Earlier this week, Raine and I discovered a farmer's market in "downtown" Charleston! I use the term downtown very loosely... it is basically a square block that surrounds a courthouse. We picked up a few yummy veggies.
Lots of tomatoes, jalapeños, cherry tomatoes, carrots suffering from Gigantism, and patty pan squash. All for under $5! With the tomatoes and peppers, we decided to have a salsa-making competition!
The whole time we were cooking raw-ing (?), I couldn't stop thinking of the episode of Seinfeld, The Pitch. "I wanted seltzer, not salsa!"
I used 2 tomatoes, 1.5 jalapeños, a few cherry tomatoes, and 1/4 of a white onion in mine, along with a bit of cilantro, cumin, and red chili powder.
Into the blender, since we still don't have a food processor.
I added a small squeeze of lime after test-tasting it, which ended up being a bit too much.
It was yummy, though!
Look at these perfectly red tomatoes...
The tomatoes I get from the grocery store are usually hard with white and green on the inside. Not these!
I am not sure what Raine used in his salsa, but I know that he didn't use cilantro or lime juice, and probably used twice as much jalapeño and chili powder as me.
Here is mine:
and his:
We managed to keep them slightly chunky but pulsing instead of blending continuously.
There was no real winner here... I think Raine thought mine had too much lime, and his was a bit spicy for me.
We proceeded to consume nothing but chips and salsa for dinner.
Yum.
Besides eating too much salsa, I have also made 2 of Averie's recipes. First, I made her Vegan Gluten Free Cinnamon Banana Oatmeal Muffins. I didn't have raisins, so I omitted those. I also cut the sugar to a quarter cup of each sugar in the raw and brown sugar. I omitted the vanilla as well, and added 1 tsp of coconut oil.
Pre-Baking:
the batter was good enough to eat without baking...but I persisted...
They were fabulous! Another winner from Averie :)
They took quite a while to cool, then I packed them up and stored them in the fridge.
They are excellent cold with a smear of peanut butter...
and a crisp apple on the side!
In keeping with the trend of making Averie-recipes, I tried out her Raw Vegan PB Cups next. My peanut butter wasn't raw, so mine were not totally raw...but still way better than a Reese's!
For the chocolate part of the cups, I used another one of Averie's recipes- her Raw Vegan Coconut Oil Chocolate. I doubled that recipe and nixed the vanilla.
Then I used it as the base for the cups:
(um, please excuse that huge bag of Splenda in the background...)
I stuck the cups in the fridge to harden, then I followed her recipe for the PB filling,
and topped it off with more chocolate!
Finally- the hard part- waiting for them to harden. I stuck them in the freezer to expedite the process:
Keep cool my babies
Mine were a little thinner than Averie's, since I didn't use an entire half cup of melted chocolate...
And wow, the insides looked great!
Since Averie's recipe for her coconut oil chocolate is sooo decadent, 1/4 of a cup was completely satisfying to me. This was awesome!
Confession: The reason this post is so long is that I'm avoiding studying!
Do you come up with things to do in order to postpone studying or work? What do you do?
That blender shot is beautiful... I feel like I'm getting antioxidants just from looking at it :)
ReplyDelete"the batter was good enough to eat without baking"--OMG I feel the same way about the muffins too!
ReplyDeleteOk So i am touched and flattered
my muffins
my PB cups WITH
my coconut oil chocolate.
all in this post. and that you loved it all...and you couldnt finish an entire pb cup at a sitting b/c they were so rich...that's just the sign of a good recipe, one that makes you full and satistifed and feelin all happy and groovy without actually having to eat tons. Of course, if you did eat tons, that would be ok too b/c chocolate rocks!
Love you girl...thanks as always for your recipe support but for your friendship and kind comments you always leave me...xoxoxo
I don't have a food processor either and I use my blender for so many things! I love how you stacked everything in there - totally something I would do instead of slowly adding one thing at a time. :)
ReplyDeleteChips + Salsa are the best dinner in my book. I've often had that myself and if I feel particularly fancy I go with chips + guacamole!
In order to avoid work I check my email, twitter, blog comments, and then after working for 5 minutes I do it all over again!
I'd love to have a good tomato. I've been picking them up from the grocery store and they have not been good at all. I'm totally a procrastinator too. I should have been finishing a paper yesterday, but I did a million things so that I have to finish today instead. Ooops. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat is studying? :) I'm trying to look for excuses to avoid doing hw and most of them involve blogging. ha.
ReplyDeleteThe peanut butter cups look good! I tried a non-raw recipe for peanut butter cups using carob chips but they wouldn't melt like I needed them to so it was a total failure.
I LOVE the nutritional stats section. The hubster is uber psychotic about stats (he's been tracking his weight and calories for years) and I imagine he's love that if I did it for all my recipes. And um, I could eat a whole pan of those peanut butter cups.
ReplyDeletePS: I haven't forgotten about the veggie biryani. I have an awesome biryani recipe but I wanted to try it with veggies before I pass it along :)
Yum, those peanut butter cups look great. I love love love raw desserts.
ReplyDeletewhat is studying? i cant remember!! lol
ReplyDeletenice job with the peanut butter cups!!! i love those..ive made them before too- they always come out good!! :)