Awesome graham cracker recipe!

I’m not a huge fan of s’mores, but since Monday was National S’more Day (August 10) and, in a happy coincidence, a new book we read ended with a s’more roast, I figured I’d give in and have a little s’mores treat.  I surprisingly had a bag of our non-HFCS marshmallows on hand (Dandies), but the store was completely out of graham crackers.  I’ve made graham crackers before, and they’ve all been great, but I hadn’t felt inspired to save a recipe until now.  The link above made some truly delicious crackers.  Ours didn’t turn out as crunchy as a store-bought cracker, but there were no complaints here.  I love how easily these freeze!

And for those of you with no access to a campfire or even a gas stove, I just realized s’mores can be heated for a short 15 seconds or so in the microwave and come out deliciously gooey.

P.S. These crackers pair amazingly well with the vegan cream cheese frosting we had left in the freezer, if you’re feeling truly decadent.

Buttermilk is one of those ingredients that I would guess most people rarely have on hand.  I’ve started buying dried buttermilk, since it comes up quite often, but there are easy tricks and substitutes for making a quick replacement.  This is one of many, many sites with some ideas.

Pancakes recipe* (see note)

We are not usually pancake eaters in this house.  Not traditional ones, anyway.  I love making cottage cheese apple pancakes or quinoa banana ones, but regular buttermilk pancakes?  nah.

We ended up with tons of fresh blueberries this season and have been looking for uses for them, and I stumbled across this pancake recipe.  It is wonderful!!*  We skipped the cinnamon and vanilla in place of blueberries, and we don’t use cooking spray, just butter.  But this batter is amazing.  I use dried buttermilk instead of making it with vinegar, especially since the ratios seemed way off to me there.

Sounds like a lot of changes, but it really wasn’t.  And these were fluffy, delicious pancakes!  They’re especially good with fresh blueberries too!

*I do not understand the buttermilk ratios, as I had always read 1 Tbs of vinegar to 1 cup of milk to make buttermilk, so I do NOT follow that part of the recipe.  I recommend viewing this for buttermilk ratios or using real or dried buttermilk instead.

Homemade Powdered Sugar

I ran out of powdered sugar, mid-frosting recipe the other day.  Ack!!  And since going to the store is quite a chore these days, I realized there must be a way to make my own.  It’s shockingly simple and seemed to work quite well! (I used arrowroot powder in place of cornstarch.)

I’ll probably still buy some next time I have the opportunity, but it’s so nice to have this option in a pinch.

Awesome carrot cake recipe!

Vegan cream cheese/frosting recipe*

Sometimes I feel like I work so hard to create new traditions for our family, and sometimes, they just happen.  And, honestly, those are probably the best ones.  Genuine, soulful, and usually quite random.  Well, somehow, we ended up celebrating our son’s birthday with a carrot cake every year.  I honestly couldn’t tell you why or how this happened, but there it is.  His favorite color did end up being orange for awhile there, but there was no connection.

Carrot cake is not something I would normally seek out, but this is one deeelicious cake!  I haven’t kept track of a recipe for our annual celebrations, until now.  This one is a keeper!  (I made it as cupcakes, even though the blogger has a separate/different carrot cupcake recipe.)

And we are not usually ones to be particular about frosting or food specifications, but we have had a slight inkling that our little man tends to have most of his extreme meltdowns after dairy consumption.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  Time will tell.  But, for this year, I made a homemade vegan cream cheese (although this is sold in stores) and then quickly turned it into a frosting.  The taste was unique and like nothing we’ve ever had.  It was unforgettable and delicious and something we’re all finding ourselves hoping to have again soon!  (In the recipe linked, I find it tastes better to just use pre-roasted/unsalted cashews for the cream cheese.  And I only used 1 1/2 cups sugar instead of the 4 listed.)