Cookie Experiment

Well I took the basic recipe from Vive le Vegan.. but changed it around a little bit. You all know I love oats.. so I left out a little of the spelt flour and added oats :-D Then I put in chunks of papaya instead of carob chips like it calls for. And.. I pureed some of the peaches (haha!) instead of using oil. And.. that was basically it! Oh yeah and I didn't have baking soda so I added a PINCH more of baking powder and figured they'd be fine.. and they are!

I wanted to send them to my partner for the cookie swap.. but I burnt the second half of the batch. Now I'm out of papaya.. well I might just make a different kind and send her a mix. I'm not even sure how to send cookies in the mail!

Canning

Last night my parents and sister canned some peaches and pears! They stopped by school today and gave me a bunch :-D I haven't tried them yet but they look awesome, yayy!

Back to School

So I moved back to school on Monday. Same dorm as last year. Band camp started on Tuesday.. there's something about leaving my room at 8am and not coming back until 8:45pm that makes me want to fall over and die. Tomorrow is my birthday and - guess what?! - band camp! Saturday is the last day of camp and we end with a parents performance. Then classes start on Monday.. whoopee. Not that any of you are interested, but here's the lineup!

Aurals II, Music Theory III, Math 103, Intro to Computer Programming, Dalcroze I, Inclusion to Music Education, Flute/Recorder, Piano II, Voice Class, Marching Band, Symphonic Band, Women's Chorus, Private Lessons. WHEW.

Oh yeah.. good news! This year the cafeteria has one section marked off as "vegetarian!" There's a different entree there everyday! How exciting. And there are even more vegetables at the salad bar than last year. Well, things are definitely looking up. I can't wait until the kitchen opens up downstairs so I can go cook a few meals, then maybe I'll get some more pictures up here. Hope everybody's doing well! :-D

Birthday Cake

Raspberry Frosted Cake with Chocolate Cream Center

from Vive le Vegan!
Compliments of my Mommy

My older brother wouldn't eat it, but I think everybody else gave it a try. It was delicious.

Oh yeah.. I got a balance ball!

Snacks for College

Well, tomorrow (or.. today I guess) is my birthday dinner (even though my birthday isn't until Friday.. the big 1-9!) Dinner is nothing special.. the real treat is dessert! My Mom is making me the Raspberry Frosted Cake with Chocolate Cream Center from Vive le Vegan! I'm looking forward to that. Pictures will come.

In other news, these past two weekends I have been busy getting food together. I loaded up on nuts and dried fruits and concocted several of my own trail mixes. Then I put 1-ounce servings in little baggies and packed them up to take to school with me. Snack heaveenn!

New York City

Today I went to NYC with my brother, sister, and her boyfriend.
Here's me and my bro at the MoMA!

For lunch we went to Bunchberries, this little cafe. I got a grilled tofu wrap with wheatberries, black beans, romaine lettuce and a thai peanut-lime sauce. The orange thing is a sweet potato which wasn't in the description but.. showed up in there anyway!

Microwave Brownies?

And now.. presenting..

Microwave Brownies!
I messed around with a recipe a little bit, added oats (of course, I looove oats) annnd came up with this! Mix it all together, 5 minutes on high. I really like them. =)

I only used a round pie plate because it's all I had..

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup quick oats
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt

Pineapple Bars

Yup, I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to make the pineapple lemon bars from Vive le Vegan! Darn you, Vicki! Hehe. They're good, but a little sweet actually. I like my fruit pretty tart I guess. Next time, I'll use less maple syrup in the filling.

Oh and before I forget: there's a new "cooking for one" category on Veggin' Out, so be sure to give that a look see, along with all the other great stuff there!

Sesame Seitan

I made dinner tonight.


Sesame seitan (recipe adapted from here) over nutmeg-almond barley, with steamed veggies on the side. And dessert? Some of those pumpkin-oatmeal cookies from the other day. =)

Pancake-stravaganza!

We had some bananas that were getting old, so I decided to make breakfast for the week. Banana-pecan pancakes from Vegan with a Vengeance. Here they are cooking up:

In the end.. it made way more than "9 small pancakes" like the recipe said. I got 21.. and they're small! Oh well.. into the freezer and I have breakfast for 10 days!

