Back from the windy city

Hi there! Did I mention my birthday was last week? August 26th to be exact. I was very happy with the turnout of the day :D

I made the one thing in my Vegan with a Vengeance Book that I've always been intimidated by: The actual cupcake

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup plus 3 T cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup rice/soy milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350'F. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners, spray the liners with oil.

In a medium sized bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and powder, cocoa powder, and salt. In a larger mixing bowl combine the milk, oil, sugar, maple syrup, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat at a medium speed with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, add the dry ingredients into the wet in batches, mixing as you go. Beat for a minute longer.

Use wet ice cream scoops to fill the liners 3/4 full. Bake for about 25-28 minutes, Until a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack, and make sure they are COMPLETELY cooled before applying any icing.

Fluffy White Icing

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated margarine

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

3/4 cup superfine (or caster) sugar

2 T plain soymilk powder

pinch salt

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (get the highest quality you can, the kind that’s thick and syrupy tastes best)

In a medium mixing bowl, beat together margarine and shortening with an electric beater on medium speed until well combined. Add the sugar and soy milk powder and beat for a good 10 minutes until very fluffy. Add vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, beat for another minute. You may want to do a little taste test and add a little more sugar if needed.

Chocolate Ganache Icing

1/3 cup soymilk

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

In a small sauce pan, scorch the milk (bring it to a boil) then lower the heat to a simmer and add the chocolate and syrup. Mix with a rubber spatula for about 30 seconds. Turn heat off, continue stirring until the chocolate is fully melted and the icing is smooth.

Royal Icing for the squiggle

2 cups powdered (icing, confectioners) sugar

2 tablespoons soy milk powder

2 tablespoons water

Sift the sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the soymilk powder. Add one tablespoon of the water and stir, then add the other tablespoon of water, a little bit at a time until you reach a consistency slightly more solid than toothpaste. The icing should not be drippy at all, if it is at a little more sugar.

You will need two cake decorators bags. One fitted with a small hole tip (the kind you use for writing) and one fitted with a large star or circle shaped tip. Fill the large tip one with fluffy white icing, fill the writing one with royal icing. Poke a hole in the center of each cupcake using your pinky. Cram the fluffy white icing in the hole and squeeze to get as much into the center as you can, slowly lifting the bag, until the icing fills to the top. Wipe the excess icing off of the top of the cupcake with a napkin or (if your me) your finger.

Dip the top of each cupcake into the chocolate ganache icing. Tilt the pan to add more depth to the icing for easier cupcake coating. Place all the cupcake on a cutting board, make some room in your fridge and put the cupcakes in there to set the ganache, about 10 minutes.Use these 10 minutes to practice your squigglies for the tops. I use one my left hand to steady my writing hand by holding onto my right wrist. Practice a bit and see what works for you.Remove the cupcakes from the fridge and make your squiggles on the top. Return to the fridge to set, I like to keep them in there till I'm ready to serve them.

They were so freaking delicious. The creamy buttery frosting in the middle made it, and they were so realistic. They werent really THAT hard in my opinion.

We went out to one of my favorite restraunts, Jerusalem Garden, for my birthday dinner. I ordered the hummus appetizer with pita and veggies, plus the tabbouleh. I had a grape leaf, A falafel (!) and plenty of this tahini dressing on veggies and everything else I could get my hands on . We were outside so the lighting was hit or miss, unfortunatley. :(

A little while ago I made a "taco" with an ezekiel tortilla with hummus and veggies on the inside. I folded it over and toasted it, it (unexpetedly) created a shell!


Oh yeah! You're probably wondering about the title. Well, I went to chicago with my friend Daphne and my parents as a spontaneous birthday trip. YAY!

One hour into chicago, I found a grocery store.

Thanks Mom & Dad for taking us to Chicago! I had such a great time with Daphne, shout out to you if your reading. She got me rare John Mayer recordings that are uber-hard to find, and I feel soo special! We are die hard fans, if you didn't know/have already figured it out...Anyways. Thats all for now guys :D Hope you enjoyed this really long post...I wanted to blog in Chicago but I had forgotten my camera cord :/ Oh well!

Nice to see you again, blog.

Hi guys! Camp was so fun...if there are any readers from cabin 13 then this is a shout out to you! I had such a good time hanging out and working hard to put on a great concert on sunday, even though 7 1/2 hours of singing a day was hard work. I think choir is going to be really good this year.

I love them! I'm on the far left on the bottom.
Shell on the beach!

