Generally, when I come across a recipe that uses something premade in it, I shy away from it. Mostly because I’m a full blown bit of a kitchen snob. However, I’m madly in love with Miss Ree Drummond and she uses a very popular refrigerated dough in these dumplings so I went with it and honestly? They’re so so good, it doesn’t even matter. Also? This recipe is totally weird but I trusted it and my neighbors loved them too! In her description about these dumplings, The Pioneer Woman says she had to toss the rest of the tray after trying one (and then another and another). That’s pretty much what happened to me as well, but since we don’t live in the woods anymore I just packed up the rest and took them to my neighbors.

Ok so I classified this recipe as ‘totally weird’ because it involves two sticks of butter, refrigerator crescent roll dough AND a can of Mountain Dew. I know, right?! It feels so wrong, but it’s crazy amazing.

via The Pioneer Woman

2 Granny Smith Apples
2 8oz cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
cinnamon (enough to cover)
1 12oz can Mountain Dew

So first, butter up your baking pan and cut your apples into equal slices and wrap each one in a crescent roll segment. Arrange the wrapped apple slices in the buttered pan.

Make the first part of the sauce by melting the butter and adding the sugar and vanilla but don’t stir it much, you want it to have some sugar chunks. Now, pour the butter mixture all over the prepared apple crescents. Theeeeeen, put the Mountain Dew on it. I know, I know. Just just do it, I swear. It looks very, very wrong at this point. I was a little iffy about putting it in the oven, but I did. So glad I did. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 for about 30 – 45 minutes. Your house will smell alarmingly good.

Just look at this thing!! It’s runnier than you probably think it should be, but don’t worry about it. Lift them out one at a time and spoon some of the sauce over top.

The butter and the soda make the bottom of each dumpling soft and mushy in the best possible way. They are not crescent roll-esque at all – butter and soda and heat magically transformed them into dumplings. You can add some ice cream if you must, but the built in sauce is awesome enough!

This is another recipe brought to you via my girl Sammie. She posted about it here, in the same post that she talked about her Cheddar Baked Chicken (a recipe that I totally copied here), so here I am again, biting her style. That’s ok, we’re kitchen besties. <3 I mentioned in the Cheddar Chicken post that her family generally has the same likes and dislikes at the table as my family so if something was a hit at her house it's generally also a hit at mine. That absolutely applied here. I are a few more of these than I care to admit myself. The kids saved me from the rest of them, thankfully. I've made them maybe three or four times since. They've totally become a staple!

Brown Sugar Muffins – via The Happy Housewife

1 3/4 cups flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
brown sugar
cinnamon

Mix the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Then add the egg, milk and oil. Fill the muffin cups 1/4 full with the batter.
Mix some cinnamon and brown sugar and sprinkle that over each muffin cup of batter and then top with the rest of the batter (evenly distributed over the rest of the muffin cups) and then top with more cinnamon and brown sugar. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Try not to eat them all at once.

Another vegan win! Sweet enough to quiet the sweet tooth, not so sweet that it’s overwhelming (and it wont make you crave sweets for days after like other indulgences). They are very good.

I made these for my Dad when he came up for a visit to the woods and not only did he say he loved them (Dads just do that to make us feel good, yes?), I totally caught him eating them in the wee hours of the night! <3 They come together pretty quickly and as all my favorite vegan recipes they make my food processor feel reeeeeeeally useful. The original recipe calls for raw oat groats flour which requires you to soak oat groats overnight, drain and rinse the next day, sprout if you wish, dehydrate and process in a high speed blender to a fine powder oooor you can use grind up raw oats in your food processor until they’re powdery. So far, every time I come across raw oat groats in a recipe I just use raw oats, but next time it comes up, I’m totally going to try the actual oat groats.

As far as I have read, a lot of the health benefits of raw oat groats are the same as regular oats, since you know, they’re practically the same thing. I said practically, so there is a difference. An oat groat is the whole unbroken grain of the oat without the hull. Since it’s raw and still in one piece, you can sprout it! Rolled oats have been rolled flat and dried. Most of the time rolled oats are steamed to do this, and so they’re not raw but some health food stores have actual raw rolled oats. With that distinction in mind, both kinds of oats are an amazing source of fiber (including soluble fiber – a great help in regulating blood glucose levels). They also have a serious punch of B vitamins, potassium, iron, phosphorous, selenium, zinc, manganese and magnesium. Phew. I just read today that regularly drinking raw oat milk ‘can reduce bowel fungus and promote the growth of healthy intestinal fauna.’ OMG ewww. Does that mean that most of us have bowel fungus?! Ugh, sometimes a little knowledge is a painful thing. You know I’m going to try to make raw oat milk now.

Anyhoo, so what do all these vitamins do for us anyway? Well, together they support the rate of metabolism, maintain healthy skin, hair and muscle tone, enhance immune and nervous system function, promote cell growth and division, and reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer. They can help against stroke, blood pressure problems, anxiety and stress, muscular strength, metabolism, heart and kidney disorders and the nervous system! Not to mention boosting your energy levels, improving your body’s immunity, and helping you sleep.

Raw Vegan Cinnamon Donut Holes – via Mama in the Kitchen
*The original recipe made the donut holes and then rolled them in a mixture of cinnamon and dried whole cane sugar, I added the cinnamon and cane sugar right to the donut holes themselves.

1/2 cup raw coconut flour (just grind raw dried shredded coconut in your food processor)
1 cup raw oat groats flour (or like I did, use 1 cup of ground up raw oats)
1 cup raw sprouted soft wheat flour (I didn’t sprout mine)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
5 tablespoons raw honey
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons dried whole cane sugar

So first mix together the coconut flour, oats and soft wheat flour. Then add the salt, vanilla, coconut oil and honey.
Once that’s all combined, add the cinnamon and cane sugar.
Now you shape them into donut holes however you can! You could scoop them out with a spoon and roll them or you could use a small ice cream scoop or melon baller or whatever you have on hand. Whatever shape you make them, they’re delicious and actually good for you!