Gingerbread House II

Kielbasa on whole wheat roll, Pasta Aglia Olio, Peas

Dinner tonight was the last of a bunch of Tofurky dogs (these were kielbasas) I bought on sale a while back.  They kept just fine in the freezer, and I grilled them on my cast iron grill.

I found the pasta “recipe” in Nava Atlas’ Vegan Express book.  I like how she has a lot of meal ideas in there that aren’t a whole fancy recipe.  This was Pasta Aglia Olio.  You just cook some spaghetti or linguini, and meanwhile saute some garlic in olive oil until golden.  For 8 oz. pasta she says to use 1/4 c oil and 6-8 cloves garlic.  Then you toss the pasta in the oil and add parsley or basil.  I added both, frozen, and salt and pepper.  It was wonderful, almost like pesto – my kids loved it.

Also we had microwaved frozen peas.

Gingerbread boy sledding off the roof.

Now to the Gingerbread.  My page from last year has all the details.  I had made the cookies Sunday but my son has been hacking up a lung all week so I didn’t want him decorating something we were going to eat.  The cookies kept in a plastic container and tonight I made the icing and took the kids candy shopping.  There weren’t any vegetarian gummies this year, which disappointed them, but they found plenty of hard candies and gumdrops.  I turned them loose with the stuff, went off to relax, and never heard two kids having so much fun.

The only things I did differently this year was to take the little gingerbread people out of the oven after 10 minutes, and for the icing used less water (4 T) and consequently less powdered sugar, just adding to the desired consistency.  Glad I did that, since there is still some left over.  I think last year they might have essentially frosted the whole cardboard base, while this year we used a white plastic storage container cover (washed, obviously).  I think I should also add directions to the cookie dough to add only as much flour to get a very stiff dough – I held back some of the flour which was obviously going to be too much this time.

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