January Vegan Food Swap

Well due to a few technical difficulties (mostly operator error) I am a day late in posting what I received as part of the Vegan Food Swap.

First things first though.  The swap is coordinated by Cat over at The Verdant Life.  You are asked to spend up to $20 on your recipient and include a hand written note (a lost art for sure).

This month I was paired up with Shannon of Gingery Snips and Snaps.

I opened my box and was stunned.  Look at all the goodies:

Journey Bars

vegan candy bars

Vega and chocolate chip cookies

Primal strips

Vega is my go to protein powder, so I am always glad to get some of that.  As for the rest of the items I have never tried them before.

I was very excited to get the Primal strips.  I look at them every time I am in Whole Foods, but just haven't brought myself to try them.  Shannon gifted me with teriyaki and hot & spicy.

The chocolate chip cookies were made from Mama Pea's recipe in Peas and Thank You.

I have never heard of Journey bars but I am excited to try them...just not sure if I should go with barbeque or   pizza.  What are your thoughts on it?

The 3 that I will save till the end are the candy bars (Jokerz, Mahalo, and Angell).  When I feel like I need a treat I will break into one of these.

Shannon thank you so very much for an awesome box, it was jam packed with things I have really been wanting to try.

So after seeing this awesome box do you want to be part of the action?

There is still time to sign up for February's swap (deadline is Tuesday the 5th).

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Vegan Apple Pie

Yesterday on my What I Ate Wednesday post I featured a picture of the apple pie I made with my 9 year old:

(this pie)

I made a homemade crust, and for the first time succeed (previous crusts have all sucked and failed).

I used Mama Pea's recipe from her book.  I chose it because it doesn't call for shortening in the dough.

I just find shortening completely disgusting.

For the filling I used apples which I got for free...WOOHOO!

My mother-in-law has apple trees and for 12 years I never knew they were there...you would be correct in guessing that I will be raiding those trees every year from here on out.

Apple Pie Filling:

1/2 C Earth Balance

3 Tbsp All Purpose flour

1/4 C water

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C packed brown sugar

8 apples sliced (I like to leave the peel on but feel free to remove it).

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

In a pot melt the Earth Balance and then stir in your flour to for a paste/roux.

Once the mixture has thickened (to a frosting like consistency) add in your sugars and water.

Stir together and bring to a boil.  Once boiling reduce to a simmer.

Place your apple slices in the pie crust and pour the syrup mixture on top.

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes then turn down to 350 degrees and resume baking for 30 to 45 minutes.

Please allow to cool before cutting  and trust me the syrup is hot and should not be touched NO MATTER HOW GOOD IT LOOKS (might be from personal experience here).

I did want to add on a side note.

Once we got rolling on this process I realized we have no brown sugar.

Holy Crap!  Who runs out of brown sugar?

Well a quick search of the internet and I found this great short cut:

1 C sugar

2 Tbsp molasses

Put in a food processor, allow to mix until combined, and you then have brown sugar.

This was cool, a lot like when I found out you could make your own powdered sugar (thanks to Anna of Crunchy, Creamy, Sweet).

Have you ever started a recipe and realized you were out of an ingredient?

What did you do (run to the store or find a homemade solution)?

If there are other homemade solutions I would love to hear them.

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WIAW Vegan Treats

I have been vegetarian for a year.

And last week I decided I was ready to make the leap to vegan.

I decided that cheese was no longer going to hold me back from obtaining my goal.

I have inadvertently, although it coincides nicely with Jenn's theme, decided to fall into some healthier habits.

So let's dig into the eats this week.

For breakfast I have really been stuck on drinking this cinnamon bun smoothie:

And of course there is plenty of water...must stay hydrated.

This weekend I had the same lunch on Sunday as I did dinner on Monday...socca pizza.

The socca recipe is care of Laura from Sprint 2 The Table.

Oh my goodness this is fabulous, and I may never go back to traditional pizza again.

To make the recipe a little more frugal/cost effective I ground my own flour (a stride I am taking to fall in healthier habits).  If you haven't tried this I promise it is easy peasy, I posted about it here.

To top pizza I used Dianne's, from Veggie Girl, cashew cheese.  I was a little timid to try this but once I tasted it...I was in, this stuff is the bomb.  I think my next batch will include a little sriracha (I like to kick things up a notch).

