DIY Fruit Leather

Howdy howdy!

I finally got around to finishing that fruit leather endeavor I wrote about last time.
As you may recall, we'd harvested our grapes from the front yard.
So this is how I turned grapes into fruit leather:

1) blenderize the grapes

2) strain out all the seeds and skin

Pretty standard~

3) since the grapes were a little watery, I blended up some bananas with them too, so that the consistency was a little thicker.

4) spread out on plastic dehydrator sheets and pop into your dehydrator for the next 8 hours or so.

Here it is, coming off the plastic sheet!

 5) you know it's ready when it doesn't feel tacky when you touch it.

6) peel/rip it off and voila! Homemade fruit leather~~

Fugly but yummy!

I made these quite a bit last summer thanks to all the apples our friends gave us, and if you are going to use a fruit like an apple, you need to cook it down a bit (pretty much like making apple sauce).
Berries also make a good fruit leather. Mm-MM!

Well, that's all for now.
If you haven't before, give fruit leather a go and I promise you'll be hooked!

Until next time, take care and Happy DIY Fruit Leather!

Balance and Muesli

Hey again!

Whenever I have family over to visit, I always feel renewed in my life to strike a better balance, be a better person, and accomplish more!

So after Kathy left, I felt a renewed sense to strike a balance in my life. Mainly, between work and leisure. But also between kids and husband. And so Dash and I are working together to make that happen. Firstly, we are going back to our four-hour workday scheme, where he gets a good solid four hours of work while I watch the kids...and then I get four hours of work too! This is important because I normally (feel like I) take care of the kids the majority of the time to give Dash ample time to work...only to feel bitter later and also stressed when I end up squeezing in a project into a mere day or two.

Especially since we have just taken on a mega project that we will both be working on (me doing the translation and him doing the layout), this balance in mutual work hours is key!

Also, when watching the kids, I am going to not try to stuff the day silly with activities, but rather make my four hours with them more about them. That's another thing about when I watch the kids the majority of the day -- I then try to do more things that I want/need to do (around the house, etc) rather than engage with them. So hopefully that will improve~

Lastly, I am going to try to commit to weekly dates with Dash. Be it out of the house, or even just kicking back while the kids are at someone else's home, it will be good to have more one-on-one time with Dash out of context of work or kids. So I'll keep you posted on that. :)

In the meanwhile, I want to share with you something that Ella Rose and I made today:
muesli!

It all started when we were out shopping, and she said she wanted to get a cereal she'd never had. She saw this box of muesli:

And I remembered how Martin & Sylvia (from Sparkle Stories!) eat muesli for breakfast all the time. The ingredients seemed simple enough and were things we actually had at home already, so we whipped some up for breakfast!

Our muesli included:
corn flakes
raisins
rolled oats
sliced almonds
sunflower seeds

No real measurements were done, but the main ingredient was cornflakes...

The end product was crispy and sweet and delicious!
Though Ella requested no sunflower seeds in hers next time...

We had it with milk this morning, but tomorrow I'll try it with yogurt and fresh blueberries. Yum!!

Yummy yummy yummy, I have muesli in my tummy~

Well, that's all for now.
Until next time, take care and Happy Balance and Muesli!!

Gluten-free / Chocolate-free Cakes??

Hey again, everybody!


So this post is about something I'd hinted at, but didn't really go into depth about.
Therefore, I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you a recent discovery:

The glory (and ease!) of gluten-free / chocolate-free baking.

I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't even know about gluten-free diets until I moved to Corvallis. And it's no surprise, since even people in Portland, upon hearing I'm from Corvallis, say "Oh, you mean Gluten-Free Corvallis?"
That's right, this place has at least three gluten-free establishments in the downtown vicinity alone.

And to be more so honest with you, my belief in this whole "gluten is the devil" mindset fluctuates day to day from "yes, totally!" to "give me a break please".
But for the two kiddos' parties I threw earlier this month, I went the gluten-free route for particular guests I knew would appreciate it.

The idea of baking gluten-free always sounded so intimidating because alternative flours such as almond flour have a reputation for being so expensive.
So what was I to do?

