Grapes

Frozen. My favorite way to eat them. We call them grapesicles!

Lemon delight cupcakes

 
Natalie and Kira made these on Sunday.  They are yummy.

from:  http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/cupcakes/r/VeganLemonCupcakes.htm

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/3 cup oil
1 cup soy or almond milk (we put a little lemon juice in here so it would make it "curdle")
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup and
1 T. lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners and set aside.

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another large mixing bowl, whisk together the  oil, soy milk , sugar, and lemon juice. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until just combined.

3. Fill each cupcake liner about 3/4 full and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes emerges clean, about 18-20 minutes.

(They got 10 cupcakes out of the recipe.  They ate quite a bit of batter.)

They made a frosting with vegan butter, powder sugar, lemon, and soy milk, I think.  I wasn't really part of the process so I can't tell you about it.  Natalie may blog about it, too.

They are pretty yummy.  (Not healthy, but every now and then it's okay!)

One of my favorite things

We pack lunches every day -- and have since the girls were in kindergarten.  Early on, we realized that we'd go through an awful lot of plastic bags, so we started looking for re-useable options.

This silicone bag (click the link to see) is one of my favorite things! It holds our sandwiches... cut in half and kind of stacked. It's awesome 'cause when the sandwich is gone it is nearly flat and doesn't take up room in the backpack/lunch bag. It's also awesome because it's silicone! No Plastic! And it goes in the dishwasher!

Blogging slump: Chickpea chorizo

I've been trying to find things to blog about, but I just haven't been motivated lately. I still need to blog about food in France and England, but someday. Today we'll talk about chickpea chorizon by Vegan Richa, http://www.veganricha.com/?s=chickpea+chorizo. It's not quite a chorizo, but it's good. Of course, I modified things.  I give her full credit for the inspiration and I used very similar flavors to what she did in her recipe.

A while back, I made a "mexican" garbanzo bean mash; I have always wanted to create a chickpea dish with Italian Flavors.  I never would have imagined that tamari and apple cider vinegar could go into an Italian chickpea "chorizo," but it works!  It totally works!

What I did:
I put 2 cans of drained chickpeas in the food processor for a few pulses. I didn't mash by hand 'cause I'm lazy.  Be careful not to pulse too long.  Probably 10-20 pulses... I didn't count. You want them broken, but not in small pieces.

Spices:
~2 teaspoons dried oregano
~2 teaspoons onion powder
2-3 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon cumin
~2 teaspoons smoked paprika*
~1 teaspoon salt (my canned garbanzo beans are unsalted)

Directions:
I  put ~2 teaspoons olive oil in my big frying pan, turned it to medium heat, added the mashed chickpeas, stirred, added the seasoning, cooked for a couple minutes (while stirring, it will stick), and then I added ~2 teaspoons apple and about 2 teaspoons tamari sauce.  Stir and cook for another minute or two. Add in about 1 cup (I didn't measure) of pasta sauce.  (I always have some homemade pasta sauce around.) Stir and heat for another minute or two.

YUM.

 

I forgot to take a picture during dinner.  

The meal report:
Three of us loved it.  Two of us ate it with spaghetti and a little more pasta sauce. One of us had broccoli with the Italian chickpea mash.  One of the 3 of us also tried it on bread like a spread and really liked it.  At least one of the other two of us wanted to do this, but was full.

I think the other two would like it, but they weren't feeling brave.


*I love smoked paprika!  Such a wonderful flavor!

(End blogging slump? We'll see.)