Saturday, March 05, 2011

baby baking.

Sorry I've been away for a while. The tail end of my pregnancy got kind of crazy, and our little vegan baby decided to arrive a full month early with a host of health issues. He's getting much better though, and you can read up on Luka's situation at my baby blog here. I figured I better get some baking in now before our sprout comes home.

To celebrate Luka's birthday and because I wanted to do something nice for my kick-ass husband, I made Ken a Dad is Great Chocolate Cake from the Nom Nom Nom blog. The cake turned out delish, and I liked the tofu chocolate cream in place of the usual sugary frosting. This is a loaf cake, and my loaf pan gave the edges of the cake more of a crust than I like on a cake. But overall, it was still wonderful. I mean- chocolate cake with cream and crushed cookies on it. How could that be bad?

dad is great chocolate cake

Since our baby has been in the hospital's special care nursery since his birth two weeks ago, I have to pump milk every two-three hours and bring it to the hospital for him. So far it's been a challenge getting my milk supply going full speed, so my lactation consultant suggested oatmeal cookies. A cookie prescription? Heck yes.

I did a search for lactation cookies, and several variations of the same essential recipe popped up. Oatmeal, brewer's yeast and flax all help with milk production. I veganized this recipe, made a few minor changes to it and made bars rather than cookies. These are mighty good! In place of eggs I used more flax seeds, and in place of all water I used some brewed mother's milk tea. I used nutritional yeast instead of brewer's yeast, as they both have the B vitamins. And of course I added chocolate as an extra incentive to eat them. As if a cup of Earth Balance and two cups of sugar wasn't incentive enough.

oatmeal lactation bars

I'll get around to cooking real food again eventually. As soon as this c section incision heals!