August is kind of a dull month in North Florida–hot, humid, relentless. But September is exciting, a time to look for signs of change, harbingers of fall. I start to be on the lookout for webworm tents and ripe dogwood berries, pine cones chewed up by squirrels. (All of these are significant.)
On Saturday we made the most delicious tempeh-bacon sandwiches using this recipe I found on 101 Cookbooks and tweaked just the tiniest bit. We piled some hearty whole-grain toast with mashed avocado, baby spinach, homemade tempeh bacon, and Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes roasted in olive oil, brown sugar, and salt.
Who can resist the humble beauty of a mason jar?
I was sick this weekend, so we did easy, non-taxing things like reorganizing the kitchen cabinets. That’s my kind of nerdy fun–sorting and such. We arranged most of our dry staples into tidy mason jars, which we carefully labeled with labels Rob designed. The most often-used stuff–flour, sugar, brown sugar, quinoa, and egg replacer–went into a rainbow of Fiestaware canisters that we splurged on at Dillard’s. (We bought five canisters in one day; Rob likes to “balls it” sometimes, as he says.)
On Sunday night, Rob baked cookies, which is so comforting to me. I like to sit at the kitchen table and watch him carefully sift and measure. Rob was making vegan snickerdoodles, and our cat Carl was sitting on the table, watching too, and I was petting Carl and calling him “Snickerdoodle” just to make myself mad. (Snickerdoodle is the most annoyingly wholesome word.) But Carl really does look like a snickerdoodle, I must admit. He’s so round and cute, and his tabby fur makes him look like he’s been dusted with cinnamon and sugar.
The house smelled so good with the cookies baking. It was such a cozy smell. I went and lay on the couch and fell asleep while they were still in the oven, and in the morning, like magic, there was a big pile of cookies on the counter, glittering with sugar, just waiting to be my breakfast.
Snickerdoodles (adapted from The Joy of Baking)
Dough Ingredients:
2 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup Earth Balance, room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated white sugar
2 “eggs” (use egg replacer)
1 tsp vanilla
Coating:
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder.
In a separate bowl, beat Earth Balance and sugar together till smooth. Add egg replacer and beat well. Add vanilla and beat again. Then add flour mixture and beat until dough is smooth. Refrigerate till dough is firm enough to be worked, if necessary.
Roll dough into balls. Mix sugar and cinnamon together for topping. Roll dough balls in cinnamon and sugar. Bake on cookie sheets covered with parchment paper for 8 to 10 minutes.
The lovely snickerdoodles
