Apple Cinnamon Cake Buddies!

My roommate and I have had some frozen concentrate apple juice in our freezer for a while. I'm not a big fan of apple juice so we were discussing one night what we could use it for. I suggested putting it in a cake of some sort. We decided oatmeal cake would be best and in further talking thought maybe putting apple slices in it would be good too. I discussed it with my mom and another friend as well and between everyone I formed something that turned out pretty awesome and much better then I had expected!

This was not a vegan recipe as I didn't really have time to figure out and test different things to use as an egg substitute. The next batch I think I'm going to just try and use applesauce in place of the eggs and see how it goes.

For the batter:

1 1/4c apple juice concentrate
1c quick oats
Mix together and set aside

beat
1/2c butter(I used vegan margarine)
1c white sugar
1c brown sugar
add:
2tsp vanilla
2eggs

add oat/apple juice mixture.

after that is mixed well add
1 1/2c flour
1tsp baking soda or powder (whichever is fine)
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg

Pour in to lined cupcake sheets.

For the apples in the center I made 'apple pie' apples. I cut up my apple in smallish pieces, lightly coated them in flour... added some brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, a little melted butter and mixed together.



Put a single slice in the center of each cupcake. Bake at 350 for 40min or until done. I would check on them sooner then that.

Pecan Topping:
mix together
3TBS melted butter
1/2c brown sugar
approx 1/2c chopped pecans
touch of cinnamon

After your your cupcake/muffins come out of the oven top them with the pecan mixture. Let cool and serve!

I have a few friends that don't like nuts so for those I just topped them with the same mixture minus the pecans.

Vegan Pancakes!

What?! A new post? Yes! Finally I have managed to do some original cooking in the kitchen. It wasn't much, but it was original none the less, so yay for that!

I have tried vegan pancakes a few times, they seem to be hit and miss. Today was a hit and I thought I would share. :)

I looked at a few simple recipes and decided to combine a few and make my own based on how my basic non vegan recipe looks.

Vegan Pancakes

1c flour
2tbs baking powder
1/2tsp salt
2 tbs sugar

1c soy milk
2tbs vegetable oil
1tbs vanilla
1 egg replacer (mixed before adding)

Mix all your dry ingredients together then add your liquids. Whisk together until smooth... Cook and enjoy!

The batter seemed a little thick, but they puffed up quite nicely and turned out really well. :)

Margarita.... cupcakes? need some help

So I have a pregnant friend who is very much missing being able to drink margarita's.... There has been a request to make sure to have virgin ones at her baby shower in a few months. :) That should be easy enough to do.

We are having a get together on Sunday though and I've been thinking of maybe making margarita cupcakes... My thought was just to substitute margarita mix for water and make a margarita cream cheese frosting.....

Seems like that won't be much different then the lime cupcakes I made a few months ago though....

Any suggestions on how to make them taste more like a margarita without actually using any alcohol in them??

Cookies!!

I have been beyond awful at blogging the last few months. Truth is I haven't been doing much experimenting in the kitchen. I'm not really living somewhere that makes it easy for me to cook and bake whenever I want to. I have however recently fallen in love with a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I asked my wonderful twitter buddies for baking suggestions a while back and had a friend suggest a recipe from Veg Web. Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies is the recipe she told me about. I for years have used pretty much only one recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and I think I will forever use this one now. :)

I altered it only slightly. For the 1c raw sugar, I used 1/2c white sugar and 1/2c brown sugar and made sure to use vegetable oil instead of canola oil. Also decided to add the cinnamon to them. Turns out that cinnamon is a must when it comes to chocolate chip cookies!! Oh! And I used a little less then a cup of chocolate chips.

Try them out, they rocked!! Logan devoured at least 10 cookies in the couple hours he was here that night and took home almost all the rest of them.



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On a slightly different note... I have been inspired by a friend and want to try out vegan caramel.... If anyone has any helpful hints, recipes or anything else that might be helpful in making it please let me know. :)

Brownies & Black beans?!

