A not so Christmas creation...

...But good just the same. I had my sisters-in-law come over Friday to Saturday for a sleepover. We did a lot of baking and laughing while they were here. For dinner that night I made a homemade pizza. It came out really well and last night we decided to try it again. Only this time we made a taco pizza!



It came out really well! It's our family's replacement for Godfather's taco pizza. Less expensive, and the lettuce doesn't wilt before you can eat it. I really like it with sour cream smeared on the top of it.

More Robin FoodPorn

With a testing deadline of December 24th for her current book, I have been quickly finishing up the testing on a few recipes for Robin.

{Note, I've now received permission to print titles of recipes, just not the recipes themselves. :)}


Savory Artichoke Squares feel like a cross between a really good bread, a great sauceless pizza, and a decadent appetizer, all in one.


Chocolate Faux-Silk Pie is creamy, silky, rich, and downright sinful.


Indian Eggplant Fritters go perfectly with other Indian dishes, and are crunchy and flavorful.


Pierogi Stuffed with Potato and Fried Onion is my FAVORITE recipe thus far. This is comfort food at its finest, and the whole batch was inhaled by Rian, Oliver and I in less then 10 minutes, no joke. This recipe alone is worth buying the book for.


Not a testing recipe, but foodporn-worthy in its own right, Fettuccine with Red Lentil Sauce is a recipe from Robin's book Vegan Planet. The sauce is delicious and creamy, and innocuous enough to trick an 18 month old into consuming 3 bowls of pasta slathered in it.

Women's Health Subscription

I also apologize for not posting near as much as I should. I'm hoping to get a camera soon and there will be an onslaught of pictures coming in then. *fingers crossed*

Life has unfolded very un-beautifully for us since we bought our house and I've been running like crazy trying to get things done.

Anyway, I decided last year to get a Women's Health subscription in hopes that it would be a positive influence in my life. I thought they would have some good ideas for keeping energy levels up (which is necessary when you have a toddler) and some fun recipes and good work out tips. As my year's subscription comes to a close, I have realized that I was sorely mistaken in my views of WH. Don't get me wrong, they have good tips on makeup and fashion and the occasional hint on how to spice up your "bedroom life" and some decent recipes. But aside from those (which are many in number but very few are actually helpful) the entire magazine is basically screaming "You look like crap! Go workout!" And then there are the success stories from women who write about how they used to look like you and they DISGUSTED THEMSELVES! So they jumped on the treadmill 3 times a week or quit eating out so much and now they are pretty and they love themselves because they don't look like YOU anymore! And you just sit there thinking, "I didn't think I looked that bad!" Each issue comes with full color pictures of how you SHOULD look if you would just eat this - which ends up tasting like cardboard with bad icing on it, or that which goes down about as easily as it comes back up and tastes about the same too. So at the risk of losing all contact with the outside world and losing all of these wonderful ads for cardboard, I am not renewing my subscription to Women's Health. And I like to think that I'll be saving a few skinny trees from wishing they were fat people so they didn't have to get cut down to make this magazine.

Another Day, Another Cookbook

I apologize deeply for my lack of posting. Something a little like life {and a butt-busy one at that} has hit me, and I just haven't had the time or wherewithal to get my butt over here and post.

This will all be changing now. I was recently chosen to test for Robin Robertson's new cookbook, 1000 Vegan Recipes. I am extremely flattered to have been chosen, as those within vegan circles will know...she's a freaking way famous cookbook author! hee hee *gets a little giddy and starstruck*

Ahem.

In any event, I will be testing like crazy for her for the next few months. I've been asked not to post actual recipes {which makes sense} or recipe titles {which makes...some sense}, so I will do my best to give very brief descriptions...and pictures...oh the pictures!

My first testing assignment was a batch of peanut buttery muffins. These little babies took me right back to the days of Elementary School lunchboxes. If these muffins are any indication, I am going to LOVE testing for this cookbook.



{I also recently acquired a Digital SLR, so hopefully my photography will be improving. This photo is not that great, mostly because there was no natural light. Be expecting better photos in the future. :D}

It's Crunch Time!

Well, it's down to the final hour {erm few days} of testing for Joy's cookbook, and consequently I've been doing a LOT of testing. On Tuesday evening, I will be finished testing for the book, and I will begin anxiously awaiting its arrival on the market. :D

I thought I'd share a few of my most recent testing adventures.

