Chia Pudding

My son, big world traveller that he is, requested chia pudding the other day.  This recipe from Minimalist Baker looks like it will hopefully work for him, but I think it could be tweaked to maybe work for folks like myself too, so.

I'm trying something new right now, which is to put in the original recipe, and then show how it can be altered.  This is honestly some really basic stuff that most cooks are going to know like the back of their hand. However, this is for those of us who are NOT cooks, or at least, cooks who are used to having recipes to use rather than having to come up with our own from scratch and trying to figure it all out.  So this may be too basic for some, but just remember, it's probably aimed at someone who is not as good at cooking as you are (yet, anyway). ^_^

Chia Pudding

Lamb meatballs with dairy free mint sauce

My chest freezer lost power and I didn't find out for 4 days. Thankfully, the food was still cold, but it had all thawed, so I've been frantically cooking like a madwoman.  I had one pound of lamb, which I never eat but know goes well with mint, and after seeing that some recipes also include ginger, I came up with the following lamb meatball recipe.

It turned out rather nice, honestly. Better than I thought it was. However, my amounts are very slap dash in this one - I was just using what I had, and making estimates about how much I used, after the fact. I ate them so fast I forgot to take a picture, LOL.

Sweet Potato Cakes

I finally got these suckers to work!  I saw that the gluten free girl used yogurt to make an egg-free sweet potato latke, and that finally pinged a connection with the cashew cream I've been using, and this is the result. Inspired by her recipe.

Yummy!

Cooking in someone else's shoes

Fried kinda-green tomatoes...which I can no longer have. Waah.

I go through phases in my cooking. I get stuck in a rut - a huge rut where we have the same items for lunch and dinner, in different forms, for a week because I can't make my brain think of anything else. And then I get sick of that and start trying out some new foods, some of which actually work. After that, what else can I do but go look at other people's recipes and food blogs in a quest for more delicious new foods? I'm inspired and excited for a few days to a couple weeks.

And then?

Taco Seasoning Mixture

There was a soup that I used to make years ago called Taco Soup. I loved this stuff, but a major component of the mixture was the cheap and easy taco spice mix packet that you would add.

This one, actually

Yesterday, I figured that I'd try to recreate this spice mixture, and I think I came pretty close! Don't know why I never did it before.

Cooking like Calvin - Butternut Squash Soup

I love the comic Calvin and Hobbes, and especially the ones where Calvin and his friend tiger played 'Calvin Ball.' The game where the rules change constantly and crazily and it always looked like a blast.

My children and I now have a saying. 'Let's do it Calvin Ball style.' That's when we're playing a game of any kind that's gotten a bit stale, and suddenly you can just start making up the rules as you go. The only rule to making up rules is that you can't contradict another person's rules, you simply have to go with them and add more. And everyone has to have fun.

It occurred to me today that I cook the same way. These days, I cook 'Calvin Ball style.' Calvin Ball cooking is where the ingredients are always changing, but you have to try and have fun. I rarely find a recipe that I can use; usually more than half the ingredients are no-go. So we use a few ideas and then get to use whatever was in season and I happen to have at home. And try to have fun with it.

Spicy Eggplant - attempt I

I really miss a wonderful Thai dish I used to have, some spicy eggplant that was simply amazing.

I've been fiddling with various methods of recreating a flavor that might be comparable, or at least comparable based on what I remember, and yesterday I got closer than I ever had before.

It was fairly simple. I stir-fried sliced japanese eggplant, and then cooked it with this sauce:

Fake Spicy Thai Sauce (Work-in-Progress):
Apple juice (homemade, so I don't know if the taste changes)
roasted eggplant, peeled and blended up with a little of the apple juice
crushed tepin chiles
sea salt
a little fresh lemon juice

This was spicy, sweet, and a little sour. Not quite right, yet. There's something missing. But it was much closer than I've managed before. I need something for that umami taste, and the roasted eggplant was the best so far, as I can't use mushroom, soy sauce, or coconut aminos. I'm thinking perhaps I could add some roasted tomato, too, just a little bit, and see how that goes, next time. :-)