For over a year my dear friend Jordan has been telling me that when making boxed brownies the easiest thing to substitute for eggs is.... black beans?! At first I thought he was crazy, but the more I've talked to him about baking and had my hits and misses on experimenting with egg replacements the more I thought he was probably not wrong.... Back in May he was kind enough to make me some amazing vegan brownies using black beans! They were AWESOME!! With that being said.... I've still been a bit hesitant to try it myself for no other reason then, I tend to fail lately at baking in the kitchen.

Today, bored and not having much want to do anything at all, I decided that I would try out this theory of his.... I had a pre-packaged bag of brownie mix that my old roommate left when moving out.... Don't like eggs or have any desire to use them.... Figured I'd try it out....

I pureed the best I could a can of black beans and mixed them in with the rest of the ingredients....

I am a convert........ Black beans will forever be used when making boxed brownies instead of eggs!! Try it out!! It sounds crazy, but really.... you can't even tell they are there!

Lactose Intolerant...

So something I've learned recently.... If you eat pretty much no dairy for 3+ months then decide to randomly eat it again, you get really really sick! If I eat something like cake, or chocolate that has eggs or milk in it I seem to be okay because there isn't a lot in it, but any kind of cheese or ice cream.... in any amounts.... I get sooo soo sick.

Turns out I've made myself lactose intolerant.....

I spent a couple days at my brothers and my sister-in-law made a cheesecake type thing and I knew it would probably make me sick, but didn't want to be rude so decided to try it anyway... Spent all of last night and most of today sick because of it.....

This has been happening for the last couple weeks.... I bought cheese for the first time in a few months.... told my roommate she could have it after the first night I had it home.

I guess now I have an excuse to not eat it other then I choose not to.... My brother really doesn't like this me going veggie thing at all... I'm not sure why, it's not like it affects him in anyway.

Anyway.... That is my news for today...... Once you decide to stop, stick with it, the sickness that comes along after is all kinds of not fun.

failing in the kitchen....

I have been having the worst luck baking anything for over a month now. I had some peanut butter cookies turn out just fine and a couple tarts work, but the pie I made, a cake, and now a second batch of cupcakes.... Not work... The pie was fine, just needed to bake longer but it was so late I just decided to not care and take it out... The cake needed another 7min or so in the oven too, but I'm having a hard time getting used to this vegan baking thing and thought it was done. Tasted okay though...

These cupcakes though........ I am soooo full of fail!! I tried to recreate the epic mocha cupcakes but used different milk because I didn't have any of the coffee milk at the time an I don' know what happened but they did not turn out well.

Today trying to edit the mocha recipe just a bit to just make regular chocolate cupcakes instead... I used vanilla soymilk instead of the coffee and didn't add in the extra coffee.... Oh and I used all shortening instead of half butter, half shortening.... Should those small changes really make THAT big of a difference??? In regular baking, no it wouldn't matter and that should be fine, but for whatever reason you take out the egg factor and try and make a slight change and it just doesn't work as well.... WHY???

I have friends that make perfect vegan cupcakes every time, they try out new recipes and they work... I'm seriously feeling extremely discouraged when it comes to baking?!

I've been baking my entire life, I've always been really good at it... it's in my blood, but now.. After more then a month and a ton of wasted ingredients later... I'm about ready to throw in the towel and only make cookies and tarts forever....... Which is fail because cookies are my least favorite thing to bake, but people LOVE them....

On a brighter note... When it comes to cooking dinner and non dessert foods I seem to be doing just fine... So yay for that.... :)

I think it might be time to break down and find a cookbook to start using.... Not something I'm used to, but I can't keep wasting so much money on ingredients for things that don't turn out, and really I need to expand on dinner foods too........... *sigh*

Okay.... done for today.... cupcakes need to come out of the oven... Hopefully I can make them work so I don't have to make more tonight.

I just realized that I didn't post at all in May... I have been BUSY!! Moving, concerts, work and lots in between! That doesn't mean I haven't been cooking though!! So since I don't have a lot of time here are some pics of some super yummy things I've been eating lately!

