Fresh Ginger Snaps

I've been making these ginger snap cookies with fresh ginger for as long as I can remember. I'm not even sure where the recipe came from originally, but for sure my mom was making them before me. Using fresh grated ginger, instead of dried/ground, and then molasses makes people rave about these cookies. In fact, I made them for a gathering of friends last month and saw some those same friends last night and someone asked about them. I thought for sure I had already blogged this recipe and although I found a couple mentions, I couldn't find the actual recipe. Since I want to share the cookie love, I'm sharing the recipe now so you can try them in your own kitchen and share them with your friends and family.

Some friends have called them "ginger softs" since they tend to turn out with a crispy/sugary outside and a soft middle. That's the best way a cookie can turn out, if you ask me.

Fresh Ginger Snaps

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup vegetable shortening or butter (I use butter most often.)
4 Tbsp  Molasses
1 egg
1Tbsp fresh grated ginger
2 Cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mix together sugar and butter using a stand or hand mixer, mix until creamy.
3. Add Molasses, egg and fresh grated ginger, mix until combined.
4. Sift together the dry ingredients and slowly add them to the mixer, mixing until fully combined and you have something that resembles cookie dough. 
5. Using about a Tablespoon of dough for each cookie, roll the dough into a ball and then coat each ball of dough in sugar and set on your baking sheet. (I usually put about a little less than a half cup of sugar in a small bowl and then drop the dough ball in the sugar bowl and roll it around to get the sugar coating.) Bake for 10-12 minutes. Makes about two and half dozen.

Currently: The Retail Edition

Happy St. Patrick's Day! What's left of it anyway. Did you wear green? I'm wearing a kelly green top to keep any pinchers at bay. Ha!

So on to what's current: the retail edition.

Since St. Patrick's Day is nearly over and all the stores have been in Easter mode since Valentine's Day, I have a new Easter candy to tell you about. Vanilla Creme Marshmallow Peeps! I was at Tarjay yesterday and did a quick walk through of the snack area and peeped these new Peeps! I'm a pretty big fan of regular Peeps, so much so that I did not want to buy the package of 12 or whatever, because I'd likely eat all of them. So when I saw a package of three Vanilla Creme Peeps, I was intrigued and they jumped in my cart. My review in one word: delicious! I highly recommend if you're a Peeps fan!

Do you have a favorite mascara? I got a sample of Benefit's They're Real! Mascara from Sephora. My favorite, tried and true mascara is Voluminous False Fiber Lash Mascara from L'Oreal, but I do love to try a new product. So I've tried They're Real! a few times now since I got the sample. The brush has strange, plastic-y fibers that I haven't quite gotten used to. Once it's on, it actually looks good. It doesn't clump, but I've also noticed that it flakes a bit during the day, so you end up with tiny black specks on your cheeks. That's not cool. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? I'm going to keep trying it out here and there to see if it can completely win me over. What's your go to mascara?

Grand Rapids is now home to a Home Goods and a newly relocated TJ Maxx. From all the traffic you'd think the stores were giving away $100 bills to everyone who walked through the door. I managed to grab a parking spot in the heavily crowded parking lot and took a gander at what the fuss was about. The stores have separate entrances, but are connected, since they really are the same store. The Home Goods just has more of what the normal housewares section of our old TJ Maxx had.  It will be nice to have Home Goods as an option for house things. The TJ is a lot nicer and more spacious than the old location just across the parking lot, unfortunately though no $100 giveaway! No purchases were made. Will wait until the hype dies down, so I can browse in peace!

I opened with a sneaky sugar snack, which was a total treat since I'm trying real hard to keep to healthy eating these days. I've long been a fan of almonds as healthy snack. I recently came across these 100 calorie snack packs of cinnamon roast almonds by Emerald Nuts. For some reason I can't find a link to them, but trust, they are yummy and the perfect snack size. Do you have a go to healthy snack? Do share!

What's for Dinner?

So I've had some asparagus in my fridge since doing groceries last weekend. I was feeling all inspired about making dinners this week. Friday rolls around and the asparagus is all, "hey, remember us?" Yeah, I do remember you and tonight's the night.