Well, when a friend mentioned chickpea flour, I remembered that I had a bunch of dried chickpeas in my cupboard and a grinder to turn them into flour! But when I tried looking up "chickpea chocolate cake" I came across this recipe.
Two things struck me about this recipe:

1) the chickpeas it calls for don't have to be some fancy flour... it's just canned chickpeas!

2) you use a blender to mix everything together. Energy saving!!

Add to that, the fact that it doesn't even call for typical cane sugar but rather OJ...and I was hooked.
I got many a compliment at Ella's party on the cake (though I wouldn't be surprised if some were pity compliments because the guests had seen me struggling with it...) and I really don't know if I could ever go back to conventional "white flour + white sugar" based cakes.

The second cake I fell in love with...I don't remember how I found it...but I've made it twice now is:

**~ Healthy Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake ~**

This baby relies on black beans in place of flour, and honey (or in my case apple concentrate) instead of cane sugar.
Amazing!!!
I made it for Willam's birthday party and for our friend's house-warming party.

And so my initial fear/misunderstanding/impatience/intimidation in regards to gluten-free baking has dissipated! If you come to our place and expect dessert...you can expect one of these bean-based cakes for sure. :D

What about you? Gluten-free baking your cup of tea or worst nightmare? You think you'll be giving beans a role in your cake-baking from now on? ;)

Until next time, take care and Happy Gluten-Free Baking!!

Homemade Cottage Cheese

Hey everybody!

Boy, today turned out to be quite a day of activity in the kitchen.
Dash made oatmeal cookies for breakfast and then rolls for dinner.
And me? I made cottage cheese.

Making cottage cheese is like making yogurt...but it takes zippo time at all!

Unlike my yogurt post, I took many photos of the cottage cheese-making process, so here we go!

You're going to need only a couple things:
- milk
- white vinegar
-  candy thermometer
- pot full of water
- clean jar

1) Fill a big jar with milk. It can be any milk, really, and in my case it was 2%.

2) Place the jar in a pot of water on the stovetop. Insert candy thermometer and crank up the heat! To be extra careful, I position a washcloth beneath the jar so that it is not in direct contact with the pot. Allow the milk to reach 190 F.

3) Once it has reached 190 F, remove the jar from the pot and place it on the counter. It will be very hot, so use potholders or something.
Here's where the magic happens. You're going to pour in some white vinegar, stir it around, and watch the curds separate.
I was able to capture this on video, actually, so check it out!!

4) Prepare a strainer in a bowl on the counter, start spooning out the curds that are floating at the top of your jar now, and place in the strainer.

 

5) When you've spooned out enough of the cottage cheese to clear the mouth of your jar better, carefully pour the rest of the contents of the jar into the strainer. It will catch all the curds, and let all the whey out beneath it.

No joke, until I started making cottage cheese at the end of last year, I never fully understood what "curds and whey" were all about from Miss Muffet's nursery rhyme. Now I (and you) know!

 

6) Refrigerate the strainer-bowl set-up in the fridge, letting every last ounce of whey drip out of the cottage cheese.
In a couple of hours, you've got yourself a nice batch of fresh, cold, bouncy cottage cheese.

[sorry, no photo! Seemed a little redundant with the last one]

7) Now you're gonna have a bunch of whey leftover. Don't chuck it!! Save it for the myriad uses it has to offer. Personally, I like feeding it to our dog with his dry food. He loves it and I think it does his GI tract well.

 And that's it!
Not too shabby and it comes together in a cinch!
I'd say that one gallon of milk makes roughly one pint of cheese. I think? It feels like at least a pound.
Some day I'll do exact measurements, I promise!

Until then, I hope you will try making some of your own cottage cheese sometimes. And tell me how it goes!!

And with that, take care and Happy Cottage Cheese!!

Valentines Day Cake

G'daaaaay!

And Happy Valentines Day ♡

Today I'd like to share with you the special cake that Ella Rose and I baked for the occasion.
The recipe was by no means ours. I merely plugged in "valentines day cake" into allrecipes.com and we followed this nifty recipe video!

If you've never watched a video to follow a recipe, I would highly recommend it!
It was a first for us too, and very effective.

Anyway, the one thing we did that made the cake somewhat personalized was "masqued powdering" as I like to call it.
Here's what we did:

Cut out shape from paper and lay on cake

Sprinkle powdered sugar all over the cake

Peel away the paper cut-out and enjoy the resulting effect!

