Scandinavian seeds crackers

I miss all the good gluten free crackers from Norway. I think I found the wasa crackers, but have not been able to find the seed crackers. 

So I used this recipe:

https://www.alphafoodie.com/the-best-seed-cracker-recipe/

But I wanted more flaxseed, so I doubled it. I also used about a 1/4 c ground flaxseed as the binder instead of psyllium.

One sheet pan was not enough, because it was a little too thick. 

This turned out ok in flavor, but not what I was going for and it was not the right consistency - it just crumbled. Will try again...

Update!!

I made this recipe :

https://true-north-kitchen.com/gluten-free-seed-crackers-norwegian-crispbread/

I modified to have less sesame and more flaxseed, and that seemed to be a lot more like the Norwegian crackers from this summer. I didn't have chia, so added flax meal.

Next will try this too:

Scandinavian Multi-Seed Crispbread Recipe with A Fragrant Twist - food to glow (kelliesfoodtoglow.com)

Chocolate genache cake

 https://baranbakery.com/chocolate-ganache-cake/#mv-creation-339-jtr

I made this recipe because I had a lot of heavy cream to use up.  I liked the frosting,  but not the cake. The cake was a little dense and dry.

Pea, Carrot, Red pepper, and Tofu stir fry

This was from about a month ago...

We took our annual early-summer trip to Red Fire Farm to pick strawberries over the weekend. We were also able to pick peas and herbs, so peas played into dinner on Sunday. I had some sauce from a previous dinner still in the fridge that I thought would be tasty in a stir fry. So fry up the tofu, I did - golden on each side of the roughly 1" cubes. I had several veggies on hand - 2 carrots, sliced, one red pepper, and a large handful of snow peas - freshly picked! I removed the tofu from the pan and briefly stir fried the veggies in some sesame oil. When the veggies were almost done, I added the tofu back into the pan and poured in the
Nuoc Cham. I covered and simmered for a couple minutes to get the sauce to soak up into the tofu, then took the cover off to reduce the sauce which was a little watery.
It was really filling up with rice and I thought the combination of the sesame oil stir-fried veggies and the sauce was a good flavor combination.
The peas were awesome! I love snow peas, and they taste soooo much better when they have just been picked.

Busy post-work

The last couple of days have been kinda busy after work, so we've ordered in. Thai on Tuesday and pizza (can you tell Ebon likes pizza!) last night.
On Tuesday morning, I walked to the polling place to find the line out the door and down the block, so I opted to not be late to work and vote afterwards. As I was walking to polling place after work, I spotted another polling place with a line down the block and around the corner for quite a ways and I was worried that I would meet the same fate. Fortunately, the line I had to stand in didn't go around the corner. I did have to wait in line for about an hour before attending to my democratic duty. Because of that and I had to meet up with the end of rugby practice to attend to my rugby treasurer duties, Ebon ordered Thai food. I tried to go with something a little different and asked if one of their chicken dishes could be made vegetarian by using tofu instead - they agreed and I had Cashew Tofu. I'd say it was decent, it probably would have been better if it was hot, but rugby practice delayed my return to home. Ebon got Sweet and Sour Tofu and the staple Crispy Tofu Basil which is always yummy.
Last night I went to my first book signing (at least that I can remember) for my favorite blog, Young House Love and go buy their book: Young House Love, the Book! . I went with a friend from work and as we drove the Nor'easter that was predicted started dumping and blowing snow everywhere, so that made for an interesting drive into Boston from Chelmsford. The signing was at West Elm near Fenway Park. After waiting in line for about three hours we spent a very short amount of time chatting with John and Sherry, they signed my friend's book and my bookplate, and then we took the obligatory picture.

The employees snaked the line around the whole store, which I thought was ingenious for them because it forced people to look at all the stuff they had in stock. Forced window-shopping was definitely way better than the alternative of standing outside in the blowing snow. It was fun- as fun as waiting in line for the second day in a row can be- they gave us cookies and hot chocolate, we made line friends with some of the people standing close to us, and I got a couple ideas for "re-doing" our bedroom. We need a new duvet cover and I have been thinking about getting or making new drapes/curtains for a while since the ones I have are probably 9 years old and getting a little drab.  This morning while I was getting ready for work, I looked at our room I thought that it might work better if I re-arrange the room a bit. My design wheels are turning!
Soooo, after getting home at about 9:30pm, Ebon had ordered some pizza which I think he got for free from Papa John's. After that I was beat, so I went to bed after a little TV and internet browsing (I heart the Daily Show!).

