Here is a recipe I created tonight after combining a few that I found on recipe zaar with my own take.  I like this recipe because it is not too sweet or heavy, and has a good amount of flaxseed for added health benefits.  You can add more sugar if you need to, but if you don't consume any corn syrup the present amount will suffice.

Ingredients

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

4 tablespoons salted butter

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon goats milk or 2% milk

3 large apples

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

1. In medium mixing bowl mix with hands the flour, brown sugar, rolled oats, flaxseed, butter, baking powder, and milk.  Combine into large cohesive ball.

2. Butter a baking dish

3. Cut the apples however you like and place them in the baking dish

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

5. Sprinkle sugar over apples, then sprinkle cinnamon, then the lemon juice

6. Drop the flour mixture over the apples and flatten it out

7. Bake for 40 minutes

I don't like canned beets, they are not that great. but fresh beets are way cool.  Here are some easy to make foods I like to use beets in.

Beet Crisps: I never will need to buy chips or snack foods any longer thanks to this great tasting food.  It is a beet chip that tastes sooo good. just try em and you will surely be impressed.  This recipe is originally from the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook.

1. 3 fresh beets are a good amount for 4 people.  Remember, that the size of the beet doesn't effect taste, so get 3 large beets if you can. 

2. Cut the beets into thin slices and put into a mixing bowl

3. Pour olive oil on them and then sprinkle with salt and pepper

5. Place on a cookie sheet in a single layer

4. Put in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  You can optionally try this on the grill, I have and it worked out pretty well.

Beet Chard Salad: The original recipe for this is also in the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook.  This is a good way to use the stalks and leaves that attach to the beet.

1. Cut the leaves and stalk off of the beet.  Cut the stalk into 1/2 inch lengths.

2. Sauté an onion and an orange (the orange should be cut into big chunks and not peeled.

4. Throw the stalk slices into the mix after the onion starts to brown, turn down heat to medium

5. Wait about 10 minutes, stirring things, so that the stalk somewhat starts to caramelize

6. Turn heat off, put in a salad bowl, add leaves and anything else you want to top it with

Beet Smoothy: This recipe is inspired by a smoothy found at the main squeeze.

1. Cut a beet in half, put in blender.

2. Add a sliced apple

3. Add a sliced orange

4. Add 1/2 cup orange juice

5. Add a sliced carrot

6. Blend until smoothy :)

Beet Burrito: This is delicious, I like to make this for lunch quite often. plus it is super easy to make.

1. Pull out a tortilla, a large one works best

2. Put some type of beans in the tortilla, I like kidney beans

3. Add a sliced carrot

4. Add alfalfa sprouts

5. Take a grater and grate half of a beet on the sprouts

6. Add Monterey jack cheese and wrap up the burrito

I hope you have enjoyed my quick little list of ways that I like to enjoy beets.  Let me know if you try any of these out and how they turn out for you.

The best seitan cheese steak in Philadelphia is at The Abbaye.  I really miss it, but now that I am not able to go out and visit The Abbaye I am forced to make my own seitan cheese steak.  So here is my adaptation of a seitan recipe I found here.  Keep in mind, this is just version 1, I plan to create new variations on this recipe, as this is definitely a great tasting and quick dish to make.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon neutral oil (corn, grapeseed)

1 large Onion (cut into large slices)

1 large Red Bell Pepper (cut into long strips)

1/2 cup baby bella or other mushrooms

1/2 pound or so seitan (chicken style works fine)

2 tablespoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce

6 oz mozzarella cheese

2 brat or sub rolls

Directions

Heat large skillet with oil in it on medium heat.  When hot add onion and pepper and sauté until soft and starting to brown.  Add mushrooms and sauté for a couple minutes more.  Then move the veggies to the outer area of the skillet and add sliced seitan.  Brown each side of the seitan, should only take a couple of minutes for each side.  When the seitan is browned stir the onions, peppers, mushrooms, and seitan together in the pan and add the Worcestershire sauce.  Now add salt and pepper, more pepper is best (1-2 teaspoons).  Turn the heat to low and add the cheese on top, using a grater to grate it.  Once the cheese is mostly melted added it to the roll.  You can toast the roll to make it a little crunchy.

