Saturday’s grocery trip included organic carrots. These carrots had the biggest, bushiest attached greens I had ever seen! They weighed as much as the carrots!

It got me to thinking about ways to eat them, and while I did find some sources that call them “mildly toxic”, I found an amazingly interesting site that had plenty of recipes- The World Carrot Museum!

I modified (slightly) a recipe straight from their site for “Carrot Tabouleh” and it is amazing! I also haven’t suffered any ill effects from the carrot greens, they smell and taste very much like parsley.

Carrot Tabouleh:

5-6 medium organic carrots with their greens

10 fresh basil leaves

raisins (if you want them)

onion powder

black pepper

red wine vinegar

Bragg’s liquid Aminos

I chopped the carrots in my blender, which was very labor intensive. I might even hand grate them next time to save myself some frustration!

The basil and carrot greens were chopped using kitchen shears, and I left them a bit chunkier since I like the texture.

Then I mixed the carrots, greens, raisins and spices in a dish. That was it!

The original recipe called for lemon juice (I didn’t have lemons so I used vinegar) and olive oil. I’m sure it’s great with the oil but I just wasn’t feeling it so I left it out.

I oficially made the first of what is sure to be amny holiday season treats today.

I am so happy that, like his parents, my youngest son seems to be inheriting a love of all things Halloween.

We weren’t quite ready to put away the Halloween spirit today, so we watched more of those amazing light show videos set to music and made popcorn balls!

These are a little different- they have cinnamon and slivered almonds, and are really more like a rice krispies treat than a traditional popcorn ball, but we love them and had lots of fun in the kitchen today!

Cinnamon Almond Popcorn Balls:

8 cups popped popcorn

1/4 cup slivered almonds

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of margarine or butter

about 15 large marshmallows

Melt butter in a large pot on the stove over low heat, add vanilla, cinnamon, and marshmallows and cook stirring frequently until melted and smooth.

remove from heat and stir in popcorn mixing well. With buttered hands, press mixture into balls and set aside on a baking sheet to cool. Store in ziploc baggies or wrap in cling wrap.

Ingredients:

2 cups GF rolled oats

*3/4 c granulated sugar

3 TBSP fair trade cocoa powder

1 TBSP almond milk

1 TBSP vanilla flavor/extract (I use a paste)

1/2 cup softened vegan margarine

5 TBSP peanut butter (I use natural fresh ground)

1 C gluten free powdered sugar (set aside for rolling)

Place dry ingredients in a medium bowl and sift well

Add wet ingredients and using a fork, mix very well- using chopping and scraping motions to incorporate the peanut butter thoroughly.

Once mixture is well combined, place some powdered sugar on a saucer and have an empty plate ready. Get a small fistful of your mixture and squeeze very well, rolling lightly as you squeeze to achieve a spherical shape. Roll in powdered sugar and set aside on plate. Repeat this process until all mixture is used. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or for as long as you can wait– I think I lasted about 10 minutes.

*The granulated sugar made these a little gritty at first, but after they had been refrigerated overnight the texture was much better. Mind you- the mixture is dry enough that I think it could stand to be divided, less granulated sugar replaced with either honey or agave. I plan to try that next.

So, as some of you may know I recently ordered what I described as a “big ol’ tub” of raw Maine wildflower honey. To be more accurate- it’s a 5 lb bucket.

The plan is to use it in tea, serve it over pancakes, and just generally expose our bodies to the particulate matter native to Maine…plus it’s delicious.

That’s most likely going to leave me with plenty of honey to experiment with- and there’s nothing I like more than playing mad scientist in the kitchen- take last night for instance!

I was having severe cravings for sweets- anything sweet, and thanks to some clever shopping on our part we don’t have any “grab and eat” snacks for the most part.

Thankfully I had been reading up earlier in the day on pioneer recipes- things we made and ate in the “good old days” you know, before high fructose corn syrup, refined and bleached flour, and a rainbow of artificial colors took over.

After digging around in my pantry I found I had oats, sugar, margarine, cocoa powder, vanilla, cinnamon, powdered sugar, and I was still imbued with the will to make something sweet come out of my kitchen immediately! Luckily I am also more than familiar with several treats that don’t involve an oven or sauce pan of any kind (growing up in the south without Air Conditioning)!

What I came up with (after some tweaking of my own) was a delicious, satisfying no-bake treat I am affectionately calling a “candy bar ball” because that’s exactly what it reminded me of- an awesome, junky, empty calorie filled candy bar. Except this wasn’t!

It was instead a crunchy, nutritious, fiber and protein bomb disguised as junk food!

Some months are tighter than others, and for us October certainly qualifies!

We tend to stock up on specific things when we know money is scarce:

-dry beans/peas (especially black eyed peas)

-tortilla chips

-salsa

-peppers for roasting and freezing

-rice (and rice noodles)

-staple GF flours

-tea

I usually won’t do things like non-organic juice concentrates or certain produce items even when we’re on a tighter budget. I’d rather find an alternative or an organic work around that’s cheaper than sacrifice our health (and my mental well being) in addition to having less cash to work with.

What are some of your favorite pantry items for when times are tight?

Ok, so a friend on Tumblr requested a recipe, and I thought this would be a great time to talk about candy.

This is also the time when I cop to sometimes using expensive and hard to find ingredients. I justify this because I make candy around the holiday season, so it’s supposed to be extra fancy, right? Right!

