friday: pad thai

Happy first Friday of Lent! I decided I would post what we've been having for dinner on Fridays this year for a little inspiration! (Heaven knows I need all of the inspiration I can get when it comes to deciding what to cook for dinner!)

So it's around 3pm on Friday and I have no ideas. At all! In fact, all I can think about are Chef Chole's vegan chocolate cupcakes! Oh dear... This is the result of giving up dessert for Lent! ;)

Then I remember, oh duh! Chef Chole is vegan and I bet she has some wonderful ideas! So I went to her website and made this delicious vegan pad thai! So yummy! The only thing I changed is I added 1 lb of shrimp (because I am not vegan and I could)!

So good! Enjoy!

Love, K

uh oh mama!

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Last year Eliza didn't even notice when the priest placed the ash cross on her forehead, but this year was a different story! When we got up to the priest for ashes, he tried to place them on Eliza, but she swatted his hand away. (Congregation began to chuckle.) Then he put them on me and made a quick dot on Eliza's forehead. As soon as she saw my ashes she started saying "Uh oh, Mama!" (loudly) over and over and over again, trying to rub the ashes off of my forehead. The congregation was laughing loudly at this point and Eliza and I took a trip to the hallway.

Oh those babies!

Love, K

vegan valentines

Happy Valentine's Day! Eliza and I had some more adventures in vegan cooking today as we made sugar cookies and royal icing. Our neighbor's daughter in allergic to milk and eggs, so we wanted to make cookies that she could enjoy as well. I used to have a negative opinion about vegan desserts until I tried Chef Chloe's vegan chocolate shortbread cupcakes. A-mazing! They were the first vegan cupcake to win Food Network's cupcake wars. They are super easy to make and super delicious, so I don't even try to make any other chocolate cake anymore.

Anyway...commercial over.

So I tried this cookie and royal icing recipe from Food.com, mostly because they were the only recipes I could find that had been reviewed. They were good. Not quite as good as sugar cookies with eggs and milk in them, but still good. I think I rolled them a little too thin as well, so next time I'll have to try them thicker so they turn out softer.

Here's the recipe:

Vegan Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

2 cups sifted flour
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 dash cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately.
• Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well until a soft dough forms.
• Roll out dough on a floured surface until 1/4" thick and cut out shapes with cookie cutters.
• Place on parchment paper lined cookie sheets and bake at 350F for 10-12 min.
• Cool 1 minute and transfer to wire racks.

Eggless Royal Icing

2 cups powdered sugar
4 tsp water
4 tsp light corn syrup
1/2 tsp almond or clear vanilla extract
Food coloring
Sprinkles and sugar to decorate

• Mix sugar, water, corn syrup, and vanilla/almond extract in a small bowl until well combined. Icing should be thick, but able to drip from a spoon.
  
• If icing is too dry, add water, 1 tsp at a time, mixing well after each tsp of water is added.
• Divide icing, if more than one color desired, and tint with food coloring. Gel or powdered food coloring is preferred so it doesn't change the consistency of your icing.
• Place 1/3 of your icing in a piping bag with a small round piping tip.
• Pipe an outline on your cookies with the thicker icing and allow to dry.
• Return unused icing to bowl and add water, 1 tsp at a time, until a more runny consistency has been achieved.
• Use piping bag to fill in the icing between the piped on lines already on the cookie.
• Decorate with sprinkles or sugar and allow to dry for several hours before enjoying.

Hope you enjoy it!

Love, K