Trick-or-Treat

This year we went up and did Mickey's Trick-or-Treat at California Adventure. We have annual passes for both California Adventure and Disneyland. (The husbands family are Disney freaks) We stayed the night at the Disneyland hotel and made a mini trip of it.
Here is my little goat. It drives me mad that Joe's hair is all long and like a dumb ass I chopped mine off.

Ramsey "had" to have her picture taken with Winnie-the-Pooh. She knew who Pooh was and Tigger but every 2 minutes she would ask me who Eeyore was.

This is our first year in the scary costume category. Isaac was very excited to be a "bad guy". I made Ramsey's trick-or-treat bag out of an old shirt of Joe's. We had a great time at trick-or-treat. They play good music and all of the characters are out. The kids just loved it. They set up little stations to hand out the candy to the kids. There was always a line but it moved quickly. I always bribe my kids to part with their load of candy. Ramsey traded her candy in for a new outfit for her baby doll, Emma. Isaac parted with his candy for $5.

On actual Halloween night we went to a small Halloween party at Joe's sisters, Jenny. I made cupcakes and she had all sorts of supplies to decorate them with. It was nice not being out on the actual night. I hope we do the exact same thing next year.

I made Cheesy Bean and Cheese Enchiladas from vegweb. http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=8a19c34877238c5059ad42e550bd34a7&topic=5980.0 Following some of the reviews I made a casserole instead of rolling each tortilla. I also used 1 onion instead of 2, 2 cans of beans instead of 3, 2 packs of corn tortillas, and no olives. These were excellent. I plan to follow a few other recommendations in the future, sauteing the onion first and adding a bit a cumin and lime juice.

There ended up being so many leftovers that I froze some portions for later. Yesterday I microwaved one of them for lunch and it turned out great.

For breakfast yesterday I made the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Scones from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I also made the Warm Raspberry Sauce to pour on top. These were pretty easy to throw together and bake in about 30 minutes. The scones wouldn't have been half so good with out the raspberry sauce.

I found the scones to be not as flaky/crumbly as regular scones. I'm thinking that this change in texture has to do with the oat flour. I used unbleached wheat flour instead of the spelt flour. They were still very good. The chocolate made them a touch to sweet for me but the tartness of the raspberry sauce helped cut that. I also spread a bit of Earth Balance inside of my warm scone. I love that salty addition.

For breakfast this morning I made parfaits. There wasn't really much to them. Acai granola, vanilla Silk yogurt and sliced strawberry. For being so simple they were wonderful. I'm all out of strawberries but will try a different fruit tomorrow morning.

I didn't have my camera with me at my mom's yesterday when I made dinner. I made Simplest Garlic Bread from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I ended up adding more chopped garlic on top and roasting some garlic to use as spread. I was in garlic heaven. This is a great simple recipe.

I also made a heirloom tomato salad with just chopped up heirloom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. I think I could eat that and the garlic bread every day. We had pasta and green salad as well but I only ate about 3 bites of each. Yum!

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.

Hawaiian Tofu

After seeing the recipe for Hawaiian Tofu in VegNews magazine I knew I had to try it. The whole idea of the shallots and red bell pepper mixed with pineapple sang to me. I'm sad to say that I was pretty disappointed.

I should start by saying that I found some monster shallots. They were 3 times the size of regular shallots. I used three of them as the recipes calls for, but obviously mine were bigger. My first bite of the dish was a total shock. I expected so much more flavor. Even with my extra shallots there wasn't a whole lot of seasoning flavor. There was just a pineapple juice flavor to everything.

The texture of everything was wonderful and I liked the way the tofu turned out. The tofu was rolled in cornstarch and then pan fried. There was a nice chewiness to the tofu. I would like the sauce to have thickened up more and have a little more substance, it would have been nice for the rice.

I can't decide what would have made the seasoning better. Positively some red chili pepper flakes. It needs something more, though. Maybe some vegetable broth in place of half the pineapple juice. I just don't know. I'm not sure it's worth my time to really experiment with this recipe.

The next night I was feeling very lazy and I realize this isn't a very healthy dinner. I asked Isaac what he wanted for dinner and he said pancakes. So, I asked if he'd rather have pancakes or waffles. He decided waffles.