It's definitely not rocket science, but it's really very easy and satisfying.
Ella's very excited about her Valentines Day cake which we will be eating for a while, me thinks ;)

Until next time, take care and Happy Valentines Day!!

Homemade Yogurt!

Finally.
After two failed attempts (one that made me quite sick, I might add) we finally pulled off making our own yogurt at home.
Behold~!

About one gallon's worth!

If you want to make your own yogurt at home, there are tons of sources online, but the one I referred to was on Soulemama's post here and all the accompanying comments.

But for a simple rundown (sans photos, gomen!!) this is how we did it:

Materials:

- cast iron pot
- big glass jar
- candy thermometer
- milk (2% in our case)
- store-bought plain yogurt (has to have live cultures in it)
- space heater

Directions:

1) clean the big jar and scoop 1 cup of the store-bought yogurt and plop into the bottom of the jar

2) heat the milk over medium heat until it reaches 180 degrees F

3) once milk reaches 180 degrees, remove from heat, and allow to cool down to 110 degrees F

4) pour the heated-then-cooled milk into the jar

5) whisk it around a bit to mix with the store-bought yogurt at the bottom

6) place near the space heater in a way that keeps the heat rather contained (Dash made our table into a kotatsu, so the space heater underneath the heavy blanket made a rather effective incubator)

7) leave there for 8 hours

8) after the 8 hours are up, stick it in the fridge to cool to usual yogurt-eating temperature

9) enjoy!!


Now that we've been successful once, I am confident that this is the way we are gonna go from now on (using the last bit of our homemade batch as the starter yogurt for next time so as to completely eliminate the need to buy store-bought again). It is very cost-effective and you reduce the amount of plastic in your life. That's hitting two birds with one stone!

Maybe I'll take photos next time because it can be very grueling sitting there by the oven with the thermometer in the pot waiting for the mercury to rise up to 180 F -- there are many visual cues to alert you as to when you are nearing the correct temperature. Hopefully I can capture that on camera next time ;)

Well!
Best of luck to all your DIY adventures and Happy Yogurt Making!!

Anpan(man)!

Hello again, all!
It's been a great month of September, and now here we are in October!! :)
Tonight was the first real rainy day, with the first sounds of jazz wafting through the air (jazz and rain just go so well together, don't you think??), the clacking of knitting needles (already working on Christmas gifts!) and much chamomile tea.

But before the rain hit, Dash was a doll and helped me bake up a batch of anpan bread for my tutee who turned the big 1-0 in August. Double digits!! おたんじょうび　おめでとう、ジョナさん！

If you are not familiar with anpan bread, it is pretty much a milk bread roll with sweet red bean paste (anko) inside. Mm-mm!
A staple Japanese snack. And the basis of the very popular and well-loved (at least in our household) Japanese cartoon super hero, Anpanman!

Please read below to learn how to make this tasty treat for yourself:


Anko Filling

Ingredients:
    •    1 1/2 cups red beans (also known as azuki)
    •    1 1/2 cups sugar
    •    1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation:
Rinse the beans in a colander. Place them in a large bowl with a plenty of water to cover the beans. Let them soak for 3 to 8 hours.

Instructions:
(1) Drain and place the beans in a deep pot with a plenty of water to cover the beans. Bring it to a boil. You will see a lot of foam forming on the surface. Pour out the beans into a colander and rinse them well with running water to remove foam. Clean the pot and refill with fresh water, place the beans back in a pot and bring it to a boil.
(2) Repeat step (1). This time after rinsing the beans, add 5 1/2 cups water and bring it to a boil again. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally, or until the beans become so tender that you can mash one with your tongue. (Be careful not to burn your tongue.) Stir more frequently toward the end.
(3) When the beans are completely soft add 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Simmer at low without a lid, stirring very frequently until the mixture becomes somewhat thick.
(4) If you can see the bottom of the pot when you scrape with a wooden spatula, it is ready to remove from heat. Paste will become harder as it cools. Keep it in the refrigerator overnight.

