March Projects

This month I have been feeling really cool with my little projects.

I made cupcake toppers for the first time. Okay, now I know what all the rage is about. 

They turn a party into a fiesta! haha. I also broke out my sewing machine. Our home is so tiny my sewing machine doesn't have a place to hang outside of it's box. But I have plans to turn a corner of our room into a craft area for me. So excited about that! (We kicked Athena out of our room. She is now sleeping with the big girls! And we feel like adults again now that we don't have to tip toes around snoring infants.)

A friend of mine is always posting super cute dresses she makes for her daughter. I decided enough was enough! I cut out a couple rectangles and sewed up this dress for Thérèse. Okay, so it wasn't that easy. It did only take me one afternoon, but since I didn't have a pattern and not much clue as to what I was doing, (I have never gathered before), I'm going to have to devote some more time to fixing it. And such is life. We got some fabric so I can make Monique a dress as well, but I have already come into problems with it since I want to add a sash. Clearly I have no idea how to do that.

Here is Thérèse's dress made from scraps of fabric and ribbon from around our home.
The same friend gave me her fabric scraps! 

 

Had a mini desert inauguration party on inauguration day. 

You can find these awesome cupcake toppers and bunting here. 

Served Babycakes NYC blondies the girls and I made. They were soooooooo

so so so so good. My husband requested we keep them around the house all the time. We've made these multiple times before but, I guess we just forgot how mind blowing delicious gluten-free, dairy-free goodies can be. I have the cookbook, but you can find the recipe online here, along with Zooey Deschanels personal testimony of her deep love for them. 

I was pretty excited to learn that a couple recipes I posted on The Kind Life were given four and five stars! Now that's just amazing. Thank you to those kind people who tasted and rated these dishes! You can find the recipe gallery here.

Big fat fail. I didn't take any pictures of my last freezer crock pot meal making. Here is an itty-bitty picture of the ratatouille from fitness magazine. 

I only had to make three dishes since I still had a couple meals left over in the freezer. That's the great thing about freezer meals. I don't have to worry about food going bad in the fridge if we have an unexpected meal out. Everything is frozen, ready whenever I need it. 

I made chickpea ratatouille, Coconut curried tofu spinach and Thai Sloppy Joe's. I was a little disappointed that the sloppy joe's were only four small portions. We like leftovers. But if we end up not liking it, I guess it will work out. I was a little apprehensive about this dish. But last week I made her Cannelloni and Daniel and I decided it was one of our new favorite meals. We were pretty upset it only made six cannelloni (how did I not realize that while I was preparing it?) In our house, that is enough for one and a half people, not four like the recipe suggests. That day my husband had ridden his bike to and from work, a mere 54 miles, so the guy could have easily ate them all by herself. I left off the top cheeses and I made my own tofu ricotta cheese. Next time I make the ricotta, I will leave some miso out since I think the flavor was too sharp for the girls.

The last project March will see is the girls' early morning Easter celebration.
Excited about the sweets and treats! 

Valentine's Day Dairy-free, Sugar-free Tea Party

    We had our first Valentine's Day Tea Party today. I broke out my 100+ year old china  from Germany, a wedding gift from my adopted Grandmother. The girls enjoyed drinking tea for the first time out of their little plastic tea cups and tea pot. I wanted the food to be as traditional English tea as possible, but kept it all vegan and sugar free! Love that. Still, I forgot how rich tea food is! Glad we had early tea so they could get all that sugar high out by nap time.

Note the clean shinny beautiful faces. Soon to be covered with chocolate.

I get a big girl plate. These shortbread cookies were to die for!

The Menu:

*  Raspberry Scones from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Gluten-Free Lemon Poppy Seed Teacake from Babycakes NYC Cookbook (Agave Sweetened)

*  Chocolate Dipped Shortbread Cookies from The Kind Diet (Sweetened with Maple Syrup)

*  Cucumber Finger Sandwiches with Chive Butter

*  Olive Cream Cheese Spread Watercress Finger Sandwiches

*  Farmers Market Sliced Strawberries

*  Chamomile Tea for the girls

*  Tazo Calm Tea for me

Substitutes: For the cream cheese replacement I used "This is not a tub of cream cheese" from Trader Joe's. Veganise to replace the Mayo and Earth Balance Butter to replace the butter. 

Favorites: I was in love with the cream cheese and watercress sandwich. I just followed the recipe (posted above) and topped with a bunch of watercress. SO GOOD. I think I will make this for myself on a regular basis. The shortbread cookies stole our hearts. I've tired to make these a couple other times and they didn't come out quite right. Today I actually followed the recipe very carefully. I took one bite and was transported. We all fell in love. Now I get what the whole short bread infatuation is about. So delicious. 