I mixed up the waffle batter and Joe asked if I would put chocolate chips in his. Of course, the kids decided that they wanted chocolate chips also. I have to point out that my batter is whole wheat and there were probably only 10-15 chocolate chips in each waffle.

While the waffles were cooking I heated up some maple syrup on the stove and threw in some frozen raspberries. I let that simmer until the raspberries had fallen apart. That was it. Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Waffles with Raspberry Maple Syrup. That's a pretty long name!

Everything was gobbled up and true to form, my last waffle was the best. (not pictured) The last one was the perfect golden brown and the best crispy outside and tender inside. I'll know next time to crank the heat a little more. That was our quick and easy not so healthy dinner.

Soup Season

I'm slightly frustrated as I already typed out this post and had it ready before Blogger went down and deleted everything. So, this is going to be much shorter then the first draft.

The soups is Savory White Bean and Corn Soup, or something along those lines. The recipe is from 20 minutes to dinner. It was good. Pretty kid friendly. I used white kidney beans as my white bean of choice. They have a slight potato flavor that is a little more kid pleasing.

Aside from the onion and garlic the rest of the ingredients were all pantry items. So, this is an easy soup to throw together on short notice. It's also very quick to cook.

I also made a batch of drop biscuits from The Joy of Vegan Baking. They were nice and soft inside with a slightly crunchy outside. I used one of the optional substitutions by using melted Earth Balance instead of canola oil. That gave the biscuits a nice buttery taste that went well with the soup. I'm looking forward to the leftovers for breakfast, toasted with a bit of Earth Balance and jam.

The recipe state that it will yield 24 walnut sized drop biscuits. I don't think mine were much larger then a walnut but I only ended up with 12. Still, 12 biscuits is more then enough for my house.

I also made a batch of cookies from Dreena Burtons new book, Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. They are a chocolate, chocolate chip with peanut butter swirled through. They were tasty. Peanut butter isn't my most favorite but everyone seemed to really enjoy these.

I love how Dreena's cookie recipes only yield 1 dozen. Unless I'm baking for an event, I don't need more then 12 cookies in our house.

This week Isaac is studying apples. So, expect some baked apple treats at some point.

Chreese pizza and some better things

We really like Road's End mac and Chreese. So when I came across a bunch of packets of mozzarella chreese powder at GTM I was stoked. We've only ever had cheddar and only on pasta.

The back of the chreese packet recommends using 3 packets of mozzarella chreese for one pizza, so that's what I did. I gagged a little when I was chewing my first, and last, bite. Joe didn't look much better off. Ramsey didn't seem to care. (I can't figure out her palate) Isaac said that the pizza tasted funny but he still finished. (He had a brand new video game and I believe he was rushing so that he could play.)

Lucky for me and Joe, I had used the dough recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. Isa's recipe make enough dough for two pizzas or in our house one pizza and a batch of bread sticks. Joe and I ate the bread sticks with the remaining pizza sauce.

Still love chreese but it will be remaining in the pasta realm only.


For dinner last night we had our first squash of the season. Butternut squash is our favorite. All I do is oil a cookie sheet and place on the sliced pieces of squash. I rub the top of the pieces with oil and dump on a ton of chopped garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and baked until done.

We usually like our squash a little more crispy and brownish but dinner was late and we were hungry. The dinner was rounded out with some steamed broccoli and some Celebrity Adzuki Bean Cakes that I always have on hand in the freezer.

Yesterday I also picked up my copy of The Joy of Vegan Baking. If you can't tell from reading this blog, I love to bake! I could not stop drooling when skimming through the recipes. I had to try something out.

As luck would have it today was our co-op pickup and I wanted to bring some good eats to share. I wanted something sort of simple but tasty. I narrowed it down to a few muffin recipes and my ultimate decision Pumpkin Bread.

This stuff is amazing. I'm not a giant cloves person, so I think I'll scale that measurement down by 1/4 tsp. but I'm still in love. The flavor and texture is just wonderful. When you are holding a piece of the bread it doesn't crumble and fall all over and the crust is divine. Usually it's only brownie or other bar cookie crusts that I covet. I was dying to cut all the edges off of my loaves and hoard them.