Here's what I did. I roasted about half bunch in the oven.  Rinse and pat dry. Snap the bottoms off. Sprinkle with a little olive oil. Salt and pepper liberally and pop it in the oven at 450-500 for 10 minutes. Fry up your egg and place it on your roasted asparagus, et voila a delicious simple dinner. Aactually it's an all around tasty, quick meal for any time you need one!

I usually fry up my eggs so they're over hard, but some folks dig the yolk with asparagus. It's like a thing, I guess. So I decided to go sunny side up and was glad I did. It was super tasty. Count me as one of those people who digs the yolk with asparagus now.

What did you have for dinner?

OMG Cookies!

I made these cookies yesterday! I found the recipe on Bakerella. She calls them Dark Chocolate Chip Comfort Cookies and I would have to agree on the comfort part. I haven't had or baked a cookie like this...ever and I've baked a cookie or twelve in my time! Chocolate peanut butter dough with dark chocolate chips...ridiculously delicious and they have a perfect texture. They were fantastic to bring to work as a treat to celebrate my five-year work anniversary! They now have a place in my regular cookie baking repertoire and may just be my new favorite.

What's your favorite cookie to bake and/or eat?

What's for Dinner.

Huevos Rancheros. Turns out the meal with such a fun name to say is equally fun and easy to make. Are you sick of your Thanksgiving leftovers yet? This might be a great recipe to try! I've had this kicking around in my head for a bit, since the main ingredients are always staples in my kitchen. Tonight was the first time I've actually made it and I must say it was muy bueno!

Here's what I used to pull it together:

1 corn tortilla, warmed 

1 slice soy cheese (smoked provolone flavor)

black beans seasoned to taste with cumin, chili pepper and a splash of salsa

1 fried egg seasoned with salt, pepper and onion flakes

half a roma tomato, diced

salsa

guacamole, which had the other half of the roma tomato

Pile it all together and enjoy! The fun is that you can really play around with the ingredients and add/subtract depending on what you have on hand. This combination above was super tasty and is likely to become a standard quick meal at Casa Starr Fish. 

Ye Olde Pumpkin Pie

Oh, pumpkin pie, I so enjoy your fragrant deliciousness. I haven't had the honor of making the Thanksgiving pumpkin pies in a few years. There was that one year a few back when we had Thanksgiving here and I believe I made the pies. I think that may have even been vegan pumpkin pie that year. This year, I volunteered to bake and thought I'd share the process with you!

Something you should know about me first, I'm a "make the crust from scratch" kinda gal. What can I say, I'm my mother's daughter. She taught me well. 

Pie Crust

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

2/3 cups vegetable shortening

6-9 Tbsp. VERY cold water (I usually add a couple ice cubes to a bowl of water while I'm cutting the shortening into the dough and then use that.)

Measure your flour, salt and shortening into a bowl. Using a pastry cutter, mix everything together until it is crumbly. It should look like small pebbles, #1 (click the photo to get a closer look). Then add the water, three to four tablespoons at first, then mix. Then add at least two more tablespoons of water and continue to mix. the dough should begin to bind together as you're mixing/stirring. Depending on how well it's coming together (or not) you may or may not need to add the remaining water. Once it starts getting close to a ball of dough, dig right in with clean hands and bring it all together. You should end up with a ball of dough like #2. Cut the ball of dough in half and wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least a half hour. 

When the dough has had enough time to chill in the fridge, put one round of dough on a floured surface and roll it out (#3) until it's just a bit larger than a 9" pie pan. Carefully fold the dough circle in half, (but not pressing it together) then in half again to transfer it to your pie pan. Unfold the dough and form it into the pan. It can be a tricky process, but do like Tim Gunn says and just make it work. The finished shell should look like #4. Repeat with the other lump of dough. Yields two pie shells.

If you're not feeling up to the dough challenge, you can totally cheat and buy ready made pie crust, but then you won't have the satisfaction of making your own. Just try it! 

On to the pie. I used the recipe right of the can of Libby's 100% pumpkin. Apparently that's the one my mom's been using all these years!

Famous Pumpkin Pie

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

4 large eggs

1 can (29 oz.) 100% pure pumpkin

2 cans Evaporated milk

2 unbaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep-dish pie shells (see above)

Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in a small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.

Pour into unbaked pie shells.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350; bake 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. My pies baked for close to an hour so you have to keep an eye on them and let them do their thing. Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours, then serve or refrigerate. 

