Easter Again?!

    Incredible. Easter 2013 is over already! I'm pretty sure I was ringing in the new year just yesterday, anyone else feel the same? Anyway, my spring break last week was wonderful, our Easter celebration was wonderful, and today it was back to the old grind-stone.
    A quick review of my spring break looks something like this:

The pile is twice this size now...

I did a lot of packing because Steven's parents are coming up this weekend to take away as much of our stuff as they can. This process is making me super antsy to go! You have been fun Chicago, but I'm ready to run into the warm bosom of Pennsylvania!

    Friday was when I finally began to have some fun. My family and Steven and I got together via Skype to decorate Easter eggs (thank you technology).

Steven's eggs

The spread

My eggs

    Easter Sunday we got up early and went to the gym for our morning workout, then we returned home for a yummy Easter breakfast consisting of braided Easter bread (which tasted like an Auntie Ann's pretzel so the of course I must share the recipe) hard boiled eggs, and tempeh bacon.

Braided Easter Bread

Vegan Braided Easter Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/4 cup dark rye flour

2 tbs vital wheat gluten

1/4 cup raw sugar

1 tsp salt

1 package dry yeast

2/3 cup almond milk

2 tbs coconut oil (melted)

2 tbs ground flax mixed with 12 tbs water to make "eggs"

5 decorated eggs

Directions:

1) mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl 2) add all the wet ingredients. 3) knead the dough really well until it is elastic.4) Let the dough rise till it doubles in size. 5) Braid the dough into the shape you want on top of a cookie sheet. 6) Insert the eggs. 7) Let the dough continue to rise till double in size (I let mine rise overnight) 8) Bake at 350 for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

    After breakfast we hid Easter eggs for each other. Steven's contained the peanut butter cups I made for him, and mine contained seeds, nuts and little notes. What a sweetie. Before heading off to church we snapped a few pics:

    We ended our Easter celebration with a nice little vegan dinner of mushroom tarts, grilled and seasoned potatoes, grilled asparagus, and finally a peanut butter chocolate tofu pie (I don't have a picture =( ).

Peanut Butter Tofu Pie

Ingredients:

1 cup dates

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 package of tofu

2 1/2 tbs honey

5 tbs coconut oil

5 tbs carob powder

water as needed

Directions: 

1) Melt coconut oil and mix in carob powder and 1 tbs honey. 2) pour the mixture into a pie pan and put in the freezer. 3) In a blender combine dates, peanut butter, tofu, and 1 tbs honey and a little bit of water if needed. 4) When everything is smooth and blended together, pour into the pie pan on top of the carob mixture. 5) Drizzle with remaining honey. 6) Put back into freezer until ready to eat.

    I really must end this post now before I begin salivating at the memory of such yummy food....