Cherry Lime Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese frosting!
They even had a cherry baked inside!


Epic Lime Cheesecake for Logan's birthday!


A little apple tart w/a touch of raspberry in it


A Raspberry/Peach Pie w/Dinosaurs & a tart of the same flavor w/feet!




First time I've ever made stir fry! It was awesome! Broccoli, onions, mushrooms, pineapple and tofu! It was also my first time ever cooking my own tofu!


And last, but not least... My very first homemade vegan pizza! Garlic pizza dough from scratch, homemade sauce and Daiya cheese!! :D It was super yum!!

Epic Mocha Cupcakes!! (vegan!)

FINALLY a blog post from me! I've been moving and had a lot going on and my poor blog has been neglected! That doesn't mean I haven't been making some great food in the mean time!

For over month I just kept thinking and thinking about how I could turn my vegan white cake recipe in to a chocolate one.... Then a friend gave me the brilliant idea of mocha cupcakes! I thought and thought and finally one night at like 2am my brain worked out these cupcakes.... turns out they rock! As far as the coffee part goes, I'm not allowed to have it, so I don't often have it in my house, but was given some awesome coffee milk from a friend that I wanted to try and also had some instant coffee packets that I'd been given from my birthday!

The basic recipe is pretty much the same as the white cake, but I'll post it fresh here w/changes included



Epic Mocha Cupcakes

1 cup white sugarhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
1/4 cup vegan margarine
1/4c vegetable shortening(CRISCO)
2TBS flax + 4tbs water
1TBS vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder(slightly heaping)
1/2c chocolate fudge instant pudding mix
1 packet instant coffee mixed w/just enough water to dissolve it.
1c Pearl brand coffee soymilk


Beat together sugar, margarine and Crisco until smooth. Then add flax/water mixture and vanilla. Add your baking powder and flour, then pudding mix. Mix well then slowly add milk. Mix until smooth. Will be kind of thick, it's okay... they will fluff up and bake nicely.

Pour in to lined baking cups.
Bake 350 for 30-40min

For frosting I just used a basic frosting recipe... powdered sugar, shortening, and vanilla and milk....

I melted down some semi-sweet chocolate chips with a tiny bit of milk in them to keep it smooth and mixed it in to the already mixed frosting, added another packet of instant coffee and called it great! ;)

The Curry Guest Blog... Finally.

I promised Meagan I would guest blog about curry forever and a day ago. So here it is, the curry guest blog you've all been waiting for.

I personally love curry, It is one of my staples. It is so versatile, you can make pretty much anything into a curry and it'll taste good.

I compiled a list of a few of my curry recipes so that you could all enjoy curry like I do.

• Thai Massaman Curry with Tofu

This is by far my favorite curry. Meagan said it's the only curry she has ever tried and liked. It's a thai curry, so it's a little on the sweeter side. I tend to make my sweeter as well, using sugar and peanut butter. This curry is a little more time consuming than the other curries, but it is well worth it.
Check out the recipe here.

• Instant Chickpea Rice Curry

  
  
  

   

  This recipe is just an easy one. Like most quick curries. It doesn't take a lot of work, and it tastes awesome. It uses golden curry blocks which you can get at the asian market as well as chickpeas, which are my just awesome.

  Check out the recipe here.

  • Instant Coconut Curry Rice

    

    This is another really easy recipe using instant rice that is a sweeter curry, almost dessert like. It uses coconut milk and peanut butter. It's great for pot lucks because it is quick and it'll make you look like you spent time when really it was easier than buying a bag of chips.

    Check out the recipe here
    
    

    • Quick and Easy Potato Tofu Curry
      
  

  
  

   This curry may not look the prettiest, but it is quick, easy and tasty. It uses the Golden Curry blocks from the asian market. A must have staple in my kitchen.

  Check out the recipe here.
  

  • Curried Couscous
    
    

    
    I love couscous, it is like pasta, rice and potatoes all mixed into one. Only natural that it should be made into a curry. This quick recipe is just as easy as making normal couscous, just switching out the vegetable broth for a curry broth.

