Adventures of a veg*n.

Friday, June 29, 2007

"Chicken" Cutlets!

We're home for the weekend! Tonight Christine and I made dinner. I got this burger recipe here, but made them more like chicken cutlets. Here they are just out of the oven.
Then I used this recipe for fried "chicken." I was a little bummed to fry them.. but here they are! They look the same, but it was really different!

And an inside shot!

This was the whole meal. We also made roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes, and there's some garlic bread there in the middle. Good dinner!

Oh yeah, and while I was making them I dropped the oats... all over the place.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy a car! I'm taking out a loan and getting aaaa.. 1999 Honda Civic.. it's beautiful! Wooo!


*EDIT* HERE IT IS!!!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Sushi, Kitty, Dinner

The other night I made sushi, because I want to make it next week for my apartment warming party, and I had only made it once before. I needed to brush up on my skill. It turned out better than the first time, but still just mediocre. I think it was better by default because last time I made it in a dorm room.

It has cucumber, carrots and avocado. I took it to work.
Oh yeah, this is Emilia. She wanted to help out.
Then last night I made stuffed peppers. There's tofu, brown rice, peppers, tomatoes, kidney beans and onions. Not bad at all!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Two Dinners and Muffins

On Friday I went to a restaurant in Wilmington, Delaware called Deep Blue. It's sort of a fancy place, so me and my friend Ben felt really out of our element, haha. And it was expensive too, so I just got a little spinach salad. It had like, cucumber, apple, grapes and walnuts. It was good though. We were mainly there to see our saxophone professor performing in a jazz combo.


Then on Sunday I made the Apple Pie Crumb Cake Muffins from VWaV for the boy and his apartment-mates. I halved the recipe and made 12 mini muffins, I brought three back here for me, Christine and Julia. I have yet to eat mine but the boys said theirs are already gone.. must have been good!

Today I made this salad for dinner. It has couscous, tomatoes, broccoli, squash, bell pepper, walnuts, raisins and alfalfa sprouts. Yummy :-D

Thursday, June 21, 2007

A Few Days of Food

Monday night I made sweet potato fries for the first time! I think I cut them too thin and cooked them too long.. but I seasoned them with chili powder and cinnamon like I saw on Laura's blog.. and they weren't terribly bad! I'll definitely try again. We had Boca burgers too.


Wednesday night we ate at Arpeggio, an Italian place with good vegan options. I had the falafel salad, it was good!
And I just made these for work tomorrow. Cinnamon rolls! I got the recipe here.

Sorry for the short entry, but we're watching a movie called "Melinda and Melinda" now.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Cupcakes and Tofu

Today was a good Sunday! Christine bought some oops paint at Home Depot to paint a wall in her kitchen red. It's looking pretty cool. I made some cupcakes while she painted. Chocolate with pink tinted buttercream frosting (leftover from the pistachio rose cupcakes) with red sugar, walnuts, banana chips, a drizzle of melted chocolate, and a cherry on top!

Sunday sundae cupcakes!The batch ended up making 12 mini and 9 regular cupcakes!

For dinner we made fusilli pasta with tofu "meat" balls in pasta sauce. I made the tofu balls myself, but they fell apart in the sauce :-( I actually made them a while ago and froze them.. so I don't remember what they're made of! Tofu.. uhmm bread crumbs, wheat germ I think, oregano and basil.. some stuff! In any case.. it made a good chunky sauce!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Crepes for a Party!

Well.. they were really crepes for a potluck, but my friend wouldn't let me call it that. She said old people have potlucks. It wasn't a vegan potluck, so there was spinach dip in a bread bowl that I couldn't have, but it looked so cool. I liked the bread bowl idea. There was spaghetti, hummus, and really good potatoes. Christine took a salad..

And I took a build-your-own crepe station!


These were the first crepes I ever made and they turned out good. I threw the first one away though, hehe. Here's my crepe! I put everything on it.


