Whatever it was, it was tasty, crispy, and flavorful while being very light.

Zucchini Noodles with Bell Pepper Sauce

Ingredients:
2 bell peppers
1/3 c cashews
2/3 c almonds
3 garlic cloves [or less, to taste]
2 tbsp oil [olive, grapeseed or walnut]
basil [fresh would be awesome, but I only had dried]
Veggies on hand [ie: broccoli, carrots, cabbage, zucchini, etc.]

Mandoline the veggies into small pieces. If I had a gadget that made spiraled noodles from the zucchini, I’d use it.
Sadly, not in my budget right now, and the neat hand tool I got on ebay thinking it would do the job actually makes quite different wide spirals, so I’ll figure out how to best utilize it later.
Tonight, I just used what I knew and mandolined them into matchsticks.

Blend together the nuts and peppers and basil with the olive and garlic.
Pour the sauce over the vegetables.

Mix together heartily. Can serve now or give it some time for the flavors to meld.

We ended up eating it right away.

It was good, although much sweeter than I’d intended. Next time I may add some hot pepper and black pepper.
The nuts were a very dominant flavor.
The vegetable matchsticks were crispy and delicious.

Mark declared it tasty, but not enough food for the night.

So, I believe in future I should try pairing a couple of raw dishes if they are as light and vegetable heavy as this one was.  Maybe with a nice fruit based dish.

Growing up, my Mom always made the red sauce with ground beef in it. But I’ve tried a lot of variants and this has become my basic go-to lasagna recipe when I have a large crowd to feed that wants simple, yet amazingly tasty, comfort food.

I find I get requests for this dish most often in autumn and winter.

This time I made it for only four mouths, but with Mark’s lunches for the next two weeks in mind.

Next time I’m sure I’ll do something fun and different to add some variety.

Old Fashioned Filling Lasagna

Ingredients:
1 box of lasagna noodles + left overs from previous boxes (how much you use depends entirely on the size of the pan you will fill)
2-3 cans of tomato sauce (ditto, but err on the side of more–leftover sauce refrigerates beautifully and is super easy to find uses for)
spices (I use thyme, oregano, parsley, garlic, onion flakes, hot pepper, basil, sage, and black pepper)
2 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
3 lb ricotta cheese

If the pan used is small, you will have left overs of the cheese–but it’s easy to find delicious ways to use them up, so no worries. The fact that my pan takes more than a box of noodles [yet not even close to 2 boxes] is always the bit that irks me.

This particular time I used a larger pan than I sometimes do [in fact it does not fit in my small oven, and had to be baked downstairs. But as I was also feeding them that night, there were no complaints], as I am counting on the left overs to be Mark’s lunch at work for the next week or two.

First pour the cans of tomato sauce into a saucepan. I generally add 3/4 of a can of water to one of the cans, swish it around to pick up the stray bits of sauce, pour it into the next can, repeat until all cans are clean of sauce, and dump that into the pan. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and when it begins to bubble, turn it down to simmering. Stir often.

I then begin heavily seasoning things, because I like a lot of spices in my red sauce. Mark prefers a very oregano heavy tomato sauce, while I enjoy giving it just a little bit [OK, sometimes more than just a little bit] of heat with some hot pepper.

Do not be afraid to play freely with your spice cabinet, though if using something quite interesting, like cinnamon, go very slowly–you can always add more if you think it’ll be fun, but not so much in the reverse (in which case, add more tomato sauce to thin it out).

While the sauce is simmering, grate your mozzarella cheese, and prep your workspace (clear off a good bit of counter space). Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees F.

Some recipes have you buy more expensive ‘no cook’ lasagna noodles (which I maintain are the same as the normal noodles–or close enough as to make no difference) or pre-cook the noodles before making the layered dish. This is just not necessary if you use enough sauce to soften the noodles in the oven. And you should, because that gives the dish enough red sauce to be richly spiced and delicious.