The sugar-spice mixture.

The eggs, sugar-spice mixture and pumpkin prior to mixing. I used my mixer, but you can do the mixing by hand.

Ta-da!! It's pumpkin pie, fresh out of the oven. I cannot wait until tomorrow to eat it up!

Taco Boy

If you ask most people in Grand Rapids to name a locally owned place to get a burrito, they'll likely name one of three places - the Beltline Bar, Maggie's Kitchen or Taco Boy. Taco Boy is a bit of a Grand Rapids restaurant institution. The Beltline Bar is known for wet burritos, and to be honest, I haven't been there in ages so I won't carry on about it (not my favorite). Maggie's Kitchen is a favorite spot of mine, but it's nowhere near my office, so it's more of a weekend/day off place to grab a bite. Taco Boy, on the other hand, has a location close to my work and we eat lunch there OFTEN. And by often I mean at least once a week. Sometimes twice, usually it's when one of us didn't go on the first visit of the week.

The first time I ever went to Taco Boy was in high school. I had friends that lived near one and they kept talking about how if we ever go, the "taco meat burrito" is the only thing to order. It's known as their best menu item. This vegetarian has even had one. It was back in the day, before I stopped eating meat.

These days I get their bean and cheese burrito with onions and it does the trick. The other gem about Taco Boy is their hot sauce. It's awesome! It's gotta be home made. They keep it near the counter and as you can see in the photo, you fill up as many tiny cups as you need and administer it as needed. It's on the spicy side. I'm a bit of light weight when it comes to hot sauce...it only go through two cups. One of my work friends who digs on the hot sauce uses five, so you get the idea!

It's nothing fancy, really, it's just good. The food is consistent. The decor is pretty simple and clean. They get an interesting mix of people - office kids like me and my work pals, dudes working the trades - there are usually a few work trucks in the parking lot. Everyone's a Taco Boy at heart, because it's soo good!

Oatmeal Bread

This recipe has been a favorite of mine for years. It's my mom's recipe and I've literally been making it since probably middle or high school. Long time, folks! In my book a recipe works when the actual prep is super simple and the end result is tasty and you find yourself going back to it time and time again.

This bread is delish for a weekend brunch or with soup for a quick dinner. Try it and see how you like it.

Oatmeal Bread

3 cups flour (I've used plain white flour or a combination of white and whole wheat)

5 tsp. baking powder

1 Tbsp. salt

1 1/2 cups quick oats, uncooked (If you use old fashioned oats, give them a spin in the food processor to break them down a bit.)

1 1/4 cups milk (regular or soy)

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 lg egg

Heat the oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9"x5"x3" bread pan.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. You can use a sifter to mix everything together or just use a whisk to stir all the dry ingredients together.

Combine the milk, honey, oil and egg in a smaller bowl. Whisk to combine. Then stir the dry into the dry ingredients. Mix together well until all the dry bits are incorporated and you've got something that resembles bread dough. Spread dough into the pan. Bake 55-60 minutes until golden brown. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack before serving.

Dry ingredients, minus the oats. I used half all purpose flour and half whole wheat flour.

Wet ingredients.

Wet and dry ingredients mixed together = dough.

Fresh out of the oven! Chilling on a wire rack.

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

I have a thing for melty blankets of cheese. And bread. I'm so into the cheese that most of the time, I have a rule that I don't purchase cheese unless it's for a specific recipe. And my bread rule includes only purchasing Ezekiel Sprouted Grain bread for regular consumption. You know, because it's good for me in that whole grain, complete protein, granola-crunchy way and not super processed. These days I'm hooked on making peanut butter toast. A while back it was avocado toast. End Ezekiel toast tangent.

Well my friends, rules are made to be broken! This soup has both cheese and non-Ezekiel bread and yeah, there's some actual liquid called onion soup in the bowl too! It's one of the most simple soups I make and one of the most deliciously cozy for a cold fall or winter meal. Make it the next time you're craving warmth in a bowl.

Sweating to the oldies, I mean onions...

Almost done...

Warm, toasty and melty...ready for dinner. Get in my belly!

