Comfort Foods

Food intersects with so many parts of our lives.
We eat from the beginning...

Champagne to celebrate a new job. Which Chris and I did when he got the job he has now.
Pancakes to snuggle in bed with a loved one. I made my mother breakfast in bed on Mother's day for 6 years running I think. (hopefully she liked toast)
The hot cocoa my dad managed to microwave for me when we had snow days.
Camping marshmallows toasted until crunchy.
Thanksgiving traditions, those "Famous" family recipes you make over and over again.
Maybe even the beer you cheered to the friend that moved on ahead of the rest of us.

Baked Goodies

I don't often bake things.
I like eating baked things!
Baking is hard because you can't really improvise, you kind of have to measure and I don't like following other people's recipes.

Sometimes the desire for a vegan baked good surpasses the annoyance of measuring cups and I go for it.

I've been making treats off of the Happy Healthy Life blog.

First I made this AMAZING blueberry cake. It doesn't look very blueberry-ish from this picture but the inside of the cake was full of them! I didn't make the frosting and I served it for dessert/breakfast. It's a lot like a coffee cake once it's baked. I stuck to her recipe, plus a few sprinkles of oatmeal and almonds on top (since I was skipping the frosting.) I think next time I'm going to cut down the sugar just a bit and maybe add more oats.

Then I made these delicious orange cinnamon rolls. I followed the recipe again! I didn't stick to the recipe when it came to the topping, I left out the nuts. I also made the frosting but didn't really love it, so I ate them without. These were so decadent, though they should have been with the crazy amounts of margarine I used. I'm not used to cooking with so much "fats" that aren't nuts or avocado.

My husband took both of these to work and they got good reviews from the non-vegans! Not like you were worried about that, right? :)

Happy Eating!

I'm eating more Fruit!

Want to know what I've really been eating?
It's not gourmet, or fancy, or hard to make...

It's fruit.
I'm obsessed lately.

I went through this phase in life where I didn't really eat fruit, how sad. I thought it was full of sugar and not great to eat a lot of it. I limited my fruits to small amounts.

That phase has passed! Hallelujah.

Fruit is amazing! It has so many vitamins, plenty of fiber, and it's easily digested by your body. Not to mention it's delicious! The "sugars" in fruit are good for your body and they have really helped to give me some energy. You already know I've been lacking energy for blogging.

my favorite fruits after the jump... 

Foodie Pen Pals May Reveal Day!

I decided to take part in a super fun group called the Foodie Pen Pals! 

It's this group of online blogger folk that send each other REAL mail once a month full of delicious food goodies. You could even participate next month if you'd like. 

Anna who blogs over here at Anna's Adventure's in Health was mailing my this month's goodies. Anna is amazing! She is a triathlete who is on her way to being a registered dietitian (jealous!) but she is also super fun and experimental with food and seeing what works for her body to create maximum performance. I seriously love when people listen to their bodies and create food plans that work for them!

I was super excited to get this guy in the mail! Especially since this was my first month participating in the program.

Inside was the BEST swag :) She sent me this amazing chocolate granola that sadly, is already almost gone. Fresh coffee from Staunton Virginia which, ironically, is where my sister went to college so I've been there a few times. Plus a chocolate bar with espresso beans, I bet that wakes you up during a triathlon!

She also included the sweetest vegan recipe cards! How adorable. I didn't have cute recipes since I never even measure...
I set about to making one of them right away!

The chocolate granola apple slices were perfect for a late afternoon pick-me-up! Plus, I didn't really have to measure :) You can see, I sampled a few between photos. It's so hard not eating treats so you can take pictures of them!

I mailed out a package of my own to the very nice (and newly vegan) April who blogs over at Beyond the Small Gate. If you want to check out what I mailed her. 

Now, don’t you wanna join in the fun?! Here are the Foodie Penpals details:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. 
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. 

Happy Eating!

Lacking Inspiration

I have been on an inspiration downward spiral!

Not only have I not been blogging but I honestly haven't really been cooking.

It's been quick easy foods around my house.

