I'm a slacker about posting, but not cooking.

While the veggie burger recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance is still our favorite, I just had to try the black bean burger recipe from Veganomicon. These turned out very well, and the flavor of the burger wasn't overpowered by the bun and condiments and whatnot, which is always a plus. These were also much less time-intensive than the VWAV recipe, so when I want some veggie burgers but don't have much time to devote to making them, I'll definitely turn to this recipe again.

And yes, those are baked beans that you see on the plate along with the bean burgers. I was having a rather forgetful day. See, I made these burgers and even went so far as to make the buns from scratch. In all the time that I was opening and closing the fridge that day, I never once noticed the leftovers from the evening before sitting on the top shelf of the fridge just waiting to be eaten. I'm the one that made dinner the night before, so how I could so easily forget about having done so, I don't know. It wasn't until I went to put away the leftover burgers after dinner that I noticed the other leftovers. Woops. And the baked beans were because I was going to serve broccoli with dinner, but forgot to cook it until it was too late.

While we were in Portland, I got a copy of Yellow Rose Recipes. This crispy beer-battered seitan was the first recipe I tried from it. It was messy to make, but very good. I actually liked it better the next day, but I think that was because I like seitan better after it has been in the fridge overnight. I made the seitan for this recipe (also from YRR) the earlier in the day, so it didn't sit in the fridge for all that long. I look forward to trying more recipes from YRR. Right now I'm eyeing the mustard-crusted seitan, since I still have more seitan to use.

The new issue of VegNews contains a macaroni and cashew cheese recipe. I don't usually get VegNews (I'm not really big on magazines), but I saw some pictures of the recipe in the Food Porn section on the PPK and really wanted to try it. I found a variation of the recipe here. I'm so glad I tried it. This might be my new favorite vegan mac and cheese recipe. And, for those of you that don't care for nutritional yeast....don't worry, this recipe doesn't call for any!

These are the jelly donut cupcakes from Veganomicon. Sorry, no inside pictures. These are so neat. You put a spoonful of jelly on top of the batter and it sinks down into the middle during baking. Apparently a lot of other people have trouble with this (the jelly either doesn't sink at all, or it sinks down to the bottom), but they worked just fine for me! I also like that they don't have any frosted. Granted, I like frosting, but it can be a lot of work, so it's nice to have cupcakes that are delicious and pretty without it.

And here's some more....

I finally got around to trying the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from the second issue of Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. I have no clue why I waited so long to make these, because they are awesome. They were nice and soft with just a hint of pumpkin flavor. For those of you who haven't ordered the second issue yet, she put the recipe up on her blog. The only change I made was I used a 9x13" pan, as a 9" square pan just seemed to small to me. Normally I like my cinnamon rolls covered in cream cheese (Tofutti non-hydrogenated, of course) icing, but these were good with just the glaze.


For Hanukkah, I made the potato latkes from Veganomicon. Sorry I didn't get a very good picture of them. These were good, but I am undecided as to whether I prefer latkes with or without matzah meal. They had more body this way, but still...I'm just not sure. I like both, though. Last weekend we had a family Hanukkah celebration in Columbia, SC. We spent the night at my parents' house in Greenville, then drove down to Columbia just for the day on Saturday. I brought the leftover latkes to serve with dinner Friday night and my dad really liked them (I'm sure Momma would have, too, but she wasn't there...she went to go help out my sister with her new baby). At the family Hanukkah celebration, they made me some vegan latkes before they fried the non-vegan ones. My aunt even made me vegan cookies (Mexican wedding cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking, which she got me for Hanukkah).

I brought some dessert with me to the family Hanukkah, so there were vegan cookies galore. I got this sugar cookie recipe from A Veg*n for Dinner. I didn't use any food coloring for the icing, though, as I avoid artificial colors and the natural food colorings are just too expensive for me right now (and I've never seen them locally anyway). I also made the sparkled ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance, but I didn't take a picture because I've also blogged about them before. I have learned that my family is scared of the word ginger, but if I call them "molasses cookies," they are okay. Crazy people.