I finished topping the pizza with Trader Joe's Red Pepper Spread with Eggplant and Garlic:

This combined with the cheese as well as spinach and tomatoes from my garden made for a meal that was out of this world...and one that apparently I needed to eat twice in two days.

Now I can't forget about dessert, because it was equally as delicious as the rest.

The impetus for making dessert was my 9 year old...he really loves pie.

So I used Mama Pea's vegan whole wheat crust, which I found in her fantastic book :)

And made this vegan apple pie (recipe will be posted tomorrow):

So these are my eats and I have to say the first week of being vegan was very tasty.  I look forward to growing my knowledge and branching out to more deliciousness.

On aside, as I am a proud little mama, my baby girl Caroline started ballet.  I was filled with joy last night as we attended her first lesson.

All of my fond memories of taking dance flooded back as I got her dressed.  I hope she enjoys it as much as I did :)

Happy Wednesday to you all and be sure to head over to our lovely hostess Jenn's place and check out what other bloggers had to eat.  I guarantee it will be some good stuff.

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I've Been Fermenting

Well I took the plunge with sprouting and made raw hummus

I've taken the next step and now I am fermenting my food.

I made a sourdough starter.

It doesn't look like much:

But it is the coolest thing I've done this week.

Following the directions over at Peas and Thank You I was able to flawlessly accomplish a weeks worth of stirring and feeding my sourdough baby and at the end of the 6 day fermenting period I was able to produce this:

Which turned into this little bundle of joy:



I do have to put out there that I am not a fan of sourdough bread at all. 

In fact I avoid it.

You may ask then why did I make the starter?

Well I just wanted to see if I could do it.

And I am glad that I did as the flavor of this bread only has a mild sour flavor. 

By using the whole wheat flavor the bread has a more nutty flavor.

Completely delicious with a little slathering of Earth Balance, or you do what I did and make it into vegan French toast (however mine was greedily consumed by my 4 year old...oh well we mom's just have to share).

I can't wait to try more things with my starter.  I am thinking muffins or pancakes are next. 

What do you think?  What would you use sourdough for?

I hope you all are having a wonderful Tuesday.  Be sure to enter to win a case of Chobani Champions (here) that giveaway is going on till tomorrow (Wednesday the 4th).

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Million Dollar Shortbread with Toffee and a Winner

First things first.  The winner of my Mama Pea book Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love chosen by http://www.random.org/ is comment # 14 by Sharon from Bit of the Good Stuff.

If you haven't been to Sharon's blog do pop over as she has some fantastic recipes as well as some beautiful shots of her hometown Bath, England.

Now on to my recipe, Million Dollar Shortbread with Toffee.

This recipe is from the mother of a friend of mine.  The mother is originally from England and this recipe is OUT.OF.THIS.WORLD!

For the Shortbread

4 oz butter
2 oz sugar
4 oz flour

Mix all of these together and press into the bottom of an 8x8 dish.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Toffee

4 oz butter, melted
2 T. corn syrup (I used dark)
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Stir the butter, syrup, and milk in a saucepan. 

Bring to a boil while stirring constantly (if the mixture starts to boil please turn down the heat).

Once the toffee comes to a boil turn the heat down to medium and cook for 7 minutes (while still stirring constantly).

Pour over the shortbread and allow to cool.

When you are done sometimes your spoon will have a little leftover

Feel free to lick it off AFTER the toffee has cooled (other wise you will be in the hospital with 3rd degree burns on your tongue).

Top the cooled toffee with melted chocolate (I used 1 1/4 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips).

I allowed this to cool overnight on my counter and this is the lovely treat I had waiting for me this morning:

The toffee is still soft and chewy, a delicious treat for breakfast for the afternoon with some tea or coffee.

Join the Virtual Cookie Recipe Exchange with Flour On My Face  Prizes donated by King Arthur Flour, St Martins Press / Robin L. Olson and Garnish."

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WIAW The Tardy Edition

"It's just one of those days, that a girl goes through."

No nothing bad is happening, but it is just one of those days where my post should have been What I Ate Wednesday (from Tuesday's food).

Let's just say good intentions and a hungry stomach collided and didn't provide me with photographs for you.

So instead of writing about the lame food I didn't photograph I want to give you "What I (wish I) Ate Wednesday" via the delicious foods I have seen posted this week on other blogs.