What do you do when you're lacking inspiration for things in your life?

I tried a few things:
   I read my new cookbook "Let them eat Vegan" by Dreena Burton although it didn't have very many pictures.
   I browsed pinterest.
   I went to World Market and looked at their plates, dishes, and table decor. I didn't really buy anything. Only a few spices.
   I made pancakes for my husband and I on Sunday morning. Pancakes are easy.
   I volunteered to bring dessert to a friend this week, nothing like commitment to bring about inspiration!

What other tips can you give me?

Hoping to be Inspired Soon!

Pineapple Corn Muffins

I bought a new cookbook!
I love cookbooks.
What are your favorite cookbooks? I love recommendations.

My newest one is called Blissful Bites by the blissful chef.
It's really nice. It's organized by season which is helpful if you're trying to eat local and fresh foods. It's mostly gluten-free from what I can tell. It's all vegan. Some of it's raw. In the end... I like it!

I made some chili today and I always like cornbread with chili. I used to use that jiffy box of cornbread mix and a can of creamed corn. It makes a mushy cornbread loaf that I used to enjoy. I was looking for a replacement though.

There was a recipe for Pineapple Cornmeal Muffins.
Chili can be spicy, Pineapple is sweet. What a perfect combination I thought! I hate it when I get excited about dinner but it's still hours away! lol.

Eggplant Parmesan (without Parmesan)

Eggplant parmesan is normally eggplant cooked until it's basically nothing, coated in egg, then covered in breadcrumbs, and then sometimes, it's actually fried at that point. THEN it's covered in cheese, baked and served over noodles with tomato sauce.
What's scary to me is that most people would consider eggplant parm a healthy choice at an italian restaurant. The word healthy is tricky because it doesn't really mean anything. I'm suggesting traditional eggplant parm isn't healthy due to it's high amount of carbohydrates, refined fats, and animal products.
If your diet/bodily needs include those things- then go for it. I made my eggplant parm without animal products, without refined fats, and using minimal amounts of sprouted wheat. I also snuck an extra vegetable in there!

Check that beauty out! I ate the whole thing for dinner and I was so satisfied.

Keep reading for the recipe...

Spruce up that Basic Salad

When I go out to eat and I order the side salad I'm normally presented with one of two things.
1. A small plate of iceberg lettuce with tomato, red cabbage shreds, and carrot shreds.
2. A spring mix base with onion, tomato, and carrot.
It's no wonder that people don't think of salads as delicious crunchy addicting bowls of beauty!

I love salads. We get along. We normally hang out 4-5 times a week. It's getting pretty serious between us. I'm willing to share though. I think salads could be a good relationship for more people if they were properly understood.

Here are some of my favorite ideas to spruce up your salads!

Add Fresh Herbs
Look at that beauty! Spring greens topped with cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts, fresh herbs & sesame seeds. Don't leave fresh herbs out of your lettuce base. Fresh cilantro, basil, and parsley make great additions to lettuce leaves. They add flavor, freshness, and nutrition. 

more tips after the jump...

Black Bean and Mango Quinoa Salad

Quinoa Salad sounds fancy doesn't it.
It sounds like a recipe.
Like a recipe in a cookbook.

If you make it you'll feel like you made a real dish, not just a bowl of things from the fridge that were about to go bad.

Let's not tell everyone that it's mostly a bowl of items from the fridge.
Let's keep them thinking we're real chefs!

My Delicious Quinoa Salad Recipe: (wink wink)

Fat Free Roux and Étoumbo Recipe

I was reading vegan food blogs, because that's what I do all the time. My favorite thing to read about is how much other people love food.

The Fat Free Vegan posted this post featuring a fat free roux.
A roux, traditionally, is a cooking base of flour and fat, normally butter. It's the base to most soups, cheese sauces, or gumbos.

I learned a lot about traditional roux from my all time favorite Food Network personality Alton Brown. This is the episode where he explains a lot about roux.



Now that you're caught up about roux and we're on the same page; imagine making it FAT FREE.
Keep Going...