When the sauce has simmered roughly 15-20 minutes, tastes amazing, and is the consistency you like your red sauce, turn it off and place the sauce pan on a hot pad holder on the counter near your lasagna pan.  Make sure everything is within easy reach, keeping the sauce pan and the lasagna pan near eachother so as to minimize any spills.

Open the ricotta, and give it a stir to mix everything as well as fluff it up beautifully.

Grab a ladle and ladle about one to two ladles full of sauce into the bottom of the pan, spreading it out quite thinly, so the lasagna does not stick as it cooks.

Then place the dry noodles into the pan–bear in mind as they soften and cook they shall swell up and take up more space, so give them a bit of room, though not too much. Feel free to break the noodles [or use already-broken noodles] to fit into spaces too small for the whole length to fit.

Next place sauce over the noodles–I used in this pan roughly a ladle per row of noodles, so about 3 ladles full per layer.
Then go ahead and begin to scoop ricotta on top of the sauce. I just toss spoonfuls rather roughly over the noodles, not bothering to try to smooth it out too much, as it will expand and meld as it heats up and cooks, so why waste time? Not to mention when we cut into the lasagna to serve and eat it, it gets quite messy.
Try to ration out the ricotta from the beginning so you do not end up with most of it in one layer. As I did this time. Although honestly, no one else noticed, and it tasted just the same.

Top the layer with shredded mozzarella cheese, and that’s how it is done!

Pop it in the oven, and wait 45 minutes, or until everything is nice and bubbly with the cheese on top browned a bit.

Take it out of the oven and let it sit for a bit to settle and cool [do not forget to turn off the oven].

Slice and serve.

Mmmm. Lasagna is just as good later refrigerated and re-heated–use either a microwave or an oven (toaster sized is faster than the large one, naturally, but if it’s winter you would like to get the house just a bit warmer, use the large oven, just allow for more time).

I have yet to meet someone who is not amazingly in love with lasagna. It’s such a simple [though a bit time consuming] dish to make, and yet always wows everyone.

I have not, however, made a vegan version yet.  Recently, I used half ricotta cheese and half soft tofu mixed together in the ricotta layer as opposed to just ricotta to great effect–no one knew, and raved about how rich and luscious it was.  Though after being informed about it Mark claimed it did taste slightly different to him. Or perhaps he said the texture was slightly different.  One of those.

Nonetheless, not in a bad way, and the tofu costs me a lot less than the ricotta, so I heartily endorse this plan.  Truly amazing and melty vegan cheese I have not yet come across, so no thought on how to vegan-ize it all completely yet.  If anyone does, do pass the brand my way please.

I’m also always on the look out for interesting twists on this layered dish–lavender or pumpkin or pesto, anyone?

Sliced the avocado lengthwise, scooped out the seed, and then spooned the flesh out of the skin into the Vita-mix high powered blender. Peeled the bananas, broke them into a few pieces each, and tossed them in as well. Followed with the pureed dates, cocoa, coffee, cinnamon, and finally the aloe vera juice. Blending on Low setting for about 5 seconds.

Instead of mousse what I made was more like pudding and tasted strongly of banana, with undertones of chocolate.  Was still quite delicious, full of rich flavour, and I ate most of it myself [too much as it turns out, as a hour or so later, my stomach complained of being overfull].

Mark was amazed and a bit aghast at how much the texture was pudding like, and said it tasted a bit strange to him, with so much going on flavour-wise.  He also thought it looked odd [the colour was brown with a few more shades of green mixed in than usual in pudding].

Over all, not a bad first try at a raw dessert, but I think less banana, more cocoa and coffee [and perhaps a few more dashes of cinnamon].  Or alternatively, skip them entirely to go more in the direction of fruit.  If I had not specifically been wanting something more chocolate-y, that would have been a great way to go–banana, avocado, mango, papaya, or strawberry…I should definitely give that a try some other time.

