Shiny Cooking is all about delicious, mostly vegetarian recipes that use whole grains, natural foods, local foods, and fresh food from the garden, with an emphasis on heirloom (non-hybrid) variety seed stock. Check the "about" page for more about me, and subscribe now to the RSS feed to get automatic updates.
July 9, 2009 in breakfast / brunch, gluten-free, vegetarian • 3 comments
Dear banana-oat pancakes,
It’s not you. It’s me. I love bananas, oats, and ohmigod pancakes. And you’re fine. Better than fine. You’re sweet and oat-nutty and you never leave your dirty socks on the floor. Oh, sure, you might be a bit temperamental about griddle temperatures, but what pancake isn’t?
But you see, you’re too good for [...]
August 31, 2009 in 100 calorie snack, appetizers, gluten-free, vegetarian • 3 comments
Want an easy, colorful, summery, fancy-schmancy looking appetizer to serve guests? These little fellas fit the bill, the bright crunch of juicy tomato mingling with sweet basil and fresh mozzarella, all drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette.
There. The food porn description is out of the way.
We threw a surprise party for Mom Saturday. As I apparently [...]
July 17, 2009 in 100 calorie snack, desserts, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian • 2 comments
Check out this awesome bowl Dad found under the house.
Under the house, you say? Why yes, under the house. Why do you ask?
Oh, you didn’t know. My house got a new foundation this spring.
Wow, those plum blossoms in the background sure look pretty.
So yesterday Dad, his cousin, and the guy who works with [...]
August 25, 2009 in PIE, desserts, gaming porn, gluten-free, travel porn, vegan, vegetarian • 5 comments
Blueberry pie ranks right up there. Number two after sour cherry pie, for sure. I’d always had blueberry pie that was baked, but the blueberries this year are so fabulous — large, and the perfect sweet-tart combination — that I wanted to do one that was more strawberry pie-style.
In other words, blueberries mixed with [...]
June 30, 2009 in 100 calorie snack, cookies, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian • 4 comments
Ignore the “gluten-free” in the title. These are not some saintly cardboardy cookie things.
And I’m really not trying to be All About Baking here. Honestly.
And I’m not trying to be all health nut vegetarian gluten-free, either. FSM knows I’m a crappy vegetarian and an even more piss-poor health nut.
But you know what? These cookies [...]
August 19, 2009 in canning and freezing, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian • 2 comments
Skip ahead to to the blue text if you want the instructions without the incoherent babbling.
Flash freezing has been done in the food industry for ages to quickly preserve and seal in nutrients and freshness. It’s why nutritionists say frozen seafood, vegetables, and so forth are technically “fresher” than their fresh cousins you find [...]
August 27, 2009 in canning and freezing, gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian • 4 comments
Dad plants sweet corn for all of us every year, staggered a week or two apart so we have sweet corn for longer. I don’t know exactly how far apart; I’m sure someone will read this and correct me since I seem to get something wrong in every post.
It’s like when there’s a story [...]
March 2, 2010 in gluten-free, salad, vegan, vegetarian • 3 comments
This recipe featured on Wanderfood Wednesday and Real Food Wednesday!
This is the time of year when we write posts about how tired we are of winter. But I’m not. I’m totally over being tired of winter. I already gave in a few weeks ago to the allure of fresh produce, abandoning the frozen corn, green [...]
August 3, 2009 in gluten-free, how to, salad • 5 comments
I know, I know, you’re just antsy for that currant chiffon pie. Because there are no recipes for currant chiffon pie in existence (Google tells me so) I had to tweak from recipes for inferior fruits like lemon and orange. As a result, the first pie (yesterday) was good, but I decided it could be [...]
September 4, 2009 in canning and freezing, gluten-free, how to, vegan, vegetarian • 1 comment
Yup, we sure did.
I provided the kitchen and the canner and my aunt picked the pears, cleaned the pears, peeled the pears, cut the pears, packed the pears, and processed the pears.
I practically did it all by myself!
the canning stuff, yawn
Right there you see the basic canning setup on the stovetop. I began doing this [...]
October 9, 2009 in canning and freezing, gluten-free, rude taunting, vegan, vegetarian • no comments yet
Truly, these pickles only appear before you because I’m dead tired. Been working on a house all week and I’m a tad unused to hours of physical labor every day. It’s a good tired, I guess. There’s overdone tired and there’s muscles kind of achy but in the well-used and getting stronger way, and it’s [...]
August 10, 2009 in 100 calorie snack, appetizers, gluten-free, vegetarian • 6 comments
Oh my. The garden asplode. Zucchini, broccoli, carrots, green beans, broccoli. And the broccoli isn’t sporting those horribly invisible green worms yet. I think.
There’s still lettuce and peas, though that’s ending now that hot temps have arrived, and cucumbers coming along, and some poblanos that are looking mighty big, and swiss chard with leaves 2 [...]
August 23, 2009 in PIE, desserts, gluten-free, vegetarian • 13 comments
Now there’s a mouthful. Know why? Because it’s so versatile. It works for the gluten-free folks. It works for the pie folks. It works for the tart folks. It works for the don’t-make-me-get-out-the-rolling-pin folks.
Even better, this walnut-oat pie crust recipe is just a prelude to the fresh blueberry pie I made it with, coming up [...]
