Holiday Creating

After my long Holiday hiatus, I am back to posting. The busyness of this time of year has kept me away from the computer, and instead, I've been stuck to my sewing machine, riding for hours in a car, and celebrating Christmas with the family.

Sadly, baking and cooking were bottom barrel and this post depicts the one batch of cookies I took the time to create. No recipe this time, as I am still working out the kinks. I was attempting a sort of raw sugar cookie, but it turned out to be a bit harder than desired and needed a bit more of something. But all in all, I was pretty happy with the experiment.

Here is a little picture show depicting the process. Enjoy!

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas! The New Year is just around the corner and we are planning to lay low and just relax as Matt and I have 3 days off together. Perhaps we will cook up a New Years Day feast and invite friends over. What are your plans?

Acorn Squash and Sweet Corn Soup

Today is a short and sweet post. One about a soup I made last week. It didn't take long, and it was oh so delicious. If you try it, I hope you agree. It is a snap to make, especially if you have baked your squash ahead of time (instructions for squash baking and pureeing at the end of the post).

Hope you are all having a wonderful December day!

Acorn Squash and Sweet Corn Soup

serves 2-3

1 acorn squash baked until soft, and pureed

non-dairy milk of choice ( I used unsweetened almond)

1 cup frozen sweet corn

salt and pepper to taste

ground cayenne pepper

Mix together acorn squash puree and enough of the milk

to make it soup like. Heat on medium high and once the soup

is starting to get hot, add in the sweet corn. Season with salt and

pepper. Let the soup simmer or heat 10 minutes and enjoy with some

cayenne pepper sprinkled in.

I also added some Daiya vegan cheddar to my bowl before

ladeling in the soup. It was delicious.

This is how I bake acorn squash, or any squash. Wash the squash thoroughly, slice in half long ways, and scrape out the seeds (or scrape them out after it is baked). Pour some water into a baking dish and place the squash skin side up into the water. The water should be about 1/2 inch deep, or a bit more, as it sometimes will dry out while it is baking. Bake for about 45 minutes in a oven preheated to 375 degrees F. When you can easily pierce the squash with a fork, and the flesh is soft, it is ready. To puree, scrape the flesh out of the squash skin and blend with a bit of water until smooth. You can also refrigerate the cooked squash and then puree it right before you need to use it.

Sick Days

These past few days have been sick days. The kind were Matt and I lay on the couch or in bed for hours watching movies and internet TV. Not a bad thing, but considering the amount of kleenex and toilet paper (due to lack of kleenex), not very good for the trees.

Saturday we had a dinner planned that we sadly had to cancel. We were having brunch for dinner, and it was going to be epic. I had made a double batch of cinnamon roll dough (enough for 32 rolls), and 4 batches of vegan frittata. Luckily, I had not cut up all the sweet potatoes yet!

So in between simultaneous nose blowing and ginger tea drinking, and countless hours of televised entertainment, this is what I made and ate.

Lunch was a light nosh of cucumbers and some hummus I whipped up. This was delicious, especially if you like garlic. I didn't have tahini on hand, so for those of you with sesame allergies, this recipe is for you.

Delicious Tahini Free Hummus

1 can chickpeas

generous drizzle of olive oil

few squeezes of Sriracha hot sauce

1-1 1/2 teas garlic powder

salt to taste

olive oil and smoked paprika to garnish

Put all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.

garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and some smoked paprika.

Then that afternoon, regardless of my congestion, I made all of the cinnamon rolls. Sadly, I did not have much cinnamon, so some of them were cardamom rolls. I used the cardamom for this loaf of Cardamom Chocolate Swirl Bread.

Simply roll out some of your favorite cinnamon roll dough, spread on some earth balance buttery spread, sprinkle evaporated cane juice generously over top, dust with cardamom and some chocolate chips. Roll it up and fit it into a bread dish. and bake until thoroughly cooked through at 350 degrees F.

Here is how messy I get when baking. Note that the kleenex box isn't usually involved.

Here is the unbaked loaf.

Here is all the cinnamon roll delights that I put in the oven.

And here is the final products.

The lighter ones are the cardamom rolls.

Some shots of the bread.

Let me tell you, the combination of chocolate and cardamom is amazing.

Today, there was no exciting cinnamon roll baking, but there was carrot, apple, ginger juice drinking,

and miso soup making.

Along with many more hours of laying in bed watching hulu.

Hope your weekend was a bit less tree destroying than ours.

Happy Monday Morning!

Week of Simplicity

It has been a simple week, full of normal daily activities, and simple food.

Lots of soup that is.

Monday when I got home from work I couldn't stop dreaming about Mama Peas Creamy Broccoli soup from this post. So I through the ingredients on the stove and it wasn't long until I was enjoying the whole potful.

That night for dinner I made another soup, Moroccan Bean. Equally delicious, and was eaten up too quickly to document.

Fast track to Wednesday and I was feeling a bit under the weather with a scratchy throat. Simplicity is definitely in order, so after my work Christmas party, I came home made a big cup of miso broth and laid in bed to read.

Since dinner was pretty much shot with my choice to lay in bed over cook, I had a simple meal of some of the last of my fall bounty. A little Earth Balance, salt, and pepper, made simplicity mighty good.

First Batch

This week has been full. Full of work and friends. Not a bad counteracting combination. One of my out of town friends came to visit me on Thursday and we made my first batch of sugar cookies. Typically, cut out cookies are only made at christmas time in my house. Chocolate chip cookies are a bit more instantly gratifying.

I think I did something wrong with this batch as the cookies were a bit chewy. Perhaps it was the extra flour I through in to make it more dough-like. Perhaps I wouldn't have had that problem if we didn't have the creamed butter and sugar sit out for an hour waiting for more vanilla extract. Regardless, they were sugary and delicious.

And pretty too!

Gotta love an Indiana cookie cutter.