I know I've neglected you...like REALLY neglected you and I'm sorry. 2015 was a chaotic year, full of a lot of ups and downs and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and needed a break. It was me, not you. But this year I'm determined to have a great year and one of my resolutions is to get back into cooking and blogging. So be ready! ☺

First thing on my To Do List is: getting over this frickin' cold/sinus infection. It's hard to be awesome when you're all stuffed up and your head feels like it wants to explode.  Not to mention, I sound like a cross between Darth Vader and Girl 6 with my heavy breathing and raspy voice. It seems like everyone is down with this creeping crud...and this stuff apparently likes to lingers. I've already missed two days of work because of it and I'm pretty sure my office is one step away from going all Outbreak. There's a lot of people out with a cold, flu, or bronchitis.

I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to: hydrating, staying in bed, sleeping a ton, Purelling the sh*t out of everything, and using Puffs Plus Lotion (trust me, these are the holy grail of tissues). Peppy loves having me home and has been sleeping as much as I have. This weather has been pretty conducive for it. We even watched a great movie the other night, "Love and Mercy".  

I've also been eating a LOT of soup. A friend of mine made me a delicious Lemon Orzo with Chicken soup that I'm going to have to get the recipe for so I can make more. It felt insanely good on my sore throat.  In the meantime, this is one of my current favs to make when I'm feeling under the weather:

Red Lentil Coconut Soup

Ingredients

Instructions

1. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, red bell pepper, and jalapeno and saute until the vegetables have softened and the onion takes on a translucent color.

2. Add the ginger, garlic, curry, cinnamon, smoked paprika, salt and tomato paste. Stir. Cook for 3-4 more minutes.

3. Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, lentils, and garbanzo beans. Stir. Bring the the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 20-30 minutes.  

4.  Add the lime juice at the end. Stir.  Season with additional salt, if needed.

5. (Optional) Serve with cilantro and lime wedges.

Mr.S. and I have a ritual, on weekends we like to duck out of his house before all the crazy chaos begins and grab a cuppa joe at Temple. The large patio is great for people watching and gives us some time to wipe the sleep from our eyes and gather our bearings. Awhile back we noticed that a small bakery had opened in the plaza that houses Temple Coffee and Revolution Wines, called Pushkin's Bakery. The husband and wife run bakery was said to be dedicated to being wheat/gluten-free and dairy free. Music to my lactarded ears! Anyhow, we kept trying to pop in there to grab a little somethin' delish to nosh on but for some reason it was closed whenever we'd stop by. Bad timing, I suppose. Last weekend we finally scored. We were able to purchase several baked treats and enjoy them on the patio as we savored our hot cups of coffee.

When we entered the store, we were immediately greeted with the delicious aroma of fresh pastries baking. It was intoxicating and caused my stomach to growl in anticipation. The woman in front of us in line was busy bombarding the (very) patient gentleman working the counter with a million and one questions, so we had plenty of time to peruse the various baked goods in the display case. There was a nice variety of gluten and dairy free choices- cookies, cupcakes and breads. We settled on vegan zucchini bread, vegan banana walnut bread, a peanut butter cookie and one strawberry scone. The zucchini bread was wonderful; it was toothsome, ever so slightly sweet and extremely moist and spongy (I know a lot of you absolutely abhor the word "moist," but it's the best way to describe this bread). The zucchini was grated quite finely, making this a perfect treat if you're trying to sneak some veggies past your kidlet's eagle eye and picky palate. The homemade banana bread had nice big juicy bits of banana that you could see; however, the bread part itself tasted very sugary and had a gritty texture. I may have just gotten a bad one but not sure if I'd order that particular bread again. I did, however, like that the breads came in individual mini-loaf serving sizes- just the perfect amount for snacking.

Now Mr. S. fancies himself a connoisseur of peanut butter cookies. He gave Pushkin's crunchy PB cookie a thumbs-up and declared it "solid." I was able to wrestle away a crumb from him and agreed that the cookie exhibited a lot of peanutty flavor. The price was a bit steep for one cookie ($2.75) but we did appreciate that Pushkin's uses all natural ingredients solely from gluten-free manufacturers. My strawberry scone was the only clunker of the morning. It was extremely dry and I felt like I was munching on a thick dough brick with hard icing. Also, there was only one minute bit of strawberry in the whole scone.

Service there is terrific. Both owners were very friendly, helpful and willing to offer product recommendations. I noticed that they didn't rush customers even though it was busy and were happy to answer questions (no matter how many or how absurd).

Most gluten-free, dairy-free and/or vegan baked goods I've come across have tasted like cardboard or have been so dense that you could seriously maim someone if you lobbed it at their head. Not Pushkin's...but don't take my word for it, give this small business a try yourself. On my next visit, I think I'd like to try one of their delicious looking vegan chocolate-banana-peanut butter cupcakes (try saying that one really fast!)...and perhaps a salted pecan one too or maybe one of their "dudes" (mini pb cookies with chocolate chips and chocolate ganache). Ahhh, decisions, decisions.... ☺

* Note: the hours are a bit funky. They're only open Tues-Sat and don't open until 9am. So no Sunday/Monday or early morning pastry pickups here.

* Pushkin's also does catering and makes full-size wedding cakes.

* Get there early for the best selection, they do tend to run out of things quickly.