Milk Bread (adapted from The Joy of Cooking)

Combine in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer and let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes:

    •    1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast

    •    3 tbsp warm water

Add:
    •    1 cup whole or low-fat milk, warmed to 105 - 115 F
    •    5 tbsp melted butter or margarine
    •    3 tbsp sugar
    •    1 large egg
    •    1 tsp salt

Mix by hand or on low speed for 1 minute. Gradually stir in:
    •    2 cups bread flour

Gradually add until the dough is moist but not sticky:
    •    1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour

Knead for about 10 minutes by hand or with the dough hook on low to medium speed until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and turn it over once to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the dough down, knead briefly, and refrigerate covered for 30 minutes. At this point, the dough may be shaped into rolls:

Divide the dough equally into 16 pieces. Grease a baking sheet. On a floured surface, roll the dough pieces flat, fill with 1.5 tbsp of anko, and then fold/roll into balls. Place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Let rise in a warm place for 45 min - 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Bake for 12-15 min.

Anpanman's beaming face before hitting the oven

Anpanman is totally baked! Ha!

They are so delightful with a cup of milk be it for breakfast or as a mid-day snack.

Well, I hope you try your hand at this recipe and do let me know the results!

Until then, Happy Anpan Baking, and I hope it makes you "げんき　ひゃくばい!!"

Dried-Apricot Oatcakes

Long time no recipe, but I just did this one from a book my friend lent me, and it is very much worth posting about. :)

Taken from "Cooking for Baby: Wholesome, homemade, delicious foods for 6 to 18 months" by Lisa Barnes, I adapted the recipe as follows:

Dried-Apricot Oatcakes (makes 12 patties)

2 C old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp melted unsalted butter

1 Tbsp honey

3 Tbsp finely chopped dried apricots

2 Tbsp finely shredded unsweetened coconut

1) Preheat oven to 400 F and grease cupcake sheet

2) Combine oats, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in mixing bowl

3) Make a well in the center and add the butter and honey.

4) Combine until all oats are coated

5) Mix in apricots and coconut

6) Heat 1 C of water to just short of boiling and add to oat mixture 2 Tbsp at a time until all is wet and sticky

7) Press into cupcake sheet compartments

8) Bake for 15 minutes or oatcakes look nice and golden brown.

9) Let cool as is, only removing once really down to room temperature

10)Store in airtight container at room temperature for 3 days :)

Protein Patties

The above photo may not look appetizing, but trust me, you will want to read on.

This is a recipe introduced to me by a good friend, which has become a staple in our home.
The perfect alternative to some sugary treat as a snack, these protein-packed patties are a toddler's best friend! Read below to see how it's done~

Brown Rice Power Patties

(makes 12 patties)

• 2 C cooked brown rice
  
• 1 1/2 C grated cheddar cheese
• 1 1/2 C grated carrot
• 1/2 C raw sunflower seeds
• 1/2 C sesame seeds, raw or toasted (optional)


• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 1/2 C peanuts (or toasted slivered almonds)
  

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mist a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

2) In a mixing bowl, combine rice, cheese, carrots and seeds.

3) Combine the eggs and seasonings in the food processor and blend for about 5 seconds. Add nuts and process another 5 sec. Don't over process the nuts, their texture is important.

4) Add to rice mixture and mix thoroughly.

5) Scoop mixture onto baking sheet, and form into plump patties

6) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then turn patties over and bake 10 min. more.

7) Transfer patties to rack to cool, flipping them so their toastier side shows.

If you're not eating them the same day, keep in the refrigerator. They will easily last at least a week if kept cold and stored in an airtight container.

You can also add/substitute for lots of the ingredients above. For example, zucchini is a popular addition, while peanuts can be substituted with almonds or some other hard nut.
Let your imagination fly with this one!

That's all for now.
Happy snacking, everyone!!

[NOTE: My friend, Rachel, has pinpointed the original source to this recipe which is from "Good Food, Great Medicine" by Mea and Miles Hassell. Check it out for other great recipes!!]

Our Daily Bread

I don't think I've ever told you all this, but for the past year, since moving to Oregon, Daddy and Mama have been baking our own bread. :)
Nothing fancy, just your average whole wheat bread. Someday, I'd like to venture into adding dried fruits and whatnot (like Kae and her amazing raisin bread that sustained us for the first part of the trip East earlier this month ;) )
But, I must say, for us novices, even nailing down whole wheat bread has been a challenge.
The challenge being, namely, how to make it light and fluffy. Not dense and squat.

