Fundraising by buying cookbooks

I don’t have many pics from the weekend because the rummage sale exhausted me on Saturday, but I did make a frosty blended iced coffee drink as soon as I got home.  It was 1 pm and I hadn’t even had lunch yet, but it’s all I wanted.

I left that morning before the sun was up and biked over to the church in the dark.

Then we all got things organized in the parking lot while waiting for the sun to wake up.  It was kinda awesome.  The rest of the morning was a blur, but by the end of the sale we had made money for the school and I had a TON of new cookbooks.  🙂

I pulled this together shortly after my coffee wore off.  Having everything on hand for my vegan Fall salad was good planning on my part.

Although I was a touch short on pecans, so I added walnuts too, to pump up the nut factor (which is 100% my favorite part of every meal).

I keep meaning to update you guys on my latest brews…

I decided to attempt flavors with baby steps, by adding in dried fruit.  Chopped candied ginger, dried blueberries, dried strawberries, dried cherries, etc.  And it has worked SO WELL!  The sugar from the fruit makes it more effervescent and since the fruit gets added after bottling before the second fermentation means I can make multiple flavors with each batch.

Totally pumped with this development.

Kyle was ADAMANT that I didn’t cook dinner that night so we got take out sushi from Huku.  We ordered…

Temptation Roll: salmon, spicy tuna, avocado, daikon and sauce
Rock n Roll: no rice, cucumber wrap, assorted fish, crab meat, avocado, kaiware and sauce
Sunshine Roll: deep fried shrimp, salmon, real crab meat, lemon and sauce
Poki Salad: assorted raw fish, seaweed salad, and onion

The kids were a little jealous that I didn’t get sushi for them but I snuck them a few bites of octopus from my poki salad so they were pretty stoked. I made them sushi bowls with brown rice, avo and tamari.

Here’s that poki salad, btw.  It was really good even if it wasn’t quite what I was expecting (it didn’t mention cucumber in the description so Kyle was SOL).  The dressing was AWESOME, the fish was great, and I love me some seaweed.  BUT.  The rock n roll was the complete and utter winner.

OMG it was sooooo good.  The other two rolls I had tried before, but this was a newbie for me and I am going to order it a million times again.

We didn’t have any leftovers which is a first for us because getting the right amount when ordering sushi seems to be impossible.  But yay, we did it!

And then I had yummy brownie bites for dessert – three shown, four actually eaten.  😛

The next morning I jumped head first into this new loaf of bread I baked.

DAAAAANG I am so stoked on this.

I based it off a grain free recipe that I saw in this cookbook (which I checked out from the library a few weeks ago and have been digging ever since.  The recipe in the book wasn’t a banana bread recipe, but I had a nearly black banana that needed to meet it’s maker, so that’s how it came to be a lightly sweet banana flavored sandwich bread.

I didn’t keep track of things of measure as I went, but it was mostly almond flour with some coconut flour and a bunch of eggs, along with the usual almond milk and apple cider vinegar combo of liquids.  And it turned out perfect!  I’ll try to replicate it again soon to share.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying it with this new find.

I actually bought it a while ago and then never got around to trying it.  Until now!  And it’s sublime.  I love it.  I still have Earth Balance on hand for every day use (slash for the kids’ pancakes), but this is my special treat for savoring.  Have you guys tried this or any other Miyoko’s products?  I tried the cream cheese once and it was good (but $$$) and not as good as Green Valley organic lactose free cream cheese.  That brand is my favorite for cream cheese.  I’ve eyed the other Miyoko’s aged “cheese” products for a while though, and now that I’ve had the butter I’m even more intrigued.  The price is what ultimately deters me, but maybe as a splurge…

Mmmmmmelty.

A solid heel piece of bread to start off my Sunday.

My brain totally shorted and I accidentally went to church 30 minutes early, so I ended up killing time before service shopping at Nugget.

Which is how I ended up with a lovely smoked salmon salad for lunch.  Thankfully I had an insulated bag on hand so the salmon stayed cool throughout church and by the time I got home I was ready to dig in.  The rest of the salad was kale massaged in olive oil and lemon juice (out of vinaigrette!) and the last hunk of sheep gouda.  With a side of football.

For dinner I made us salads using the remainder of this dressing up.

I hadn’t yet gone to the store, but I knew I wanted to make a salad (Kyle’s request).

We had greens and sweet potatoes, so I filled in the rest with what I thought would best accompany a mustard shallot vinaigrette.

Which ended up being feta and pistachios.

Perfection!

Everyone loved this – salty and sweet and fresh.

Start with a base of greens (spinach, spring mix, whatever).

Toss the lettuce in vinaigrette (a lighter vinegar works better with this – like apple cider, champagne or red wine, but balsamic will work if that’s all you’ve got).  You could also get away with lemon juice instead and make a lemon mustard dressing instead.

Add roasted sweet potatoes (roasted for ~30 minutes at 350 degrees F with lots of olive oil).

Crumble feta on top with pistachios and dig in.

Room for dessert?  You bet!

Kyle got me a Lula’s dark aloha rocky road (!!) bar when he went to pick up the sushi the previous night.

And now that the weekend is done I can finally get caught up (isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?).