Busy-ness

Life has been insane! Too busy to blog (never mind that the blogger app doesn't let me do a couple of key things, which prevents me from posting more often). So, in the name of posting pictures, here we go!

Over the Remembrance Day long weekend, J and I took a short trip to Seattle, to hang out together and do a little bit of shopping. I sadly didn't take enough pictures, since we were too busy enjoying each other's company to document the occasion. Since I'm building up to my raw food cleanse, I tried to have a solid balance of whole foods vs foods I knew would make my tummy hurt. We had a juice each on Sunday morning from Whole Foods (conveniently located a block from our hotel). This meant that we went to Le Panier in Pike Place Market and stuffed ourselves with all manner of flakey, buttery, perfect pastry. We had an almond croissant, and then 3 pastries whose names I have forgotten, but one was a dauphinois, a broccoli and cheese, and a sundries tomato (which tasted more like pizza sauce). She also bought a vanilla slice (aka a Napoleon) for later. Absolutely delish. 

 

We had a late lunch back at Whole Foods courtesy of their salad bar. For dinner, we found a local-food-serving-local-sustainable-farming-supporting restaurant called Local 360. Yum!!! 

A lovely charceuterie and cheese plate for an appy, and then this amazing faro squash mushroom dish, which we added extra mushrooms and some brussel sprouts. Absolutely excellent!! 

For dessert we had these deep friend, tasty apple fritters with house made ice cream. 

Sadly I didn't think to take pictures before we devoured it.

We got home after 45 minutes in the border line up on Monday evening, starving and kinda broke. J wanted quinoa broccoli cheese casserole. So I obliged.

Um, hello yum!! I usually make my cream soup from scratch, since most canned stuff is a chemical shit storm. And I can't really eat it anyways. We ate this for lunches all week, since it makes such a huge portion.

On that Wednesday, I made black bean brownies for my knit night on the Friday. They are SO good and SO easy!! They also last forever. Plus kids would never know they are actually made with black beans instead of flour. Has. Really fudgy texture. Yum!!

 

Both recipes came off Pinterest, so if you follow me there you can find them easily. 

Other things I made this week off Pinterest, the Chana Masala chickpea curry and an amazing carrot curry coconut soup. Absolutely perfect for the weather we've had (cold, rainy, blustery). I'll post pictures of that in my next post!

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Last week was international curry week, and I missed it! Alas, there is a lot of curry being eaten in this house.

I made a squash chickpea curry for dinner with quinoa. I made it this afternoon and then J was late coming home from school. By the time I actually got to eat it, I was so excited I forgot to take pictures. *sigh*

So you get leftover pictures instead.

But this squash, it is amazing. Red Kuri. I'm pretty sure this is the one Shannon gave me out of her CSA, as she had no plans for such a splendid gourd (my gain!). Looks like this:

(This is not my picture)

It smells amazing. It also completely disintegrates so you're left with this sweet, creamy taste. So good.

Red Kuri pumpkin curry with Chickpeas

1 very large onion

3 cloves of garlic

1 red Kuri pumpkin 

1 can coconut milk

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained (or if you make them from dried, just keep tossing them in until the quantity is sufficient)

Curry powder

Spinach

Salt

Heat a large pot or pan on low-medium heat. When its at temperature, add your oil (I use coconut oil), then add your onions. Throw down some salt. Stir them and leave them alone.

Peel, remove seeds and chop the squash into cubes. Crush your garlic. When the onions are translucent, add the squash and garlic. I covered it with a lid to keep the moisture in.

Add curry powder. No, I don't know how much, eye ball it. Tsbp?

Once things are starting to disintegrate, add the coconut milk. Stir everything and taste/adjust seasoning as necessary. Add the chickpeas. Cover and check on it/stir as needed until the squash is cooked. Before serving, throw in some spinach leaves until they wilt. Serve over rice, quinoa or noodles.

I didn't find that the squash mushed down all the way while cooking, but once I had containered it, it continued disintegrating into this gooey delicious mess. Yum. It's really not pretty, but so good. And easy. Also made enough for lunches for the next few days (and really, surviving shift work is ALL about the leftovers).

And then I got cocky and made dessert, which involved making something up. Pumpkin apple crisp. Here's a picture to make you drool. I have no idea what I used, and I sort of used 3 seperate recipes to make this, as I lack the gene which allows one to follow a recipe unaltered.

 

Recipe (as best I can remember)

4 large apples (peeled, cored and cubed)

2tbsp honey (use sugar if you don't want to use honey)

Cinnamon. Lots.

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup milk (almond for me)

1 egg

Pumpkin pie spices (cloves, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon).

Dash of molasses

2 cups oats

1 1/2 cups Flour (GF flour here)

1/2 cup brown sugar

Cinnamon

1/2 cup melted butter or coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix everything except the apples together in a bowl. Dump in the apples. Pour it into a large baking dish (I believe mine is 9x13).

Mix all the topping ingredients together. Pour overtop of the apple mixture. Pop into oven. Go crazy while you wait for it to cook.

I think mine took close to an hour.

So delish, and now I have a giant pan of this stuff for work/school! Yay!!