poopiebitch.com - a vegan food blog » sweets

Odds and ends

poopiebitch — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:12:21 +0000

It’s really shameful that it’s been almost a week since I updated. Oops. I’ve been busy with lots of things though – not the least of which is cycling! The Brit and I dusted off our bikes (actually, he bought a new one and we dusted off mine, but whatever), and have been trying to get in as much cycling as possible. So far this month I’ve done 43 miles – my goal is 100 miles in May.

To help me keep up with my goal, I’ve put together a Cycle Progress Chart (some of you might have already seen it – it’s over there —>). If you notice it hasn’t budged in a few days, please feel free to give me a proverbial kick in the arse to get going again!

In other news, this last weekend Bianca of Vegan Crunk and I put together an awesome party. We called it the Prodigious Vegan Sushi-Palooza Madness Extravaganza. It totally lived up to its name. I haven’t uploaded any of my photos yet (not sure if I even have any worth posting), but go check out Bianca’s post about it – trust me, you won’t regret it.

I promise not to leave you without pictures of food! First, check out the pizza I made last week from some extra dough I had frozen:

Check out those crust bubbles.

The whole thing was covered in roasted red pepper sauce and onions, which is all The Brit wanted on his half (crazy man). I then added some tofu ricotta, black olives and arugula to my half, making it far superior.

Then I made a couple of testers for Kelly and Garrick’s Vegan Cookie Book (it’s in its final stages of testing! woo!). I made Rice Crispy Treats and Flapjacks.

No special vegan marshmallows or marshmallow creme required.

No, not pancakes... proper oat flapjack like they eat in the UK.

Both of these recipe were awesome, just like all the other recipes in their book!

Lastly, I’ve been helping a friend plan and purchase items for a joint birthday party for her daughter and nephew this weekend. We’re making a ‘Pink Princess Doll’ cake and a ‘Lightning McQueen’ cake (from the movie Cars). Did I mention there are 130 people invited to this party? Yeah. On the plus side, she wants to make all of the cake vegan even though no one in attendance (including her) is vegan! Awesome, yes?

They were sitting, they were sitting on the strawberry swing

poopiebitch — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:54:20 +0000

Last week I went strawberry picking for the first time. Bianca met up with me (and The Brit, but he didn’t do any of the picking) at Windermere Farms, which is a locally-owned certified organic farm, run by a couple that she knows. I think they mostly grow strawberries, although I understand that they also have lima beans and squash later in the year.

We picked eight pounds of strawberries between us – three pounds for me and five for her. The whole experience of picking them was really fun, but nothing could be more fun than getting to eat them. And what better way to enjoy them than with some Chocolate Chip Quickcake?

Check out those beautiful berries.

I’m lucky enough to be testing recipes for Tami’s upcoming cookbook, and this recipe caught my eye right away. I already had all of the ingredients, most importantly the strawberries. Of course it helps that I’m always in the mood for something sweet. It was a breeze to put together, and the combination of not-too-sweet cake studded with chocolate chips paired perfectly with the juicy ripe strawberries.

This was my first tester for her book, but based on what I’ve seen, this is going to be another one you’re going to want!

The last of the travels

poopiebitch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:02:00 +0000

In Nashville we got to meet up with a couple of people from the PPK for brunch at Fido. It was super-fun and yummy, although I didn’t manage to get any pictures of my food (sorry!).

Here’s the adorable Annieeggplant, who was kind enough to grace us with her awesome presence:

And of course, what would a trip to Nashville be without a visit with the fabulous johnp? Here he is holding the famous little blue monster made by pandacookie:

Thanks so much to John for organizing such a fun get-together! It was really great meeting you two!

After Nashville we wound up driving to Asheville NC, you know, just for fun. After just a little searching online we found this fantastic place called The Green Sage:

I opted for a soy latte:

And this enormous brunch plate with scrambled tofu, sweet potato home fries, vegan sausage, a giant vegan biscuit(!) and Earth Balance. Holy yum, this was good.

It was freezing out, so after we finished eating brunch we decided to stick around in the warmth for a bit longer and indulge in a little Earl Grey tea. They had soy milk, rice milk, agave and stevia on the condiment bar! I love Asheville.

That’s it for our trip out east. Last week The Brit and I went to TX to visit the grandparents, so of course a visit to Spiral Diner was in order. The Brit and I each ordered a sandwich and split them, so we could both try a couple of things.

We got the Meatball Sub:

And the Chopped BBQ Seitan:

We both agreed that the BBQ Seitan sandwich was better, but we managed to finish them both anyway After lunch I ordered an almond milk latte with vanilla syrup. It was soooo good.

