Fish Bento

This morning, my lunch looked like this:

This bento contains:

• roast chicken
• fresh rosemary
• brown rice onigiri
• cajun spices & nori accents
• carrots
• grape tomatoes
• broccoli
• a plum
• red grapes
• a strawberry

I felt that yesterday's strawberry was a missed opportunity for a big grin, so I made that happen today.  Oh, and that plum is out of my co-worker Janelle's garden.  Thanks, Janelle!

I liked how the rosemary sort of looked like seaweed.

That is all.  Thanks for looking.

Happy bento!

Tuesday's Bento

Call it childish if you will, but I love having a lunch that smiles at me when I open it.  

My windowsill is certainly getting more attention lately than it has for a while.

This bento contains:

• porcupine meatballs
• tater tots
• red pepper
• broccoli
• grape tomatoes
• carrots
• lettuce/spinach
• red grapes
• a strawberry
• black sesame seeds
• nori

This is a large strawberry and huge grapes.  Please don't worry that I am not getting enough to eat!

 Here is my lunch ready to be packed away.  I took a blueberry (soy) yogurt with me today as well.

All ready to go in my Thirty-One thermal tote:

Happy bento!

Peanut Butter Frosting

I've decided that my attention to domestic activities appears to be in direct relation to the amount of time I spend alone in my home.  When my husband is home, it rarely occurs to me to try a new recipe or scrub down all the walls.  But when he isn't here... I begin to fill my time in Suzy Homemaker ways.

Today while he was at work, for example, I decided to try making some cupcakes and decorating them with a swirl of peanut butter frosting.  That was a first - I've never made peanut butter frosting before today.  I will be taking these cupcakes to bunco tonight and will see what my tasting panel thinks.  But I am getting way ahead of myself.

First, I mixed up some batter and dolloped it into the tin:

All ready to go in the oven:

When the cupcakes were baked and cooling on the counter, I began making the frosting, roughly by this recipe here.  But I subbed margarine in for butter - then cut it back because no one wants a mouthful of margarine.  I upped the peanut butter to compensate.  I used soy instead of cream.  I also added some vanilla for good measure.  It wasn't looking too promising there for awhile:

But I got it whipped into shape before too long.  Then, using a Pampered Chef kitchen gadget that always reminds me of puffed paint, I started frosting my cupcakes.

Like so:

They turned out like this:

Viola!

I wished I had chocolate sprinkles to top them with, but I don't.  Maybe I will run to the store and get some... along with a container to transport them to bunco tonight.

Happy baking!

Tootsie Roll Pie; Revisited

Two years ago, I attempted to make a chocolate creme pie with soy milk. I made some adjustments to "make sure it would set up." The result has ever since affectionately been called Tootsie Roll Pie, by my friends. The taste was fine. The texture was far more solid than any chocolate creme pie has any business being.

So here we go again. Bryan was my pastry chef, grinding up graham crackers in the blender, adding sugar and margarine...

...pressing it into the pie pans...

... and baking them for 7 minutes at 375*. For the recipe he used for the crust, click here.

I cannot descibe how delicious these smelled coming out of the oven. I suppose it would be the equivelant to how it would smell to make graham crackers from scratch. It was heavenly, and you should make one today. Yum...

Anyway... here is the type of pudding mix I used for the filling. You could make your own from scratch, if you like. Bryan's aunt Randi always does. But everyone at our gathering today seemed to like this filling just fine.

Also, note the warning on the back against attempting this with soy:

Well, here is the soy:

Mix in the Jello chocolate pudding powder...

stir it all up...

And make room for a Tablespoon of our secret thickening agent:

Corn starch.

You honestly might be able to get it to set up with a bit less than a Tablespoon, actually. But that is what I used this time around. If you want to see what happens if you use a WHOLE LOT MORE corn starch... click here.

I heated it over medium heat, and anxiously awaited it boiling.

It started glumping up like pudding is supposed to. So that is good, right?

Then it did start to boil. Looking very much like pudding at this point. (Sorry, the steam fogged up my camera lens.)

I removed it from the heat a poured it into one of the cooled crusts.

Next, rinse and repeat. But this time, with real milk.

The real milk is whiter than the soy, which may have caused the difference in the final color of the two pies.

The soy pie was setting up nicely. But I didn't want to much of a "skin" on the top

so I covered it with plastic wrap as it cooled.

Here is the real milk pie:

Here they are side-by-side:


Everyone seemed to enjoy the pie at my family's gathering this afternoon. So I consider that a win! And, of the three different pies I've made (apple, lemon meringue, and chocolate creme) this is by far the least time-consuming to make.

Enjoy!

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that you cover the whole thing with Cool Whip if you can have dairy, or Soyatoo! (or some other vegan whipped topping) if you can't.

Vegan Nachos

I have been eating nachos like they are going out of style lately. We bought another small loaf of Vegan Gourmet cheddar "cheese." It is especially wonderful in dishes like this where the cheese is seasoned by lots of other flavors:

I originally purchased it so that I could have twice baked potatoes with Bryan. More about that later.

But for now, there is nothing wrong with this:

Hope you all are having a restful Thanksgiving surrounded by those you love.

May God truly bless you this holiday season!

Homemade Pizza

I made homemade pizza tonight.

I baked the pizza crust using the dough I mix up and keep in my fridge. I baked it first, before adding toppings, and that worked out really well.

I also decided to try a new cheese tonight. What is special about the soy cheese pictured above is that it does not add the milk protein casein (which I'm allergic to) in order to make it melt like most alternative cheeses do. But it still melts! Watch:

I was able to grate it easily onto my pizza.

I put on the other toppings, turkey pepperoni and olives, and then transferred it directly onto my pre-heated pizza stone in the oven.

When it was done it looked like this. And the best part is, it tasted good too! So I give two-thumbs up to this fake cheese. Now I just need to branch out on my other toppings...

Enjoy!