I'm so excited to see so many old family favorite cookie recipes veganized in The Joy of Vegan Baking. There's also so many mouth watering new ideas to try. I'm positive it would be negligent of me to just up and foist these baked goods on my family at Thanksgiving and Christmas without a proper taste test first. So, I'm shouldering the burden of pre-holiday test baking.

I love to be right

I do so love to be proven correct. The graham cracker recipe says to bake on parchment paper. It also tells you to roll out your dough on parchment paper. Since the crackers don't tend to spread very much, I thought I'd try cutting my parchment paper after I had cut my cracker shape. Thus making the formed dough easier to transport and keep it's shape.
They transported beautifully. I scored them with the fork after I had them on the cookie sheet.

The dough didn't spread much off of the parchment paper while baking and once the crackers were out of the oven they peeled right off in one sheet.

I will totally make these again using this system. At first I thought I'd be wasting parchment paper because I had planned on flipping over the dough on the cut parchment pieces onto a large piece of parchment on the cookie sheet. Then I would have had to use a new piece of paper to roll out any more dough. It wasn't until I was transporting the first batch that I realised that I could just set them down just as they were. Yea me!

Some time I want to make a half batch and cut the dough into shape but not seperate the crackers at all. I'm wondering if they would bake evenly and be able to seperate after baking. Two of my crackers sat a little to close to each other and decided to become siamese twins. They came apart very easily. I don't want to lose a whole batch if I'm wrong, though.

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.

Benjamin The Fifth

I've been running around like mad the past few days and here is the reason why.


This is my beautiful nephew. He was born at 3 am on Monday, October 1. Christy did wonderfully. This was Christy's first baby and he was 9 pounds and 19 inches. She pushed like a champ and held up very well during labor. I had never been to a hospital birth before and don't know how she did it with no drugs. I had no idea she would be so immobilized. She's a trooper.


I'm not really up to big explanations but I'll have some quick remarks. This lasagna is from here http://tofu-n-sproutz.blogspot.com/search?q=lasagna It was pretty good and some non-Vegans thought it was good. I like the "Cheesy" lasagna from vegweb better, but this does use cheaper ingredients. The recipe from vegweb also holds up better during reheating.

I saw this Key Lime Teasecake over here...http://dgmgv.blogspot.com/2007/09/key-lime-teasecake.html and decided that I had to try it. I couldn't find key limes or their juice and so I used regular bottle lime juice. I also used a store bought graham cracker crust.

The non-Vegans thought that this was good as well. I thought that it was pretty good for a healthy dessert. I kind of feel like I'd rather it be totally bad for me and over the moon on flavor instead of pretty good but better for me. But that's just me. I still recommend you try it out.

Last here is a green's recipe from Nonna's Italian Kitchen. They were pretty good and the kids were ok with them if they had some corn on the same bite of greens. In all honesty, I'm with the kids. I've never cooked greens before and I look forward to getting some more onto our plates.

That's about all. Things might be a little off for a bit longer but I'll do my best.

Off Topic

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=96642&section_id=5076871

How cute is this hat? The little girl, too. I want to get one of these for Ramsey, and myself, but can't choose a color. What do you think? I like the darker more neutral colors...this grey/green, the redish/brown, the dark grey, any opinions for Hammy?

Ohhh, I just found a brown one with no flower and a few bright blue stripes.

Ginger Hoisin Rice Noodles

Actually, I grabbed the wrong package of noodles and they aren't rice. So, the title isn't really correct. I pulled this recipe out of The Every Day Vegan, for tonight's dinner.

Bringing the water to a boil was what took the longest. Every thing else was pretty quick. Joe loved this dish. He even went back for seconds. Ramsey didn't take one bite and Isaac dug around and only ate the noodles. To be honest, I did the same as Isaac.

Well, I ate the carrots but I avoided the bell pepper. I love raw bell pepper but for some reason I don't enjoy it in it's cooked state. I would have much preferred this dish with carrots and broccoli and maybe some snap peas. I would leave out the ginger, too, or use powder. I like the flavor of ginger but don't enjoy coming across a chunk, no matter how small.

