Christmas Fun

 Hey, what is it?


A new food processor!!


One that I've been dreaming about for a couple years.  It's HUGE.  I can make tons of Chipotle Hummus.  I'll be able to make so many things more easily--my old food processor was small, so I couldn't make too much of anything at once; that made it hard to do vegan burgers, but it's all changing now!

So exciting!

 

Christmas eve: An ode to eggplant

In our family, we write long tributes, songs, and poems about this dish. I make it most years for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or both. This year, for Thanksgiving, I didn't make it and my husband was sad. My niece and I made it on Christmas eve. It takes a while to fry the eggplant and then let it bake, but it's worth it. Allow 4-ish hours of time--more if you're cooking on your own.

  
We made 5 medium eggplants. Peel them and slice them about 1/2 inch thick.

 
Fry them forever. The middle one is almost done.

Take the out of the pan and let them sit and drain on paper towels. You can press them if you want them less greasy. They have a lot of oil in them!

 
Layer them, sauce, eggplant, sauce, more eggplant, and top with sauce and then bake an hour. Serve with spaghetti noodles.

I always add kale to mine so it's more Christmas-y looking!
http://veryveryverygreen.blogspot.com/2014/12/christmas-dinner.html.

Don't plan to move after eating--VERY filling. 

A new cookie (gluten-free)

A while ago, I made these delicious apricot cookies.  Today, I'm making them gluten-free for my niece.  It's fun to bake on Christmas!  Merry Christmas!

End of the year reflection:  I remember a long time ago when vegan baking seemed hard.  Then I started learning about gluten-free baking and that was hard, and now, while I'm not an expert, I don't find it hard anymore.  (Learning is fun!)  (I learned I really like tapioca flour/starch!)


Here's what I did:

Wet ingredients
1/4 cup almond butter (I'm really bad at measuring almond butter... I just kind of scoop it out of the jar and eyeball it 'cause I don't like to clean it out of measuring cups)
3/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoon flax seed meal (I mix it in with the wet ingredients but don't add water to make a flax egg)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup apple sauce (I've been leaving this out lately)

Dry ingredients
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup almond flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon 
2 cups gluten free whole oats

(If you aren't doing gluten free, then replace the oat flour with whole wheat.  I still recommend a mix of flours as I think it makes a more interesting cookie!)

1.5 cups chopped apricots  (I bet these cookies would also be good with peaches or any fruit!)
Mix the almond butter, maple syrup sugar, maple syrup, flax egg, and vanilla. Mix well and then add the apricots to wet ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients (flours, baking soda, salt, oats).

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones. The batter/dough will be pretty wet. (If it looks too wet--wetter than my picture, add a little more oat flour--not more than 1/2 a cup.)


 

I made HUGE cookies.  I didn't just place scoops of the cookie dough on the sheet, but I patted the batter down so it was a little flat.  This recipe made ~16 cookies.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. (Bake for less time if you make smaller cookies.  One tray of my larger cookies took more like 21 minutes, but I think my oven had cooled and needed to preheat again.  My oven is really bad about that!)  

Note, you can also make cookie bars if you're feeling lazy.  Recommend 9X13.  Recommend checking at about 20 minutes.



 

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Yum!

Quinoa Kick

I made my Garden Chipotle Quinoa because I found a pack of my frozen fava beans that we stored (probably when that picture was taken).  The Garden Chipolte also had some of the zucchini we grew this summer 'cause I froze it, too.  (And, since we're discussing all that I have frozen from my garden, over break, I'll probably make apricot cookies with apricots that we froze, but I'm too lazy to go find a picture.)

Okay, I digress.  The Quinoa was super yummy!  Over break I'll have to make more adobo sauce.  I've run out.  I'm still digressing.  I just found this recipe: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2013/08/cumin-infused-vegetables-and-chickpeas-over-quinoa.html

I plan to make it soon; however, I'll make it as a one-pot wonder.  Here's what I plan to do.

(All of the following into a saute pan)
a bag or two of frozen cauliflower florets2 15-oz. can chick-peas, rinsed and drained
2 16-oz can diced tomatoes (fire-roasted preferred), with their juice
2 cups of zucchini (mine will be grated and frozen from my garden from earlier this year)
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves diced garlic
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
plus enough broth to cook all this for about 10-12 minutes so that all the veggies are nice and soft.


Then, I'll add a couple of cups of quinoa and 4 cups of veggie broth to this mixture (being cooked in my VERY large 14 inch saute pan) and I'll cook for another 15-20 minutes.

I'm so excited!  (I always seem to cook quinoa with Chipotle, I need a new set of flavors and these look yummy!)   I'll let you know.

Christmas idea!

 

Fun idea from A blissful nest!

I'd add sliced olives as decorations, maybe red pepper, and maybe do baby carrots as the trunk.  I serve it with a super yummy hummus dip!  Look for this at our next holiday party...

spices!

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/which-spices-fight-inflammation/

Rosemary, turmeric, clove, and ginger!  (I try to eat turmeric nearly every day, ginger too.)

I've wanted to know this for a while.  (I <3 Dr. Greger and Nutrition Facts.)  I'll be posting more about Dr. Greger's latest book, too.