Chocolate Avocado Pudding

A quick & simple dessert! Another reason to love the Vitamix. I made this chocolate avocado pudding and sprinkled some shaved coconut on top. I used maple syrup for the sweetener. Yum! I also snuck in a frozen banana to get a serving of fruit in my dessert. I thought the banana would make it sweet enough, but I still needed to use some maple syrup to get it just sweet enough to balance out the bitterness of the cacao.

Trio of Boozy Cupcakes

One of the girls on my kickball team had a birthday this week. I made cupcakes to celebrate her birthday with our team. I made 3 recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - chocolate stout, margarita, and rum raisin. I got advice on a chocolate stout to use in the recipe from another customer in the Whole Foods beer section. I used the espresso stout by Stone Imperial Russian Stout, but ended up throwing the rest away. It was way too strong for me! These cupcakes were quite a hit. I only came home with 3! I used large white sprinkles to look like salt on the edges of the margarita cupcakes after frosting them. The rum raisin cupcakes have a rum glaze and a rum buttercream. The chocolate stout cupcakes have chocolate crumbs on top already, so I dusted a little powdered sugar on top.

Pineapple Not-So-Fried Rice

I made the pineapple not-so-fried rice from Chloe's Kitchen. This recipe uses a tiny bit of oil, hence the name. I couldn't find very good looking cut fresh pineapple, so I decided to use canned pineapple in just juice. I also used pre-shredded carrots to save some time. I roasted the tofu while the rice was cooking and I was preparing the other components. I thought this was quite good. It had peas, raisins, cashews, carrots, pineapple, and roasted tofu. Yum! It would have been cool to serve it in a pineapple like the cookbook photo, but it was delicious.

Brunch

I hosted brunch at my house last Sunday. My friend that served as our group's social organizer moved recently, so I decided to take a leap into hosting at my house. I hosted the vegan cheese party, but that's really been the only big event hosted at my place. I had a kickball friend comment on the donut photo I posted recently on my fb. That inspired me to host donut brunch. I made the donuts and tofu frittata. I served the frittata with avocado slices. I've made the tofu frittata from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites before, but this time I omitted the french fried onions on top, used Daiya mozzarella instead of havarti, and used Upton's chorizo-style seitan. I had a coupon from Austin VegFest for the seitan. My friends brought roasted potatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes, fresh strawberries and blueberries (picked nearby), green smoothies (kale, arugula, green apple, and cucumber). One of my friends RSVP-ed but all the food had been claimed, so she sneakily left $5 on my kitchen counter. How sweet, right? I don't have a picture of the full spread, because I was standing over the hot oil while people were chatting. By the time I brought a plate of donuts into the dining area, I wanted to sit down and eat, instead of thinking about a photo. I had a photo of the leftovers - a few slices of frittata and some donuts I fried after everyone left.

PB-Sriracha Tofu

I found this recipe through Pinterest and it seemed like a good meal to make on my vacation. I did not get a chance to do that, so I made it this week instead. I served it with a sample pack of brown rice that I got at Austin VegFest and some frozen broccoli. It was pretty easy to put together. The cooking time of the rice allowed me to brown the cut edges of the tofu. I thought this was a great meal after a long day at work. I just missed the 5 o'clock shuttle home, so I had to wait a while for the next bus. I gave my tofu a quick press while I set up the rice cooker and made the sauce ingredients. The directions are accurate in saying that you should only simmer the sauce for a few minutes with the tofu, because it really does thicken up quickly.

Fat-Free Alfredo

After indulging in lots of fried foods and sweets on my vacation, I didn't want to make my usual alfredo recipe because of the amount of Earth Balance in the recipe. I already had a pack of silken tofu in the fridge, although I couldn't remember why I bought it before my trip. I decided to do a Google search for fat/oil-free alfredo sauces. Many had cauliflower, which sounded good but would require a trip to the store. I found this recipe that used ingredients that I already had. I served the sauce with wheat pasta, peas (cooked in the pasta water), and chick'n strips. I bought the Kroger store brand chick'n strips. This was a quick meal to prepare and made enough to last through kickball nights.

Chickpea Sloppy Joes

I've been on a chickpea kick lately. The lastest chickpea meal was chickpea sloppy joes. I made these on my vacation and my mom even said they were good! I served these on wheat buns (purchased these) with mashed avocado. Sooo good! I would highly recommend these, and I will probably use the seasoning mix with other beans (like lentils) in the future.

Obsessive Confection Disorder

There's a vegan candy company called Obsessive Confection Disorder. I recently saw a deal for a sampler pack on Vegan Cuts. I ordered immediately! I had these shipped to my mom's. I shared them with my mom and my BFF. There were 4 candies in the pack, listed below:
- Sweet Stix: a Twix knock-off that is incredible! Tastes way better than Twix!

