Spanish Rice and Carob Fudge Cake

On Friday night, I made Spanish Rice with Fresh Cilantro from Mother Nature's Garden by Florence Bienenfeld, and Sauteed Green Beans with Mushrooms from VwaV. One of my mom's coworkers brought vegetables from his garden to work to share, so my mom took some of his green beans. I didn't know what to do with them, so we decided to make the green beans and mushrooms because we also had some mushrooms. I just left out the wine and used more vegetable broth. Both dishes were pretty good.




On Friday I also baked this Carob Fudge Cake from the All Creatures website. Oh my god... this cake is so delicious! It tastes like it is so bad for you! But guess what? It's not! It has no refined sugar, oil or white flour! It's sweetened with bananas and dates, and the only fat comes from the peanut butter in the frosting. The only bad thing about it is that it's very hard to stop eating it! I finished it this morning. Fortunately I didn't eat the whole thing myself! I had help from my parents, who thoughly enjoyed it. If you make it, only make half of the frosting though. I only had about 3/4 cup of carob powder, so I only made half the frosting, and there was plenty of frosting. I'm glad I didn't make the full amount because that would have been way too much! I didn't get a picture of the inside of the cake after it was cut because my camera suddenly stopped working correctly, but there's a picture on the All Creatures website.

More Curry and Muffins

Last night for dinner, I made another lovely, spicy curry from Real Vegetarian Thai. It was the Red Curry with Eggplant and Sweet Peppers. It had much more flavor and variety than the other curry I made from this book, but the other curry was good in it's own way too. My mom didn't like it too much because it was too spicy for her. She really hates spicy food. It had lime leaves in them, which have a real strong flavor, so maybe that was too much for her too, but I liked it.



I also made the Banana Date Walnut Muffins from the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen blog. I knew about these muffins since Susan first blogged about them, but I never considered actually making them until I read about how much VeggieGirl enjoyed them. So, yesterday afternoon, when there was yet another pile of brown bananas sitting on the table threatening to ferment, I decided to make the highly rated muffins. I made a few minor adjustments to the original recipe: I used all whole wheat pastry flour, I used unsweetened almond milk + 1/2 tsp vanilla instead of vanilla soymilk, and used 1/3 cup of date sugar instead of 1/2 cup of white sugar. Even with these modifications, they turned out wonderful! They were so moist and sweet, and the tops seemed to rise more than most of my previous attemps at making muffins have. The only problem was at first the muffins stuck to the paper muffin cups I used. However, I had one today and for the most part, I was able to get the paper off without parts of the muffin stick to the paper. I think the muffins just needed to sit and firm up more.


Today I finished my first week of my ACC class, and I am so glad it's over. I'm so sore! I bet I'll get used to it though. Have a great day everyone.

Banana Bread and Stuffed Pattypan Squash

Remember those bananas? Well, yesterday we had a few left (about 10 or so), so I stuck some in the freezer and used the rest for this banana bread because there was no way they were going to make it any longer without fermenting. So, I made the Banana Bread from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, using agave nectar for the sugar/honey called for. The result was out of this world! It was so moist and sweet, and had a lovely aroma!




And then for dinner tonight I stuffed the pattypan squash I got at the farmer's market on Saturday. I used Susan's recipe as a guide. However, instead of using her stuffing, I stuffed it with Kieran's Favorite Rice from How it All Vegan, which is a great big, messy but tasty mixture of rice, vegetables, beans, seasonings and tofu, and added in some of the scooped out squash. Here it is with the flesh scooped out and ready for the stuffing:

Now with the stuffing, before baking:

And here it is after baking:


It came out really tasty! I really enjoyed the squash itself, and the filling was great too. Happy Fourth of July everyone!

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.