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

1/4 to 1/2 stick of butter (use less if you use 1 large onion, more if you use more onions)

1 to 2 large sweet onions, sliced into rings

1 carton vegetarian broth

1 can vegetarian broth (however you can get to about 6 cups broth)

1 bay leaf

about a 1/2 tsp thyme

cooking sherry

crusty french bread sliced on the diagonal into rounds then lightly toasted

melty white cheese of your choice, shredded (Lots of recipes use Gruyere. I used a combination of provolone and muenster this time.)

salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large stock pot, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Add onion rings, sprinkle with a bit of salt. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes stirring gently. Reduce heat to very low and cook for 45-50ish minutes until the onions are tender and browned.

2. Once onions are tender and browned, turn heat back to medium and add two to three large serving spoons of cooking sherry, sprinkle in thyme. Cook and stir gently for about two minutes.

3. Add broth. Simmer for at least 30 minutes.

4. Cut your bread into rounds. Toast or broil them so they are crisp.

5. Shred chosen cheese.

5. If you used the broiler for your toast rounds, then you're one step ahead of the game. With the broiler on, assemble your oven-proof soup bowls. I butter the edge of the bowl lightly to help make cleaning up melty cheese bits less of a chore. Ladle soup into bowl, arrange bread rounds to cover the bowl's surface area (honestly this is a personal preference step. Use however many will fit into your bowls or how many (or few) you prefer. I used three because that's what filled up the bowl's surface area. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and place the entire bowl very carefully on the top rack of your oven under the broiler. Broil for 2-3 minutes, watching closely until the cheese is bubbly and slightly browned. Carefully remove from broiler, and prepare to enjoy. As servers often say in restaurants, "be careful, this dish is very hot!" Try not to burn your fingers touching the bowl once it's on the table and try not to burn your tongue as you dig into the soup!

Peanut Butter Pie

If you're a foodie like me and follow any number of food blogs, you've probably seen some Peanut Butter Pie mentions of late. If you haven't, you should read this and watch this. Go on...I'll wait for you right here.

If you're a little teary-eyed after both of those, I'll give you a minute to collect yourself.

Jennie from In Jennie's Kitchen lost her husband Mikey and she couldn't help but think of that Peanut Butter Pie she didn't get a chance to make for him. As she blogged about her grief, she shared the recipe and closed her post with these words:

For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.

Food plays such a huge role in our lives, beyond providing nutrition and sustenance, it also acts as a means for us to relate to other people, the people we love, cherish and appreciate, and celebrate the times we have together. Making special recipes can also act as a conduit for connecting to and processing all sorts of feelings, including grief. It took me a few days to gather the ingredients for this Creamy Peanut Butter Pie, but I thought of Jennie and her daughters often until I had the chance to make it last week. When I was done in the kitchen that night, I read her blog post again and tried posting a comment. Comments were no longer being accepted, so I'm posting it here:

"I don't remember how I originally saw this tribute for your obviously beloved, departed husband Mikey. Just know that my heart goes out to you and your girls. I've thought of you and your peanut butter pie often since I saw your post for the first time. I finally had the time to make the pie tonight. I have tears in my eyes for you, your family and those whom I love, but cannot share this pie with. Sending you peace, love and light from my kitchen in Michigan tonight and from now on every time I make your creamy peanut butter pie (for Mikey)."

I made the pie and shared it with my best girlfriends from high school on Tuesday night last week. I then brought in the leftovers for my crew at work. There are so many more people I would have loved to share this pie with. If you have even the slightest yen to make this pie for those you love, do it. You won't regret it.

Sweet Snack Secret

This is a story about something so simple, yet so delicious.

It's a little sweet snack secret that I'll share with you because I like you and I want you to be able to partake in this tasty goodness whenever you like. If you're anything at all like me, that will be on the regular.

It's been proven that I like to bake. It's also been proven that I can, at times, use a little help getting beyond my sweet-teeth (I don't just have one). There are times when I'm in dire need of a sweet and I have absolutely no business baking something that will result in a large pan or batch of anything sitting around my kitchen. This so simple, yet so delicious sweet snack was born out of one of those instances.

Behold...

Three simple ingredients: Two graham crackers. Peanut Butter. A handful of chocolate chips (melted). Prep: break each graham in half. Smear peanut butter on each square. Then top with melted chocolate.