Breakfast Today

A boring post, just some sexy food porn. This morning I threw some peanut butter, soymilk and maple syrup in the microwave for thirty seconds to top my pancakes (the ones I made the other night.)

Well, this picture looks grosser than it tasted.

Because it tasted wonderful!

Pumpkin-stravaganza!

There was a large can of pumpkin in the cupboard, just waiting to be made into something delicious. Vegan With a Vengeance led me to some pumpkin-oatmeal cookies and pumpkin muffins, which then became a loaf of pumpkin bread.

Oh yeah, and then I made (up) some chili. It's not much but.. I think it went something like this..





1/2 pound seitan, chopped up small
1/2 a small green pepper
^^that much chopped onion
^^that much chopped celery
1 - 15 oz. can black beans
1 - 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 - 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
Pinch of salt/pepper

Bake-stravaganza!

All day Saturday with nothing to do? Time to bake! My sister and I took this opportunity to stock up the freezer. First we made lemon poppyseed muffins from Vegan With a Vengeance. Our lemons didn't yield quite the amount of zest we needed, so they could use a little more lemony flavor. Other than that, they're definitely fantastic.

Next came Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies from Vive Le Vegan! I don't have blackstrap molasses so I used my trusty "brown sauce" haha. They turned out really great as well! Since I'm generally a ridiculous perfectionist, I used a tablespoon measure to put them on the baking tray so that they would all look the same. My sister said I'm crazy, but I call it a success! Look at the uniformity! Admire it!

Not-So-Zucchini Muffins

Well I originally set out to make Miriam's modified zucchini muffins. I got to chopping and - what the nut? - I had a cucumber! What a fool. In any case, I decided to continue.

Due to the extra wetness, I left out the call for non-dairy milk. I made 12 muffins and a loaf, throwing some pecans on top for garnish, and later I added a cinnamon glaze. Since they also include bananas, they aren't overwhelmingly cucumber-y. They are however, very sweet. Almost too sweet for me, they're on the fence of the trash can.. but I don't want to waste them! I'll think about it..

Pancakes at 2am

Well I woke up at 2am and thought my sister wasn't home, so I called her.
It turns out she IS home, just sleeping upstairs (we've been sleeping in the living room lately.. where the air conditioner is.)
Then I couldn't fall back to sleep so what do I do? Make pancakes of course! Strange? Yes. But at least I have breakfast for a week.

/EDIT\ They look brown, I swear they're not burnt! I'm just trying to get rid of this molasses-ish stuff called "Brown Sauce." My step mom bought it for me at the grocery store when she couldn't find brown rice syrup!

The Magical Loaf

Tonight my sister helped me attempt a loaf from Jennifer McCann's Magical Loaf Studio. I used it as a guide and changed it just slightly. In the end it didn't hold together in a loaf well :-( but it still tasted good to me! The final loaf consisted of zucchini, onions, carrots, pecans, celery, lentils, quinoa, quick oats, nutritional yeast, soy sauce and some oregano.

It was a fabulous dinner. Here are the stars, clockwise from left: cucumber slices, red bell pepper, ketchup, THE MAGICAL LOAF!, more pepper, and finally my quick muffin.

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Quick Muffins

Yay for the picture loader working!

I just made some oatmeal whole wheat quick muffins from this recipe. It is just a quick bread but I decided to make small muffin-shaped pieces out of it, to cut in half and serve as bread for sammiches! It is pretty dense (I guess because it's not a yeast bread) and doesn't work too well for a sandwich. It was good with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese on it though!

Been Gone Too Long

Ahh! A whole week since the last post. Well, I've been in Nebraska visiting relatives for pow wow. While I was there I wasn't able to do much cooking, but I did do some variations on the oat bars. It mostly involved bananas, which turned out fantastic!

In any case, as a result of the vacation I don't have much else to post, not even MwM. But hopefully this week will bring about some good cooking. I leave you with a shot of me at pow wow.