Flavor of the Minute, aka Five Current Faves!

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

While raindrops on roses & whiskers on kittens aren't too shabby, they're not currently on my list of my favorite things. Instead I'm enjoying everything from food to friends & thought I would share what I'm crushing on at the moment; maybe you'll find a new love as well!

In my VegFest post, I mentioned a super fun sampler pack of spreads from Artisana. I tried all 11 flavors & boy, do we have a winner! Goji Bliss is SO good, I've been eating it with a spoon! A little bit goes a long way as this coconut butter flanked with everyone's favorite superfood Goji Berries, is rich & creamy. I can't wait to try baking or making frosting with it, but I'm perfectly happy eating it on toast, so it may disappear before I have a chance!

Halloween is here! I hope you're all dressing up & planning to share photos! I'm having a potluck, of course, & the place I sent my guests for ideas is Wing It Vegan, home of "Halloweegan" & the best posts on festive & cute food for the big day! Someone needs to make Mashed Potato Ghosts & Spookitty Heads for me, pronto!

I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with Amanda from Walking the Vegan Line. It's not our first time meeting, but I always enjoy meeting up with fellow vegans & bloggers from all corners of the earth. We tried to grab pizza at a new spot, but ended up having an Ethiopian feast, husbands in tow, while we chatted for hours. She also ordered some mini cupcakes with red frosting for a company event from Sugar Beat Sweets. How cool is that?!

While it might seem quite obvious, I am obsessed with my puppy, Strummer. Well, she is currently obsessed with a new toy given to her by the always awesome Laura B. It's a big orange skull & yes, it's larger than her! Check out the video to prove it. The cats received new toys as well & it looks like it's a love fest; here's Beamish & Scurvy.



Finally, TRAVEL! We all know I love to travel & bring you the vegan goods in cities far & wide. Well, I'm at it again. New York City & I have a serious love affair & after landing an insane bargain on airfare (another favorite thing of mine), I will be biting in to the Big Apple from November 15th through the 19th. I'm ready to chow down, like you can see I did last time! Anyone want to join me at Lulu's Sweet Apothecary for sundaes?

These are just some of the items on my radar & I'll be sure to share more in the future. What are some of your favorite things right now?

World Vegetarian Day & VBC Picnic Edition!

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

This year was the 9th annual World Vegetarian Day in San Francisco & Sugar Beat Sweets was lucky enough to have a table selling vegan treats to the veg masses! While the focus of my booth was cupcakes (I made over 1,000 in 8 varieties) , I also decided to do some special treats which included cinnamon rolls, brownies in both chocolate & peanut butter swirl, & of course, the infamous candy corn from the recipe I shared last year.

As I'm sure you can guess, making 1,000+ cupcakes takes a bit of time, so I did 2 days of baking for the 2 day festival & also had to fill the orders for my regular customers! It was quite the undertaking, but luckily I had Mel from veglicious helping me on both a day of baking & a day of the festival. She also took the photos you see here, as I was busy slingin' sweets!

VegFest is always a great place to see old friends & make new ones; Amey from Vegan Eats & Treats, Laura & Meave of Vegansaurus, Megan of The Sisters Vegan, & Erin from Vegan Homemade are just some of the bloggers I was able to chat with! Also seen over the weekend, Colleen Patrick Goudreau of Compassionate Cooks, who had a booth next to mine, many of the Farm Sanctuary family who were repeat customers, chef Jesse Miner, who brought us goodies from his heirloom beans demo & of course, the crew at VegNews, who wrote a bit about us on their blog. I talked to so many awesome people, I know I am missing some here! By the way, SFoodie, the blog of the SF Weekly, did a piece on Sugar Beat Sweets, including a video. Check it out!

