VeganSnowFo day 4 - cupcakes a plenty

I made some orange "sort of filled" cupcakes from where else, but Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I didn't fill all of them because the filling was more like a really good creamy jello than pudding. I think it would be excellent as a summer dessert by itself, but not in a cupcake. The cupcakes themselves were tasty. They had orange zest in them to make them nice and orangey. I frosted them with a mixture of melted chocolate, vanilla, orange zest, soymilk and powdered sugar.

I took advantage of the tons of snow and great outside lighting.
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Chessa, this is for you. It's supposed to make you drool and get you in the kitchen to make biscuits 'n gravy. Who am I kidding, you're on autopilot when it comes to this recipe. Here's to hoping your PCC class selection dream comes true and Dawnula teaches another class.

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Kobie is busy searching for cupcakes in the snow.

Voting, pizza and other stuff

Today is the big day! I'm going to go and vote shortly.

On saturday, I went to the Seattle vegan meetup, which was at Kitaro, a Japanese restaurant. I ate a ton of sushi of which I forgot to take pics (as usual). There was a good turnout and I had a lot of fun. I'm getting psyched for the Thanksgiving potluck, though I haven't settled on what to make yet. If you're in Seattle on TG and don't have plans, consider attending.


We went to Pizza Pi on the way home. They have a new item on their menu, Cheezeburger Pizza. I've heard of it before a long time ago, but never had one or knew what it was about. It's really good and would be easy to recreate for those of you that don't live in Seattle. Bake a pizza with cheeze and fake hamburger on it - no sauce. Then put chopped up lettuce, onion, tomato, ketchup and mustard on top & your'e done. A co-worker of Andy's suggested pickles which makes total sense to me. Anyhow, you have to try this. The substandard pics don't do it justice, but I had to show you what it looks like because it is a strange and wonderful creation.

The owners of Pizza Pi and another couple bought the Wayward Cafe. We haven't been yet, but will do so soon.

We used the recipes from the Southern Cooking class to make some biscuits, gravy and smoky collards. Delicious! The recipes turned out just like they did in class, so you know Dawnula did an awesome job creating them. Woohoo! We brought them to some friends that recently had a baby. He is such a cute baby!

Speaking of cute babies, I saw this pic on the camera that I had to share. My guess is that Chippy was there first and Peepa invaded his space. Peepa is the ultimate space invader that doesn't have boundaries!!! Just ask Tubs.

VeganMoFo day #19 - Country Kitchen, Hot Damn and Hell Yeah

Brunch today was totally inspired by Bex at how to feed a vegan. She made some country fried tofu from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah, a really cute cookbook. Bex's came out so good, that I had to try it out. I had also been neglecting this cookbook. It's in good company. I've been ignoring lots of them. Time to start forcing myself to break the ice w/ some of these cookbooks.

In addition, I also made the biscuits and gravy from the same book. Woohoo for brunch!

Anyhow, this meal was very very good. I even sat at the table to eat it. Typically I lay around when I eat.



There is a lot of prep work, so I started yesterday. I decided to make their BBQ sauce which is a component of the tofu marinade. It was good, but I still think Veganomicon's apricot bbq sauce is my fave. The recipe made buckets of sauce, so I see a BBQ'd tofu post in my future.



Marinating tofu:

The thick soy milk bath:


The bread crumb tank:


The spicy flour dredge:


After going through all the stations, I fried them up in my cast iron pan. I found part way through that you really need to oil up that pan. They weren't sticking, but they weren't being properly fried. oil solved the problem.


Here is what the final pile up looked like. The gravy was made with crumbled up sausages. Very tasty.


Here's a picture of Peepa lounging underneath a laptop so he can leech off its heat. That cat is never warm enough. I think I'll make him another sock hoodie this year.

VeganMofo day #2 - good gravy, Charlie Brown those Banana Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Pie cupcakes are delicious!

I'm of course talking about Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance. Yum! Had it on top of a baked garnet yams - though below you can barely see the yam under the super delicious gravy. Also made Jeff's Favorite Neat Loaf from The New Now and Zen Epicure. It was good too, but the yams and gravy stole the show. We're going to have awesome leftovers tomorrow!


Also made Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Pie with a slice of banana inserted into the pudding middle of the cupcake. Mmmmm... banana pudding cupcakes. You can sort of see the banana in the second pic. It's right below that line of chocolate that dragged from the top when I cut them. Maybe next time I will put some turmeric into the pudding so that you can see that there is a banana in there.