Overall, I think this is a good dish. There is a lot of room for adaptation to account for personal tastes. I know my kids would like it better if I made the changes mentioned, not to mention me. Poor Joe, he's the odd man out. That means he'll never have it made this way again. Oh well, when he starts to cook he can have it his way.

A few nights ago I had planned to make flautas again stuffed with some leftover Rancho Papa that was from Rancho's on 30th street. I was going to stuff a few with refried beans and left over "neat balls" for the kids, as well.

I ended up getting a late start and realised how much faster it would be to just fry the tortillas flat. A la tostada. We threw some Mexican relish on top and were good to go. These were great and a lot less work. I'm going to do this again when I'm felling lazy.

Double Chocolate Pecan Chippers

The Double Chocolate Pecan Chippers are another recipe from The Every Day Vegan. I didn't take a picture of these cookies because they were pretty ugly. The dough spread so thin that I just cut out cookie shapes. The end result was crispy and crunchy.

They actually tasted pretty good. The recipe would be great for a pie crust. In Dreena's instructions she says it's best to chill your dough or it might spread to much. I was to impatient to wait. Next time I'll let it chill and see if they come out thicker and keep there shape.

I'm really not displeased with the outcome. I liked the light, airy, crispy, thin chocolate cookies that we ended up with. It'll be fun to experiment some more. I'll keep you posted.

Christmas Cookies

Don't shoot me!!!! I swear I'm not really planning the holidays yet. I just wanted to throw this out.

I've heard of cookie exchanges but I've never been to one. You bring like two dozen of some kind of cookie and then everyone gets to take like 6 of each kind, or something like that. It would be great to have a vegan cookie exchange. Any interest? There could be other stuff like fudge or candy and we could make our own rules.

So, respond in the comments and then we'll pretend we never spoke of Christmas until after Thanksgiving. We could even do it twice. Once for Thanksgiving as a sort of trial run. Don't hit me.

Sweet and Sour "Neat" Balls

For dinner tonight I made Sweet and Sour "Neat" Balls from The Everyday Vegan. I served it along side of some rice and steamed broccoli.

I thought the neat balls were pretty quick to put together. There are more vegetables called for then in most of the other recipes that I've come across and I like that for the kids. For myself too. I don't eat near the amount of vegetables that I should, not counting onions.

They had a nice outside that held together but a tender inside. The vegetables are put in raw, no having to saute before hand, and they are a great texture. I wondered if they would be more noticeable to the kids but they weren't to crunchy.

I also made the sweet and sour sauce, instead of using store bought. I thought the sauce tasted good but I'm not sure if I would identify it as sweet and sour sauce if I hadn't known before hand.

Isaac liked the neat balls well enough but Ramsey was the big surprise. She ate all of hers and she chose them to eat before the rice. That's unheard of at our house. Joe and I both thought they were good. I will make these again.


I also made these Oatmeal Breakfast Bars from another recipe from vegweb. I chose to use almonds and cranberries as my nut and fruit. Also, I used agave nectar as my sweetener.

These are good. I don't think that they are out of this world, but everyone here said they were good. I will probably tweak the recipe. I like more of a nut bar and less oats. Isaac called these rice crispy treats and if that's what he thinks I'm ok with that.

Recipe submitted by circe_golightly@hotmail.com

Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Ingredients (use vegan versions):
2 and 2/3 cups oats
1/3 cup flax seed meal
2 medium bananas, mashed
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, whatever you want)
2/3 cup chopped nuts (i use pecans but walnuts, peanuts or sunflower seeds will work)
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1-2 tablespoon some kind of vegan sweetener (i use honey, but i know with vegans that is a no no)
enough liquid Ener-G Egg Replacer to equal one egg
add a small amount of water if mixture isn't moist enough.

Directions:Combine all the dry ingredients and mix well. add mashed bananas, liquid Ener-G Egg Replacer, oil and sweetener and mix well until blended and mixture is sticky. now this part is messy, but worth it. Shape dough into bars on a greased cookie sheet, making the bars about 1/3 inch thick. I would definitely recommend shaping all the bars at one time, because the longer the dough sits, the stickier it gets. Bake for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven.I make these for my husband in lieu of buying him store bought breakfast bars. They are healthier and cheaper. They aren't very sweet either, but you can add more sweetener to your discretion.Serves: about 10


Following some of the review advice I used 1/4 cup of flax seed meal so the bars wouldn't turn bitter. I also oiled a 9x13" pan and patted the mix in there and baked for 20 minutes. While the bars were still warm I cut them into squares.

