some gluten-free cooking spray
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips such as Equal Exchange (which are fair trade and organic)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Spread a few drops of oil around in an 8x8 inch pan (I like to use a silicone pastry brush for this) or spray on some gluten-free oil.
  3. In a food processor or blender, mix all ingredients except for the chocolate chips.
  4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  5. Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan.
  6. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
  7. Variation: Make mini-muffins by putting pieces of dough the size of ping-pong balls into an oiled mini-muffin tin, and bake for 14 minutes.
  8. Serve warm (which is super yummy, but they will fall apart) or after refrigeration (also good, and much more cohesive).
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Cookie Dough Dip – healthy, gluten-free, vegan, safe to eat, and awesomely yummy!

Posted on by October 1, 2017
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chocolate chip cookie dough dip

cookie dough dipThe original person to think up the idea of making edible healthy cookie dough is Chocolate Covered Katie — a blogger who specializes in healthy vegan desserts and who makes amazing recipes!

I have simplified her recipe and made it even healthier. This recipe takes five minutes to mix up. You need a good food processor or blender. And then you can eat (safe) raw cookie dough! Yum!!!!!

The dough that this makes does not taste exactly the same as cookie dough. But the color is right, it’s sweet, and it has chocolate chips, so as far as I’m concerned it’s good! My kids and I really love this recipe.

chocolate chip cookie dough dipThis afternoon, after I took the photos for this recipe, I asked my kids, “Who wants to eat the photo models?” They knew I was making cookie dough dip, so they came running.  :)

Cookie Dough Dip - healthy, gluten-free, vegan, safe to eat, and awesomely yummy!
 
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Healthy, vegan, gluten-free cookie dough that you can eat raw -- in five minutes! Awesomely delicious!!
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 4 servings
Ingredients
  • 1/4 cup dates (about six), no pits, and check for (and remove) any dried bits of stem on them
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 15-ounce can white beans, such as cannellini beans, great northern beans, or navy beans
  • 1/3 cup of chocolate chips (I like Equal Exchange organic semi-sweet chocolate chips)
Instructions
  1. Put all ingredients except for the chocolate chips into a food processor or blender. Blend until a smooth dough forms, which will take several minutes. Depending on your blender, you may need to add extra water to get everything to blend evenly.
  2. Stir in the chocolate chips, and serve!
  3. For serving, you can eat it with a spoon like a pudding, or dip in graham crackers to eat it with.
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15-Minute Chili – quick, gluten-free, vegan, and really good!

Posted on by November 24, 2014
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chili

Once upon a time, dry soy curlsI was talking with a mom from my kids’ school, Sue Barker, who has an awesome talent for organizing big, fun school events, often where chili is served as a fundraiser. While we talked, someone asked Sue for her chili recipe. Sue said that it was “just a recipe from allrecipes.com” and that the important ingredient was salsa.

The idea of putting salsa in chili rang all sorts of happy bells in my mind. Salsa transforms chili into something really amazing. Salsa is like yummy “pourable nutrients” — it adds magic to this awesomely easy and quick chili recipe.

rinsing beansSince this is a vegetarian chili, it (optionally) uses Butler Soy Curls. Soy curls are dried pieces of soy that you can reconstitute by soaking for ten minutes in warm water. Then they look a bit like cooked chicken. As they soak, they absorb the flavor of whatever liquid you use to reconstitute them, so by soaking them in chili while it cooks, they become chili-flavored. I haven’t seen soy curls available in the local stores, but you can order them from Amazon or from Butler’s website.

Note that this recipe makes about three bowls of chili, so you will need to pot of chilimultiply it if you are feeding a crowd. (Most recipes on this website make enough food to serve dinner to four to six people.)

There is no need to measure the quantities for this recipe — it’s fine to estimate.

The photos for this recipe show: 1) A bowl of chili ready for eating, with beannaise on top. 2) Dry soy curls, broken into shorter pieces and ready for cooking. 3) Rinsing beans in a strainer at the sink. I love how my camera caught individual droplets of water coming from the faucet. 4) A pot of chili being cooked.

15-Minute Chili - gluten-free, vegan, quick, and really good!
 
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This quick, yummy, super-healthy chili makes a great homecooked weekday lunch in minutes.
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: Mexican-ish
Serves: 3 servings
Ingredients
  • optional: 1 cup (dry) Butler Soy Curls or other protein (such as seitan, if you are not gluten-free)
  • 1 1/4 cups spaghetti sauce (from a jar) (preferably a variety with veggies such as Muir Glen Garden Vegetable)
  • 1/4 cup salsa, or more (Amy's mild salsa is perfect here)
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder (check that it's gluten-free - most varieties are not!)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 15-ounce cans of beans in contrasting colors, such as cannellinis and pintos, or kidney beans
  • vegan sour cream or Beannaise to serve it with
Instructions
  1. Put the dry soy curls into a pot, if you are using them. If there are any pieces that are more than one inch long, break them into pieces that are less than an inch long. Add enough cold water to just barely cover the soy curls. Turn the heat to medium-high.
  2. Add all of the other ingredients except for the sour cream or Beannaise.
  3. Heat to boiling. Turn down the heat and simmer for ten minutes.
  4. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or Beannaise on top.
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The White Dinner — a quick, gluten-free, vegan meal that my kids love

Posted on by November 17, 2014
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the white dinner

This recipe is adapted from a recipe called “Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage” or “Halushki” from the cookbook Vegan on the Cheap. My kids renamed it to “The White Dinner.”  :)

I really love the cookbook Vegan on the Cheap, by Robin Robertson. We often eat vegan food at our house. I like this cookbook not because we are trying to eat cheaply, but because it has a huge number of very accessible recipes that are easy to cook and come out tasting great!

By the way, Robin Robertson has a nice blog.

This recipe is a mixture of cabbage, white beans, and pasta. I usually add either greens or broccoli to get additional healthy vegetables into the meal.

The White Dinner -- a quick, gluten-free, vegan meal that my kids love
 
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A buttery vegan mixture of pasta, cabbage, white beans, and optionally some greens. My picky kids love this dinner!
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: Eastern European-ish
Serves: 4-5 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 pound of pasta, such as Field Day Organic Brown Rice Pasta -- noodles or spirals or elbows work well in this recipe
  • 1/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1 small head of cabbage, finely shredded (4 to 12 cups) - don't include the solid core
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 cans of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed, or 3 cups of cooked cannellini beans
  • 2 tablespoons fresh minced parsley
  • optional: 2-3 cups of cooked broccoli or 1-2 cups raw greens (such as kale or chard)
  • optional: smoked paprika
Instructions
  1. Chop the cabbage. Put it in a big pot with the oil and salt. If you are using the optional greens, add them. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is starting to brown in places. Then turn down the heat to a lower temperature and let it continue cooking, still stirring from time to time. The longer the cabbage is on the heat, the better this recipe tastes.
  2. Meanwhile, heat water to cook pasta. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Drain.
  3. Meanwhile, drain and rinse the cannellini beans. Add those and the pepper to the cabbage mixture and stir.
  4. Meanwhile, if you are cooking broccoli, cook it and drain. In case it's useful, here is my quick, easy broccoli recipe.
  5. When the pasta mixture is cooked, stir it into the cabbage mixture, adding more salt and pepper if needed.
  6. Serve hot, optionally sprinkled with smoked paprika.
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