Working Lunch

Sorry I have been MIA, it had someone staying at my house and didn't want to be that girl taking pictures of my food, and then I (on purpose) ate some gluten and was out of commission for like a week. Sorry Momofuku, your crack pie isn't worth it. Anyway, I'm having a bit of a time getting my grove back, so this post won't include a recipe, per say, but since I eat the same thing for lunch every single I figured I would share.

When I was in middle school, there was a girl whose mom packed her homemade lunchables and cucumbers everyday. I was so jealous, because her lunch looked so tasty and delicious. So now, as an adult, I've been creating my own.

Ladies who lunch eat this.

Grown Up Lunchables

Ingredients
cured meat or deli meat (pictured is some Soppressata I bought at the Buon Italia at Chelsea Market)
slices of cheese (I use whatever fancy CSA cheese I have or white cheddar)
crackers (I've very fond of the Glutino brand)

cucumbers
sea salt
lemon wedge

Instructions

• Slice up the meat & cheese. Count out an equal number of cheese pieces, meat slices and crackers (I aim for 8).
• Stick it in your lunch box. You can also put a delicious treat in there, as well.
• Slice up your cucumber.
• Sprinkle the cucumber with salt.
• Stick the cucumber in a plastic bag with the lemon wedge. Don't put the cucumber in your lunch box because it will get watery and you dont want cucumber juice all over your crackers.
• Head to work (or if you like to make lunch the night before, have a nice sleep).

Fresh out of the oven.

Rosemary & duck fat chips.

I got a blog review from my little brother. This is what he had to say: this blog would be cool if it wasn't gluten free. So, Riley, this is for you.

Fancy Potato Chips

this is enough for one serving.


Ingredients
1 medium-sized potato
pink Himalayan salt, to taste
1 tablespoon rendered duck fat
1 sprig of rosemary


Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350° f.
2. Slice up the potato. I used a slicer, but if you don't have one just use a sharp knife.
3. Chop up the rosemary. I ended up with about 1 heaping tablespoon.
4. Melt the duck fat in a pot on the stove until it is just melted. Toss the potato slices in the duck fat.
5. Spread the potato slices on a a baking pan. Sprinkle with salt and then sprinkle with the chopped up rosemary.
6. Stick in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes (I start checking at 15 minutes, if any chips are staring to crisp up take them out and let the rest of the chips keep cooking).
7. Enjoy!

Lil bit of carrot cake.

So today, I decided to try my hand at using chia seeds as egg replacements. Worked rather well, I must say. I had a bunch of carrots from my CSA, and since it didn't seem like I was just going to eat them, I decided to make carrot cake.


I made a little one for me to eat right away, and a larger loaf sized cake to bring to a barbeque later in the week. 

mmm...mmm...good!

Vegan Carrot Cake

Modified from here

Ingredients
1 bunch carrots

1/4 chia seeds
3/4 cups warm water

3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
2 cups gluten-free flour mix (I use this)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup coconut oil
1 banana
2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions 

1. Shred the carrots. You're going to need about 3 cups. Set the shredded carrots aside.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 325° f. Grease your baking pan(s) with coconut oil (I used the ramkin pictured and a large-ish ~9in loaf pan)
3. Mix the chia seeds and water together. They will expand a bit so put them in a container slightly larger than 1 cup. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until it gets gummy. I used this time to measure out the rest of the ingredients.
4. Mix together the sugars, flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, banana, vanilla, chia mixture and carrots. Mix in the dry ingredients.
6. Pour the batter into your pre-oiled pans. Stick them in the oven for about 45 min. My little ramkin of carrot cake was finished in like 1/2 an hour. The cake will be moist, but if you stick a knife into it and it comes out clean, it's finished.
7. Let it cook for a bit and enjoy!