Stormy Memorial Day

Since heavy thunderstorms were forecasted for Memorial Day, the grill stayed covered. Instead, I made an Ethiopian Feast, using the newest cookbook in my collection, Kittee Berns' Teff Love.

I began the day before, making the ye'qimem zeyet (seasoned oil) and berbere (seasoning blend) that are used in most of the recipes.

The book contains so many Ethiopian recipes I'd never come across before. But to start off, I went with the familiar dishes I typically eat at Aster's. First up, spicy ye'misser wot (red lentils).

A milder protein for the kids was this ye'ater kik alicha (yellow split peas.)

Ye'atakilt alicha (cabbage, potatoes, and carrots) elevates simple cabbage to something I can't get enough of!

I gotta have my ye'abesha gomen (garlicky collard greens.)

Ye'bamya alicha (okra and tomato) was new to me, but I love okra. It was delicious.

I was glad to find a recipe for timatim fitfit, a spicy tomato salad made with crumbled bits of spongy injera bread. I made mine super spicy and used it as a condiment for the dishes with less heat.

Kittee's book offers dessert suggestions as well, like teff snickerdoodles and mocha teff brownies. However, I didn't actually have any teff flour on hand, since I bought my injera bread from Aster's. I have made my own injera once before, but I didn't want to mess with it this time since I was making all the other stuff.

Anyway, instead of making an Ethiopian dessert, I went with the Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake from Plant-Powered Families, mostly because I've been dying to try it. An entire huge sweet potato went into this cake and its frosting. Crazy talk you say? No. Amazing, fudgey, brownie-like cake topped with a rich, Nutella-consistency frosting. This went quickly!

The storms were kind enough to wait until after we had finished feasting, but they did come eventually.

Our backyard turned into a pond. We had a tornado warning and had to put the bike helmets on the kids and shelter in our first-floor bathroom for a bit. Luckily, we did not actually get a tornado.

Freaky strong storms, and a cake made from sweet potatoes. A memorable Memorial Day.

Olivia Turns Five

Olivia started off her fifth year of life by feeding breakfast to her ponies.

For a special dinner, I made the Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits from Veganomicon.  I stuck it under the broiler for a minute after it finished cooking, to get the biscuits nice and golden.

I subbed chickpeas for the navy beans. It was so good!

Olivia requested a Rainbow Dash cake this year. She is just a little obsessed with My Little Pony these days (and Shopkins, and Monster High!) It was fun and challenging to make and to decorate. For the cake and frosting, I doubled the vanilla cupcake and vanilla buttercream recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Wishing.

Whoosh!

At five, Olivia loves roller-skating, gymnastics, fairies, princesses, hour-long baths, board games, cuddling, being tickled, and all things pink and purple. She can count to one hundred and she is starting to learn her sight words. She wants to grow her hair long like Rapunzel and she is excited to start kindergarten in the fall. She is a delightful little girl and I am so lucky and thankful to be her mama.

St. Philip

Over the weekend we wanted to try someplace new for lunch. We headed for St. Philip in South Austin. I was intrigued by their "beer cocktails" and had to order one. Local beer mixed with ginger syrup, lime, and orange - so refreshing! This needs to be my spring drink.

We started with some polenta fries, satisfyingly crunchy on the outside thanks to panko breading, and richly creamy on the inside.

I somehow forgot to snap a photo of the best part of the meal! Our other appetizer, the Golden Cauliflower, was even better than the pizza. Even better than beer cocktails! It's cauliflower tossed with herbed yogurt and pine nuts. That may not sound too exciting but it was amazing. 

OK, on to the pizza. I had the Wild Mushroom pizza, topped with mushrooms, idiazabal cheese and arugula salad. Like the cauliflower, all the flavors meshed together perfectly and made my mouth so happy.

There's a sweet little bakery attached to the restaurant. While the kids ran off some energy out on the patio, I snuck back in and got them some maple soft serve cones for dessert.

Thanks, mama!

I also selected a few gorgeous little treats to take home. Two things I'm a sucker for: interesting cocktails, and fancy desserts. Clockwise from top left, a cassis tart, chocolate gingerbread, lemon crumb square, and blueberry cheesecake layer cake. 

Oklahoma Birthday

Jackson wanted to celebrate his sixth birthday up in Oklahoma at his Grandma Lillie's house, so that is what we did. I picked up some road trip snacks: Late July ranch chips, Hail Merry raw lemon macaroons, Tom's Tabooley hummus falafel wrap, and Harmless Harvest raw coconut water. I have tried many brands of coconut water, but I saw this article about how not all brands are of equal quality, and I decided to try one of the best-rated. It's expensive, but man, it tasted so good!

