Bourbon Pumpkin Bread

My Fella loves bourbon and he’s made me a fan too.  Mostly though, I just love food made with booze, especially desserts!  I made this recipe for Pumpkin Bread last fall with my students to sell at an Election Day bake sale.  I’ve since tweaked the recipe to make it Whiteout friendly and reduced the oil.  Oh yeah, and I included bourbon!  The addition of the bourbon was actually inspired by this recipe for Bourbon Spiked Banana Bread on Sassy Radish who does a lot of cooking with bourbon.

This is a super easy recipe and with all of the yummy spices, the flavor actually gets better a few days after baking.  This recipe yields 3 loaves so it is great for gift giving.  I love to eat this sliced, toasted and topped with either butter, cream cheese or all natural peanut butter.  Great for breakfast, brunch or even dessert.

Vegan Mac & Cheese

I am not vegan.  I’m not even vegetarian.  That is why you can trust me when I tell you that this is a truly delicious version of vegan mac & cheese.  I love cheese and I especially love homemade macaroni and cheese.  This does not taste just like the real deal but it is a great vegan substitute.  I tend to make this by memory, tweaking it a bit each time I make it.  I had to make this for dinner two weeks in a row to get the measurements and seasoning just right.  It is my opinion that nutritional yeast is the key to making great vegan cheese.   You can use this cheese sauce anytime you are looking for a vegan, melt-y, cheesy substitute.  Think nachos, over steamed broccoli or on a baked potato (unless you are on the whiteout diet).   I also like to serve this with some kind of veggie like garlic sauted spinach.  The dark green of the spinach really looks great piled right on top of the mac & cheese.

Cookie Experiment 1: Carob Chip Cookies with Agave Nectar

Today marks ClevelandWhiteout’s first baking experiment. I’ve never been much of a baker. Before I began my Whiteout adventure most of my baking started with a box. Don’t get me wrong. I attempted occasional feats of baking from scratch with moderate success. So I felt confident that with the right recipe I could come up with some healthy and yummy cookies to share with friends at our weekly potluck. At first I wanted to make these cookies. I will make them, hopefully for Cookie Experiment 2, but not today. Some of tonight’s dinner companions are not fans of coconut so I had to come up with another dessert that would utilize a healthy and natural sweetener. Agave nectar is my newest Whiteout discovery. I learned about agave nectar from my favorite healthy cooking website 101 Cookbooks. I highly recommend you take a look at Ms. Swanson’s site, especially the section titled “Build a Natural Foods Pantry”. There is a wealth of information about healthy and natural sweeteners, fats, grains and great foods in general. In fact, Swanson’s cookbook, Super Natural Cooking is on my wish list. I’ll be sure to post a review here when I get my hands on it.

Carob Chip Cookie Dough