blueberry cornmeal bread.

I made you bread because it's almost summer and I'm into it. My excitement relating to farmer's markets is unmanageable, I actually can't believe I've gotten one of my seedlings to sprout, and the amount of desire I have to wear shoes equals zero.

I also made you this bread because after a weekend of long car rides and flight delays, when I got home rom the airport at 11pm, all I wanted to do was bake. I realize no one does this but hope some people do.

Blueberry Cornmeal Bread (adapted from Joy the Baker)

Makes one standard loaf.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or sub more AP flour)

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 C butter, melted

1/2 cup honey

1 1/4 C buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1-1 1/2 C fresh or frozen blueberries. Or any other fruit, really.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare one loaf pan.

Whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In another bowl whisk together honey, butter, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.

Combine wet ingredients into dry, stirring until just combined.

Gently fold in blueberries.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick, inserted, comes out clean.

ampersands and amperSAM FELD.

My junior year of college is officially over and in about an hour, I'll make my way over to the airport so I can see my sister graduate. 

Time goes by pretty fast.

There's lots to be learned from this sister of mine. Lots concerning mindfulness, creativity, stress relief strategies, and taming curly hair. We share affinities for trashy television, cookies (surprise.), Degrassi, The Spice Girls, and socks. 

THERE'S THAT LITTLE NUGGET OF A SISTER.

She's an incredible artist and human and sister &&&&&&&&&&&& she's got a permanent spot on my top five list of loveliest souls.

Oh, we're crafting?

I made you an ampersand ring. I hope you like saying "ampersand" as much as I do.

DIY Ampersand Ring

Materials: four inches of wire, one bead, and pliers.

Step One: Slip bead onto one end of the wire and make a loop around it using your pliers.

Step Two: Make another loop about 1/4 inch up from the bead. Maybe a tad more.

Step Three: If you're using round-nose pliers this is super simple. Wrap the wire around the base of the nose (Is this correct terminology. Do I care.).

Step Four: Grab something to mold your ring around. The easiest thing for me is a tube of chapstick. Hold the ampersand in place and wrap the wire around the chapstick.

Step Five: Trim if necessary and make a loop at the end of the wire to finish.

five minute button earrings.

Spring is SERIOUSLY coming to Minneapolis. I'm having a hard time believing the forecast. Is there really a seven in front of that zero?! Seventy?! It makes me want to hug Minneapolis again. Because we've been bickering lately.

Spring means flowers means sun means no socks means I needed some new earrings today. 

None relevance.

I didn't have time for super glue to dry so today I present you with button earrings that require zero dry time and probably only five minutes. I might be the laziest.

Five Minute Button Earrings

Materials:

two buttons with shanks that have fairly small holes

one head pin

pliers (or not)

1. Thread your head pin through the shank of the button and begin wrapping pin around the base of the shank.

 2. Using pliers (or fingers) bend end of eye pin up so as to form the post of the earring.

3. Grab yourself some earring backs and SHABAM. Super done-zo.

P.S. Recently bought the vsco cam app...and I'm like "yeah".

vegan everything cookies.

We're making cookies today. What else is new. 

You know what is new? Spring time. Spring time hasn't really arrived yet here in the Twin Cities, but we're holding on pretty well. We're optimistic.

Who know who I recently realized is not optimistic? Our friendly meteorologists. How many times have you heard one tell you it's okay that it's going to snow more than once in the second week of April? NONE. TIMES. 

When I'm a meteorologist...I will take advantage of the power I have to make someone's day better by saying something good about the snow/rain mix on a 33 degree spring day. 

I'm not going to be a meteorologist. And that had nothing to do with what we're making today.

OKAY THESE COOKIES have everything except for chocolate in them. Sometimes you need that.

We start out by mixing our mix-ins together. Today we have rolled oats, coconut, dried cranberries, rice krispies, and some kind of nice, hearty flake cereal.

We get our usual suspects. Our dry ingredients.

 Our sometimes unusual vegan substitution wet ingredients. (My mom made that purple bowl for me. Thanks, mom.)

We form a nice ol' cookie dough and throw them in the oven.

Nice.

Vegan Everything Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 flax egg
1/3 C canola oil
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix-ins:
1/2 C rice krispies
1/2 C flake cereal (or one whole cup of either)
1/2 C dried fruit
1/2 C coconut (shreds or flakes)
1/2 C old-fashioned oats

Preheat that oven of yours to 350 degrees and prepare one big cookie sheet.

In a medium sized bowl combine all mix-ins.

In large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a medium bowl whisk together sugars, flax egg, oil, and vanilla. (combine really well)

Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir to combine. If dough looks dry, add a splash of milk. Add mix-ins  and combine thoroughly.

Form balls of dough and place on cookie sheet. Flatten each ball slightly with the palm of your hand. Bake 10-12 minutes and let cool on cookie sheet for five minutes before moving to a wire rack.

matzo toffee for real.

My most vivid memories of Passover are most likely a little different than most. At my house we always used the children's Haggadah which meant that a) our Seders lasted about twenty minutes b) there was a lot of "chanting" and "rapping" and noises involved ie: "let's rap about the seven plagues" and "let's all pretend like we're very tired after walking as long as the Jewish people did". So I've never actually been to a full-blown Seder dinner. Don't get me wrong, I'd totally enjoy every minute.

