Lunchbox Black bottom Pie & Dumplings

CANNING: (link to my favorite canning info site)
If I have inspired you to can anything that I did from yesterday please know that I have a pressure canner. A water bath canner will NOT work for the rice, TVP strips and black eyed peas. Yesterday, Melissa and I made 9 pints of salsa, 1 pint of diced tomatoes and 3 pints of tomato juice. I still have about 25 pounds of roma and early girl tomatoes to do something with. I will make tomato soup to pressure can with half of these ... probably this afternoon and maybe KETCHUP or BBQ sauce with the roma's that are there tommorrow.

LUNCHBOX:
A creamy lunch for a cooler day. We made chik'n stew (carrots, celery, onions, garlic included) and cooked dumplings over them last night, this is the yellow stuff in the round container. I tried Vegan with a Vengeance Black Bottom Pie, only I really messed with the recipe. I am not a purist when it comes to all processed flour treats, but massive quantities of sugar just really makes me climb the walls or worse bounce of them. I nixed the sugar in this pie and cut the oils, nut butter .... you ask if there was anything good left? Well, yes. The stuff in the square container. The sunflower seeds really gave a pronounced flavor, Dave loved it, Melissa wished it tasted more peanuty... I thought it was medicore but loved the semisweet chocolate on the crust. To complete a lunch, pop the lids closed and throw in a bottle of mint herbal tea slightly sweetened with stevia. Melissa tasted the tea and said, "Hey! I like that this will give me fresh breath." After I took the picture I added a few celery sticks to this lunch.

THE PIE:
This was a fun one to do. I pulled out the chocolate chips again and made a graham cracker crust using the Ryvita rye crackers, 1 1/2 crushed cups full - the magic bullet did a fine job of this. I prefer Dreena's crumb crust recipe using 1/4 cup maple syrup and 2 Tbsp olive oil. My sis made this crust using sugar free commercial pancake syrup and applesauce, she says it turned out okay. I baked it just a bit to get it to hold it's shape, but VwaV cookbook adds 1 Tbsp soymilk to make it softer and says to just press it all in the pie pan. Then I melted the 1/4 cup chips with 2 Tbsp soymilk and brushed it into the bottom of the crust. Refrigerate until hardened. I forgot to use the remaining as a drizzle, so I added shredded chcolate to the top of my pie.


The filling recipe I used was a total remake of the original recipe also. I threw the following into the blender and pureed until smooth (I use a BOSCH kitchen center with a very powerful blender attachment, but this should work with most blenders, esp the ice crushing kind).
1 - 12.3 oz box mori-nu lite silken tofu
2/3 C soymilk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup sunflower seeds, mine were salted

I suppose you could use any nut here, the
original recipe called for this much peanutbutter

1/2 cup very hot water with 1 Tbsp agar granules/ powder dissolved into it

VwaV says 3 Tbsp, but they must have meant the flakes
or something, that would be a HUGE amount of the granules

1 tsp KAL brand stevia (this will make it very sweet, you could reduce)

1 1/2 cups of sugar is the amount called for with the VwaV recipe.

I consider 1 scant tsp KAL brand stevia extract to be the equivalent
of 1 cup worth of powerful sweetness

Pour into the hardened and chilled pie shell. Allow to set for at least three hours, better to allow it to go overnight. I sprinkled chocolate crumbs/ shavings on the top.

The gave the dumpling stew dish a nice protein boost while the chocolate chips gave it the satisfaction of a dessert. One meal and lunchboxes for three = empty pie pan!

MATTHEW:
Poor Matthew didn't even get to try a bite of this pie and he is the one who pointed it out to me. He went through his first week of school well and with only a few problems. While he is at school he stays with Dave's dad during the week and comes home on the weekend (semi- independant). We went around the city and the campus a few times prior to the first day with him so he had no problem finding what he needed. They have a nice exercise facility that limits membership so it doesn't get crowded, we are trying to persuade him to join so he can swim... right now he's not interested. He really likes his classes and teachers are really great. He's in an area he enjoys. When he is done he will be able to take the test for A+ certification as well as two others for software (computer networking and technology). Plus he gets to work at grandpa's greenhouse a couple of hours each morning.

Problems included forgotting meds a couple of days (but hopefully we've worked out a method that will help him remember) ... he has asthma and takes an attention med. He ate to much white flour and something he ate at school must have had dairy so he is having a skin reaction this weekend (major uncomfortable, so we have been doctoring him)... when his body has to fight with food issues his immune system lowers, so he also has an infection on his toe and must wear an opened toe shoe this week. He's looking forward to going back this week.

CRAFTY:
The Renaissance Faire is at an area near us for the upcomming two weekends. Matthew is into this period of history. We shopped JoAnn's Fabrics this weekend and purchased him a pattern and material to make a Legalos (Lord of the Rings) costume. He was so excited he cut his paper pattern peices out last night. We plan to work on getting the pattern onto the material next weekend. There was such a good sale there that I also purchased a pattern and material for a skirt, two shirts, and another jumper with all the notions as well as a pattern for a bathroom decor ... sink, shower, and window curtain. I got all of my stuff for less than $26. I know I won't be able to work on mine until Christmas vacation and even then I will be making that matching purse for my brown birthday outfit first.