Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Almond Jewels

That picture is so morbid and doesn't illustrate the chocolate-y goodness of these cookies at all. I'm sorry. Also, the record is the new Beck album, Modern Guilt, which is really quite good.

Anyways, Phil basically forbade me from cooking until it gets cooler because of how hot our no-AC apartment gets. But Phil wasn't home, and I wanted cookies.

I like calling small cookies 'jewels' because they feel more precious and you eat less (to savor them). This recipe was adapted from this recipe, using random things that I had as subs, so you can feel free to make changes if you want. But they are so nice and small and chocolate-y! Additonally, this is the first step in my quest to create the perfect vegan chocolate chewey, which is a simple cookie made with just egg whites, confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, chocolate chips and.. I think that's it. Water, maybe, too.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Almond Jewels
Makes 16 small cookies

• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 tsp. earth balance margarine*
  
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons organic brown sugar
• 1/4 c. silken tofu, blended
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 c. sliced almonds

*You can probably omit the margarine if you want.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the applesauce, margarine, sugar, tofu and vanilla and cream until even and smooth.

In a seperate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients except the chips and almonds until well combined.

Add the dry to the wet, stirring until smooth. Add the chips and almonds, mix well, then drop onto a greased baking sheet in the form of 16 little drops of batter. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes and do a fork test, because they never really look done until they're burned.

Enjoy! Almost guilt-free!

Cold meals and a new cookbook

Yesterday was disgustingly hot, so Phil and I refused to turn on any heated appliances for lunch. Instead, I made this chickpea and beet salad. I love bean salads because they can be eaten by themselves, over lettuce, or even in a wrap or pita. We had ours over lettuce accompanied by a sandwich made with Nature's Soy Tof-Deli Slices (their website is down, so I'm not linking to it).

Chickpea and Beet Salad
Serves 3-4

Dressing:

• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable broth
• 1 Tbsp. whole grain mustard
• 2 crushed garlic cloves

Salad:

• 1 15-oz. can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 2 green onions, minced
• 1 small beet, peeled and diced
• salt and pepper to taste

Whisk dressing ingredients together in a bowl until well combined. Add salad ingredients, mix well, and serve cold.


Phil picked up a book called The Ethical Gourmet by Jay Weinstein a few days ago, so we decided to make one of the dishes from it. We settled on the Cumin Laced Root Vegetable Couscous With Apricots. Delicious! I wish I could share the recipe! The key to this was the cumin and cinnamon... mmm. Plus it made a huge amount. It also took me 2 hours to make in a 95 degree room, but no matter. It was worth it.

We served it with kale sauteed with garlic and pan fried tofu.

Grab you a ragu...

... or something clever (-er than that).

Quinoa elbows with a "ragu" sauce, i.e. crumbled tempeh in lieu of meat.
Veggies include carrots, broccoli and onion, throw in some tomato sauce, a little seasoning, the tempeh. Simmer for a bit, then throw in fresh basil at the end and toss with noodles.

This was especially nice because I was hungry from my (4 mile!) run this morning and impatient, so the broccoli ended up still being a little crisp. I normally cook my broccoli soft. It was nice for a change.

Phil and I have a spicy globe basil plant that we love (deliciously intense basil taste) and I pinched all the little white flowers off this morning as per instructions that might be wrong, so now my hands smell amazing. Who would have thought such tiny flowers could be so fragrant?

It is SO HOT. 94 degrees F to be exact. And super humid, of course.

Phil bought me a present!

It's a melodica.

I think it's 'our' present, but I've wanted one for a while! I'm so excited to start recording with it.

Pre-run breakfast with a tofu scramble, with tofu, onions, broccoli, spinach and corn, accompanied by half a whole wheat pita and a white nectarine. This was not an e-diets meal, but I think it fit all the parameters.

Lunch was a vegetarian sloppy joe, which was an e-diets recipe. It was really good! A little big for my favorite sandwich roll, but I was fine eating the extra with a fork. The original recipe called for green bell pepper and Splenda, but I'm out of bell pepper and I don't believe in Splenda, so I used some carrot, instead. I think everyone but me knew that carrot is an awesome sweetener in sauces, but I just used it today.

Since I liked this recipe so much, here's the basic idea:

• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 1/2 medium carrot, diced
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1/4 c. TVP
• 1/4 c. tomato sauce
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder
• 1/4 - 1/2 c. water as needed

Saute the onion and carrot in olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the TVP, tomato sauce, and chili powder. Stir and cook for another 5 - 10 minutes, adding water if needed to keep it moist.

