Gothic Granola

This is attempt number two at vegan, gluten-free challah.  It was too sticky to shape, but it rose like, well, yeast!

Chocolate pizzelles have been on my list of “things to make” for months.  I made a batch in 45 minutes to give to a friend for her birthday.

Sometimes I see a recipe or make something and have a conviction that it’s a dish for someone I know.  Even if I’m not going to see him or her, I  know  that s/he will enjoy this dish.  Sometimes it’s obvious based on people’s preferences (chocolate cookies for my chocolate-loving mother, pudding for my aunt), but sometimes it’s more obscure.

I have done something unspeakable to almond butter: microwaved it in plastic. I bought chunky almond butter in bulk and stored it an old soynut butter container.  As I neared the bottom of the jar, since I hadn’t consistently stirred it before consumption, the butter at the bottom was dry.  In order to make the muffins below, I microwaved the almond butter in order to make it stir-able, and I went thirty seconds too far.  Oh well.  The muffins suffered no ill effects, and my brother ate probably half the batch before and after the bike races in which he participated last weekend.

Brick by brick, Clock by tick, No matter how thin, No matter how thick. Papa told Mama, and Laura told Nick, 'You can move a mountain If you do it brick by brick.' The above song is from the original computer game Lego Island , circa 1998.  One-day-at-a-time philosophy crops up in the most wonderful of places.  One brick at a time, I'm reorganising this blog into a more functional resource, letting the archivist brain run wild.

Wow!  Thank you to all who attended the “Desserts for the Often-Deserted” talk at the Lawrence Library.  Your willingness to share your stories and ask questions made the event more cozy and like a chat among friends, a dessert circle.

Last week, my mom made chocolate cream cheeze frosting for chocolate cupcakes for my super-sweet sixteen (graduation) party, and the frosting never set.  She used blue-label Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, which contains partially hydrogenated oils, tastes chalky, and weeps in the fridge.  

My dad and I grilled supper yesterday and we had hot dogs with chili.  Before you even think for a second that my dad would eat tofu pups, just stop right there.  Dad had beef franks and I had tofu pups.  Actually, Lightlife’s Veggie Protein Links that I bought on Tuesday are GF, but the website  does not reflect this.  I'm looking at the package right now and I see no gluten, but always, always, always read labels, people!  Formulae change with the vicissitudes of food manufacturing.

For a gift for a friend’s birthday, I halved the original recipe for Ranger Cookies.

Mom said make dinner.  I said yes, Ma'am.

Don’t take any drug tests after consuming these and don’t feed ’em to Jamz.

I am officially no longer defined by my secondary education!  Says me.  Only while driving home from school on Tuesday after graduation did I realise that I have the rest of my life ahead of me.  Yes, I realise there are a tonne of linguistic and logical pitfalls in that statement and I have my education to thank for recognising that.  Sigh.  Three clichés: the mind is a terrible thing to waste/too much education can be a bad thing/ too much work and too little play makes Q a dull cat. Train Wreck Granola Like the great train crash at Crush , I ran three granola recipes together since I wanted to make granola and to use up some two-year-old candied ginger.  The ginger is as old as the length of time I’ve worked at my former student job; it’s been frozen more or less continuously since then. Works consulted: Erin McKenna, “Granola,” in Babycakes Covers the Classics: Gluten-free Vegan Recipes from Donuts to Snickerdoodles (New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2011), 44-

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