gingerbread men

first of my christmas baking this year.
not that i'm going to be baking tons...
but its fun to bake with my mom.
haven't had christmas with my whole family in 5 years so it'll be pretty fun!


p.s. if you are in vancouver and need some local, unique gifts, head over to the One Of A Kind show at the convention centre! its still on tomorrow from 10am til 9pm and sunday from 10am til 5pm. my sister has some paintings there, and i'll be there for quite a while tomorrow (saturday)!

why you should do the culture crawl this year

those of you readers who live in vancouver, i have for you 3 reasons to go to the vancouver east side culture crawl this year:
(specifically my sister andrea armstrong's studio)

1. this is what one of her walls looked like last year.
isn't it pretty?
this year's is even better - i've seen it in progress.

2. guess what is across the street from her studio?
yeah. jj bean.
(keep in mind it closes at 6pm friday, and 5pm saturday & sunday)

3. i made cookies last year for andrea's studio.
and guess what?! i made more this year too.
(and no, my dad didn't make them.)

(i kinda made a lot last year. but this year looks pretty similar.)

(this is what her studio looks like. from the outside.)

crawling hours:
friday november 18: 5pm-10pm
saturday november 19: 11am-6pm
sunday november 20: 11am-6pm

bringing cookies back into my life

when i wrote this post on thursday, i had a sudden urge for cookie-baking. guess what i did the very next day? that's right, i ate pizza. and i baked cookies. i like the end result of baking cookies, but i get really impatient when i'm in the middle of the whole cookie-baking process. i only have 2 cookie sheets, so i waste a lot of time waiting for the damn cookies to be baked so i can finish scooping out all the cookie dough. so its not just 10-12 minutes of baking, its more like 5 x 10-12 minutes of baking + 30 minutes of time wasting. that equation is just too complicated for my mind. maybe if i invest in another couple cookie sheets i will enjoy cookie baking more. because i sure as heck enjoy eating them. and sharing. i guess.

so i baked "oatmeal, chocolate chip pecan cookies," except i used walnuts. so i guess i technically baked "oatmeal, chocolate chip walnut cookies." but i think the name sounds too boring for what these cookies taste like when they are in my mouth having a party. they're more like "spicy, flavorful, chocolately goodness cookies with a hint of orange." try baking them yourself and then see if you can top my awesome name for them.


here's the recipe:
oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies
adapted from smitten kitchen, who adapted it from katy sparks and andrea strong

1/2 c. butter*, room temp
3/4 c. cane sugar
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. salt*
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs (largish)
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. clove
1 c. oats
2 c. chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans. i also threw in some sunflower seeds)
2 tsp. grated orange zest (optional. i'm still not sure what i think of the orange.)
12 oz. (1 bag) semisweet chocolate chips

*if you use salted butter, then don't use as much salt

beat the butter in a large mixing bowl until its light and creamy. add sugars, salt, vanilla and beat again. stir in the eggs, one at a time. in a separate bowl whisk/sift the dry ingredients (flour, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove). add half of it to the batter and beat on low speed. dump the other half in along with the oats, nuts, orange zest and chocolate. (you can be creative with what you dump in. i needed to get rid of some white chocolate so i used half white chocolate chips, half semi-sweet chocolate chips.) stir. take a spoon and drop similar sized clumps of dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. space them out because these cookies flatten a bit in the oven. bake for 10 to 12 minutes. mine stayed in for about 15, but my oven is weird. you want the cookie to look 'golden' but you don't want them to burn. but really, if its slightly underbaked, its just chewier, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. :)


suggestions for how to use these cookies:
1. serve to guests with coffee
2. put a dozen on a plate, set plate right in front of you with a cup of coffee, and eat all in one sitting
3. bring to an event, like moving day, and share

(note: i used suggestion #3, but you don't know how much i wanted to do suggestion #2)

saturday: meringues and other healthy eating habits

its been a HEALTHY eating day for me today. breakfast consisted of toast with peanut butter, a chocolate croissant, and 2 americanos. lunch was decent enough, i had toast with eggs & other rich toppings, like mayo, avocados, cheese... but then i decided to use up the egg whites in my fridge that were leftover from the egg yolks i used in wednesday's eggs benedict. i didn't want them to go to waste, so i decided the best thing to do would be to beat those egg whites to death with about a pound of sugar. i made meringues for the first time ever.

back to my healthy food habits. after snacking on meringues, accompanied by decaf coffee to offset the sweetness, came dinner. which consisted of bean dip and a bag of rice chips. and guess what i had for dessert? yup. meringues. and now it is midnight and i am getting my usual late night pangs of hunger.


i used a recipe from donna hay's cookbook flavours - i think i am in love with donna hay's cookbooks, specifically the photography in her cookbooks. if you ever want to see me drool, the next best thing to putting a plate of delicious food in front of me is to put a donna hay cookbook in my hands. or a jamie oliver cookbook. they both have amazing photographers.

because this was my first time baking meringues, i can't really rate the recipe, or compare it with anything else i've ever tried. it seemed a bit more complicated than it could have been though. i had another recipe that just called for egg whites and castor sugar. simple.

