Is it Spring Yet?

OK - so we've had the wussiest of winters in all of my years on this earth. But it's still been windy and cold and cloudy and yucky. I signed up for our local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and started thinking about what we're going to plant in our garden this year, and now I just can't wait for spring!

At the same time, it's made me realize that there's only about a month left when I'm going to want hot, comforting foods - so I'd better get cooking and make some of those soups, stews and chilis before it really does warm up! I started the week with these Sweet Potato Falafel, from Susan V.'s blog, Fat Free Vegan. I was looking for a way to use up my chickpea flour (they require a whole cup - woohoo!). These were easy, tasty and fun to eat! I made up my own yogurt tahini sauce (1 cup of plain or vanilla soy yogurt, mixed well with 1/3 tahini) and added some roasted Brussels sprouts (I eat these so often now!) and all was good! A strong three stars - they were a tad mushy in the middle ***.


And aren't they so cute?











I don't know why I didn't post about these already, but these Chocolate Cupcakes from VCTOTW are so easy and moist - you can't go wrong! This time, I used my silicone heart baking pan (see next photo).







The kitchen smelled a bit like burning rubber, so I'm not so sure I would use these pans again and you DO have to use Pam or a non-stick spray on them!

However, they were a great V-day treat for my co-workers who have been working their tails off to help me get the YA area ready for our library's grand re-opening (1 week now!). I frosted them with homemade (vegan) frosting and (I think vegan) pink, red and V-day sprinkles. Lots of great reviews, of course! We love Isa's cupcakes!! Four stars, as always! ****
Meanwhile, I dragged out my dehydrator and finally cleaned it up and got it working (in other words, I turned it on)! I made Banana Chips from a raw food cookbook, but really you just slice them and dehydrate at the recommended temp for about 8 hours. They could have gone longer, I think, but I just couldn't wait! The whole house smelled like baking banana bread.... I found that slicing them on a diagonal worked better as far as speed of drying, looks, and size. Yum! Three stars ***!