Banana Walnut Cranberry Almond Cookies

I've realized that I tend to enjoy cooking most when I'm stressed out, upset, or in a frazzled mood where I just need to distract myself. Perhaps this is why I've been such a cooking fiend the past month or so. There is something very soothing (and very easily distracting) about moving around your kitchen and using your arm muscles to chop and dice and mix and mold food--the kinesthetic nature of the actions is perhaps what attracts me to it and makes me wanna cook when I'm fidgety and too distracted to just sit down and read or something. Movement is good. Friday was such a case.

Mid-afternoon, after having had my cat foam at the mouth upon eating something weird out on my roof and after having walked home from the Westside Market in the beautiful gorgeous sun only to tank about $6 worth of groceries when my bag broke and smashed onto the sidewalk, I was really in need of burning off some kinesthetic energy. So voila--Banana Walnut Cranberry Almond Cookies. Really, I was just lazy and didn't have the sunflower seeds to just make the regular Banana Sunflower Seed Cookies I'd made on a prior occasion, so instead, I just threw in what I happened to have around and wanted to use up--some dried cranberries, a smidgen of almonds, and some walnuts. They were good, but they most definitely could've used more cranberries because the taste got a bit lost amidst the bananas and nuts due to the fairly small quantity I had on hand. This is a nice, light cookie recipe though, which can easily be played with a billion times over by adding different sorts of items instead of sunflower seeds. Not recommended: feces, pushpins, toenails. Unless you're into that.

Verdict: B/C

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcake-Wannabes

~ adapted from a recipe from Vive La Vegan

Verdict: B

Comments: This recipe makes chocolate peanut butter squares. But I have yet to suck it up and buy a brownie-sized pan. So instead, I made the recipe in a muffin pan for 12 individual little ploppy poops of chocolatey-peanut butter goodness. For once, I cooked the recipe too LONG instead of too SHORT. I was gonna take them out at 10 minutes (instead of 15 which the recipe called for), given the change in pans. But since I always error on too short, I left them in. They are a bit too crunchy and dry on the bottom because of it. I also had no sugar to work with last night, so I substituted in the rest of my powdered sugar instead of the regular sugar called for in the peanutbutter filling--I suspect the recipe from the book yields thicker and sweeter filling. All in all, they came out ok enough that I ate three of them in one sitting last night--*sigh*. Next time I'm gonna suck it up and buy a brownie pan though. And some sugar.

Ooey Gooey Grilled Cheese Sammiches

~ from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook

Verdict: B/C

Comments: Much more successful than the block cheeses I've attempted, but still not all that. The main jist of the recipe is nutritional yeast, water, cornstarch, tahini, ketchup, and flour, with an assortment of spices thrown in for good measure. It was ooey and gooey and definitely had the feel of a grilled cheese sandwich. But the ratio of lemon juice in it was WAY too high--every bite was chock full of uncalled-for lemony goodness, which just ain't right in a grilled cheese. With a little bit of work, I suspect this could eventually become an A sammich.