Pollyannainthekitchen.blogspot.com

This is my last post at dairy-free.blogspot.com.  No worries!  I've begun a new food blog over at Pollyannainthekitchen.blogspot.com that will better reflect my relationship with food.  Come join me!

healthful hydration/ sports drinks

So many sports drinks have bright rainbow colors.  I don't think my kids need any more artificial coloring than they already get with their skittles and other colorful candy.    However they want something beyond plain water so we've been using Crystal Light Pure.  For awhile I found it packaged as Pure Fitness.   So far Walmart has had the best price at as low as $2.00 a box.  However lately it has been hovering around $2.50.  One of our favorites is mixed berry.



I also have been finding Gatorade that is clear without added artificial sweetners and colors.  My son says it tastes better than the artificially colored and flavored ones. 

Turkey

Not the best pic but this is the best pre-packaged turkey lunch meat hands down that doesn't have nasty nitrites added.   Of course no dairy either, yum! 
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Trail Mix

What's a dairy free girl to do when asked to contribute to a bowl of trail mix?  Here are my two favorites!

Both of these have the advantage of being peanut free as well. 

Happy munching!

Oven Pancake "Dutch Baby"

This is the strangest recipe name I've come across. The idea of a Dutch Baby in my oven is not appetizing and rather creepy! Change the name to Oven Pancake and make the recipe dairy free and you have an easy week night winner.

ingredients

1 cup all purpose unbleached flour

1 TBSP sugar

1 1/4 cups plain soy milk

2 eggs

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375degrees. Spray a shallow baking dish with canola oil cooking spray. In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. Add soy milk and eggs and mix well. Pour batter into baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

The picture here doesn't do the recipe justice. When it comes out of the oven you have a puffy golden pancake that quickly deflates. Delicious served with just maple syrup but you can treat an oven pancake like french toast or crepes and top it with fruit, jam, or powdered sugar as you prefer. If I let my kids pick I'm sure they'd try Hershey's syrup...

I double this recipe and bake it in two pans to feed 5 kids and myself.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Coffee Cake

This is a delicious easy coffee cake that will become a weekend favorite.

Cake:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 cup plain soy milk
1 tbsp vanilla




Streusel:
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup canola oil

Mix cake ingredients starting with sugar and oil, add eggs, vanilla, and baking powder and salt. Then add flour and soy milk a bit at a time alternating between the two until all the cake ingredients are well mixed.

Grease a bundt pan with canola spray.

In a seperate bowl mix the streusal ingredients together with a fork. Sprinnkle a third of the streusel ingredients in the bottom of the greased pan, then add half the cake batter then add another third of the streusel ingredients and then the rest of the cake batter. Top with the remaining streusel ingredients and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool about 5 minutes (if you can wait that long) and then invert on a plate and serve.

biscuits

You have to try these when you're making the old breakfast for dinner routine or even just for breakfast at breakfast time. Either way, the soy milk makes them nice and fluffy.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

2 cups unbleached flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Put these ingredients into a mixing bowl and blend until combined.

2 Tbsp cold Fleishman's unsalted margarine ( this is lactose free)

1 cup of plain soy milk ( do NOT get fancy and try vanilla, UNFLAVORED is best)

Cut the margarine into tiny chunks (a little bigger than pea sized) and add to the flour mixture. Using a two forks mix the margarine into the flour until it seems to be well combined without having formed a paste. Again, this is way easier using the paddle attachment with a Kitchen-aid stand mixer, just let it mix at speed 2 for about 30 seconds.

Next slowly pour in the soy milk while mixer is running. Mix until the liquid is absorbed into the flour and margarine mixture. STOP MIXING the moment it looks sticky but not liquidy. Most likely you will doubt yourself (I do almost every time) and think you need to mix it more but DON'T. This also holds true if you are mixing by hand or fork.

On a floured flat surface such as your counter top scrape out the dough and place it in a mound in the center. This is much easier if your hands are floured as well. Flip the dough over once if possible so that both sides are floured. If it is too sticky just sprinkle some flour on top of the dough and forget about flipping it. Using a heavy rolling pin, flatten the dough to the thickness of your finger or a little less. Although it's a rolling pin I never seem to roll it, usually I just press the pin into the dough a few times to make it the correct thickness.

Next press a biscuit cutter through the dough to make biscuit shapes. Place the shapes onto an ungreased baking sheet. Gather the leftover dough and dough scraps together and flatten again. Cut out shapes again to put on the baking sheet. Or just roll the last bit into a biscuit shape with your hands. When your sheet is full you will have approximately 12 biscuits that are not touching each other. Depending how thin or thick you flattened the dough will give you more or less biscuits.

Bake for 15 minutes. Then eat and enjoy.

These freeze well, so double your recipe and make some for right now and then freeze the rest for a morning or night that you want homemade biscuits without the hassle.