Special girl time with my crazy girls. They were excited about life. Monique always has some whack move going on. 

Thérèse was a little liberal in her tea pouring. Monique taking a sip. So cute!

Tea was followed with a dance party. Monique got in this position and danced around the whole room like this. It's what she does. 

Dinner! This was one of the best pizzas I've made. The dough was perfect and the sauce sweet. I've been working to perfect the potato pizza for a while now. Potatoes are a great alternative to cheese and vegan cheese. I paper thinly slice them and let them hang out in olive oil for a while. Once I get this recipe just the way I like it, I will share it. For now, it is still in the works. 

We served this with steamed very dark leafy green veggies called broccoli greens? Never heard of it. Got it at the farmers market and the girls like it! Love it when dinner is easy!

Tea party was fun. We will be having another one Easter Morning! Can't wait! For now, I'm keeping out one of my pretty cups for my quiet time Mama moments. 

Hope you all had a lovely St. Valentine's Day! 

Sweet Potato & Pecan Cinnamon Buns with Maple Glaze

Hey good people of the Blogging world!

I really should be doing homework right now,

but I absolutely had to share this recipe with you all.

It's Autumn! Time to get our fall foods on!

Which include sweet potatoes and cinnamon rolls,

put them together, and you get perfection.

My mother-in-law made these a couple days ago.

I finally made it to their house today to devour not one,

oh no, but two.

They made me do a little dance and be excited about life.

Oh! Don't they look good!

She made them with whole wheat flour and they still rocked. 

They also call for vegan cream cheese, 

which turns the frosting into paradise. 

There are lots of brands out there

and major grocery stores are starting to carry them.

Very cool.

You can find the recipe here.

Alright! Back to homework!

Love you all,

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie

This week I went back to school!

I'm excited to start, but horrified at my syllabi.

 I'm a literature major, so yes, heavy reading.

So now I have one more reason to be busier.

But so far being busy hasn't stopped us 

from hitting up my husband's family parties.

His father comes from a family of ten kids,

and since most of those kids, had kids, and they had kids

and most of them still live in the same area,

there is usually some sort of fiesta every weekend.

I'm beginning to slowly get more and more comfortable

making vegan food for others.

So far everyone is really enjoying it.

This might partly be, because so far, everything I've made vegan

falls into the dessert category and is laced with sugar.

Daniel's cousin told me that he'd gladly come vegan dessert time.

Now that Daniel's family is getting into severe healthy eating

(they are eating less meat and dairy, 

and have to eat a pound of raw veggies, 

and a pound of cooked veggies everyday!)

to lose weight, I'll probably be taking more main courses.

Last night there was a going away party for an aunt,

and there were three veggie dishes!

I couldn't believe it.

Usually I'm only able to eat rice and beans at their parties.

I can hardly contain my excitement for their new diet.

We took chocolate chip cookies.

I made these because they don't require a lot of special ingredients.

They call for vegan butter, which I happen to believe 

should already be in everyone's fridge,

and a milk replacer, which everyone 

should also have for cereal and baking. 

Instead of egg replacers these call for bananas,

which cause these cookies to taste bananay.

I have to say, for traditional chocolate chip cookies,

these wouldn't cut it.

But these are still really good.

My absolute favorite thing about these 

had to be the dough.

 It was perfect.

Vegan cookies can be dry or crumbly.

Not these.

Please make these this weekend and see for yourselves.

Yummy!

Next time I make these I'll probably double the chocolate chips.

I like my chocolate chip cookie covered in chocolate chips,

not three per cookie.

My toddler mixed the sugar and butter for me.

Wow, she did a fantastic job!

Got it all creamy.

Electric mixer, what? 

Get a toddler.

The recipe calls for white and wheat flour,

but I just stuck with white since it was for a get-together. 

I highly recommend pressing the cookies down before baking.

And ours took longer than ten minutes.

We just kept our eye on them till they got golden.

I went to the party with two dozen cookies and came back with none.

One cousin went so far as to seal some in a zip lock bag 

for himself before everyone else got to them.

Looking forward to my next batch so I can enjoy them. 

I Dream of Rice Dream

Just wanted to give a shout out to my dinner.

For the past couple days 

I've really been fighting 

the urge to cheat, especially today

(Aunt Flow came to town).

So instead, I treated myself 

to some of my favorite vegan food.

