My Sweet Vegan & a giveaway!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

The past few months have seen the release of a plethora of fabulous vegan cookbooks & My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky is no exception! From the minute the book landed in my hands, I was drawn in by the beautiful layout which includes full color photos, taken by Hannah, for each & every recipe! Upon closer inspection, you find a collection of unique & tempting recipes such as Caramel Macchiato "Cheese" Cake, Lemon-Lime Sunshine Bundt, Turtle Shortbread Wedges, & Wasabi Chocolate Cupcakes, & as well as a selection of classic cookies, muffins, pies, tarts, & cakes! This isn't your standard vegan dessert book, Hannah's approach is a refreshing & exciting take on vegan sweets, yet it's approachable & easy to follow.

Before reviewing this sugary sweet selection for you, I had to try out a few recipes to see if they taste as fabulous as they look on the pages. I am a fiend for marshmallow, so the Marshmallow Mud Cake was the first up to bat, a treat to share with friends as we celebrated the new year! This chocolate cake makes use of chocolate soy milk for extra flavor & is topped in a confectioners sugar & ricemallow blend that makes for a fluffy topping for the true sweets lover! I had a bit of an issue with my frosting slipping down the sides of the cake, but that didn't stop me from trying to load it as high as possible before drizzling the top with chocolate!

I let Ryan pick out another recipe to try & of course it was a peanut butter & chocolate combination in a cookie form; Peanut Butter Bombs. These are a chocolate cookie with a baked-in peanut butter center & a true treat! I was lucky enough to have Ryan on filling duty, so these came together quickly & were immediately dipped in soy milk & consumed once they came out of the oven.

My favorite way to enjoy a new cookbook is to go through every page & put tabs on the recipes I'm interested in making. I have no doubt you'll be seeing Lace Sugar Crisps, Black Bottom Blondies, Peach Melba Layer Cake, & maybe even a Mocha Devastation Cake from My Sweet Vegan coming out of my kitchen in the near future!

Do you have a copy of My Sweet Vegan yet? Want to WIN one?
I am giving away one copy of My Sweet Vegan to a reader!
To enter, leave a comment letting me know your favorite unique flavor combination & you may find a copy of My Sweet Vegan on your doorstep! The winner will be selected at random, but you must play along & answer the question to be entered. I will announce the winner on February 6th & hopefully it will arrive in time to make something on St. Valentine's Day for YOUR sweet vegan!

Cookie Mania & an important cause!

Please head over to my new blog at TheUrbanHousewife.com, where you'll find this post & more!

This post is lacking recipes & I'm lacking motivation to wade through New York photos & food notes, but one thing it's definitely not lacking is COOKIES!

I've never considered myself a cookie person. Sure, cookies are tasty & as a child I consumed them in mass quantities, but these days if I'm going to be naughty, I tend to go all out & reach for decadent cakes. I've been recipe testing for Kelly & Garrick who have an upcoming cookie cookbook & with all the cookies hanging out around the house, the tide may be changing!

I love how quickly a batch of cookies can be thrown together, not to mention, they're portable, easy to share, & people love them! Ryan has been taking various desserts to work & the cookies never last long. I think there's a nostalgic feeling people get from biting into a homemade cookie; hooray, you're a kid again! Cookies are versatile as well, a decorated sugar cookie is a canvas for so many options, it's insane!

Some of the cookies I've made so far are Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bakes, Soft & Chewy Oatmeal Cookies with Golden Raisins or Chocolate Chips, Amazingly Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies, Snickerdoodles, & Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip! These have all been tester recipes, but I've been checking out various cookbooks for other options, especially with the holidays coming up. Let's face it; the holidays are meant for cookies!

So, what's my favorite cookie? Right now it's SNICKERDOODLES! I thought I'd be all about chocolate, but the cinnamon sugary soft & chewy 'doodle has a hold on me. The recipe from Kelly & Garrick's book is phenomenal & will be a staple in my house hold for years to come!

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On a serious note, I'm currently volunteering for Californians for Humane Farms. Better conditions are needed for the farm animals that provide to our nation, they should be able to lie down, turn around freely, stand, & fully extend their limbs with ease in their enclosures, which is not currently the case.
The Humane Society, Farm Sanctuary, & many SPCA chapters are working together to move this initiative to the ballot for next year. We have to gather 650,000 signatures from California registered voters! If you're registered to vote in California, I urge you to sign the petition, consider circulating a petition in your area, post about this on your blog or myspace, & do whatever you can to help these animals. Please visit www.HumaneCalifornia.org to learn more about this exciting ballot initiative for farm animals!

