Meatless Mondays: All the Cool Kids Are Doing it

One of my oldest and dearest friends, Tina, and I often talk about and swap vegetarian/meatless meal ideals and recipes. She was a vegetarian for many years, and is a great and creative influence for my 1-3 meatless days a week goals. She shared with me today this link:

Paul McCartney on Meat Free Mondays

The article shares this video of Paul advocating Meat Free Mondays and the good they do to our young people.

I like how he shares all the points- not just health, but the economic and environmental impact reducing our meat intake has.

Plus, he's freakin' Paul McCartney! ;-)

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Mocha Sorbet

Here's a delicious treat we've been noshing here at the the Disheveled house.

I make this without an ice cream maker, because I do not have one, but feel free to toss the mixed ingredients in one if you have it!

You will need:

• 4 cups of coffee, doesn't have to be piping hot- warm enough to dissolve the sugar is fine
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (not hot cocoa mix!)
• a dash of salt
• a splash of vanilla

Mix it all up until the sugar is COMPLETELY dissolved. pour into a big, kind of flat container that's safe for the freezer. I use a big , thick, rectangle food storage container. Cover. Every few hours, scrape up the mush with a fork, and mix around a bit. After about 8-12 hours (you can totally leave it to sleep or whatever, it's flexible...) you can run it through a food processor or blender to smooth it out more if you want a finer texture. Return to the freezer to firm back up a bit. Enjoy!

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In a Hurry Dinner Rolls

I whip up these rolls when we've decided we want bread with our dinner- but the time for kneading and long rises has passed.

You will need:

• 1 1/4 C flour
• 2 TBS sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp (one package) yeast. I use the "quick-rise" for this recipe, but if you use regular it'll still rise pretty fast.
• 1 C very warm water
• 2 TBS shortening
• 1 egg

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast.

 

Add the water, shortening and egg. With a wooden spoon, beat until smooth. 

Scrape down the sides, you'll be letting it rise first in this bowl.

 Cover and let rise for 20-30 minutes until doubled in size.

Beat down about 20 turns of the spoon, and divide into a lightly greased muffin pan.
Let rise again for about 20-30 minutes. There is no point in trying to cover them- it will just cling to the plastic wrap and deflate when you try to remove it ;-)

Preheat oven to 400 during the last few moments of the second rise.

Bake the rolls 15-20 minutes, or until golden on the tops. If you had a helper grease your pan for you like I did- make sure you check the finished job before plopping in batter...or your sides will be super brown like the ones above! (They were still delicious though!)

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