    
    Check out the recipe here.
    
    
    
    I hope you enjoy these recipes. 

    Use them as a guide for your "experiments in the kitchen" (ba-da-bing). 

    -Jordan Halliday

    Militant Vegan Cooking
    

Vegan White Cake & Lemon Frosting!

I got my kitchen all nice and extra clean today, which of course meant it needed to be dirtied again! I had no idea what I wanted to make so I sent out a tweet and had a friend suggest I make a cake because she has only ever baked one cake ever.... I was a little surprised and decided I'd google white cake recipes and see what I could find... Because to be honest, making cake from scratch doesn't usually end well for me, and vegan cake isn't something I've had much luck with either....

I found this recipe for Simple White Cake and thought I'd try my hand in making it vegan.... SO here goes nothing.... The best homemade white cake I've ever made!

Simple Vegan White Cake

1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup vegan margarine
1/4c vegetable shortening(CRISCO)
2TBS flax(heaping) + 4tbs water
1TBS vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder(slightly heaping)
3/4c + 1/8c milk

Beat together sugar, margarine and Crisco until smooth. Then add flax/water mixture and vanilla. Add your baking powder and flour, mix well then slowly add milk. Mix until smooth.

Pour in a greased and floured 9in round pan.

Bake 350 for 30-40min

Let cool before taking out of pan, frost and enjoy!

I get bored with playing 'white' cake so I tend to do things like add food coloring to it so it isn't so boring.... I added blue food coloring to the second cake I made. Sorry I don't have a better picture.

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Some side notes with this.... I made a beyond stupid sweet lemon frosting for it. I wouldn't use such a sweet frosting for it, but maybe that is just me, I've never been one for overly sweet stuff.

I made two so that I could make a layered cake... They were a tiny bit on the crumbly side, but I think that is because I didn't let them cool enough before I decided to stack them... Test it out and see what you think and let me know. Let me rephrase that.... The cake is super moist and super yum! The outer edge is what crumbled a tiny bit.

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For my frosting I used about 1lb powdered sugar, 1/2c-3/4c Crisco (vegan margarine will work just as well) and about 3/4 can lemon-aid concentrate (from can), creamed it all together and yum! Add your lemon-aid slowly and only add until it gets to your desired lemon flavor.... Add some food coloring if you want, keep in fridge until ready to use.

I added some yellow food coloring to it, for a happy yellow to contrast the blue of the cake.

Veganized Killer Cookies!!

Some time last year I posted a recipe for Killer Cookies... It's a recipe I got from a friend years ago, and is by far the best chocolate chip cookie ever! Sadly... It wasn't a cookie I could share with my vegan friends... So I made it a goal to revamp the recipe, find vegan chocolate chips and figure out a way to substitute the eggs and guess what?! They ROCK!! The best part about it is all of my friends devoured them and none were aware that I had made them vegan! Yay for that!

The only downfall to this recipe is that it is huge! It makes 80-100 cookies depending on how big you make them, so I recommend halving it.

Vegan Killer Cookies

1 3/4c Shortening
2c sugar
2c brown sugar
4 heaping TBS ground flax + 8TBS water mixed (use for egg)
2tsp vanilla
3c flour
2tsp salt
2tsp baking soda
6c oatmeal

1/2 to 3/4c chopped nuts
1/2 to 3/4c coconut
1 12oz package chocolate chips

It'll be a little on the dry side, pour in some vanilla soymilk or whatever milk you have handy until slightly sticky. Scoop them in to 1in balls.

Bake at 350 for 9-12min

Pizza Dough & Garlic Bread!!

So over a year ago I was given an awesome large Pampered Chef pizza stone that until Thursday I had never even taken out of the box. I had been putting off making pizza because I had never gotten a good recipe for pizza crust. I asked someone I knew would have a good one finally and sure enough.... Awesome!! So here goes...

Gram's Pizza Dough.

2 cup flour

2 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon yeast

Olive oil

warm water. (about 3/4c seemed to be about right.)