What? You say, it's not a big deal. You make this all the time or your kid does and they make a mess. Well, my friend, that's where you are sadly mistaken, because if you look closely at the photo, you may be able to decipher the secret to this so simple, yet so delicious snack. Once assembled, you pop everything in the freezer and wait at least a half hour so everything is firm and the chocolate has a frozen snap to it. That time spent in the freezer turns this so called pre-school snack into something akin to snack salvation. I dare you to try it and not get at least a little hooked and make them a couple days in a row. Go on...you know you want to!

Costa Rica! The Food!

I didn't take nearly as many photos as I would have liked. I grabbed the wrong memory card when I left the house the morning of my trip. Still bumming about that. Anyway, if I had taken more pictures, you would have gotten a complete photo essay of all the amazing food we had. Words will have to do because the food was down right memorable.

Right off the bat from a freshness, flavor and availability standpoint, the avocado, bananas, pineapple and mango were to die for. If bringing produce back to the States were an option, I would have carried back an entire suitcase!

Our on-site work day snack was always fresh fruit. About 10:00 a.m. or so the giant plastic container full of fresh fruit chunks would surface. Each day it was a little different - staples though were pineapple and watermelon. So good! Grab a fork and dig in!

Crew buddies C and C taking a pineapple break.

The camera would have come in handy to document our work day lunches. We had the unbelievable fortune of having a local woman named Emma cook lunch for us every day. She put out quite the home made spread every day. Beans and rice in a few different forms/flavors. Veggies. Spaghetti with option of veggie sauce (not just tomato sauce, it had chunky veggies in it) or meat sauce with veggies. There was a shepherds pie of sorts one day made with yuca (aka cassava). I think this was my favorite - the meateaters got a version with meat obviously, but the vegetarian version was basically fluffly mashed yuca (similar to mashed potatoes) and cheese. With cheese being sort of scarce until that point in the trip, this was heaven on a plate!

One day Emma taught us how to make bean and cheese empanadas. That was fun and delicious! Every single day she also had a fresh green salad with a chimichurri sauce and a fresh fruit juice. Saved the best for last, she made the most amazing corn bread and a yuca bread that were both beyond moist and so delicious. I couldn't stop eating it. We got the recipe and I can't wait to try it! Viva, Emma!

On the way back to El Sueno Dorado after a day of work, we usually stopped at one of the little bodegas nearby for cerveza (Coke Lite in my case) and snacks. My after work snack of choice with my bottle of Coke Lite: plantain chips. So tasty! One day the store we were in didn't have them, so I tried some lime and salt peanuts. Someone on the crew had gotten them and shared the day before and they seemed a worthy snack choice. Turns out a little goes a LONG way. The package I bought was SO salty, I had a few handfuls and never finished them.

El Sueno Dorado had its own restaurant called Benedictus Steak House. The chef was an entertaining character, to say the least. Putting in our orders became a crew joke of sorts for the week after the first night. "Should we put in our orders now?" Apparently the paper with all of our orders got wet in the kitchen the first night and there were some order mix ups. Some meals took longer than others, but I didn't mind at all. It was all part of the experience and gave us ample time to chat about our day on the work site and get to know each other better.

Dinner out at ANOTHER steak house one night! They're literally everywhere in LaFortuna.

Before hitting the work site, we'd gather at Benedictus at 7:00 a.m. for breakfast. Most mornings it was a buffet with many choices. The best Gallo Pinto ever with fresh cilantro and flavorful spices. I don't think I'd ever get tired of that. Scrambled eggs. Fried eggs made to order. Fresh fruit. Yogurt and granola, and a few kinds of mini boxed cereal. Toast. Pancakes came later in the week. Hello pancake, my old friend! That was a nice surprise. Juice and coffee were staples at every breakfast.

A familiar face in the grocery store.

For dinner, there were lots of meat choices for the carnivores. Go figure. For a steak house, though they did a good job keeping this vegetarian happy all week. I had some of the best spaghetti I've ever had. They made a great mixed salad every night and some sort of a dessert, the ice cream was so creamy and good. Makes me want ice cream right now just thinking about it.

On our final night in La Fortuna, Benedictu made us his famous flaming crepes suzette. They were famous only because we'd seen him parade by our table several times with a flaming pan prior to our last night, so we were naturally curious. With all the fanfare, I wanted to love them, but the taste of the liquor was a bit overpowering and made me not love it.