Let's start with this morning...Monfongo w/ Cilantro Lime Gremolata

This dish was somewhat time-consuming, but really yummy and really fun to make. It's basically fried mashed plantain "cups" filled with roasted vegetables and topped with a garlicly gremolata.



Chocolate Chai Cookies were spicey and chocolately, chewy and downright delicious!



Last night I tried out her Sweet Rice Cake. It's creamy and sweet, and perfectly paired with mango and baby scoops of Salt Lime Sorbet:



Lunch yesterday was a veritable Joy feast! We had...

Mediterranean Rolls {These rolls paired lemon-tahini rice with cucumber, mushroom, and onion, and were all wrapped up in grape leaves. The sauce was a silk tomato balsamic syrup.}



Roasted Brussels Sprouts were the perfect side, made sweet and tasty with their accompanying grapes.



To finish it off, we had sweet and sticky Individual Toffee Puddings. They soaked up the toffee and were melt-in-your-mouth delicious:



I'll be back later, with pictures of my adventure of Orange Pepper Seitan w/ Quinoa Polenta and Black Bean Sauce, as well as sweet grapefruit sorbet with hemp seed.

Okay I got in trouble a few weeks ago about not posting. So I finally found some time to sit and put my pictures on my computer and post. YAY!! Go me. I was also told that I might upset people with my recipes since the majority of the people reading this are vegan. So before you read further you should probably know...I'm not vegan. Sway and I set up this blog to archive our ideas, hopes and dreams. So here I am. I encourage anyone who is vegan to "vegan-ize" my recipes if you'd like. Just please don't negatively comment on my posts. Ok here it goes...




This is the first creative move of my life so don't laugh. This is a spin on a family recipe (well probably not a family recipe, but a recipe that my mother used to make for special occassions). It has cream cheese, shrimp, crabmeat, and chili sauce that I formed into balls and wrapped with crescent roll dough. I then baked it, and let it sit so that the cream cheese firmed up and didn't dribble down my face.




This is a dinner that my husband and son both love. It is steak, noodles and steamed vegetables cooked in a teriyaki sauce. I like having the vegetables seperate, but you can combine them to one big dish and they taste just as good.




Okay, this last picture was a recipe that I created partially out of desperation and partially out of the novice creative mind that I have. This is cream cheese, worcestershire, green onion, garlic salt and hot sauce which I piped into baked rolls. Again I let it sit so the cream cheese could firm up again therefore avoiding the scalding chin and lips.

Well that's all I have for now...more coming soon (if I don't get voted off the blog.lol)

Breakfast for Dinner

Is there anything better than breakfast for dinner? I really don't think so. I was tired and grumpy tonight, and I knew that waffles would be the appropriate tonic.

These waffles are special, with a bit of coconut milk in them. I covered them in sliced bananas, fresh blueberries, and pure maple syrup. What a delicious way to end the day!

Dinner for Ginger

My friend Ginger mentioned that she wanted to come over for dinner the other night, so I thought it would be a great time to try out a bunch of testing recipes on her.

We had caramelized broccoli bruscetta with white "cheddar" sauce to start:



The caramelized broccoli was so delicious and beautiful all on its own, I think I might make it again just as a side dish:



I spread the leftover "cheddar" sauce on crackers the next day for lunch. Delicious!



Then we had some vegan caesar salad with homemade croutons. It was similar enough to the normal caesar salad, I don't think any omni would be able to tell the difference:



The main dish was a wild mushroom risotto with white asparagus. It turned out perfectly and was golden and creamy:



For dessert I made a fruit and cream tart, with homemade graham cracker crust and vanilla coconut cream custard for filling:



With the leftover graham cracker dough, I made some quick homemade graham crackers for Oliver. He loves them! Not only are they healthier and more vegan {lol} than normal graham crackers, they were really easy and tasted MUCH better. I'm never buying graham crackers again!



It felt like a marathon getting all that done before Ginger got here after work, but it was so delicious and she's such a gracious guinea pig, it made it all worth it!

