desserts!!!

I decided to use up the rest of my peaches from our tree and make a peach cobbler. It was delicious!!! It still doesn't compare to my grandmothers. Growing up my grandmother used to make peach cobbler and sometimes she added apricots to it, ahhhhhhhhh, so good!

Here is the birthday cake I made for my mother-in-law last month. She just sent me over the photo, I forgot my camera so I had to use hers. The cake was a vanilla cake, flecked with lemon zest, the filling was a lemon custard with some blackberries and topped with lemon buttercream and mixed berries. The blackberries were from our vine.

Happy Veganiversary!!!! Summer vegetable soup, and gluten free pasta with zucchini gratin

Happy 2 year veganiversary to my son! It was my 3 year veganiversary this summer but I forgot to post. Oh well now I have.

When we first moved to this area last year my son wanted to pet a cow. (There are many cow ranchs in the area with cows roaming all over the hills.) So almost every evening for a month or so we would drive to this one area and stop to visit the cows and talk to them, trying to lure them close enough to pet. This particular cow up above, my son not only got a chance to pet his head but the next day when we came back, he remembered my son.

The story is, we pull up the next evening and there is a group of cows by the fence. My son gets out and starts talking to the cows, grabs some grass and puts it through, trying to get one of them to get close while looking for the one he got close to the previous day. Well we were there for a while and you know they all have their personalities, one usually is the brave one and the others watch to see what he does, and some are very shy and run away but look back to see what's going on. It's really rather cute and enjoyable to watch. Anyways, so one cow is slowly getting closer to my son then next thing you know, we hear something, we look to our left and their is a cow running down the hill, through the other cows and comes up to my son. It was the same cow my son was able to pet from the previous day! It was an amazing sight to see. You had to be there. I hope you enjoyed this little story about an animal whom many view as food, but to us are very gentle, curious, and they each have a personality just like us.

Same cow another day!

I think I posted about using my zucchini's up in recipes, well here are another 2 that I used them in. This is just a nice summer soup with fresh corn, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, carrots and onion in a vegetable broth. Really nice for a cooler summer evening.

This is a DeBoles, rice, quinoa and amaranth pasta with a basil pesto sauce. On top I made the Pesto Zucchini Gratin from Karina's Gluten Free Goddess blog. The only addition was I made a small amount of a cheezy like sauce and drizzled some before baking it. My husband loved the gratin on a baguette.

Zucchini bundt cake

Zucchini's, zucchini's, zucchini's!!! What to do with a bounty of zucchini's? I know many of you out there are in the same boat. First you share them with friends and family and then you try to use them in every meal you make. Then there's dessert, zucchini cake or bread. YUM!!! I used
the recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. This cake is super moist! I've made it now a couple of times and it makes two loaves or in this case 2 mini bundt cakes. Of course I did make some changes. The recipe calls for 1C. oil, so in a liquid measuring cup I added 1/3c.oil and filled the rest with applesauce. For the sugar instead of 2 cups, I added 1C. sugar and 1/2C. brown sugar and then added an extra 1/3C. more zucchini to the batter. You can also use half wheat and half white flour. I just restocked on my nut supply so there aren't any in here, I guess that will be in my next batch! Now I'm looking into making a gluten-free zucchini recipe

Grilled Blackened Tofu Sandwich

Last night I wasn't in the mood for cooking dinner and my pantry and fridge. are running low on food items, so not too many options. I decided on a sandwich with baked fries and a salad. I thinly sliced up a block of the extra firm tofu that is vacuum sealed, no water. The marinade I used for the tofu slices is the Blackened Tempeh recipe from The Real Food Daily Cookbook .

I love love love this recipe, I just cut down on the oil and cayenne that is used and I use maple for the sweetener. Let this marinade for a couple of hours, the longer the better. Then I grilled up the tofu, yellow bell peppers, onion and some zucchini's, since I'm overflowing on the zucchini's right now in my garden I use them any chance I get. hee hee. Once grilled layer up on toasted bread and enjoy!