Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Vegan Mofo Day 2

Due to my terrible internet I have fallen behind already! *sigh* But I shall be caught up after today. I think today I will share the best tofu scramble ever! I use to eat an egg white omelette every morning for breakfast so when I became vegan I started to crave my morning eggs. After trying several scrambles and almost giving up, I found this delicious one in a Women's Health magazine I believe. I've had it for a couple years now so I can't quite remember for sure but I do know the recipe which is all that matters :) Honestly, most of these recipes (and all recipes really) are to taste (TT) so I'll just write it out how I make it.

Oil (just enough for pan)
1/4 block firm tofu, drained/squeezed of excess water
Onion, chopped TT
Turmeric
Black beans
Salt and Pepper
Salsa
Tortilla

1. Heat pan with oil and then add chopped onions. Saute till translucent and just starting to caramelize.
2. Crumble tofu into pan with onion.
3. Stir to evenly heat then add turmeric, salt, pepper, and black beans. Stir again to distribute spices and then saute for another couple min. Stir occasionally to keep from sticking.
4. Turn off heat and add salsa. Mix it all up and then add to your Tortilla for a Mexican breakfast burrito or just add to some toast.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I do! Sorry for the lack of pictures. I will try to add one next time I enjoy this recipe or if someone would like to send me theirs I will be glad to post it. :)

Monday, November 1, 2010

Vegan MoFo Day 1!

This is my first time joining in durning Vegan MoFo so I will try my best to not disappoint! :) I think my plan will just be to share some of my favorite, easy vegan entrees and snacks. Since I just told everyone how good the vegan cookies are that I made I thought I'd start off with that one. I personally enjoy these with dark chocolate but feel free to add caramel, peanut butter, or whatever else tickles your fancy!

2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powd
er
1/2 teaspoon salt cinnamon, to taste, optional
vegan chocolate chips, to taste

1 cup raw sugar (turbinado)

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in chips. Make a well in the center and set aside.
2. In a medium size bowl, add together sugar and oil; mix well. Add the vanilla and then add the water; mix well. Add the wet to the well in the dry. Mix it well but be careful not to overwork it. Add more chips if you need to.
3. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets. Put them in the oven. Bake for 5 minutes and then flip and rotate the sheets (top to bottom & 180 degree rotation). Bake another 4 minutes and check them. The cookies are done when they seem a little bit softer then you want them to be. They will harden up some as they cool. I usually go in two minute increments from here until they get to where I like them.
4. Take them out when they are done and move them to wire cooling racks. If they split or come apart when you try to remove them let them sit on the pan for 2 minutes before transferring them to the racks.
Enjoy!

Sadly this was the only picture with my cookies.

Halloween Goodies

I plan all year for Halloween weekend and then it's over so fast. My friend and I decided to finally have a bake party this year. I made some recipes I had and some new ones but they all turned out great :) I started my day off right with a lovely Halloween green smoothie. So tasty and healthy, maybe it canceled out a couple of the cookies I had later that night ~.^
I spent all day baking for what turned out to be only 9 people but everyone that was there loved my baked goods and we all had a great time. I made my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that I found on Vegweb. I love playing with it by adding cinnamon or chunky peanut butter and they always turn out delicious.
Next I made vegan red velvet cupcakes with not so vegan cream cheese frosting brains. I usually don't care for frosting but this stuff was perfect! Turned out to be a great consistency and not too sweet (if there's such a thing when it comes to frosting).

I lov
e this time of year for all of the spice and pumpkin recipes so I had to make some pumpkin cupcakes. I topped theses with a thin layer of the left over red velvet icing as well as fondant ghosts. They were so much fun to make and I love the way they turned out!


I wanted Hunter to help me with the baking (just because I love when he helps ^.^) so I waited for him to make the sandwich sugar cookies. I bought the c
utters a year or two ago at a William Sonoma sale and was so happy to finally use them. They did a good job but the cookies were so time consuming we were almost late for the party. I'm glad I made them though since they were everyone's favorite. Since I didn't really have the time or the money to get all vegan ingredients, the chip cookies and the red velvet cupcakes where the only vegan items.


Ms Yuki also decided to help by trying to ninja all of the goodies when I was not looking.

We had a great night with our friends and dressing up which is my favorite part of Halloween. I was able to find pretty much everything for my Heather Mason SH3 costume and what I couldn't find I improvised.
Hunter was The Spirit from the movie but didn't want to wear his mask in the picture so he's just dressed as my arm candy ~.^ The rest of my Halloween weekend was spent watching movies with Hunter and studying for my awesome chemistry exam which was this morning at 9am! Thanks teacher ^_^ I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready for an awesome month of Vegan food with the 4th Vegan MoFo! This is my first time signing up and I hope I don't disappoint! I will try my hardest to post Something vegan everyday like a good blogger. :)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Exams, work, and cosplay!


