Cowboy Cookies

I'm doing it again. As I was looking through my photos to decide what to talk about today, I started getting hungry. I really want to make some cookies today after thinking about how great these tasted.

I was feeling like making some chocolate chip cookies one day but I kind of wanted something with a twist. These Cowboy Cookies were perfect. The cookie base holds together quite well and isn't too cakey or greasy. It's not overly crunchy, but has that perfect cookie bite to it. Enter in some chocolate chips, toasted pecans, oats and coconut flakes and your mouth is pretty darn happy. I was sad when we had finished the batch of cookies.

I don't make cookies all that often so sometimes I forget just how great they are. They're not too big, so it's usually okay to have 2 or 3 of them. They're portable so they're easy to grab and take to work for a snack later or for sneaking into a movie theatre.

This recipe came from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I know, I know, it seems like I'm always posting about other people's recipes. It's because I usually forget to take photos when I make my own things. Typically when I cook, I just throw things together and about half the time I forget to write down what ingredients and quantities I was using.

Hopefully I have some time to make cookies before I'm out and about this afternoon. October isn't just Vegan MoFo, it's also my annual Month of Horror where I try to go see every horror movie that's in the theatres. I usually end up seeing a one or two movies a week all month. It's a lot of fun, actually. I think this year I'm going to add in some movie nights at home with friends as well.

Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up next weekend as well. I've been procrastinating making my menu plans. I really need to get on that. Only a few more days to shop for everything before the big dinner on Sunday! I definitely need some cookies to help me think.

Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I don't make cookies all that often but when I do, I wonder why that is. They're delicious and portable! You can have just one (good luck with that one) or a handful depending on your appetite and your sweet tooth. They travel well and make a great mid-afternoon snack when the work day is dragging and you think 6:00 will never come.

So now that you're on the bandwagon, go make these cookies. These Cherry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies are no joke. Seriously, they're what's missing in your life. Or at least what's missing from your cookie jar. They're chocolately, soft, and full of awesome. If you don't already have a copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, go buy one. Or borrow one from a friend or get one from the library. This is just the first of many exciting new cookie discoveries.

At first you think, whatever, this is just some kind of boring chocolate cookie. But no! This is a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips in it. And this doubly chocolately cookie also has dried cherries in it. Oh yeah. And just in case you were starting to feel a little guilty, there's some oatmeal thrown in for a bit of texture and to add a bit of the healthy to your cookie. Well, they're still cookies, the oatmeal isn't magic. But still.

Here's another thing that's cool about these cookies. I think you could easily substitute the dried cherries for another type of dried fruit if you wanted something different or just plain didn't feel like buying dried cherries. If you're one of those people that like white chocolate (bleck) you could just use white chocolate chips instead of the regular chocolate chips. Or get really crazy and use peanut butter chips! I know, I'm out of control right now.

Personally, I love the chocolate and cherry flavors together. Dried cherries are about twice the size of a dried cranberry so you get a bit more fruit in each bite. I bet dried strawberries or blueberries would also rock these cookies. Heck, mix them up if you want, the cookie don't care and neither does the honey badger.

And hey - you still have about a week to enter if you're interested in winning a copy of the Joy of Vegan Baking. Just go to this post and make a comment to enter!

Stuffing Our Faces at Edible Flours

Vancouver has an awesome new bakery! Edible Flours opened this past Saturday and boasts all vegan and some gluten-free items. If you're in Vancouver, I highly recommend making your way over to Kitsilano to treat yourself to a cupcake or muffin or scone or cookie or whatever. You won't be sorry. You'll find the bakery at 2280 West Broadway at Vine, right next to the London Drugs. They're open every day except Mondays. You can get more specific directions and hours here.

I really wanted to get down there on Saturday, but the day was chock-full of other things so we didn't get to help celebrate opening day. We did fit in a snack break while running a bunch of errands on Sunday, though. Sunday was such a warm, sunny, gorgeous Vancouver day that even running errands was quite pleasant. Stopping for a little sugar rush didn't hurt the enjoyment of the day, either, that's for sure.