For someone who packed Cliff Builder Bars in her backpack, thinking it might be a difficult trip in terms of getting enough protein or access to vegetarian food, I was overjoyed that the food was certainly veg-friendly, but also plentiful. I ate WAY more than I normally do at home because someone else was always cooking these amazing morsels to try. A week of eating that way caught up with me though and I began to feel a little yucky on our last day. My final meal in San Jose was a bottle of ginger ale and a pack of soda crackers with a side of pepto bismal!

Oh, I almost forgot about this...on my first night in San Jose I had dinner with a few members of the crew who were also in country a day early. One thing we noticed right away were the fun Spanish to English menu items that were lost in translation. The clear favorite which we continued to see on several other menus was the "Gordon Blue" chicken.

Gordon Blue, I'll never forget you and you'll always make me chuckle.

So much goodness! A week later (and I'm pretty sure until I return to Costa Rica for another visit) I'm still thinking about the bananas, pineapple and avocado.

Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Home made chocolate peanut butter cups. It has been done. Thankfully, for this experiment I only made a tiny batch.

FOOD!

So you know I've been eating Special K like it's my job. What else have I been eating? Well, funny you should ask, or that I would pretend that you asked and tell you! Some of the staples and recent favorites:

Clif Builder's Bars - Peanut Butter. I've probably blogged about these before. They're so good, and such a simple way to get a good dose of protein - 20 grams, yo! I've been eating one for breakfast lately, you know since I've been eating cereal for dinner! HA!

Bananas with peanut butter. Seriously the bananas are b.a.n.a.n.a.s! Then, you add peanut butter?! Get out! I've been bringing both to work. I had to remove the jar of peanut butter from my giant purse tonight before going into dinner. Do you know anyone else who carries peanut butter? My work buddies and I developed a whole routine about bananas. As with most work-comedy things, it might not translate to the masses. Just know we were laughing this week in cubeland - all about bananas!

They're yellow and delicious! They're bananas! (image via google images)

Rak Thai. Grand Rapids seems to have exploded with Thai restaurants in the last year or so. While I'm not a super experienced Thai foodie, I do enjoy it! People who are Thai experts would probably laugh because I usually order Pad Thai. It's the gateway Thai food though, c'mon! A couple friends who live north of town always talk about Rak Thai and tonight I had the opportunity to have dinner there with my friend N, since it's in her neighborhood. Decor is contemporary/clean, painted bright green with bamboo wood banquette seating and a few stand alone tables. I actually branched out and ordered a Curry dish that I don't remember the name of (sorry!). It was delish though!

Chocolate Cake in a Mug. If any of your lady friends who love chocolate have seen this recipe, you've probably received it via email at least once. I saw it a couple of years ago and never thought I'd actually make it. Well, a girl and her chocolate craving might run up against some desperate times on a Friday night, desperate times that call for chocolate cake in a pinch! It's beyond easy and actually tasty for a cake made in the microwave in three minutes! If you give it a try, leave me a comment and tell me how it went for you!

Chocolate Cake in a Mug! (phone camera accounts for picture quality!) I posted this same photo on my facebook and my friend D posted, "Does anyone else see an owl?" So if you see an owl, you have a special gift and can laugh out loud like I just did!!

Water. Seriously! Good old H2O! During the week at work I go through one 32 ounce Nalgene bottle during the day and probably another 16-20 ounces on nights that I work out. Love water. Totally need to incorporate the water drinking during the weekends though. Gotta stay hydrated on the weekends too!

What foods are you digging right now? Any good recipes to share with me? Leave me some comment love!

Your foodie friend,

*fish!

Snacks

I made this way-easy curried tempeh spread yesterday. Never had tempeh? It's a fermented soy product that comes in handy for us vegetarians as a nice meat alternative. Higher in protein than regular tofu, and in my opinion depending on the need, more simple to cook with since it's naturally condensed in a way that tofu isn't.

Curried Tempeh Spead

1 8-10 oz package tempeh (I buy LiteLife brand. If you're local, it can be purchased at Meijer and is probably a staple at health food stores.)

1/3 cup soy mayo or regular mayo (Your choice, I used miracle whip because that's what I had.)

