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!!

                                         

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.

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!

Awesome Saturday!

On saturday morning, I got up at 8:00(!!OH MY GOD!!!) and I felt very disoriented. I had a cup of iced coffee, that made me somewhat alive. But why 8? MY alarm was set for 8:30. But my dad and I left for the farmers market around 9:15, and that was fine.
We did some shopping, I had to buy all of 3 things. Strawberry jam, powdered sugar, and an apple (for my brekkie). My dad did a TON of shopping, so I got to sit on the benches for a while and sip at (yet another) iced coffee.
We headed out for the cottage, and I started on my cake straight away!! Can you guess what it would be judging by 2 ingredients from the previous paragraph?

We had appetizers (oh my god it seriousley equaled to a meal!) And my dad did most of the appetizer work, although I did make pesto for him. Fresh basil from our garden.. YUM!

Crostini with ciabatta bread, pesto, and baked tomatoes
The rest of the samosas, heated up.
Some more coconut mint chutney

Marinated olives in rosemary and orange (so yummy!) Just mix 2 cups unseasoned olives, some orange zest, a few rosemary sprigs, a handful of chopped parsley, a few garlic cloves, and a good drizzle of olive oil, then let it marinate and YUM!!

Peach and mint iced tea

Grilled watermelon with feta cheese

Unforunatley, my tummy has been... BLAH! Since saturday-including today. It's really weird! So I didn't have much in the form of appetizers, I think I had a piece of cheese-less grilled watermelon, and diet soda. :(

Hung out with my kitty while they were on the boat.

Like my toes?

After my dad took our guests for a boat ride, we started on DINNER!! (But...there was already so much!) So he started with that while I chopped veggies and such. I didn't have a dinner dish really, just dessert:)

Opa! Lamb and grilled veggies on the grill. Or is it a bonfire?

Pretty pasta salad our friends brought

More watermelon

Grilled veggies (yes, the picture sucks.)

DELICIOUS bread baked by our friends that day!!!

Yumzy greek salad
Salmon
Lamb...I actually carried it to a table but no one got a picture of me holding it!

The whole spread! There was also AMAZING stuffed tomatoes, which I had one of tonight. Stuffed with bulgur, carrot, celery, chickpeas...so yummzy!

My plate...yes my tummy was not happy, and didn't feel happy after eating. But I did anyways, and it eventually got better later in the night.
Speaking of that night...

I made cake! Sponge cake with strawberries and mint. I added some orange flavor too! It was from Fresh and fast vegan pleasures.

Right after assembling

Sat out for a while-covered the blemishes with mint and strawbs.

Still perfectly good! It was actually amazing, if I may say so myself. I can, since it's not even my recipe and even though I tweaked it a bit, I give credit to Amanda Grant.

1/2 cup earth balance

1/2 cup turbinado sugar

2 1/4 cups self rising flour (yes, this is NOT a typo)

3 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

9 fl. oz soy yogurt (1 1/2 cartons)

1/4 tsp vanilla

I added about 1/2-1 tsp orange liqueur

1-2 tbsp vegan milk (I needed more)

Filling/Topping:

1 lb strawberries, sliced

sugar and orange liqueur to taste

4 tbsp strawberry jam (My dad made some on the spot...we forgot it!)

Decorate:

Handful of mint

confectioner's sugar

orange zest

Preheat the oven to 350'F. Put the margarine and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently, until the sugar has dissolved. Let cool.

Grease an 8' cake pan and line the base with grease proof paper. (Or spray lightly. I Used a large cake pan, and made 2 cakes then layered them on top of each other with filling in the middle, they were quite thin.) Sift the flour and baking powder, then add the salt. Pour the margarine and sugar into the dry ingredients. Add the yogurt, vanilla, and orange liqueur. Mix well with a spoon until it is a soft drooping consistency, add vegan milk if neccacery. Spoon the cake mixture into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until it's risen and golden. The center will be springy, then let it cool.

Cut the cake in 1/2 horizontally (I had 2 thin cakes) and put the strawberries in a bowl, then add the orange liqueur and sugar. Spread a layer of jam on top of both halves of the cake. Cover one half with a layer of the strawberries. Put the cake, jam side up, onto the other cake half. Arrange the top cake with strawberries, powdered sugar, mint, and orange zest. Enjoy!

I sliced the orange and a peach to go with dessert.

This morning (11 ish!) My dad really wanted me to make him french toast out of that amazing bread. I threw together:

1 cup almond milk

splash vanilla

3-4 tbsp flour

TONS of cinnamon

3 tsp brown sugar

drizzle of honey (the only kind of honey I'll eat, from a bee farm literally in our neighborhood.)

pinch of salt and baking powder

JUst simply soak the bread for a minute or two, then fry for 3-4 minutes on a lightly greased pan on LOW MEDIUM! Crucial.

My dad loved it! He even parted from his computer.

It was really delicious! I had a bite, but still my tummy was NOT HAPPY.
My dad took me tubing on our boat, which was super fun!

On the car ride home, I was dropped off at a little strip mall to hang out with my friend. Hi Sagen, if you're reading!

Poor kitty in the car.
Our purchases at ulta: She got a clean and clear cleanser thing, an eyeliner with a free mascara, and I got an eyeliner (plum shade!) with a free mascara, and a $3.50 TURQUOISE eyeliner! Plus an unpictured lilac lipstick in the clearance.

Plato's closet! Nice jacket, Sagen.
Like my heels? I wish I was that tall. I ended up getting an unpictured black and white tshirt thingy.

Love this waterbottle! We went to whole foods, she got this water and a bag of pop chips, salt and pepper flavor. I got a panda bar, (chewy black licorice) for my dad, and a bag of vegan carob chips. I haven't had those in a while!

I'm going to be doing a t-shirt making class with sagen this week, we'll be biking downtown for a 1:00 class every day. Excited! What should my designs be? I need advice!