- Ruthless Mama: These were good, but probably my least favorite item of the pack. (Something has to come in last place, right?)

- Dark Mal: My favorite from the sampler! Om nom nom.

- Vanilla Bean & Sea Salt Caramels: These are the best vegan caramels I've tried!

Hot Fudge on the Bottom Cake

My mom picked this recipe from Chloe's Vegan Desserts as her birthday dessert. This was a little strange to me. The recipe has a thick batter layer, a sprinkling of cocoa and sugars, and then hot water poured over the entire thing. I was skeptical this would work. This turned out like a brownie with hot fudge underneath. Perfect for serving with coconut ice cream!

Chocolate Chip Scones

After my mom and I finished eating the donuts, I made us chocolate chip scones for breakfast. The recipe is in The Joy of Vegan Baking. I used a flax egg instead of the Ener-G powder in the recipe. I didn't pack my Ener-G, but had my bag of ground flax. (Yes, I pack a box of specialty food items when I travel home.) I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet chips (in the gold bag). We decided to add a simple powdered sugar glaze to the tops, even though they already had a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar. These were really good and lasted a few days in a sealed container on the counter. They were surprisingly filling too.

Vacation Recap

So the broken oven was my mom's oven. I was home last week relishing in the time to see my family and some friends. I didn't get to see all the friends that I hoped to see for a variety of reasons, but I still had a great time. I'm homesick already!
Beach trip!

My mom & our goats

My BFF

Sorbets from a local yogurt shop

Gardein burgers, fried potatoes, vegetarian baked beans (from a can), sauteed kale

Deep-Fry All The Things! Donuts!

Oven busted, so I've been deep-frying lots of things! French fries, Gardein tenders, and donuts! I made a batch of these glazed donuts the other morning and they were sooo good. That smell of fried yeasted dough is irresistible! They held up reasonably well the next day, even with glaze. I just popped them into the microwave for a few seconds. If I had to do this again, I'd fry and glaze just the right amount to be served that day and put the others in the fridge after the second rise.

Jerk Chickpeas

I had leftover arugula in the fridge. I didn't want to use it for a salad, so I started thinking outside the box. I figured it would work well in tacos, a nice change from lettuce. I made a bunch of chickpeas in the slow cooker for the meatloaf in the last post and for tacos. I came across a recipe for jerk chickpeas, which sounded way more interesting than just chickpea tacos. These were so simple to prepare. I served the jerk chickpeas with arugula, avocado, and wheat tortillas. Yum! I even got a shout-out from the recipe author for praising the recipe on Twitter. Make these!

Chickpea & Gluten Meatloaf

I had some coconut creamer lurking in the fridge from the chocolate raspberry pie. I decided it would be great to make mashed potatoes with it. However, I had no idea what to serve with the potatoes. I came across this recipe for a chickpea and gluten meatloaf. Seemed like a great way to use the onion half and celery also lurking in the fridge. I decided to bake it in a bread pan, instead of making multiple mini loaves. I think it needed slightly less liquid or a longer baking time. The edges were browning though, so I think a little less liquid would be the better choice. Overall, the taste was decent, but I would have bumped up the seasonings. Just like the tofu ricotta, the recipe was good but needs a little extra oomph.

Lasagna with Homemade Marinara

I had some leftover Daiya cheese from the chili cheese dogs, so I decided to make lasagna. The marinara and lasagna recipes are from Yellow Rose Recipes, but the book isn't in print anymore. The sauce was pretty simple and I let it simmer for a while so it would be thick. I used more spinach than the recipe called for, because I didn't know what to do with half a bag of leftover spinach. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the leftover arugula! I added a little bit of nutritional yeast to the tofu ricotta, but I think I could have seasoned it a little more. Overall, this was OK, but it does take a little time to prepare everything. I ate half the pan for dinner tonight, so it was tasty but I should have started prep earlier.

Mushroom Burgers & Root Beer Beans

I made the bun recipe from Vegan Diner again. I made hamburger buns this time, because the mushroom burgers in the same book sounded so good. The burgers are soft, but I didn't mind squishing them a little when holding the bun. I used 3 portobella mushroom caps, since my grocery store didn't have crimini mushrooms that day. I sauteed the burgers in a little coconut oil, then served them with arugula and avocado. I made these on Monday since I only worked in the morning. The recipe says it makes 6 burgers, but they were pretty big. You could easily make smaller burgers or little slider burgers. I served these with some mixed veggies and root beer beans. The root beer bean recipe is from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites. I bought a can of natural root beer at Whole Foods and cooked my beans from scratch. I used a mix of black, pinto, and red beans, soaking 1/2 cup of each and cooking them in the little slow cooker. The beans were a little sweet on the first day, but the leftovers were great. They were a nice alternative to baked beans.