So, what else was there? Awesome speakers including John Robbins & Howard Lyman, food demos by everyone from Sarah Kramer to Antonio Magana, entertainment from musicians, belly dancers, & a vegan acrobat, plus free food samples! Coconut Bliss, Sheese, & Artisana were some of my favorite treats & I picked up an fabulous sampler with 11 flavors of Premier Organics spreads. Mmm, Goji Bliss!

VegFest was a fun & rewarding experience, I can't wait to do it again next year! Just don't ask me to bake 1,000 cupcakes until then. I'll have a booth at the upcoming Bazaar Bizarre, but the production scale should be much smaller.

On a beautiful sunny September day, the VBC convened for another brunch cartel. This time we opted for Dolores Park & an open invitation for all to join us, which didn't disappoint! Many new faces showed up & the food was outstanding! Best food ever? Maybe. I made a coleslaw & a Southern Style Banana Pudding with Vanilla cookies to stand in for Nilla Wafers; it turned out pretty darned good! Vanilla beans flanked the smooth, yet fluffy pudding mixture, while layers of bananas & cookies added texture.

Some of the other dishes we enjoyed were avocado potato salad, chickpea curry, tempeh sausages with roasted red pepper sauce, brownies, pasta salad, homemade beer brats with sauerkraut, & freshly baked rolls with cinnamon butter! Needless to say, it was quite the feast & I always look forward to future brunches.

Cakes, Cupcakes, Cookies + Ice Cream; recent sweets from my kitchen!

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

With all of my travels as of late, one would think there wouldn't be much going on in my kitchen, but that's quite far from the truth! Happy to be in my familiar surroundings again, I've been churning out an assortment of sweets from cakes of all sizes to cookies added to ice cream & thought I'd share some of them with you!

As you may know, I've been working on the campaign for Californians for Humane Farms & I'm proud to say, we gathered enough signatures to make it on to the ballot! If you're in California, PLEASE make sure to vote on this important initiative in November. Due to our success, we had a victory party & I decided to bring over 100 mini cupcakes to share with the celebration. Needless to say, it was a bit of work, but well worth it! I was in a rush, so the photos are lacking, but thankfully, the flavors are not; Lemon cupcakes topped with Strawberry Mousse & Chocolate cupcakes with Cinnamon Spice Buttercream. They went over well & were quickly swiped from the table, I even caught people trying to sneak over for seconds! I also had the pleasure of meeting some of the VegNews crew & they mentioned the shindig on their Press Pass blog.

The very next day was my Dad's birthday. His favorite cake has always been German Chocolate, but the rest of the family are not fans, so I opted for a cute little 5 inch cake, so he could share a slice with Ryan & keep the rest for himself. I would have liked to use multiple types of frosting, the sides always look lovely with fudge, but after the mini cupcake extravaganza & having to work that morning, I was a bit wiped out! I did use large flakes of coconut though, which makes for a bit of a different texture than the standard & Dad thought it was a nice touch!

Another event I attended was a weekly dinner co-sponsored by the San Francisco Vegetarian Society & Wellness Central. While it wasn't a potluck, I talked with the organizers & we agreed a cake would be a nice addition to the meal. With all the lovely organic fruit in season, I opted for a vanilla cake filled with Lemon Curd & topped with Strawberry Mousse. It went so quickly, I hadn't even finished my dinner before I had to run & get a slice for myself; I suppose that means it was well received?!

Ryan has been on the road a few times since we've returned from Europe & he's feeling worse for the wear. To cheer him up after returning from one of his business trips, he came home to "Thin Mint" cookies, Girl Scout stylee, a recipe from Kelly & Garrick's cookie book. Of course, I couldn't just stop there; I also made chocolate mint ice cream in my handy ice cream maker, for Thin Mint Cookie Ice Cream ala (the very un-vegan) Dreyer's. I opted to make the components separately, then combine them & re-freeze everything, which worked out great. You do have to work quickly with the ice cream though, it tends to melt faster than expected! We enjoyed the ice cream & cookies over the weekend, but I also hid some cookies from Ryan, so I could take them to friends.

