Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

My Thanksgiving turkey. I was searching for a tempeh recipe that would work as a turkey substitute in Thanksgiving dinner, and I came across  this recipe  for tempeh sandwiches with Thanksgiving condiments on top. It sounded delicious, so I took a chance and made this tempeh as the main protein in our meal. I thought if everyone revolted, I could do something with meat next year, but everyone claimed to like it! It has now joined my mushroom gravy on the list of things to make every year. It's way less work than a turkey. It took a few minutes to mix up the ingredients, 10 minutes to cook, and 30 seconds to slice. I let it marinate in the fridge for 4 hours, but the original recipe says that that part is optional. The Recipe: 8 oz tempeh 1/2 c vegetable broth 1 tb soy sauce 1/2 tb maple syrup 1 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp liquid smoke Mix all ingredients besides tempeh. Place tempeh in shallow dish, pour marinade on top, and marinate in the refrigera...

These disappeared quickly. Every time I want to make pumpkin cookies, I look back to this blog to find a recipe I've enjoyed before. And then I remember that I always partially improvise my cookies, so there's no bloggable recipe, and also the cookies don't come out so well. Time to change that. I did a quick search for "healthy pumpkin oat cookies" and the first hit was from  Amy's Healthy Baking , which kind of seemed like fate. I read the recipe and it sounded great, so onward I went. I did follow the recipe without improvising (a step up for me), but I still couldn't be bothered with actually measuring the ingredients, so I bet these would be even better if someone wanted to go to ALL THAT EFFORT. But even with eyeballing the quantity of flour, these came out great and I will be excited to use this recipe again in the future. They are quite healthy - lots of oats, lots of pumpkin, and not too much butter/flour/sugar. The "sugar...

These are DEFINITELY not layered to hide a missing bite from the bottom pancake. Ever since my 7th grade hobby of baking fat-free cakes (with green food coloring), I've had a habit of over-healthifying my baked goods. This habit has led to many years of eating hockey-puck-like pancakes, laden with oats and flax meal and applesauce, and sometimes no flour. But now that mornings are occupied with baby, and it seems we might have pumpkin pancakes a total of one time this season, it seemed like a better idea to just make them taste good. Within reason, of course, so I worked from this EatingWell recipe . It uses whole wheat flour, minimal sugar, and includes a note suggesting that one might add oats or flax seed. But no additions for me this time. And whaddaya know? Actual fluffy pancakes. Finally. I like the large amount of pumpkin in these. Sometimes pumpkin pancakes don't have enough pumpkin for my liking. These had a ton, and the texture is really smooth and rich...