The Great Gingerbread People Experiment of 2011!

As I finished my two day effort to make Gingerbread people cookies, my sister likened my cooking to science experiments. This one, I admitted, was a failed experiment but one that definitely taught me a lot.

I wanted to make Gingerbread people (I use people because my mom was really worried about me using only Gingerbread men and having gone to an all women's college, I agree), but my first obstacle was finding a Gingerbread person cookie cutter. I settled for a snow-person instead.

So, I set out to make Gingerbread Snow People based on this recipe on my favorite vegan website theppk.com.

Mistake #1: I substituted Brown Rice Syrup for Molasses. Molasses scares me. It is SOOOO thick. And it was kind of expensive. So I hypothesized that Brown Rice Syrup would have a similar effect as Molasses. Conclusion: While the end effect of the cookies was not favorable, it is uncertain that the sole cause of this outcome was due to this substitution. But it sure did not help!

I was very proud of myself for chilling the dough overnight. I am usually impatient and try to roll dough right away, ending up with a sticky mess. The next day, the dough was surprisingly easy to work with.

Things were going well. I even hand cut one Gingerbread person amongst the snowmen. Then, I put them in the oven...

Major spreading!!! I was left with really overweight Snow People. I suspect they ate too many cookies :) I tried to make them look the part by using the cookie cutter to make the imprint of the original Snow Person shape. 

I think one Snow Person saw their fate and decided it was too much to handle. He made an attempt on his life. 

The knife and the spatula jumped down to try to stop him but it was too late. The Snow Person had taken his own life. 

OR, perhaps he just fell because I stupidly tried to balance the tray on our dish drying rack...not even on the rack, on the dishes in the rack. MISTAKE #2. I had to pause for a while and clean that up. 

By this time, I felt defeated. My cookies were coming out hard and crunch instead of the desired soft and chewy and they were also HUGE. 

I switched to circles hypothesizing that they would stay together more and come out better. I used a cup (the cup I was using as a rolling pin) to cut them out. They were easier to deal with but still came out HUGE! 

I adjusted. I made smaller circles using a smaller cup...

Somehow I did manage to get this outlier...a somewhat normal looking Snow Person. Every experiment has its anomaly. 

While the smaller circle cookies were in the oven, I attempted vegan icing. I had gotten all natural food coloring so I was excited to try to make colors. I put some powdered sugar and almond milk in 2 different mugs (one for each color). I also added some extra vanilla because it seemed like it needed more flavor. Then I realized the almond milk had vanilla in it. Mistake #3?? Not sure. 

It took a while to get the consistency and color I wanted. This was not it...

Finally the color looked like an actual color. The consistency was not quite right. It was hard to get out of my icing tube squirter thingy. So it ended up very goopy and hard to shape. But I took my model Snow Person and tried to do him/her up right. 

I made the small circles into sandwiches with the icing. That was easier. The problem was they were still very crunchy cookies, not ideal for cookie sandwiches. 

My sister claimed she still enjoyed them and would eat a whole plate. But she will eat anything with sugar. 

 I saved these deformed ones for her.

THE RESULT: A LOT of gingerbread cookies that are too crunchy for my taste but somewhat edible. I learned a lot about icing in the process and in the end probably should have used the molasses as scary as it is. I will still serve the cookies at our holiday party at work because I have a ton of them and they are edible just not ideal. But they are certainly not my best work although they were an interesting experiment. 

Green Soup and Glee!

Last night I made some Green Soup! Yup, it is very green. I got the recipe at 101 Cookbooks.com here. I usually don't follow recipes, but this time I was pretty exact. I started with sweet potato. I boiled it.


Then I chopped up the onion and caramelized them in a pan.


Chopped up some leeks. I always love leeks in soups. I am not even sure what the pure flavor of a leek is, but if you are making a soup, I say, "Throw it in there!"


Then I added some green chard and spinach.


And then I added some vegetable stock to ... well, I wanted to say "beef it up," but that would be weird on a vegan food blog. I added vegetable stock to give it body.


The recipe said you can leave it chunky or puree it. It looks a lot prettier when left chunky, but in terms of taste it was better pureed. Getting a chunk of chard was a little bitter. Much better when all the flavors hit your mouth at once. So, into the blender it went.


And it came out green! It tasted pretty good. The ginger made it a little stringy, but I liked having the ginger taste. Oh, and ya know how I had one plate to my name (which is no longer the case)? Well, I only have one bowl, too. My sister has some dishes, but for the most part we only eat out of our own. So here is the soup.


And I have plenty.


I watched the TV show Glee while I ate it. I like the show. I am often disappointed in the musical numbers because I think they could be a lot better. I don't like how it looks so much like they are lip syncing. I wish it looked more like they were singing in the moment.

Jane Lynch is AMAZING on the show. She is the reason I am into the show. She is hilarious. Favorite quote from the episode Vitamin D:

"Oh dear god, stop talking. I'm trying to desperately to ignore the treacly, sweet inanity of your asinine conversation, but now I've got bile in my mouth and I will hold my tongue no further."

Love Jane Lynch!

On another note, here are some good foods I have eaten of late that I did not cook but hope to cook soon!

This carrot cookie was so good. I got it at the Union Square farmer's market. It was perfect for breaking the fast at Yom Kippur.


And, the best for last! THE GIANT PRETZEL!!!! This was great. I got it at Amy's Bread! I hope to make soft pretzels soon. being from Philly, I am kind of obsessed with them. Don't worry, I did not eat this alone. My sister helped (a little). :) It was real good. Not from Philly, that was clear. But it was good.


Till next time...

Dig in!

Dig it, or dig in, I have started a food blog. I join the millions of others, and millions more after the release of Julie and Julia, who write about their food. But I have wanted to do this for a while. And the movie Julie and Julia is so wonderful and so inspiring that here I am putting hand to keyboard and food to camera. I read lots of food blogs. So I can tell you what this blog will be and what it won't be. It won't be a bunch of recipes. Not only are recipes not my style, but I don't have the patience. I am more like food network, saying what the dish is and never really giving you enough detail to make it at home. It will be my musings on food, what I cook and why with the occasional note about how I did it.

A note about my diet: I am vegan. Except, I eat cake, cookies and anything else where egg and dairy is cooked in. Basically baked goods only. But I usually bake vegan. It is like Julie Powell in the movie said "I have never eaten an egg...except in cake." The quote may not be accurate but the idea is there. I have eaten eggs in the past though. And I am not one of those animal rights activist vegans. I just think animals are kind of gross and don't want to eat them.Oh, another word about my cooking. I have a tiny kitchen with about 4 inches of counter space. And I own one large plate. It is white with blue and green stripes. You will see it.

So tonight I got a glimpse of a Throwdown with Bobby Flay where he threw down with one of my favorite cookie places: Le Vain Bakery on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Delicious. So tonight I made vegan cookies. I made them using EnerG Egg Replacer. I usually don't like to use this because it doesn't feel like an ingredient, it feels like a chemical. But tonight I was too tired to figure something else out. Here they are:

And there is my plate. I made these cookies late at night after work and it is summer so with the stove on it was crazy hot and I am really tired. So here is one more photo and that will close my first entry. Oh and yes, I have no mixing bowl so I usually do those types of things in a pot.

Buon Appetite!