Homemade Indian Food + Strawberries to Boot

I've tried many times to make Indian food at home, and it always came out lackluster. Well, thanks to the latest recipe I've tested for Joy -- no more! For last night's dinner I made a delicious daal from mung beans and spices. I served it with brown basmati rice and homemade chapati bread for scooping.

Mung Bean Daal:


Chapati {simple Indian flatbread}:


For dessert I made up some quick chocolate-covered strawberries. My husband was surprised and happy about them. They are romantic and look like they take a lot of work, but they are really so quick and easy:

Ras el Hanout Roasted Beets

So...I couldn't stay away for long, apparently. I got bored with work, so Oliver and I decided to go into the kitchen and make some lunch!

We decided to make Joy's recipe for Ras el Hanout Roasted Beets.

Ras el Hanout is a North African spice mixture, and is used in African and Moroccan food.

I had to make the Ras el Hanout mixture from scratch, as I couldn't find it at a store:



I also made a Cashew Crema to go on top, which is a vegan version of creme fresh. It is very tangy with a hint of lime, and super delicious on anything savory:



The beets were roasted in the Ras el Hanout and a mixture of garlic and various other seasonings. After they came out of the oven, I drizzled them in the Cashew Crema. Yum yum! Best lunch I've had in a while:



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As an aside, I swear Oliver is the cutest thing ever. He sees me cooking a lot, and today he's been copying me. He stole a couple of my measuring cups while I was unloading the dishwasher, and he's been sitting with his bucket of toys, measuring his cars and Star Wars figures and then dumping them into his toy bucket. He stirs it all with the flag from his Wonder Pets flyboat. Just a few minutes ago he was going around picking up every little bit of anything he could find on the floor, putting it in his measuring cup, and stirring it with the straw from his sippy cup. Crazy kid!

Carrots -- Not just for cute bunnies!

Last night for dinner and this morning for breakfast I tested two more of Joy's recipes, both involving grated carrot. Carrots lend a fresh sweetness to a dish, and are high in vitamins A and C, which help your eye-sight, lower your cholesterol, and reduces your chance of cancer and heart attacks.

For dinner I made Agave Mustard Poppyseed dressing and put it over a huge salad of romaine hearts, shredded carrots, grape tomatoes, raisins, and sunflower seeds:



For breakfast this morning I made Early Gray Carrot Muffins. They were spicey and sweet and a great way to start off the day!



I promise someday before too long I'll write about more than just food, but being so absorbed in recipe testing yields lots of pictures!

Adventures in Vegan Cheese

I don't know if I've mentioned it in this blog yet...but I'm vegan. Perhaps I'll make a post on the whys and hows at some point in the future, but for now, suffice it to say that I don't eat anything that used to have a mother, or came from something that used to have a mother. The end.

I've only been vegan for a short while, and I hadn't yet ventured into the intimidating world of vegan cheese...until today. My first attempt was actually somewhat successful. It was a test recipe for Chevre from Joy's cookbook. It's made from cashews, and set with agar flakes {a vegetarian "gelatin"}. After a bit of trial and tribulation, I was finally able to concoct a cheese-like substance that tasted like a rich fancy imported cream cheese. Overall, I'm impressed with the results.

I spread some of the Chevre on pieces of whole grain toast and topped them with strawberry preserves:



Then I froze one log of the Chevre to bring it to a cut-able texture. I sliced it into rounds, dipped the rounds in soy milk, coated them thoroughly in panko bread crumbs, and then baked them in the oven until they were golden brown. I used these rounds in a Raspberry & Baked Chevre Salad w/ Pineapple Champagne Vinaigrette. The salad had raspberries and macadamia nuts and little chunks of pineapple. It was a gorgeous light summer lunch:





To go with the salad, I made another of Joy's test recipes: skinny chewy Savory Sticks!



All in all it was a good day, and I had a lot of fun in the kitchen! I can't wait to do some more cooking tomorrow.

The Perfect Summer Dinner

Tonight I tested yet another of Joy's recipes: Three Bean Salad of Cannelloni, Garbanzo, and Green Beans. It is, as the title would suggest, composed primarily from Cannelloni, Garbanzo, and Green Beans. :D However, what the title fails to highlight are the bright tomatoes, peppery arugula, and luscious thyme vinaigrette. This was the perfect dinner for a hot summer night, and such a snap to make: