First off: Happy New Year! I hope that you had a fabulous New Years!
When I think about it, I’m quite happy with most of the recipes I have tried and posted in 2011. I feel like I’ve learned a lot and expanded my repertoire – from making food for the Daniel Fast I did last January to lots of vegan baking and learning more about raw “cooking” through April in the Raw.
I also feel like I improved my food photography – I made the conscious decision to focus on taking photos of the finished product instead of taking photos all throughout the process like I have previously. I felt particularly inspired by Jenn of Jenn Cuisine and by Dario of Food Pixels, especially in the idea of creating an environment for your food instead of just photographing the food by itself.
I’m looking forward to trying even more new things and hopefully continuing to improve my photography!
Now onto my top 11 recipes of 2011 based on page views. Most of them I’m pretty happy with how they turned out and I hope that you will, too!
1. Vegan Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcake – I made these for Easter dessert with Mr. Bean’s family.
2. Strawberry Cheesecake Raw Cake Pops – made for the raw cake pop challenge. I actually got in the top three! 🙂
3. Vegan, Gluten and Refined Sugar Free Pecan Pie Bars – a perfect healthy alternative to traditional pecan pie.
4. Gluten and Refined Sugar Free Raspberry Bars – made just because. My brother asked for them for his birthday because he liked them so much.
5. Raw Tropical Carrot Cake with Cheesecake “Icing” – my submission for “April in the Raw” and it opened my eyes the world of raw cooking – it’s not all corny like in Raw Rose’s cookbook!
6. Mostly Raw Gluten Free Vegan Coconut Tarts with Berries – another (mostly) raw dessert. They are best served cold!
7. Vegan, Gluten Free Potato Bread – for a while I thought that I could save money by making my own bread (and you can). This bread was absolutely delicious and worked really well. I stopped making my own bread as I just didn’t have the time or inclination to do it every week or so.
8. Vegan Gluten Free Blueberry Birthday Cupcakes with Cashew Icing – made for Iris’s birthday food challenge. The icing was particularly delicious!
9. Vegan Polenta Pizza – one of my meals on my Daniel Fast. It was fabulous and I think I should make it again (except with some more protein so it sticks around for longer!)
10. Vegan, Gluten and Soy Free Chive Garlic Cornbread – I just felt like making a variation of the egg and dairy filled cornbread that Mr. Bean likes to make. It was super tasty and quite nice looking!
11. Vegan Banana Almond Flour Pancakes – These pancakes were tasty, but I really need to remake them as I need to find some way to get almond flour and bananas to set without eggs. Any suggestions?
There you have it – the top 11 recipes from 2011 by popularity! I’m quite pleased with pretty much all of the recipes I shared this year and I’m looking forward to trying lots more in 2012!
It’s hard to say what my absolute favourite recipe of all 2011 was. I think the recipe I’m the most proud of are the raw cake pops as I essentially created the coating all by myself and they were amazingly tasty! (For the record, I LOVE raw cashews. They are pretty much my favourite nut.)
What’s your most favourite recipe you made this year?
Without Adornment 
It all looks sooo good! 🙂
Wow. These all look and sound amazing! I’m definitely going to try some of these. Healthy eating is at the top of my list for 2012. Thanks so much for a little extra motivation. Can’t wait to try a few!
Good luck with your health goals! If you do try some of them, please let me know how they turn out! 🙂
I love your photos! And I find Jenn very inspiring too. 🙂
Happy new year! Can’t wait to see what you come up with this year!
Thanks so much Iris! I’m super excited to see what you make this year as well! 🙂
OMG these all look so delish! Do you still find time to experiment being back to work?
Yum! I tried the raspberry bars for a bake sale, they were awesome 🙂
I’ve also been trying to take better pictures, I know the “environment” is lacking, perhaps a few trips to the antique mall will remedy that! Even I’m tired of the granite counter top in half my pictures. Happy New Year 😛
Those all look so good! I really need to experiment more with gluten free. It’s a little overwhelming to try.
Thank you! It can be quite overwhelming – if there are a few things that you’d like to try, I can try to help point you in the right direction of things that are tasty, easy and work!
I bought pecans for the pecan bars, but never did get around to actually making them… my plans to bake are always more ambitious than the actual baking!
The two things I would try for setting the pancakes are varying amounts of ground flaxseed and psyllium fiber. Weirdly enough, the psyllium does help with that sort of thing.