Catherine's Soup , Pita, & Cookies

Well, it has been too long since my last post. Over the weekend, I was using up leftovers. Saturday a friend and I went hiking. On Sunday I was tempted to cook; however I was heading out of town for work on Mon/Tues, so the idea was nixed.

Tonight I needed to stop at Trader Joe's and pick up a few items to test Catherine's Chickpea Noodle soup. By the time I got home, I was starving. My fridge had been housing an unopened package of Tofutti Cream Cheese for awhile and at TJs, I bought a nice looking jar of fire roasted red peppers. The Vegan Vittles cookbook has lox and cream cheese recipe that caught my eye. (Probably because I hated lox and cream cheese as a kid.) Though the cream cheese wasn't made from scratch like theirs, this made a quick and tasty snack. I've never been a cream cheese fan, but I really enjoyed the flavor of the Tofutti with the roasted red peppers.

After my pocket, I started chopping ingredients for the soup. I was able to cook it up in under an hour. The recipe called for another pasta type, but I only had rotini. The broth for this soup is absolutely amazing. It is a great mixture of herbs and some other flavors that I can't reveal. The veggies, pasta, and chickpeas make for a hearty meal. Though I might tweak this recipe a bit next time I make it, it is wonderful and I thank Catherine for giving me the opportunity to test this recipe slated for her upcoming cookbook.

The soup will last me a few days, so I likely won't post any new recipes until the weekend!

One last thing... The veg restaurant near my house, stopped selling their vegan chocolate chip cookies over a year ago. Every time I was there I would ask for the cookies, but they didn't plan on making them anymore. On my last visit, I asked the owner if he would share the recipe with me. He gave me a double chocolate chip cookie recipe that didn't look to me like the cookies I craved, but I decided to give it a try tonight.

I can definitively say these are not the right cookies, but they are decent. They are a little softer and more like drop cookies than I like. They are very healthy though. There is no oil or fat added and the sugars are sucanat, apple sauce and brown rice syrup. I subbed whole wheat flour for about 1/3 of the white flour and the white specks you see are rolled oats! If anyone wants me to post the recipe for them, I will.