food from today!

I woke up ridiculously early this morning, (like, before 7 AM) and couldn't get back to sleep, so I finally gave up on sleeping in around 8:00, got up, and got busy in my kitchen!

I started the morning by doing all of the dishes from last night, (WHY do I think it's a good idea to leave the dishes until the morning???), cooking up a big batch of chickpeas for the freezer, (9 cups total!), and baking off a quick double-batch of granola -- I used pumpkin and sunflower seeds this time to switch things up a bit. Yum!

While I had the oven on, I whipped up a batch of Raspberry-Almond Scones (based on the basic Scone recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance,) and we enjoyed them with the rest of brunch:

Frittata experiment again this week, made with onion, mushroom, spinach, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese, with a side of fresh pineapple, too. I referred to this week's brunch as "fancy hotel brunch." :)

Dan and I had a busy afternoon of walking, enjoying the conservatory at Como Park in St. Paul, and a few errands. Consequently, when we arrived back at my place, we were both HUNGRY. So, we decided to have dessert first:

Rootbeer floats, made with Virgil's root beer and Cedar Summit Farms vanilla ice cream (local!) This was a fantastic treat, even though it was gloomy, cold, and grey outside all day long!

(Pardon that "Elmo's World" DVD underneath in that photo -- the kids I teach get a special treat movie on Fridays, and they love new movies from the library!)

Then, I made dinner:

Jerk Tofu, (from the PPK), "Caribbean Coconut Rice," and "Japanese Asparagus Dengaku" (both from the most recent issue of Vegetarian Times.) This dinner was a winner in both speed of preparation and taste, but I must admit the coconut rice was the home run! The rice was so rich and delicious, and made a perfect pair to the spicy, seasoned tofu. I can't wait for leftovers in my lunch this week!

My friend Ashley is coming over tomorrow afternoon for her granola-making lesson, so hopefully she'll be a great sport and let you all see what she comes up with!