"Black Tea" Infused Sweet Potato Brownies

I've always wanted to make black bean brownies, but never got around to doing so. When I stumbled across several recipes featuring sweet potato brownies, I decided to merge a few of them together.

Some notes for next time:

• Cook the sweet potatoes in black tea as well. 
• Use a different kind of flour. 
• Add more flour. 
• Add some nuts.

Soaking the sweeteners in black tea two days prior: 

Put about ten dates and five figs in black tea to get the flavour.

Finished soaking!

Mixing the wet ingredients:

Blended the dates, figs, some black tea, vanilla extract and a lot of white-fleshed sweet potatoes.

The puree.
(This puree is so delicious. I've never eaten those sweet potato casserole things during Thanksgiving meals, but I imagine this is a lot like that, without the gooeyness of the marshmellow. That's totally fine with me though because I hate marshmellows.)

 Adding in the dry ingredients: 

Slowly added in cinnamon, cocoa powder, raw cacao, almond flour and gram flour.

Before baking: 

Almost ready to bake for a long time at about 150-180 degrees C. 
(I miss having a flour sifter. I think I spent at least twenty minutes attempting to dissolve the gram flour clumps. Also, had a spoonful of the extra batter and this is really good! However, the gram flour flavour is a bit too strong so I wish I had used some other kind of flour.)

After baking:

Yum! I had a spoonful because I can't resist freshly baked goods.
(The black tea flavour was no match for the raw cacao, so I think I'll have to cook the sweet potato in black tea next time. The inside is a bit gooey though; I didn't add a lot of gram flour because I knew the flavour would be really strong.)

Cauliflower "Rice" with Veggies

I love cauliflower. But first, check out Miffy's box of rice krispies:

So cute. Rice bubbles, hah.

On to the cooking:

This is a weird sweet potato. It's more like a yam...
I wasn't strong enough to cut into smaller pieces so I had to cook it in one large chunk.

Cooking the diced carrots with a teeeeensy bit of butter.

Added the "grated" (really just as finely as I could chop it) cauliflower.

Added the sweet potato/yam, peas and corn with a bit of tomato sauce leftover from the cabbage & corn "soup".  Also added some black pepper, black sesame powder and cinnamon. I only have so many spices and flavourings here.

After a lot of stirring on high heat! Yum.
(I'm kind of obsessed with carrots and cauliflower at the moment.)

Cabbage Tomato Corn "Soup"

So much cabbage...

Used half of it in the soup from last week and this much is still left!

Boiled a few leaves first and made this black sesame mashed potato with peas & corn for lunch:

I don't think I've ever had raw cabbage.

I've never cooked a potato this way before, but more surface area = faster.

Added in some frozen peas & corn to the mashed potato.

Added some black sesame powder, almond milk, black pepper and a teensy bit of butter.

But I still had this much left over:

A sink full of cabbage.

It won't even fit in the largest cooking utensil I have available!

So I decided to make some cabbage and corn soup:

Boiled the canned corn kernals.

Added it to the boiled cabbage. I later managed to fit the entire sink of cabbage inside this wok.

But that looked boring, and tomatoes sounded like it'd be good. And I had a bottle of pureed tomatoes, so why not?

Haven't bought tomato sauce in so long. But since the only ingredient is tomato, I decided to go for it.

Hopefully this is a good decision...

I have to admit, I didn't want to eat this after seeing it. Seriously looks like slop. Quite afraid to taste it.
I just let it simmer for about an hour or two to prolong the tasting.

Doesn't look too bad anymore... if I had pasta or a grilled cheese sandwich this would probably taste pretty good. Actually, it's a bit acquired but it's not bad at all. I might have also added a bit too much cayenne pepper so it's like spicy tomato-based pasta sauce with cabbage as the "noodles".

Cabbage, Carrot, Potato & Ham Soup

Bought this massive cabbage at the Queen Victoria market for $2 AUD so I'm going to be eating cabbage-based meals for quite awhile.

Puny knife meets big cabbage.

The wind's been howling for the past several days so I decided soup was the best dish to make because (1) I can get rid of some cabbage, (2) I can stay warm and (3) I get super lazy when it's cold outside and soup is easy!

Veggie prep! Diced some red pontiac potatoes, sweet potatoes and a whole lotta carrots.

Washing each cabbage leaf by hand because I'm paranoid.

Yay the beginning of my cabbage soup.

Added in the rest of the veggies and the three spices that I have: cinnamon, black pepper & cayenne pepper.

Wanted to steam the rest of my potatoes but didn't want to get another pot out or hold the colander, so I made a make-shift steamer.

Added the ham once all the veggies looked ready.

Simmering for a bit. Mmm, smells amazing!

Peach "Crisp"

Canned peaches here are not the same as fresh peaches. I was somewhat hoping they'd be mildly similar but canned peaches don't even come close!

I also wanted to make a cobbler, but couldn't bake so the pastry part wouldn't have been able to cook properly. Hence the "crisp" that still didn't turn out the way I wanted to. Such a sad Friday Fun Day.

At least it tastes alright! Bit too sugary for my tastes, but it reminds me of the peaches & cream oatmeal packets. So I think I'll continue eating this with yogurt and potentially almond milk. Maybe I can incorporate some of it into a pancake batter...

The darn canned peaches.

Heated the peaches, sugar, water and cinnamon.

Added some flour because I didn't have cornstarch.

Melted some butter for the topping.

Added some sugar and cinnamon. Ugh, that looks vile.

Added the oats and flour.

Attempted to brown the oats. Burnt a few, but at least they're mildly crunchy.

Added the topping to the filling.

After simmering the pan for a bit.

Sampling it with some "frozen" Greek yogurt and cinnamon.