Kitchenaid!

Yaaaay I got a Kitchenaid stand mixer for my birthday. It is one sexy beast.

Hurray for New Cookbooks!

Yeah no one cares but I do. I got 2 cookbooks in the mail today! I am very excited about them. Yaaaaay :D

Quinoa, Almond and Chocolate Chip Muffins

I was very intrigued by this recipe because of the fact that it uses cooked quinoa in a muffin. The recipe did not call for chocolate chips but I felt that they were necessary. I got this recipe from my roommate's cookbook... so this is a vegan recipe! The only notable difference is that there is no egg. I guess vegans use ground flax seeds instead. I also got to grind some almonds for this recipe (in, of course, a food processor). To cut to the chase, these are pretty good. It seems like they fall apart easily though. I'm still trying to make a muffin that has that crisp texture on the top of it, without using a pound of butter. I will continue to search.

Apple Tart Kinda Thing...

I wanted to make a pie. Actually I wanted to make a fruit tart but that started to get complicated. So I decided to go with an apple pie. Then I wanted to make it vegan. Things just got more and more complicated. Anyway, this is what happened. I made the crust out of roasted ground almonds, flour, canola oil, and a little soy milk. For the filling, it's just apples, applesauce, sugar and lemon juice. Not a lot going on here. This is a little dry and unexciting. I'll have to do better in the future. I did get to use my new shiny tart pan though.

Oatmeal Cookies 2.0

I tried making a healthier version of the oatmeal cookies. I added flax seeds and bulgar wheat. I decided not to use butter as an experiment, and to use oil instead. The result is that I can't tell the difference and butter is overrated. I added dried cranberries (in addition to the raisins and chocolate chips). That turned out to be a bad idea. The dried cranberries are too tart for this cookie imho tbh. Also, I was told that the flax seeds were cooked too long and thus impenetrable OH HO HO HO. Anyhow, if I make these again, I won't add the dried cranberries, and I'll rethink this flax seed pickle.

Butternut Squash Risotto

I bought a humongous butternut squash from Trader Joe's for $1 and finally today I used it. I made this butternut squash risotto and I used the remains of the squash in butternut squash soup. The risotto was alright, it has brown rice, vegetable broth, onion, garlic, butternut squash and Parmesan cheese in it. I used brown rice instead of that rice you're supposed to use for risotto because I think brown rice is better for you. The down side to that is that is doesn't get as creamy. This took forever to make. I don't see myself making it again anytime soon. Or any butternut squash dish for that matter - it just takes too long to deal with the squash! Oh yes, and I also made the soup which is quite delicious if I do say so myself.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

If I had to describe these in one word I'd say "eh". They were ok, nothing special. I was looking for a cookie to make that didn't involve a pound of butter. These were the best I could find at the time. These are the ingredients: rolled oats, brown sugar, whole wheat flour, honey, salt, baking powder, butter (3 TBSP), one egg, raisins and chocolate chips.