yikes…

So, I’ve had some stuff in my personal life sidetracking me from blogging, so excuse my absence. Things will be back to normal soon.

In the meantime… reminder:

The Portland contribution to the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale is in less than 2 week, on June 20th, at People’s, so please come and eat some yummies for the kitties!

With the warm weather we had in Portland recently (90 in June? Unheard of!) we have taken to eating pretty lightly, which has been refreshing.

This was a quick dinner, trying to use up some produce, as I have a tendency to over-purchase vegetables… chickpeas sauteed in a little EB with some nooch, asparagus, garlic broccolini and our standard issue quinoa. Simple, satisfying and yummy.

A bed of baby greens, topped with black beans that I cooked with some garlic and a little cumin, sweet corn, zucchini, avocado and some chips and salsa on the side. The chips are these new little corn chip “dippers” from Trader Joe’s that are like Fritos but a million times better. Well, I was never a fan of Fritos, so I’m a bit biased.

I wanted to make some Italian cookies with pine nuts in them and came across this recipe by Giada on the Food Network. I’m not one to normally have much faith in the Food Network, but the recipe was basically vegan, it involved chocolate (always a plus) and it seemed pretty authentically European, using little sugar, so my interest was piqued. Being skeptical of our American palettes accepting something that tastes less sweet, I added my new topping du jour: demerara sugar mixed with a pinch of fleur de sel. I’ve found that 1 tbsp. of sugar to 1/4 teas. of salt is a great mix for dipping cookies and it gives them a nice, slightly sweet crunch accompanied with the occasion tang of salt. The topping definitely helped. They were a little crumbly, more like a biscuit-type cookie, and the flavor was greatly aided by the chocolate chunks. I really like pine nuts, but they didn’t really do it for me in this recipe. Can’t win them all.

While I worked on these cookies, Linus made himself comfortable on the blanket that he pushed off the back of the couch. Spoiled kitteh…

More stuff to come, including some yummy reviews… it just might take me a week or so. Cheers!