Chili, cats, and cookies

Sorry it's been a while since the last post. :) I made this amazing chili with homemade seitan from Vegan with a Vengeance a little while ago, plus corn muffins from The Kind Diet with peanut butter. Yum.

I had a pet photoshoot...of my cat Bourbon.

And made these cookies (my own recipe!) It had coconut, homemade almond/walnut maple butter, and they were really yummy. I wrote down the recipe, somewhere, but I can't find it :( I'll let you know-they were super good!!

                                         

lunch is soo good

just thought I'd brag about my eats today. Especially lunch.
For breakfast, I had millet puffs with a crumbled carrot cake lara bar and a drizzle of maple syrup in soy milk. I did some stuff around the house, walked to trader joes and back, (about 4 miles?) and came home to the yummiest leftovers ever. I made this bean soup with chickpeas and white beans with roasted garlic (VEGAN WITH A VENGEANCE...NOMZ) and topped it with some wasa crackers and hot sauce...with a pink lady apple on the side.
So good. I reccomend it highly :)

A quick update

Hello blog world, I am alive.
And working on the whole camera situation as well! Other than that, there has been lots of baking and cooking going on. I made banana butter yesterday, as well as orange scones and lemon poppyseed muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made lentil soup from a new cookbook the other day, which has just been devine! Yeah, a lot of cooking has been going on. But also cleaning-I cleaned out the entire fridge and freezer of failed experiments, questionable looking things, etc. Our fridge is soo empty! I think a trip to whole foods is needed fairly soon...
But off the topic of food, the last theater production I was in just ended. It was so much fun-I barely had time to even do a little update though on the blog!! I've decided against doing the spring musical, as much as I want to, my schedule is changing a lot for school and I want to try something different.
I was also thinking that this spring, something fun to do would be to pursue my baking more, but maybe start a mini-business with it. My sister had asked me if I baked something for her once a week, she would pay for the ingredients or some portion of the money. That kind of sparked the idea, maybe just having friends email me about asking for baked goods. But I'm not starting some huge business or anything...keep in mind I am in high school!! Any thoughts or tips on that?
This week is going to be crazy, I may not have the chance to update so much because it is...

FINALS!
Yup. So much fun. Half days never sucked so much. But after it's all over I'm sure the feeling of ease and de-stress will be awesome. I'll talk to you guys (whoever you are) soon.

Kitchen Sin Carne's reincarnation

Hello people of the blogging world :)

Since finding my camera in my couch cushion, I thought it was neccecary to post all the EXTREMELY dated food pics and other stuff...So I'll just let you sit back and look at some random pictures from like, August.

Above was a picture from thanksgiving with the family! I had a great vegan one, with sweet potato lentil stew, steamed carrots and brussel sprouts, wild rice with hazlenuts and cranberries, cranberry sauce, and salad. My tummy was very happy :) But unfortunatley, I had not found my camera yet so I didn't get any pictures...

And yes, I got a haircut.

So enjoy these pictures!

Apple Pie Crumb Cake muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance...SO GOOD.

Homemade soft pretzels. They weren't perfect, but they were alright, just a little too chewy.

Homemade seitan for....

Delicious vegan chili!! NOMNOMNOM

I'll have more to come soon, as I just got my very first bento box and I may just become a bit of a bento blogger...we'll see...

-O

Remember when...

I have a big post coming with tons of pictures and recipes, but I don't have time to upload them all tonight :(

But instead, I spent time today foraging through my computer, and I found some food pics that I have never uploaded before onto my blog. In fact, these were pictures before my blogging days! (shocking!) Enjoy!

(This was the failed matzoh ball soup...you can see why I didn't post it...)

Soon will be recent pictures :D Hope you liked the oldies.

So I found this little grey cord...

and it's called my camera cord!

Sparkled Ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance. So very yum.

Kabocha...hmm well okay.

Cookies for Daphne's birthday! These were taken late so the lighting SUCKS. Chocolate chip :D

Roasted apple, onion and sweet potato soup from Fresh and fast vegan pleasures. Very distinct and well bonded flavors. Great for the fall!

Pumpkin oatmeal cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance. I say no more.

I'm sure you can guess what these are...