We initially started with the "Honey Whole-Wheat Bread" recipe from Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking but it was a little rich for all the us. And so thick and heavy!! ;_;

So we started to adapt the "Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread" recipe from The Joy of Cooking 75th Anniversary (a must-have for any kitchen, we say!!) and have slowly but surely been getting better and better results...
One effective trick we learned was keeping the bread, while it was rising, in the greased rice cooker on "Warm".
But what would start out as a big, fluffy mass of dough...would inevitably collapse into a thick log.

It wasn't until reading The Little House Cookbook that I learned the key tidbits of advice to making a fluffy and delicious bread.
And that being heating the water and milk in the recipe not to piping hot, but to an eerie but effective bloodwarm.


Just look at that fluffy, golden-brown bread!!
I swear, I am never going back.
No more having to slice the bread horizontally to make decent-sized sandwich slices! XD

Even Ella seems to approve...sorta.


You know who she reminds me of in this photo?
One of the Gelflings from the Dark Crystal!! Don't you think~?
And can you believe she's just shy of turning the big ol' 18 months old!!
My, how time flies~

Well! Happy baking, everyone~
And take care!!

Crackers~!

The Dashiell household's really gotten into homemade crackers this month. For young and old, alike!
Here, I'm going to share with you the recipes and step-by-step tutorials for making your own recipes at home.
First, baby crackers...

This is all they require:

And in these quantities!

• 1 1/2 C rolled oats
  
• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1/2 C water

The steps are as follows:

1) Grind the oats into a coarse powder.
(I use our Magic Bullet, and it's just the right size!)

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2) Mix ground oats and rice flour in a large bowl.

3) Add the olive oil to the mixture and mix by hand until it reaches a crumbly consistency.


4) Pour in water and knead until the mixture is pretty compact and sticks well together.


5) Roll out onto a greased baking dish until it's nice and flat -- it should fill to ever last corner with the help of a really good "rolling pin".


6) Cut into whatever shape and size you want. I like mine itty bitty.


7) Prick with a fork. I like mine itty bitty because the prick marks make them look like little Legos!

8) Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

9) Let cool and you're done!!


A salt-free, sugar-free, spice-free snack!
With the tiny Lego size, this recipe yields a gross of cookies! That's 144, in case you didn't know ;)

Well!
The recipe for the "adult" version of our crackers will be up soon too.
Until then, happy baking~!!

Perez-Guerri Recipe for Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise, don't you? ♡♡♡

And I figured it's about time I feature my favorite family recipe, passed down from my grandmother's side, for homemade mayo!

The ingredients are quite simple and only require the following:


The amounts are as follows:

• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
  
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1 C vegetable oil

And the steps are even simpler:

1) Put all ingredients into blender except for oil

2) Add 1-2 tbsp of oil and beat

3) Keep beating while adding the rest of oil sloooowly until it firms into a mayo-ish consistency

This really only takes a couple of minutes.
If you use the kind of blender that has a hole in the center of the lid, through which you can pour the oil slowly.

But I use a Magic Bullet, which means I have to turn it off, unscrew, add oil, rescrew, beat again, and repeat. A little timely, but I gotta work with what I got. {:)

But I digress.
When you first start beating the mixture, it will be very liquidy and orangish thanks to the paprika:


After about 1/2 C of the oil has been added, it'll start to get that nice lighter whipped mayo look:


Finally, I dollop the mayo into a jar and ta-dah! All done~


This recipe makes a little over 1/2 pint of mayo.
Mm-mm and enjoy!!

Homemade Dog Treats

With Thanksgiving coming up, I wanted to do something special for Take (pronounced, TAH-keh, for those of you who are unsure). ♡
So I whipped out this book I'd gotten a couple of years ago, Doggy Treats : Homemade Treats for Happy, Healthy Dogs, and whipped up some "Chicken Biscuits". What a great way to use the leftover chicken, I figured!
The recipe, as you can see, is quite easy:

• Chicken leftovers (all the bits of meat still stuck to the bones in those hard-to-reach places)
  
• 3/4 C water
  
• 1/3 C vegetable oil
  
• 1 egg
  
• 3 C whole wheat flour

1) Shred off the meat of the chicken from the leg, wing, etc from your leftover chicken. A good 1/2 C. outta do it.