Roasted Garlic Vegetables Over Angel Hair
Ingredients:
3 bulbs garlic, defrocked and sliced in half
1 can of black olives, roughly chopped
1/3 c sun dried tomatoes, slightly less roughly chopped
2 zucchini, thin sliced longways
1 scoop [roughly 1/2 c] spicy red sauce
1/2 lb angel hair pasta
cup of olive oil or grapeseed oil

Take the garlic, olives, tomatoes, and zucchini and toss 3/4 c of oil on them, put them in the oven at 450 degrees F.  If your red sauce has just been made, cover it to keep the heat in, if not take it out of the fridge to let it come to room temperature.  In about 15 minutes, begin to boil a pot of water for the pasta.  Wander off so as to not be staring at the water despondently.
Once the water has reached a roiling boil, add the remainder of the olive oil, toss in your pasta, and do not leave its side!  Angel hair literally takes about 90 seconds of boiling to cook to al dente.  Count.  Have the colander ready in the sink, and drain the pasta, tossing it back into the pot after.
Grab the oil and roasted veggies from the oven, and pour them into the pasta, along with the red sauce.
Mix as well as you can [angel hair tends to like its own company, pushing the vegetables out to the sides--that's fine, do the best you can to get them to mingle, but in the end you will just have to (when plating) attempt to dole the veggies out evenly] and serve.

For dinner I shall cook the rest of the pasta and just serve it with a simple red sauce:
Open 2 tomato sauce cans, pour into saucepan, add about 1/2-3/4 of a can of water (pour it first from can to can, cleaning out all the sauce).
Add a whole lot (to taste) of granulated garlic, onions, basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, and if you have a taste for the spice, hot pepper flakes and multi grain pepper.
Simmer for 20 mins, taste it, declare it needs more basil and oregano, add more, simmer for 10 mins more and voila! delicious red sauce.

Mmmmm, angelhair.

There are many different versions of this soup–which gets most of its flavour from pre-baking the potatoes–but I really enjoy this one. It’s super simple, easy, and deliciously vegan.

What it does want, however, is a good vegetable stock as a base. I usually save up the ends of veggies I’ve chopped up, onion skins, and such like in a bag in my freezer. When the bag gets full [or I need stock], I toss it in either the crock pot, if I’m not in a hurry, or a stock pot on the stove. Then it either gets used or frozen for the future.

One thing I have noticed when making vegetable stock [although this was not true of meat or bone based stocks] is that there really IS such a thing as simmering it too long. At this magic point, the house smells amazing, and really, that’s the time to stop. Because I’ve left it longer, and the stock begins to lose something, a lot of the subtle flavours break down, and while it’s usable, it’s nowhere near good enough.

I do not know exactly what causes it or how to guess in advance when that right time will be. Anyone out there have any experiences or thoughts on the matter? I’d really love to know more.

Baked Potato Soup
Ingredients:
Green onions or Chives, a few, sliced
Red onions, 1 medium or 2 small, sliced
Potatoes, baking, about 8-10
Vegetable stock, ~2-3 cups
thyme
garlic, roasted, granulated, or pressed, to taste
olive oil, ~ 3 Tbsp
pepper, hot, to taste
pepper, black, to taste

Wash potatoes, stick them with a fork a couple times, bake them for 1 to 1.5 hours on 400 degrees F. They are done when they are easily pierced with a fork and seem soft enough. Set aside to cool for handling.
Take all the sliced onions [and fresh, pressed garlic if using it] and saute for about 5-7 minutes on medium heat in a sauce pan with about 3 Tbsp of olive oil.
For a darker taste, use roasted garlic [quite easy to do: stick garlic in the oven with the potatoes, after drizzling with olive oil, and remember to remove them after about 20-25 minutes depending on how dark you like them. Some people roast them with the skins on by just slicing the bulb in half, and they pull away from the skins during the roasting process, making it easy to slide them out. Others prefer to shuck the skins off before tossing them in the oil and roasting]. For a sharper & very garlicky taste, do not add the fresh garlic to the onions, but press it into the soup only 3-5 minutes before serving.
While that’s going on, bring stock to a boil in a large stock or soup pot.
Once potatoes are cool enough to touch comfortably, roughly chop them up and add them to the stock, turning the heat down and simmering it. Add the onions and garlic to the soup, stirring gently. Add thyme, hot pepper, and black pepper to taste.
Allow to simmer 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. At this point, taste occasionally also to see when the spices have matured enough for your preferences. Sometimes Mark will taste it and desire a few more tablespoons of olive oil.