For the food sitch: I brought these snacks, and finished everything except one lara bar and 2 rice milks. The delicious rice crisp bars were enjoyed by people in my cabin, as well as being eaten by myself:)

The food at the camp was...*to put it nicely* not the highest rated by campers...The great thing was that there was a salad bar available at lunch and dinner, loaded with lettuce, assorted veggies, hummus, garbanzos, kidney beans, TOFU!, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and plently of dressing options. They also had peanut butter, and I liked to mix a little of that with soy sauce to make a dipping sauce for my tofu. I was very happy and really only ate that for lunch and dinner-I changed it up between the options, and I didn't think the food was ALL that bad :D

On sunday, my parents came up to see the concert. They took me out to dinner (how nice) at a place about 25 minutes from the camp, and it was lovely! I got brown rice with sauteed seasonal vegetables (zucchini) with hummus, and a small side salad with a yummy dressing. The portions were really small, but everything was so fantastic. There was also this cute loaf of bread which I sampled.

Of course we couldn't just leave it.

I arrived home today and relaxed a bit, had some rice (I was seriousley craving whole grains since I had nada at camp) and caught up on blog posts.

My dad and I went shopping at a really cool, new asian market right near our house. I loaded up on napa cabbage, daikon, hijiki, kombu seaweed, a large bag of brown rice, barley, black eyed peas, rice syrup, mirin cooking wine, miso paste, umeboshi plums, carrots, celery, black sesame seeds, and my dad got a crunchy rice snack (which had wasabi so I didnt eat it) and maybe one or two other things, not really sure :D

We also stopped by Hillers to get sunflower seeds, collard greens, a bag of cereal, and my dad got granola, and a couple other things. I went to bed bath and beyond to get icing decorator tips and bags, and muffin cups. YAY!

I cooked a lot this evening, made gomashio, toasted seeds, and prepared a delicious dinner for myself.

Brown rice with a little gomashio, some seeds, chopped daikon, and scallion. Steamed collards and napa cabbage drizzled in sesame oil and seeds, and a small cup of miso soup with some daikon. So healing :D
I think I made enough brown rice for a week, or more! Yum. Its so delicious and healthy.

I have some fun food posts coming up soon after the weekend or so, but before then I'm not sure...I'll probably not be able to contain myself and bake something. So talk to you later blog!

Thank you for reading (:

Back from camp!!

Camp was awesome!! So many friends, fun stuff, and weird camp stuff that us crazy Greeks do. Shout out to any camp friends who are reading this-thanks and heloo!
I shared a cabin with 18 other girls, and it was amazing, there was virtually no drama and we were so close. So many fun memories!! I'm glad to be back, but I miss it.
Food wise? I brought my staples, kamut puffs, soymilk, apples, wasa crackers, hummus, and some of those date quinoa bars. I couldn't eat a ton of what they had there, but I could have some because we were fasting this week on monday, wednseday, and friday. They actually had garden burgers one day and the first ingredient was brown rice! I had one, not bad but not my personal favorite. Other than that, mostly I could have the veggies, and believe me I had plenty of that amazing salad.
I got back and my dad and I went grocery shopping, got flour, sugar, oats, plums, hummus, crackers, corn puffs, a few other things. I had a bowl of cereal and some carrots for dinner-my idea of comfort food!
I don't have a lot to say, but I know for sure I'll be baking this week for this party thing. What do you think-blondies with macadamia nuts and caramel, or a cookie of some sort? There is someone making cupcakes, so I'll stay away from anything with cake resemblence.
Oh! I made gaspacho from fresh and fast vegan pleasures with the crazy boatload of tomatoes we have. Pics tomorrow! It was super yummy.
'Pologize for no pics, but tomorrow I promise I'll post some foodie pics.
Love you all and thanks for reading!

Lots to talk about

WELL here I am again finally. If this picture thing works out! My dad had to fiddle with the computer for a while, and I think it's working now. Pretty exciting.
I LOOVE my new camera. It's perfect for food photography, and flowers especially. I discovered it had a black and white, sepia, and other features, plus the ZOOM that I am in love with.

FOR THE FOOD

I have been baking plenty...lets just say that! For the end of the school year parties, I was the one bringing tons of goodies. For a science party (yeah, I know) I made chocolate chip cookies from VwaV. These were yummy, with a very wet batter.

1 cup earth balance

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 T molasses

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350'F. Cream the EBB and sugar until fluffy. Add the molasses and vanilla. Then add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon fulls on to a greased baking sheet . Bake for 8-10 minutes, golden brownish. Let cool for 5 minutes, if you can.

For a choir party, I made Crispy peanut butter treats with chocolate chips from The Kind Diet. People actually liked them! (And so did I...) I wasn't sure because after all they had brown rice syrup, and you know how people are about weird foods.