Have you ever been to a book signing? What was it like? Do you ever get sick of pizza? Ebon doesn't!

Not very exciting weekend - food-wise

This is from last weekend, I'm a little behind - it took me some time to transcribe the recipe.

Friday night we ordered pizza from Pizza Days.
After a gorgeous day working in the garden and another hike to the Middlesex Fells, Saturday we had leftover pizza. I did make pumpkin bars, though. When I was in grade school, we would bring treats to share with our class on our birthdays and I would request these all the time:
Recipe pending
1-1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
16oz pureed pumpkin (2 cups)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Mix ingredients together and pour into a greased and floured jelly roll pan (I used a 9x13 pan) and bake at 350degF for 25-30 min or until a tester in the middle comes out clean (I think it took about 40-50 min in the smaller pan).

Frosting
One 8oz package of reduced fat cream cheese/neufchatel cheese - room temperature
4 tablespoons butter or half a stick of butter - I used unsalted - room temperature
2 cups powdered sifted sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons of milk
cream the cheese and butter together, then add in the sugar and vanilla, blend until smooth.
This frosting is a bit on the runny side, so the milk might not be necessary.

Sunday I had pizza again at a rugby "social" in Newport, RI before it started raining and blowing and Ebon ate leftover Chinese.

Way too much pizza for my own good, but I did get a lot done in the garden and was able to salvage some green tomatoes and some basil is still going at one garden. I also transplanted one rhubarb plant and there were some stalks left. I'll try using all of them, but I'm not sure how it will all turn out.

I also made some hot chocolate and Ebon made a special treat - "hard rice." Also known as 누룽지 or "noo-roong-ji".

I found a good tutorial at this blog, but we don't soak it. Basically it's pan-toasted cooked rice. It's kind of like Korean popcorn only with a "ricey" taste!

 What are your favorite fall treats?

Long weekend

Thursday - Thai food leftovers - exciting!
Friday - On our way up to Stowe, VT, we stopped to get dinner. Driving along I-89 in NH, it it difficult to tell what kind of food is at the exits. In most other states, there are signs telling you which restaurants are at the exit before you get off, but this is not the case along I-89. There is only a sign that there's food, so you have to take the exit to find out what kind of food is there and if you like it, great. We kept getting on and off the interstate because as vegetarians, our options are somewhat limited when it comes to fast-food on the go. In previous travels, I had been to the Lebanon/Hanover exit and I thought I remembered some food there. We got off one way, but there wasn't anything, so we turned around and went into the town. There in the "historic distict" of Lebanon, NH we had dinner at Three Tomatoes. It was pretty decent, we had the Margarita pizza along with an arugula and beet salad. Though as a wood-fired pizza place, I'd put the pizza below Posto and Flatbread Pizza at Sacco's.
Saturday - attended a wedding at the Stoweflake Resort. The food was excellent. Other Saturday activities included a trip to the Ben & Jerry's factory and the Cabot Cheese annex where there were many samples to be had!
Sunday - Before departing Stowe, we had breakfast at the Dutch Pancake Cafe. The food was great, but we waited sooooo long to get it. Our waitress must have been in another world, because she wasn't doing her job attending to us - that's for sure!  Once we finally got our food, that kept us full until we got home.  At that point, Ebon had the Burger King he was craving all weekend and I had the leftover pizza from Friday night. We also stopped at the Cabot Cheese annex once more to buy cheese to bring home with us. We ended up leaving with about five pounds of cheese! Plenty to last for quite a while. Grilled cheese and tomato soup will be on the menu sometime this week!

