Lazy Poster

I hate to have missed out on so much posting but mostly I've just been really tired. I'll try to keep on track.

First up is Creamy Seashell Casserole from 20 minutes to dinner. This was great. Growing up my mom made a tuna casserole that was creamy with peas in it. The peas were my favorite part. I think every family has some variation of a casserole like this.

This casserole could be adjusted in so many ways. I left out the mushrooms but could just as easily have added in broccoli or maybe sliced up spinach. Growing up, my mom crushed potato chips on the top of her casserole before baking. I can't wait to give this another go.

BTW Ramsey snubbed her nose at dinner, but she's been doing that a lot lately. Everyone else was pleased. In fact she snubbed her nose at what's up next as well.

I also made Stuffed "Griddle Dumplings" from Nonna's Italian Kitchen. This was a bit labor intensive. You make the dough, cook the filling, roll the dough, stuff the dough, cook the dumplings.... It was worth it.

After I cut up all my greens and cooked them down, I didn't have near enough greens to fill all of my dumplings. So, I dug around in my cupboards and found a can of bean medley from Trader Joe's and pureed that to use as filling as well. I also made two dumplings for the kids stuffed with "meat" balls and homemade vegan sausage.


I thought that these were really impressive to look at. Both the greens and the beans had a wonderful flavor. I tried the kids "meat" dumplings and would have preferred those with a dipping sauce.

I have to say the best part was when I ran out of filling. I used the last of the dough to make Piadine, a flat bread, which the dough recipe is originally from. Then I ate that with a little bit of oil left over that I had used to cook the greens in. So, the oil had a bit of flavor from the greens and a TON of flavor from the 4 cloves of garlic. It was amazing. I think I could have a whole meal with a tiny bit of greens and a whole lot of Piadine with garlic/greens oil. Yum!

Other then those two dishes there was a lot of eating out this week. I made a batch of lime cupcakes and didn't realise until they were halfway finished that my oil had gone off. That was a really disgusting smell. I ended up making a second batch with fresh oil but couldn't enjoy them because they still seemed off. I think that's just because that nasty rancid smell really hung around.

There was also a batch of chocolate cupcakes made on Saturday that we took to a birthday party. I do really love the chocolate buttercream frosting in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I don't think that there is a better one out there.

Look for some ginger cookies coming soon. I KNOW that I saw a triple ginger cookie somewhere and it's been driving me mad trying to find it. So, I'm giving up and will just make my own up. I don't care for cakey ginger cookies. I like them chewy/crispy. When I saw some crystallised ginger at GTM I knew it was bound for cookies. I'm also going to give the graham crackers another go. I have an idea in my mind of a way I think will be easier. We'll see if it works. I believe that's all. I have a small idea about chewy pretzel bites but I'm not ready to commit yet.