Quinoa 'Mac and Cheese'

I'm not sure if I have ever thought of mixing cheese into quinoa, and I don't know why. I guess I must have eaten feta with quinoa, but I have never melted cheese into quinoa. I really liked this dish and it was super easy. It was better hot than as leftovers, and it was so much better with a few squeezes of sriracha sauce. Here is the recipe.

Update: January Tortillas

I made the tortillas from this Rick Bayless recipe. For the fat I used olive oil. Making these really was easy, although you can see that I didn't get perfect circles each time. I ate a few and they were good, and different from store bought. However, I may still buy tortillas from the store. If I didn't live in CA I may not feel this way, but I have endless amounts of tortillas at my finger tips at all times.

Granola Bars

I am always looking for something different to eat for breakfast. Usually I find something I like and then I eat it forever and then I hate it and never want to eat it again.

I made these bars from 101 Cookbooks. I really like them and they were easy to eat. The only thing I didn't like is how sweet they are. If I make them again I will cut the amount of sugar in half. I added in cranberries and a few chocolate chips. The recipe is here.

Carrot and Tahini Soup

I made this soup last week. It is a different spin on carrot soup, with a much deeper flavor coming from the tahini. I love tahini and think this combination is delicious. I got the recipe from the New York Times. I skipped the pita chips. The recipe is here.

Lentil Salad

I will be the first to admit that this salad looks like something you can skip. It just doesn't look that good. Even the roommate turned his nose up when I told him what we were eating. However, the flavors are outstanding. It's simply delicious. I don't even like potatoes but I could not think of anything to replace them with so I just used them, and they were delicious. 

I found the recipe on 101 Cookbooks. The mint sauce is absolutely necessary, don't skip it. I did skip the yogurt. The dates are awesome and add something sweet and delicious.

No Knead Bread

You can find this recipe all over the internet. It started with a post by Mark Bittman in the NY Times. I based my recipe on one on Smitten Kitchen. What a surprise. 

I made my bread almost exactly as the recipe states, except I only used one bowl because I didn't see the point of making one more dirty dish.

I highly recommend this bread. It's delicious and super easy to make, it just takes a number of hours.

Black Bean Slaw Tacos

This is a dish you should make this week. It is so easy, so delicious, and so good for you, as far as Mexican food goes. It's so flavorful that I elected not to add cheese. When do I ever skip cheese? It just was not necessary.

I based my recipe on one from Smitten Kitchen; what a surprise. Below you'll find the recipe I used for the dressing. 
Make this soon.

Slaw dressing:
based on Bobby Flay's dressing (linked from Smitten Kitchen)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 serrano chiles (this is not too much. Anne should add more.)
2 tablespoons Greek yogurt
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup pure olive oil
1 head purple cabbage, finely shredded
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Vegan Peppermint Ice Cream

I was looking for a peppermint ice cream recipe and stumbled upon a vegan version that looked as good as any.

I could not find any candy canes (in December?!?!) so I used the round peppermint candies that you often see on hostess stands at restaurants. Breaking them up is a great way to get out some aggression. 

To me, this ice cream is more luscious than normal ice cream. Coconut milk can be super rich, almost too much. In my first batch I used regular coconut milk, but I switched to light coconut milk for the second batch. Also, in my first batch I used only vanilla extract, but for the second I used only peppermint extract, and I liked the second batch a lot better than the first. I reduced the amount of sugar from the original recipe because it was just too much.

Happy Birthday to Me

I made myself a birthday cake. I have been wanting to try this cake for awhile, mainly because of the rave reviews in the comments. The recipe says to use 10 inch pans, and I don't have any, so I used my nine inch pans and made 12 cupcakes with the rest. Everything fit perfectly.

I knew an entire cake would be too much, so I made the entire recipe and froze one of the rounds. Somehow the cupcakes just disappeared. For this half cake I used one of the layers and cut it in half. I used the chocolate frosting as the filling. 

The cake is excellent; it tastes light and airy. The frosting is amazing. A few people who consider themselves chocolate cake experts declared it delicious. 
Many thanks again for the beautiful plates and spoons!

Sarah's January Recipe: Tortillas

Every month I choose a bread...I'm not sure why, but there's always so many to make, and bread is sooooo much better when made at home. So, this month: tortillas (or, 'tor-TILL-as' as my British coworker likes to say). 

One of my favorite things about living in CA is the availability of really good tortillas, but I'm keen to try to make them at home, without lard, and to see if they are good. It will be interesting to see if either of you make them with lard, which I doubt, and how they turn out.

There's two recipes that look good to me, choose whichever you like.
Option 1
Option 2

Ole! 

Update: Anne's April Recipe - Bread Pudding

This was so much better than I expected. It is not something I would normally make, but I really enjoyed it. I would make it again as it got rave reviews from those who ate it. Next time I will more finely grind the chocolate chips because they never melted.

Peppermint Whoopie Pies

These were so good. Like, I ate more in one sitting than one person should eat in a lifetime. Then I went to the gym. For a long time. And didn't regret a thing.

I made the pies from this recipe. My pies turned out quite large. I'm still not sure of how to get them to be smaller and also uniform in size. 

Instead of the frosting recommended in the above link, I used something more seasonal, from this recipe. I figured peppermint whoopie pies would be more seasonal and delicious. I can imagine using the original frosting for the other 11 months of the year.