Food Truck Dinner

Ebon gets regular email updates from Kicka** Cupcakes, so he found out about the Boston Food Truck Throwdown on Saturday:

So after a little hike in the woods at the Middlesex Fells with the pooch and some friends, we decided to check it out.  Wow, there were SOO many people there! Lines for the different trucks snaked around the park and sometimes crossed each other. Ebon works near Dewey Square where there are food trucks there on a regular basis for lunch, so he's had fare from most of the Boston trucks already. The big draw seemed to be what was new - all the trucks from New York and we weren't immune to their novelty. We decided to divide and conquer. I stood in line for about 45 minutes to get empanadas by Nuchas. and Ebon headed over to get something sweet - waffles from Wafles & Dinges. After guessing the size in terms of the price and seeing other people eat them, I thought that two or three empanadas would be sufficient for dinner. I got us the Portobello, two Spicy Cheese, and Shitake Curry empanadas and a sweet empanada filled with apples cranberry, pear, and nutella. I met up with Ebon still in line for the waffles, and we scarfed down the empanadas before he ordered five (yes five) waffles.
The empanadas were all quite tasty, we both liked the curry empanada the best - it was flavorful and hearty and the curry sauce kept dripping down my fingers. The sweet empanada was also really tasty
The waffles were also quite good, they have two different kinds of waffles, a "crusty" type and a "soft" type. I think he got two "crusty"- one with maple syrup and one with chocolate; and three "soft"- one with strawberries, one with bananas, and one with speculoos spread and whipped cream. That was my first introduction to speculoos spread and I'm hooked! It is a gingerbread-based cookie paste, and that is what it tastes like too. Supposedly Trader Joes had this back in April, so I'm going to have to go check and see if they have any. I also found a recipe for it that I'll have to try out. After all the waffles had been consumed, I pulled out the sweet empanada, and I really enjoyed it. I thought the dough was a bit chewy, but the filling was an excellent mix of tart and sweet.  If you can't tell, I like that combo. It had gotten pretty cold once the sun went down, so we retreated to the warmth of the subway and headed back home, with a quick stop at Flat Top Johnny's to play darts and pool.
How is the food truck scene near you? Any delectable food not seen in a restaurant?

Apples Apples Everywhere

We went apple picking over the weekend and scored a half-bushel of many different kinds of apples from Shelburne Farm in Stow, MA. Our favorite is the Mutsu apple, which is slightly tart and slightly sweet with yellow skin and firm and crisp white flesh. Other apples we picked included Cortland, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Baldwin, Macoun, Jonagold, McIntosh, and Red Delicious.

Saturday was a busy day, not only did we go apple picking in the afternoon, but a friend and I ran a half marathon in the morning. The aptly named Applefest Half Marathon took place in Hollis, NH. We were fed apple crisp after the race and the age group winners received pies! We ended up leaving before all the pies were distributed, but it may have turned out that we both won pies for being third in our divisions, my friend for her normal age group and me for my age group in the Filly division. Yes, there are perks to being heavier than most, though the Filly limit for this race was only 140lbs, which is pretty low in my opinion.

Because of the events of Saturday, making apple pies (yes, plural - one for us and one for my friend who deserved a pie from the race) was in order on my day off.
Apple Pie a la Betty Crocker - the ratios differ depending on the size of your pie, but for an 8" pie
Apples - 5 cups peeled, cored, and rough diced
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Flour - 3 tablespoons
Cinnamon - 1/4 teaspoon
Nutmeg - 1/4 teaspoon
dash of Salt
the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon butter, but I always forget this and never miss it in terms of taste.

Crust - Never Fail Pie Crust recipe that I got from my aunt and godmother
1.25 cups of vegetable shortening
3 cups pastry flour
5 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 beaten egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
This crust recipe usually makes enough for 3 crusts (using my 10" pie pan).
The trick I learned from my mom for rolling out the pie crust is to use two pieces of waxed paper. Roll until the crust is about 1/8" thick, pull one piece of waxed paper off then use the other piece to position over the pan then pull off the other piece of waxed paper.
Fill the crust with apples, then pour the sugar mixture over the apples and add the cover crust (that's a technical term). Bake at 425degF for 40-50 min, or until the crust is golden. I usually need to guard the edges so they don't get burned. I have yet to purchase one of those nifty pie crust protectors, but aluminum foil seems to do the trick just fine.

I also made apple butter for the first time with this recipe, except I used 1/2 the sugar it calls for. I'm not sure if I'll be able to convince Ebon to use it, but I tried it and it's quite tasty!