Anyway, I made a simple and really good gluten and dairy free peanut butter cup last holiday season and am sharing, at the request of The Amazing Emilie!

You will need:

-8 oz of good quality dark chocolate, I used Valrhona (fair trade) 73% cocoa dark chocolate drops. I don’t use chocolate chips or bars designed for eating because they contain an emulsifier called lecithin (designed to help them hold their shape), which makes them harder to melt down and work with.

1/2 cup of natural peanut butter

2 TBSP margarine

1/4 c gluten free powdered sugar

a double boiler (or a saucepan and a medium metal bowl that sits on top)

a muffin tin

paper or foil liners (like for cupcakes)

Method:

place cupcake liners in muffin tin and keep close at hand.

**place saucepan on the stove over medium heat with about 1/2 cup of water in the bottom. Place your metal bowl over the saucepan and add your chocolate drops, stir with a silicone spatula until chocolate is smooth and liquid.

with a spoon, ladle some of the chocolate into the bottom of the cups. Let them sit for about a half hour in the ‘fridge.

make peanut butter filling (melt butter, mix in a small bowl with peanut butter and powdered sugar until smooth).

Once the bottoms of your cups have set, spoon a little of the peanut butter mixture into each one and flatten slightly. Reheat chocolate and pour over each peanut butter cup just until the peanut butter is covered.

Place them back in the refrigerator and let them sit for as long as you can stand it, or overnight, before eating.

**this will be untempered chocolate, meaning it won’t be shiny and “crisp”, it’ll stay sort of melty and you’ll want to refrigerate the cups before eating them.

There’s also a picture in here of some peanut clusters I made with organic Virginia peanuts. Those were pretty awesome too, if I do say so myself.

It’s almost soup weather!

In fact, I got the jump on things a little bit and made a roasted red pepper tortilla soup.

It was great, even if I was a little unprepared for how much heat the red Hatch chiles were going to impart.  Anyway, here’s what I did:

Ingredients-

8 cups water or broth (I prefer to begin with broth)

“To taste” (or 1 TBSP each for me) of the following spices: cumin, chili powder, salt, black pepper

5 red hatch chiles (or other peppers, but these were on sale), seeded and chopped

1/2 medium onion

3 bulbs minced garlic

1 box (I steer clear of cans) diced tomatoes

3 fresh roma tomatoes, also diced

2 TBSP corn oil (I specifically use this in tortilla soup for added flavor)

4 corn tortillas torn into pieces

tortilla strips for garnish (instructions follow)

fresh cilantro and limes

Instructions:

Heat corn oil over medium heat

add peppers, garlic, fresh tomatoes and onion and sautee until lightly browned

add spices and toast for about 45 seconds

add boxed tomatoes and water, bring to a boil

lower heat and simmer covered for about 30 minutes

add tortillas, stirring well to incorporate

cover and simmer for another 30 minutes stirring occasionally

once soup is done, serve in bowls garnished with cilantro and tortilla strips

**Tortilla strips:

2 tortillas, sliced into long pieces, oil,  salt:

Toss cut tortillas in corn oil and salt. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet, bake in the over at 350 until crisp.

Some produce you may not want to buy on sale, depending on condition. The truth is though, we here in the good ol’ US of A are often ridiculously picky (not to mention paranoid) about what constitutes a bad piece of produce.

Take these babies for instance:

They are red Hatch chile peppers- famously amazing and usually pretty expensive as peppers go. I came across a bin of these at my local snooty market for 50 cents a pound.

I grabbed a little over two pounds of them and sure, there were specks and spots and some of them were a little soft. Close to the bottom of the bin there might have been a little mold here and there- so what? I knew what I had planned for these guys…so soft spots and mold weren’t going to deter me from awesomely priced red peppers.

When I got them home, they first got a very good (double) washing:

Then I culled a few of the fresher ones to make into tortilla soup (recipe later!) and the rest were prepped for roasting.

Basically I placed them on a baking sheet and roasted them in a 350 degree oven, turning occasionally, until they had a nice darkened skin on them.

I let them cool for awhile, then divided them into bags for freezing. So now I have several servings of red peppers in my freezer for use whenever I feel like spicing up beans, hummus, or whatever. So worth it!

Something that is actually very difficult to find when I’m cooking gluten free vegan meals is meat substitutes. My favorite (mostly) GF substitute is flavored with barley malt, which is a no-no. While I approve more of NOT using analogs or overly processed vegan foods, they do definitely help when there’s a time crunch or unexpected company!

Over at Meat and Egg Free, they’ve apparently got recipes for something brilliant and exciting, gluten free seitan!

Seitan is a wheat gluten product with a dense, chewy texture that absorbs flavors well and has been the best substitute for meat in stews and curries that I’ve found. In fact, I once took a “lamb” stew with me to a party, and even the regular meat eaters raved about how good it was, and how they’d have never suspected it was vegan if I hadn’t said as much.

Anyway, the description of their gluten free seitan looks very promising, and I can’t wait to try it out!

This September is a very special birthday! No, not Sam (although of course that one is special too)…

no, I mean Early 2 Bed! They’re a wonderful, sex positive shop all about the ladies and sexual autonomy in general!

I first learned about them about six years ago and the more i read, the happier I was- not just about the commitment to a wide variety of quality products but also their ethics, rationale for the design of the store, and attention to inclusive language!

So this blog entry is to wish them a happy birthday, in hopes that they are still going strong in another ten years!

Oh, and just to keep it food related, here’s why you should shop there: