Tuesday was MIL’s birthday! We took her out to dinner (she loves to eat out) and we gave her this as a gift.
No, it’s not just a box. It contains an assortment of amazing raw chocolate confections!
Here is what is hiding under the two big ones.
Don’t those look luscious!
DH and I made these, from scratch, over several days as a special treat for his Mom for her birthday.
This year is our first totally vegan Thanksgiving dinner!
We actually made our dinner on Tuesday, so that we could share it with MIL. Here’s what we had.
From left to right:
Carrots cooked in a sauce of orange juice, vegan butter and parsley Pickled Green Beans (served hot) Foxbarrel Blackberry Pear Cider (to drink) Mushrooms and onions sauteed in olive oil, with white wine, rosemary, thyme, poultry seasoning and basalmic vinegar, then stir fried with temph Roasted potatoes, onions and yams with the sour cream from the coleslaw and chives Kale, rainbow chard, spinach salad (with other veggies) and a home made vinaigrette For dessert, DH made apple cranberry pie with a pecan crunch top, which was served with sweet cashew creme.
It’s the time of year when just about every foodie magazine and television show is featuring something made out of pumpkin! So often, though, the recipes call for canned pumpkin puree. It will work, if you don’t have access to the fresh stuff, but making your own is not all that difficult!
Start with a fresh, sweet, pie pumpkin.
Organic is the best. You don’t want to use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin.
We eat a lot of tofu! I use it in both sweet and savory dishes. That means I’m doing a lot of pressing, to squeeze the water out of the block of tofu. You probably saw the post In The Kitchen: Tofu about the standard, low-tech way of pressing it. It works, but it’s messy and leaves me with a lot of stuff to wash. It also uses a lot of paper towels.
I did it! I made pizza, from scratch!
I had home made pizza for my Birthday Dinner! (Doing the happy dance!)
We love The Uprooted Kitchen Trailer (food truck?)!!!
This is a family owned business, based in a 1968 vintage Avion trailer that specializes in vegetarian cuisine. It is owned by Chad and Erin Romanoff. Chad is a pediatric occupational therapist and Erin is a pastry chef. Their menu includes breakfast, lunch and any time fare.
On Saturday’s they are at the Gilbert Farmer's Market , which is where we discovered them.
I have a special request from a regular viewer! He has asked me about my food dehydrator!
A Few Years Ago My daughter asked for a food dehydrator for a gift several years ago. I don’t think she really thought I would get it for her, because of the cost, but I did. She is very involved in the Boy Scouts (my grandson is a Scout) and loves camping. In addition, she lives in an area of the U.
Daryl: Knarly, Dude! What is that thing?
Sam: I dunno. I found it in the grocery store. I thought you might know what to do with it?
Daryl: Ummm… Looks like a door stop to me!
OK, enough fun. This thing is a Jicama! (And it actually is gnarly, as you’ll see in a bit.)
Jicama, also called a Yam Bean or Mexican Turnip, is the tuberous root of a Mexican legume vine.
The Kitchen Angel must have heard my plea last Friday! (See my post about Chocolate Raspberry Pie !) This has appeared in my kitchen.
I received a brand new Vitamix 6300 with a 64 oz container! It came from Costco. Vitamix is doing demos of this new model in Costco Stores around the country. The savings is significant when purchased at the demo.
I am SOOOO happy! I’ll probably be doing the happy dance for days.
I recently got twenty pounds of California ripe tomatoes as an addition to my regular Bountiful Baskets. That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well, it looks like this:
See, not quite as much as you thought it would be! These were ripe, meaty and delicious!
I love tomatoes. They are really good for you, high in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant! They also contain vitamin C (when eaten raw) and potassium.
By now you’ve seen tofu pop up a few times in my recipes. I thought you might like to know a bit more about it, and why it’s used so much for a vast array of things in the vegan foodie world.
For starters, tofu is made from soybeans. First the dried soybeans are processed into soy milk. Then a salt or acid-based coagulant is stirred into the milk, causing it to form curds from the protein.
There are very few people who are great cooks from birth. Everyone learns along the way. And most cooks, and even the great chefs have tools which got them to where they are now.
A very important category of tools is: Cook Books!
I happen to have two favorites. The first is a 30-year old copy of Joy of Cooking. As far as I’m concerned, no kitchen should be without a copy of this classic.
I like to start the day by loading up the dehydrator. That way, it has plenty of time to run before any afternoon storms. Today I made Zucchini Chips. These were quick and easy to prep, since all you have to do is wash the zukes and then slice them about 1⁄4 inch thick. I dry them at 125 degrees until they are dry and crispy. They keep a long time in the pantry.
Last night’s dinner was delicious! Sprouts has wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon on sale right now! I marinated the fish in light basalmic vinegar, lime juice, a little olive oil, 1 clove of garlic, minced and cilantro. Then it was grilled.
The Pineapple-Avocado salsa also has red onion, cilantro and 1/2 roasted jalapeno.
The Asparagus and Grape Tomato salad is really simple and the addition of the sesame seeds gives is a little crunch.
Tonight’s dinner was Lamb Burgers on Canyon Bakehouse Gluten Free Buns. I love these buns! They taste really good, and hold up well to a hefty burger with all the fixings piled on. We have used these same buns for Portabella Burgers and they were great!
The white sauce on top of the burger is home made tzatziki sauce. On the side you see avocado, red onion, tomato, green leaf lettuce, and grilled Mexican grey squash.