Here's the deal. You can walk in and buy anything in the case and you can get a tea or a smoothie or a coffee or something to go with it. There are a few seats so you can eat inside if you want or take it with you. If you need a whole cake or a dozen cupcakes or something, you can also place orders for those things, which is super awesome.

We bought one of almost everything. In our defense, we were also picking up a few things for a friend who had to work and couldn't make it over. Also, I was just really excited and I wanted to try everything.

On this plate of yummies, you have a strawberry scone, a vanilla cupcake, Sunday's special - the maple glazed cinnamon doughnut and a bunch of chocolates. We'll talk about the chocolates in a minute.

First, I need to say that I am incredibly picky when it comes to eating other people's baked goods. Usually whenever I've been presented with a vegan cupcake that was purchased somewhere it's dry and dense and doesn't really taste very good. That makes me sad because that's not how the cupcakes I bake turn out and it's disappointing that there are people selling vegan cardboard and passing them off as cupcakes. The frosting is something I typically find full of sugar and tasteless. I usually just scrape it off because I'm not a fan of eating a pile of greasy sugar. No wonder the omnivores think our vegan treats won't taste very good!

None of those things are true about Edible Flours. I think this might have been one of the best cupcakes I have ever eaten. For reals. The cake itself was light, moist and fluffy and full of flavor. I can tell that maple syrup is being used to sweeten it and that gave it such a wonderful taste. The frosting had a faint lemon flavor. Not overpowering, just a hint that went so well with the vanilla-maple goodness of the cake. It wasn't just a greasy pile of sugar, either! The frosting was creamy and light and didn't taste overly sweet. So good! James got the cupcake for himself and gave me a bite just to taste. I kept making him give me more, it was so good. I actually spent most of the afternoon reminiscing about how good that cupcake tasted. Holy cow. There were a bunch of cupcakes, some gluten-free and some made with wheat flour.

The scone wasn't overly sweet and trying to be a muffin as I find most scones to be. It was a real scone with real pieces of freshly sliced strawberries in it. Delicious. The doughnut appears to be a baked doughnut if I'm not mistaken. It was quite tasty, a little bit like cake in itself with a nice maple glaze and a dusting of cinnamon on top. There were a few other flavors of doughnuts, but we only tried this one.

Yes, this is a picture taken inside the chocolate bag. James thought it was funny that I took the picture this way. I haven't eaten the chocolate yet. I'm saving these for an afternoon tea break today. The round one is a chocolate chai thing, the rectangular one is chocolate raspberry and the lumpy one is chocolate peanut butter. They look amazing, I can't wait to try them.

Here are some of the things we took to go. Another one of those glorious vanilla cupcakes for Erin, a chocolate gluten-free cupcake, a chocolate chip cookie and a lemon cookie. I haven't eaten the cookies yet, either. Those are probably going to be dessert tonight after dinner. They look fantastic, though. We'll see if I can hold out that long before eating them.

We ate the chocolate cupcake last night and it was also delicious. You won't believe this is gluten free. I mean, it is, but it doesn't taste like it. I can faintly taste a bit of rice flour in the mix, but just barely. This is a fluffy, flavorful cupcake. If you're avoiding wheat, you've just found the best thing ever about living gluten-free in Vancouver.

I will definitely go back here again and get some more yummies. It's funny, our old place was only a 15 minute walk from here and my old workplace was just down the street. Now I'm across town so I'll have to make a special trip to go to Edible Flours. It'll be so worth it, though. Yum!

Chocolate Chip Cookies Invade My Belly

Have you ever noticed that there are about as many chocolate chip cookie recipes as clouds in the sky? Seriously, it's kind of crazy. It's interesting, though. So many different ways of creating virtually the same thing. My favorite is usually a veganized version of the old school Toll House cookie recipe. It's a nice cookie that's just a bit fluffy and not too crunchy or oily and doesn't fall apart. I always add pecans with the chocolate chips. Without the pecans it's good, but just not the same if you ask me.

