Blog Food!

I don't think it's any surprise to you all that I love food. So tonight my blog is about food, but not just any food, blog food.

I found this great site, peas and thank you. The greatest thing about this site is that all the recipes are vegan friendly (and the author, Sarah, is a great Mom and I love her sense of humor!). Ross and I aren't vegan but because all of the recipes are vegan it's Lizzie friendly. Elizabeth has a hard time digesting dairy so it's been a struggle to find food that she can have.

Tonight I made Grilled Eggplant Parmigiana.


Photo by Sarah from Peas & Thank You

I followed Sarah's recipe almost exactly. I omitted the nutritional yeast and used regular cheese for Ross and I. You definitely need to plan ahead when making this dish just because you need to drain the eggplant and let it marinate but it is totally worth it! Next time I think I'll cut the eggplant slices a little thicker so they don't burn as easily on the grill. Once it was all put together it was delicious! Ross really liked it and he's a big meat eater. Lizzie even ate it (which is a huge accomplishment for her!) Because of her restricted diet Lizzie is extremely picky but now that I'm learning more about dairy free food I can make more "normal" meals for her. I'm hoping this will help her little taste buds branch out.

I've also made Lulu's Mac & Cheese and Sloppy Josephines from Sarah's site.

Lizzie absolutely loved Lulu's mac & cheese. Mac & cheese is probably her favorite food besides pancakes. Her little eyes lit up so bright when I told her I was making her special mac & cheese that didn't hurt her tummy. It was my first time cooking with tofu and I was a little scared about how it was going to turn out but even I enjoyed it.

The Sloppy Josephines recipe I doctored a little for our taste. Because we eat meat instead of using lentils I used ground turkey. I just browned the turkey before hand, drained it, and then threw it in the sauce. Once again, it was a hit!

So the other day Ross asked if I could make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. I don't know where my head is but last night I realized that St. Patty's Day is tomorrow. Talk about last minute Stacy...jeeez.

Unfortunately for mine and Ross's waist lines I can't just make a dinner. I HAVE to make some sort of dessert. It's like Santa and his reindeer. You can't have one without the other. So I googled all sorts of traditional Irish desserts and nothing was jumping out at me. Then I remembered seeing a recipe for Irish car bomb cupcakes in my blog feed. Hello! Perfect! No?

Irish Car Bomb cupcakes by Risa from Baked Perfection.


Photo courtesy of Risa at Baked Perfection

Ross really, really, really wanted me to make the whole shabang. Unfortunately for him I really didn't have the time or the alcohol on hand to make them exactly like Risa did. I decided that just the Guinness chocolate cupcake part would work just fine for us. I didn't have a lot of the stuff on hand and didn't feel like spending a fortune so I just used a box cake instead of making everything from scratch.

I simmered the beer and the butter then mixed the sour cream and eggs together exactly the way the recipe says. Instead of adding the cocoa to the beer and butter I just mixed the beer and butter into the eggs and sour cream then poured the box chocolate cake into the wet ingredients. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out because I had doctored the recipe so much but let me tell you, these are the moistest (is that even a word?) cupcakes I have ever eaten in my life. DELICIOUS! I just frosted these puppies with canned cream cheese frosting (I know, I'm lazy...) instead of the Bailey's buttercream frosting. Now, I have no idea how these are supposed to taste so I have no idea what I'm missing but what I came up with is perfectly fine with me. Yum! Yum! Yum!

If you have the ingredients on hand I definitely recommend trying the actual recipe. I can't even begin to imagine how delicious they are!

Happy St. Patty's Eve and happy cooking blog friends!