Now, Mark tells me he has had good experiences making this soup with just the potato masher, but I happen to think you get a creamier soup using the immersion blender. I am not one for completely smooth soups; I prefer to have different textures, and things to bite into floating in my soup.
Thus I take the immersion blender and pulse it a few times around the pot, blending perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the potatoes and some of the onions into the stock, while keeping large amounts of variously sized chunks of potato and onion intact. If you prefer your soups smoother, just blend more. Another way to do this, if you do not own an immersion blender, is to use a potato masher [again, mash more or less depending on how chunky you like soups], but do be careful as the soup is very hot. You can also take it out of the pot and use a blender or food processor. If you go this route and prefer chunkier soups only blend 1/2 of the soup, leaving the rest in the pot. Just mix the blended half back into the pot and they will meld well.

This is an amazingly easy, filling, delicious soup, absolutely fit for company. The blended potato is so smooth, creamy, and rich in flavour that people often think the soup contains a lot of heavy cream and butter. And the subtle thyme notes are the perfect complement.

This recipe also feeds a lot of people–this particular pot I made ended up, over the course of two dinners, feeding 8 people. Although in the second dinner’s case, there was a large bowl of Ginger Slaw also involved.

I find this soup especially in demand and appropriate in Autumn and Winter menus.

Zucchini Rollatini
Ingredients:

For Seed “Parmigiana”:
2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp dried onion flakes
4 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp basil
2 tsp parsley

For Sauce #1: Mustard Baster:
2 Tbsp mustard
2 Tbsp chipotle sauce [can substitute ground or chopped chipotle, to taste but if so add a 1.5 Tbsp water or oil]
1 Tbsp pureed dates
2 Tbsp water

For Sauce #2: Sweet Marinara:
1 apple
4 sun dried tomatoes
1 small bell pepper, red
1 Tbsp vinegar [preferably apple cider]
to taste: onion, Italian seasonings

2 large zucchini
Bunch greens: [spinach, kale, chard, etc.]
1/3 cup Walnuts, chopped [roughly 1/2 inch pieces]

First, I made the mixture and sauces, as they will be needed soon and thus will also have time for all the flavours to intensify.

As I was making them all in my Vita-mix high powered blender, I began with the nut mix.  Added all of the ingredients to the blender and pulse for 1 second about 5 or 7 times, until the result is chunky, with the seeds chopped roughly, and well mixed. Set it aside spread out on a large platter.

Then I made the mustard basting sauce–same thing, add all ingredients to blender, and blend, this time until smooth. Pour into shallow bowl or platter, wide enough to fit zucchini.

Finally I blended the sweet marinara sauce. Same deal, but this time put it in a container with a pour spout, if you have one. If not, anything will do.

Now take your greens and roughly rip them into a bit larger than bite sized pieces. Give them a real hard time, massage them, and use a lot of force as you handle them to break down some of the cell walls. Then add the walnuts, 4 Tbsp of the pumpkin seed mixture, 3 Tbsp of the sweet marinara sauce, and 2 Tbsp of the mustard basting sauce. Use your hands to really massage it all in, again using what seems like excessive force. Then set the bowl aside to let the greens marinate and rest.

Take your zucchini and slice them very thinly longways. If you have a mandoline, it can be quite helpful here. Unless you, like me, slip up and cut your thumb’s pad quite deeply. Then you swear a lot, go wash it, bandage it tightly, and ask your husband to please stop working and help you finish dinner, as you have clumsily injured yourself [sigh, I swear that never used to happen until this last year or two!].

So, Mark took over from this point, as blood soaked zucchini does not sound appealing. Happily, all the parts he might have had trouble with are done, and, being an Italian who likes to cook, he is very well acquainted with the actions of ‘breading’ thin slices of vegetables.