When a chocolate chip cookie craving set upon me a few weeks ago, I decided that I'd try a new recipe just for kicks. You never know when that new recipe might suddenly become your old favorite, right? It's always worth it to shake things up a bit here and there. Enter Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Someone suggested I make a cookie pie instead of individual cookies. My willpower was not strong that day so I opted for a smaller serving size. I was afraid I'd eat like half of the cookiepie in one sitting!

These cookies turned out great! They didn't rise quite as much as my usual recipe, but not in a bad way. These are definitely more of a crunchy cookie. But not like super crunchy, just not like eating a pillow or something if that makes any sense. Again, not in a bad way! These were super yummy.

I pretty much always have all of the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies on hand, so that's a score. I even had the tapioca flour. I've been baking gluten-free stuff quite a bit more often so I've been stocking up on some of the more out of the ordinary flours. If you don't have any of that and don't want to buy any, you can substitute arrowroot powder. (Or so says the internet at least! I haven't tried doing that in this particular recipe, but I can't see why it wouldn't work just fine.)

Another cool thing about this recipe is that there's no margarine in it. Great for those days when you're out of Earth Balance but you really want to make some cookies.  That's also great if you're trying to avoid soy or palm oil.

I just realized Isa and Terry put this recipe online, so yay for you! I copy/pasted it from here.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)
Makes two dozen two inch cookies or about 16 three inch cookies

1/2 brown sugar
1/4 white sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1 tablespoon tapioca flour
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract


1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt


3/4 cups chocolate chips
3/4 cups chopped pecans, optional

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease two large light metal baking sheets.

Mix together sugars, oil, milk and tapioca flour in a mixing bowl. Use a strong fork and mix really well, for about 2 minutes, until it resembles smooth caramel. There is a chemical reaction when sugar and oil collide, so it’s important that you don’t get lazy about that step. Mix in the vanilla.

Add 1 cup of the flour, the baking soda and salt. Mix until well incorporated. Mix in the rest of the flour. Fold in the chocolate chips and pecans. The dough will be a little stuff so use your hands to really work them in.

For 3 inch cookies, roll the dough into about ping pong ball size balls. Flatten them out in your hands to about 2 1/2 inches. They will spread just a bit. Place on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 minutes – no more than 9 – until they are just a little browned around the edges. I usually get 16 out of these so I do two rounds of eight cookies. Let cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

For 2 dozen two inch cookies roll dough into walnut sized balls and flatten to about 1 1/2 inches and bake for only six minutes.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

The holidays are a great excuse to make cookies. I don't make cookies that often for some reason and whenever I do make them I wonder why it's so infrequent. They're perfect little snacks for when you want just a little something or if you need something portable. And there really is no shortage of types.

During the holidays, I typically make sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies every year. I have such fond memories of going to my grandmother's house at Christmas and having her cookies. They were amazing. She would make sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, ranger cookies (think oatmeal cookies with raisins and chocolate chips) and jello cookies.

Okay, I know. That last one sounds really weird. There were these cookies she'd made that had a package of lemon jello in the dough. It sounds strange, but they were always my favorite. I've been trying for a few years to make a vegan equivalent but so far, I haven't had any luck. These were the kind of cookies that you need a cookie press for and then you'd sprinkle colored sugar on them before putting them in the oven. My favorite were always the wreath-shaped ones. They tasted a bit like shortbread, but with a nice tang of sweet lemon flavor. One of these days I'll figure out the secret and make cruelty-free versions of jello cookies every December like my grandmother used to.

