Bakestravaganza!

I can't stop baking and cooking things. It is starting to get out of hand. This obsession started ages ago when I first started reading food blogs even though I know nothing about cooking. Finally, I have gained the courage/stopped being lazy and started making things that I think sound good.

Coffee cup for scale.. I guess

Most recently I decided that I wanted to make some kind of crackers, and had remembered seeing a really simple cheese cracker recipe on thekitchn.com not too long ago. I tracked the recipe down and managed to make a batch of these puppies with my really (really) sub-par food processor. I followed the recipe pretty much as is, no significant changes. However, I did run out of time to bake them the day I made the dough. Then was super busy for the next 3 days. The dough ended up chilling for 3 days in the fridge before I finally had time to roll them out, cut them up, and bake them. Luckily, their lengthy chill didn't effect them. They tasted great. I baked them Thursday evening and the photo above shows all that is left.

Earlier this week I also decided I wanted to make some fancy, but easy, snack to take to women's night at Climbmax. I chose an great recipe from Dorie Greenspan's blog for mustard batons. They were so delicious I didn't get a picture of them. So here is the picture from Dorie Greenspan's site:

photo from Dorie Greenspan

I did make a small change to the recipe. Greenspan calls for an eggwash on the top of the pastry to give it a nice shine and to make the sesame or poppy seeds stick. But Cameron is allergic to eggs, so I didn't want to use them. Instead, I brushed the tops of the pastry with butter. It didn't give the batons a nice sheen, but the seeds stuck and the top was nice and brown. 

This was a super easy recipe, since it uses frozen puff pastry and like 2 other ingredients. However, it has inspired me! Inspired me to learn how to make real puff pastry, that is... should be awesome!

In other food related news, I recently acquired a crock-pot. I have been slow cooking up a storm... a very slow storm... yikes, cheesy. But really, I made my first pot roast and pork with cabbage and apples. Tonight there is a split pea soup in the crock-pot.... and it smells so good!

Banana Bread Cookies and Hott Traxx (aka songs you should hear)

So I am not very good at this remembering to blog thing...

I made some tasty (and super simple) vegan banana peanut butter cookies last week that I fully intended to blog about, but then they all got eaten before photos were taken. However, they are good enough to mention now sans-photo.

These cookies started out with my intention to make flourless peanut butter cookies for my gluten-free housemate, but then when he told me he doesn't like peanut butter cookies I changed my plans to make cookies for my egg-allergic boyfriend (since the flour-less PB cookie recipes I found all had eggs).

Another limiting factor I had for these cookies was my desire to not go to the grocery store for any supplies.  Because of some rogue frozen banana puree in the freezer, these cookies landed in the hot spot.

The result was certainly easy and tasty. However, they taste more like mini quick-bread chunks than cookies. In other words if you like banana bread, you'll probably like these. If I was going to make them again, and was feeling decadent, I would probably heed the recipes suggestion and add some chocolate chunks.

Long story short, if you have everything for these cookies in your kitchen they are worth whipping up:

1/2 cup chunky natural PB
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup mashed banana (1 medium sized banana)
1 1/2  cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 pinches of salt

-combine PB and sugars, then add banana

-in separate bowl combine other ingredients, then add these ingredients to wet mix

-put dough/batter on cookie sheet in heaping tablespoons

-then bake at 375 (or 350 because I never really know how hot my oven is) for 10 minutes or until it looks like the bottoms are browning, not a moment longer!

Adapted out of laziness from Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen (even though they are totally/deliciously not fat free)

In other news:

My current single-song musical obsession "Freak Out" from Tapes 'n Tapes. Get It Now! Its free (and legal) and awesome.

My last month single-song musical obsession: "Figure 8" from Lovers... also legal, free, and guaranteed to knock your socks off!

These bands also make great music that they aren't giving it away for free... check that out too!

Oh, and one more delicious morsel for your ears! El Ten Eleven's "Anxiety is Cheap." Sadly, just YouTube not a free version, but seriously its awesome. And if anyone with filming skills wants to record me sending my awesome new (yet to be determined project), this is my first choice for the music!