DIY Valentine: Restaurant Passport

On the lookout for an idea (any idea) of something to give my hubby for Valentines Day (I am notoriously unromantic, to the point of often forgoing gifts), I ran across this little gem on Pinterest.
What an awesome idea, especially considering we often find ourself (just as Steph did) hitting up the same restaurants time and again. My food restrictions don't help and because of said restrictions I often get stuck picking where we eat. So, what better way to offer him a little control over where we eat than giving him a prepared list of restaurants that offer food I can eat. Plus it makes for a fun way to ensure that we try some new places this year.

The problem: My hand-writing is awful and all I could imagine was how junky a notebook with my writing in it would look. So, I decided why not make something that looks a little bit nicer, and so I did.

The notebook: I found at Dollar Tree (for, you guessed it, $1). Next I needed to print up the pages to go inside. I figured out that if I could find a template that would do 6 to a page it would work perfect. Since I suck at Word and have no idea how to make a template from scratch, I did a little search and found one I could modify and created the template to the left. If you'd like this template just email me and I'll be happy to send it to you.

I then printed the template onto 8x11 sticker paper to make things easier.  And attached a little heart sticker onto each page (so we can mark off when each restaurant is visited).  I didn't put the restaurants into any particular order. Thinking about this, I probably should have alphabetized them to make them easier to find when we do visit them.  I'm also thinking that some restaurants may get visited multiple times, so I should probably add some extra stickers in the back.

I put the stars on the pages so that we could fill in a rating for each restaurant. Also, I only put one restaurant every other page, leaving the left hand page empty. I figured this would give us space to write our thoughts, or share anything special about that visit.  If you wanted, you could also fill in the stars to indicate price-range. I think if I did that, I'd only do 3 stars on the page. 

Next was the Passport Cover. Initially, I was going to try to modify the looks of an actual Passport cover, but as I played with it and found a cool picture, I changed my mind.  A big thank you to Boudewijn Berends for making this photo available via creative commons.  I edited it just a bit to add the text "2013 Restaurant Passport", printed it out on another sticker sheet and stuck it on the cover of my notebook.  Here are the end results.

If I did it again I'd buy a different type of notebook. Instead of a cheap $1 notebook, I'd find a journal type notebook that was made to stretch out. I already noticed that a page in the back of this notebook is coming loose.  I've got time so I'm tempted to redo it.

Paleo Banana Bread

I blame the change in hormones following my surgery (or something), as today I seem to be in full on "nesting" mode and can't seem to focus on much else.  I started off the morning making Hot & Sour Soup (of course I was missing most of the veggies and tofu, and it was snowing outside, so it's not quite the same as the recipe I posted previously). I haven't tried the soup yet because someone got me a little distracted... with banana bread.

Paleo Banana Bread

My friend Cassy posted this recipe on Facebook and tagged me with it. I think the implication was "let's get the person who probably has the ingredients to make it and try it before I waste my time, etc".  I took the challenge and learned a lot in the process. As I was making it I texted her "This better be good because I'm using the last of my almond flour". Turned out I had exactly 2 cups left (might have been more if I'd had a sifter).

Of course, since I'm completely incapable of following recipes, my recipe was more like this:

3 eggs, separated (keep the yolks and whites separate!)
3 or 4 tbsp honey (up to you!)
4 tbsp (soft) coconut oil (you may need to warm it up if it's hard).
3 mashed bananas (3 small, or 2-3 big)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups almond flour
1 cup pecans
2 large handfuls of chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream the egg yolks and honey in a large bowl until light and fluffy. I use a hand-held mixer for this. It didn't take long.
3.  Add the coconut oil, vanilla, and mashed banana to the bowl, mixing well.
4. In a smaller separate bowl, mix the cinnamon, baking powder and almond flour and sift well.
5. Add that mixture of spices and powder to the bowl and stir well.
6.  In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Use hand mixer on high. Stiff peaks are vital. 
7.  Fold the egg whites into the banana mixture to pull it away from the sides before gradually folding the rest of the egg whites into the mixture.
8. Add nuts and chocolate chips (if desired)
   
9. Grease bread pan with coconut oil (or butter)
10.  Place in oven for 40-45 minutes, until top is golden brown.
11. While the bread is still warm coat the top with butter or substitute (I use coconut spread)
    

I did my best to actually follow the directions given. However.... 