Serve on a whole wheat roll. Good without hot sauce, but better with!

Speaking of splenda, at Whole Foods customers complain all the time about us not having Splenda at the coffee station. Usually they accept the explanation that we don't carry anything artificial, including sweeteners. Once, though, this lady got really snappy and said, "Splenda's not artificial!" I didn't know much about it at the time, so I sort of shrugged and said, "I'm not so sure about that." And she walked away, pissed off (I'd love to know why it really matters, anyway, our coffee sucks and there's a Starbucks across the street.)

Anyway, I had to find out what Splenda was in case I ever saw this woman again, because my gut told me it spent considerable time in a lab. Which is true, as it's table sugar that has had things removed and replaced by chlorine atoms. That means it's artificial.

I hope she went home and looked it up, too, and felt as stupid as I felt triumphant.

Music

Last night I played a show at a well-liked bar/music venue here in Philly called the North Star Bar. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Phil is an amazingly talented drummer (we met in music school) and so, I am lucky to have him as my drummer. Our very good friend Scott plays bass (aslo ridiculously talented). Whenever I played with them I feel so fortunate that I have such talented people in my life to play with.

Anyways, the show went pretty well, so I thought I'd post some pictures (courtesy of my friend Jeff).Hey! That's me!

Here's Scott bass-in' it up and my head.

I love this picture of my man/drummer/Phil hitting things. With sticks.

Here's the 3 of us. Can you guess my favorite color?

No food today! I mean, I'm eating, but I don't know how much I feel like photographing it.

Until next time, friends!

4 lbs and counting!

Blah, blah, diets are dumb. I know. But I have lost 4 lbs and I actually really like E-diets. Here are some things I've been cooking up lately. (Please excuse any blurriness-- I've been focus-challenged lately).


Steamed broccoli and tempeh sauteed lightly in teriyaki sauce on a whole wheat pita. I add hot sauce to pretty much everything, including this.


A whole wheat roll with some Soy Garden margarine and strawberry jam, and brown rice crispies with soy yogurt. I added some sliced almonds because eating, too.



Some weird pasta thingy with a "cream sauce" made from soymilk, cornstarch and a bit of vegan rella. Not bad, with some hot sauce added.

I think I'll take a little nap before work!

Good bye.

Might as well face it, I'm addicted to...

I don't know, they were there, they were cold, and so I just ate one. And then I couldn't stop! One became 5! 5 became 15! And so on, so forth. Part of me thought, 'Tsk, tsk! You already had your snack today!' Then my sense took hold and I realized that a diet that limits me from fruit (even thought grapes are basically candy, whatevs) is silly. So I won't feel guilty.

But I will say that I wish I wasn't on a diet so I could cook interesting things. I'm reluctant to post weird diet crap like:

Okay, this was actually pretty good. The other night, Phil came home late and made a midnight snack. It was an awesome pasta. It took me back to the good old days (2 weeks ago) when I ate delicious stuff like that every day! Every meal! I asked for a bite and he gave me a (small) bowl and I ate it even though I was suffering from massive stomach pain from that stupid movie popcorn on Saturday night. Which is finally gone, btw, but it was hell for three whole days. It was like I had a length of chain moving slowly throug my intestines.

Anyways, I tried to recreate Phil's pasta, but E-diets friendly, and naturally it didn't work at all. It was good, just not Phil-good. The basic idea behind the pasta dishes I've been cooking is to replace some of the pasta with something else-- in this case it was green beans, which I boiled with the noodles (half the time) and then treat as noodles. It's a good alternative since starch is something I gravitate towards.



On a different note, today after work I did some grocery shopping. Something you'd think I would do more often as I work at Whole Foods, but I actually live closer to another one and I don't like to drive to work, so I usually walk to the one near my house to shop. I drove today, shopped, and while I was in line the Odwalla guy gave me this Odwalla and a coupon to get it free!

First of all, lt me start by saying that I don't drink juice. I mean, I don't buy juice, because I don't like drinking sugar. It makes me thirsty, which defeats the point of drinking. I do, however, like drinking R.W. Knudsen Family Spritzers (see left) because they're 100% juice and that's awesome.

I mention this because cane juice is the second ingredient is this tasty Odwalla drink, and though it was an awesome free drink, I wouldn't buy it again. I just don't get the point. But some people really like juice, and if that's you, give this a try.

I have, however, had the Odwalla smoothies for a snack, and they're yummy.

Sorry this is a lame post. Hopefully I'll lose my 7 lbs and can go back to creating interesting food.

PS. I had too many labels so I'm shortening them, drastically.