Posts Tagged ‘sweets’

Just cookies

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
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

Thursday, May 1st, 2008
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

Thursday, April 24th, 2008
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!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
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

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
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!