Sorry for the long dry spell in posts. I'm pretty sure only my family reads these posts anyway but that's ok :D I have been too busy to do much in the kitchen other than quick meals for myself. I had 3 exams back to back last week and several coming up in the near future. I do have a couple cake orders for the upcoming months and will definitely have pictures for Halloween. I can't wait! I love Halloween and this year my friend and I are going to do something I've always wanted to do and that is have a Halloween party with FOOD! She and I are going to bake, make some finger food (nothing fancy we Are college students), and decorate her place. Not totally sure what I'll have time and money to put together but I will take a lot of pictures. My boyfriend and I are working on costumes not only for Halloween but also for AUSA which is coming up in November. I'm going to be Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3 and he's going to be the Spirit (movie version) for Halloween. No, we don't match at all but we're making up for it at AUSA ~.^
(Kisuke and Yoruichi costumes are almost finished!)

More good news! I finally have a job again. It took me two months due to my jobs lack of communication skills with their managers but I've made it on the schedule. They better not try to make me work this weekend during the State game which is my first and only ECU football game or on Halloween. I've worked too hard on both of those to miss.


I was also able to find my Joanna a home over the break! I hated to give her away but I didn't have the time, money, or room to take proper care of her. Plus the person I gave her to built her a custom wooden cage before I even gave her to him so I know he's going to take good care of her :)

Hopefully it will stay cold soon and I can try out some of my hot recipes from my Veganomics cook book. I love fall and the recipes that go along with it ^_^

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Win an awesome shirt!

Giveaway time indeed! Who wants to win a rad shirt of your choosing from Akumu Ink?! Of course in the size of your choice in either male or female *^_^*(link on the designs below)
akumured
To enter, all you have to do is blog and/or tweet about this giveaway
and leave a comment with a link to your post/tweet, or do both to have
more chances to win (Other forms of promoting this giveaway are
encouraged). A winner will be picked at random.
dishonor_black
(click here to see what you can win! so awesome)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Asian Salad

Do you like Panera's Asian Sesame Chicken Salad? I LOVE it! I don't like the cilantro (why do we not call it coriander?!) but everything else, especially the dressing, is awesome. However, unless you want to shell out at least $6-$8 for this yummy salad you're out of luck. Until now! I played around with the ingredients for the dressing until I found one that tasted pretty darn close to the one at Panera. I looked at what some other people had tried but I think mine is the closest. I am very picky about salad dressings so now I can finally enjoy some without having to drive 35-45 min and pay for the overpriced restaurant salads. Hope you enjoy! ^_^

1/2 c Rice vinegar (rice wine vinegar is the same thing, just be sure it's not the seasoned kind)
1/8 c Light (not roasted) sesame oil
1T sugar
2 packets Sugar substitute (or 3 more T sugar if you prefer)
1T or TT lime juice
Boil sugar, substitute, and vinegar till sugar is dissolved. Let cool completely to allow it to thicken a bit. Pour into a tall bowl. Then, with a hand blender turned on medium, slowly add sesame oil till desired flavor. Add juice a little at a time until it's to your liking and then blend again to keep the emulsion. Pour over a bowl full of mixed greens, sesame seeds, sliced almonds, pepper chicken, wonton strips and ENJOY!
The wontons can be easily made by buying some wonton wrappers in the fridge section of your supermarket and slicing them into 1 inch strips. You should probably use peanut oil but I was out so I used safflower oil instead. When the oil is heated, drop 2 strips in at a time flipping once. It only takes about 4 seconds per side if your oil is nice and hot. Remove from the oil just when they start to brown because they continue to darken after you pull them out. Lay on a paper towel or two to soak up the extra oil.

The bread in the picture is whole wheat chickpea bread made by me ^_^

Yuki is finally relaxing a bit after her spaying. She's been running around like a crazy girl since I brought her home yesterday.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Jelly Burgers

I love going to the Grand Asian Market in Raleigh and looking around for new things. Usually I try to buy at least one thing I've never had before and this time I decided to buy Jellyfish. I had never even seen it as a food and, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it, I bought a bag of natural jellyfish to try out. I found this awesome recipe for Jellyfish Burgers and since I had a ton of red potatoes fresh from the garden I decided to give it a try.

I didn't have everything so I had to modify it a bit but they sti
ll turned out amazing. Everyone loved them and there's plenty of left overs for lunch tomorrow ^_^ I hope everyone enjoys the recipe. We had ours with a side salad which was just the right amount of food. So get out there and help Japan eat up their Jelly infestation!