This has nothing to do with recipes but it's some thing that has been on my mind and is making me insane. The back ground information here would be I was looking up vegan lotions and deodorant. WHY do people use the term flavor when referring to scent? I hate it. Vanilla "flavored" deodorant. Are you going to eat it? It's SCENTED damn it.

Dinner and Beyond

I've been a lazy poster, but what can you do. I don't really have an excuse.

I'll start of with breakfast on Sunday. I used the Morning Pancakes recipe from The Vegan Family Cookbook. This recipe yields a really large batch. With most recipes we have enough for all of us and 3-4 left over for the freezer. This time I had at least 20 left over. My freezer is stocked.

I used half whole wheat pastry flour and half white. We also made a few blueberry. These were the closest that I have ever come to a pancake that looks like it was made at a restaurant. They were the perfect thickness nice flavor and fluffy texture. I take full credit for the perfect golden color. :)

Next in line is graham crackers. I can't find plain vegan graham crackers in any of my most frequented shops. I came across this recipe in the Post Punk Kitchen message boards. This is one of Isa's recipes.

Gwam Crackers

Makes about 12 crackers

I wanted a graham cracker that was relatively hassle free, most graham cracker recipes call for chilling the dough and that sometimes turns me off from baking. I want graham crackers, NOW. Not in 3 hours. I also wanted them to be relatively healthy for a sweet treat, with a hearty wheaty crunch, so I ultimately went for regular whole wheat flour - pastry flour didn't give me the crunchy crumbs I was wanting. These aren't too sweet so if you would like them sweeter and more cinnamony sprinkle with a tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 a teaspoon cinnamon before scoring. To add to the beauty of this recipe, everything gets done with just a large mixing bowl and a fork.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
scant 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup rice milk (plus maybe an extra tablespoon or so), soy milk or water will work, too

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a light colored baking sheet with parchment paper.In a large bowl mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the middle and pour in oil, molasses and vanilla. Give the liquid ingredients a quick whisk with a fork and then continue mixing until everything is well combined and crumbly.

Drizzle in the milk and combine. Use your hands to knead the dough a few times until it holds together, add an extra tablespoon of rice milk if needed. You should be able to form a pliable ball of dough.

Line a work surface with parchment. Place the dough on the parchment and work into a rectangle. Flatten a bit with the palms of your hand and sprinkle with flour. Use a rolling pin to roll into a rectangle that is roughly 10 x 14 inches. The dough should be about 1/8 inch thick. If the edges look crumbly, that's okay. Cut the edges off so that you have a relatively even 12 x 8 rectangle. Cut the dough into 8 crackers, to do this evenly use a sharp paring knife to slice the dough in half lengthwise and width wise. Then cut width wise again on either side of the center width wise cut. That probably made it sound confusing, read it slowly.

Use a very thin flexible spatula to transfer the crackers to a baking sheet. It helps if you spray the spatula with cooking spray so that it slips on and off easily. Gather up the scraps of dough and form them into a ball, then roll it out into a 4 by 8 rectangle, or whatever size you can manage. I was able to get 4 more crackers out of the deal, but your mileage may vary. Cut the edges evenly and slice into 4 crackers then transfer to the baking sheet.Score each cookie with a fork 4 times in 2 columns. You don't need to poke all the way through. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. 14 will give you nice crispy crackers, 12 minutes will be better for making ice cream sammiches.Let cool completely on the baking sheet.


Mine didn't turn out near as pretty as the one's Isa posted. I'll live. Honestly these were a pain in the ass. I didn't think that they would turn out to be worth it. Also, I did end up using whole wheat pastry flour instead of plain whole wheat.

I was completely wrong. These are really good and worth the effort. I will make these again. I want to get a system down so that it's easier. They were perfectly crispy and the flavor was amazing. When the kids go to sleep I'm going to bust out the Ricemellow.