In case you are not, it’s really quite simple: You dredge the zucchini slice by slice through the mustard basting sauce and then through the seed mixture. My technique usually involves flipping the zucchini over with a fork, but Mark generally uses the fork to scoop and spread the mixture over the wet vegetable. Whatever works for you is fine, the point is to get a good rhythm going, cause it takes a while finish each piece individually.

Once they are all “breaded” you may begin to assemble the rollatini. Place a few of them on the serving plate, edges overlapping so they stick together. Press down on these edges, to try to aid them in their sticking task.

Then place some of the greens on the bottom, and carefully roll it up, starting from the bottom, as you would if you were making sushi maki [rolls]. This takes a gentle hand, as some of the zucchini may not wish to stay stuck together.

After, if the recipient of the plate wishes, top it off with the sweet marinara sauce.

Our verdict: The dish was overall quite tasty–if messy for us to eat. This may just be inexperience [and thumblessness on my part].
The spicy mustard was delicious, and melded well with the zucchini and pumpkin seed mixture. I found the red sauce too sweet and really bland–I thought it smothered and diluted the flavours I enjoyed in the rest of it. On my second roll I did not add any of it, and enjoyed that one quite a bit more. I think in the future I am going to try that marinara sauce with either no apple or half an apple, and no bell pepper or half a small bell pepper–and a lot more herbs and pepper.  I wonder how it would react to some citrus zest…

Mark spent some time making fun [he seems, for some reason, to really be concerned with the names of dishes, and took umbrage at the "parmigiana" appellation. He suggests rollatini, which is what I am using], but he liked the flavour and texture. He said that based upon my earlier brief description, he had expected something fairly awful, and thus was pleasantly surprised.

He liked the components, but agreed with me that the red sauce was a bit lackluster, and asked for less of it on his second roll.

He was concerned there were not enough calories present, but I was able to set his mind at ease–I do note, however, that most of the calories seem to come from the seeds and nuts.  It does make me a bit confused on some of my raw meals in the past, that did not contain much beyond vegetables.

As Mark was a mostly good sport regarding this night’s raw feast, and as he has asked very nicely, tomorrow’s dinner will be one of his winter favorites: baked potato soup.

I have been trying to add more raw foods to our diet, and this definitely was not.
However, it looked like it could be a fairly good base–the ingredients were coconut milk, mushrooms, lemongrass [large stalks of it!], galangal, lime juice, fish sauce [so, not strictly vegetarian either], coriander, chillis, lime leaves, salt, and sugar. Not all things I normally would put in [we avoid sugar and salt around here, and I don't have any Thai fish sauce or galangal about] but close enough that I figure I could work something out.

It did not look as delicious in the bowl as I’d like–but then the processing to can it probably had a lot to do with that.
I grabbed a few carrots, some bell peppers, and broccoli and quickly mandolined them, coarsely chopping some of them for a different texture.

Tossed them into the soup, and voila, much more delicious and with some elements of raw nutrients.

I do have to say however, that this particular soup has a very different idea of ‘Lightly Hot & Sour’. Both Mark and I had to eat the soup exquisitely slowly due to all the hot pepper [with occasional interjections of "Agh! My throat is on fire!"], and we are no slouches when it comes to heat!

As mayonnaise and I do not get along, I generally do not eat cole slaw served at diners [unless truly starving], but this stuff was amazingly different. Mark and I sat there during lunch and tried to figure out what was in it.

I think we did a really good job approximating it.

