Daring Bakers Challenge! Cookies anyone?

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

Being vegan I chose a vegan recipe located here. My "royal frostning" is also vegan and it came from here, which i used soy milk in place of regular milk. I was limited to the colors I could use since I only had yellow and red coloring. lol...Granted my decorating needs improvement it was still a blast! I am going to have to do some serious practice before the holidays.

HAPPY VEGANNIVERSARY TO ME AND VEGANMOFO HAS BEGUN

Today marks my 2 year anniversary of becoming vegan! Funny that when I made the decision don't remember the fact that today is also World Vegetarian Day. So how does one celebrate both of these days at the same time? Hmm, SICK! Yes folks I did a bad thing. I let my PH level get too low and opened myself up to the flu. How did I do this? I ate one too many delicious chocolate chip cookies, thanks to Compassionate cooks, and too much ice cream, thanks to soy delicious ice cream. Can you believe I let all that sugar get in front of broccoli? What was I thinking. Well, kids it has been a wake up call. Time to get back on track! This is really my 2nd day with this bug and I am trying to get my system back up and running at peek level. Granted this may take some time, but Susan's Garden Vegetable Soup will help in the process. I make this quite often and usually play around with it. This time I used a can of diced tomatoes in place of the tomato paste, cut the recipe in half and used a cup of small white beans I had cooked up in the freezer, and "No Chicken" broth, which we love over boxed veggie broth.

And I forgot to mention that today is the first day of VEGANMOFO! Veggie soup may not be creative, but it sure is good eats!


What else is one to eat when the flu bug has them? My mother told me drink 7-up, GROSS!! High Fructose chemically filled nasties! I found a new product called ZEVIA. It is sweetened with Stevia and I like it. It contains pure, natural, essential oil of lemons and limes sweetened with Stevia. It also has Erythitol, which I have never heard of, but read about it here and it seems like a much better choice over the dreaded HFC!

Well, that is my post for today. I hope everyone has a wonderful celebration on World Vegetarian Day! Hug a furry friend today. It will make you smile!

Split pea soup, Marinara sauce, and cookies!

Is my hubby the only one out there that turns into a small child when he is sick? What would they do without us? My DH has been sick since last Friday, actually it started last Thursday night. Sore throat, stuffy nose, little cough, but by Saturday we were in the midst of full blown nastiness. Poor guy! He had sinus surgery on Wednesday and then got sick. Now he is a stuffed up, hacking mess. He was miserable and misery loves company. I finally got him in a better mood with Split Pea Soup. It is hard to believe that after 10 or more years of marriage he decided to try it. (He was sure it would be gross, look at the color?) And now it brings a smile to his face even when he is sick.

Sheree's version of Split Pea Goodness

1/2 onion, chopped

1 celery stick, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 potato, chopped

1 cup dried split peas ( I use a mixture of yellow and green)

2 T. barley

4 cups "no chicken broth"

1 tsp dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion, carrot, and celery for about 5 min. Then add your minced

garlic and cook for about 3 more min. Next add the broth, peas, and basil.

Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours. Keep an eye on it and stir often. Split pea soup gets thick and can burn on the bottom. I have had it take as long as 3 hours for the peas to get tender. Once done I use my immersion blender and puree it a bit.

Enjoy!

I have posted about this before, but it is such an amazing marinara sauce. If any of you out there are testing for Melody and haven't tired this you are really missing out. It is a very simple sauce, but has a kick from the red pepper flakes. I would love to share it with you, but it is a tester. I add some ground seitan to it and you have an amazing meat sauce. We ate one batch in two days. It was so good I made another batch to freeze and keep on hand. We had some wonderful garlic bread with it. Definitely no fat free, but oh so good. I minced about 3 cloves of garlic, mixed it with some Earth Balance, and olive oil. Spread it on your favorite sourdough bread and broil until little garlic crispies appear. Another smile from DH sad sick state.

In our home the word cookie is not allowed. You see our fur babies know exactly what that word means. Therefore when we want cookies we will ask where are the round things. lol I have posted about this recipe before, but they are so good. I had hid the recipe because we were getting out of hand making them. Apparently DH is on the mend and wanted some "Round things". He was hunting everywhere for the recipe. He wanted to make them while I was at work and surprise me. He didn't find the recipe, but when I got home we pitched in together and got the job done. This recipe is from Have cake will travel and it is the simplest recipe you will every make. I know it by heart. (That tells you how often we make it) Anyway DH made 6 delicious cookies. He was very proud of himself being this was his first attempt. By the way, the recipe calls for 1/6 of a cup of soy milk and nut butter, which equals 2T and 2tsp. Check out the recipe and indulge for the holidays! Oh, we make ours with vegan carob chips. Oh SO GOOD!

I hope you all are staying well, but if the bug gets you feel free to try my soup and see if it works. If it does you will no you are on the mend when the cookies come out of the oven. :o)