One of those friends, was the awesome Amey from Vegan Eats & Treats who I met up with while sampling the vegan baked goods available in Santa Cruz with my favorite roller derby gal, Panda (aka Megan). We all had a fun day taste testing way too many cakes, bitching about life & love, & enjoying the sunny day. As for the goods we tried, I'll just say the company was better than the cake.

Well, that's all for now. I assure you there's plenty more to come from reviews to more kitchen concoctions. By the way, check out a little piece I did for Cakespy & their Cakewalk series; the first vegan cakewalk & it takes place in Berlin! Enjoy!

Chocolate & Mint; made for each other, a Holiday Potluck & Cupcake Hero!

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

'Tis the season for Chocolate & Mint to mingle together in deliciousness! If noshing on Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's isn't enough for you, you make have found yourself doing some baking using this combination commonly used at this time of year.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been looking for the perfect vegan chocolate cake recipe. I need depth of flavor & a bit of fluff, not like those cocoa-only based cakes out there. I believe I may have found my winner, but as a person who doesn't like to settle for second best, I have a few more things to try before posting it here. Luckily, this deep chocolate cake has been a perfect pairing with the kick of mint, so I used it in both cake & cupcake form to make treats for friends & family.

My brother Kyle turned 21 in early December & I volunteered to make him a birthday cake, of course! I recalled his fondness for Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream as a child, & used it as my inspiration for a Chocolate Cake filled & decorated with Mint Icing & topped with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache. While I'd never considered myself a "mint person" in the past, I was quickly converted & couldn't get enough of this cake's combination. Luckily, my family felt the same & the cake was quickly consumed!

I'm always looking for an excuse to gather together & eat with friends, so I hosted a Holiday themed party in my home for a group of local vegans. I know many of us don't get a full spread of options at family celebrations, so this was a chance to load up our plates without questioning the contents of anything! The food was delicious; from latkes to herbed stuffing, vegan quiche and quinoa cakes, I was impressed with the spread of food that came together! I was on dessert duty & decided a return to the chocolate mint combination was in order, but in an easily served cupcake form!

Rich chocolate cupcakes were topped with a swirl of Mint Icing & Candy Cane Joe Joe cookies hand dipped in Bittersweet Guittard Chocolate! The depth of the chocolate played off the refreshing mint, while the dipped cookies were a treat all on their own! For those who've never had a Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe Joe, it's a sandwich cookie similar to an Oreo, but the center contains a peppermint-vanilla creme with crushed candy canes in it! While the combination may sound odd or just alright, these cookies are highly addictive & similar to the Thin Mints your local girl scout pushes.

Chocolate Dipped Cookies
While hardly a recipe, I thought some information on dipping techniques could be useful.

Ingredients & Tools:
Chocolate of your choice, chopped (I used E. Guittard Bittersweet Wafers, no chopping needed!)
Cookies of your choice
A double boiler or a water filled pot with a bowl suspended over it
Parchment paper on a flat surface near your stove top

Instructions:
Place the chocolate in the bowl or top of your double boiler & heat it up until it is fluid, being careful not to burn it. Make sure you have a decent amount of chocolate, so you can easily cover the size cookie you're using.

Once the chocolate is fluid, dip a single cookie in to the bowl coating each side evenly. It's likely you'll burn your fingers, especially if you touch the bottom or sides, so be cautious of this & move quickly!

Once coated, let the excess drip from the cookie & place it on the parchment paper to dry.
Sandwich cookies are great for this, as you can stand them up to dry & the chocolate that moves to the base of the cookie makes an excellent platform to keep them from falling over on your cake or cupcakes.

Let the chocolate dry completely while you tackle another project. Don't touch them, or you'll have smudges & fingerprints on them.

Once the cookie is dry, it will lift cleanly from the parchment paper. Try not to eat them all before they make it on to your baked goods or give in & make them especially for snacking on!