2) In a large bowl, mix oil, egg, and flour.

3) Stir the shredded chicken meat and water into the dough.

4) Knead the dough on a floured surface until firm.

5) Roll out the dough to 1/2-inch thickness

6) Cut out shapes with cookie cutter (or, as I used, a metal 1/4-C measuring cup)


7) Place cookies on a baking sheet, 1/2 inch apart.


8) Bake at 325 degrees for 55 minutes.

9) Cookies will be firm to the touch when done. Leave them in the oven to harden after 1 or 2 hours.


Ta-da!!
I got 35 cookies out of this recipe. :)
Hope your doggies get a kick out of them, the way Take did!!

Homemade Oreos~

I love chocolate, of course, but more specifically...I love Oreos.
So last month, Dash decided to try his hand at some homemade Oreos, to indulge me in my sugar-love while still sticking to my goal to create more in the home and buy less. :)
Below is the result, with step-by-step photos about the process involved.
Enjoy!!


<()> The Crumbly Cookie Patties call for:

• 1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 C sugar
• 1/2 C plus 2 tbsp butter, room temperature
  
• 1 large egg

1) Combine all the dry ingredients (as seen above) in a large bowl.

2) Beat the egg and butter into the dry concoction, until a sticky batter forms:


There is so much butter in this recipe and pretty much all cookie recipes... @_@
But anyway, it should come out looking something like this:


I'm sure we all recognize that rich dark chocolate color that is the Oreo cookie. :)

3) Place batter onto a cookie pan (non-greased worked fine for us) and work into small Oreo-sized discs:


4) Bake at 375 for 9 minutes...


Oops! Tooooo big. @_@

3) Place batter onto a cookie pan (non-greased worked fine for us) and work into small Oreo-sized discs use only a tsp or so dollop and barely flatten...the batter will flatten out quite a bit in the oven as it bakes):


4) Bake at 375 for 9 minutes...
That's more like it :)


5) Let the cookies cool on a rack and move onto the...


<()> The Super Sweet Filling call for:

• 1/4 cup room-temperature, unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1) Mix all above ingredients in a bowl with a vinyl spatula until a consistent paste forms.

2) Slab a dollop of the paste onto a cookie platter and either smoosh down with another cookie or smear around to cover all the space between the two cookies.


Ta-da!! Unsightly but delicious homemade Oreo cookies!

I wanna say they're "healthier" than the brand name kind, only because you actually know what you're putting into them and therefore into your body...plus by knowing how much butter goes into every cookie, it makes me not want to consume as many at one sitting like usual! Two pros right off the bat! :)
Because we made the first sheet-fulls of cookies too large, and only learned to make them smaller toward the end, we had a grand total of 20. But by more efficiently using our batter next time, we could easily make 40 I'm sure :)
And the only process only took about one hour, with the beating and cooling and whatnot...

Good luck on your own endeavors for making these cookies and enjoy~!!!

Happy Half-Birthday, Ella!

That's right, we celebrated something I never thought had any point.
Ella's 6-month birthday!


It really was because Nori (our new longterm guest) said he really likes chocolate and I wanted to bake a cake!


Would you believe this cake is all "vegan"? Here's the recipe as proof:

Dairy-Free (Vegan) Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose-flour
1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp unsweetened nonalkalized cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

1 c. cold water
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla

Sift together into a large bowl the first 5 ingredients listed above.
Combine the last 4 ingredients and then add to that big bowl concoction.
Stir until smooth.
Scrape/pour batter into a greased and floured 8"x8" pan and bake in oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (or until you can poke it with a toothpick and it comes out clean).
Let the cake cool on the rack for 10 minutes before detaching the edges with a blunt knife and invert to remove completely from pan.
Dust with powdered sugar, and enjoy a la mode!

Isn't that nuts? No butter. No milk. No eggs!
It's a first for me, that's for sure~

Well, Happy Birthday once again, Ella.
We love you!!