all my lil animals

 this is shorty, he's the dude of the house (all 19 lbs of him)

 this is georgie fraggle, she's the baby of the house (and a yorkie-poo)

this is booger, despite her name, she is the sweetest lil kitty ever, she believes that all visitors to our house arrive with the sole purpose of cuddling with her, so be warned if you ever come over :)

more baking :) chocolate cake for the MIL

i've been doing a little more baking, and this is totally NOT the weather for baking!! here's a cute lil cake that i made for my mother in law, i did bake it a couple days ago when it wasn't quite so ungodly hot :) it's a chocolate cake, recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking (can you tell that i totally love this cookbook?? all the recipes are easy and delicious, i can't help loving it).

i topped the cake with an indulgent cream cheese frosting, i found the recipe --> here, and the hubby made the cake pretty by arranging some raspberries on the top. the cake came out cute and super yummy! and my mother in law loved it, so yay!

venturing back into the kitchen :) with some peach macadamia nut muffins

i've been off my feet for several weeks now due to ankle surgery. im starting to feel better and have energy again and i've been venturing back into the kitchen (yay!) all that time stuck on the couch made me miss being in the kitchen. the hubby did a great job feeding me, but i totally missed the experience of cooking.

on a trip out the house this week, we picked up some peaches at a farm stand. i thought maybe i'd throw them in some mufins :) i used the blueberry-lemon muffin recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking , but did a little tweaking. i was out of baking soda, so i just subbed 3x as much baking powder,  left out the lemon zest, and blueberries. and i added in two chopped up peaches, a handful of macadamia nuts, some 2 Tb of chopped up crystallized ginger and a 1/4 tsp coconut extract instead of lemon extract. this is such a great and versatile muffin recipe. i loved that it doesn't call for any specality ingredients like egg replacer powder. makes super yummy muffins. i've used the same basic recipe in the past and thrown in dried cranberries and flaked coconut. yum yum.