SOS Kitchen Challenge Failure

(image source)

This month I was actually able to come up with something for Ricki’s SOS Kitchen Challenge. I swear, every month I plan on participating, then I end up forgetting or running out of time. This month’s ingredient happens to be adzuki beans, which was indeed a “challenge” for me. For whatever reason I have a hard time finding adzuki beans in stores around here and I almost decided not to forgo the challenge because of that. Well, the bean gods must have been rooting for me last week, because a can of adzuki beans happened to show up at my grocery store. (Or maybe they were always there and I’ve just failed to notice? Entirely plausible.) Once I brought home that can of beans I thought “Now what?” I had been more preoccupied with actually finding the things somewhere than actually thinking of a recipe to use them in. Like I said, I don’t find them in stores much, so I have only cooked with them a few times.

After searching around on the internet I decided to use those little suckers in a sweet recipe. Adzuki beans are commonly used in Asian sweets. I was aware of that before, but was never brave enough to try putting beans in my dessert. Several places online gave recipes for Red Bean Ice Cream, which is apparently a Japanese specialty. I’ll admit, it still sounded “weird” to me, but I gave it a try anyway for the challenge. It was fairly simple. All I did was made a sweetened adzuki bean paste and stirred it into my go-to vanilla ice cream recipe. I swapped some of the milk in the original recipe with almond milk and added some almond butter to the paste. Voila! I made Almond Adzuki Ice Cream. (Or, Mean Bean Protein-Packed-Ice Cream, as I thought about calling it.)

So, curious to know how it turned out?

It sucked. I don’t know whether I used too much bean paste or whether I am just not a fan of bean-based desserts, but either way I was disappointed. The ice cream was a little too “beany” for my taste. Maybe some people wouldn’t mind that, but I did. If I’m going to eat dessert I don’t want it to taste like what I ate for dinner. The texture wasn’t quite right either. It was more grainy than creamy. Yuck. (I guess those bean gods weren’t rooting for me after all.) Hopefully I’ll come up with something better next month.

Trifecta Cookies

Peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chip. Three classic cookies that everyone loves. But, what do you do when you can’t decide which one you want? Well, that’s an easy answer: you combine all  three!

Trifecta Cookies

1.5 cups uncooked oats
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch salt
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
*1 vegan egg substitute
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
• Mix the oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.
• In a larger bowl, beat the peanut butter, oil, and sugars together until smooth. Add the prepared egg replacer and the vanilla; beat until well incorporated.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix until completely moistened. Stir in chocolate chips.
• Drop spoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets. The dough may seem a little crumbly, but that’s okay. Just press the dough together on the baking sheet.
• Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Let cool on baking pans before removing.

*I used Ener-G egg replacer

St. Patty’s Day Food

With all of the posts about green and Irish food yesterday, it would have been pretty hard to forget about St. Patrick’s Day. In honor of the holiday Andrew whipped up a loaf of homemade Irish soda bread. Green Irish soda bread, as a matter of fact. Then he chased it down with a shot of green vodka for good measure. I’ve only had Irish soda bread a handful of times in my life and every recollection I have of it is not favorable. I remember it being extremely dry, bland, and just unexciting. Andrew’s bread came out more moist than the ones I’ve tried in the past, but as much as I hate to say it, I’m still not a big fan. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not actually Irish.

Even though I didn’t like the soda bread much I did, however, enjoy dinner. Andrew made us Chipotle Lentil Burgers (or is it Lentil Chipotle Burgers? I forget) from Appetite for Reduction. Both of us loved the burger patties, which were made with lentils and zucchini-onion puree. They had a really nice smoky flavor from the chipotle, which made these burgers stand out from a lot of other vegan burger recipes we’ve tried. They had a soft texture, but they were delicious nonetheless. Definitely a “make again” recipe. We’ve tried at least 10 recipes from Appetite for Reduction so far and I think I marked every one of them as a “make again.”

Fight the Monster

I find myself doing something lately that I haven’t done in some time: re-reading some of old posts about my eating disorder and body image recovery. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve talked about it, which, I suppose, can be looked at as a positive thing. I haven’t had much to say because it hasn’t been afflicting me in quite some time. That is, it wasn’t until very recently. Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while know what I have been through, but to those that don’t, allow me to bring you up to speed: I have struggled on and off with an eating disorder since I was 14. I received therapy in high school and was on the path to recovery for a few years, then I relapsed again in college. Last year I went back to therapy and made even more progress than I had the first time around. (If you wish, check out some of my recovery posts for more of my story) I was doing great until recently, although that’s not to say that I am doing terrible now. I haven’t relapsed, I haven’t been losing weight, I haven’t been obsessing over what I eat, or anything like that. I have, however, been struggling a little bit with a negative mindset. Last year I made a huge effort to gain back the weight that I lost during my relapse. It was hard, very hard, for me, but I managed to do it. By the summer I pulled myself out of the danger zone and was back at a healthy weight. I took a break after that though, feeling like I needed to take a step away from food and the scale for a while. Through the summer and for several months after I maintained the weight I had worked so hard to gain back. Around the holidays I started trying a little harder to gain again. My weight has been healthy, but still at the low end, and I figured that it would be “safer” for me to bring my weight up a little. Well, the good news is that I have successfully gained another 1.5 – 2 lbs. The bad news is that I don’t feel very good about it. I have been very critical of myself lately, saying negative things about my body, and letting some of my old destructive thoughts to creep back into my head. I have to fight the urge to step on the scale every morning, and constantly remind myself that I don’t need to eat less. It’s as if the monster is trying to rear it’s ugly head up again and I am doing my damnedest to push it back down.