After scrubbing the shower walls 

and running errands,

 I was too beat to make dinner.

So I stopped by Chipotle.

Big fat burritos are one of my 

favorite meals of all time.

So satisfying.

I love their veggie burrito.

All the toppings are delicious!

I've been incredibly tempted 

to make a nacho run today.

At Chipotle they make the best chips.

Crispy and sprinkled 

with about three layers of salt.

Perfect!

Thank you Chipotle,

that was just what I needed.

I haven't had dessert in such a long time.

I'm trying to get on the Macrobiotics Diet.

They don't eat much flour and sugar, those macros. 

I made couscous cake this week for "dessert" and to snack on.

Yes you read that right, couscous cake. 

It's good...yeah....

Covered with dried fruit and apple juice.

Those macros, man.

It really is delicious, my daughters love it,

but it's not something I could feast on. 

Sometimes it's hard for me to consider 

anything that is not covered in chocolate, good.

So tonight I treated myself to a Rice Dream.

You all have homework:

go to your local health food store 

and pick up a Rice Dream Ice Cream Bar.

You'll be able to give up ice cream after you have one of these.

I had the Vanilla Nutty Bar, 

which is dipped in chocolate and covered in nuts.

But I also love their Moca Pie, 

which is a cookie ice cream sandwich dipped in chocolate.

I especially love these because they use barley malt instead of sugar,

so they don't spike up my sugar levels. 

Tonight I'm watching 27 Dresses for the zillionth time.

I love this movie because Kevin reminds me so much of Daniel,

always goofing around and not taking much of anything seriously.

And he's always aggravating Katherine Heigl's character.

Daniel walks a fine line between making me down right crazy and making me laugh.

Plus, I love this actor. 

I mean, how great are his lips? 

Remember when he was in X-Men 

and he wore those glasses so we never saw his eyes?

We could only see his lips, which really, are all we needed to see.

I sound like someone who needs to get out more. 

Have a great weekend everyone! 

Oatmeal, Walnut and Dried Plum Cookies

For some unknown reason,

oatmeal cookies were one of the first cookies
 I used to bake all the time when I was little.

Maybe I baked them because I thought
they must be healthy since they have oatmeal.

Or maybe I baked them because no one in my house liked them
so I could devour the whole dozen myself.

Or maybe there is just a special place in my heart for them.

I've worked with lots of different oatmeal cookie recipies over the years 

and this by far is my favorite one.

Alicia Silverstone has a HUGE sweet tooth,

so I usually find that using less of the sugar she calls for works splendidly.

For this recipe, I used the maple syrup and molasses
and excluded the maple sugar completely.

I also used whole wheat pastery flour instead of white,

and almonds instead of walnuts (because I'm out!),

and I had to use some canola oil because I only had half of the amount of safflower oil.

Feel free to substitute as you like with this recipe. 

I don't think you can do this gooey, soft, delicious cookie wrong.

Speaking of getting this cookie wrong (*cough)
you'd think by now I'd be able to make oatmeal cookies perfectly.
Note: Not all the cookies fit on one cookie sheet.
If you think they do, you will end up with one giant cookie.
Thankfully, it didn't sacrifice the taste one bit.

Oatmeal, Walnut and 

Dried Plum Cookies

Servings: Makes 10 to 12 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup maple sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup safflower oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. molasses
• 1/4 cup chopped dried plums or other dried fruit
• 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the syrup, oil, vanilla extract, and molasses. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Fold in the dried plums and nuts.

Using your hands, roll tablespoon-size scoops of dough into balls. Place the balls onto the prepared baking sheet and press down slightly on the balls to flatten the tops. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer cookies to a baking rack to cool completely.

For variety, replace the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour, barley flour, spelt flour, or a gluten-free baking mix (choose one that does not include baking soda and baking powder). You can also substitute chocolate chips for the dried fruit and any kind of nuts for the walnuts.

The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. Published by Rodale Books. © 2009

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies and My New Favorite Summer Meal

Today I sat on the couch and ate three of these Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.

This is a rare occurrence for me, which is why I enjoyed it so much.

These cookies are good.

They are from the Babycakes cookbook so they are gluten and dairy free.

Click here to read about my past post on gluten free baking and why we love it.

Gluten free baking includes some strange ingredients. 

Here are the ones for this recipe:

Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour:

I love this stuff, it's a great blend of different types of G.F. flours. 

Bob's Red Mill Xantham Gum:

Made out of the sticky substance from plants, 

it helps to bind the flours together.