This is the hot and sour soup with napa cabbage and woodear mushrooms (I may have muddled that name up a bit) from Veganomicon. My cabbage was being stubborn about coming off the head of cabbage neatly, so I cut it up in the food processor instead. The only other time I've had hot and sour soup was at a restaurant in Richmond, VA called Panda Veg. It was good, but homemade is better (and quite simple). Awhile back we were at a Whole Foods and we found this little package of dried woodear mushrooms for a reasonable price. We'd never even heard of woodear mushrooms, but we bought them anyway, then couldn't think of a use for them. Veganomicon arrived and ta-da, finally a recipe that calls for them. This soup is both spicy and filling and the leftovers reheat well.
Hanging out behind the soup are some homemade fried wontons. They would have been spring rolls, but I was having a ton of trouble with the rice paper wrappers. I got so frustrated that I defrosted the wonton wrappers that I had in the freezer and decided to use those. I know that wontons are normally boiled, but I already had the oil all set to fry, so I just went ahead with this. They actually turned out pretty well this way. The filling was napa cabbage, red cabbage, dried shiitake mushrooms, Morningstar Farms chik'n strips (they'd been hanging out in the freezer for quite awhile, so I figured I might as well use them in something), soy sauce, sriracha sauce, ginger, and garlic.

Veganomicon and Beyond

I know I've posted plenty of pizza on here, but this time I made the sauce from scratch! I used the marinara sauce recipe from Veganomicon. It was so simple and, despite the short list of ingredients, made a very flavorful sauce. We ate the rest of the sauce on some gnocchi. I think I enjoyed this sauce more than the bottled sauces I've tried, and it is much cheaper to make.

Can you tell just how much I love Veganomicon? This is the Saffron-Garlic Rice, served with Morningstar Farms chik'n strips and sautéed bell peppers. My boyfriend said this might very well be his favorite rice yet. Garlic and onions can do no wrong around here.

I think I have a problem. I am addicted to testing recipes for others. These Buffalo Breakfast potatoes are a tester recipe for Frecklefoot over at the PPK. You can check out her blog here.
I did something silly at the grocery store recently. Even though Texas Pete hot sauce has never failed me, I bought the generic stuff because it was cheaper (not that Texas Pete is all that expensive). Little did I know that the generic stuff has no spice to it at all. It shall henceforth by known as "not hot sauce". So, these potatoes tasted great, but it was all tang and no heat whatsoever. I'll definitely be making them again, but with a different hot sauce in the future.

Sadly, the vanilla-yogurt pound cake is all gone. We were in need of another dessert last night, so I chose the Chewy Chocolate-Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon. My boyfriend was skeptical, but in the end the cookies won him over. He said he would have eaten the whole batch if I'd let him. The introduction to this recipe in Veganomicon says that they are wonderful as ice-cream sandwich cookies. I'll be trying that this summer!

More from Veganomicon

I served the leftover ED&BV Kinda Corny Muffins with Veganomicon's Chile Cornmeal-Crusted Tofu. I did the baked version, but forgot to spray the tofu with oil, so it was a tad bit dry. The flavor was still very good, though, and I would make this again. I am sure I would also like it fried, but I was trying to be a bit healthier. There was tons of extra coating, so I battered and fried (yeah, so much for the healthy thing) some mushrooms. My boyfriend came in the kitchen, found me coating the mushrooms, and said, "oooh, somebody loves me!" (He'll probably kill me for repeating that, but he meant it to sound goofy, I promise.) We had the carrots with the Black Creek Ranch Dressing from The Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook. It's peeking out of the top right corner of the picture...I don't know why I didn't take a purposeful picture of it. It's really good and so simple.

For dessert we had the Vanilla-Yogurt Pound Cake from Veganomicon. I haven't had pound cake in, ohh....at least a decade, but the wait was most definitely worth it. This might just be one of my favorite desserts yet. It's so moist and full of flavor. We still have plenty left, but already I want to make another. The strawberry sauce on top is homemade. I don't follow a recipe for it, but it is frozen strawberries, sugar, a splash of orange juice, and a cornstarch slurry.

Hot Fudge Cake

My boyfriend's momma recently gave me this recipe. She said it originally came from Taste of Home magazine. I veganized it and changed the pan size, as it called for a 12x12 pan, which is a pretty rare size. The first time I made this, I wasn't thinking clearly and decided to make it in an 8" square pan. I briefly considered putting a cookie sheet underneath it in the oven, as I suspected it might overflow, but for some mysterious reason I rejected that plan. Boy, was that a mistake. Sugary chocolate goo seemed to have surgically implanted itself on the bottom of our oven. I had to scrub....and scrub....and scrub to get that stuff off. On the plus side, our oven has never looked so clean.
I do not know the science behind this recipe, but somehow you wind up with a wonderfully gooey chocolate sauce underneath a layer of chocolate cake. Who can say no to that? Well, diabetics and celiacs can I'm sure, but you know what I mean.

