Who you callin’ a Peanut?

Peanuts might be small, but they’re mighty!  How many veg blogs devote daily posts to the worlds most popular nut and the sweet butter is makes when it’s mashed up?  So many!  Obviously peanuts rock because I inadvertantly used them as the basis for two of today’s cooking adventures.

I was meeting up with my friend, Kate, for lunch.  We went to Angelica’s Kitchen where I had a tempeh ruben, complete with Russian dressing and kraut.  Love that place.  Great atmosphere.  I know I’m so lucky to live in NYC, but now if only I could live in the Village.  That’s where all the good vegan stuff is. 

I digress.

So, in meeting Kate for lunch, I wanted to bring her a present.  I made Fat Free Vegan Kitchen’s Lower-Fat Peanut Butter Banana Cookies, but topped them with a bit of dried coconut flakes.  This is a rockin’ cookie recipe and I highly suggest making it.  Sort of like Elvis’ fave sandwich without all the frying.  I gave Kate the cookies in the box my Teavana tea tumbler came in.  But, when Kate opened the box of cookies, I started laughing.  The cookies looked like they were in a little coffin, a cookie coffin!  Kate cleverly titled it ”Tales from the Cookie Crypt.”  Nice one Kate.

For dinner I had some snap peas I had to use up, so I threw them together with carrots, mushrooms, rice noodles and a homemade peanut/cilantro sauce.  I also baked up some tofu in the peanut sauce.  Scrumptious!  Sorry all, I didn’t write down the specs on the sauce, but I’m sure I’ll make it again and promise to measure!

Saturday Morning Pancakes

I hadn’t planned to make breakfast this morning.  At least, nothing requiring any cooking.  But, becase Ry-guy is so wonderful and I happened to have fresh mixed berries in the fridge I needed to use up, I made Veganomicon’s Blueberry Corn Pancakes.  Ryan helped by reading the recipe, and we followed it to a tee.  But, the batter seemed really runny, like straight up water, so I added in more whole wheat pastry flour and cornmeal.  We put the beautiful blue batter in the fry pan and we had a pancake feast!  However, because I can only cook two at a time, this really motivated me to go ahead and use my Bed Bath and Beyond gift card from my birthday to buy an electric griddle.  My Mom had one when I was growing up and we could get at least 8 cakes going at a time.  I think I know what my afternoon plans will be.  Only problem, where the heck am I going to fit one more cooking appliance in our apartment?