Check out that foam:

Of course, I couldn’t leave without dessert. We ordered the ‘Deathstar Sundae’, which was a warm brownie with homemade vanilla ‘i-scream’ and soy whipped cream, with a shot of espresso on the side to pour over the whole thing. The Brit didn’t really like it (he’s not much of a sweets person), so I had to eat most of it. Such a sacrifice, right?

Overall, this visit to Spiral Diner went over with The Brit much better than last time, and that in itself made me happier than the food did. Well, almost.

What do you mean it’s been over four months?

poopiebitch — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Happy New Year! (Okay, so it’s a little late. Whatev.)

I got a job in October working as a Customer Service Supervisor for a well-known electronics company, but my last day was Wednesday so that’s all sort of irrelevant now. My new job is to help The Brit with his business – bookkeeping, answering phones, data entry etc… Should be fun, right?

I’ve eaten lots of good things in the last few months, but I don’t have many pictures to share. I’ll show you the few things I have managed to capture before I devoured them.

First off, some frozen vegetable filled buns I got from the Asian market a while ago. Steamed in my bamboo steamer, these were surprisingly good. I haven’t been back, but when I do finally go I will definitely get more of these. Sorry, no inside shot.

Next, I finally made Julie’s sausages (along with a shit-ton of other things) for a get together at my house. I didn’t get pictures of any of the finished food, but I did manage to snap this photo of the dry ingredients for the sausages. So pretty, no?

Chicken Parmesan! Boca patties, vegan parmesan, marinara and Teese. Totally easy, but super yummy. Served with whole wheat linguine with marinara and a giant salad (not shown).

Next up, my first ever experience with soy curls – Thai style peanut coconut curry. I soaked the soy curls in chicken style broth, squeezed out the liquid and sauteed them in my wok until they were browned. Removed them and sauteed some bell peppers and onions with fresh garlic and ginger. Removed those and made the sauce. I couldn’t duplicate it if I tried, but it was something like coconut milk, reserved chicken style broth, maple peanut butter, tamarind paste, demerara sugar, thai red curry paste, lime juice and dried basil. Simmered until thickened, added everything back in, served with rice. The only thing it was missing was fresh basil, but it’s impossible to find here this time of year so I settled. It was still yum.

And for dessert, Triple Threat Chocolate Cheesecake from My Sweet Vegan. Words can not do it justice, so I’ll just leave you with a picture.

Last supper

poopiebitch — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:18:00 +0000

Thanks to everyone who offered their condolences for my recent loss.

My new oven will be delivered tomorrow. I have needed a new oven since we moved into this house, but I’ve never HAD to buy one, so I’ve been putting it off. It is kind of a blessing in disguise, although choosing a replacement oven was not without it’s own trials.

The oven that died is the original from when the house was built. It’s 23 years old and never held a consistent temperature since I’ve lived in the house. It’s always required constant babysitting of my oven thermometer to not turn every cake and meal into charcoal. In a nutshell, it was time.

Unfortunately, it is a 27″ drop-in oven. The counter around it is built to fit a 27″ drop-in oven, and nothing else. There is only one 27″ drop-in oven on the market these days. It is small, it is crappy, and it is $1200. If I was going to spend that amount, I did not want to settle for a newer (admittedly better) version of the same thing. I had a tough choice to make.

I decided to shell out a little more, and get an oven that I love. Namely, this oven. I had enough money saved from my cake business to buy it in cash, thankfully. It will not fit where the old oven is, so it will have to sit on the other side of the counter (in the dining room) until I can figure something out. I can’t afford to remodel the kitchen right now, so I’ll just have to get used to having the stove in another room. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll take a picture once it’s here and in place.

Here is a picture of the last meal my oven ever made:

Baked BBQ Tempeh, couscous and mixed veggies (from the freezer!). Easy, but good.

Buying ovens isn’t all I’ve been up to the last few days. I’ve also made petit fours (among other things which I didn’t get pictures of)! These were for a bridal shower. They were having a zebra stripe and monogram theme, with red accents.

I think the zebra stripes turned out so cute:

(Hopefully) pictures of my beautiful new oven tomorrow!

Just cookies

poopiebitch — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:39:00 +0000

Sorry for the sporadic postings lately – I will try to do better! Also, I am working on getting caught up on reading blogs, I promise!

I promised to post a picture of the ice cream sandwiches I made. I made half with Vanilla Rice Dream (shown) and half with Tofutti Better Pecan. I love both, but I think I love the Vanilla a little more because the others seem just a little too sweet. These are so perfect on a hot day I can’t even tell you.

I made another tester for Kelly and Garrick’s vegan cookie book today. Soft Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I subbed some of the regular PB for White Chocolate Wonderful PB, and increased the chocolate chips. They are so soft and amazing, I want to eat them all.

