My mom was visiting recently and we decided to visit the farmer's market held at Portland State University on Saturdays. This is the biggest farmers market that I know of in Portland and it's fantastic! There is a huge variety of offerings, including kimchee, nut-based cheese, pastries, jams, food carts, flowers, candles, local meats and eggs, and of course tons fresh produce.
My mom was craving eggplant, so I decided to make what I thought would be more of an eggplant lasagna, but really became a dip. I sliced the eggplant lengthwise and coated it in olive oil and salt. I sliced red onions, chopped kalamata olives, and steamed about a pound of fresh spinach. I also purchased a bag of Daiya Mozzarella style cheese. This cheese is soy-free and tastes fantastic. The only vegan cheese I've ever enjoyed has been the Dr Cow Nut Cheeses and was surprised that I liked the daiya brand so much.
I took a glass bread pan, about 4 inches wide or so, and coated it with olive oil. Then I began layering all the ingredients, adding salt and olive oil to the layers of eggplant. I popped it, uncovered, into a 400 degree oven and cooked it until the eggplant was soft. My pan was packed to the brim before cooking and afterwards it had sunken down quite a bit. I probably had it in the over for maybe an hour, but was busy enjoying time with R & JB and quickly lost track of time.
I served it with bread on the side, but ended up adding it as a spread to the bread instead. This was fantastic for leftovers! I just topped leftover rosemary bread with the spread and put it into the toaster oven.
For dessert, we picked up Almond Coconut Minis by So Delicious which are chocolate-dipped ice cream bars made with coconut ice cream and covered in almonds.
First we'll start with some crafty goodness then move on to lots and lots of food pics.
-headand swap-
So I joined the headband swap hosted by Pink Lemonade (http://www.pinklemonade-blog.com/2011/08/headband-swap.html) and couldn't be more excited to participate.
Here is the lovely headband I received from Christina May at The Andrews Update (http://theandrewsupdate.blogspot.com/)
Thank you, Christina May!
And here is a picture of me modeling the one I made for her:
I used this tutorial (http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2011/05/no-sew-fabric-flower-tutorial.html) from Ruffles and Stuff. It was super easy and fun!
Here's one finished flower, with the Bachelorette playing on my computer, and R cooking dinner in the background - life isn't bad :)
-now for the food-
In no particular order, we'll start with my peanut butter filled apple snack. This is so simple that it feels almost silly to write about it but I love them so much that here we go:
All you do is cut an apple in half, use a spoon to scoop out the core, cut little triangles out around the stem, fill with peanut butter and put the halves back together. The apple doesn't really get very brown this way and it's an awesome on-the-go snack!
Next up we have homemade Promethus (http://www.prometheussprings.com/)
R loves this drink but at $4+ per drink I decided to give making it a try. So, I took a ton of ginger, washed it, threw it in the vitamix, covered with water, and blended. If I did this again, I would peel the ginger first (remember to peel your ginger with a spoon, it's easier than a typical veggie peeler) and then blend it. Then I made simple syrup by simmering 2 parts cane sugar with 1 part water. For the spice, I added whole dried chilies and also added fresh mint leaves to the simple syrup when it was done cooking. Next you strain your "ginger juice" through a fine mesh strainer and pour into ice cube trays to get ginger ice cubes (pictured above.) To make a drink, I threw one or two ginger cubes in a glass, added ice, a tablespoon or two of simple syrup and topped it off with water. Delicious! I've been also throwing a cube or two of ginger in my water bottle in the morning in an effort to drink more water.
Now for Ani Phyo's raw spanish scramble which I posted about last week. Here is my version:
I mostly followed her directions, except I added extra tomato, cilantro, and hot sauce. I didn't have any tumeric so I added nutritional yeast instead. This came out awesome, R and I both loved it!
For this last one I'm using a video I found on google instead of my own photo. Although I've made these twice in the last week, both times they were eaten so fast that there was no thought of taking a picture for the blog. Here we have fried padrones with kalamata olive bread:
Basically you wash padrone peppers and dry very well (otherwise you with have splattered hot oil everywhere.) Fry the padrones until browned, salt with course sea salt, and pour into a bowl. Add extra olive oil to the bowl and serve with bread to dip in the padrone flavored oil at the bottom of the bowl. You can eat the entire pepper except for the stem. These are so delicious and have never lasted very long in my house. Enjoy!
Off to enjoy some delicious Ethiopian food at Queen of Sheeba (http://queenofsheba.biz/) with 2 of my besties, JB & KT.
Hello, I'm Shae and I'm starting this blog primarily to keep track of successes and failures in my tiny kitchen. I'll also throw in crafty bits and other musings. Enjoy!
First up is my tomato with (mostly) raw mushroom cheese and basil breakfast:
It is inspired very loosely by Ani Phyo's Spanish Breakfast Scramble recipe:
I just made a huge batch of mushroom nut cheese yesterday and wanted to use that instead of making another nut mix like Ani calls for. So instead, I made what looks more like caprese salad using my nut cheese. I just layered tomato slices, mushroom nut cheese (recipe below), truffle salt (if you don't have this in your kitchen drop everything and go buy it NOW), cracked black pepper, olive oil, and a basil leaf. It was delicious and my non-vegan, non-raw, mushroom hating, very vegan tolerant boyfriend R even liked it :)
Mushroom Cheese Recipe:
Blend 2 parts nuts (I used almonds but prefer cashews) with 1 part water. I used my vitamix and the plunger to really get this smooth. It's ideal to soak the nuts overnight but I didn't. You can use this right away (which I did) or let sit overnight in a sieve to drain out any excess water. Then I added truffle salt, lemon juice, and nutritional yeast to taste. Here comes the non-raw part of the cheese: I cooked down chopped crimini mushrooms in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic for about 15 minutes. I pressed this mix on top of the nut cheese along with more truffle salt and dried parsley. I was pretty happy with the way this came out considering I did it all last minute.
