eclaire (what's in a) name?

do you know about the amazing-ness of quinoa?  i learned about it a few years ago, and quickly became obsessed with quinoa because it is super quick to cook, has a very satisfying texture and taste, and is a complete protein (i.e. it contains all of the essential amino acids, something that can be challenging to find in one food item for vegetarians/vegans).  if you clicked on the link above and read the wikipedia page on quinoa, you’d know that part of what makes quinoa so special is that it’s a faux grain – it’s actually a seed.

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you may have noticed that posts have been a little further apart than usual around here lately, and i sincerely apologize. i’ve been spending most of my computer time obsessing over the new features in apple’s iLife ’09, and to be even more specific, i’ve been consumed with the faces feature in iPhoto. this new feature goes through your iPhoto library (mine dates back to ’01 with a few scanned pics from earlier years) and identifies the faces in all the photos using fancy face detection software. next, you provide a name to go with the faces of your friends and family members (i used my wedding photos for this because they contain just about everyone we know). after that, the program starts to get scary smart and suggests other photos that might contain these people as well. the program isn’t foolproof, though, and this led to me revisiting every single photo on my computer to correctly identify every single face.

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there are some cookbooks, like the one i used to make butternut squash risotto, that i go back to over and over, finding new and delicious recipes every time.  there are other cookbooks, however, that despite enticingly written concoctions, never quite carry through.  sadly, mike and i bought a cookbook like this years ago, entitled the student’s vegetarian cookbook: quick, easy, cheap, and tasty vegetarian recipes, by carole raymond. quite a title, huh?  we bought it when we were still students, and i can still remember spending an afternoon in the local bookstore, pouring over all kinds of cookbook options, before finally deciding that this cookbook had the most recipes that we would actually make.  unfortunately, every recipe we made was kind of a dud, and we stopped using the cookbook.  except for this one recipe, called sunday morning muffins.  the recipe was not perfect by any means, but i’ve reworked it a ton over the years (see all my edits below!), and i think it’s finally ready to share with you.

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in my last post, i inundated all of you with lots and lots of cookie recipes. so i thought that in this week, post-holiday festivities and indulgences, i would give you a hearty, low cal, and extremely satisfying recipe.

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mike and i are lucky enough to celebrate the christmas holiday with three different and fantastic sets of family: my mom, mike’s parents, and my dad. for the celebration at my mom’s this year, we decided to give edible presents to each other for various reasons, but the biggest of which is that we all love baked goods (it runs in the family, i guess). mike and i got a little overzealous about the project and selected not one, not two, not three, but yep, you guessed it, FOUR different kinds of cookies to give away. we chose to make: 1. krumkakes; 2. cocoa-coconut macaroons; 3. vegan strawberry pinwheels; and 4. cinnamon stars.

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