Hmm. Well I've been pretty darn busy lately, involved in a musical, art, guitar, writing, singing, sports, biking, and homework. Oh, theres also cooking :D

Things have been going very well, surprisingly, the homework load isn't INSANE. I do find time to cook in the evening, although I do the more elaborate things on the weekend. I'm really enjoying biking home, its relaxing and basically all downhill so it's an easy ride.

I missed blogging a ton!!! My mom found the camera cord (thanks mommy!) at her office, and I was very releived and excited to see that I'd be able to be connected to the blogosphere once again. Thank you guys so much for reading....I'll try to definetly post a lot! I got a new photo editing system on my computer, Adobe lightroom photoshop, so expect some strange playing around of photos to come. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a dishwasher to unload.

Olivia :)

Reviews...and a BATH?!?

There are a few foods that I want to talk about, that I've bought recently. For as long as I've been a vegan, I've never really tried a vegan cheese. The other day at Hillers my dad came across this cheese. It's like a parmesan imitation, The Vegetarian Express. It's local, and made in Michigan, so I decided to give it a try.

The ingredients are pretty innocent: blanched almond meal, nutritional yeast, sea salt, dehydrated onion, and citric acid.

I personally like the taste! It does have a parmesan flavor, and my dad reccomended using it in pesto which sounded good. I was thinking of sauteing up an eggplant and some other veggies tonight, so I'll try it sprinkled on that. Overall, thumbs up on the parmesan stuff!

At whole foods, I thought of trying another kind of cheese. I had never tried a toffuti product in my life, which even I'm surprised at! I guess something that I think about is that I gave up dairy for ethical and health reasons, but I got used to not having it and I didn't really seek out the milk/cheese taste after a while. You may notice that I don't eat too much meat imitations, like tofurkey or fak-in, and I think it's because my body doesn't want that taste anymore. I feel like I don't really need it, I may have it only a few times a year! I would say the most veganized product I have is almond milk, and soymilk. Other than that, my foods are normal. I eat hummus, beans, bread products, veggies, fruit, and foods that anyone would eat. I just don't see the reason to immediatley replace the meat with a meat taste. That may be just me!!

But it's cool to experiment with different veganized versions of meat and dairy. I bought this toffuti cream cheese today, which wasn't too expensive. Thank you, Whole Foods!

The texture was very cream cheesey, and it spread well. I assume it would be a good cream cheese replacement in baking.

The taste was surprisingly good! Actual cream cheesey, and even though I havent had real cream cheese in over a year, I think it is very much like the real thing. I mixed a little with some TJ's pumpkin butter, and put it on a wasa cracker. I also tried it mixed with some local strawberry jam on a cracker. Yes, a bite made it into my mouth before the picture was taken! Oops!

Yumzo. This would also be good on toast or a bagel. :)

Gazpacho talk! I promised I would post about the gazpacho I made the other day. I based it on a recipe out of Fresh and Fast Vegan Pleasures, but changed 2 or 3 things. Mine was definetley a lot spicier, and I added a little bread crumbs beause I never got around to making the spicy paprika croutons. (Didn't want to turn on the oven!)

Spicy gazpacho soup

2 lbs ripe cherry tomatoes (I used an assortment from our garden-we had/have a ton!)

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 red chili pepper, finely diced

3 spring onions (I used 1/4 red onion and 1 shallot)

3 tbsp olive oil

scant 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs (optional)

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tsp sugar

small handful arugula (I used parsley)

1 tsp sea salt

Put all the soup ingredients in the food processor, no need to seed the tomatoes!! Process to the desired consistency, Mine still had some chunks. You may heat the soup if you want like the recipe in the book says, but I have been having mine cooled.

This was great with some franks hot sauce, some more fresh cucumber, and black pepper. Perfect for a hot day, and super easy! Great way to use up tomatoes erupting in your garden.