So, why all of a sudden am I having these harmful, negative thoughts again? Does it really have to do with the 2 lbs I gained? No. Deep down, I know it has nothing to do with that. I’ve been stressed out lately, and I can say with almost 100% certainty that that is the real issue. Between studying, working on a huge paper, wedding planning, financial issues, and family stuff I am just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. But, of course, it’s always seems easier to target something about my physical appearance as the source of the problem, rather than deal with the more complex issues. This is wrong though. This is dangerous and self-destructive and I know it. These are exactly the kind of thoughts I have learned to control over the past year, thoughts I have so actively fought against. I cannot allow myself to undo all the hard work I have done just because I am stressed out. I know this, yet at times it seems so easy to forget it.

I’m writing about this because I want to remain honest with my blog friends, as I have in the past. I have ups and downs, I am not going to hide that. I am not perfect and I am not pretending to be. I am writing this, not only because I want to be honest, but because I know that somewhere, someone else will read this and be able to relate. I have found that opening myself up and sharing my experiences with others has not only been helpful to me, but it has been helpful to others as well. So, if you’re reading this right now and can relate to what I’m saying, please remember this: We are both strong enough to get through it.

A Romantic Breakfast/Dinner for Two

Just in case you missed it, last month was Valentine’s Day. Even though I am not the biggest fan of commercialized holidays, I always use them as an excuse to cook or bake something special. This year we went with breakfast for our Valentine’s dinner. Actually, I made it the day before the actual holiday, since the following day I had an exam. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating a little early! Around that time I had been planning on making waffles again. We both love having waffles or pancakes for dinner, but we don’t make them very often (seeing as my waffle/pancake attempts tend to fail more often than succeed). I tried the Chelsea Waffles from Vegan Brunch again, this time with success. The first time we tried to make them our baking powder expired and made them taste like aluminum. (Yes, it was gross) I served it with a side of cinnamon spiced fruit. I cooked some apples in Earth Balance and added some of the frozen berry mix we have in the freezer. Those pink things on top of the waffles are apples, which turned that color once I added the frozen berries. I didn’t plan on my apples turning pink, but it ended up looking quite pretty.

In addition to the waffles, I made Andrew a batch of fudgy walnut brownies. I don’t think there can be such thing as Valentine’s Day without a little bit of chocolate.

Did you make anything special for Valentine’s Day this year?

An Overdue Kitty Post

It’s been a while since I’ve posted another Petsmart kitty update…actually, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted in general, but I digress. Operation Care Rescue has been very busy lately, which is a good thing, because that means lots of our kitties are getting adopted! Almost all of the cats I previously posted have been taken into new homes. We have had several new kitties come and go, as well. I’ve also added another day to my volunteer schedule. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love volunteering. I have grown very attached to all of our cats and they have become attached to me as well. It’s so nice knowing that the kitties enjoy my company as much as I enjoy theirs, and it’s even nicer knowing that because of us these kitties find their way into loving homes.

Lilly

Dancer

Maria
(I am very attached to her, I wish I could bring her home!)

Tabitha

Bree

Celi

I’ll be back tomorrow with a long overdue food-related post!

Appetite for Reduction cookery

A few weeks ago I mentioned getting Isa’s new cookbook, Appetite for Reduction, for Christmas. Since then I’ve been trying 1-2 new recipes from it each week. So far I have tried the Black Beans with Red Velvet Mole, Caulipots (mashed cauliflower and potatoes- so good!), Pasta con Broccoli, Red Thai Tofu, Goddess Nicoise Salad, and Chickpea Piccata. I also made the Quinoa Puttanesca and Linguine with Edamame Pesto last year when Isa posted the recipes on her blog.

I don’t have any of those pictures to share with you (I apologize), but I do have pictures of the 2 recipes I tried most recently: Veggie Pot Pie Stew (with accompanying sweet potato drop biscuits) and 40 Clove Chickpeas and Broccoli. We enjoyed both recipes, but we basically devoured the chickpeas and broccoli. It’s a vegan take on the classic 40 Clove (as in 40 cloves of garlic) Chicken. There actually weren’t 40 cloves of garlic in Isa’s recipe, but there were quite a few of them. The cloves of garlic were left whole and smashed, then baked with the other ingredients in the oven. The baked garlic infused the rest of the dish enough that a lot of seasonings weren’t even necessary. Thus far, I haven’t been disappointed by any of the recipes in AFR yet…not that I am surprised, though.