1.  I use coconut oil in EVERYTHING 
2. I like a LOT of cinnamon
3. I don't own a sifter (I need to rectify that).
4. - I was running low on honey so I used a little less, figured the bananas would be sweet enough (and I was right). 
5. Everything is better with chocolate!

Why can't I get stiff peaks?

I had never whipped eggs to a hard peak in my life. I guess there is a first time for everything, and as usual this first time didn't go so well.The picture on the left is me NOT getting it right. I literally stood there with the mixer for probably 15 minutes. Paul came home from work early and I told him what I was doing. He looked at me and said "why don't you try putting it on high?". I did that... it didn't help. 

Tip: Make absolutely sure that you don't get any yolk in your egg whites or they will not get stiff!  That said, I ended up using 6 eggs for this recipe because I had to start over.

I used coconut oil to coat my bread pan and when I first pulled the bread out and tasted it I felt like it was missing something. That's where I decided to try a good coat of coconut spread (I don't do butter) on the top. It tastes just like butter so it gave it that same flavor and tasted quite good.  I took Paul a piece to try and when I tried to walk away after his first bite he grabbed the rest out of my hand, then came back for me.  Verdict: It was worth using the last of my almond flour and wasting 3 eggs to make.

Winter Art Pieces (Playing with my Cricut)

Mostly this blog is things that I found on Pinterest and was inspired to try to create. In this case, I didn't find my inspiration on Pinterest, but rather on the shelf at TJ Maxx. I saw this cute art piece hanging on the end of the rack as I wondered through the store on Black Friday. I don't know what I was thinking even going in the store that day (but I did find a good supply of yummy GF cookies). I thought this was really cute but felt like it was totally something I could create on my own.  Initially, I thought I would actually try to recreate it, but that's just not who I am. In the end, I just used it for inspiration.

In October I convinced my husband that I needed a Cricut. I'm still not really sure how I pulled that off, other than that he seems to have an issue saying "no" to me, so unless I talk myself out of something I want I usually end up with it.  Since I hadn't had time to really do much with it, this project became my first one using the machine. I'd played around with it a little bit cutting some basic shapes and just getting a handle on how to use it, but this time it was on purpose. 

First I had to find a reindeer, there are tons of cartidges with reindeer on them, but I ended up buying (via the Craft Room) the basic Christmas cartridge, which had several reindeer options, as well as lots of other good winter and Christmas images.  From there I printed off the my reindeer of choice on several different cardstocks (including a basic brown). I had already created some shapes to make snowflakes with (during my earlier testing of my new toy). 

The one thing I really loved about the original image above was the burlap background with the worn paper look on top of it, so I decided to stick with that. For the base I used a piece of wood (if I did it over again I would just use a 12x18 canvas). I covered the wood with the burlap (which was a learning process for me) using spray adhesive and staples.  Then I built my main image on a piece of poster board before I adhered it onto the burlap. The top half of the background image is a napkin (I seperated the layers and just used the top layer with the color), then I used pieces from 3 different scrapbook papers. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, really not much like the original inspiration other than that they both have a reindeer.  Looking at it now there are definitely things I'd do differently if I had it to do over, but that's always the way it is.

While I was playing with Christmas themes, I used some tree images and some of my left-over snowflakes and put this together.  More for practice with the Cricut than anything else.

Mashed Cauliflower

There are a ton of recipes out there on various Paleo (and healthy) sites touting the use of cauliflower as a healthier (and just as tasty) substitute for Mashed Potatoes.  I finally decided to find out for myself.  Using this recipe as my base I steamed the cauliflower and garlic, added some salt & pepper and set my Ninja to the task of "mashing" the cauliflower.

End result: if you like grits you might be ok with this potato substitute, but I'll stick to mashed potatoes.  I've never been a fan of grits... as that gritty texture just doesn't do it for me. Mashed cauliflower has that same gritty texture.  Or did I do something wrong? If I did something wrong, please tell me, but I doubt I'll be trying this again any time soon.