Our first evening in Oklahoma, my awesome mother-in-law volunteered to watch the kids so Tony and I could have a kid-free get-together with our friends Michelle and Alan. We met them at Whiskey Cake in OKC. The decor made us smile. Fresh sprigs of rosemary in a light bulb vase? Never seen that before. Also, the male wait staff all sort of resembled lumberjacks. White t-shirts, suspenders, beards.

Tony and I decided to share some appetizers, starting with hummus and pita bread and fried green tomatoes. The tomatoes' breading was super light and crisp, as it should be.

I had a sazerac, which featured one large block of ice, instead of ice cubes. Why? I have no idea. I also had a hibiscus gin and tonic, which I liked much better, but I forgot to take a picture of it.

Still hungry, we ordered goat cheese "fondue" with olives and sourdough bread. I wouldn't really call it fondue, since it wasn't melted, but it was good and filling.

The next day, we just hung out around the house. Games were played.

Tony was wrestled into submission.

Garden cherry tomatoes were eaten.

The next day, it was party time! Jackson's cousins came over to celebrate with him.

First duck-duck-goose, then freeze tag.

Thought they were gonna knock me down! Haha.

Sweaty and red-faced, Jackson opened his presents.

He requested a Transformer cake this year. It was my first attempt at making and working with fondant. It turned out a little too thick and goopy. My Transformer looked like he had a rough night.

Jackson didn't mind.

We had to come home the next day. Before we left, we had lunch at Golden Corral. Have you eaten at one of these? We don't like the one in Austin because they do a lot of seafood and it smells like fish. The ones in Oklahoma are pretty good though, as long as you understand that your plate will be heavy on the yellows and browns and lacking the other colors of the rainbow. I had broccoli, mac n cheese, fried okra, roll, corn pudding, and carrot souffle. 

Cotton candy for the birthday boy's dessert.

Sister needed her own.

A great visit as always! We love going to Grandma's house.

Cooking Out

Today we invited my parents over for a cookout. Tony is always happy to fire up the grill.  He made various meats for them, but here is my veggie plate: grilled marinated portabello burger, corn on the cob, and salad with goddess dressing.

I made a batch of Thai basil lemonade. I just blended a handful of the herbs with the lemonade, then strained them out.

For dessert I made the Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake from Isa Does It.  I got a bundt pan for $3 so I had to try it out! The cake was wonderful, very moist. The chocolate ganache was a little too runny, though. I should've only added milk as needed, not the full amount. It mostly soaked into the cake. 

Jackson, proud of his cup stacking skillz.

Steeping Room

This morning we attended storytime at the bookstore.

It was a Star Wars-themed storytime, so my young Jedis paid close attention.

Next up, lunch at an Austin restaurant I've wanted to try for ages -- the Steeping Room. I had a hard time convincing Tony to go there. He seemed to think the menu would be nothing but cucumber sandwiches and other dainty lady food. Actually, their food is pretty substantial (which is good, because I'm not a very dainty lady.) 

At the suggestion of the Red Hot Vegans, I ordered the vegan TBLT -- tofu, tempeh bacon, lettuce and tomato -- with a vegan cashew Caesar salad on the side. I stopped talking for several minutes while I stuffed my face with this sandwich. It was kinda falling apart, which made me wish I'd ordered it on a ciabatta roll instead of the less mighty wheat toast. But still. Dude. What a sandwich. The salad didn't blow me away, but you know...it's salad.

Tony had the Buddha bowl with tempeh, lentils, red rice, greens, and sweet potato, with cashew dressing. He liked it, but said it didn't keep him full for a long time.

We also ordered a Mediterranean plate to pick at -- dolmas, olives, hummus, big squares of feta, and flatbread.

Jackson and Olivia had grilled cheese sandwiches, which came with apple slices.

The blueberry iced tea was a no-brainer for the kids. If it's blue, they want it.

I had a pot of lemon vanilla white tea, very fragrant.

I also grabbed a slice of lemon-lavender bundt cake to take home and nibble on over the next couple of days. It was just chock full of bright lemon flavor, adorned with a thick layer of lemony icing.

Couldn't ask for a better lunch, and I just learned that kids eat free on Fridays, which gives us even more incentive to return soon.