Improvise.

Sometimes you find yourself with a kitchen full of stuff that doesn't seem like it would go together. And in those moments, sometimes you throw together something and happen to have all the ingredients. This happened tonight when I made this. It was tasty and warm, and just as I finished making it, it started snowing!

Curried Apple Rice Pilaf

2 teaspoons olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1/2 cup applesauce 

2 teaspoons curry powder 

1 cinnamon stick

2 cups vegetable stock 

1 cup basmati rice

Handful of cashews, halved

Salt, to taste (optional) 

Heat olive oil in a pot with a cover. Sauté onion and garlic on low heat until soft, then add applesauce, curry powder,and cinnamon stick until blended and warm. Add the vegetable broth, cashews and rice, and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it steam for five minutes, then stir the ingredients together (the applesauce and spices will rise to the top of the rice).

Pumpkin Bread!

It has been a while. I have actually accidentally veered into vegan, gluten-free foods. It's really easy in fall time: baking vegan and gluten-free is so much easier when you can use pumpkin and applesauce to keep breads, cakes and other baked goods moist. 

I'm a single mom now. Thinking that two years ago I cooked like this almost every day, it's a wonder I have quite lost a bit of weight! I miss walking into my kitchen in the morning and smelling the yummy things I baked or cooked the night before. I'm starting to get back into the groove and it feels great! 

Last night I took a traditional pumpkin bread recipe, substituted some ingredients so it would be GF and vegan, and it turned out yummy! I want to make it again and add raisins or frost it with a sweetened vegan cream cheese. I wasn't fully aware that the recipe made three whole loaves, so after the kids and I were done baking we brought some up to the other three tenants in our 4-plex. 

Side-note: even though there was clearly no smoke or fire, my fire alarm did not like this pumpkin bread. It completely flipped out. I couldn't disable it because it was wired to the wall. I pulled it out. I think it was possessed because it kept beeping even afterward. As you know, there is never a "hey, you may want to check the oven" setting on a fire alarm. It's always a horribly loud "HOLY SHIT YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE GET OUT NOW BEFORE YOU DIE" setting. So I threw it in my car. Don't worry... I have another one.

Vegan gluten-free Pumpkin Bread

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin purée

1 cup applesauce 

1 stick Earth Balance buttery spread 

2/3 cup water 

3 cups white sugar 

3 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour 

6 teaspoons baking powder 

1 1/2 teaspoons salt 

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

1 teaspoon nutmeg 

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 

1/2 teaspoon ginger 

Grease 3 loaf pans. Heat oven to 350. Mix wet ingredients and sugar in a mixer. Blend together the dry ingredients separately and slowly add until well-blended.  Divide mix into the three pans and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean. 

You gotta have cute bag clips... 

Black bean spaghetti with squash, spinach, pine nuts and tomato!

Here was dinner last night... So very pretty. It looked like a culinary rainbow.

A friend got me some black bean spaghetti. "It's fun!" she said. I thought it looked weird and would taste like crap. And I didn't have any idea what I would cook with it. But dudes... It's GOOD.

I got the recipe from Honest Kitchen and modified it. It calls for pumpkin but I thought squash would be easier to find, easier to work with and milder in flavor. It worked great! The kids loved it (I was a little worried they wouldn't but they all destroyed it).

I think next time I will try crumbling some Punk Rawk Labs vegan cheese on top, or grilling some cubed marinaded tofu and mixing it in (the original recipe calls for it to be topped with feta cheese).

1 1/2 cups butternut squash, cut into small chunks
1 cup cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon dried rosemary or 1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 packet black bean spaghetti
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 big handfuls baby spinach, washed
a few tablespoons pine nut kernels, toasted


Dressing:
1/2 lemon, zested and juiced
100ml (3 ounze) extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, extra

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Place the pumpkin, tomatoes and garlic on a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper and rosemary. Toss to coat. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is just cooked through (you can take the tomatoes out earlier if they look like they’re getting too soft). Leave to cool slightly.

3. Cook the black bean spaghetti according to the packet instructions (6-8 minutes in a boiling water with pinch of sea salt and olive oil). Drain and place in a large bowl. Add the spinach and toss well. Add the pumpkin and the tomatoes and fold to combine.

4. To make the vinaigrette, combine the olive oil, half of the lemon juice and the lemon zest in a bowl and whisk to combine. Season with black pepper. Drizzle the salad dressing on the dish and fold to combine.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

A fitting title for my latest blog after a hiatus of a decent length, wouldn't you agree? I'm finally back at making some food and not just microwaving Amy's frozen dinners. It's been a long few months!

I don't know what got into me but I wanted dessert, and bad. Felix is gluten-free and I wanted him to be able to have some of whatever it was I was making. Vegan and gluten-free doesn't always sound good especially when you're talking desserts.

Enter: sugar, vegan butter, some GF carbs and a whole crapload of lemons.

All of those things are pretty good. So together they made a good treat. I got the recipe from Cheap and Simple Vegan, you can find it here:

http://www.cheapandsimpleveganrecipes.com/gluten-free-vegan-lemon-bars/

Here are some pictures! It was pretty easy to make, just wicked messy. It felt good to bust out my beautiful cherry red KitchenAid mixer again.

Heres one before baking- bake the crust for about 20 minutes first, then pour on a decadent lemon sauce that you bake for about 20 minutes more.

And after... Dusted with a little powdered sugar!