FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Postal Cookies

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You know those moments when you know why your best friend is your best friend?  Like when you’re having a rotten day and things instantly get brighter because you get an email with a subject line “these look yummy” and inside is a recipe that’s so up your alley you can hardly stand it.  And then the body of the email begins with something like “and non-dairy for you!” and your smile gets grander.  And up next you read “and they look care package-able…” and you laugh so very inappropriately loud at your desk.  And by the time you recover from the slight embarrassment of looking like a crazy person, your day has gone from rotten to perfect.  Yup, that’s a best friend story right there.

So Ariel’s care package-able email was the sole inspiration for the first Postal Cookies post.  But since she was out of town while I had super baking motivation, I decided to wait on her cookie and mail out a completely different cookie to other friends across the nation (seriously).  And now that I’m on day 4 of cleansing, baking motivation turned into its most severe form of baking craving.  Needless to say, the cleanse was a bust (let’s go with I had a very successful 3-day cleanse).  Mostly because in order to modify this recipe, I had to sample the dough to see what was going on.  Really.

FoodFash Vegan Peanut Butter & Both Types of Chocolate Cookies (yields 12 cookies)

1-1/2 cups white chocolate peanut butter (or regular natural peanut butter)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, blend peanut butter, maple syrup, and vanilla.  Add flour and beat until thoroughly mixed.  Then fold in chocolate chips.  Roll 2″ diameter balls with your hands and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Flatten balls with a fork and bake for 12 minutes.  Remove cookies from oven and let cool for 20-30 minutes before handling.  The cookies are very mushy and fragile when they are warm, but harden when cooled.

And then I had to sample the cookie before I packaged everything up.  You see, I didn’t wait the 20ish minutes prior to handling and the cookie I messed with completely fell apart.  But by the time I did a few dishes and satisfied my Instagram addiction, the cookies turned into cookies and I was curious.  Legitimate sample, right?

I’m not 100% sold on the way brown rice flour feels between my teeth (see crazy person reference above), so I’d be curious to try these cookies with almond meal or coconut flour.  But flavor and moistness are totally good and worth sending to your best friend, especially if she appreciates a sweet treat on the healthier side!

Fancy, Huh?

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My super simple broil-everything-and-call-it-a-night-dinner turned out much fancier than one could have ever anticipated.  I prepped the salmon and sunburst tomatoes the same by spraying lightly with olive oil and sprinkling with seasoning.  And while they were busy broiling on high, I got to work on something new.

Balsamic reduction, anyone?  I suppose that’s where the fancy came into play.  But really it required much too little effort to be considered fancy in any way, shape, or form.  I brought 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of ponzu sauce to a boil and let simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  Little to no stirring was required.  I was shocked.

I placed the salmon, tomatoes, and walnuts on a big bed of baby spinach and generously drizzled the room temperature balsamic reduction over everything.  If I had guests over for dinner, I assure you they would have been impressed!

Southwestern Sweet Potatoes

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More often than not, an Austin moving story involves someone coming to town, not leaving.  So when one of your closest friends is part of the uber small leaving percentage, it’s a darn right bummer.  Jodie, who I’ve had some of my favorite Austin adventures with, hit the road last week.  Thankfully we’ve had a steady stream of texts since she crossed the Texas border.  Texts that have gone a little something like…  Boys, boys, inspiration for this recipe, boys.  Things like this make me question my twenty-nine-year-old-ness…

The southwestern sweet potatoes she suggested sounded like an awesomely flavorful way to make a meal out of a potato.  And even more importantly, super stuffed potatoes would be a perfect way to make use of the newest additions to my ever-expanding dish collection.

FoodFash Southwestern Sweet Potatoes (yields 3 potatoes)

3 sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 serrano pepper, gutted and chopped

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup sour cream (or plain Greek yogurt)

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Bake sweet potatoes in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Heat olive oil over medium high heat and add chopped onions and peppers.  Stir in salt and cumin.  When onions are transparent, add black beans and cook for 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.  Slice the top of each sweet potato in half and use a spoon to remove the insides of the potato from the skin.  Place all of the insides in a bowl and mix with sour cream until blended and smooth.  Fold in black bean mix and then cilantro.  Stuff each potato skin with an equal part of the sweet potato mixture and enjoy!

Who would have ever thought that sweet potatoes and black beans could be so tasty together?  Surely not I.  This is definitely a dish I’ll make on the regular.  Thanks a million Jodie!!

A FoodFash Best

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I had no idea how much goodness I was getting myself into tonight.  I had some leftover dip ingredients and frozen salmon fillets and thought “why not?”.  If you follow me on Instagram, surely you could sense my hesitation when I posted this picture.  But boy was I wrong!

FoodFash Salmon Cakes (yields 1 – 425 calorie serving)

6 oz. salmon fillet, thawed

1/2 small avocado (the 99 cent size)

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup fresh parsley

2 green onions, chopped

salt to taste

nonfat plain Greek yogurt for garnish

In a food processor, puree avocado, lemon juice, and half of the salmon fillet.  Add the onions, parsley, salt, and remaining salmon and pulse a few times until all of the ingredients are mixed, but the salmon is still chunky (see below).

Heat frying pan over medium heat.  Spray with olive oil (or a high heat oil may work better).  Remove all of the salmon mix and form into a patty with your hands.  Cook patty for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, flipping gently so the salmon cake stays in tact.  If a small piece breaks off, gently form back together with the spatula.  Dollop with Greek yogurt and serve.

I’m going to try my hardest to use a word other than wow to explain what was going through my mind as I ate every last bite.  The tartness of the lemon, the slight texture of the chunk salmon, the crunch of the green onion, the coolness of the Greek yogurt…  It all came together more perfectly than I ever could have imagined.  And the avocado?  The avocado just did it’s little glue-like thing in the background.