Once a year, we give my cat, Bourbon, a bath. Since he's an outdoor cat, we figure it's good to because we don't know what he gets into out there! (Yuck...) Cats do naturally clean themselves, and he does a great job doing so. In the past years we've given Bourbon a bath outside with a hose, but every time he has broken free afterwards and gotten dirty outside. So this year I gave him a bath inside, in our bathroom! Just wet him down, with a little mild baby soap, rinsed, and dried! He was so upset during the bath, I bet the thoughts going through his head were "how could you betray me? You sick people!!!" But my mom and I tried to use quiet voices, and he actually didn't do too bad. He's currently stretched out on the upstairs couch, and is QUITE soft and pretty.

Like his white tummy? :D

I'm going to finish up reading more blogs, while I make myself chug this water sitting in front of me. See you guys later!! Thanks for stopping by.

Alicia's magical healing soup-plus some more goodies!

I was in a soup-y mood on Saturday. Only way to describe it, my friends. I wanted to try another Alicia recipe, this one looked very fast and adaptable. It was sort of an add-anything-you-have-laying-around kind of soup. But it was called "Alicia's Magical Healing Soup" so that pulled me in...
I have to admit I cheated. I used very little of these awesome veggies, (no daikon, mushrooms, leeks, ginger, watercress, scallions) Yeah. How did it work? I just added more of the vegetables I had, which were carrots, celery, broccoli, red onions, broccoli stalks, and some green beans. I actually also added 1/2 tsp of Better than Boullion broth stuff to make up for the lost ginger taste, just to add some pizazz. But I know that the soup would be SO much more awesome with some of the other veggies. Boy am I missing out.
But, hence the title, I did feel very well nourished and cleansed after eating this. Its MAGICAL! haha.

Serves 2

1/2 medium carrot, cut into large chunks
1/4 medium daikon, ditto to the carrot
1/4 red onion, cut in chunks
2-3 celery stalks, chopped
3-4 small broccoli florets
4 button mushrooms, sliced
2-3 trumpet mushrooms, sliced
1/2 medium leek, halved then cut into large chunks and swirled in water to dislodge any grit
Ginger juice to taste (grate some ginger, squeeze the juice out with your fingers)
Shoyu to taste
1 whole scallion, thinly sliced
1/4 bunch watercress
Mochi as an optional topping (!)
Toasted nori pieces as an opional topping

Boil 3 cups of water in a large pot. Add the carrot and daikon, reduce the heat to a simmer and add the red onion, cooking for 3 minutes. Add the celery, broccoli, mushrooms, and leek. Add the ginger juice and shoyu to the broth to taste. Simmer until the veggies are cooked through but still firm, about 5 minutes. Add the scallion, turn off the heat. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top with watercress, mochi, and nori.

Now. You MUST know what mochi is. Mochi is made from sweet rice, and its sticky and gooey. It comes in a package with a firm, boring colored block. You slice off little squares and then prepare from there. To do the savory version, heres wattya do. (This can also be baked, but the one in my book has a pan fried version, so I tried that.)

1-2 teaspoons sesame/olive oil

1 package (! I used only 1 strip, about 4-5 pieces!0_o) Mochi

1/4 sheet nori per serving

grated daikon

Sweet version

1-2 teaspoons sesame/olive oil

Mochi (Any amount...)

shoyu

Brown rice syrup

Heat the oil in a cast-iron or stainless steel pan, over medium heat. Place the mochi pieces into the pan, make sure they don't touch, and cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 4 minutes, then flip it. (FOR SWEET VERSION-Add 2 drops shoyu to each piece.) Cover, let cook for 4 more minutes. The mochi should get large bubbles, and puff up and look all gooey and stuff.

For savory, top with nori and daikon, or put in soup like I did:)

For sweet, drizzle with brown rice syrup. (This was my dessert!)

You will fall in love with mochi. I am plotting to have it for breakfast tomorrow! YAY!

Pictures went bye-bye.