Last, but not least, was this lovely pasta dish from The Everyday Vegan. I made the Basic Creamy Garlic Sauce. Obviously the vegetable that I went with was broccoli. The recipe also calls for fresh leafy herbs. I chose parsley.

I was really looking forward to eating this. I wasn't sure if the kids would go for it, since it calls for 3 heads of garlic, but I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone finished off their portions. The garlic flavor was really mild and went wonderfully with the broccoli. Joe has a grudge against spaghetti noddles, as opposed to any other shape, but he had no complaints. Maybe next time I'll choose a penne just for him.

Aside from roasting the garlic, this was a quick dish to prepare. The vegetables and sauce are done in the time it takes you to boil the noodles. I'll have to experiment with freezing roasted garlic. I'll keep you posted.

http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=29647&p=2

Potato Poppers

I wanted to take some black and white pictures of the kids at the beach and figured it was a great opportunity to hit Stephanie's Bakery in Ocean Beach. I love the strudel at Stephanie's but haven't been there in a long time. Turns out that they have started serving lunch in my absence.

We ordered a 14" plain cheese pizza. It was ok. I think that it could have been cooked a little bit longer. The crust should have been a bit more golden and crispy underneath. I like my own pizza better. It's nice to have a place to buy a vegan pizza even if it's not exceptional.

For dinner I made the Potato Poppers from The (almost) No Fat Cookbook. They were a bit like tater tots but more dense. Obviously, they are more healthy then tator tots. I doubled the recipe so I could put some away into the freezer.

I liked having these as a side dish. I try to stay away from potatoes because I'd rather get a "better" vegetable into the kids but I don't feel so bad about these. Along with the potato there is onion, brown rice and whole wheat bread crumbs.

I would make the potato poppers again as something easy to have around.

Sicilian Bread Pie

I don't think that there is one recipe that doesn't look good in Nonna's Italian Kitchen. This Sicilian Bread Pie is the first recipe that I've tried. I made the broccoli version. There is also a spinach version which Isaac has requested for next time.

To put this pie together I used Bryanna's recipe for Pizza Dough and Vegetarian Hot Italian Sausage, also included in Nonna's Italian Kitchen. It ended up being a bit labor intensive. You could use commercial vegan Italian Sausage.

We all liked this pretty well. Next time I will double the amount of broccoli. I would like more vegetable flavor. I added the optional tomato and that gave a more pizza flavor that the kids enjoyed. I accidentally made a full recipe of the pizza dough when this recipe called for half. So, I made bread sticks with the leftover dough.

The sausage had a nice spice to it and an authentic Italian flavor. I also think that this recipe produced a better more realistic texture then many of the store bought faux sausages. I have plenty of sausage patties left over sitting in my freezer for the next time it's called for. I like having things stored up.

I decided to use up the phyllo dough I had sitting in the freezer. I went searching on vegweb for a strudel. This is what I came across.

Recipe submitted by weelittlebuddy, 01/11/07

Apple Strudel

Ingredients (use vegan versions):
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 cup boiling water
2 Fuji apples (about 1 1/4 lbs total), cored and chopped
1/4 cup favorite sweetener
3 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for dusting
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 sheets phyllo dough
non-stick cooking spray

Directions:
Heat oven to 375° Fahrenheit. Line a large baking sheet with nonstick foil or coat with nonstick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine cranberries and water. Let stand 5 minutes, then drain.

In a large bowl combine apples, softened cranberries, sweetener, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss until combined.

Unroll phyllo dough on work surface; cover with damp towel. Separate one sheet and place on clean surface. Spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray and dust with a little ground cinnamon. Place another sheet on top; coat with spray and dust with cinnamon. Repeat 6 more times, coating each with spray and dusting with cinnamon.

Spoon filling along a long side of phyllo, 3 inches in from edge, leaving 1 inch at either end. Fold both short sides (ends) over filling. Fold 3 inch wide long strip over filling; roll up, jelly roll style.

Place, seam side down, on foil-lined baking sheet. Spray with nonstick cooking spray and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake and 375° for 35 minutes, until nicely browned. Let cool on rack for at least 20 minutes.

Slice with a serrated knife; best served the same day.


