Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk

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don't miss dairy

Emily Stokes
I'm a lady who loves cheese, sour cream, & ice cream, but I recently became lactose intolerant. My key focus in recreating dairy recipes is taste, but I try to be as health conscious as possible. Some of my recipes are low lactose rather than dairy free. I'm also a writer, teacher, nanny, dog mom, housewife, native Yinzer, current Californian, and social organizer extraordinaire.

Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk

Dairy Free Orange Cranberry Quick Bread

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Cranberries in a measuring cup.

We just moved into a new apartment, and it had a couple of issues. The tiny bathroom floor was pretty gross, and over a couple of days it began to reveal an ant problem. So today I was stuck inside waiting for the specialists to come in and take care of things.

The exterminator came first and sprayed the areas where the ants were coming from, followed soon after by three hispanic men that I could barely understand but believed to be the guys that would replace the bathroom flooring.

I think one of them tried to tell me that the old flooring was still good…I guess if you are okay with yellow staining, gashes, and ant colonies it was still good.  C’mon guys! Maybe he was telling me it was no good? I don’t know. But these guys were then followed by the maintenance man who came to oversee the work. There were a lot of strange men in my apartment.

Since I was stuck inside all day to wait for everybody, I decided to whip up something healthy for Eric  for when he got home. And, of course, I wanted to enjoy it as well, so I adapted a quick bread recipe to be dairy free. I happened to have orange juice and cranberries on hand, so I made a super healthy whole grain orange-cranberry bread with Very Vanilla Soymilk.

It’s pretty easy to put together but requires some whole grain ingredients like whole wheat flour and fiber rich wheat bran.  Not everyone is likely to have these ingredients in their cupboards but they are good to keep around. It’s cooking right now and smells delicious.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup wheat bran
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried cranberries
1 egg
1/2 cup Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk
1 cup orange juice
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, Very Vanilla Soymilk, orange juice, and oil.

Orange juice mixture.

Whisking orange juice, milk, and egg.

3. In a medium bowl, combine flours, wheat bran, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Flours in a bowl.

4. Add dry mixture into wet until just combined, then stir in cranberries.

Adding dry mixture into wet.

Muffin mixture without cranberries added.

5. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes. Cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes before removing.

Muffin mixture with cranberries poured into loaf pan.

6. Serve warm for your sweetheart 😉

Finished cranberry orange quickbread

Non-Dairy Creamer, or a replacement for Half & Half

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I used to drink half and half in my coffee every morning. No sugar, just cream. It really made the perfect cup of coffee. And I am a huge coffee drinker. When even a little bit of half and half made me feel sick, I had a hard time handling it. At first I just dealt with the discomfort, but stomach cramps finally led me to try other products.

Plain soy milk in coffee was just disgusting. Even Very Vanilla Soymilk didn’t really cut it for me. I tried Coconut Milk Creamer–totally gross. I didn’t want to do it, but for a long time I started using Coffeemate non-dairy creamer. That stuff is really terrible for you–it’s like drinking trans fat. I tried many different flavors that were tasty. My favorites were the sugar-free vanilla, which tasted like marshmallow to me, the peppermint mocha, and original, which was the closest taste to half and half that I could find. But they completely covered the taste of the coffee as well. That’s okay if you are drinking ground Foldgers, but not okay if you bought a new bag of fresh, whole bean Caribou Blend. What can I say? I love my coffee.

I realized that when I ordered a soy mocha or soy latte at Starbucks it tasted amazing. So why didn’t my coffee taste amazing when I added vanilla soy milk? The answer was in the steaming. I don’t know why, but heated soy milk in coffee tastes ten times better than cold soy milk in coffee. Especially when that soy milk is very, very sweet. The sweeter the better.

So after all of my experiments and attempts to find the perfect healthy replacement for half and half, I have finally found the answer. I wanted to pass along my knowledge, which is actually a small recipe.

Ingredients:

8ounce cup of coffee
1/3 cup Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk
1  teaspoon or packet of sugar

Directions
1. Mix the soymilk and sugar (I use Splenda or Truvia) in a microwave safe mug and heat for 30 seconds.

2. Pour in the fresh, hot gourmet coffee and find your happy place.

New Tip:

You can also substitute vanilla soy milk with soy vanilla ice cream–it’s a great cream alternative to your coffee and helps it cool down as well.

Coffee with soy milk.

Soy Milk Pumpkin Pie

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Completed soy milk pumpkin pie.

For my husband’s birthday I usually make him a pumpkin pie instead of a cake, since he considers pumpkin pie the best dessert ever created. I was an expert at making a creamy, melt-in-your mouth pumpkin pie. Now that eating anything made with 12 ounces of condensed milk is out of the question for me, I thought I would take a shot at making it lactose intolerant friendly. There are a bunch of dairy free pumpkin pie recipes out there, but I think you’ll find mine particularly tasty. If you enjoy coconut, take a look at my coconut milk pumpkin pie recipe as well!

Ingredients:

1 refrigerated pie crust
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs, 1 egg white
15oz can pumpkin
1 cup Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Mold the pie crust into a pie dish and trim excess dough from the edges.

Pie crust.

3. Mix sugar, salt, and spices in a small bowl until thoroughly blended.

Sugar and spice mixture.

4. In a large bowl, beat eggs and egg white. Stir in the pumpkin and then the sugar and spice mixture.

Egg and pumpkin mixture.

5. Gradually add Very Vanilla Soymilk and stir until completely blended. Pour into pie crust.

Uncooked pumpkin pie filling in crust.

6. Bake for 15 minutes to set a crispy crust, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 40 minutes. To check if the pie is done, stick a knife through the middle and see if it comes up clean. If there is a layer of pumpkin on it, you may need to bake for an additional 5-10 minutes. Serve with dairy-free vanilla ice cream if you want to go all out. Happy Fall!