Dal Soup and Raw Truffles

A few nights ago I made Chunky Red Dal Soup from the January/Febuary 2007 issue of Cooking Light. It has onions, garlic, ginger, paprika, cumin, red lentils, chickpeas, canned tomatoes, lemon juice, and chipotle powder. The original called for harissa, but I used the chipotle powder instead. Very good, especially coming from a magazine like that.

Yesterday my parents went to Central Market and bought a lot of dates, so I decided to make Raw Carob Truffles from Raw Pleasure. Here is the recipe:

Easy Recipe for Carob Truffles

Ingredients

1 cup almonds
½ cup dates (pitted)
1 tablespoon raw carob powder
2.5 tablespoons filtered water
Coconut to roll truffles in

Put almonds into food processor and process until crumbs
Add dates 1 at a time until mixed in
Add in carob powder and process again
Add water and process
Roll into balls and roll in coconut and keep in fridge or freezer

I rolled them in more carob instead of coconut. Very good, and very easy.

UIL, Squash, and "Burgers"

Yesterday I went to a UIL competition and competed in Calculator Applications and Mathematics. UIL stands for University Interscholastic League. It consists of various academic competitions, including speech, history, writing, and math. I did ok on the Calculator. I got a 103. In the calculator competition, you have to do very complex operations on the calculator. In the Mathematics, however, I did extremely well, the best I've ever done! I got a 180, and ranked 9th place. If I had answered just one more (correctly, of course), I would have gotten a 186 and ranked 6th or better, which would have gotten me an award! Oh well, I did well anyway. Maybe next time I'll get an award!

It is really cold here! Tomorrow it is very likely there will be ice or snow. We don't have school tomorrow anyway, but school might get canceled Tuesday if the weather turns out how they predict. We don't get this kind of weather very often, so when we do, even the tiniest bit of ice will get school canceled.

Tonight I cooked Red Bean-Chipotle Burgers. I didn't bother taking a picture because Susan already has a picture that is way better than my picture would be if I took one. These burgers stayed together very well! These are the first veggies burgers I have made that haven't fallen apart. We ate 4 and have 2 left over, which I'm going to try freezing for those days when I'm too swamped with school work to cook. To go along with the burgers, I made the squash you see above. This is adapted from Nuts and Bolts Squash from Dr. Fuhrman. I only had one acorn squash, so I only made half of it. Also, I used almonds instead of pecans, and added one nice, big, juicy Medjool date. I didn't use the orange juice either, and I the squash alone for 45 minutes (without water in the pan), then put the fruit/nut mixture in the squash and baked for 10 more minutes. It was really good, the dried fruit and nuts really seemed to compliment the sweet and creamy squash.

That's all for now. I hope I can post again tomorrow!