Makes 9-12 Squares

1 box brown rice crisps cereal

1 3/4 cups brown rice syrup

3/4 cup unsalted peanut butter

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Pour rice cereal into a large bowl. Heat the syrup with a pinch of salt in a saucepan over low heat. When the rice syrup liquefies, add the peanut butter and stir until well combined. Pour over the rice cereal. Mix well with a wooden spoon.Once thoroughly mixed and cooled to room temperature, stir in the chocolate chips. Make sure the mixture is cool, or you will end up with melted chocolate instead of chocolate chips in your treats.Turn the mixture out into an 8x8” or 9x13’” baking dish. Wet your wooden spoon lightly and press the mixture evenly into the pan. Let cool for 1 hour -- if you can -- before cutting into squares or bars.

But I was wrong! These were a hit. Also to that party I brought a veggie tray the size of me, pita chips, and a hummus quartet. Yum!

My amazing Latin teacher was retiring this year, and had a retirement party the day we left for our trip. I brought Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies, which vanished quickly. These could have been more rich, but as my mom described them, "They would be good with afternoon tea." Yup. But still, I vote for more chocolate!

1 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c cocoa

1/4 t salt

1/4 t baking soda

1/2 c canola oil

1/3 c almond milk

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

2/3 c sugar

6 t jam

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda.
In a large bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients (not the jam) plus the sugar. Add the dry to the wet and incorporate well.
Roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball and press into a disc, place on cookie sheet. Bake cookies for 5 minutes and remove from oven. Press your thumb into each cookie to make an indent and then fill with 1/4 teaspoon of jam into each indentation. Bake for another 6 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 2 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool.

We (as in graduating class from 8th grade) went on a trip to Washington, D.C. This was interesting! Very educational, long bus rides, lots of sleeping and listening to John Mayer. (!!) I took over 300 pictures, it was very cool. We also went to Gettysburg.

On the bus, about to go CrAzY :0

In Gettysburg...friends picking a statue's nose!
BAD ASSES! Smoking (bubblegum) cigarettes from the candy store at an outlet in Gettysburg.

The famous squirrels in D.C. This one followed us a whole block!

Drinkin tea in the hotel room! YUM! (Like my camera case?)

Butterfly garden! (No butterflies that day...)

Nemo in the natural history museum!

Too. Hot. to. see. any. more. memorials.

All memorial'd out.

Passed this beauty on the way back out from DC.

We named him Fred...

The food was either suckish, or when it was good it was uber-expensive. At the capitol, me and my hungry self went to the salad bar and piled it with lettuce, arty hearts, carrots, pineapple, and other veggies.
$16.50!! Frick.
But it was well worth it, hey maybe not.

I went to the Native American museum for lunch one day, and got yummy food. There was a squash dish, some native kind. I also got a bit of salad, arugula and something. That came to about $12, plus a diet coke! Frick again. And did I mention the portion sizes were barely appetizers? Yeah.

Well we went to this thing called Medieval Times and tournament. I disapprove! It was a little outside of D.C, and it was in a shopping mall type thing. Pretty much a "show" of "jousting" and strange men wearing skin tight clothes and long hair. Oh and the best part? They whipped the horses. Right freaking there, in front of me. I felt bad even being there, more less eating their gosh darn food. But the food was fine, I probably only liked it cuz I was huungwy. The pita chips were stale, like REALLY stale. But the hummus and roasted veggies, and stuffed mushroom were good. But maybe I couldn't tell...

Pretty much summed up my whole experience there.

Anyways that place is not a good environment for a vegan.

There was a dinner the day before father's day that was at my cottage. Unfortunately I couldn't make it, but had a dish to share. I invented wheat berry black bean salad!! YUM! I had soaked and cooked black beans the week before, then froze them.
2 cups black beans (cooked)

3 cups wheat berries (cooked)

Juice from 1/2 lime

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp each: cumin, Mexican oregano, crushed red pepper

1 tsp black pepper

3 T olive oil

corn from 1 husk grilled corn

1 1/2 cups cilantro, chopped finely

1/4 cup mint, chopped finely

1/4 cup salsa

1 tsp Valencia sauce

Combine all the ingredients and serve chilled. Easy enough?

Let's just resolve that I'm NEVER freezing a glass jar again.

Ever.
But I heard rumors that my sister and niece loved this salad. And so did I, DUH.

I also have exciting news! I will be cooking at Cafe Selma. It is basically a volunteer breakfast thing that promotes local, organic ingredients. It is held every Friday morning at someones house, and there are different things on the menu each time. You can just sign up to cook, and it's so cool because the people are eating in the kitchen around you. I'm scared to cook for a crowd-never done it! But I'm very excited.
So what am I making?
VwaV sunny blueberry corn muffins! !!!!!!!!!!!! Plus tempeh bacon !!!
Nervous but excited! I'll let you know how that goes on Friday. Wish me luck!

I hope to be blogging a lot more now that I have a camera, my project for this summer is to cook my way through everything in all my vegan cookbooks...should I be intimidated?