Breakfast I would love to have eaten some Pumpkin Oat Bran courtesy of Lisa at Healthful Sense.

picture from Lisa's WIAW post here

For lunch I would have enjoyed spaghetti squash and "meat" balls from Laura at Sprint 2 The Table

picture from Laura's post here



To finish off the day veggie paelle from Sharon at Bit of the Good Stuff

picture from Sharon's recipe posted here

No day is complete without a little bit of dessert and for me I would go with chocolate, because it is so very tasty.  Here is a terrific chocolate banana freezer pie from Dani at The Healthy Hippie.

picture from Dani's post here

I hope you enjoyed my day dream and that you go and visit these lovely ladies because they have some fabulous stuff on their blogs, it is joy for me to read their posts daily.

Jenn thank you so much for hosting this party, 45 weeks strong.  Everyone please head over to Jenn's blog Peas and Crayons and see what other lovely bloggers have been eating!!!

Also be sure to enter my giveaway here for Mama Pea's book Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love.

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Thanksgiving Antics

So most bloggers have put up their Thanksgiving recaps and I have not.

Well today I am going to stop procrastinating be fashionably late and show you what fun was had by my family on Thanksgiving.

We celebrate every year in Cashiers, NC where my mother-in-law lives.

Cashiers is in the western part of North Carolina and is very beautiful if you like mountains (read: curvy roads that make you sick).

I will just show you a couple of highlights of our meal (both organic turkey and tofurky were served).

The table was set

Owen and his Uncle Kent

My mother-in-law Anita

My husband Kyle getting things ready

Uncle Kent and Aunt Ashley waiting to eat

The fun didn't stop with our meal.  I hear my husband yell "Hey come here" (he is outside).

I come outside and find this:

Apparently Owen has no fear of heights and just got up there with the men to clean out the gutters.

The trip would not have been complete without getting our traditional Christmas tree (which has to go up after Thanksgiving). 

We hit up the Fowler Tree farm and had a great time enjoying the VERY warm weather.

Not a functioning outhouse...just for looks

"Timmmmmmbbbbbeeerrrrrrrr."

Of course we had some treats

Owen having maybe one too many cookies

Andrew with his "Nana."

We had a wonderful holiday and I hope that all of you did too.  

Do you have any traditions that you do at/after Thanksgiving?

Don't forget about entering my giveaway here for Mama Pea's book.  It is open until tomorrow (Wednesday November 30th).

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Pealightful 100th Post and GIVEAWAY

I have mentioned before that I fell heir to my grandmother's recipes and cookbooks upon her passing.

It has taken a while to go through all of them and see what treasures I have.

One that I perused this weekend was called Look Who's Cooking !

Produced in 1954 by the Junior Women's Club of Norfolk, VA (it only cost $1.50).

The book is made of chipboard and the title was painted on (you won't find that in Barnes and Noble).

The pages of the book were lovingly typed on both sides:

I selected Date and Nut bread to make (recipe provided by Dot Carswell), I veganized it:

1 C dates chopped fine
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C Earth Balance, melted in
3/4 C boiling water
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flax and 3 Tbsp water...this is my substitution)
1 tsp baking soda
1 3/4 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C chopped nuts (I used almonds)

Mix dates, sugar, Earth Balance, and water then allow to cool.

Add remaining ingredients and bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees.

You come out with a delicious, not too sweet, moist morning treat to be enjoyed with a cup of coffee or tea.

Or maybe you enjoy it while perusing your copy of this:

Oh sorry my bread got in the way :)

Yes today in celebration of my 100th post, no please don't stand and applaud, I am giving away a brand new copy (purchased by me) of Mama Pea's Peas and Thank You: Simple Meatless Meals the Whole Family Will Love.

I am so excited to have made it to this first blogger milestone and I really have to thank Mama Pea because she is one of my strongest inspirations for actually writing a blog.

She is so witty, slightly inappropriate clever, and of course full of fantastic recipes.

Did you know her book made it to the New York Times Best Seller List?  Yep sure did.

So I want to share the Pea love with one of you (and there may be some dough balls included with the book).

Each of the following items will score you an entry:

1) Comment on this post (anything will do I love to hear from y'all)
2) Follow my blog and comment to me that you did (or if you are already following let me know that)
3) Put me on your blog roll and then comment that you did (or if you already have let me know)

The giveaway will be open till 11:59 EST Wednesday November 30th.

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