however, this recipe called for:
egg whites (4)
castor sugar - i finely ground my cane sugar into a powder (1 & 1/4 cup)
sifted cornstarch - i used tapioca starch (1 Tablespoon)
vanilla extract (1 teaspoon)
vinegar (1 teaspoon)
seeds from vanilla bean

pre-heat oven to somewhere between 200 F and 250 F. beat egg whites until 'soft peaks' form. you can tell that peaks are forming when you turn off your beater and lift it up, the egg whites will form a small mountain 'peak.' slowly incorporate the sugar (a little bit at a time) until the batter is smooth, and the peaks are no longer 'soft' but 'stiff.' now the recipe said to fold in the rest of the ingredients, but my batter was way too runny still so i beat the heck out of it until the batter became stiffer, and when i rubbed a bit of batter between my fingers, it was sticky and smooth (you shouldn't be able to feel the grains of sugar). dump the batter into a piping bag, pipe shapes onto a parchment lined pan (make sure they are all similar sizes). the baking time is quite long, because it requires low heat (you want them to dry out, but not to burn), so try to get as many on to your baking sheets as possible and stick 2 sheets in the oven at once. just make sure to rotate them a bit during baking. bake for somewhere between 30 minutes and 1 hour. i'm sorry i'm so vague on these instructions - like i said, its my first meringue experience. i kept changing the baking temperature and adding more time to the timer. they were too chewy when they first came out so i just stuck them in for more time. apparently its not a good idea to bake these on a rainy day. it was raining today. that's probably why it took so long. stupid moisture.

i just re-read that last paragraph, and i came to this conclusion: if you want to bake meringues, go find a recipe somewhere else and follow it and use your instincts. i can't give great advice after just making them once and failing to keep track of times and temperatures.

but what i can do.... is show you some more photos! yay photos! i think all that sugar is still coursing through my system.


i have to say, baking is not for the weak. it often requires persistence. i'm quite glad i decided to use my electric beater instead of using my old fashioned hand-held egg beater, because i beat that batter excessively and i still don't think the peaks were as stiff as they should have been.

cuteness for sale

what does this have to do with food?

silly question. she's eating a gingerbread man. gingerbread men are cookies... men that don't cause you emotional stress. unless you are the type that stresses over eating cookies. then yes, they still give you stress. so avoid them. or just stop stressing about cookies.

my sister/roomie is selling some christmas cards on etsy. they are cute! buy them!

i feel like i need to post a gingerbread cookie recipe right here. but i haven't actually tried any yet, will do that this christmas. i did decorate some last year for work. they were fun. if you follow my blog, feel free to send me nagging emails about baking gingerbread men. maybe i should be politically correct here... gingerbread people? yes. i will make some gingerbread people this year.

yummy wheat-free vegan choc chip walnut cookies

as of the beginning of this week i have gone wheat-free for a while, for various health & personal reasons. i've experimented quite a bit over the last year with wheat-free baking, since my sister doesn't eat it, so at least i'm not starting off completely new to it. but now i have to plan my meals better, make or buy wheat-free bread, and stare at delicious baked wheat products all day in longing.

i'm not a huge cookie person, but i like to eat them once in a while, and it struck me that if i ever have a chocolate chip cookie craving, i can't just buy one at a cafe when the craving hits. so i decided to bake some yesterday. and they are delicious. it was a pretty small batch, so i will have to bake some more soon. that way i can freeze a whole bunch to satisfy my 'occasional' chocolate chip cookie craving.

i found this fantastic recipe and pretty much followed it somewhat closely, until i realised the next day that i accidentally ommited the sugar, and just put in the brown sugar. they tasted perfectly sweet to me, so i will leave the sugar part optional.

note: found out that you can make your own 'oat flour' by grinding oats in a blender or food processor.


ingredients:

• 1 & 3/4 cups flour (i used 1 cup oat flour, 3/4 cup brown rice flour. if you want it completely gluten-free, try substituting all rice flour or quinoa flour)
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup sugar (optional!)
  
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (not optional)
  
• 1/3 cup oil (olive or canola)
• 1 Tablespoon ground flaxseeds
  
• 1/4 cup soy milk (or rice milk or regular milk)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or other nuts)
  
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Add the vinegar to the soymilk, and set aside. (I think the vinegar is supposed to help the cookies puff up a bit)

If you haven't yet, grind the flax seeds and chop the walnuts ahead of time.

Sift/whisk the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, salt)

In a separate bowl, whisk the ground flax with the soymilk. Then, add the oil, sugar, vanilla, and mix well.

Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and stir until combined. Add the chocolate and walnuts last.

Drop onto cookie sheet by the teaspoon or tablespoon, and bake for 10-12 minutes.

This recipe makes about 18-20 small cookies. They don't last long, so it might be good to double the recipe.

chewy wheat-free vegan chocolate chip cookies

i had a desire to make chocolate chip cookies yesterday. but if i made them just for me, they would end up sitting on the counter for days & i'd eventually throw them out. i seem to have a weird thing about not liking too much of the same thing. or leftovers. so i made my cookies 'andrea friendly,' which is wheat free, dairy free, egg free, yeast free... basically they are vegan. but they are yummy!

i used the base recipe of Chewy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies from RecipeZaar, but i didn't use wheat & i cut the amount of sugar in half.




my recipe:

ingredients

• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup (or honey or molasses)
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon flax seed
• 1/2 cup rice milk (or soy milk)
  
• 2 cups flour (chickpea flour, rice flour, 1/2 teaspoon guar gum)
  
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet non-dairy chocolate chips/chunks

directions

• preheat oven: 350 F
• grind flax seeds in a blender until powdered; add the milk and blend for about 30 seconds more and set aside.
• in a large bowl, sift together dry stuff: cocoa, flour, baking soda and salt.
• cream the sugar and oil in a separate large bowl.
• add the flax/milk mixture to wet stuff and mix well.
• stir in the vanilla to wet mixture.
  
• slowly mix in the dry ingredients.
• mix in the chocolate chips.
• roll or spoon out dough into 1" balls and flatten
  
• place on a cookie sheet about 1" apart and bake for 10 minutes. (original recipe said ungreased sheet, but i think i would grease my cookie sheet next time)