Eric cooks, Emily bakes

Good afternoon everyone!

So if you follow me at all on twitter you may have caught me tweeting about last night’s dinner. Eric bought a crockpot this weekend for us to make some meals ahead of time this fall and winter. We decided that Tuesday night would be perfect for that as I am coming from my 6:30 class in Cambridge and usually don’t make it to his house until 7:30. So, since he was in charge of the prep and cooking, he also was in charge of the food photography!

Eggplant, hmm, where we going with this?

Red and green peppers, summer squash, zucchini, onion..

Everybody in the pot!

Getting saucy, oh baby 😉

Vegan Crockpot Ratatouille

• 2 small eggplant, peeled and 1 inch dice
• 2 medium onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, 1/2 inch dice
• 1 red bell pepper, 1/2 inch dice
• 1 summer squash, sliced
• 3 zucchini squash, sliced
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp dried basil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 6 oz tomato paste
• 3 tbsp fresh basil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 can Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Directions: Sprinkle eggplant with salt and let it drain in a colander about 1 hour. Press out excess moisture. Rinse with water and pat dry using paper towels. Place in crockpot then add onion, fire-roasted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, carrot, olive oil, basil, garlic, and salt then mix well. Cover and cook on low 7 hours (or all day for us). Stir in fresh basil. Serve over hot cooked brown rice.

Eric said it was delicious! I unfortunately wasn’t feeling so hot last night, so while he noshed on a big bowl of Ratatouille, I ate some egg whites 😦 No worries, there was enough to go around and have for Eric’s lunch today and my dinner tomorrow 🙂

On to my baking…

On rainy days like this, there really isn’t anything better than to get your baking shoes (or slippers) on!

I’m good, I’ll stay inside and bake thanks 🙂

And so I began, gathering all my ingredients and getting my recipe-brainstorm going:

What is this crazy girl making with all of these ingredients???

Craisin Good Pumpkin Oat Cookies (double batch)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Rolled Oats
• 1 cup Spelt Flour
• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Brown Sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup White Sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 cup Craisins
• 1 cup Pumpkin (Libby’s is my fav)
• 2 eggs (for vegan 2 tbsp ground flax + 6 tbsp water)
• 4 tbsp water

Directions: Preheat the oven to 375. Before things get messy, line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix together dry ingredients plus craisins in a large bowl; stir to  combine, making sure there are no lumps of brown sugar. Add wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and water) and stir well to combine. Drop heaping tablespoon sized cookies onto cookie sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes (mine took 12 on the dot). This batch made 34 good sized cookies, you can definitely half easily but I needed a big batch. You could also make the cookies a bit smaller, too.

And the finished product:

Glamour shots:

All in a days work my friends 🙂

I also finally got back to YOGA today 🙂 Sooo wonderful to stretch, lengthen, and really breathe! Now on to getting a bit more reading before tonight’s class.

Tell me, what’s your favorite, cooking or baking? If so, what’s your favorite recipe or dish?

lots of love,

Em