In the Kitchen

To introduce, I'm the baker, my husband is the cook. We make a good team.

After 20  months of vegan I finally went through my cupboards and purged the cookbooks that no longer support my diet. It was amazing how many recipes I have that will cause me to grow a hip! Butter, cream, sweetened condensed milk, it's no wonder I've lost so much weight. It is absolutely amazing that once upon a time I would have defended myself fiercely against any suggestions that I ate a lot of cholesterol and now I'm utterly amazed at how much I ate!

Now I'm going through the books I couldn't get rid of and trying recipes. You know, the books made by groups, like the Relief Society at church, of all our favorite recipes. One recipe my hubby loves is chicken enchilada casserole. It's hard to veganize or replace because it is cream of chicken soup, pepper jack cheese, sour cream and of course, chicken. I never thought we'd find a replacement, until we did.

I got an eggplant in my bountiful basket and needed a recipe so I googled "Eggplant enchilada" and got a fairly simple recipe with normal pantry ingredients. It called for cheese and my husband insisted we needed to replace it, so he mashed up a can of white beans. Then he had to add cilantro, green pepper and green chile, (no measurements of course!) and suddenly it was not at all the original recipe. The result? He loved it and called it his new favorite. My parents were around and try the concoction too. Mom, not the biggest fan of my diet, requested the recipe!

Now moving on. For the baker in me, I've almost got my favorite brownie recipe perfected (the one that used to be on the Hershey container), and Erleen Tilton's Carob Cashew pie is my all time favorite dessert, especially for summer heat. In between naptimes I'm also falling in love with Babycakes recipe book.

Here's to not growing a hip!