Until I can get that worked out, I'll settle with making some other yummies like these chocolate sugar cookies. I got the recipe from the VegNews newsletter. I found the dough to be really, really dry and I had to add a lot of extra liquid so that I could even roll out the dough. If you make these, do it by the recipe and then at the end if your dough is super dry and crumbly like mine was, go ahead and add a bit of extra liquid until things are sticking together a bit better. I'd also suggest adding some more sugar. These weren't sweet at all, so calling them sugar cookies is a bit of a stretch. You really need the chocolate on top. I made a chocolate ganache by melting some bittersweet chocolate with a little bit of rice milk and spooning on top of the cookies. I wouldn't make these without doing that. They seem to need a bit of an extra punch.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies (from the VegNews Magazine Newsletter)

1-1/2 cups non-hydrogenated margarine
1 cup unbleached cane sugar
10 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vanilla
4-1/2 cups unbleached flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder


In a large bowl, beat together the margarine, sugar, water, and vanilla until light and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to form a smooth dough. Cover and chill for 1 hour or until firm. Divide the dough in half, work with one half at a time, and keep the remaining dough covered.

On a floured work surface, roll the dough out to desired thickness (1/8-inch for crispy cookies or 1/4-inch for soft), cut into shapes with a knife or cookie cutters, and carefully transfer the cookies with a spatula to ungreased cookie sheets.  (I lined my cookie sheets with parchment paper so the cookies wouldn't stick.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Allow cookies to cool slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely. Cover in melted chocolate or some kind of icing. 

The Guide to Cut-Out Cookies

It's holiday cookie time!  I'm doing my holiday baking this weekend and next week, but I bet some of you are doing it now. 

I made a post a few years ago on how to have success at cut-out cookies.  Those little buggers can cause epic baking fail!  Check it out and see what you think:


http://veganchicksrock.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-make-awesome-cut-out-cookies.html

Let the baking begin!  :)

How to Make Awesome Cut-Out Cookies

Lots of people are making Christmas cookies this weekend. I suck at decorating cookies, but I'm really good at making them up to that point. So, ignore my crappy decorating and use Hannah's guide to that over at Bittersweet. Her cookies look amazing, but she's a little crazy, she didn't even use cookie cutters for those. I know, right. I only had a few cookie cutters, a snowman and some stars, so I used those. Some people are so intimidated by making cut-out cookies, so I decided to make a little guide via photos for all of you.

I used Isa and Terry's gingerbread cookie recipe for this, but you can use any recipe you want, gingerbread, sugar cookies, whatever.

Gingerbread Cookies (originally posted on the PPK Blog)

1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Directions
In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add molasses and soymilk. The molasses and soymilk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.

In a sepearte bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. Mix together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease your cookie sheets.

On a floured surface roll you dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets (if you are using them to decorate with remember to cut a hole with a straw or something before baking). Bake for 8 minutes.

Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.



Okay, now that you have your dough made and chilled, here's where I come in. The biggest favor that you can do for yourself is to get some waxed paper and tape it down to the counter with masking tape. Trust me, once you do this, you'll never want to roll out cookies on just the counter again. Make sure that you already have your cookie cutters out and your rolling pin. You don't want to be digging through the cabinets and drawers looking for that perfect cookie cutter when your hands are all floured.

Sprinkle just a tiny bit of flour on your waxed paper before you roll out the dough. Like this:

Put a little bit of flour in a bowl or plate or hell, just put it on the counter. You want to use this to dip your cookie cutters into. The coolest thing is that once you cut out one cookie, the flour will stick to the cutter quite nicely. Why do you want to do this? Because it helps to keep the dough from sticking to the cutter. It'll help keep your cookie shapes intact and make it easier to get them away from the rest of the surrounding dough later.

One very important thing to remember - Keep the dough that you're not using in the fridge at all times! You don't want it to warm up and get sticky while you're rolling out other bits. Don't try and roll out all of the dough at one time. Divide it in half at least. Roll out one half and keep the other in the fridge while you're doing that.

So now you're starting to cut out your cookie shapes. Before you start, take a second and look at the dough you have rolled out. Try and maximize the space. Cut the shapes as close together as you can. If you have some smaller cookie cutters, use those for those little in between spots. Why is this important? Because the goal here is to re-roll the dough as few times as possible. The more times you roll out the dough, the tougher your cookies will be in the end. The last thing you want is a hard cookie.

So you've got all of the cookies cut. Now comes the part where most people screw things up. Resist the urge to pick up the dough shapes with your hands. Smack yourself if you start wanting to remove the shapes immediately, too. What you want to do is remove the dough from around the shapes first.

