I love chia pudding. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem like something anyone would like. When I take it to work (in a mason jar!), I get a lot of strange looks and questions about wth I am eating…

Last week, I made a lemon chia pudding I found on findingvegan.com. No offense to the recipe creator, but this was the most disgusting chia pudding I’ve ever had. I only made two deviations from the recipe, I used hemp milk instead of rice milk, and I didn’t have mandarin oranges, so I used a Valencia orange. Oh, and I added an extra tbsp of chia seeds because it was very thin, even after sitting overnight. It tasted very bitter and not good. I’m not sure if my lemon was just super tart, or what, but it tasted like eating a lemon peel.

So, making a good chia pudding can be hard. I’ve also tried the chia pods they sell now at the grocery store, and it’s a little too stiff and thick. And the mango flavor, yucky! So I have been trying to come up with my own perfect recipe. I’ve experimented with different kinds of non-dairy milk, the right ratio of liquid to seeds, etc. Turns out that the ratio is different depending on the kind of non-dairy milk!

This is a hard task, and I don’t think I’ve made it perfect yet, but I wanted to share this one with you.

Cinnamon & Coconut Chia Pudding

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4 c unsweetened vanilla hemp milk (because all non-dairy milk should be vanilla unless you are making something savory 🙂 )
• 3 tsbp chia seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes 

Mix the hemp milk, chia seeds and cinnamon. Let sit overnight. Then add the coconut (you can add to taste, same with the cinnamon) and enjoy!

I added the coconut after letting it sit for just about 10 minutes, I don’t really know why. I’m not sure if it matters, but if you want the coconut to stay firm, I would recommend adding it just before eating.

You can add a touch of maple syrup or agave if you want something a little sweeter. You can also use sweetened non-dairy milk or coconut as well. My is “no sugar added” as I’m trying to cut down on sugar…….. ay yi yi, if you know me, you know how hard that is going to be!

If you have a great chia pudding recipe, please share it with me!

Ta-da! I finally made a veggie burger that didn’t fall apart when I tried to cook it! Before this, I was almost ready to give up on homemade veg burgers. They pretty much never come out right, and typically I end up just taking what doesn’t even remotely look like a burger, and putting it in a tortilla and calling it “veggie wrap”. Tasty?  Yes, usually. But not the same as an actual burger.

Now this was a really delicious veggie burger! And yes, I’m weird and I don’t really care for buns with my burgers, so you’ll see in my photo that I eat them with ketchup, some gourmet mustard (this was tequila jalapeño mustard, which is totally awesome), and there’s some cilantro on the side as well.

The credit all belongs to Jenn over at Peas & Crayons. The only modifications I made to the recipe are:

• I used a chia egg, made from chia seeds (not ground) and water
• I used whole flax seeds for the “extra” seeds
• I doubled the cayenne and the garlic cloves (but I skipped the garlic powder)

I did not make the taco aioli, as I’m not usually a fan of aioli, and I absolutely love burgers with mustard, which I have plenty of on hand.

I believe what makes this veggie burger work is the combination of the chia egg plus the ground oats. Other recipes I have tried called for things like rice, lentils, etc, maybe bread crumbs, but I think it was the chia egg and the ground oats that really held it together.

Roxy really enjoyed helping me make these as well. She loves sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mommy to drop food on the floor. I don’t think she got much other than a few stray corn kernels, but that’s enough to keep her happy.

Now I just have to work on making mine nice and round instead of all weirdly shaped. But regardless of shape, these were quite yummy!

I can’t make falafel to save my life either, so I guess that’s my next mission. I’ve tried a couple of recipes, even some stuff “falafel mix” that came in a box, but no luck yet. Or maybe I should just head over to Falafel’s Drive-in where they make the yummiest falafel ever. I mean, who am I kidding? Mine will never taste that good.