It was great! Oh yeah, and then I made scones for work! I used the basic scone recipe from VWaV, and added fresh strawberries and blueberries. Yay :-)


One more thing! I just realized this: the same date that I'm having my apartment-warming party (which I have yet to use the kitchen.. since I'm living in Philly with Christine to work) is my one year veganniversary! July 7th - double party!


EDIT: I just got done with these! They're for work tomorrow. Pistachio Rosewater cupcakes from VCTOW. I can't take credit for the frosting job though. I'm just a mere music major, Christine's an art major.. so I enlisted her to do the swirls. Aren't they beautiful?

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Filled Cupcakes

Baking for work again.. Golden Vanilla Cupcakes (VCTOW) with a chocolate mousse filling (silken tofu, melted chocolate chips, soymilk, vanilla) and some more of the mousse on top, with some powdered sugar.


I'm a little bummed, I only wanted them to be FILLED with the mousse, but I had so much leftover.. and I didn't know what I was going to put on top anyway. So I just spread more mousse around.. shrug. And then the powdered sugar sort of soaked into it.


It was a valiant effort. I am just having no luck with cupcakes these days. At least I got some baking cups.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Family Vacation (Pt. 1)

My family is on vacation for the first time in 7 years! We've been in Virginia Beach since Wednesday afternoon. Last night we went to a neat restaurant in nearby Norfolk called Amalfi Ristorante. It's an Italian place with a ton of vegan/vegetarian items on the menu. I got the Roasted Vegetable Risotto with Vegan Sausage. There were red peppers, artichokes and mushrooms in there. Very neat.



Christine (the vegetarian sister) had Penne alla Vodka that she said was excellent. And then I had to get the vegan raspberry cheesecake of course! It was pretty neat, I'd like to try making a cheesecake myself sometime. (I got it to go, as you can see.. I'm sure it looked much prettier before the car ride.)



Tonight for dinner we went to Waterman's Beachwood Grill right here on the main strip. Christine and I split the Morrocan Hummus Platter, it was excellent. Their pita bread was awesome.



We also found a very cool health food store and cafe called The Heritage. They had an awesome bulk foods aisle. All the mixes that might be questionable (and that we would normally have to read the ingredients for) had labels that said vegan if they were. It was awesome, and I got one called Maple Nut Deluxe. Below is a picture of the labeling, cool huh? Christine and I also got the Peanut Butter Blast smoothie in the cafe, it was natural pb, banana, soymilk, honey and vegan chocolate (I got mine with no honey.) Very awesome!



Oh yes, and one more thing. We found a grocery store a little further away called The Fresh Market that was great. About half the store was fresh fruits and vegetables. They had a really large dried fruit and nuts section too. I got some food from the bulk aisle.. a Wasabi Rice Mix, and Oriental Rice Mix and a mix called Mexicali Fire. A very cool place. I also got a Luna tea. I'll show you guys later.


Well here's me and the little brother during some night beach frisbee.


And here.. Christine and myself. I don't have any good pictures of me and Nick yet. He's Christine's twin. Haha and don't worry, it ends there, there's only four of us kids!


Now I'm off to bed.. tomorrow we are heading to Annapolis, MD, and Sunday we're going to my cousin's high school graduation party. More later!

Monday, June 04, 2007

German Chocolate Cupcakes!

Well.. I was pretty determined to make cupcakes tonight!

I wanted to make chocolate cupcakes.. but alas, no cocoa powder. Well I decreased the oil in the recipe (from VCTOtW) and added some melted chocolate chips. It's all good.. then I realize.. no baking cups! Whatever. I just greased up the pan. They baked and came out fine.. but now they're all sticky.. because they don't have baking cups. I put them on the nice serving platter to take to work and they're all sticking to it!!

Ah well.. I figure I will just find some forks and plates and tell everyone to eat them that way. Oh yeah and then I made coconut topping. So here you have.. German Chocolate cupcakes.