This weeks offerings...

Before I forget, I found original graham crackers at the Albertsons in Santee, CA. I don't usually stray far from Henry's but I was close and went in. I have a few recipes that call for graham crackers that will benefit from these.

For Thursday nights dinner I made "Spicoli" Burgers and Popcorn Fries. Both recipes are from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. The burgers were really good. They call for a cup of hemp seed which I have never cooked with before.

The burgers had a crusty outside and tender inside. Joe had seconds and said how much he liked them. The kids and I all gobbled ours up. Flavor wise I might like these "Spicoli" Burgers a tiny bit more then the Celebrity Adzuki Bean Patties. But the Celebrity Patties have beans in them and I'm a little more excited to see the kids chomping on them. I'll have to work out the nutrition information for each recipe and see which one comes out on top.

The Popcorn Fries were good. I think they would be plenty tasty with or without the nutritional yeast. The timing worked out well making the two recipes together. These baked fries are pretty similar to the deep fried variety.

On Tuesday night I made the Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. These were really simple to make and would be cute for a special brunch.

Joe really liked them and thought they would be great for his lunches at work. The kids didn't really seem to care at all. I have never actually liked quiche but I thought that they were ok. A little bit to salty for me and honestly anything that has an egg/quiche-like texture kinda squicks me. Still, I'd love to try this recipe out on some non-vegan relatives. http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/mini-crustless-tofu-quiches.html


I could have sworn that I had a recipe for some Triple Ginger Cookies, but when it came down to finding it, I couldn't. So, I improvised and they were wonderful. I used the recipe for ginger cookies from Vegan With a Vengeance but instead of using the amount of ginger called for I used

1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. freshly grated ginger
3 oz. chopped crystallized ginger

The cookies really did turn out amazing. There was the perfect amount of spice. I wasn't really sure the kids would be into them but even they liked them. These would be perfect for ice cream sandwiches as well.

And for Monday nights dinner we had some Tofurky sandwiches and oven fries. The sandwiches really weren't anything special but the oven fries were great. All I did was throw the cut up potatoes in a zip lock bag and then drizzled in a few tablespoons of safflower oil. I put in a few shakes of basil, oregano, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Once everything was covered evenly I just spread them on a cookie sheet to bake. They were awesome.

We also tried out the Tofurky brand Bratwurst on the grill. They were pretty good. Joe thinks they would be better boiled and then grilled. They had a nice spice to them and the kids liked them.

FatFree Vegan Kitchen recently had a post about Magic Cookie Bars. http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2007/10/vegan-magic-cookie-bars_5400.html These have been a family favorite for a long time. These will be one of the recipes to benefit from the graham crackers I purchased. I'm not sure that I will be using her recipe for sweetened condensed milk but I'm glad to have it to fall back on.

Also, we did end up studying apples this week but all the schools were closed because of the fires, so we had two extra students. I wasn't really keen on doing a more difficult recipe with six kids so we toned it down. The kids made an apple crumble. They did a great job and had a good time. What more can you ask for.