FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Big-Ticket Brownies

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Are you sick of hearing about Terry Walters yet?  Hope not, cause she has yet to provide me with an unsatisfactory recipe.  And the cocoa brownies I made tonight were no exception.

The amount of fruit packed into these bad boys is ridic!

Applesauce (or shredded apples), Dates & Bananas.

No refined sugar, no glutenous flour.

Minus the washing of the food processor (that’s still sitting in my sink), the recipe was super simple.

And you can help yourself to all the batter your little heart desires without fear of salmonella since this recipe is prepared sans eggs.

The downside?  And it’s a major one.  The ingredients for these brown beauties set me back a whopping thirty bucks, making them the most expensive brownies in the history of all brownies.

Ohhhh Crusty!

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I made bread!  Technically this isn’t my first encounter with home made bread.  Looking back, I’m fairly certain my mom planted Christmas present ideas in my head, presents we could both use.  That’s the only explanation I can think of for me asking for and Santa actually bringing a bread machine at age TEN!

I vaguely remember using the bread machine, but clearly remember thinking the machine bread was disgusting.  It’s because of the vague memories that I considered tonight to be my first bread making experience.

I googled “Best breads to make with a Kitchen Aid”, which led me to this recipe.

(I used Earth Balance in lieu of the butter and egg white.)

The Kitchen Aid Dough Hook worked like a dream.

The real reason I chose this recipe is that it only required two 1-hour dough rising sessions rather than days of waiting.  One day… one day I’ll have the patience for really super awesome bread.

But today, I’m sticking with two hour total wait time bread.

I imagined “punching the dough” to be a lot more fun.

My engineerness came out in full force as I rolled the dough to be exactly 12″x15″.

Ehhh…  Close enough?

The dough followed the steps the recipe called out quite nicely.

And then it was taste time!  When I cut the first slice, my first thought was that it seemed a little on the dense side.  This bread was most definitely not in the same league as the crusty, squishy, West coast sourdoughs that I dream of making some day.  But my bread, my two hour total wait time bread, had a nice hard crust, a decently squishy inside, and was perfect for sopping up the remaining scalloppini sauce on my dinner plate.

Now that I have a starter bread under my belt, I’m ready for the next loaf level!

[Acorn] Squash with Quinoa, Apricot and Sage Stuffing

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I’ve had my eye on Terry Walters’ books for quite some time now, so I was pleased as punch when I found both Clean Start and Clean Food at Homegoods last week.

I also bought the beauty of a chopping block that’s hosting the veggies pictured below.

I literally walked between the acorn squash and buttercup squash about seven times before deciding to go with acorn.  Even though the recipe called for buttercup, the acorn was a sure shot, but it would have been nice to try the buttercup, but the acorn was such a sure shot.  See how that could be debate worthy?

As I was chopping shallots, celery, apricots, sage, and parsley, I realized I hadn’t used any of these ingredients in a while, and certainly not together.  I was excited.

So excited, in fact, that I skipped right past taking a picture of the quinoa folded into the veggies.

Soooo looks like this recipe will be the jump start to another quinoa kick.  The stuffing was so tasty!

What’s your favorite quinoa combo??