My love of Jewish culture comes from my mom's side of the family. Although the extent of my Jewish knowledge only reaches as far as knowing what's on a Seder plate, the prayer for lighting the candles on Hanukkah, and having the ability to throw around a few Yiddish phrases every now and then, my respect and love for the culture is more than abundant.

Which brings me to this recipe (PERFECT FOR PASSOVER. YES.). This is matzo toffee. The easiest "candy" you'll ever make and also probably one of the greatest things in the universe. After having to go to three grocery stores to find a box of matzo, I knew this just had to turn out in my favor. It did. Duh.

Let's do this.

We arrange matzo crackers on a cookie sheet, breaking some up to fill in all the spaces. We need to make good use of space, friends.

Butter is melted together with brown sugar, boils, and eventually thickens up to become the loveliest of caramel-like-substances.

Brown sugar butter heaven mixture gets a little vanilla extract mix-in and then is spread over dem matzo crackers.

After being in the oven for a short amount of time (NEVER SHORT ENOUGH), chocolate chips are dropped and scattered right on top. After they have time to melt, they get spread ALL. OVER. Matzo toffee love concoction is dressed up with anything your matzo-loving heart desires. I chose toasted almonds and coconut. 

Cool in the fridge. Break it up. Risk getting a stomach ache and eat all of it.

Matzo Toffee (hardly adapted from David Leibovitz)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine or vegan butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4-6 matzo crackers

1 cup chocolate chips 

optional: toppings (toasted nuts, coconut, spriiiiinkles)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Arrange matzo crackers on baking sheet, making sure to fill in any spaces with broken crackers.

Over medium heat, melt butter and sugar together. Let come to a boil and while still boiling, stir constantly for three minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Pour butter-sugar mixture over matzo and spread evenly using a rubber spatula.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven, scatter chocolate chips on top, wait five minutes and spread melted chocolate evenly over crackers.

Top with toppings, if desired. Let cool in refrigerator for at least 45 minutes. Break up and EAT.

vegan peanut butter and jelly cookies.

I don't usually make cookies because I feel like I need to eat them all. I usually make cookies because I crave the process. It's comforting and familiar and I'd choose my house to smell like cookies rather than moth balls any day.

Something I do crave...constantly....is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (see what I'm getting at here?
Did you read the title of this post?). I'm a firm believer in the healing power of a really good PB&J, especially if someone else makes it for you.

We've got the best of both worlds here: a crazy easy cookie recipe and the comfort that ever popular
peanut butter and jelly combination.

Vegan Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies:

Ingredients:

1 cup crunchy or creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

1/4 cup jam (any flavor)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all cookie ingredients together (minus the jam). Place one inch balls of dough on a prepared cookie sheet. Using your index finger, make a well in the middle of the ball, making sure to repair any major crackage that may result.

Fill wells with jam.

Bake for 12 minutes and let cool on pan.

in a week and the greatest raw brownies.

It's been a week, you guys.

Between a mega Hispanic Linguistics exam, auditions for next year's classes...basically I was just nervous for the test.

I just wanted to make some brownies.

It's important to visit your local co-op on the weekends because weekends mean samples and samples mean FUN. I just needed a couple things this morning and was pleasantly surprised when I was treated to TOMATO SOUP. GRILLED CHEESE. TANGERINES. PEARS. COFFEE. THREE KINDS OF CHEESE. And a small man sampling his "genius" creation. Raw macaroons. I tried them, of course, and then said "These are real good, what's in them?" He froze up. He didn't want to tell me what was in those lemon poppy seed macaroons. "It's basically just coconut, lemon, and poppyseeds." I call bullshit on you, sir. And I will go home and make my own.

But not today! Because today was dedicated to the raw brownie!

"Why are you making us eat raw brownies, Danie?!"

Because I can. And I will. And they're delicious. And they're easy. And it's fun to pretend you're on a raw foods diet for about an hour (that's about all I can handle).

This recipe comes straight from My New Roots, a seriously stunning blog.

Rev up your food processors, friends.

What. This dark and squishy looking landscape isn't appetizing to you? Think again, suckers. They sure don't taste dark and squishy. Because they taste good.

The Raw Brownie (very slightly adapted from My New Roots)

Ingredients:

2 cups whole walnuts
2.5 cups medjool dates, pitted (unless you want to crack your tooth in half. then don't pit them.)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup raw almonds, roughly chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Grind walnuts in food processor until fine. Add cocoa powder and salt to walnuts and process together. 

Add dates and vanilla to the walnut and cocoa combination and process until a dough forms. 

Mix almonds into dough.

Press into a 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper or plastic wrap. Cover and refrigerate for an hour before slicing. Store in refrigerator.

By the way, I'm going to California in seven days to see Señor Mickey. Excited would be the underest of understatements.

By the way way, Deepak Chopra and Oprah's 21 Day Meditation Challenge starts tomorrow. Yes, Oprah. Yes, Deepak. Why aren't you signed up, silly?