Busy Busy

Good morning everyone! Sorry to have disappeared for so long. Life has been quite filled lately. The accounting office where I work recently had our largest client acquire another company and thus double their size. This led to increased work loads and promotions. I gained a new position at my company (one that involves mostly solving puzzles and reconciling bank accounts which I find fun because I am a dork) and also was given permission to log on remotely from home and work some overtime. A number of people ended up working some 55 hour weeks for about 4-6 weeks. Luckily, the worst should be over and we can all resume our normal lives. And thank goodness, as an extra 15 hours of work a week means that there is a trade off somewhere. For me it was working out and cooking. I ate a lot of tofurky sandwiches, quick salads and simple no fuss roasted veggies over the past month. Not to mention some super quick breakfasts, which is actually the first thing I want to show you. Last weekend I went to Costco and purchased a large container of kiwis that smelled super ripe. One day genius struck and I put some berry jam on a piece of toast and topped it with a sliced kiwi. Since then, I think I have eaten this for breakfast just about every day.

Throughout all the chaos, I did take some time at the end of May to have my family over for dinner for my dad's birthday. I made a whole soft taco spread complete with spanish rice, refried beans, taco seasoned tvp, lettuce, guacamole, tofutti sour cream, olives, tomatoes, salsa, chips and a tiny bit of cheese. It was a delicious dinner and a great time. In addition to dinner, I attempted a vegan version of my dad's favorite birthday dessert, a sheet cake. My mom's mom used to make this cake for my dad and so I had some high standards to meet. Luckily I found this recipe and it turned out fabulous! Not only did everyone love it (and go back for more), they said that it might be closer to my grandma's recipe than the version my mom makes. Win! Admittedly, it's pretty hard to dislike a cake with as much sugar as this has, but since it was my dad's birthday I didn't want to go all crazy health foodie on him. I used all purpose flour and made no substitutions.

I still have a piece in my freezer which is the only reason I haven't jumped into the kitchen to go make these Fudge Daddies from Chocolate Covered Katie. How yummy do those look?



And finally, I'll leave you with a teaser in hopes that it will get me to write up another post tonight or tomorrow:

I bought a Vitamix!

Do you have one? What's your favorite thing to make with it?

Dehydrator Love

After expressing my appreciation for the dehydrated bananas my friend Lacie gave me this week, she offered to let me borrow her dehydrator.  I didn't realize that meant she would be bringing it to me today!  I was caught quite unprepared for having this piece of equipment in my kitchen.   Luckily I knew right where to look for some inspiration.  Green and Crunchy makes some delicious looking fruit in her dehydrator and I broke down and bought some fruit to try my hand at dehydrating.  And by some fruit I mean that I used my newly aquired Costco card to buy enough food to feed an army. 

The apples are actually from the farmer's market which makes it just slightly worse that I went to two different places to get this haul.  Even worse than that is that this isn't all I bought.  I got a huge thing of pistachios that come in a reusable container, dates for potential dehydrated cookies and boca burgers that are specifically vegan!  I had no idea Costco carried these, or that they even existed. 

But back to the dehydrating.  So this is the beautiful dehydrator:

 

It runs a little loud which was sort of disappointing and  runs quite a bit warmer than I expected it to but I am excited to experiment.

Here is what is (un)cooking away in it as I speak type:

 

Plain sliced kiwis

 

 Cinnamon coated apples

 

 Half a tray of plain bananas and half a tray of my attempt to recreate Green and Crunchy's yummy flax/cocoa/agave bananas.  I coated the bananas in a little honey and then poured on the ground flax and cocoa powder.  They were a little sticky but I think they will turn out fantastic.

I didn't plan very well and started them at about 7pm which means I may be in for a long night.  Luckily the thought of dehydrated yumminess is enough to keep me going for quite a few more hours.  Look forward to more dehydrator posts as my current plan is to dehydrate all weekend.  Muahahaha.