better than birthday cake

you know how when you buy food and there's a recipe on the box and it's some random recipe that uses as much as possible of the product? well usually i'm not interested in cream of celery soaked chicken breasts, but in the case of hershey's cocoa, i'm interested. you couldn't possibly come up with a recipe that uses too much chocolate.

hershey's "perfectly chocolate" chocolate cake recipe here.
soo cook it in a 9x13, then poke holes in the cake while it's still warm and pour sweetened condensed milk and caramel over the top. enjoy immediately.

Silky Cauliflower Soup

i used yellow cauliflower for this soup, which is supposed to be way healthier than white? there is also purple? what? this soup was good. i recommend it if you happen upon a bunch of cauliflower as i did. you can only dip so much of it in ranch. recipe here.

Pasta with Fresh Artichokes

this was my first experience with getting artichoke hearts out of artichokes. it is really hard. there is much artichoke that goes to waste.

recipe here, and i watched like 10 videos on youtube about how to get the hearts out. difficult.

Fried Rice

on my way home the other day i called ryan and had him put the rice on. he made about twice as much rice as i normally make, so yesterday i made fried rice with the leftovers. leftover rice is the worst. fried rice is the best and super easy.

modifications are that i had frozen peas and carrots, so i just steamed those. i didn't have sesame oil but i'm sure that takes it up a notch. recipe here. and the vegetarian dumplings are from whole foods, i pan fried them in canola oil for about 5 minutes. they are really good!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

i had never heard of whoopie pies until i moved to pennsylvania last year. they were originally made by the amish and they are sold everywhere in central PA. i think they are gaining popularity as i hear about them everywhere and am now thousands of miles from any amish community. the next cupcake?

well i made this recipe last night and it turned out great. and i remember now why i don't make cookies without plans to give them to someone else. i ate like 5, which in non whoopie terms is like 10 cookies plus frosting. whoops!

Red Bead Curry Soup

last week i made our favorite soup during the day on monday or tuesday. we weren't home for dinner so i just put it in the fridge. i kept thinking we were going to eat it for dinner, but instead we both had a bowl for lunch almost everyday. it was 100x better than what either of us normally scrape up, and basically it's like eating a bowl of vegetables. so i decided to try to make soup once a week that we could eat for lunch. homemade soup can be so freaking healthy.

this recipe is from bob's red mill -- whole grains and beans soup mix bag. you can click on the picture below to read the recipe, because you could probably make it with dry beans and rice too. i modified it to be vegetarian (actually vegan) by using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, and putting in roasted corn and sweet potatoes instead of chicken. I just put in 1 sweet potato but on round two i would use 2 -3 because it was a perfect pairing. i also added a final step of blending about 1 cup of soup and putting it back in to make it seem creamier and more curry-y.

soup is so great when it's nasty outside. it makes me feel like a million $$.

Homemade Oreo Ice Cream

i inherited an ice cream maker from my sister when she moved across country. i used it more in month than she had in 5 years, but i think i'm slowing down a bit now. now that i know what goes in them. like, eggs and cream. and oreos. delicious yum yum recipe here. i also made some nutella gelato and it was really amazing. i highly recommend.

Ratatouille

i copied this recipe exactly from right here. oh man it was delicious. ryan put it in his top 5 favorite meals. can you believe that? a pile of vegetables in his top 5 favorite meals? i've already made it twice and probably will again soon.
don't forget the goat cheese.

Roasted Tomato Soup

my parents planted a killer garden this year and we reaped a lot of benefits (tomatoes) from that. they usually came all at once, and soup was one of my favorite uses of them.
i couldn't find a recipe that i really like, so i used a few and adjusted to my tastes. i mainly used this recipe, but also roasted red peppers and some super spicy red peppers too. i didn't use any additional ingredients besides the peppers, tomatoes, onion, and garlic. it turned out delicious and had quite a kick.

Peanut Butter Coconut Tofu

whenever i come across a good tofu recipe i usually make it. i am always trying to get better at making tofu, it is so healthy i know i should probably eat it everyday for optimal health. recipe here
it was really delicious, pretty sweet tasting. the ginger was really the kicker. it made me determined to always have ginger on hand. a few days later i used what was leftover and made a stir fry. this is pretty typical to what i cook 2-3 times a week.

Maple Pecan Granola

once i accidentally paid $10 for granola, and it lasted less than a week. it was so delicious but i knew i could never buy it again. so i have been making a similar version and it's really fantastic. i make it once a week or i regret it big time when i force down honey nut cheerios. yuck. in my perfect world, every meal of the day is homemade. recipe here.

Carmelized Pears

you know how at the farmer's market they sell things in bushels sometimes so sometimes you get home and realize you were ripped off and sometimes you get home and you have 15 pears? well if the latter ever happens to you, you should also make yourself some carmelized pears. i didn't have have time to take a picture of them before they were consumed. you should put them over vanilla ice cream.

Peach Shortbread

super easy, and super delicious. blink your eye and they're gone and your husband is mad he only got two bars. whoops.

Tofu Quiche with Broccoli

i tend to avoid trick vegetarian food. like oh you thought you were eating a hot dog! try again. well, actually that's pretty obvious because tofu dogs are the worst. but i made this quiche that uses tofu instead of eggs and it was pretty good. i didn't tell ryan until his second helping that it was made with tofu. he didn't even care.

Vanilla Peach Pie

i could not get enough peaches this year. they literally could not get in my belly fast enough. except for once when i had like 6 or 7 peaches and they were all on the verge of mushy. pie time. vanilla peach pie recipe from here but i added some raspberries too.