Hot Fudge Cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
9 tablespoons cocoa, divided
3/4 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 cups hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar with 3 tablespoons of cocoa. Stir in soy milk, oil and vanilla until smooth. Spread in ungreased 9x13" glass baking pan. In small bowl, combine brown sugar and 6 tablespoons cocoa. Sprinkle over batter. Pour hot water over all, do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Serve warm.

Thin Mint-Esque Cookies

This is such a simple recipe, but they taste so good. You'll want to hide the rest of the cookies from yourself because they're so addictive (much like the Girl Scout version, even though it's been years since I had them). I stumbled across the recipe on RecipeZaar awhile back.

Thin Mint-Esque Cookies
1 1/2 lbs. chocolate (dark, semi-sweet...whatever you'd like....I usually just use a bag of vegan chocolate chips and cover as many of the crackers as I can)
1/4 teaspoon peppermint oil (or 1-2 teaspoons peppermint extract)
72 Ritz-type crackers (I usually use Late July crackers...in the picture are the Whole Foods brand)

1. Melt chocolate, either in the microwave or in a double-boiler.
2. Stir in the peppermint oil/extract.
3. Drop crackers one at a time into the chocolate mixture, being sure that the crackers get completely coated.
4. Place on wax paper to harden. (I put them into the freezer for a few minutes, then store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container.)

Apple Almond Crumb Pie

Here's another test recipe for Julie Hasson: apple almond crumb pie. The crumb topping is actually supposed to have sliced almonds in it, but I like my almonds ground up, so that's what I did. I think apple pie may very well be one of my favorite desserts, and this recipe was certainly no exception. Lucky for me, it is apple season. I am really enjoying the crumb topping options Julie has for many of her pies, as my favorite part of the pie is definitely the filling rather than the crust.

Creamy Tomato Barley Risotto...and Boston Cream Pie for dessert

This creamy tomato barley risotto is a test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. I don't often like creamy non-dessert things, but I am absolutely in love with this. I think I want to have it at least once a week for the rest of my life. Seriously. Recently I have noticed that we eat a heck of a lot of rice, so it's nice to have some other grain recipes to use. I served the barley risotto with baked Italian-marinated tofu (and mushrooms) from Vegan with a Vengeance.

This not-so-pretty-to-look-at (but yummy to eat) Boston Cream Pie is half from Damn Tasty and half from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I didn't have all of the ingredients for the cake recipe from Damn Tasty, so I used the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from VCTOW (I doubled the cupcake recipe and baked it in two 9" cake pans). The pudding layer and the chocolate ganache are both from the Damn Tasty recipe. This was my first time both making and eating Boston cream pie. It was indeed damn tasty.

Peach Pie

This peach pie is another test recipe for Julie Hasson at Everyday Dish. The lattice crust wasn't actually a part of the recipe, but I recently saw them make one on America's Test Kitchen and I wanted to try it for myself (they used a ruler when cutting the strips on ATK, so theirs came out a bit neater than mine). Peach pie just seems like a perfect summer dessert, although using my ancient oven that heats up the whole apartment probably doesn't seem like the perfect thing to do in summer. I had to use frozen peaches for this because we don't have much to choose from in the way of fresh peaches around here this year. Sadly, there was a late frost that killed off most of the peach crops in Georgia and South Carolina. The only peaches I've found in stores around here have come all the way from California. I tried one anyway, because I really love peaches, but it just wasn't the same. *sigh* Maybe next year....in the meantime, I'm good with this pie made from frozen peaches. It tasted great, and I imagine it would be even better with fresh peaches.

Samosas and Pie. Mmmm pie.

On Saturday night, we were running kind of low on groceries. Normally when we are running low, dinner centers around tofu, but we were out of that, too. I decided on samosas. Rather than following a recipe, I just sort of made this up as I went along. Unfortunately I didn't write down the ingredients, which is sad because these wound up turning out really well! I was feeling gluttonous, so I fried these. The dough was flour, Spectrum shortening, and either water or plain soymilk...I can't remember which, but I'm leaning towards water. I put the dough in the refrigerator while I made the filling, which was potatoes and green peas and some spices (brown mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander, garam masala, chana masala (spice mix that came in a box), and salt....I think that's it). I boiled the peeled (and chopped) russet potatoes first for 12 minutes, then cooked everything over medium heat in a couple of tablespoons of oil. Once assembled, I fried the samosas for a few minutes on each side, until golden brown. The tamarind chutney I served the samosas with was store-bought. Our health food store had it on closeout. I'm glad we bought it because it turned out to be very good.


