Golden Snitch Snack Balls

I open at the close.......

As I'm still behind in my posts, I made these in honor of the opening weekend of the Deathly Hallows, Part II, and ate them for lunch before heading to the theater to watch the show (complete with Dark Mark on arm.)

What did I think of the show? As with all of the HP movies, it wasn't quite as good as the book, and certainly botched a few key moments (like Neville's heroic moment! ...fail) but overall it was quality entertainment... and, succeeded in making me tear up on multiple occasions. I really lost it at the end when Harry, Ron, and Hermione were all grown up, sending their own kids off to Hogwarts. When I met the Harry Potter franchise, Harry was younger than I was-- and now all of a sudden, he was an adult, married, with children, and the magical saga had reached its conclusion. If Harry had grown that much over the years, where does that put me?

Sentimentality aside, these snitch balls are a super easy way to have a magical lunch.

THE RECIPE:

mozzerella soy cheese

Peeves, my first favorite character.

flaxseed meal

Snitch filling:
1/2 avocado
2(or more) fresh basil leaves
2(or more) spinach leaves
dash of salt                              ---> pulse in Magic Bullet until leaves are chopped and a paste forms

Roll in flaxseed meal to form a "golden" ball. ****
Slice soy cheese, and cut slices into matching diamond shapes. Stick into ball to form wings of the snitch.

Place mouth on snitch and let it "open at the close" ....of your mouth. As it explodes in flavor and awesomeness.

**** Really want to take it to the next level? Put a whole hazelnut inside to replicate the Ressurection Stone.

Luna Lovegood, my other favorite character (that's MEE!)

BONUS: take the Harry Potter Comprehensive Sorting Test HERE and let me know what you get!
(I'm an all-out Ravenclaw :) )

Pizza!

drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool....

What goes best with (my just-posted) chocolate chip cookies??? That's right... PIZZA!!!

The quest for quality gluten-free sugar-free yeast-free pizza crust continues. In this version, I've come up with a highly delicious pie-crust-y crust. In other words, it's a bit more dense and less bread-y than the real deal, but still makes a darn good pie. Next time, I'll try adding eggs to make it rise.

THE RECIPE:

1c millet
1/4 c brown rice
1/4 c garbanzo
1/2 c tapioca flour
1 sprinkle stevia
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp guar gum
1 tbs flax meal

~3/8 c light olive oil
1 egg
~1/2 c almond mlk --or until sticky/dough consistency (NOT pie crusty)

spray a large pizza pan with a healthy non-stick spray (or grease manually)
shape into a large circle (makes one ~12 inch pizza)
sprinkle w/ 1/2 tbs flax seed

Top it! I used:

Prego Veggie Smart pasta/pizza sauce
Mozzarella soy cheese, grated
Fresh basil, chopped
Fresh cherry tomatoes, sliced

Spray exposed crust with oil spray.

Bake at 350 for ~20-30 mins, or until cheese melts and crust begins to brown.

Egg and Cheese Crepes

Over spring break I was in Paris for a few days. My overall experience there may have been slightly sub-par, due to a vomiting/grumpy boyfriend, mediocre weather, and sugar-induced fatigue from a downward spiral into Hagen Daas waffle-eating. However, my crepe (and gaufre, and baguette, and Eiffel Tower!) experiences were superb. I never knew that crepes could be a fast-food, sold on street corners in the Latin Quarter.

So, the one and only Parisian crepe that I consumed was this junk-food-esque crepe, filled with egg, cheese, and chicken. It was SO, DARN, GOOD.

And the coolest part? The crepe chef poured out the crepe batter onto the griddle. (and smoothed it around with the crepe spreader dealy.) And then, he broke the egg RIGHT ONTO THE COOKING CREPE. And it cooked itself straight up through the crepe-- awesome. Then sprinkle on cheese, chicken, and fold into a quarter-wedge... hold like and sandwich and bite in.

So anyway, I can now replicate the yumminess pretty well:

RECIPE:


egg
cheese

Batter:
2 eggs (if you don't care about it folding well, just one egg is fine)
1 tbs extra light olive oil

1/2 cup fake milk
1/2 cup (millet + garbanzo + all purpose baking) flour
dash of salt

--> basically, you want the consistency of this to be thinner than pancake batter, but still "batter-y"; aka, thicker than milk or water or any other liquid alone.

Directions:

Heat a nonstick large skillet. To really make sure crepe won't stick, you can spray with a non-stick cooking spray first, but this shouldn't really be necessary.

Hold handle of skillet in one hand (non-dominant). Hold cup of batter in the other hand (dominant). Pour a small pancake-sized amount of batter into skillet, then quickly swirl the pan in a circular motion to spread the batter out, letting it run to the edges of the skillet, while maintaining a circular shape. This skill may take a couple of tries. The smaller the crepe, the easier it is to cook and flip it, but the less satisfying the result. Ideally, you will succeed in making a super-thin, skillet-sized (9 inch? 8 inch? How big is a big skillet??) crepe.

Let the first side of the crepe cook. If you were a genuine crepe chef, you would have a super-hot griddle which would cook your super-thin crepe so fast it would cook both sides at the sampe time. If, like me, however, you are an amateur using a teflon pan that can't be heated above "medium", you will need to flip your crepe.

To do so, loosen around the perimeter of the crepe, then slide the turner under and go for it. After the flippage, crack an egg on top of the cooked side. Use the turner to gently scramble it, trying not to puncture the crepe or make the egg spill too much over its edges. Then cover the skillet with a lid to trap the heat so that the egg will successfully cook.

When egg is cooked, sprinkle some fake cheese on top of it. Slide crepe onto a plate. Fold it in half twice to get the easy-to-handle quarter shape.

OMG cheese. And yes, shoutout to Almond Breeze in the background.

Mac 'n' Cheese

Just look at that soft, stringy, cheesey deliciousness.

Mac and cheese is quite possibly the best comfort food in the world. It may seem daunting to create, for someone who can't eat mac and can't eat cheese. However, it really isn't difficult at all. So, bring on the cold, grey weather, and get eatin'.

Recipe:
Big handful of brown rice macaroni/penne pasta (I used this kind)*
Big handful of shredded fake cheese (I used a yellow/mozzarella combo)**
Little bit of almond milk (~1 tsp)
1-2 leaves fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to directions, with some salt in the pasta water. Drain and transfer to a new pan. Heat on medium, add cheese, milk, a fair amount of salt, and pepper if desired. Stir frequently. When the cheese is melted and gooey, and milk is incorporated into the mixture, break up the basil leaves and add them to the pot.

Eat it straight from the pan, if you dare.

That's it! Really, shouldn't be too difficult.

* Beware: some pasta (Tinkyada, for example) takes 20 minutes to cook. If you're looking for a quick meal, make sure you have a fast cooking pasta.


 ** My favorite shredded fake cheese is Veggie Shreds by Galaxy Nutritional Foods. It melts super well- although the cheese in these mac pics was something else, aaand I don't remember the brand. I actually haven't found any shredded cheezes that I don't like.