Pinterest Thanksgiving

I should have posted this a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't.  I pulled a lot of ideas from Pinterest for Thanksgiving this year, as I tried to make my favorite dishes in a way that I could eat them. Some went well, others not so much.

The Turkey - yeah, I cooked it to death. Usually, my turkeys are awesome, it would figure that this year being the one year that I needed to stick to the turkey I made rather than risking what someone else made that my turkey would turn out like jerky.

The dressing - I started with this recipe I found on Pinterest. Except that instead of using their recipe for Southern Cornbread. I used Bob's Red Mill cornbread mix.... which I later learned is Northern Cornbread (sweet).  Had it not been for that one change, this would have been really good cornbread stuffing. Instead, I had to load it down with salt to cut the sweetness.

Mashed Potatoes - Seriously, if all I had for Thanksgiving were these three items and gravy. I'd be a happy camper...  For the potatoes, I used this recipe (but with red potatoes). Luckily, these actually turned out very good. I didn't miss having dairy in them at all, they were so good and creamy.

Next was dessert. I went with one already tested recipe, the Vegan Raw Pumpkin "Cheesecake". It got mixed reviews. I think I liked it more than most. One of my cousins said it tasted more like sweet potatoes than Pumpkin (perhaps it needed more spice).  Given that this was one of about 4 different Pumpkin pies... I was happy if anyone even tried it.  In addition to the Pumpkin "cheesecake". I also made two different chocolate coconut recipes.

Chocolate Macaroons - OMG! These were so good, although I may have been the only one who thought so. These are the cooked ones, I melted a little chocolate over the top and they were so yummy. Others seemed to prefer the raw chocolate coconut pumpkin macaroons. Honestly, they were both really good.  One of my aunts thought the Chocolate Macaroons were the No-bake oatmeal cookies my mom used to make... only to find out they were coconut (something she's evidently slightly allergic to), after she'd eaten 2 of them.  Both of these recipes were so easy to make that you could make them any time you have a chocolate craving then keep the leftovers in the freezer for later.

Zucchini Soup with Quinoa

Earlier this week I picked up a big basket of various veggies at my local Farmers Market. This was one of those "special" baskets where they had combined a bunch of things that they need to get sold. There was enough stuff in this basket to fill an entire grocery bag. When I got it home and went through it, I found that about half of what I'd gotten was zucchini. This wasn't a bad thing since I really like zucchini. Unfortunately, my hubby won't touch the stuff. That said, I typically just saute it in some coconut (or olive) oil with some salt and pepper. Or, if I'm feeling lazy throw it on a baking sheet and roast it.  However, with this much zucchini I knew there was no way I was going to eat it all my usual way.

First off I tried juicing it. Since, I juice A LOT I figured I should try it. I looked online and in my big book of juicing and found a few recipes. From what I found it seemed the best bet was mixing it with apple, or using it in my green juice in place of the usual cucumber. I did both of those and both were quite tasty.

As I sat awake at 5am this morning for no apparent reason I started to wonder what a zucchini soup would taste like.  A year ago I never would have considered it, but with all the juicing and diet changes in the last 8 months a lot of things sound good now that never would have before. So, I went online and found this recipe on the NY Times website. It sounded pretty tasty and I had everything on hand to give it a go.  And that is how my husband found me cutting up zucchini at 6am.

Of course, I wouldn't be blogging about this if I'd actually followed the recipe to the tee. It all started off ok, until I realized that there was rice in that recipe. I don't know how I missed that when I initially read it, but as I was following the directions I realized this little fact.  I don't eat rice, it doesn't like me.  Luckily, I had picked up a bag of Quinoa last week. I've never made quinoa, and I've really only had it maybe twice. So, this was totally foreign to me. It didn't help that I could not find instructions on the bag for how to cook it. There were recipes for things to make with it, but no basic instructions. So, I figured it must be pretty much like rice and just added it to the soup mixture where the recipe said to add rice.