By the way, the theme for December's Cupcake Hero contest happens to be mint, so I thought I'd enter my Chocolate cupcakes with Mint Icing & Bittersweet chocolate dipped Candy Cane Joe Joe's, as I've never seen a vegan entry in the contest. The co-host is the awesome Natalie from Bake & Destroy, who rocks out vegan cupcakes of her own from time to time!

I hope everyone had a Happy Holiday season filled with lots of delicious sweet treats!

New York City Dessert Reviews; Part Two; Vegan Treats Edition!

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

The dessert dissection continues! Many New Yorkers will tell you, there's no shortage of places to consume goods from Vegan Treats. Luckily, I took the opportunity to try a plethora of their sweets & the range of rating may be a surprise to you!

Once again, I'll keep it short & simple with excerpts directly from my notes & a star rating between 1 and 5. Be sure to check out Anatomy of a Dessert Review, so you can understand my process & the meaning of the ratings you see here.

Peanut Butter Bomb Brownie- A delicious peanut butter mousse, chocolate shell, & peanut butter drizzle a top a dense brownie, not for the faint of heart, this is dessert is intense! Peanut Butter Bomb is a specialty of Vegan Treats & you'll find it on cakes & cupcakes as well! 4 stars

Pumpkin Cake- This cake is nicely spiced & addictive, I enjoyed the frosting & found myself repeatedly going back for “one more bite". 3 ¾ stars

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake- Sometimes people agree to disagree. I liked the textured chocolate & peanut butter topping, but disliked the bland, gelatinous peanut butter layer & Ryan felt the opposite! Sure, this worked out well for us, but neither of us were bowled over by this dessert. 2 ½ stars

Brownie Cheesecake- At first bite, this is a dense dessert. After digging in, I found the brownie layer to be nice, but the cheesecake portion to be a bit bland for my taste. 2 ½ stars

Lemon Cupcake- The texture of the cake was chewy & lacking lemon flavor, luckily the frosting was quite nice, but not enough to make me love this dessert. 2 stars

Hazelnut Cake- While it has a nice fluffy hazelnut frosting & tasty fudgy center filling, I found the chocolate cake to be dry & flavorless. I would give this another try, it could be better on delivery day. 3 ½ stars (I was lucky enough to share this slice with my fellow jet setting blogger, Bazu from Where's the Revolution!)

Boston Crème Donut- Ooh, lovely fluffy donut with delicious chocolate icing! Unfortunately, I found the crème filling to be a bit strange & salty. 3 ½ stars

Oreo Cookie Donut- This has a nice cream filling, but the donut & topping seem to be lacking. Can I have the Boston donut filled with Oreo cream, please?! 3 stars

Cinnamon Roll- I found this to be a bit too dense & lacking that soft gooey center people expect of cinnamon rolls. The icing was almost cream cheese-like & while I enjoyed it, Ryan thought there was far too much of it. 3 stars

Lemon-Lime Cake- A nicely flavored lime cake, but texturally it's bit dense & chewy. The lemon & lime frostings were both fluffy & delicious! 3 ½ stars

Death by Chocolate Cake- This is no joke; chocolate cake with 3 different types of filling, all held in by chocolate ganache! The cake is clearly a catalyst for all of the other components, when it’s fresh, it’s good & moist, although not particularly flavorful, a day or two later, it’s dry. That being said, all of the fillings are delicious & flavorful & help to keep the cake moist. The ganache outer shell is nice as well, although not the star here. 4 ½ stars

Overall, I was impressed by the confections Vegan Treats has to offer. They're obviously made with care & the flavors are diverse & exciting. Best of all, they look fabulous, so anyone, vegan or not, would be attracted to them!

Check out the Vegan Treats myspace page for locations!
For more photos of the Vegan Treats I tried, check out my Flickr.

New York City Dessert Reviews; Part One!