This is a bumbleberry pie with an oat crumble topping, which is a test recipe for Julie Hasson. This pie turned out absolutely awesome. I made the crust from scratch per one of her recipes, too, and it was so simple and tasty! I often eat the filling out of pies and leave the crust for my boyfriend, but this time I liked the crust so much that I ate my whole slice. In case you aren't familiar with bumbleberry, it is a mixed berry pie. I used a bag of frozen mixed berries, so this had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries in it. The filling thickened up so nicely, too. I am so excited to test more pie recipes for Julie!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Here's another one from Damn Tasty!: peanut butter cookies. These turned out awesome. They are much softer than peanut butter cookies usually are, which is a very good thing to me. My boyfriend's parents were visiting this weekend, so I decided to make a dessert to have around. These were a hit (and I'm the only vegan of the bunch)!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells

These are the Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells from The Damn Tasty! Vegan Baking Guide (by Kris, of Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen). Holy yum! These are so rich and tasty. She actually has this recipe up on her website if you'd like to try it out, but her book is fantastic and I highly recommend that you get a copy.

Rich Vegan Brownies

I found this recipe on the vegancooking group on livejournal last year. I really liked it when I made it, but I had a bit of an accident the last time I made it about a year ago. Since the recipe calls for melted soy ice cream and I wanted to make my brownies right then, I put my ice cream in the microwave to melt it. Now, I know better than to put metal in the microwave. I am POSITIVE that I did no such thing, but yet the microwave started sparking on the inside as though I had done just that. I quickly turned it off and unplugged it, but there was this little burnt hole inside it. It was never the same again. When I told my daddy about the incident, he said "there must have been some metal in your ice cream." Well holy crap, I certainly hope not! I had to throw out my microwave. Since I was moving in about a month (by the way, oh friendly neighbors in Richmond...I am a small girl and that microwave was heavy and awkward. Thanks for just watching me struggle with it on my way to the trash cans.), I didn't want to buy another one, so I did without until I moved. I am accustomed to my modern conveniences. It was an annoying month, as exam-time means very little time for cooking.

This time I was patient and just measured out the soy ice cream and waited for it to melt on its own. I used Purely Decadent Cookie Avalanche. This time I doubled the recipe. What can I say? We like our chocolate. These are good. Not cakey at all. I'm sorry, but brownies should not be cakey. Here's the doubled (and slightly modified) recipe:

1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa
2 ts baking powder
1/2 ts salt
1 c melted soy ice cream (the flavor is up to you)
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 ts vanilla extract
1/4 c chocolate soy milk (vanilla would work, too--you might need a little more, depending on the consistency of your batter)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 11x13" baking pan (or line with parchment paper).

Mix together all of the dry ingredients. Add in the wet ingredients and stir until just-blended. If your batter is too thick (read: difficult to work with), add in a bit more soy milk. The batter will be a little thicker than most non-vegan brownie batters. Spread into 11x13" pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

More Test Recipes

This non-traditional fried rice is a test recipe for mrsbadmouth. I don't recall if I've ever had traditional fried rice, but I really liked this one. The vegetables you include are really up to you. I used mushrooms, onion, green pepper, carrots, broccoli, and garlic. I was supposed to make this with brown rice, but I was all out, so I used the white rice I had in the pantry. I definitely won't mind making it again so that I can try it with the brown rice I should have used.

This is strawberry and vanilla bean haupia, which is a test recipe for lolo over at VeganYumYum. Haupia is a Hawaiian dessert and is a sort of coconut pudding (it's thicker than pudding, though). This was good, but is probably not something I will make often simply because vanilla beans are so expensive. I did really like the texture and flavor of this, though. If I make it again, I will probably serve the sliced strawberries separately, but that's mainly because my boyfriend is weird and doesn't like strawberries (he says it's a texture thing, as he didn't mind the strawberry sauce....yet he doesn't understand my dislike of raw bananas).

