Adventures in cooking

Maybe it was the cool weather or the potty-training imposed house arrest, but I was busy cooking all weekend long! Many would groan at the thought of cooking all weekend but I was in heaven. And this weekend I made a few old stand-by's, but also ventured into making a few things that were way out of my comfort zone. First on Friday I made a seitan and lentil loaf. Seitan is a rubbery sort of food, intended to mimic meat. It is made from vital wheat gluten flour and water, so on its own it is high in protein, low in flavor, which is a pretty good summary of my seitan lentil loaf. I also had a couple of acorn squashes laying around and made this to go with the seitan loaf:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/10/unflinchingly-good-things/

Acorn squash with chile-lime vinaigrette

Later that evening an intense sweet tooth craving came on and after sending Chris to the grocery store to retrieve much needed chocolate and heavy cream, I whipped these up:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/10/peanut-butter-brownies/#more-312

peanut butter chocolate brownies

After spending Saturday trying to potty-train one little girl (with little success), I decided to skip any more potty pleads and spent Sunday cooking up some more delicious delicacies. First up was an old favorite, granola! I know what you're thinking, "Does this girl ever get tired of granola?"- and the answer is, no! I love granola and since my last blog about granola I have started using a different recipe:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/dining/151arex.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=olive%20oil%20granola&st=cseOlive oil granola

I finished up the afternoon making kimchi, a Korean pickled cabbage type dish. I would love to tell you how that turned out but its still marinating as I type. Kimchi

And then, to please my little pumpkins, I made some mac-n-cheese for dinner. You might be wondering, "How does she have time to cook with two wild things running around?". Well, as much as I would love to say that I have superwoman powers, the truth is that I have a great husband who helps keep the kids entertained in exchange that I promise to let him eat meat every once in a while :).