Flaxseed Meal:

This stuff is so good for you. 

If you are pregnant, you definitely should find a way to

 get a tablespoon of this stuff into your daily life 

(by way of shakes, on cereal, or oatmeal) 

it is important brain food for your growing baby.

Baking Tips: Feel free to replace canola oil for the coconut oil.
I actually make the batter into large tablespoons
instead of teaspoons before putting them into the oven.
It makes for a larger, chewier cookie.

Here is the recipe from Goop.

I first learned about Babycakes NYC 

from Goop and fell instantly in love.

Those cookies have loved me back 

since they have zero white flour and saturated fat! 

What, what?! Rock on Babycakes.

Dinner

I absolutely had to share tonight's dinner with you.

For the past couple weeks, 

I've had my parents over every night for dinner

because I want to lower my dad's cholesterol.

We've been eating very yummy healthy meals. 

Lots of whole grains, bean proteins and a big variety of veggies.

Tonight we had what I call a "Love Life" dinner. 

Still 100% cholesterol free, but totally delicious.

Panzanella (I omitted the anchovies) from My Father's Daughter, 

Creamy Zucchini Soup from Vegan Family Meals steamed arugula,

served with my favorite glass of Riesling.

Of course we ended with Double Chocolate Chip Cookies! 

So delicious! Great way to enjoy the summer veggies. 

Yum! All that EVOO on the bread and roasted bell peppers! 

Great flavor combo with the vino and soup! 

Yes...that's my wedding ring. 

I was so anxious to eat all this yummy food 

I didn't dry my wet hands completely.

Can't stand water in between my finger and my ring. 

Mi Familia

My two-year-old built this and told me it was a "T"!

I know, she's a genius. 

Not only do I get to hang out with these people, 

but I get to live with them too!

She grew two teeth on her upper right side. 

Haha, kind of funny looking.

Go love the ones you love and go crazy cooking up some great summer dishes!

Live it up, 

Guest Blog: Homemade Pop Tarts!

My 12 year old brother-in-law, Christian,

has been on a high carb diet since he could chew.

This kid, loves his carbs. 

Yesterday he asked Yolanda (my mother-in-law)

to buy him some pop tarts.

Now that she's becoming more healthy conscience, 

she refused to buy him pop tarts from a box

with all those scary ingredients.

But since she's such a cool mom, 

she provided pop tarts in another way,

Homemade! 

I would have never thought to do this.

Christian loved them!

Oh my pop tart, you look so delicious!

And they were even good without frosting!

I would be tempted to smear some on mine.

Here are Yolanda's tips!

I watched this video to give me an idea on how 

I needed the dough to look like (I’m a visual person). 

It’s very important to make the dough flaky and 

add the water (ice water) slowly to create that flakiness.

I cut the vegan butter into small pieces and 

used a fork for the entire process. 

I also used her method of 

refrigerating the dough for an hour. 

Then I prepared the pop tarts and 

placed them back in the refrigerator for another 2 hours 

(the coldness is important for perfect pop tarts. 

I did sprinkle them with sugar and I created the wash (egg and water). 

You can make the wash into a glaze as the recipe (vegan) called for though. 

They were super good. 

You can make them and refrigerate up to 2 weeks. 

Making them is was easy, 

but you need to refrigerate for the time listed above. 

I used the best of both recipes. 

You will like them! 

Click here for the Vegan Pop Tart Recipe

So she used the video for reference,
the vegan recipe,
and the egg and water glaze,
but feel free to use the vegan glaze! 

These look so good! 

I can't wait to make them with the girls
 when they are a little older.

They look easy,

just lots of planning with the refrigerating process.

I like that they can be frozen for weeks and baked later!

Thanks Yolanda for sharing your yummy find! 

The Chocolate Chip Cookie

I was recently asked to share a good chocolate chip recipe. 

With all baked goodies, I always turn to Babycakes NYC, but if Gluten-free isn't your thing, I wanted to try another vegan recipe for you all.

But I do have to say, if any of you are in the NYC, LA or Disney World area (they replaced McDonalds there!) you need to get yourselves over to Babycakes. You won't be disappointed.

Here is a straight forward vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  The only substitute you need is Earth Balance Butter.

As usual, I cut the recipe in half so we wouldn't have too many left overs. Big mistake. These went so fast that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture. It didn't help that when my parents came over to watch the girls and got their hand stuck in the cookie jar. 

Hope you all have a wonderful day Skyping or hanging out with the Cookie Monsters in your life! Happy Father's Day!