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

New York City; the land of vegan desserts! I had my share of sweets (plus the share of a few others) & wanted to give you the inside scoop on the options out there. Initially, I set out to review cupcakes, but once I saw the other offerings, I decided to expand my horizons! In part one, you'll find mainly cupcakes, but coming up are items from Vegan Treats; cakes & donuts & cheesecakes, oh my!

Rather than write long paragraphs, I keep it short & simple with excerpts directly from my notes & a star rating between 1 and 5! Be sure to check out Anatomy of a Dessert Review, so you can understand my process & the meaning of the ratings you see here.

When asking folks about the cupcakes of NYC, S’nice came highly recommended. I decided to start with a meal at this cute little spot & finish up with 2 cupcakes, vanilla with chocolate frosting & chocolate with vanilla frosting, both delightfully topped with Halloween spider rings!

Vanilla cupcake with Chocolate frosting- The vanilla cupcake was dense & muffin-like, not a bad item, but it wasn't high in flavor. The frosting was cocoa based & tasty, almost like your favorite fudgy canned frosting, but with a different consistency. 3 stars

Chocolate cupcake with Vanilla frosting- The 1^st bite in to the cake seemed to have a nice chocolate flavor, but then it started to taste salty & it’s quite dense. Luckily, the frosting was thick & almost like Oreo cream filling, yum! 3 stars

S'nice: 45 8th Avenue between Jane and Horatio, NYC.

As you may recall, I took a trip to Babycakes a few months ago & was underwhelmed. I decided to give this cute little bakery another shot, as I can't imagine a place so adorable being anything less than tasty. I opted for Carrot, Lemon, & Chocolate cupcakes & a slice of gluten free Chocolate Crumb cake.

Carrot cupcake- I found this to be a bit bland, under spiced, & muffiny, the frosting was nice, making an overall OK cupcake. 2 ¾ stars

Chocolate Spelt cupcake- Nice depth & chocolate taste in the cake with a mild chocolate frosting, the best of the “babycakes” I’ve tasted. 3 stars

Lemon cupcake- The cake doesn’t taste of lemon & it’s a bit grainy. For some reason this cupcake seems to give me “cottonmouth”! I love lemon, so I expected more. 2 ½ stars

Chocolate Crumb Cake- The chocolate cake was gritty, which could be due to the use of alternate flours making it gluten free, the crumb topping was OK, but I still couldn’t bother with more than a few bites. 2 stars

Babycakes: 248 Broome Street on the Lower East Side

If you know dessert in New York, you know Atlas Café; home of the display case of Vegan Treats. What you may not know is, they have vegan soft serve! On my first trip, I had plain vanilla due to being told this was their only flavor. Little did I know the list of items to accompany the soft serve are not toppings, but options to be mixed in!

Atlas Soft Serve- Creamy & rich, not “beany” like some soy creams out there. This was thicker than traditional frozen yogurt & great on it’s own, but even better with a peanut butter mix in! Thank goodness I don’t live in NYC, I could eat this often! 4 stars

Atlas Café: 73 2nd Av at E 4th St.

On Halloween, we walked down Bowery & made our way in to a place where I'd spied vegan cupcakes earlier in the week. Lucky's Café is located inside the Bowery Poetry Club & carries vegan baked goods made by a local woman with no business name. I opted for two items; a banana cupcake with vanilla frosting & a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting.

Banana cupcake with Vanilla frosting- The cake portion was dense & bland, I would consider it a fluffy muffin, thankfully the frosting was delicious, like something you’d find on carrot cake. 2 ½ stars

Chocolate cupcake with Peanut Butter frosting- The cake was lacking flavor, although it had a nice texture & fluff to it. The frosting was fluffy, but lacking in peanut buttery flavor & I found it to be overly salty. 2 ½ stars

Lucky's Café at Bowery Poetry Club: 308 Bowery

I hope you enjoyed round one; of course this is merely my opinion, so I encourage you to try these places on your own. It's important to support vegan businesses, but it's also important to produce a high quality product that can stand up to comparable items, vegan or not. Stay tuned for round two; Vegan Treats edition later this week!

