Q: What do vegetarian zombies eat?

A: GRRAAAAAAIIINNNSSSS!!!!

I crack myself up. 😉

Anyway, that’s what I wanted this morning too.  I was really in the mood for some kind of hot cereal; oats just weren’t going to cut it. This is what I decided on after rummaging through my bulk storage containers…

Don’t you just love the little tails on cooked quinoa?  I know I do.

It all started with chucking these few things in a pot…

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 cup almond milk
• sprinkle of cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. maple syrup
• various dried fruits

After mixing…

I let it come to a boil uncovered then turned it down to low and put the lid on. It cooked on low for about 15 minutes, then I turned off the heat and let it sit covered for another 10 minutes.

While I was waiting, I attended to the needs of this rather insistant individual…

Did you miss him? He and Liam have been spending most of their time sleeping in a pile due to the colder weather, so he hasn’t been in my face as much recently. I had to pick him up and rock him to get him to calm down this morning though. He loves to be held!

By the time Lucas was sufficiently soothed, breakfast was ready!

I poured a little more almond milk in my bowl to make a sauce…

It was sweet and warm and satisfying, just what I needed.

Time to finish my tea and get on with enjoying the weekend!

Split pea soup is one of those divisive foods for many people, you either love it or you think it looks and tastes like baby food.  I happen to love the stuff.  My husband, on the other hand, is totally grossed out by it.

More for me! 😀

I like to make mine extra thick like a spread so that I can eat it on toast like this…

And when I want to eat it as a soup, I just add a little water to my bowl and microwave it, adding more water until it’s the desired consistency.

Two foods for the work of one! Amazing!

Here’s the easy peasy recipe:

• 1/2 lb. dried green split peas (1 and 1/2 cups?)
• 6 cups water or vegetable stock
• 1 cup or so frozen peas
• 1 cup or so frozen carrots
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• half an onion, diced
• 2 tbsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tbsp. paprika

(BTW, I never measure any of that stuff when I make it.  I promise that you can ball-park these quantities and have it still come out excellent; the only thing that can screw it up is way too much salt or way too little liquid.  I’m gonna get you to stop measuring when you cook if it’s the last thing I do!)

All of that gets thrown into the slow-cooker and stirred up.

The split peas will tend to sink to the bottom, that’s ok…

Cover it and turn it on high for 6 hours or low for 8 hours. I like to stir it once or twice throughout just to make sure that everything stays incorporated.

When it’s done it’ll look like this…

If I’m not gonna eat it right away, I take it off the heating base and let it cool with the lid on overnight on the countertop.

Simple tasty lunch!

And I get a whole pot of this all to myself! Mwaahaahaa!

My first recipe for Vegan MoFo!

These. Are. Awesome.

I started out thinking I was going to make an apple version of the date bites I made a while back, but it evolved into something else as I was doing my prep work and I couldn’t be happier with what I came up with instead.

What you’ll need for the bars:

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1 cup shredded apple (liquid squeezed out)
• 1 cup pitted dates
• 2 tbsp. maple syrup
• 2 tbsp. cinnamon

And for the frosting:

• 4 oz. plain Tofutti “cream cheese”
• approx. 3-4 tbsp. agave nectar
• sprinkle of cinnamon to taste

Start by chopping the almonds.

My food processor wasn’t strong enough to handle this task by itself so I ended up having to pour the almonds out onto a cutting board, chop them by hand, and then return them to the food processor for a final blitzing.

This is the size I stopped at…

Pour that out and set aside.

Next I peeled and cored 2 largish honeycrisp apples.

I used the shredding attachment on my food processor to shred them evenly.  Make sure to remember to take the blade out before you do this or the blade will just annihilate all the shredded apples into applesauce.

Those get squeezed dry in a tea towel and set aside with the almonds.

Next, the dates. I chopped them a bit before adding them to the food processor along with the almonds and apple shreds.

Just add the maple syrup and cinnamon and process until it’s starting to clump together.

This mixture tasted amazing but I felt like it was going to be too wet to form into balls like I originally planned. I could have added more nuts to dry it up some but I really just didn’t want to have to clean the food processor and hand chop a bunch more almonds to make this happen.

Baked bars were going to be the way to go, but I realized that it didn’t have enough of the mixture to really fill even my smallest square baking dish. If you’re planning on making these, I would totally recommend doubling my recipe and baking in a 9×9 dish. I had to improvise though, so I chose to mold the mixture in a small plastic storage container lined with plastic wrap then turn it out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

It looked like this…

I baked it low and slow at 300 degrees.  20 minutes on one side, flipped it and baked for another 20 minutes.

I then cut it into bars and arranged them on the baking sheet for a last 20 minutes in the oven.

While they were finishing up, I made a quick frosting. I just stuck a bowl with the Toffuti, agave, and cinnamon in the microwave and let it heat on a low setting for just a few seconds to loosen it up.

With a whisking I had this…

I spread it generously on the cooled bars and bit into a delicious treat.

They are really special. I bet they would be insane with shredded carrots and pecans for carrot cake bars!

I think this recipe would work really well in a dehydrator too if you’re into that type of thing.

Awesome start to Vegan Mofo. It even got me to try Tofutti for the first time! I’m excited to see what other new things I’ll get to try as I learn how to further de-meat my eats!