Keep the dough scraps! You're going to mush them all together and roll them out again later. But - if you still have some dough that you haven't rolled yet, don't add the scraps to that! You're just begging for tough cookies if you do that. Roll scraps with scraps, never with fresh dough. Put the scraps in the fridge until you need them again. Also - when you roll out the scraps, you need even less flour on your work surface since the dough is already drier. You will need a tiny bit just to ensure there's no sticking, though.

Now that you've removed the dough from around the shapes with your hands, there's probably a few little scrap pieces still hanging out here and there. Use a little paring knife to cut those away.

Now you should have a bunch of cute cookie shapes hanging out on your wax paper.

Pick the cookies up with a spatula. Not your hands! Resist the urge to use your hands!!! I'm not kidding people. Consider this a cyber slap on the hand if you try it. You can dip your spatula in flour before you try and slide it under the dough shapes. Don't worry if there are little bits of flour hanging out on the sides of the cookie, it won't hurt anything.

If you have some smaller dough shapes like I did, use that same paring knife to lift those. The spatula will likely be too large and screw up your cookie shapes otherwise.

Now bake those suckers. Once they're completely cooled, decorate them and you're done! Roman and I decorated these. You can tell who decorated which ones. I always accidentally make the icing too runny. One of these days I'll get it right. Ah, they still tasted good.

It's also a good idea to lay down some parchment or wax paper under your cookies when you decorate them. It helps to keep the mess to a minimum.

Candy Cane Cookie Cupcakes

You know what's awesome? Well, besides me. Those cupcakes up there. Also awesome. My friends. :D Because of them, I have not one, not two, not three, but four - yes four boxes of Candy Cane Joe-Joes. Hell yes.

You see, that's especially exciting because you can't get those up here in Vancouver. I have been hearing people talk about these cookies on blogs and the PPK forums until I was sooo jealous it wasn't even funny. Then I realized that Seattle is close to here and most likely I could convince (meaning bribe with cupcakes) someone to get some for me. So thank you Seth and Roman for enabling me. :D

So what do cookies have to do with cupcakes? I put those cookies inside cupcakes, that's what. I know it, I'm out of control. But if cupcakes are wrong, I don't want to be right.

These are the basic chocolate cupcakes and fluffy vegan buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. All you have to do is crush up a bunch of cookies and add them to stuff. Add about 10 crushed up cookies to the cupcake batter right at the end, folding them in gently. For the frosting, crush about 5 cookies. Make sure to crush them really, really well if you're going to pipe them or you'll be cursing your frosting every 30 seconds like I was. If you have a food processor, it wouldn't hurt to pulse the cookies in there to get the crumbs fine enough. Once you've got the magical cookie crumbs, add them to the frosting right at the end.

I put a half cookie on top of each one, but if you do this, do it right before you're going to eat them or else the cookie gets soggy.

I really could have used about half the frosting recipe. I still had about a quarter of it leftover even after piping mounds and mounds of it on top of these cupcakes. It's delicious, but way too much. So unless you really want loads of sweetness, make half, it'll still be plenty to pipe.

I made these for a holiday party that I had last weekend. There will be more pictures and recipes coming soon. I just want to add - yay for Candy Cane Joe-Joes!

Vanilla Rosewater Halvah Cookies & Chickpea Broccoli Casserole

Okay, so it's not really halvah in the center, but I needed a good name for these cookies that didn't sound like I had put sesame seeds on top or something.

These look all cracked out, but they're soooo good. I got the idea after seeing Bazu's cookies that she got the idea from Damn Tasty Vegan. The other pictures are way better than mine, but since I was sort of experimenting, I think it's okay that they turned out a little wacky. Substituting the peanut butter for tahini made some rich freaking cookies, but in a way that's good because I can't really eat more than a couple at a time.