Place flour in bowl, add the sugar , salt, yeast swirl around to mix.
take the olive oil and swirl a few time around the flour mixture, add warm water to make a dough, dough might be sticky just flour hands and shape into a ball place in greased bowl and let rise until double in bulk.

Once it is done rising, sprinkle a little corn meal on whatever you choose to bake it on and spread out your dough to the desired shape/size. Bake the dough for 2-3min at then take out and cover with sauce, cheese or whatever else you choose, then put back in the oven for 10-15min or until your crust is brown on the edges and your cheese is melted.

Bake at 410, makes one large pizza.

Pineapple & Tomato Pizza

Olive & Mushroom Pizza

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I loved the pizza dough so much I decided I needed to use it to make some garlic bread, so this recipe is very similar and can also be used for a pizza crust if you like. I'm sure it would be awesome!

Garlic Bread

2 cup flour
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon yeast
Olive oil (I used a little extra for this recipe cuz I wanted the flavor)
warm water. (about 3/4c seemed to be about right.)
1 heaping TB minced garlic
and a couple shakes of both Oregano and Basil

Let rise to double, form to desired shape.. bake for 10-20min at 410

I served it with some marinara sauce for dipping.

Black Bean Tacos!!

I didn't get a picture of the actual tacos I ate, but I love taking pictures of veggies so that's the best I've got today. :) And I only have a rough estimate on what I put in it, but yeah... Here you go!

I sauteed about half an onion, half a jalapeno, about 2TB garlic and some mushrooms together in a bit of olive oil until the mushrooms and onions were a little soft.

Added some salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, a bit of cumin(my new favorite spice) and a dash of red pepper flakes. Then added a can of cooked semi mashed black beans and mixed it all together.

Served on a flour tortilla with some diced tomato, cheese, sliced avocado and Tapatio sauce. Was super yum and just spicy enough!! It might be my new favorite thing!

Vegan Jalapeno Cookies

Back in August last year I posted a recipe for jalapeno chip cookies, which was a spin-off of my Potato Chip Cookie recipe.

Why I thought it was okay to recreate them with jalapeno chips, I'm not sure... but it turns out they aren't so bad. Even then though, they needed some tweaking and they needed to be made vegan friendly.

So keep in mind with these cookies that they aren't meant to be eaten in bulk, and would probably be good for something like a BBQ type meal. They aren't really a dessert cookie... I don't know how to explain them. So after all of that... Here is the updated vegan version...

Jalapeno Chip Cookies

1/2c butter
approx 6oz vegan cream cheese
1/2c sugar
1 1/2c flour
1tsp vanilla
1/2c crushed jalapeno potato chips (I used Kettle brand)
1 jalapeno finely minced.

blend your butter, cream cheese and sugar together until smooth, then add everything else. If they seem a little on the sticky side you might need to add a little more flour.

Roll into little balls, then push them down with a cup that has sugar on the bottom of it.

Bake at 350 for 8-10min

makes between 30-40 cookies

Cheesy Potato Soup for One!!

So I don't eat soup often, I think it usually tastes good, it just isn't my favorite thing, but every once in a while it sounds really good and up until now I've never attempted to make any kind of soup.... This particular soup would be awesome in a bread bowl if you happen to have one! Sadly I didn't, but a slice of bread on the side worked just fine. :)

Tonight though I had just a single potato and a carrot that have been in my fridge that I needed to use soon and wasn't sure what to do with them. A friend of mine had mentioned bread bowl soup earlier today and for some reason it stuck with me. So I decided to turn my one potato and carrot into soup for one! If I had an onion I probably would have added 1/4c of sauteed onion to it as well, but will make sure to do that next time. Also I don't have one of those fancy immersion blender things so I just used an old fashioned potato masher.

