(825) castles of a bygone age

Hello! It's been an incredibly food-filled week, but also a busy one, so I haven't had much time to catch up on here. You may notice too that all of my recent October post titles are small snippets from horror films. Try to guess what they're from! 

But yes, I have been cooking up a little storm here for some reason, I guess because I was on fall break, but things will be back to "normal" next week. 

As some of you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot of Asian/ethnic cooking here lately. I really love the complexity of the flavors, the quick process of cooking the meals, and that it usually involves pantry staples I have already invested in (rice vinegar, GF soy sauce, sriracha, toasted sesame oil). These items can sometimes be pricey, but they will last you for a long time and really make the meal. I have been wanting to make pho, and this is the closest I've gotten so far: ginger noodles with kale + shirataki. It was so easy, delicious, filling, and nutritious! Kale in an asian soup with shiitake mushrooms and shirataki noodles? Amazing.

My mom finding huge Egg-Man's collard greens at Deep Roots. 

Doing some decorating here for fall: cinnamon broom

I do have one huge accomplishment to speak of: I finally made GF pizza crust from scratch. It always seemed so daunting to me, but after I did it I was like "That's it? Really?". I think it was just a matter of finding the right recipe, which I definitely did. I've been going to Karina's website since I became GF, and this pizza crust recipe was amazing. I did change it a bit to use 2 C tapioca starch, 1 C millet, and 1 C sorghum. This is the closest thing I've ever had to real pizza crust.

Now what is all of that stuff on top? I like to make untraditional pizzas whenever possible, especially ones with out a traditional tomato sauce. This is definitely a new favorite and would be amazing once it starts to get colder: layers of BBQ sauce, tempeh cooked in BBQ sauce, kale, sweet potato, corn, and vegan jack cheese on top from Vegetarian Ventures. I suggest you go make that right now.

Sometimes dinner needs to be simple...and needs to involve a lot of wine and a good read.

Pumpkin rosemary hummus. Recipe from Ashley coming soon!

So I had my first little party this past Thursday to carve pumpkins, get together and of course to eat amazing food. Ashley and I provided most of the grub, mine being these little quinoa falafels. I made a double batch just to be sure to accommodate everyone and there weren't as many leftovers as I thought! The yogurt/tahini/lemon sauce that pairs with it was lovely as well. These little falafels are easy to put together and can be made up to a day in advance and fried when ready. I used freshly cooked chickpeas (!!!) which made a huge difference! 

The drunk gluten-free pumpkin.

We are silly but we have awesome pumpkins.

I did two pumpkin seed varieties: spicy curry + black tea butter 

Ashley also brought pumpkin pie, which was totally vegan and amazing! I made a pumpkin pie last year with coconut milk and eggs (very custardy) but I was surprised at how much more custardy this was! She used this recipe and her mother's GF/vegan pie-crust recipe. I think this will be the pie I made for thanksgiving, and maybe a vegan pecan pie too!