Sweetest time of the year

I'm trying to avoid eating sugar which is particularly hard this time of year. Especially when I'm invited to baking parties, cookie exchanges, and brunches. To counteract all the sugar (and stress from trying to not eat the sugar) we've been eating some classic favorite dinners.

Saturday night we had barley and lentil soup with butternut squash, carrots and sauted greens. This is a easy and quick dish to make with a pressure cooker. Can't recommend them enough. I think this took about 20 minutes to cook the barely and the squash was perfectly tender but not falling apart.



We had leftovers on Sunday night because I had the baking party to go to. I ended up making vegan caramel corn for the party. Here's the recipe.

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Vegan Caramel Corn (aka Cracker Jack)

1/2 c to 1 cup of olive or canola oil
1 1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tblsp vanilla
6 qts popped popcorn (I have no idea how much this is. I just made two batches of popcorn, about 1 cup un-popped total.)
1 cup nuts (optional)

Set the oven to 250. (Note: if you cook it at a higher temp it might, or quite probably, will burn and that doesn't taste good.) Combine the oil, maple syrup, and molasses in a pot. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower heat and gently boil for 5 min., continuing to stir. Remove from heat and stir in the salt, baking soda and vanilla. (This will cause a chemical reaction which makes the mixture change color and almost double in size.) You'll probably want to keep stirring too. Mix it together with the popcorn and the nuts (if using). Spread on two cookie sheets with parchment paper (or well greased. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. Cool and break apart before serving.
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Monday night we had a classic dinner of brown rice, roasted veggies (broccoli, carrots, red cabbage, and rutabaga), roasted sweet potato, and a side dish of white beans with garlic. The roasted veggies were all done on cookie sheets so that they browned more. I even did the sweet potatoes alone on a cookie sheet so that they could get crispy.



Tuesday night Dandelion the Bitter Green made a grain medley with steamed veggies (purple cauliflower!) and a miso covered tofu dish.



Wednesday night we had fried rice, my best attempt so far. Carrots, red cabbage, purple cauliflower and lots of garlic, ginger, and onions.