They practically require a glass of soy (or rice or almond) milk.

If you are a peanut butter/chocolate lover, it will be worth buying the book just for this recipe alone.

Also, my friend Ahnah has started a vegan blog of her own, so go check it out!

Bad blogger, good sister

poopiebitch — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:07:00 +0000

I know, I know… three days since I updated last. I’m a bad blogger. Here are some of the things I have been eating since I last updated:

Lindt 70% Cocoa Intense Dark chocolate bar. It is OMG good, and so very dark and rich that I simply can’t eat more than one square at a time.

After craving and craving that sandwich I had at Spiral Diner, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I made the Jamaican Jerk sauce from VwaV and marinated some five grain tempeh. Here it is with some pineapple in my trusty cast iron grill pan (I made way more than I could eat in one sitting!):

I put it one some whole grain toast with Vegenaise, lettuce, red onion and Wickles (the best spicy pickles in the world). It wasn’t quite the same, but it was still hella good.

After all that savory goodness, I needed something sweet. I had some silken tofu that needed to be used up, so I made chocolate mousse pie, natch.

First I made the crust. I had about half a package of slightly stale Newman-O’s (chocolate sandwich cookies), so they went into the blender first and got turned into crumbs. To those I added about 3 Tbs melted Earth Balance, and pressed the crust into the pie plate.

I added 1 package silken tofu to the blender and pureed until it was smooth. I added 1/4 cup Kahlua, a tsp of vanilla and a generous squeeze of agave, then processed again. I melted 1 1/2 cups of vegan chocolate chips and added that to the blender, processing again until everything was smooth and creamy.

I spread it in the pie crust and left it in the fridge until it was set. So freakin’ rich and creamy.

It was so good, but The Brit wouldn’t even try one bite. Oh well, I took some to my sister’s house and her whole family enjoyed it!

Yesterday I played the role of big sister and took my younger sister Abbie to the mall. Abbie is 11, which gives me an excellent excuse to ride the carousel!

Disclaimer: it is very difficult to take a picture of someone sitting next to you on a carousel, because as you are going up they are going down, and vice versa.

That said, here is Abbie:

I don’t really have an excuse for the blurry picture of myself (notice that I have taken most of the color out of the picture – this is because I was sitting under some bizarre red light that made me look like a demon, and I attempted to counteract that with desaturation):

After much walking around and looking at shiny things, we got hungry and stopped for lunch. Abbie opted for Chick-fil-a:

The only thing I could find to eat was spaghetti from Villa Pizza, which was cold and cost $5, but at least it was filling:

We met up with my little brother (who is 20) after the mall and went and played miniature golf (I won both games, of course). I didn’t get any pictures of that though because it was HOT and I didn’t feel like lugging my camera around the course. Trust me though, hilarity ensued.

And last but not least, the mandatory ‘sisters acting very silly together’ shot:

Spiral Diner

poopiebitch — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:30:00 +0000

The Brit and I made the drive back from Texas Tuesday afternoon, getting back home early evening. Yesterday was a busy day of catching up on missed calls and emails etc, topped off with babysitting my niece and nephew for a couple of hours so my sister could go get her hair cut in peace.

The visit was good, but it always is when I go see my grandparents. The rest of my family kind of get on my nerves (although I still love them, of course), but my grandparents are a different story. For one thing, everyone else in my family are die-hard extreme-right conservative republicans. My grandparents are liberal democrats. In other words, they’re smart.

They still love their meat, though. Before the trip my Mema asked me if I was still a vegetarian (yes, Mema – STILL). When I told her that I had also stopped eating diary and eggs, she paused for a second and said “well, sweetheart, what DO you eat?”. Gotta love her.

They eat out every night, so the trip pretty much consisted of us going to a meat-centric restaurant and me trying not to be a pain in the arse while still trying to eat enough to survive. The outings to steak houses and burger joints were all worth it though, for my one little trip to Spiral Diner.

Mema and Papa were less than excited about the prospect of a meal without animal products, so The Brit and I went for lunch without them one day. Now, The Brit wasn’t very enthused about the visit either, but I made him take me anyway.

I started off by ordering a Mocha Shake. It was the best. damn. shake. ever.

For my meal I decided to try the Jamaican Jerk BBQ Sandwich, and it was pretty much awesome. It consisted of grilled multi-grain tempeh marinated in jerk sauce, on multigrain bread with grilled pineapple and other stuff. I just wish it had more pineapple, but I couldn’t complain. I got potato salad on the side, which was okay but nothing to write home about.

The Brit decided to go with the Spiral Burger. After one bite he declared it “nasty” and pushed the plate back. *sigh*. At least he tried. I boxed it up and ate it for lunch the next day. Even reheated, it was really good.

