The cookbook that convinced me that last .1% nearly two years ago that I could definitely be vegan was Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  I’ve loved baking since the time when I was an official ingredient-dumper-inner; there was no way I could give it up.  Discovering those delicious cuppies sold me.

Fast forward to a shelf with all of ICM’s cookbooks on it, among many others, my kitchen pantry bulging with ingredients, and an unlabeled jar of jam made by one of my coworkers.  What to do, what to do?

Why make cupcakes of course!  I scampered off, dusted the flour off my copy of Veganomicon and started making Jelly Donut Cupcakes.

Sadly, I hadn’t labeled the jam when she handed it to me in exchange for some plants (summer squash and zucchini I had sprouted.)  I tried a taste by itself — sweet but with a definite tart tang I couldn’t place.  Reminiscent of berries but sharper almost, a sweet hinting toward sour that tasted like forgotten memory.  I wasn’t sure of the exact make but I knew whatever it was, it would be good contrast to the crumbly yellow cake.  Maybe I had been a bit too generous with the homemade mystery jam, but they never closed, baking themselves into red-eyed cupcakes.  My solution was to fill the void with a stiff vanilla frosting and finish with powdered sugar as per the actual recipe.

SUCCESS!  Not one was left.  I hadn’t even begun to dust the powdered sugar on them at work when I heard the click-clack of a coworker scurrying around the corner, clearly having read my email.  Have I told you lately how much I love my coworkers?

Having stashed two for photographing and sharing at home, I finally brought out my wee cupcake stand and took a few pictures of these while the rain tended to my baby peppers outside.

The unassuming powdered-sugar topped cupcake

 

The love within (which turned out to be… plum!  Yes, I’m working on my palatte.  Melinda, thank you again for the jam!)

cupcake, vegandish cupcake stand, balcony garden through the rain

::sigh::

A fresh, real post or two is in the works even as I type this (c’mon and load, pictures, you can do it!)

Last week was a doozy.  Prior to departure, exhausted on Friday night at the airport, I had been thinking, “Hey, I’m taking a trip with the man I love to visit family down in Southern California.  Maybe I will have an opportunity to take pictures and talk about what it’s like to eat vegan while traveling!”  We all know it usually takes some planning and research, lots of questions, possibly some accommodating hosts…

Then we discovered that some places and folks just aren’t as vegan friendly.  We actually had a woman at a restaurant tell us she was far too busy to answer questions about the food.  When asking folks we were with what was good at the same destination, we began getting answers like “Oh the ahi is delicious!” and “They made me the best cheesy omelette when I was there…”

We wound up not eating at all.

The best meal we had all weekend?

Post 60 minutes-to-get-from-SFO/101-to-80 (ridiculous if you live in the Bay Area) drive Sunday night that made the hour trip from the airport home nearly two hours, we heated up the oven and popped in the most delicious thing we’d had in about 72 hours: a frozen vegan Kashi pizza.

This weekend’s lesson?

Even during VeganMoFo: take no tasty and accessible vegan-friendly meal for granted.

Last night I was having this problem called “Help, I’m lazy and hungry and don’t want to eat Sour Patch Kids for dinner.”  Well, there was also that little detail about how my boyfriend had already finished the sour candy but that is beside the point.  A few days ago I started playing soccer again, I’ve been doing loads of manual labor at work this week, I was HUNGRY for something.

Something…  comforting, savory, filling.  Hmm.  A quick poke in the fridge and a trip to the cookbook shelf later, I figured out what I would be making for myself while someone else was out playing basketball: pasta with vodka sauce.

But simmer?  For how long?  Canned soup started sounding pretty good till I reminded myself that the other day I vowed to try to use what was in the pantry for more inventive meals.  This vow may have only been made to myself mentally as aside but I want to try to stick to it as I hate seeing food go to waste.
 