Jambalaya and Cookies

This is the Jammin' Vegetable Jambalaya from Robin Robertson's The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. Yes, I know that's kind of a goofy name for a recipe. I suppose that when you come up with as many recipes as Robin Robertson does, coming up with creative names can be a challenge. This jambalaya was good. I've never had non-vegan jambalaya, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I liked the flavor in this. I used Tofurky Chipotle Franks as the "sausage" in this. The recipe wound up not being very spicy at all. It was good that way, but I would like to try it again substituting some chipotle pepper for the hot sauce. The recipe says to serve this over long grain rice. I thought I had enough rice, but when I looked in the pantry, I discovered I was wrong. I did have a bag of barley, though. I took this as an opportunity to try out Alton Brown's recipe for baked barley (substituting Earth Balance Whipped for the butter). It was so easy. I will definitely use it more often in the future (and his recipe for baked brown rice, too).


These are the Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Post Punk Kitchen. By no means are these cookies remotely healthy, but my do they taste good.

Calcutta Curried Potatoes and Cinnamon Rolls

This is Calcutta Curried Potatoes (served over yellow rice) from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks. The subtitle of the recipe says that it would be called Aloo Bhaji. I added peas to the recipe (along with cutting the recipe in half....we still had enough for two nights, so four servings in all), which I know would change the name of the recipe, but I can't remember the word for green peas. This was a good recipe that I would make again. It had a lot of flavor without being overly spicy. I don't know that it would be considered a very authentic Indian recipe, based on the spices called for, but then again the cookbook is referred to as "a treasury of vegetarian recipes from Jewish communities around the world," and I know nothing about Jewish communities in India. Olive Trees and Honey is a huge cookbook. Many of the recipes are not vegan in the least (for instance, the recipe for Sephardic potato croquettes calls for 6 eggs, plus an additional egg for the coating!), but I look forward to trying more of the vegan or easily veganizable recipes.

For the cinnamon rolls, I used this recipe, substituting plain soymilk for the milk, Earth Balance Whipped for the butter, and Ener-G egg replacer for the egg. Although I have a bread machine, I decided to make these by hand because I was worried that 6 cups of flour was too much for my machine. I didn't use the frosting recipe included in that link. Instead, I beat an 8 ounce tub of Tofutti non-hydrogenated cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of EB Whipped and 1 3/4 cups of powdered sugar. These turned out really well. They are much softer than the previous ones I made. Don't ask me why I didn't cut the recipe in half, though. Twenty-four cinnamon rolls is a lot for two people! Our refrigerator is now busting at the seams with cinnamon rolls. Not that we're complaining or anything....

Despite My Absence, I Have Been Cooking

Sem Aur Khumbi, from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. The English name of this dish is decidedly less exotic-sounding: Green Beans with Mushrooms. This was the first dish I made from the book, which I currently have checked out of the library. I added some of the Morningstar Farms chick'n strips to it. They really weren't necessary, but we had some hanging out in the freezer and my boyfriend really liked them when he tried them recently. This dish was really good and I would definitely make it again, although I'd probably cut back on the cayenne next time. The recipe calls for a whole teaspoon of it and I found it quite spicy (and I don't even have the spicier cayenne....the health food store had two different heat-levels in the bulk spice section and I bought the less spicy one--boy am I glad I did!). I served this over organic whole-wheat couscous. I was excited to discover that Fantastic Foods started making a whole wheat version.

Vegan with a Vengeance samosas (potato and green pea) with homemade mango chutney. These took forever to make, but they were really good. I was going to take the easy way out on the chutney and just buy some already made (either mango or tamarind), but all of the ones I found had either high fructose corn syrup or refined sugar, so I bought a mango and figured I would wing it on making my own. It worked out quite well.

Tempeh hot wings. I am testing some recipes for mrsbadmouth over at the Post Punk Kitchen, and this was one of the first ones I tried. I'd never had regular wings before, but I was told that this was a milder sauce. It was really good and I definitely plan on making this again.

Lovin' Spoonful O' Cornbread. This is another test recipe for mrsbadmouth. It is a sweet, moist spoon bread and we loved it. I was sad that we didn't finish it before Passover started. The recipe calls for creamed corn, but I didn't go with my boyfriend to the grocery store and he came home reporting that all of the creamed corn at Kroger's had refined sugar in it. As such, he bought me a regular can of corn and figured that I would be able to make my own creamed corn. I must say, homemade creamed corn is much tastier than the awful canned stuff that my daddy tried to make me eat when I was growing up.


Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, another test recipe for mrsbadmouth. The filling was much better than the store-bought crust. It's possible that I just don't like graham cracker crusts, but until I do some more experimenting, I am choosing to blame the Arrowhead Mills crust. My boyfriend didn't seem to mind the crust, though. I ate the filling out of my piece and he finished the crust. I like having a boyfriend that can eat more than I can. It means I waste less food.

A True Southern Meal

The other night, while eating leftover lasagna, my boyfriend told me "I've been looking forward to this meatloaf all night." "Umm...you're eating lasagna." "I know, but I have really been wanting meatloaf, so that's what I'm pretending it is." Cue the vegan meatloaf. I used this recipe (which is actually the first recipe that comes up if you do a google search for "vegan meatloaf"). The taste was pretty good, but it didn't firm up enough, even after sitting for 20 minutes. I would probably search for a different recipe in the future.

The mashed potatoes are this recipe, subbing plain soy milk and Earth Balance Whipped (we hardly ever buy the regular Earth Balance, as we like the texture of the Whipped one, or even of Soy Garden, better...plus, EB Whipped is organic and regular EB is not). The gravy is just the Pacific Foods brand mushroom gravy. I bought the small box of it after Thanksgiving when it was on sale, but it's just been sitting in the fridge ever since. I don't often have a need for brown gravy, so I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.

The green beans are actually from my boyfriend's parents' garden. His momma cans the beans each year. They're so good!

I made a really stupid mistake with the biscuits, hence their lack of fluffiness. My biscuit recipe calls for self-rising flour, and I always sub regular flour with added baking powder and salt. This time, it wasn't until I'd mixed the soy milk into the flour and shortening mixture that I realized I'd forgotten said baking powder and salt. I kneaded it into the dough, but it just wasn't the same. Woopsie.


These are Fig Not-Ins from Vegan with a Vengeance. Before cooking the filling on the stove, I ran it through the food processor. I didn't have quite enough figs, and I wanted them to have a raspberry flavor, too, so I added some raspberry jam to the mixture. It worked nicely! The cookie part is a little harder that I recall Fig Newtons being, but these are still very good. They sure aren't the easiest cookies to put together, though.

Red Curry Seitan and Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

This red curry seitan was such a simple "recipe" (I made it up on the fly). I cut up seitan into bite-size pieces and browned it over medium heat. I added chopped onions and a red bell pepper and cooked them until they were softened. I meant to add a can of straw mushrooms, but I managed to forget it despite the fact that I had it sitting out on the counter. I then whisked approx. 2 teaspoons of Thai Kitchen red curry paste (would cut that back a little next time) into one can of coconut milk. I added this mixture, along with some chopped fresh basil, to the pan of seitan and veggies and let cook until it was heated throughout. Except for the time it took to make to cook the brown rice, this was the fastest dinner I've made in awhile. We had enough for leftovers the next night, which was good because we got home from our day-trip to Atlanta pretty late.

My boyfriend took me to Atlanta this weekend as a belated Valentine's Day present (I was sick on Valentine's Day, so he couldn't surprise me then like he'd wanted to). We ate lunch at Soul Vegetarian, then went to Ikea, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. At Ikea I got a large whisk (my other one was getting rusty in the handle, plus this new one is silicone-coated so that it won't scratch my pots), a mortar and pestle, a wok ($7!!!), and an apron (also $7!!!). We spent entirely too much money on food, but it was a fun trip. I long to have a Trader Joe's here.


Cookies and Cream Cupcakes, from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, of course. So cute! Cutting a Newman-O in half is not as easy as you'd think.

Chag Purim! (a little late)

"Chag Purim" is "Purim Holiday" in Hebrew. Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrating when Queen Esther saved the Jewish people by foiling Haman's plot to kill all of the Jews (it is the story told in the Book of Esther). The cookies that you see above are called Hamantaschen. They are traditionally served on Purim. There is some confusion over just what the three-cornered cookies are supposed to symbolize. Some say it is Haman's hat, some say his ears, some say his pocket, and others say the name derives from something else entirely. Nonetheless, they are tasty cookies. This is the first time I made a vegan version. I used this recipe, only I creamed together the Earth Balance, sugar, and vanilla first, and replaced the 1/2 cup water with almond milk. I used an all-fruit raspberry jam and chocolate chips as the fillings. This recipe needs some tweaking, as the cookies spread a bit more in the oven than they should have (I'm thinking reducing the baking powder and using one or two "eggs" worth of Ener-G egg replacer might work), but they still taste very good.