Next time I make these, I need to add more flour. I think that's why mine are all weird shaped. I sorta realized that I needed to add more flour after trying to shape the first one, but I was tired and didn't feel like remixing the dough, so I figured that it would give me an excuse to make these again. Any excuse to make cookies is a good one.

Piper was watching me make the cookies from on top the fridge. It was so cute, she was like this entire time! I thought for sure she'd jump down to try and help, but she stayed up there and supervised.

If you make these, try adding about another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour. Just add a little at a time until the dough feels like dough and isn't quite so sticky. Also, I added the vanilla bean just because I wanted a reason to use one. You don't have to put that in yours. I just really love the nuances you can get from fresh vanilla. You could also leave out the rosewater if you want. I just like the smell.

Vanilla Rosewater Halvah Cookies

2 cups flour
1/2 cup vanilla cookies, crushed to a powder or just use this much extra flour (I used Nature's Path Vanilla Animal Cookies)
1/2 teas. baking soda
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean pod (optional)

Filling:
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
3/4 cup tahini
1/3 cup chopped pistachios
1 teaspoon rosewater (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a bowl, add the flour, cookie crumbs and baking soda. Stir it until they're all friendly and stuff. In another, larger bowl add the margarine, sugar and brown sugar. Beat that together just until it's combined. Add the soymilk and vanilla extract and beat that sucker for a minute or two so that everything gets mixed and just starts to get a little fluffy. Scrape the vanilla bean pod into the bowl and stir just enough to get the cute little vanilla specks all mixed in. Fold the dry stuff into the wet until everything's combined.

Make sure your dough is like dough and not sticky when you put in your hand and try to flatten it. If it is, add more flour!

To make the filling, beat the powdered sugar, tahini and rosewater until you feel like the sugar has been incorporated into the tahini. Add the pistachios and stir them in evenly.

Take about 2 tablespoons of dough and flatten it into a little circle in your hand or on some parchment paper. Put a generous teaspoon of the tahini mixture in the center and fold the dough over itself, sort of in half. Make sure that there is no filling peaking out, you'll want to mush some dough up over any places that it's peaking out.

At this point, you can shape it into whatever you want. The original recipe said to roll the dough into a ball at this point, but for some reason I decided to make little moons. Everyone else's pictures look way prettier than mine, so maybe you better do the ball thing.

These should be a little ways apart from each other on the parchment paper covered baking sheet because they're gonna spread, especially if you made a wacky shape like I did. Bake them for 8-10 minutes, until they surface just starts to crack and they're turning a bit more golden.

Cool them on the cookie sheet for a minute or two and then transfer them to a wire cooling rack for 5 minutes or so before you start chowing down.

You'll get 2 dozen cookies out of this.

I also finally made the Chickpea Broccoli Casserole from Vegan with a Vengeance. I had been wanting to try it, but the description kinda put me off. Isa, this is not bland to me at all.

I made this for Roman and myself while we were watching Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Yay for spaghetti westerns and yummy food!

I made a few changes based on what I had read from other people's blogs and the ppk forums peeps when they tried this. Instead of bread crumbs, I took 3 pieces of sprouted grain bread and toasted it very well, let it cool then put it in the processor and made my own bread crumbs.

Stirred up veggies getting ready to be turned into a Chickpea Broccoli Casserole!

I also used 2 cups of veggie broth instead of just one and added an extra tablespoon or two of olive oil. I'm glad I did, it gave it a fabulous flavor. I could taste the olive oil flavor, but didn't notice that there was any extra oil in the casserole.

We experimented with putting some different condiment type things on it. We both loved it just as it was, but it was fun trying stuff. Our favorites were salt-free Spike and Cholula hot sauce. I'm not one to put hot sauce on everything like Roman does, but he was right on with the suggestion to try that on this. I didn't douse it or anything, but it really added a nice punch of flavor.

This reheated really well, too. I ate the leftovers both yesterday and today and I put the last bit in a container to take the work for lunch tomorrow. We got 5 servings out of this (we had seconds the first night or we could have probably gotten 6).

I made a bunch of other stuff, too, but I think this post has already gotten long enough. More of the weekend cooking later in the week.