Cooking Archives - Page 2 of 3

Category: Cooking

10
Sep
2016

Brownie Bites

A nice and quick recipe for you this week! Often while I’m looking through Pinterest, I see bliss ball recipes, but they mostly contain dates. I don’t mind dates, but often find the raw food recipes containing them quite rich. This pin and recipe for Brownie Bites caught my eye – not only were they lactose and gluten free, they required no cooking and also had no dates.

This week has been one of those busy ones, filled with a few of my cheat dinners (of the sauce from a jar variety) and a bit of eating out. I did manage to bake up a double batch of the carrot cupcakes I posted about a few weeks ago (just as delicious as I remembered) and also managed to make another loaf of Banana Bread. I’m going to have to make this part of my regular rotation, as I finally calculated the savings each week!

At the end of the week, I was still craving something sweet and wanted something quick and easy to fill the void! This recipe by the Unconventional Baker did the trick. It comes together really quickly and easily – probably the longest part for me was actually rolling the balls and getting the coconut on the outside! The ingredients whiz together in the food processor in a minute or two, and it’s delicious.

Brownie Bites | MeaganMade.com

These bites of sweetness are perfect both straight after rolling and after refrigeration. The recipe includes an option for coconut cream which I didn’t use, but I think next time I’ll give it a go!

Brownie Bites | MeaganMade.com

Let me know if you give these a go, especially if you try it with the coconut cream.

Happy making,

Meagan x

27
Aug
2016

Lactose free carrot cupcakes

categories: Cakes, Cooking

I found this recipe for carrot cake about 5 weeks ago, and had it in the back of mind all this time. Then this week at work a morning tea was organised to celebrate one person returning from 5 weeks leave and another’s birthday. What a perfect opportunity to pull this lactose free carrot cupcakes recipe out and give it a try!

The original recipe was both vegan and gluten free, but as I’m only lactose intolerant, I made a few alterations based on the ingredients that I could source easily here in Australia. This converted the cakes into being lactose free, but if you’re after gluten free or Vegan, try out the original recipe!

The result was delicious and the cupcakes disappeared within about 3 minutes of hitting the table! I opted for making cupcakes instead of cakes so it would cool quicker and be easier to transport on the bus, but I plan to make this recipe again as a cake this weekend!

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

These cupcakes are beautifully moist, and with the carrots I can convince myself that they are relatively healthy. The cream cheese icing is the perfect balance to the cake, sweet but not overly so, and I was pleasantly surprised by the lactose free cream cheese that I used!

Kelly very generously gave me permission to re-post the list of ingredients with my modifications, so here it is:

Cake Ingredients

2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ teaspoon cinnamon
⅓ teaspoon ginger
½ cup organic cane sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
⅓ cup organic canola oil
3 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 cup grated carrots
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½ cup water

Frosting ingredients

2 cups icing sugar
113g lactose free cream cheese (I used Lidell’s brand), softened
4 Tablespoons buttery spread (I used Nutellex), softened

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

For the instructions, head on over to The Pretty Bee and let me know if you have any other recipes that you’d like me to try!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x

30
Jul
2016

Chocolate Banana Bread

categories: Cooking

I first made this recipe about 8 years ago, well before I became lactose intolerant, and it’s always been a hit. After I was diagnosed as lactose intolerant, I naturally just assumed that it was now off the menu and forgot all about it.

Lately I’ve been getting sick of paying nearly $4 per slice of banana bread at work, so I looked up this Australian Women’s Weekly recipe to see if I could make it dairy free! And the results…

Chocolate Banana Bread | MeaganMade.com

…Delicious! It was so much easier than I had thought, and just as good as I remembered! All I had to do was swap milk for almond milk and the normal chocolate for Sweet William’s dairy free chocolate. 🙂 I used my food processor to whiz up the macadamia nuts and chocolate to save time chopping, and the rest was easy to prepare.

Chocolate Banana Bread | MeaganMade.com

The crust is amazingly crunchy and the centre deliciously moist and tasty. The macadamia nuts give it the hint of a crunch, and the few slices I took travelling with me for work were very popular. Take a look at the texture once I cut this loaf open.

Chocolate Banana Bread | MeaganMade.com

Just writing about this is inspiring me to make another loaf this weekend, ready for the new week! Do you have a tried and tested loaf recipe? I’d love to find another recipe, maybe one for Pear and Rasberry Bread – Let me know what are your go-to recipes!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x

23
Jul
2016

Twix Bar Slice

categories: Cooking, Slices

When I stumbled on this pin in my Pinterest feed, I was thinking that a dairy free Twix bar slice was just too good to be true! I popped it on one of my boards thinking I’d give it a go at some point, and didn’t think too much more of it. Just 2 weeks later after a morning tea at work, I decided I needed to try this slice. If it worked out, I hoped it would convince some of my colleagues that it was possible to make delicious dairy free sweets that I could eat!

I’ve just gotta say, this recipe has changed my life! Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it is amazingly delicious and tasty! Not only is it dairy free (actually it’s vegan), it’s also gluten free so all of my friends will be able to enjoy this one!!

With only six ingredients (almond butter, maple syrup, cocoa powder, coconut flour, salt and vanilla extract) there isn’t too much to buy, and you re-use the ingredients throughout the layers. I did substitute cocoa for cacao since I couldn’t find any cocoa with no traces of dairy, but everything else I used by the book! Check out the recipe over at Bakerita’s blog.

Twix Bar Slice | MeaganMade.com

I ended up refrigerating the whole thing overnight before cutting the next morning. Pulling it out of the fridge I thought it was looking good (that’s sea salt flakes on the top) but I was a bit nervous as to what I’d find when I cut into it.

Twix Bar Slice | MeaganMade.com

I needn’t have worried. The three layers remained distinct, and when I snuck my first taste (I couldn’t wait until I took the photo) I was in heaven! The caramel was just gooey enough, and without knowing it was mostly almond butter, you would not have been able to tell! The balance of the salty and sweet was perfect to balance out the richness of the cacao. My only complaint, there wasn’t enough! I took it into work and it disappeared within about 5 minutes, and I’ve been told to make double the batch next time I bring it in. 🙂

I’m visiting another lactose intolerant friend for a craft day this weekend so I have another batch of cookie base in the oven as we speak. I can’t wait to eat it again, and this is firmly in my repertoire of sweet goodies now!

Happy baking,

Meagan x

11
Jun
2016

Creamy vegan pasta

categories: Cooking, Dinner

Creamy vegan pasta – you may be wondering how is this possible? Well I was thinking the same thing when I first saw this pin but I have been desperately craving creamy pasta since I became lactose intolerant.

While I’m not vegan, I do love trying new vegan recipes to change-up my recipe rotation, and I know that I’ll definitely be able to eat it because there is no dairy! I had to give this a try, even just to rule it out if it didn’t work, as it looked amazing in the photo!

The ingredients were simple: pasta, almond milk, sun-dried tomatoes (one of my favourite things), basil, onion, garlic and basil, and it also appeared to be quick to cook.

The end result was delicious, and so quick to make… In fact, I think boiling the water and cooking the pasta took the longest!

Creamy vegan pasta

Make sure you give this recipe a try, all I needed to do was add a little bit of salt when I served it up just to take some of the sweetness away, but it was awesome! The creaminess (is that a word?) was on par with what I remember my dairy-filled pasta meals to be like – which for me is high praise! 🙂

Please let me know how you go in the comments section if you give this recipe a try, and feel free to share my post with your friends!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x