Surprising Ginger Slaw
Ingredients:
1/2 head cabbage, red
4 carrots
4 stems of broccoli
1 apple, preferably only semi sweet
1 cucumber
2 cloves garlic [or to taste]
sesame oil, not more than 2 Tbsp
veggies on hand [ie. bell peppers, onions, zucchini, kale]
fresh ginger, to taste, but at least 2 inches
favorite (mostly) neutral oil [olive, grapeseed, etc.]
vinegar [preferably rice wine, but whatever's on hand will do in a pinch]

Grab your mandoline [this can be done by hand with a knife, but it's gonna take a lot longer and the pieces may not be as thin as ideal, which will cause their flavours to matter a whole lot more (ie. maybe not the zucchini unless you are mighty fond of it--if you mandoline it up however, the dressing will coat it and it'll be delicious)] and thin slice all of the veggies. I do the cabbage by hand, but that’s it.
Finely mince [or use your garlic press; if you do not have one, please add that to your next kitchen-gadget purchase, they are amazingly handy] garlic and ginger [or, preferably, use your micro planer on it. Or juicer/food processor/blender, if it comes to that--if using juicer or high powered blender you do not need to peel the ginger].
Combine the ginger, garlic, and sliced veggies in a large salad bowl. Toss well, and make a dressing from the vinegar, neutral-ish oil, and sesame oil. Do not use more than 2 Tablespoons sesame oil–it’s quite strongly flavored. I probably used roughly 4-5 Tbsp olive oil, 5-6 Tbsp vinegar, and 1.5 Tbsp sesame oil. But adjust for your oil-vinegar ratio taste on most salads, as well as how many veggies you have sliced up, and how well they are drinking the liquids. I often toss in a bit of thyme and basil, but that’s quite optional.
If you can bear it, let the salad sit somewhere cool [fridge or near an open window] for 45-60 mins to let the flavors combine. It will just get more delicious as time passes, but it smells so good I usually can’t wait more than half an hour.

The result is impossibly bright & fresh tasting [hard to describe it any other way], crunchy as anything, and sublimely lovely. I’d forgotten how wonderful this was. I must make it far more often.

Serves 3 hungry folks as a main meal, more if served as a side. Left overs keep well [after a few days it is less crunchy, still tasty though], but we never have any left.

Upon my return, it had just begun to go sour.  It wasn’t too bad yet, just a subtle whiff of off. But it was enough for me to begin plotting how to use it up.

Thus I grabbed the new bread baking book Sue, my mother-in-law [having just gotten married this summer, that's still the weirdest phrase to use...does not seem to fit at all], gave me for giftmas.  Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day [have not yet used a recipe from it, but read through some of the techniques and really highly recommend this book] has a lovely looking recipe for biscuits–but not one that I could easily use for my sour milk, as it called for cream.

However, the techniques he suggested did look exciting.

I was making these biscuits at far-too-early this morning, and wanted to toss them together easily, so these measurement are *ahem* quite fuzzy, as I grabbed a small jam jar for my ‘cup’ measurement and just kept it consistent.  This past summer I had intended to make a few loaves of pumpernickel bread for my wedding, but in the end did not–thus I have a lot of rye flour hanging about that I end up tipping into anything I think will vaguely stand for it.  Feel free to use any flour you like.

Karen’s Deliciously Buttery Biscuits

Ingredients:
1 c ten grain whole grain flour
1 c rye flour
1.3 c wheat flour [+ a bit]
1 stick butter [frozen]
1 c sour milk [very cold, straight from the fridge]
1/3 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

After preheating the oven to 500 degrees F, I mixed all of the dry ingredients together with my fingers, then grabbed the cheese grater and stick of butter from the freezer [we use very little butter, so keep all but a small amount frozen].  I unwrapped the butter, cut the stick in half, cut the 2nd half back in the freezer to keep cold, and gripping the stub of the half stick through its wrapper [less slippery of a grip for you, and more butter on the wrapper for greasing the baking pan later] grated it into the flour mixture.  Then I quickly greased a banking pan with the wrapper before grabbing the other half from the freezer and repeating the exercise.

This is the first time I’ve used this method, and I have to say it’s charming.  Takes a bit of getting used to, but in my opinion it beats the pants off of slicing the butter into pea sized chunks with the pastry cutter.  After you’ve finished grating the butter you just grab a spoon or fork and very lightly and quickly mix the flour around it.

I then poured in the cup of fridge-cold sour milk and again very lightly mixed it with a fork, rolling it into a rough ball.  I had to add a little bit extra wheat flour at this stage as it was too wet, but in the thing to remember is to do all of this very quickly and roughly, so the butter does not have a chance to melt or the gluten in the flour to strengthen or organize into long strands.