1 tsp yellow mustard (Prepared mustard, not dry.)

1 tsp curry powder

pinch chilli powder

1 scallion, minced (optional)

Grate or crumble the tempeh into a bowl. I used a box a cheese grater. In a separate bowl mix mayo, mustard, curry powder, chili powder and scallion if using. When mixed well, add to the grated tempeh and stir together. Serve with crackers as pictured, or use your imagination. I'm thinking it would be good in a sandwich. I do know that whenever I make it, it doesn't last long!

Curried Tempeh Spread (right) pictured with Roasted Red Pepper Hummus & Crackers

Ooh Mashed Potato Pancakes

Mashed Potato Pancakes with Cranberry Orange Sauce

The mystery of what to do with leftover mashed potatoes is something I've never had to contemplate. On Thanksgiving or whenever the fam is all together and mashed potatoes are made, we usually ask, "will that be enough for dinner AND leftovers?" We don't like mashed potatoes in my family, we love them, even leftover. I made them last week. Let me tell you, mashed potato leftovers take a lot longer to get through when you have fewer bellies craving them! I had mashed potatoes that needed a new life. Enter the mashed potato pancake! I wondered what the difference was between mashed potato pancake and a traditional latke - turns out latkes are made with shredded potato!

Mashed Potato Pancakes

2 cups mashed potatoes

2 eggs

1/4 cup flour

chopped onion

salt & pepper

I started by putting the cold mashed potatoes in the microwave for a couple minutes to take the chill off just enough so I could actually stir them. Add two eggs, flour, chopped onion and salt and pepper. Mix everything together. It will still be kind of thick, you want it to hold together and not be runny. Add vegetable oil to coat the bottom of a large frying pan, heat over medium to high heat. When oil looks extra shiny, drop spoonfuls of your potato mixture into the pan.

First batch in the pan.

They dropped in clumps that I smoothed out with the back of a spoon. Cook until the bottom browns, then flip and cook the other side. Once you flip them, you can use your spatula to press them down a bit. Cook in batches until you have a yummy plateful to share or dish them up to friends and family right out of the pan as you cook them.

Seriously delicious Mashed Potato Pancakes

I served mine with an Orange Cranberry sauce that my Auntie G makes. It's super easy to make and if you're lucky you'll see the recipe on the bag too! One bag fresh cranberries, one whole orange cut into chunks (skin too, but I trim the ends off as I'm chunking it). Put everything into a food processor and process until chunky and well mixed together. I add a 1/2 cup of sugar. You can adjust the sugar as you wish. I used less than the recipe called for. Chill until ready to serve. I'm on my second batch in as many weeks. It's tasty!

Banana Muffins

Oh, hello, muffin! I whipped up these Banana Muffins out of the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook (one of my favorites!) over the weekend. I usually make banana chocolate chip bread when I have some bananas about to turn over to the dark side. I wanted to try something new though and so here we are.

Banana Muffins

1 cup flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup oats
1 egg white
1 egg
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup mashed ripe banana (I used 2 1/2 smaller bananas)
1/2 cup plain nonfat (or lowfat) yogurt
(optional) 1/2 cup chocolate chips or raisins

Get all your ingredients in line. Preheat oven to 400. Line a 12-muffin muffin pan with liners, cooking spray or light coating of oil. I prefer using muffin liners.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Run the cup of oats through a food processor or blender until you have something the consistency of cornmeal. Add the oats to the dry ingredients.

Flour, baking soda, baking powder, brown sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg.

Oats after a good spin through the food processor.

In another bowl, beat the egg white for three minutes until foamy and increased in volume, but not stiff. Stir the foamy egg white and the additional full egg, oil, mashed banana and yogurt and chocolate chips or raisins if you're using them. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry mixture until just combined.

One whipped egg white, plus one egg.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. I added a handful of chocolate chips to six of my muffins at this point just to see how they'd turn out. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool. Enjoy.

Mmm...wholesome and delish!

Oh, Sweet Potato

Isn't it fantastic that sweet potatoes are so good for you and are so versatile? I love making sweet potato fries, but tonight I whipped up some mashed sweet potatoes with a bit of Earth Balance vegan "butter", cinnamon, cloves and a sprinkle of brown sugar. It was like dessert, but I was eating veggies! Absolutely fantastic!