Vegan Food Fever!

Never fear, my friends, despite being busy I've still been baking & of course, I cook dinner just about every night. Lately the baking & cooking have gone a different direction, VEGAN! I've always been a herbivore in the kitchen with my meals, I love having a plant based diet & tend not to rely on processed foods to bulk things up, but my baking is typically traditional & not bashful with butter, eggs, & milk. I've had bad luck with vegan baked goods I've purchased, many of them too dry or too oily & I think many others have had this issue as well, which has scared them off. Well, I'm here to tell you- it can be done & it can be done WELL!

I was partially inspired by a trip to Sidecar for Pigs Peace in Seattle, the 100% vegan store benefiting Pigs Peace Sanctuary. While there I picked up Sinfully Vegan by Lois Dieterly & The Damn Tasty Vegan by Kris Holechek, as well as other fun items. Both books have a plethora of great recipes & ways to veganize classic desserts, quick breads, cookies & other gems.

Additionally, Celine at Have Cake Will Travel always has fabulous vegan foods on her blog, so I've been dying to make some of her treats. I'm geared up to try some of her recipes soon & I know we're all looking forward to her upcoming recipe zine!

So, what have I been making?

This weekend they were showing 16 Candles for movie night in Dolores Park. We went to meet friends for a pre-movie potluck with a mixed audience of vegans & non. I wanted to make things everyone can eat, especially as the vegans tend to get very limited options. I made Potato & Pea Samosas, which were delicious! For dessert, I tried to replicate the Maple Butter Bars from Flying Apron bakery, only with a brown sugar crumble topping & I made Fudge from Sinfully Vegan. I also attended a birthday party that same night & brought desserts to the fabulous birthday girl, Megan! Everything turned out very well & I think I have some new favorite recipes!

Monday, I noticed I had excess bananas, so I decided to make muffins. Of course, I can't just leave a recipe alone, so they became Banana Cocoa Cinnamon Muffins.

The recipe was pretty basic:
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour (I used 1 cup all purpose, 1/4 cup whole wheat)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
I added approximately 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa & 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another, mix them together & bake at 350 degrees for 18 - 20 minutes.
Voilà! You have chewy, dense banana bread muffins! You could also lighten them up with some whole wheat pastry flour if you prefer a fluffy muffin.
I made them in an extra large muffin tin, so it yielded 6 large muffins of joy. Additionally, this recipe is pretty low calorie, even in the large muffin size, they were just under 250 calories each. If you made minis, you'd have great little lo-cal snacks! yum yum.

After I made the muffins, I found out some friends were passing through town, so I sprung to action & pulled together some Peanut Butter Cookies from Sinfully Vegan & another round of fudge, this time with added cocoa, because I am a glutton like that. My husband LOVED the cookies & is already asking for another batch. I thought they could use some sugar, as they were sweetened by maple syrup & on the crunchy side. The friends were fans of the fudge & enjoyed the muffins as well, so I sent them off with a goody bag, so we couldn't consume it all ourselves!

My many trips to Rainbow Grocery & Co-Op have resulted in a new love for bulk bins & trying new things. I brought home some lentils recently & decided to try using them last night. I scoured the internet for recipes & decided to use the red split lentils to make a curry dish. As usual, I couldn't stick to one recipe, so I combined a few, plus came up with my own ideas, especially since I wanted to use a bunch of fresh vegetables we had on hand. Red bell peppers, carrots, zucchini, & garlic started off our journey, red lentils, vegetable stock, tomato sauce, turmeric, cayenne pepper, & curry powder continued it & eventually we had a curry that would make Baby Jesus weep with joy! I'm not often impressed by my own work, but this was GOOD, really good. Lentils & curries are going to be a new staple in this house. I'm also excited that the 1st two Indian dishes I've ever made turned out so wonderfully! woo.

In addition to all of the above, there's been a lot of vegan cupcake baking with my favorite vegan psychopath Laura & the darling & sassy Megan. Sadly, this has not yielded nearly as many photos as cupcakes, but here's two vanilla-vanilla cuties we made tonight. These do not taste like cornbread, thankyouverymuch. Come hang with us, we'll force feed you many delicious cupcakes & show you what vegan baking is all about!

What's your favorite vegan dish? Do you have a favorite flavorful recipe? Share with me!

I was asked to make a vegetarian dish for my Grandmother's upcoming 70th birthday party & I really want to blow them away & let them know just how good food is without the use of animals! I have a few ideas & I know I don't want to use any faux meat, but I'm looking for more opinions & suggestions. Let me know what you would feed to the meat eaters in your life to knock their socks off!