happy halloween!

i decided to make a post since today is the last day of vegan mofo and eric and i spent most of the day in the kitchen.
i wanted to get together some easy foods to take to work with me, and first up was bran muffins.


these are from "how it all vegan", and really easy to make.


earlier this week i saw some vegan pumpkin raisin scones and knew i had to make them. except replace the raisins with chocolate chips!




they turned out really good and it is taking a lot of willpower not to eat a second one.


we also cooked brussel sprouts for the first time. eric was a fan, i was not.


and finally i made some peanut butter cups. i don't have any pictures right now, but hopefully tomorrow!

i hope everyone has a happy halloween! we just finished carving pumpkins and plan on watching the phillies game then going out and doing something. eric and i have an awesome costume, so hopefully the rain stops and we go out.

eats

i'm sad that vegan mofo is almost over, even though i didn't post vegan stuff every day, it was fun, and made me blog a lot more.
but here are some random things eric and i have been consuming.


salads. lots of salads. we actually ate all of our produce in three days, produce that normally takes us seven days to finish.
and i was excited to see that whole foods had single beets you could buy. i don't think i had ever had a beet until eric and i went to san francisco last december. but beets were on everything! when they arrived on my first salad i just pushed them aside and pretended they didn't exist. the second time beets arrived on my plate i decided to try them, and really liked them. i haven't tried them cooked, just been eating them raw.


i have a dark chocolate problem. i usually buy a few bars and my favorite has always been green and black's dark chocolate. i bought a bar last week, and just as i was about to open it up, something on the ingredients caught my eye. milk powder was now listed there. my heart broke a little. about further investigation it seems like they now list milk powder as an ingredient for allergy reasons from cross contamination from the production line.
i decided to start trying out new dark chocolates and chocolove was my first. it was pretty good and i definitely plan on buying another in the future.


the other night we made eggplant fries. eggplant is a vegetable that i really wish i liked. i try to, but just can't seem to like it unless it's fried.

so while this is not the healthiest way to eat eggplant, it is delicious.


and finally, the dessert of the week! this week i made pumpkin chocolate chip brownie cake from have cake will travel. i don't know what it is about pumpkin desserts, but i am never sure if i like them/if they turned out alright until my second or so piece. so while i had my doubts about this dessert, i can now safely say it is delicious and almost gone.

new shoes.

Eric again,

Sorry I was late on posting. Been busy as of lately but will have more to post later on this weekend.

Anyways, I picked up some new Orchid shoes at my friends bumex/skateboard shop 2x4 First pair of shoes Ive bought in a long time... guess since Wiz gave me about 20 pairs a few years back.



Then Grissom wanted to test out the shoe box for stability... it passed. He also approved of the shoes.

another quick and easy meal

if you know me, then you know i love potatoes. no seriously. they are delicious. they keep you full. and best of all they are cheap.
and recently i have developed a love affair with kale.
so i started mixing the two and deliciousness occurred!



after i slice the potatoes i throw them in the iron skillet with a little bit of olive oil. when the potatoes are almost finished i throw the kale in let it all cook till the kale starts to char. then i season and serve.
this time i added some leftover brown rice that i needed to eat.

cold and rainy

just in time for my parents visit to philadelphia!

but i did bake some no knead today, and it turned out delicious.

i've made this bread so many times, and it never fails me.

(mini) cornbread muffins

as much as i love this time of year, i hate that it gets dark early. i like photographing my food in natural light, and flash just won't do it.
last night we were trying to figure out dinner and i had an intense craving for cornbread. i ended up using the cornbread biscuit recipe out of vegan brunch, but made mini muffins instead.



these are awesome! i like that they are bite size, but it's also a bad thing! i had snagged 3 before we even sat down for dinner.
they remind me of some mini cornbread muffins i used to eat when i was a kid. it was at a restaurant, but i can't remember and it's been driving me crazy. mom? dad? do either of you remember a restaurant that served mini cornbread muffins?

speaking of mom and dad, they are coming to visit tomorrow! i don't really have set plans because i am waiting to see what the weather is going to do (looks like 40 and rainy, ugh). but i do need to figure out some things to bake before they get here.