I really like the pastry part of strudel and so made three thinner strudels with this amount of filling. Next time I think I would only split it into two. The filling was excellent and the cranberries gave a touch of extra bite. I also sprinkled the top with cinnamon and sugar. I like the way it sweetened the pastry.

This was a quick and easy dessert, once the phyllo was defrosted. I figure that it's not as bad for us since it has fruit. Please don't shatter my delusions.

Cookies with Sizzle

I was reading someones blog about chocolate with chili peppers in it and I started thinking that would be tasty in a cookie. I grabbed up a bar of dark chocolate with chili pepper and chopped it up into chocolate chip size pieces. I used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, Dreena Burtons, and added in a bit of cinnamon.

The results were good. The cookies spread a little bit thinner then I like. Next time will call for a touch more flour. The spice from the chocolate went nicely with the cinnamon. These would be perfect with coffee or tea. I don't really like either one but if you do.....

For dinner we had one of our favorites again, Dreena Burton's Celebrity patties. I made a double batch so that I would have a lot to freeze. I cook them all up in the skillet when I first make them and then put them in the toaster oven to reheat them after they've been frozen.

Everyone in our house loves these. I love having some put by in the freezer for when I'm in a rush or one of the kids (Ramsey) has snubbed their nose at what ever I made for dinner. They are great on buns like a burger as well.

If you still haven't tried these patties I suggest you hop to.

Ricemellow update

This stuff is soooooo good! I went and bought some chocolate graham crackers, they were the only vegan ones. We spread peanut butter on top of the graham crackers, drizzled on some homemade chocolate syrup and plopped on a big spoonful of Ricemellow. They were amazing. It's a great way to not over indulge on dessert. or have a not so good for you snack that isn't as bad for you as most of the results of my baking habit.

Random Reviews

Joe was in Palm Springs for a few days this week and I haven't done a lot of cooking. One thing I did make was the Taco and Burrito Fill from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah. I took pictures but the dinner wasn't that exciting. We made tacos with the filling on some corn tortillas. I thought that it was to sweet. I finished my portion but wasn't very thrilled. I won't make it again.

Friday night I stopped in at All Vegan and discovered they are carrying a few new edibles. They have started carrying Sweet & Sara's marshmallows and smores. The smores are amazing! I bought one of the plain and one of the peanut butter. They were both excellent but the peanut butter really went above and beyond. I also bought some toasted coconut covered marshmallows. Sara's marshmallows are much more like the real thing compared to the ones from pangea. I want to get some of the plain marshmallows to make smores at home. http://www.sweetandsara.com/

Last night we went to Ranchos for dinner. The kids had blueberry multi grain pancakes. They were awesome. I mean totally perfect. I had the enchilada trio. One enchilada had beans inside with a red sauce on top. Next had a tofu veggie filling with a mole sauce. The last enchilada was avocado with a verde sauce. I'd never had mole before. I really hope that I never have mole again. The bean enchilada was good, nothing special. The avocado enchilada was great. I had never thought to put avocado inside. I can't wait to make that at home.

We stopped off at the Rancho's grocery store after dinner and grabbed a few things to take home. I got some Ricemellow but I haven't decided what to do with it yet. The kids got some watermelon popsicles that were pretty good. We also grabbed some ice cream that hasn't been tried yet.

Tonight for dinner we went to Sipz. The service sucked, as usual. I'd much rather get their food to go. I got the broccoli "beef" but with "chicken". It was to sweet. I didn't finish it. The kids had the "chicken" drumsticks with steamed broccoli and a coconut. They thought the drumsticks were really neat. For the first time we had dessert at Sipz. We had the vegan cheesecake and the banana cake with coconut cream. Both were wonderful. The cheesecake would totally satisfy a craving if you were missing that sort of thing. It had a nice raspberry sauce drizzled on top and was plated very nicely. The banana cake was served warm with the coconut milk cream on top. It was a total comfort food. I want to find a similar recipe so I can recreate the banana cake at home.

That's all the food adventures for the past few days. There should be some pictures tomorrow.

Kima

Or vegetarian kashmiri "hash". This is the first recipe that I've tried from 20 Minutes to Dinner by Bryanna Clark Grogan. My mom and the adult part of the household really enjoyed this. I didn't use the mushrooms or carrots but it still turned out well. I wouldn't say that this dish was very kid friendly. It wasn't spicy but it did have a lot of seasoning. There were also two onions. We love onions around here but that still raised my eyebrows.