Yeah. It's sad.
But the good news is that we happen to have a digital camera in the house that I MIGHT be able to use. Crossing my fingers...
So heres a boring post, I guess. You'll just have to use your imagination for the pictures.
Well yesterday I wanted pancakes...Let me give you a peice of advice. Don't take a waffle recipe and try to make it into a pancake recipe. And don't listen to Isa's heating tips in the Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook. Medium high? Pshh. It made the outside crispy (charred) and the inside doughy. Next time I will A. Use a pancake recipe. B. use a lower heat. I think that should work. BUt they did have great flavor-banana oat raisin (waffle) into pancakes. I always try to learn from my mistakes though.
After my AWESOME guitar lesson and soccer game (which we won! YAY!) my dad and I had some lunch together. Leftover lentil soup from The Kind life, (very small cup:( )some chips with guacamole, and fresh melon cubes. Held me till dinner!
I did a lot of gardening yesterday. Weeding the front garden, mostly. But some cutting of branches, raking, and disposing of dead leaves. Wish I could show you a picture!
My dad, friend, and I went out to our family lakehouse last night. We stopped at Godaiko for sushi and it was DELISH! I got the cucumber vegetarian rolls, (gouged in soy sauce, of course) and some avocado slices from my dad's plate.
After another win in a soccer game (3-4!) my dad stopped at best buy to have the Geek Squad at Best Buy look at his newly purchased laptop. It's a pretty cappuchino color. Something is wrong with his keypad, I feel bad:(
We had a great lunch together, some leftovers from a baby shower that he had on Friday for a coworker. Quinoa salad with peapods, apricots, and apples, Pita chips and carrots with guacamole, a cube of the super amazing delicious addicting bread I made, and a few more melon cubes. Still not that hungry for dinner, but I'll have some fruit n' veggies, or some bread. NOTE TO SELF: Late lunches (3 o'clock) result in a hunger absense later on. Oh well.
Went for a run for 2.5 miles through the park by my house. It was hard because I was cramping a little bit on my sides, so I walked 30%40% of the run. It's better than nothing!
Intense singing week for me. I have a rehearsal tomorrow to work on my solo for my choir concert, and the concert (x2) on Tuesday! Also auditions for a show on Thursday. Hello tea and throat losenges! Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I hope to have a camera soon, I know I keep apologizing, and I know it's annoying, but SORRY ABOUT THE PICTURES again. Okay, hope to have a more colorful blog next time.

I'm back!

Sorry about the blogging absense for...3 days? Oops. I was in Virginia for a wedding, which was really cool. Everything is so pretty driving through Pennsylvania and Maryland; lots of open sky, huge hills, and a bunch of trees. It was sooo nice out too! On the way there, we stopped in Maryland at a crabcake restraunt. Didn't think I'd find much there, but turns out they had a VEGAN split pea soup! Surprisingly good. I added the parsley, yeah. I went there. I also had a mixed green salad with balsamic vinegar and oil, with some currants on the salad.

Plus a perrier.

We went to our hotel after that, and I had a quick workout (20 min?) on the eliptical in the hotel gym. Plus some sit ups and 10 very painful pushups. Yes, I'm a wimp.

The wedding was fun that night, we did tons of dancing! There was also a giant dancing dragonhead and drums, the bride was chinese. The whole reception was really cool and multicultural.

My cousin and I on the way to the wedding.

They had an AWESOME cake!(s) The cupcake tower was my favorite, but the steelers carrot cake rocked. (to look at-unfortunatley neither was vegan.)

The next morning, there was a lovely continental breakfast. I helped myself to tons of melon and pineapple, a lil' bit of oatmeal with banana chips and granola, and a few raisins. Glad they had it there.

We got back in town around 10:15, and I went to bed shortly after. I had to unpack though-very fussy about that!! But I'm glad I'm done unpacking.

Breakfast on Monday was some cereal (duh) half kamut puffs, half Kashi go lean. I could live on cereal, no joke. I topped it with cinnamon, a bunch of strawberries, and rice milk. Yumzo.

We stopped at trader Joes and got crackers, tempeh, a mango, dried pineapple(crack), walnuts, and a couple other things. I love that place so much. Oh, and a chocolate bar:)

For dinner, I tried the TEMPEH! First (MY DAD DOESN'T BELIEVE ME) time having it! It was fine, but I still prefer tofu. My little reliable pal, tofu. We grilled it and I made a deconstructed fajita, topped with caramelized onions, peppers, avocado, tomato, and salsa. I also had some trader Joes savory thin crackers with it. Great dinner on the whole, but still trying to find a killer tempeh recipe.

Finished din din off with 2 squares of this amazingness.

Well sorry for the-abrupt blog. But I'll be blogging again tonight to catch up with today's events!!