quickies are nice

well..um, those kinds of quickies are nice; however, i'm talking about a quickie meal. bang-bang-bang done. i thought i was busy when i just had one kid. i'm still working on the two kid thing. no time to do much of anything, and when i think i've got a rhythm going, someone shits their pants!

i know, i know TMI. but readers of this blog that have two or more children know what i'm sayin'. aiiiight?

anyway, this is some ww pasta with my signature pesto sauce, chopped spanish olives, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, and some smoked tofu all living in harmony. in spite of all those savory ingredients, it tasted a little bland, so i added red pepper flakes for flair. it wasn't bad and it utilized stuff that had been sitting around in the pantry. if i make this again, i'll definitely add some roasted garlic or up the amount of pesto i use. i hate it when i'm pesto deficient.

me want cookies! nomnomnomnom....

guess who got isa and terry's cookie cookbook for the holidays? dat's right. these are the chocolate crinkle cookies. they are by far the family favorite--perfect marriage of crisp and chewy. it's like a cookie and a fudgey brownie did it and had cookie babies.

what's your favorite cookie from the book?

BOOM! Product Review

BOOM! this is probably the best vegan chocolate i've ever had. the texture isn't smooth as silk--it's a bit grainy, but that don't bother me no how. mr. jewy picked this up for me on clearance at kroger's and i'm glad he did. what i liked about it is that it is sweet for a dark chocolate bar, completely vegan-(none of that pesky jargon on the ingredients that states "used on equipment that processes milk, eggs, etc."), so it's even okay for the vegan police to eat.

added bonus: you gotta like a name like Boom! Choco Boom! i wonder if Enjoy Life foods will come up with a bom-chicka-bom-bom cookie or something.

the perfect holiday bread for christmachanakwaanzika

i made it back into the kitchen! this photo doesn't do this bread any justice, but i'm hoping you can see the bits of berries n' nuts in this glorious bread. i scored some frozen cranberries at the food bank and wanted to make something besides cranberry sauce. i made the cranberry-orange-nut bread from veganomicon. this was really good and makes the perfect holiday bread to bake for that special someone no matter what you celebrate. i'm sure santa, jesus, the maccabees, and all those who honor the spirit of hamarabe would sit around a fire eating this bread with a strong cup of earl grey tea--everyone singing in harmony, of course.

the recipe calls for fresh cranberries, but the frozen worked quite well. i suppose if you were in a pinch, dried would work just fine, although the purpose of using the fresh/frozen is to ensure that you get a burst of plump tart berries in each bite. i did have some clementines lying around so i squeezed them and used them for the juice instead of the OJ, and that worked well too.

c.h.i.p.s.

no, this entry ain't about poncho and jon from the fabulously hip cop drama from the late 70's--this is about the usage of chocolate chips. these are the peanut butter waffles from vegan brunch that i made before i had the baby. and yes, i'll fully admit it, i can't leave a sweet recipe alone. i have to add chocolate chips to damn near everything. in this case, the addition made the waffles 10 thousand times more decadent than they already are.

yippee ki-yay.....

i have no idea how i'm going to maintain this blog since cookie has arrived. i spend my days working hard at not doing anything per doctor's orders--such is the life of someone after major surgery. i've watched more t.v. than i ever have in the past year, including finally seeing the movie die hard. for all of you who happen to be movie enthusiasts out there, there's a particular line in this flick that mr. willis exclaims, "yipee ki-yay mother$%^&*#!"

typically, the yippee and the ki-yay exclamation is uttered only from cowboys. everyone should know this that has seen a tex avery cartoon or watched an old western. i'm not opposed to obscenities or cowboys, but i found it funny to see a young bruce willis-(with hair!) utter this sentence. i found it even crazier to see a young alan rickman-(aka snape from harry potter movies). i hardly recognized him! but that's neither here nor there. the question i want answered is: can a cookie be so good that it would make someone cuss? absolutely!

i imagine bruce said this after having one of isa's cowboy cookies from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar!
i made a batch of these prior to my daughter's arrival. i had mad plans to do more baking from this cookbook, but i can't do squat for another few weeks. this recipe made plenty and freezes well. just defrost and warm in microwave. of course, they're best out of the oven.
sorry for the flash photography--i can't wait for winter to be over so i can take decent outside shots of food again. the recipe suggests using a vegan butterscotch chip along with the chocolate chips, but i'm not from the east coast and have no access to the coveted price chopper brand butterscotch chips. i also didn't feel like paying an arm and a leg to buy them online. i might have to do this if i make them in the future, though.