Cheesy Potato Soup

Boil:
1 white potato-peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 carrot-peeled and chopped

Drain and put back in your pot. Mash with a fork or potato masher to your liking then add


2/3c milk (I used vanilla soymilk because it is what was on hand)
1 tbs butter (I used vegan margarine)
1/4 tsp Cayennne pepper (less if you don't want it super spicy)
1/4 tsp Oregano and Basil
1 tbs garlic
1/4c onion finely chopped (again was out of onion, but am sure it is a must!)
1/4-1/2c shredded cheese (I would've used Daiya if I had any)

salt and pepper to taste

While your potato and carrot are boiling saute your garlic and onion and set aside until after your potato/carrot are mashed.

keep your pot on medium heat
add the rest of your ingredients and stir until your cheese is melted, mash a bit more with a fork if you need to, salt and pepper to taste, serve and enjoy!

St.Patrick's Day! (a little late)

So I try and eat only green food on St.Patrick's Day every year. This year we had a work party though, so I wasn't able to make a green dinner, but thought I'd share some things I have done in the past and a list of random green veggies/food I like to eat.

One of my favorite things to make is green cornbread!

Last year I made green mashed potatoes!!


Other things, make a white/yellow cake mix and add green food coloring and/or green frosting. Add green food coloring to sugar cookie dough or bread dough.

Artichokes are a favorite as well as broccoli, green beans, peas, avocados, pistachio's, green jello... I could go on and on! Anyway, next year if you're feeling like being adventurous, try and go the entire day with only eating green food. :)

It's fun and showing up to work with random green treats always makes people smile!

Amazingly Awesome Vegan Taquitos!!

Okay, so on Monday my friend/coworker Jordan over at Militant Vegan Cooking made some awesome vegan taquitos inspired by my buddy Meagan over at The Snarky Chickpea. I'm not going to lie, Jordan did the majority of the work and made sure to take all the pictures needed and everything for the post. So instead of trying to write a third post, I am just going to post the link to his post about them.

We made them for our coworkers and even the non vegans LOVED them!! They were gone almost instantly. Sooo yummy! And really, to my non vegan friends.. change the ingredients if you'd like to things you have on hand, I'm sure they'll still be good.

So after all of that... Rice and Bean Taquitos Go check them out, because they are the beset taquitos I've ever had!

I've come a long way in a year...

Almost exactly a year ago I started this blog to track my 40days of vegan-ism I was doing for lent. It didn't go well, I only made it about 21 days in before I got really sick and needed to stop, but in the last year I have come a long in way changing almost all of my baking over to being vegan friendly and other then Thanksgiving cut out a lot of meat.

In December I made the conscience effort to give up meat completely and as of right now am extremely happy with the decision I have made. Watching Earthlings (I have previous posts on watching it and how I felt about it that you can go check out) is what finally made me take the final step I needed to not eating meat. I have my dear friend Jordan to thank for that.

With that being said I haven't taken the leap back into vegan-ism yet, one transition at a time. I can say that I have cut out a lot of animal products though. I haven't bought cow milk since December even though there are days I crave it. I am still trying to find milk that I like, but am okay with not drinking it. I've also kept with my staying away from eggs as much as possible, but that has been the case for ages.

My downfall... Cheese, I feel like my Italian blood needs it. With that being said, I am well aware of plenty of vegan cheeses that you can buy, I just need to make more of an effort to buy them and replace regular cheese all the time.

I've also made an effort to stop buying junk food for no other reason then I know it isn't healthy and I shouldn't be eating it. I still have some, but not much and try to only in small amounts.

It has only been about 2.5months of the change in diet, but I can already see the changes and am really happy about it. :) I know a lot of my friends think I am crazy and have continued to give me crap about it, but this is good for me and I know that because of me less animals are suffering. At the end of the day… That feels pretty darn good. :)

So to my meat eating friends, yes I get it, you like meat… So do I, but I can’t handle the thought of eating something that has suffered for no other reason then so I can enjoy it. It makes me sad, with that said, I won’t tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t, I am just letting you know where I stand on things.

Vegan Pot Pie....

The other day a friend of mine posted a blog for potpie... I haven't ever been able to find a recipe that turned out well. Hers looked awesome so I thought I'd give it a shot... Turns out it rocked!