I wish we could have gone back one more time before leaving, but The Brit refused. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait until my next trip!

Tacos!

poopiebitch — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:28:00 +0000

Saturday I met up with some people from Food Awareness (the local veggie society) – including Bianca from Vegan Crunk - at Java, Juice and Jazz for lunch. My oldest sister also came and brought her youngest son for the fantastic meal.

We had some awesome vegan soft tacos, along with chips and three dips – guacamole, salsa and vegan cheese dip. The tacos were amazing.

We were all so full, but no one could resist when the server came around and offered a dessert of crumbled vegan cookies topped with bananas, strawberries and chocolate mint sauce. Luckily my sister was there for me to share with, otherwise I might have had to eat it all myself (what a shame that would have been).

Not much interesting in the way of cooking lately. I’ve been eating a lot of sandwiches (I almost shed a tear when I ate the last of my mock tuna salad). For breakfast the last couple of days I’ve had soy yogurt with granola. This morning it was peach yogurt with apple blueberry granola – tasty!

The Brit and I will be going out of town later this week. We’re heading down to Fort Worth, TX to visit my grandparents. We’ll be leaving on Thursday (I think) and coming back probably Sunday or Monday. I’m going to make sure I get to visit Spiral Diner while I’m down there!

Pico de gallo is fun to say

poopiebitch — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:17:00 +0000

I made some faux meat fajitas! for dinner today. The most important part of fajitas! is plenty of bell peppers and onion. Look at all the pretty colors!

I cooked them in my beloved cast iron wok in some olive oil until they were tender but not soft.

After transferring them back to their bowl, I cooked some fake steak and chicken strips until they were heated through, then added some fajita seasoning and a little water and cooked it down a bit. I added the peppers and onions back in and let them heat back up.

Served on a whole wheat tortilla with some pico de gallo and Tofutti sour cream, my fajitas! were awesome. Tomorrow I may make some guacamole to go along with the leftovers, because goodness knows I have enough leftovers to feed an army.

After dinner I decided to try my hand at making some homemade chocolate syrup. I adore chocolate syrup but I cannot bring myself to buy it anymore with all the high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. I searched around for a recipe but couldn’t find one that looked right, so I sort of modified a couple to get what I wanted.

I haven’t tried it on or in anything yet, but the tastes I already snuck let me know that it is oh-so-yummy.

It was really easy, actually. In case any of you out there want to try it, here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups evaporated cane juice
3/4 cup dutch process cocoa (gives a richer flavor than regular cocoa)
1/8 tsp (a pinch) kosher salt
1 TBS agave nectar
2 tsp real vanilla extract

Mix the water and sugar together in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
Whisk in the cocoa, salt and agave and boil until slightly thickened and reduced, maybe about three minutes. (I boiled a little too long, not taking into account the amount the syrup would thicken as it cooled).
Stir in the vanilla and let cool to room temperature. Pour into a bottle and store in the refrigerator.

I made some almond milk this morning, I can’t wait to try it with this syrup!

Who’s your daddy?

poopiebitch — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:33:00 +0000

Wednesday I did make Fudgy Wudgy Blueberry Brownies, but first I made Mac Daddy – also from Veganomicon – which is a vegan version of macaroni and cheese. It was my first attempt, and I must say I was pleased with the result. Which is good, because it made a HUGE amount. I put about half of it in the freezer, and have been eating what I kept out for the last couple of days.

I added a lot of peas, because I just like peas in my mac ‘n cheese, and I also added some cayenne pepper because I like it spicy. Also, I used whole wheat macaroni. Next time I think I might puree the tofu instead of crumbling it up, and I might make more sauce as well. I think one and a half times the amount would be better. Also, I think I will add some tahini to the sauce to add a little creaminess and tang.

On the whole, I think it was a great success. Please excuse the very bad picture – it was dark and my kitchen has terrible lighting.

Once the Mac Daddy was in the oven, I got started on my brownies. They were really easy to make, and oh-so-heavenly to eat. I (of course) subbed whole wheat pastry flour for the all purpose, but other than that I stuck to the recipe.

The author warns to not overbake the brownies, and in my efforts to be cautious I managed to over-compensate and underbake the brownies. They sank in the middle as they cooled, and were pretty much impossible to cut and eat like actual brownies, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying them. They were rich and fudgy with an overall blueberry flavor, and biting into the occasional whole blueberry really sealed the deal for me. The contrast of slightly tart with decadently sweet is phenomenal. Next time I will add more blueberries. Oh yes, and about half of these ended up in the freezer as well.

Again, sorry for the crappy picture – bad lighting, yadda yadda.