Happy Birthday sweetie!

IMG_0604, originally uploaded by erin32mc.

This was from November 2011, but better late than never. My little one turned 4. Hard to imagine four years has passed since she was born. Time is flying by way too fast. This kid is awesome! Just like her big brother. I'm one lucky momma.

Apple pie!

The apple pie I've been craving for the past month finally happened! Lily helped with the crust and applying the stars and sugar on top. All I can say is it really hit the spot!

Happy Halloween!

Baking with Ms. Lily

I came home from work on Tuesday night needing to bake. Lily asked for peanut butter cookies but once I found the three bags of butterscotch chips that were near their expiration date, Lily was willing to change her mind. We used the chocolate chip cookie recipe from Viva Le Vegan by Dreena Burton but used our butterscotch chips instead of chocolate. Lily did most of the work. She made some great cookies. We made four dozen and all four are gone! I took them to work today, which turned out to be my last day of work since I was laid off, and my now ex-coworkers devoured them! Glad I left them on a sweet note.

Halloween is around the corner.

Over the weekend we did Halloween "things".   Henry decided on his costume, another classic monster, the werewolf.  I was hoping that we would make his costume like we do most of the time, but he wanted the packaged one from the party store.  He loves it so much that he has already worn it to show his grandparents, the family across the street, and to apologize to me for not being nice.  I guess it was money well spent.  After that we hit up the library for free video rentals and new books for the whole family.  I still had three books to finish from the last library visit, that I had to skip getting anything new.  Then onto the pumpin patch in West Hollywood called Mr. Bones.

We go there every year.  Get a few pumpkins, the kids do a few bouncer/slide rides, and we head out.  Matt spotted Demi Moore, since she had a pack of paprazzi following her, so I guess she wasn't hard to spot.   The pumpkin patch actually had a specific location for the paparazzi to hang out while taking pics of any celebrities that might be on the premises.  All I could think was it might be time for a new pumpkin patch next year.  Way too L.A. and not enough corn maze and hay bundles.  Anyways, we headed over to Happy Family in Monterey Park for the vegan Chinese food.

On Sunday I made the baked pumpkin ziti with carmelized onions from Veganomicon.  So good!  Also made some cranberry sauce to go with it and some roasted broccoli.  I think I had two or two and  half helpings.  (Also had it again for lunch today!).  Lily use to eat this dish but last night she was only interested in the broccoli, no pumpkin ziti for her.  Henry wouldn't even try one bite.  He took one look and went back to his room.  His loss. I had hoped to bake an apple pie too but Lily wasn't feeling well, so I didn't want to have her eating something like that.  Once she bounces back, we'll get out our rolling pin. I can't wait!

Spork Fed recipe

ginger, garlic, maple tempeh strips with broccoli, originally uploaded by erin32mc.

This is from one of the new cookbooks I purchased.  I recently went a little nuts on Amazon.com and bought four books....one has yet to arrive.  I don't have a slow cooker...yet, so I had to pick a recipe from one of the other two.  I chose Spork Fed.  Don't get me wrong, Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites looks good too.  It's just that the tempeh recipe caught my eye, plus I knew I had a good chance that most of the family would eat it.

  I like tempeh, Lily likes ginger, both kids are willing to eat broccoli, and it needed to be fast.

The tempeh whipped up really fast! Make the sauce while tempeh is steaming. The sauce is: olive oil, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, maple syrup, and salt. Put all tempeh into the sauce, dump in pan and brown on all sides. Done. While that was happening, I tossed my broccoli with olive oil and coarse salt. Threw that in the oven until it was ready.

Dinner was on the table in less than 30 minutes. This is a dish that is gonna stick around with that kind of timing. Plus Lily loved it....Henry...not so much. I guess you can't win everytime.

smoothie

Last night I was too tired to go to the market but the kids needed dinner. I had leftover biscuits, a couple hashbrowns and gluten free sausage patties. So I guess it turned into breakfast for dinner. Always a hit. I felt a little guilty that dinner wasn't that exciting, so I grabbed a few things out of the fridge, along with the super ugly brown banana, and threw it all in a blender. Henry was really happy to have a smoothie with his dinner, who wouldn't be?

Pizza!

Thursday night my husband and I were going to see the Foo Fighter's. Before my folks came over to watch the kids, we had to get dinner ready. Henry had been begging for pizza, which nobody else really eats since we have overdosed on it over the years with him. Henry likes his pizza plain. Just Follow Your Heart cheese. Lily is hot and cold on pizza. Sometimes she'll take a bite but usually she stays clear. She'd rather eat the olives and have some pasta.
The one thing Lily loves about pizza is making it. She loves rolling out the dough, spreading on the toppings, and helping to cut it once it's done. Just don't ask her to eat it, then she'll be happy, as you can see.

Hot cocoa with pumpkin spice marshmallows

As we all know, Halloween is quickly approaching. Since I have two vegan kids who enjoy trick or treating, I need to have vegan treats to trade for the non-vegan candy they will collect. I already have chocolate peanut butter cups, vegan gummies, and small chocolate squares that I purchased on Vegan Essentials. The dangerous part for me while shopping for the kids is that I see "new" items on the webiste. This time it was Pumpkin Spice marshmallows made by Sweet and Sara. I couldn't help but add them to my cart before checkout.

This morning I made biscuits and hot cocoa. Of course you can't have hot cocoa without marshmallows...right? The biscuits were okay but the highlight were the marshmallows. Pumpkin, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon could be smelled as I drank from my mug. So good. My daughter had a mug of cocoa too. She only ate her marshmallows and then claimed to be full so she couldn't drink the cocoa. Hmmmm, I think I got tricked.

P.S.  If you like my mug, head on over to etsy.com and check out the lovely goods from Vegan Dish.  I was lucky enough to win this handmade mug from her during Vegan Mofo one year.