delicious healthy snack

matt just said "vanessa. i've discovered an amazing, delicious, healthy new snack.




lettuce.
hot sauce.
yum"

vegan by trial

Vegan Sweet Potato Gnocchi with cashew pesto

:::::::for the gnocchi::::::
one large sweet potato
two russets
a pile of flour

chop up the taters, steam em till they're soft. took my chunks (thumb sized) about 30 minutes.
pull them out, mash the crap out of them. i used an electric mixer and then went in with a fork to get the leftover lumps
wait until they cool, (or dont and just cook your fingers in this next part):
cover the potatoes with a cup of flour and mix in. then keep adding more flour and mixing by hand until it's not sticky anymore, or only barely. but dont mix until it's tough, just enough to get the flour in there. the less mixing you do the fluffier the gnocchi will be instead of like little dense stones. this isnt bread, people.
roll the dough out into logs about as thick as your ring finger (or, what you would estimate a normal ring finger looks like if you have abnormally skinny or fat fingers)
chop up the logs into finger-width pieces and roll down the back of a fork for more sauce grabbing ridges
chuck into a big pot of medium-boiling water (not super vigerous or you'll never know when the gnocci are done)
pull them out as soon as they float (too long and they'll get slimy)

like lil pillows of heaven yum


cashew pesto
chop some basil leaves
chop some cashews
chop some garlic
chop them all together
chop some more
squeeze some lemon on it, let it soak
pour in a little warmed olive oil


oh hell yea.

Perfecto Cookies

I had some cookie dough left over from when I made last-day-of-school goodbye cookies for my students. I froze the dough (wrapped in wax paper in a log, then in a plastic bag) and then decided today that I had enough cookie appropriate events coming up that it was a good time to bust out the rest of these guys. Plus I thought it would be really great to heat up the house with a 350 degree oven on a 90 degree day.

The recipe comes from the New York Times perfect cookie search. The first time I used this recipe, I basically used it as an outline and the cookies were just alright. This time around, the only thing I changed was to use "buttons" instead of "discs" for the chocolate. Sticking to the recipe produced some of the best cookies I have ever made or eaten! Resting the batter, high quality chocolate, and a flour blend I think are key here. I guess sprinkling on some salt does something too.

When I made them for my students, I used probably half-sized dollops of batter to make little quarter-sized cookies, which I thought were a nice little treat and spread them out better amongst 30-ish teenagers. The ones from today are about 5 inches in diameter.