So, my actual recipe looked a bit like this:
2tbsp Coconut Oil
1/2 Onion - diced
3 cloves garlic
2 med-large zucchini (peeled & diced)
2 tsp curry paste (cuz I didn't have curry powder)
maybe 6 cups vegetable broth
1/2 c Quinoa
salt (lots)
pepper (lots)

Saute the onion in the coconut oil, add the garlic, add the zucchini and saute for a few more minutes. Add the curry paste, veg broth & quinoa. Add salt & pepper. Bring to boil. Turn down the heat and let simmer for about 30 minutes.  I really didn't want my soup to be pureed. So, I just mashed the zucchini with a potato masher.

As it cooked it thickened and became almost a poridge.  I added more salt & pepper.  All in all, it quite tasty. I couldn't help but think that if I was feeling sick this would be the perfect alternative to chicken soup.

Pintest: Vegan Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

Going gluten & dairy free has been interesting, but not nearly as interesting as it will be in about 2 months when I start trying to figure out how to make Thanksgiving dinner.  So, when I saw DAMY's recipe for vegan Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake, I thought I'd try to get a head start.  And, when I showed it to hubby, he let me know (with that look in his eyes) that I was going to have to test this recipe sooner rather than later.

Note: I had taken all kinds of great pictures during the process of making this, but evidently my phone ate them.

Now, I'm all about some substitutions, and I still say this could be made with almond butter, but he let me know that wasn't going to happen. So, while at Earth Fare (the closest thing we have around here to Whole Foods) I picked up a $10 jar of Cashew Butter. Man, is that stuff expensive!  And since I couldn't seem to sit still last night and needed a distraction from an upset tummy and boredom, I figured I'd cook instead of eat.

So, as instructed, I mixed up all the ingredients (a word I evidently can't spell) for the filling. Doing so, used about 1/3 of a jar of the Cashew butter and about 1/2 the can of pumpkin.  Seeing this, I just said screw it and doubled the entire recipe. Call me crazy! For the record, I used 4Tbsp honey & 2 packets of Stevia (ok, Truvia) for the entire (double) filling batch.

When it came time to make the crust, my substitutions started showing. I only had a handful of pecans in the house, so I decided to try making the crust with almonds instead (something we always have on hand). Since I'd already doubled the filling, I figured I'd go ahead and double the crust recipe too. Looking back, that might have been either a mistake or a genius idea.  I probably didn't need as many almonds as I used, as I ended up adding a few extra dates just to get everything to mix good enough to form a decent crust.  It never did form that dough-like consistency that Amy had mentioned in her recipe. I finally just gave up and decided to work with what I had and it did press together well enough to form into the bottom of the dish, like a good crust should. However, I didn't take into account that I was still using the same size baking dish. So, I had a lot left-over.

Finished Product

After pouring in the filling, I topped it all off with a little left-over crust mixture, some coconut and a few pecan pieces. Hubby was sadly disappointed to find out that it had to sit in the freezer all night before he could try it. I did, however, let him taste the filling and we both agreed that it tasted great and should make for an excellent Pumpkin Pie substitute once it reached the proper consistency.

I figured I had to do something with all that left-over crust mixture and it seemed like the perfect base for some Larabar like snack bars. So, I combined it with the remnant of filling mixture that remained in the small processor bowl and mixed it all together. I mashed that out into a flat pan and stuck it in the fridge.

This evening when he came home, he found me taking pictures of the finished product (since my phone ate all the pics I took last night).  The bars on the left turned out really good. There was just enough pumpkin filling left in the processor when I added the left-over crust to give a perfect pumpkin pie flavor to the "larabars".  They got his seal of approval with a "I hope you wrote down the recipe".  Well, I did. Kind of. The problem is that in order to make those, I have to make the whole pumpkin pie thing (and that is a little spendy).  He said he was ok with that. Then he tried the actual "cheese"cake.  He commented that he felt like it was missing something, but could'nt quite figure out what it was. My thoughts were the only thing it could be missing was whipped cream. That said, it was better than any real pumpkin pie without whipped cream, and as good (or better) than any pumpkin cheesecake.  We definitely have a win here (substitutions and all).

Tip: This is best closer to the frozen consistency. The longer it sat in the fridge the closer to a pudding texture it got.