Vegetable Tortellini Soup

The last few weeks I've been determined to make one dish before starting the work week that I can bring to work for lunches. Spinach & Artichoke pasta, anyone? This week I tried out a recipe for Vegetable Ravioli Soup I found a while back on delish.com. I modified it just a touch - cheese tortellini instead of ravioli, which didn't impact the flavor at all. The highlights - it's super easy to make, it's packed with veggies and it's so tasty I know I won't get sick of it eating it for lunch this week!

Vegetable Tortellini Soup

olive oil to coat the bottom of your soup pan

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

chopped onion (enough so that you have 2 cups total of chopped onion+red & green pepper)

2 cloves garlic, pressed

sprinkle of crushed red pepper

1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 can vegetable broth

1 1/2 cups hot water (you could also use another can of vegetable broth)

1 teaspoon dried basil

2 small zucchini, chopped

1 cup (heaping) frozen cheese tortellini

Pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of your soup pan, turn heat to medium. Add your chopped pepper, onion and garlic mixture. Saute for a few minutes. Add the crushed red pepper if you're using it. I used just a touch, if you like heat, add more! Add your can of tomatoes, broth, hot water and dried basil. Bring to a rolling boil. Add the zucchini. Cook for 3-5 more minutes. Add tortellini and cook as long as the package says. Enjoy!

Tofurkey - for Real!

If you're a vegetarian with a few Thanksgiving's under your belt, you'll feel me on this one. I've been a vegetarian for over 15 years and luckily much of my family is also meat free - makes family get togethers that involve food (let's face it, almost all of them do!) a breeze. When I was newly meat free and it wasn't as mainstream as it seems to be, the question about Thanksgiving would inevitably come up - "...but, what do you eat on Thanksgiving?" Like those of us who aren't eating turkey are going hungry on Thanksgiving while the rest of the country gorges on everything from sweet potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Dude we can eat all that and there are some pretty good Turkey stand-ins to boot!

This year my cousins had been talking about the real Tofurkey and how the texture creeped out my cousin B. Cousin M thought we ought to try our own version of this meat free poultry stunt double. He mentioned it in passing late Wednesday night. I wondered if he had a recipe in mind. He said no, he was just planning on winging it. I'm pro-recipe, so I looked up a few recipes online. We ended up using one from vegweb.com as a guide and then somewhat winging it, since we got a very late start and were working with much less tofu than the recipe called for.

Here's roughly what we did:

3 packages extra firm tofu drained (we actually had one extra firm, one firm and one silken - not ideal from a texture standpoint)

poultry seasoning

garlic

dried minced onion

rosemary

thyme

salt

pepper

2-3 smaller portabello mushrooms chopped

Mix all the tofu in a food processor until smooth. Eyeball your spices and add them all to the tofu along with the chopped portabello mushrooms. We went for more spices, wanting more of a robust flavor rather than just the bland tofu.

Once everything was blended smooth, we spooned the mixture into a sieve lined with a clean kitchen towel (I'd suggest a smooth, thin one, rather than a thick textured one!), covered the top and placed a large rock on the top to help press the liquid out. The recipe we followed said to press for 2-3 hours, or overnight. We maybe managed 3 hours and there was barely any liquid in the bowl below the sieve. The towel was wet though, so I guess we got some liquid out.

Looks like a dip, but it's not! Tofu mixture in towel-lined sieve.

Towel-lined sieve, placed in a bowl with a rock on top.

Next, we shaped it into a log shape in a glass 9x13 pan and put it in the oven at 350. We mixed up the "glaze" in the recipe - basically red wine, balsamic vinegar and some of the same spices we used for the tofu mixture. Had we pressed the tofu mixture longer, the glaze probably would have worked a bit better. Our "log" sort of spread out flat. I believe we baked it for about an hour or an hour and a half. I sort of lost track!

Tofu log, ready for the oven!

The finished product. It's not pretty, but it's a tasty meat-free alternative to turkey.

My cousin and I did a ceremonial first bite at the dinner table - both a little scared it wasn't going to be any good. It didn't look pretty, but it tasted good! I was surprised and relieved. We'll have to get an earlier start next year and use all extra firm tofu rather than the mixture we used. It was so much fun though and I can't wait to try making this again!