Another Crazy Sunday Post

I always do the majority of my cooking on Sundays. Today was not an exception. It started at eight o'clock, which is very early for me on a Sunday morning! But J was going to the local soup kitchen to help prepare and serve lunch there, and I wanted to make a nice breakfast before he left.

I also wanted to make use of my new pancake animal pan. Who doesn't want monkey or giraffe mini-pancakes?

Here  is a picture of the pancakes. I used the Perfect Pancake recipe from Vegan Brunch, and true to its name, it was indeed perfect. I served the pancakes with Yves meatless breakfast patties. This is the first time I tried any of the Yves products, and J and I liked the patties a lot. They had the perfect "meaty" consistency.

I had to take a close-up picture of the monkey pancake, which was way too cute.

After that, I decided to relax ... so I did a little more cooking. It always bothers me to throw away wilted veggies, and I need a cup or two of vegetable broth to cook with, without fail, every week. So I decided to whip up a batch of homemade vegetable stock. I used the Busy Cook's Leek Broth recipe from The New Vegan Cookbook and the Homemade Vegetable Stock recipe from The Vegan Table as points of reference, because I've never made vegetable stock before.

Into my stock pot went: leek greens, an onion, garlic cloves, baby bella mushrooms, carrots, three stalks of seriously wilted celery, sea salt, parsley, thyme, and bay leaves.

I sauteed the vegetables in a little olive oil for a few minutes, then added some water and simmered everything for about half an hour or so. I took a picture of the simmering action, but for some reason cannot add it to the blog!

The vegetable stock has a nice, delicate taste. I reserved a few cups for a bulgur dish I'll be making later this week, and froze the rest for future use.

Next up was a bit o baking. I borrowed a vegan cookie cookbook from the library ... and not just any cookie cookbook, but the infamous Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I made a batch of Banana Everything Cookies.

I've never had banana cookies before, so I was really excited to try this. In addition to banana, the mix contained oats, chocolate chips, and chopped walnuts. It was a pretty sticky mess to shape these cookies into the recommended "smaller than a golf ball" size, but they all turned out looking really cute.

Banana is really great in a cookie, by the way! I ate a couple more of these than I intended (because they were so good), J ate his share of cookie goodness, and the rest he will take to work with him tomorrow. No way are they are going to stay in our house -- too much temptation for me!

After so many sweet goodies this weekend, I'm looking forward to a week's worth of calmer, digestion-friendly meals. With a lot more vegetables too -- I didn't really eat that many this weekend.