Enjoy!

Tonight I made some ginger ale, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  And the result was a drink more delicious than the ginger ale you buy in the store.  Here is the recipe.  This is very refreshing and can be made healthier than the ginger ale you buy.  I never buy regular soda at the store, but occasionally do buy ginger ale.  The nice thing about the homemade version is it doesn't have the corn syrup and allows you to instead use organic sugar.  Also, if you really like ginger you can give it more of a punch in that regard.

So far the most ginger-tasting ginger ale I have found is the Wegman's brand.  Next to that I like the Canada Dry version.  But before you go buy another bottle you should try out this recipe and make your own.

While I am not a vegetarian, I still cannot get enough of this recipe.  The original recipe comes from my brother-in-law.  However, I have modified it to be a little tastier.  Jeremy, if you want a Flay style throw-down, just let me know.

Buttermilk Wheat Biscuits

In mixing bowl whisk the following:

1 cup Wheat Flour

3/4 cup All Purpose flour

2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoon Sugar

Now cut in 5 tablespoons of butter (I like salted butter)

Add 1 cup Buttermilk (If you don't have buttermilk, plain yogurt works too)

Using your hand mix all of the ingredients.  As you are mixing if things remain sticky add in extra wheat flour.  This makes a nice layer of wheat flour for a tasty crisp on the outside of the biscuits.  When everything is mixed into a big ball preheat the oven to 400 F.

Sausage Gravy

I use morningstar farms breakfast sausages, but you can use other veg sausage or crumbles.  In a big saucepan put 4 sausages on medium-high heat and cook.  At this point you should divide the biscuit batter on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven.  I like to spread all-purpose flour on the cookie sheet before adding the biscuits.  When the sausages are almost done cooking turn the heat to medium-low and remove the saucepan from the heat.  Add in 4 tablespoons or more of butter.  I like to remove it from heat so that the butter melts but does not create extra smoke.

Once the butter is melted start dividing the sausages in the pan into smaller pieces.  This will be the chunks in the gravy, I like to use a wooden spoon to cut the sausages. 

Return the saucepan to the heat and add a handful of all-purpose flour to it.  While stirring add milk (organic milk please).  Now turn the heat up to medium or medium high.  Stir the hell out of the milk and flour.  Keep adding a little flour then adding a little more milk until you have enough gravy.  Now is the important part, mix black pepper to taste, I like to add a lot, but you may like less.  Once you are done with this the biscuits should be done baking.  It takes them 10 minutes to bake.

Serving

Put a biscuit on a plate and add some sausage gravy.

The above recipe makes 8 large biscuits and as much gravy as you need for these biscuits.  This can easily feed 4 people with a nice side.

I saw this suggestion (http://www.health.com/health/article/0,23414,1136070,00.html) about combining a strawberry and baking powder to use for whitening your teeth.  While this will work, I wish they had reminded people that some baking powder contains Aluminum Sulfate.  This is not a dangerous ingredient, but the fact that it is used as an accelerator in concrete or a foaming agent in fire fighting foam makes me a little hesitant about consuming it.  Just a little warning, that you may want to consider buying baking powder without this ingredient or simply make it yourself.  I have not tried making it, but it does seem like it would be easy to make baking powder.

A couple of our friends bought us a book called eco dog.  In this book there is a quick recipe for creating a calcium supplement that dogs love.  All you do is take egg shells, put them in the microwave for 2 minutes to kill off any bacteria.  Then grind them into a powder and sprinkle it over your pets food.  1 egg shell has 2000 mg of calcium.  I just tried this with the eggs I used in a fritata and our dog loved the powder.