I floured my table, rolled the ball onto it, re-flouring generously as needed as I rolled [again, quickly and roughly] the ball into a rectangle.  Mr. Reinhart recommends using a metal pastry scraper to lift the dough as you work it and spread more flour down under it.  This is a great idea, but I do not have one.  I used an old metal spatula instead.

Folding the rectangle over onto itself into thirds, as shown in the photo, I rolled it again into a rectangle, and repeated the flour+folding.  Do this four time in total [or more if you like more layers].

I then rolled it into a larger shape and cut biscuits out [lacking a pizza cutter or biscuit cutter, I settled for the edge of my metal spatula to good success] and placed them on greased cooking trays.  Now, I believe I rolled it too flat in this step, as the biscuits were a bit flatter than I’d ideally prefer.

I placed the trays in the oven, and turned the heat down to 450 F.

In less than 20 minutes, they were done.

Mr. Reinhart states that if you, before placing the biscuits in the oven, place them in the refrigerator or freezer, you will loose less butter to the pan in the oven.  However, I simply do not have the space for oven trays in the my fridge [and the new windows are sadly not designed for the screens to easily open, so setting them outside is out of the question], so straight into the oven they went.  And a good deal of butter was lost to the trays.  But honestly, there is so much butter in these silly things that I did not feel this to be a great loss.

In fact one of the primary flavors of these biscuits is butter.  The whole grain & different kind of flours I used give a different texture and more complex flavour than if they just contained wheat, and I highly recommend this path.  But I know not everyone feels the way I do on this subject.

On the whole, the biscuits were a great success.  Mark and I ate them for breakfast and enjoyed them quite a lot.  Although they were not as tall as I’d like, they were crispy on the bottom, flakey and buttery inside, and utterly delicious.

The only thing I believe I might do differently in the future is roll them out less thin the last time, possibly fold them once more, and perhaps experiment with a bit of fresh herbs in the dough.  Oh, and place the trays with holes in the bottom into trays without so there’d be less smoke in the oven.

PS: Taking photos of process with floured & buttery fingers was a challenge that I met by wrapping the relevant portions of the camera in left over giftmas tissue paper.

I love food, I really enjoy eating [perhaps more than I ought], and I truly adore cooking for others–creating sumptuous and sometimes [though perhaps less than I'd like] new and exciting combinations of flavors and textures.

I still have a lot to learn–much of what I make is awesomely delicious and I am pleased with it [if not necessarily its presentation or the mess the kitchen and living room (the kitchen is beyond tiny) are in after], but more often than not, something does not go the way I’d like it to, and I am left making a list of things I could have done better, or that I should try to change next time.  Or betimes just giving up on that particular dish altogether.

While I often eat vegan, and am working on transitioning to a high raw diet, I do occasionally cook with cheese, eggs, etc. and will eat meat if loved ones prepare it for me or sometimes when I am out at a restaurant.  While I do feel that the slaughter industry is awful on a number of levels and that the way we go about raising livestock is not sustainable, I also do not agree with many things in our society, and at the end of the day, I do what feels right to me at the time.

This attitude most likely will change, but for the moment, that’s where I am at.  I also expect my day-to-day diet to shift dramatically over the years as my husband and I begin to produce more and more of our own food, and thus will ideally just naturally change over to more of a fruit-nut-veggie regime, mostly raw.

That is my plan anyway!  And while I know that no plan survives the first skirmish intact, I do hope the general shape of things stays the way I envision.

This blog is going to be irregularly updated [hopefully often, but it will take a back seat to other Life Tasks such as moving, gardening, building, etc. so once the inhospitable weather that keeps me indoors lifts, we shall see how much time I truly can spend on it], depending on my schedule, and what kitchen adventures I’ve had lately.

I hope you enjoy your time here, and I encourage comments–especially if anyone has a suggestion for bettering or making more interesting some recipe I post.

And now: onto the food!