Like the title of the book indicates, this "hash" was quick and easy to put together. I would make it again but would have more then just rice for the kids to fall back on. Isaac ate the TVP and a few peas, Ramsey would only eat the rice.

You can't win them all.

Barbecued Seitan Ribz

All of that partying wore me out. I haven't wanted to crawl over to the computer until today. This isn't the greatest picture that I've ever taken, oh well.

I'd been dying for an opportune moment to try out the barbecued seitan ribz from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. Finally a BBQ rolled around where there wouldn't be an insane amount of people to provide for.

These ribz were super easy to throw together. They had a nice smokey flavor and I love anything with BBQ sauce on it. They had a meaty texture with that crispy grilled outside. We had them with corn on the cob and some other sides but I would love to have these on a BBQ sandwich.

http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2007/05/barbecued-seitan-ribz.html

I'm not the first blogger to post about these and I know I won't be the last. Give them a try.

Happy Birthday / Labor Day

The partying has continued and for today I had planned to make my easy pasta salad. Despite my best intentions, I either did not hear the timer while the pasta was boiling, or it didn't go off. I'm leaning towards a defective timer. So, I got distracted while visiting with my mom and by the time Joe asked me what was cooking it was just one big mush.

I didn't want to show up with nothing or I'd be stuck eating fruit and carrots all afternoon. I knew I had all the ingredients to make the Vegetable Phyllo Roll from Vegan Family Favorites, so I pulled that out and got to work. I've never worked with phyllo before but it was much easier then I though it would be. I shredded my vegetables in the food processor and the rest of the prep was very simple.

I loved this. The pastry was crispy and buttery on the outside. The vegetables were cooked nicely and tasted fresh. The hoisin sauce gave it a nice subtle seasoning. I ended up making 3 smaller rolls, instead of one big one. I don't really see how all of that filling would have fit in one roll. Even with 3 rolls I had some filling left over.

I forgot to take pictures of my phyllo rolls at home and they were gobbled up before I had my camera out at the party. These were really quick once the phyllo was thawed out. I'll make them again to go along with some Asian food.


For Ramsey's continuing celebrations I made the Triple Layer Chocolate "Cream" Cake from The Everyday Vegan. Everyone was amazed at the frosting. It's made from tofu, maple syrup and semi-sweet chocolate chips. It was wonderful. It was super creamy and had a very rich chocolate taste. I really was surprised at how well it turned out, though it is Dreena Burton. Dreena is a cooking goddess.

We had a lovely time today. It was crazy hot and we didn't stray from the pool much. We have one more party to get through before the partying is at an end. I'll give you a hint about tomorrows menu.....it involves a grill and some BBQ sauce.

Happy Birthday Ramsey!

The next few days are going to be filled up with birthday celebrations. Expect a lot of cake. This year no one had the same days off. We started of Ramsey's 3rd birthday yesterday. It was a swim party with some of her friends.

The weather was insane and that made the pool that much more inviting. We had a BBQ with vegan Boca burgers, watermelon and my easy peasy pasta salad. Also, not pictured, was Dr.Furmans bean dip with tortilla chips and a hummus tray with carrots.

For dessert we had lemon cupcakes with lemon frosting, courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Also from VCTOW were chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The heat made the frosting a bit melty, so I sprinkled on some pink sugar to hide any imperfections.

It seemed like everyone had a nice time, I know we did. It was a lazy afternoon just hanging around. No major sunburns, that I saw, and the kiddie meltdowns didn't happen until people were starting to leave.

Thanks for everyone for celebrating with us!

Here's my pasta salad.

1 package colored noodles, cooked and rinsed with cold water
1 bottle of your favorite Italian dressing
1 small can of sliced olives
1 can artichoke hearts, chopped
tomatoes chopped

That's it. I'm sure that pine nuts or any other additions would be good. I recommend only pouring half of the dressing on when you make the salad and the other half when you are about to serve.



Most of the pictures have a lot of people in them and I don't want to post pictures of others kids without permission. I'll try to find a way for friends to view the set.