bits of the weekend

i really don't have any photos to show from our weekend except these three. saturday it was raining and we spent most of the day cleaning up the apartment.
for dinner we made veggie burger, french fries and onion rings. it was all amazing, but whoa, a lot of grease and a lot of heavy food.
eric made the veggie burgers, i'm not sure his exact recipe, but he combined a bunch of different nuts, quinoa and rice. they didn't stick together very well, but they were still delicious. i think they would make a great crumble on a salad.
and the onion rings were amazing. we coated the onions in soymilk, flaxseed meal and tabasco, then put them in a plastic bag with flour, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. i wish they had been spicier though!





i felt sick all day sunday and pretty much hung out on the couch. still not feeling that great today.

quick dinner

it's friday and it's so pretty outside!
last night i made probably one of the quickest dinners ever, besides a sandwich. eric and i had gone out for drinks and we were feeling tired and lazy and had the office to watch (such a good episode!). we were also starting to run out of food.



i put on a pot of couscous. then i drained, rinsed, and dried a can of chickpeas and put them in the iron skillet with a little bit of oil. once they started to brown i threw in some swiss chard and once that started to brown i threw in some pinenuts. the couscous was finished cooking by this point, so i combined everything, added some salt, pepper and lemon juice, and had a nice healthy easy dinner!

greeeenmonster.

Eric again,

So lately after my 30mi. daily bicycle commute, I like to enjoy a green monster. Lauren had found some recipes online so I took that idea and went with it. I usually use a handful or two of spinach, almond milk, and whatever fruit we have around. Since we froze a lot of watermelon that we could not finish, I usually use that.

I have been reading Brendan Brazier's book, Thrive Fitness: Mental and Physical Strength for Life, which Lauren bought me. I haven't made it too far since I am not much of a reader, but really enjoy it. He explains how the less energy the body uses to digest food, the more energy the body has at its disposal. He has many recipes for smoothies since they are easy to digest and pack a great deal of nutrition into one drink.









The other night we were looking to something a little bit different and had picked up some rainbow chard at the head house farmers market. We ended up making some white sweet potato and chard enchiladas. They turned out alright, but we have better plans for them next time. Lauren went with a simple sauce of Chalula, and I used a tomatillo salsa that I had made a while back.

pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

these cookies are interesting. they are good, but definitely interesting. the outside is crisp and the inside is very, very chewy.
i based my recipe off of these pumpkin oatmeal cookies, but i made a few changes.




pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
this recipe made so many i didn't even bother to count
2 cups flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp cinnamon
a dash of ground cloves
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon flax seed meal
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
mix together flour, oats, baking soda, salt and spices.
in a separate bowl, mix together sugar, oil, molasses, pumpkin, vanilla, and flax seeds until very well combined. add dry ingredients to wet, folding to combine.
fold in walnuts and chocolate chips.
drop by spoonfuls on a greased baking sheet and bake for 16 minutes.
it made 4 trays of cookies.

i'll probably be eating these the rest of october there are so many.

i try, and i fail

my mom makes the best spicy chex mix. one summer after 7th grade i lived off of her spicy chex mix and popsicles. i considered it a healthy diet.
yesterday i tried again, and it turned out alright. there are only a couple of bites left, so i consider it a success, but it wasn't amazing.
regular ol' homemade spicy chex mix isn't even vegetarian, so this stuff was vegetarian-ized and vegan-ized. to replace the worcestershire (which has anchovies) i used some vegan stuff we picked up at whole foods. there are a couple of different brands out there, i like the one with the wizard on it! there are also recipes you can find online. and then to vegan-ize it i just replaced the butter with earth balance.
i'm going to try to make some more this weekend, and maybe it will go better.

vegan mofo!

today is October 1st which marks the beginning of vegan mofo! the idea is to write as much about vegan food as possible during the month of October. eric has offered to help write some blog posts and he is going to start october, and vegan mofo, off!


Hi, my name is Eric. This is my post. Usually Lauren does the typing around here for various reasons but I will try my hand at this and try to post more frequently. I figured the first day of this vegan mofo would be a good day to start.



I made some sweet potato gnocchi. I topped it with my grandfathers marinara, nutritional yeast, and a bit of parsley. It was my first go at gnocchi but it turned out fairly well for the first time. It was a bit sticky because I had baked the potatoes a few days before. I will be making more this week.



I had made some covatelli a few days back as well and since Lauren had not put up a picture, I figured I would. I just used a simple semolina flour dough and topped them with earth balance and later some nutritional yeast. A simple meal that remided me of my younger days.

Cheers,

Eric