~ The Crystal Dish ~

What does fall remind me of? Warm soups, cozy slippers, pumpkins, stews, ciders, leaves falling.... you know all those buzz words, but my absolute favorite thing to eat in the fall is soup. Soup, Soup, Soup. All Day every Day... You know how in my last post I shared my love of tacos.... well if I had to pick between my love of soup and tacos... oh gosh... it would seriously be a toss up because I just love soup and everything that comes with it. It's a comfort thing for me.  As soon as we get that first chilly day, the soup pot hits the stove... Its all over.... My husband is stuck with my soup craze once again... Sorry Jack... Please still love me through my soup craziness... Don't worry, it'll only last through the fall, well, and maybe into the winter... LOL Jack just doesn't share this soup passion like I do... He's more of a give me meat and potatoes type of guy, which it totally fine, so I try and limit when I make soup a little bit, or make when he's work

  For our first kick-off into Plant Based eating, here we are.... Face-to-Face... Face-to-Taco??? I mean who could complain about the yummy goodness of an amazing Taco? I could literally eat Tacos any and every day... All day every day. Anyone else? These Tacos as I made them, Jack, totally thought I had shredded chicken in the pan. My husband does not like mushrooms, so he wouldn't even try these ones... I should've made them without him home and then tricked him... haha.... In case you missed my journey about why I have transitioned to this change in eating, check it out here My Change to Plant Based Eating Pulled "Pork" Tacos Ingredients: - 4 King Oyster Mushtooms - 2 tbs. Avocado oil, divided - 1 tsp smoked paprika  - 1/4 Himalayan salt 1/4 tsp. Cayenne pepper 2 garlic cloves, minced 4 corn tortillas 1 avocado, sliced 2 tbs fresh cilantro, minced 1/2 lime sliced into wedges Pickled onions Instructions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (204 C).  Clean mushrooms with a

Have I ever told you how much my kids love applesauce? Or how much I use to make them applesauce? It use to be an annual thing I would do every fall, but for some reason the last 3 years, I haven't been making it.  This year I decided to bring it back, and I'm bringing it back for good. The kids love it and I would rather the kids have homemade than store-bought, that way I know what is going into the applesauce that they are eating and I know that it's not filled with any extra un-needed sugar. I keep my applesauce super simple and depending on how much they eat, which, if I let them, they can polish it off pretty quickly because I mean let's face it, who doesn't like homemade applesauce. Homemade Applesauce with Love, now that's an even different story. My applesauce is not your regular applesauce either. I add a few extra spices in mine as well that kind of kick it up a notch and give it an extra little flavor which my kids love.  This years applesauce recipe

  As our sourdough starter finished ripening, or should I say coming alive, I was ready and waiting to bake and cook away with that starter and try new things. I still have a Sourdough Starter and bread bucket list that consists of challah, English muffins, crumpets, croissants, etc, but for now, I tried two different things and I finally got it right.  I tried two different recipes, One Artisan recipe and one regular sourdough recipe. Our family liked the regular sourdough recipe better. I may need to give the Artisan recipe another shot, but for now we're going to stick to this sourdough recipe that was a pretty basic recipe. It was easy to follow and I made some few minor tweaks which I'm still working a few more tweaks out to make everything perfect.  If you couldn't already tell, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my cooking and using sourdough was no different. I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted the bread to be like that Sourdough Bread you get

 To say I love bread would be an understatement. This year we decided on more than one occasion to take up the joy of undertaking the art of sourdough. Earlier in the year, my little starter went rancid because I forgot to feed my baby, but this time around, I am committed and I plan on keeping my starter for years.  This time around with my, or should I say our Sourdough Starter, because I wanted to teach my kids some life skills and what better way to teach them these amazing life skills, then with the art of making this amazing sourdough starter. It's fun too!!!! Nicholas was totally into it! He wanted to be the "SOURDOUGH MASTER" as he called it.  So, I let him join me in the kitchen for this fun little adventure. And it's been quite the adventure of feeding our little Sourdough Baby/babies... I'll get into the babies later... Just don't do what I did and go overboard. I had I think about 6 starters at once going. I didn't think it through. LOL I have