Multicultural cheese pocket

This turned out super yummy:
- 1 tortilla
- roasted red pepper dip from Forks Mediterranean Deli (red peppers, garlic, pine nuts or something)
- mozzarella from Klein farm
- cheddar from Klein farm
- Bulgarian feta

Spread tortilla with red pepper spread. Add cheddar and mozzarella to taste.

Heat until cheese is melty.

Add Bulgarian feta crumbles.

Fold. Eat.

Butternut squash ravioli and sushi

So, tonight was child's night to cook dinner. She wanted to make ravioli. I got her some vegan butternut squash ravioli.

She opted to make a cream sauce with vanilla almond milk, which came to a great consistency but had a flavor way too sweet for me. She also selected broccoli to serve in the sauce with the ravioli and also a side of Sushi from Wegmans.

Our seven year old neighbor cams over to help us cook, which was a tad much for my nerves. He also ate almost a whole loaf of my freshly baked, specially purchased bâtard bread.

Since my child shouldn't have dairy, I served the bread with extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil with basil and parsley.

Her cream sauce was roughly:
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin oil
- 2 tablespoons flour
- pepper, garlic pepper, basil, parsley, Italian herb seasoning, mustard and nutmeg
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk

It was edible, but not something I would repeat. I suggested some olive oil drizzled on them.

Bâtard and quince

A few more weeks and my last full semester at Lafayette will end. My daughter is drowning in her phlegm and her ear tubes are falling out. Target opens at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving. We're still barely making ends meet.

But hey, no sense complaining. This is life.

Today I stopped at Wegmans because my poor daughter wanted ice cream and I'm restricting her dairy right now because of her allergy/ear issues.

I got her coconut milk cookies and cream ice cream.

She also wants to cook dinner tonight so I got vegan ravioli, one butternut squash and the other roasted red pepper. She suggested ravioli for the meal.

I also got salad greens and Health is Wealth Pizza Munchees which are also vegan.

And sushi. Because I can't make it through Wegmans without a serious impulse buy.

I also got bâtards, a small type of French bread, because I've craved a bâtard with butter and quince jam for months. A few weeks ago, I discovered Lebanese quince jam at the Mediterranean Deli. Imagine my delight when I found bâtard bread today. The flavors bring me back to Tunisia.

I also made myself a smoothie of vanilla maple yogurt from Klein Farm, frozen pitted dark cherries, a fresh banana and a splash of sour cherry nectar from Turkey. (Another find at the Mediterranean Deli.

My belly celebrates.

Vegan Paleo fruit "cookies"

I'm neither vegan nor paleo when it comes to eating but I appreciate recipes focused on unprocessed foods with minimal animal products.

This recipe is very clean. No added or refined sugar. No gluten.

It's based on a recipe from Against All Grain, posted on Paleo Parents. I have adapted it to what is in my pantry.

Ingredients:
- 2 ripe bananas
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 4 madjool dates, pitted
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil

- 1/3 cup coconut flour
- about 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 2 tablespoons each: raisins, dried cranberry and dried cantaloupe

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine first block of ingredients in food processor and combine until a fine purée like baby food
3. Add next block and pulse until just combined
4. Add dried fruit and nuts and mix just enough to incorporate
5. Place golf-ball sized cookies on cookie sheet (lined with parchment paper) and press into cookie shapes
6. Bake about twenty minutes, carefully flipping after the first 15

Mine got a tad dark, and are still very soft but so delicious. I think I need a touch more coconut flour in my mix.

But that said, I could eat the whole dozen.

Brussel sprout broccoli dish

I wanted to make this:

http://www.katiekdid.com/2012/03/05/pistachio-cranberry-and-bacon-brussel-sprout-salad/

But ran out of Brussel sprouts, didn't have tarragon or pistachios and doubled the bacon.

I used 3 tablespoons of coconut oil since broccoli loves to suck up cooking fats...

But here we go:

In my cast iron skillet, sauté 12 ounces broccoli and about six ounces Brussel sprouts in 2 tablespoons coconut oil.

Sprinkle with generous garlic pepper, fresh ground black pepper and parsley. Add bacon broken into bits and another tablespoon coconut oil. Toss to coat.

Bake about 30 minutes at 375 adding cranberries in the last five or so minutes.

Pumpkin coconut squares

Today marks my first attempt at baking with coconut flour. With my tendency to not follow directions, this could end badly.

I based my recipe on one from my coconut flour supplier, Tropical Traditions, who had a lovely buy one get one free sale on coconut flour and coconut oil with free shipping. So I got almost 4 pounds of coconut flour and two 32-ounce bottles of expeller pressed coconut oil for $44.


Preheat to 350.

Grease 8 x 12 pan with coconut oil.

Ingredients (my version, not the original):
- 1/2 cup organic coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon aluminum free baking powder
(Mix those two and set aside. Then mix remaining.)
- 3 farm fresh eggs
- 15 ounces pumpkin
- 1/4 cup raw milk
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
- 2 tablespoons sliced almonds
- cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves

Spread in pan. Cook 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before slicing.

I didn't stir the batter enough. I was warned this was an issue with coconut flour. They are a tad on the bland side, but not inedible so for a first attempt...

In the aftermath of Sandy

We were lucky. We lost power for 48 hours but we sustained no damage. School and work have been closed all week. Restaurants and gas stations mobbed. Traffic terrible.

We lost power at Target, but opened the store on generator. Didn't have enough power to juice all the fridges and freezers so all the café and Starbucks food plus all the grocery department. Trash.

Today I went in at 7 a.m. to help restock those empty shelves. Pallets upon pallets of it. Yogurt. Cheese. A pallet of milk. Frozen vegetables. Ice cream.

What did I stock specifically? Shredded cheese. Greek yogurt. Gelato. Amy's Organics. Kashi. Archer Farms appetizers and fancy desserts (yup, I got to stock the crème brûlée) and frozen vegetables.

I smashed a fingertip and broke a few nails, but I hope it helped get food back to the people who need it.

And our store has power strips in the café so people can charge their devices. For the first few days, the place looked like a refugee camp.