Vegan Mofo- day... whatever: cooking catchup

So, I really did sign up for Vegan MoFo with the best of intentions... but then again, there is probably a reason that I don't blog all that frequently. That reason being, life is freaking busy! So, although I have not been posting every day, I sure have been cooking.

Above is a pic of our CSA farmshare I picked up last week: lots of kale, raspberries, yellow beans and radishes. The only thing that I haven't used any of yet is the radishes... there are just so many and I'm not a huge radish fan, so I'm a bit overwhelmed with them. I'll figure something out though, I kept thinking I'll try roasting them.

Here's another loaf of breadmachine bread, yep, we eat lots of bread and love it. This is a fluffy white loaf, if anyone is interesting in recipe, just let me know :)

Here's a big bowl of salt and vinegar kale chips. Kale chips are the best! I chopped up a bunch of kale, tossed with 1 Tb olive oil, 1 Tb malt vinegar and cooked at 350, for 20 min, turning once. Then I tossed with sea salt. So yummy!

Here's some more of that gooey cheez (leftover from the Tempeh Tuna Melts), I added some diced red onion and chili paste in it.

I made some "naan" bread (not authentic... probably more of a roti). Rolled out little rounds of it.
Then put some of that spicy cheez on the middle of one dough round, topped with another round , sealed edges with a bit of water.

Then fried up in my castiron skillet. Again... I'll post recipe if anyone wants it.

Wowza! Delicious!!! I also made some naan bread without the spicy cheez (the flat bigger ones in the pic). This was brought as a contribution to dinner at the hubby's dad's house. It all got gobbled up along some killer chickpea-cauliflower curry (yay! for non-vegan family cooking awesome vegan food).

Oh, and I contributed dessert for that dinner too :) Raspberry cobbler! Damn damn damn. This was good stuff. I used the berry cobbler recipe out of The Joy of Vegan Baking (super awesome cookbook!!!).

clothes swap party, with lots of vegan yummy treats **peppermint patties**

  

hummus platter, with chips, crackers and salsa

 Yesterday, I hosted a bunch of my ladies for a clothes swap. Swap parties are a lot of fun, its a great way to get rid of cute clothes, jewelry, bags, shoes and other stuff, and you get cool stuff from your friends :) My friends always dress so cute, and I love to grab the stuff they don't want anymore. I had a blast yesterday hanging out with wonderful ladies, adorable new (to me) clothes and eating yummy treats. I made a lil snack station with goodies to keep everyone full and happy.

I made a lil hummus platter, with assorted chips and rice crackers. I didn't make the hummus, it was store bought Sabra roasted garlic. We love this brand of hummus in my house, so creamy and decadent!

veggie pizza

 I also put together one of my veggie appetizer pizzas. This is super yummy and always a hit. I love how colorful it is. It's basically cresent roll dough, covered with a creamy cheesy topping and veggies. Recipe --> here

lemon squares

I made some lemon squares, recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I feel like I've blogged about this cookbook a lot, but it's so dependable. These tasted just like lemon bar I remember my mom making, buttery cookie layer on the bottom, and tangy gooey lemon filling on top. Yum! I found the recipe posted online --> here. You should probably just buy this book though, if you like vegan desserts, it's the best!

peppermint patties

The snacky that got all my ladies the most excited were these peppermint patties I made. They were very convincingly "york." The recipe is easy and pretty simple. Disclaimer: yes, I actually bought corn syrup to make these, super gmo... but so yummy and I really didn't eat that many!! And everyone who has tried them, loved em. So I think it's okay to use corn syrup once in a blue moon, right?
I found the recipe on vegweb.com, recipe for the patties --> here

p.s. my friend nicole also blogged about the swap --> here

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.

Vegan MOFO day 13- Cinnamon Buns!

So I decided to try the Cinnamon bun recipe from "The Joy of Vegan Baking," and holy crap, these were amazing. I had one for breakfast this morning, and I still am on a sugar high. We don't usually eat all that much sugar, and these were LOADED with sugar. I guess all the earth balance, sugar and white flour is why they tasted so darn decadent.

I have to say that "The Joy of Vegan Baking" has not let me down once, everything I've made has come out fantastic. These were definitely a little bit of work, I made the rolls last night, and baked them in the morning. I made the dough, let it rise, then rolled it out, made the filling, rolled it up, then sliced them, and let them hang out in the fridge over night. I woke up early this morning, let them do a 2nd rise, and baked them. Then of course, I topped them with the optional icing... which made them ridiculously tasty!

I don't consider myself a baker, I usually like to cook more than bake, but these were well worth the effort, and definitely within my skill set.

what the buns looked like before i stuck them in the fridge for the overnight

lemon poppy blueberry muffins

I wanted to make some goodies for my employees at work, so I asked what they wanted. The request was for lemon poppy muffins with a sugar glaze, and another request for blueberry muffins... When I got home from work I looked in The Joy of Vegan Baking. I found a recipe for lemon blueberry muffins, so I added poppy seeds and thought it was a perfect compromise :) I made a lil glaze of lemon juice and powdered sugar for the top. Came out super yummy :) That Joy of Vegan Baking is an awesome cookbook!

easter food :)

i forgot to take pictures of everything we made for easter... we made potato rolls, broccoli salad, gimme lean sausage w/ fried peppers and onions, and lemon bars.

this is the dough for the yummy country-style potato rolls (Veganomicon). they came out super tasty!

and pretty! aren't they yummy-looking?? my omni sister-in-law said that "you can totally bring these over for dinner again" and "they kind of taste like bagels"

these are lemon-bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking... i think im in love with vegan lemon bars.