More meals, more muffins and some crackers

I've made a few things this week that I'd like to share with you! When I used to live in Boulder, Colorado I would get these delicious flax seed crackers at the farmer's market, so when I saw a big tub of flax seeds for two bucks at our local farmer's market I decided to try and make my own.

This recipe is loosely based on these two that I found using google. I simply put about 1 1/4 cup of whole flax seeds in a bowl of water before I left for work one morning. Some of the seeds floated on top, but most were submerged in the water.

When I got home, the flax seeds had soaked up all the water and were covered in slimy goo as you can see here.

I then took half of the flax seeds, put them in a food processor along with a clove of garlic and some spices (salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and garam masala similar to this recipe) and blended everything. Next, I added the blended seeds to the whole seeds, mixed everything well and then spread the mixture onto parchment paper on a baking pan. I spread it pretty thin since I wanted crispy crackers. I ended up using two baking pans.

I put the pans in the oven on 200F for about an hour or so (this would probably vary depending on how thick the flax seed layer is). After they cooled, I broke up each of the flax seed sheets into random sized pieces and had crispy, flavorful flax seed crackers to dip in my homemade guacamole. These are better than the ones I bought in Boulder and waaaay cheaper!

This week I also tested out the macaroni and cheeze recipe that the Pleasantly Plump Vegan posted about recently. It came out great! It's not the best meal nutritionally, so I threw together a side of white beans, spinach and tomatoes with garlic. It was a good balance.

Last night I made a bit of a healthier dish for dinner. Acorn squash with tomatoes, chard stems and red onion atop a bed of quinoa (with raisins) and chard leaves with pine nuts sprinkled on top. I first sauteed the acorn squash with the red onions and chard stems with oil, garlic and oregano. I then added some vegetable stock and covered the dish for awhile longer to cook the squash through. I then added the diced tomatoes, some nutmeg, cinnamon, a teensy bit of sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar, cooked it a bit more and then put it all on top of the cooked quinoa and steamed chard leaves. The nutmeg was the key flavor in this and made this a very "warm" autumn dish.

Finally, I made more muffins!! I can't seem to stop myself. This time I made oatmeal banana muffins loosely based on this banana bread recipe from vegweb. I made the following alterations to the vegweb recipe: used 3/4 cup a sugar instead of 1 1/2 cups, used 1/4 cup of oil + 1/4 cup of soymilk instead of 1/2 cup of oil, used 1/2 cup of applesauce instead of egg replacer and additionally I added 1/2 cup of rolled oats to the batter and sprinkled sliced almonds on top. Ta da! Yummy, moist muffins full of ooey-gooey bananas! I actually made this on Monday and have been having them for "breakfast on the go" this week, which is what muffins are for!