Potato-Zucchini Pancakes

Flashback to : Potato-Zucchini Pancakes, made from shredded zucchini and potato, egg, rice flour, onion powder, and salt. These are what my grandma would call "cold-potato pancakes," as raw potatoes are added to the batter. If you don't have oodles of time or energy, you can use (thawed) frozen hash browns. 

Masala Matzah Brei (Savory Matzah "French Toast")

This was inspired by numerous recipes and videos online for Masala French Toast. Matzah Brei is like French Toast, except with matzah rather than leavened bread. I learned how to make the savory (salty) version of Matzah Brei, myself, and thats how I always make it -- so, this isn't too much of a stretch. 

This Masala version includes, in addition to soaked and drained matzah, egg, and salt, also chopped onions, tomatoes, and green bell peppers, and some ground coriander and pav bhaji masala. All of this is mixed together well, and then fried in a frying pan in oil. I wasn't sure how it would turn out. However, once I first tasted it, I was happy to have it for breakfast. 

Oven-roasted Cauliflower

I partly defrosted frozen cauliflower, just enough to unfreeze them. I then tossed them with some oil and salt, and roasted them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, until they seemed "done." They were very yummy right afterwards, when I ate them with my meal. I didn't like them so much, plain, the next day, though. When I'd make them again, I'd make sure to add them to a soup, sauce, or stir-fry the next day. 

Vanilla Dinette Cake,

with Melted Chocolate Chips

I made this cake with almond milk in place of regular milk. I like to sprinkle chocolate chips on cake like this, and then melt the chocolate in the microwave. In this case, I also added just a little coconut oil to the chips before I melted them. I liked the effect! 

Chocolate Chip Scones

This recipe is from James Villas' Biscuit Bliss. I decided to try almond milk instead of regular milk this time, as well as my usual use of oil instead of butter. Very nice! 

Spaghetti, Roasted in Olive Oil, with Tomatoes

This spaghetti was roasted in some olive oil until lightly browned in places, and then cooked in canned tomatoes and tomato sauce (with added water). I added some frozen green peas for extra color and veggies. I then seasoned it with dried Italian herbs, dried basil, a little onion powder, and salt. Usually when I make this, I add extra pasta, so this time, I overcompensated, and added extra water! Therefore, it was a bit soupy, until I cooked it for extra time. After that, it became merely saucy. This just means it's nice to have with some bread, to soak up the extra sauce!

Ghuraybat Lawz (Almond & Tahini Cookies)

These cookies are from a recipe in Habeeb Salloum's Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa. These are a little different than the usual ghurayba, which are like shortbread. These contain tahini, ground almonds, eggs, and baking powder, in addition to flour and sugar. They also contain coconut oil, as a substitute for butter, and I added in some salt for flavor. As they are never very sweet, I added extra sugar this time, in the form of confectioner's sugar, which was a big help. I really enjoyed the cookies, and it was also fun to make them pretty, this way! 

I took the opportunity to test out one of my new cookie stamps, as I thought these were the right kind of cookie for the test. To prevent the cookie dough from sticking, I dipped the stamp in confectioner's sugar and coated it well, before stamping each cookie on a plate. This worked very well, but stamping directly on the parchment-lined baking sheet, caused the dough to stick to the stamp. I hope that helps with using this kind of cookie stamp!