orange and pink

Last of the Spring Break creations. No unifying theme, except a color scheme!

Let’s start with some serious creativity. I made beautiful pancakes…

Based off the original recipe for sweet yet hearty biscuits…

All made from an unexpected ingredient. The secret?

Mediocre soup! Trader Joe, bless your heart dear but this soup is not good. Way way way too sweet, weird texture.

Fortunately, I recognized its possibility for an enduring legacy in BAKED GOODS! And this I give you,

Sweet Potato Bisque-cuits!

1 cup Trader Joe’s Sweet Potato bisque
1/4 cup oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 T flax
1 tsp. baking powder

Combine dry ingredients.

Pour in bisque. Bake at 325 for 18 minutes or so.

For the pancake variation, just take away 1/2 a cup of the flour and make it on a griddle!

I had a really really great lunch with one of these bad boys.

Super hearty, slightly sweet, chewy. Outside gets a bit tough when they’ve been sitting out for a few days. Oh, and they’re great with almond butter.

Accompanying it on the plate:

A dipping selection. Carrots ‘n radishes with some mediocre hummus (only had bottled lemon juice, ugh) that I jazzed up with cumin.

AND the best soup of my life:

From the farmer’s market. Red lentil, roasted red pepper, and kale. Curryfied. The ingredient that made it magic?

COCONUT MILK.

Y’all I will be recreating this ASAP. Be on alert. Like, am putting coconut milk on the shopping list now. Ugh, which means putting 2 cans cause if there’s coconut milk my sister always opens it, uses like a tablespoon for random crap, and then forgets about it. Tangent.

Lunch, in the wonderful style of Spring Break that I so dearly miss, was enjoyed at a leisurely pace, in my sunlit kitchen, with flowers to admire.

I created a dinner over spring break that was GORGEOUS. Restaurant looking. And totally delicious. And healthy. And beautiful. Did I mention beautiful?

Base: I had a bunch of random homeless baby carrots from Steve, who’d left town. I tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them for a long time til they were golden. Then I pureed them with homemade vegetable broth.

Topper: I cooked up a batch of quinoa and tossed it with lemon zest and scads of fresh herbs: parsley and dill. Then I topped it with toasted pine nuts.

So pleased!

As delicious as it was gorgey.

Along with orange, the other big color for the week was pink, particularly in the form of canned salmon.

Cake batter! Salmon cakes, that is.

Canned salmon, dill, bit o’ plain yogurt, teensy bit of mayo (for richness, not binder), dijon mustard.

Given a griddle cooking (JUST til golden, it’s very easy to overcook these!)

And plated up with a big beautiful plate of cravings.

I was totally jonesing for mashed potatoes for some reason. So I halfed some cute little farmer’s market spudlets (unpeeled), steamed ‘em til tender, and mashed them up with dill, olive oil, and milk.

To include dill in EVERYTHING EVER, I also made a quick salad with radishes and cucumbers, tossed in a honey-oil-vinegar-dill dressing.

An exceptionally delicious plate of food.

And I love this gruesome zombie face it made!

And finally, potatoes and canned salmon were reunited when I had to finish off the can- smoked salmon and potato salad, with dill.

After a day of overindulging (can’t remember on what!), having a small portion of that with a big healthy pile of greens fit the bill perfectly.