It is from The Snarky Chickpea (previously Meg's Cooking Addiction that I mentioned in December)

My Veggie Potpie (can kick your potpie's ass) Is her post on it. I only tweaked it a tiny bit. Changed the veggies to ones I had around my house and didn't put in coriander because I didn't have any and didn't feel the need to go buy some.



I ran out of flour and had to use cornmeal to roll out my crust so It didn't stay in one piece... not the best thing to use but it worked better then nothing. :)

Guest post actually coming soon... ;)

Okay, so the guest post got postponed a bit because my friend who was supposed to post got super sick and is just now starting to feel better. So really, now it should actually be coming soon. :)

In the mean time... He just started his own food blog and I already know I am going to love it so I thought I would share so you can be a part of it from the beginning if you would like! Militant Vegan Cooking . Don't be afraid of the name... He's awesome and the few things I've had he has made have been really good! :)

Go check it out!!

Valentine's Day!

For those of you that don't know, Valentine's Day is my favorite day of the entire year!! I have no idea why, but I LOVE it!!

This year I plan on trying out a recipe from Bake It in a Cake for my Valentine's treats.This website is great! She takes random treats and bakes them in to cupcakes, they all look amazing! I plan on trying her Bake a Heart in a Cake recipe!

I will be sure to let you know how they turn out, in the mean time... Check out bakeitinacake.com!!

Pumpkin Pancakes!!

Have you ever noticed that you really only find pumpkin stuff from just before Thanksgiving through New Years then it all just disappears again until the next holiday season?

It makes me sad, because personally I think pumpkin stuff is amazing!! :D I was hanging out with a friend last night, she had pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting! It was sooo yummy!!

For some reason it made me remember that a few years ago I stumbled on a pumpkin pancake recipe that needs to be shared!

I haven't made them in a long time, so there hasn't been an attempt to veganize them, but really I don't think it would be to hard.

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

Mix:
2 c flour
4tsp baking powder
1tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp each nutmeg & allspice (I just use nutmeg cuz I never have allspice)
3/4 c sugar

Mix:
1 1/2 c canned pumpkin
3 eggs
1c milk
3/4 c vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla

Honestly I'm not one for using two bowls and mixing stuff separately. It takes to much time and makes an extra dirty dish I don't want to clean. You can decide what you'd like to do though.

Anyway, the recipe says it serves about 6. I have no idea. I just make a ton then keep them in my fridge for a few days. :)

Super yummy though!

So busy!!!

I just realized how long it has been since I have posted any recipes on here! I've been so busy, I haven't had much time. I have recently learned to make black bean burgers though and they're actually pretty good, but I've always loved black bean burgers so maybe I'm a bit biased. ;) I also made some biscuits the other morning that weren't too bad.

I'll catch up on things when I get back from Vegas. Hopefully I will get something posted by the middle of next week!


Tonight I am making the banana bread I posted about a few months ago. I haven't made it in a couple years! I'm so excited for it!!

Earthlings part 3...

So a few days ago I watched parts 3 and 4 of Earthlings... Clothing and Entertainment....

I am STILL seeing horrible flashes of images I saw that night. Watching a poor helpless animal get skinned alive for its fur and then twitching afterward with the saddest look on its face I've ever seen. It was horrifying!! I'm glad I can say I don't own any fur, not that I have ever been a fan of it.

The Entertainment part was slightly eye opening into the life of circus animals, but not all that surprising and the rest of it was mostly stuff I've known for ages. Never been a big fan of things like rodeos and stuff to begin with.

Anyway... After watching the clothing section I am seriously terrified to finish it. The last part is about scientific research and I'm sure it is going to be awful.... I've made it this far though, so I need to finish it. Just not looking forward to it. I'm going to wait a few more days before finishing it.

My friend Jordan gave me a book called Animal Liberation for Christmas. He had asked me before if I would read it if he got it for me and I told him I would. That is also on my list of things to start soon, but seriously just not looking forward to it after that last part of Earthlings that I saw. Ugh! We'll see how it goes!

On that note... not eating meat seems to be going well, so yay for that!