A Labor Day Potluck, In my Kitchen, & NYC!

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

Gathering with friends is always something I enjoy & I used Labor Day Weekend as an excuse to have a potluck! An awesome range of friends attended & I was excited many members of the "vegan brunch cartel" were able to make it. The culinary prowess was at an all time high & the food was insanely delicious! As planned, we all ate far too much, yet there was still a ton of food on the table! Luckily, I had my empty Earth Balance containers ready & sent people home with leftovers, as there was no way we could consume what was left!

For the bash, I whipped up Vanilla Cupcakes from my own recipe & topped them with both Lemon Cream Cheese frosting & Mocha Mousse frosting. No one guessed they were vegan, so I believe I'm finally happy with my vanilla cupcake recipe & will be sharing it here in the near future!
By request, another round of Lolo's Donuts were made, this time in Maple & classic Pink Glaze with Sprinkles. I'm done making these for awhile, I adore them, but there's so many other treats I've been meaning to make!

In the savory department, I made tamales, thanks to Dr. Stonielove! I have a constant craving for tamales, but had never made them myself, but her recent recipe gave me the courage to do so! One batch contained black beans, soyrizo, & jalapeños, the other was filled with corn, red & yellow bell peppers, & chilies. I was VERY happy with these & snuck some in to the freezer to enjoy later. We also made Tempeh kabobs to grill along side all the veggie dogs & burgers people brought!

As a joke, I decided to use vegan gelatin to craft a giant cupcake. Sadly, it's not the most stable product out there, so it started to melt pretty quickly. I shoved it in to the freezer, only to find it solid & much shorter than when I initially assembled it when I went to retrieve it. Use your imagination & we'll say it started out glorious & mind blowing, okay?!


Other attendees brought delicious dishes like Bruschetta, the Get Sconed version of New Farm Mac and Cheez, Curried "Chicken" salad in Endive wraps, Hummus with pita & cucumber, Spinach-Artichoke dip, & as you can see, an amazing display of Fruit Kabobs! (This is what happens when a caterer attends your potluck!)

I had a fabulous time & I can't wait for the next excuse to gather around a diverse setting of food with various people! I think I may have a potluck obsession & I'm perfectly OK with that!

***
In other news, I've been going crazy in the kitchen lately! I've been so inspired by all the blogs I've been reading, as well as the PPK, all I've wanted to do is try new recipes (& make sorbet, of course)!

Recent recipes have included Celine's L & H Seitan O'Greatness, which was used to make Lolo's Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan. I'm also a tester for Joni's new cookbook about burgers, so I made her Ortega Burgers on homemade whole wheat french bread with oven fries. A desire for something besides Tofutti in the morning yielded Bryanna's Lemon Curd & let me tell you, it is FABULOUS! My crumpets will forever be covered with this insanely addictive spread!

On the sorbet front, I made a wonderful Strawberry Sorbet that we gobbled up quickly! Yesterday in a 12 hour span I managed to make Watermelon Sorbet, Yellow Peach Sorbet, & Bartlett Pear Sorbet! The plan is to have some in the freezer to be consumed when the mood strikes, but it seems to disappear pretty quickly around here! I'm happy to see others have caught the sorbet bug as well, like Amey at Vegan Eats & Treats!

In travel news, I'll be headed back to one of my favorite places, NEW YORK CITY! woo.
While I've been there many times, I'm always looking for restaurant & activity recommendations, especially of the vegan persuasion. I'm not a greasy spoon diner type (I can make a veggie burger at home), but I love a range of tasty foods, especially healthier vegetable heavy items or ethnic fare, so bring it on! I'll be in town for 2 weeks in late October / early November, so there's plenty of meals & fun to be had!

Hey NYC, let's have a Halloween themed Potluck!

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!