An open bottle of vodka in the freezer?  Check.  Soy milk powder to make creamer?  Check.  Open jar of marinara?  Check?  One serving of pasta?  Check.

Dinner is on.

The recipe I referenced in making this was from Giada deLaurentis’ Everyday Italian, which I’ve possessed since my omnivorous days yet never truly explored.  Based on the proportions given, I eyeballed the sauce, vodka and ‘creamer’ and substituted our good friend nutritional yeast for parmesan.  At first I was worried it wouldn’t be as creamy or savory or well, good as I recalled the dairy version being.  Could soy creamer and yeast really do it for this picky, hungry-bordering-on-hangry* girl?

The result?

I’ll just say my bowl was empty.

(If you want a ‘vegan’ bowl, mug, dish set, serving wear, anything ceramic for yourself or someone who deserves something special, please visit Vegan Dish’s shop on etsy!)

* hangry: a the state in which hunger causes a change in mood such as cranky behavior, inability to say anything nice and overall complete social shut-down; a directly related cross of hunger and anger

These chewy, sweet, stick-to-your-ribs yummies were my Monday offering to the hungry folks in the office.  My batch was a lightly-adapted version of this recipe from Bittersweet.

My adaptations were using half agave and half brown rice syrup due to ingredient shortage/my laziness in going to the store and adding some mixed raisins for a change in texture and taste.  

Reviews were mostly good but with constructive criticism which I do appreciate.  How can you grow without trying?  Happily I can say I got some good words in response — my main mission in VeganMoFo-ing around the office is to expose everyone to the yum without laundry lists of mystery ingredients and prove there is much more to vegan food than tofu and the crumbly dry scone or cookie they tried “that one time” at “that one coffee place.”  Thus, these were a win.

Plus my boss and I both have this thing about peanut butter.  Win!

The good folks said:

     “omg delicious!  you should mass produce these and sell them!  i’d totally buy them.”

     “ok, here’s my critique.  they are yummy, but a little too sweet.  consistency is good, but i’m going to have to pace myself on this one.  agave is really sweet, but kudos for trying new things!”

     “the consistency is good and it is yummy.”

     “and they’re delicious.”

And yes, I’m that person in your office, the one who brings in food and then emails everyone about it.  At least I didn’t attach photos this time!

Okay okay, so I had some design issues last night that will be remedied, but wanted to throw up a quick little post just because I’m oh so excited.

Happy VeganMoFo all.

I am thankful to participate this year!  After nearly two years of veganism I have learned a lot, explored foods I never would have thought to pick up at the store to look at, thrown out many pots and pans of failed experiments and grown a lot as a person via this new journey.  Hopefully VeganMoFo will be my golden opportunity to share my thoughts with you all and prove that I do things besides bake cupcakes; an active whiskhands cannot survive on crumbs and frosting alone (yea, I’m talking to you Melisser!)  Ganache is nice and all, but sometimes spring rolls are a better meal choice.

Today after I complete my time at that whole “job” thing, I will be trekking to to Whole Paycheck for supplies… then home to get cracking on some deliciousness to share with the world.

Now if you excuse me, there are some peanut butter raisin granola bars that need to be whacked up and shared.   Happy MoFo-ing!

To join up, contact Kittee by tomorrow, Friday 10/2.
The official VeganMoFo site is here.

Christina Whiskhands and the TastesLikeYum Crew fell off the planet for a while there… and they’ve missed you during their time in Outer Space.  The good news?  Soon they will be back with a fresh layout and fresh posts.  See you in the beginning of October!

EDIT:  I’m sorry, let me correct myself — I’ll see you at the beginning of October for VEGAN MOFO 2009!  That’s right, I do more than just bake.

Okay, okay, so I have been hiding under a pile of catalogs and recycled scratch papers with spreadsheets on one side and my scribbles and sketches on the other.  Sadly I have been neglecting my duties as a vegan foodie in all aspects.  Several Iron Cupcakes have been missed, a weekend visit to San Diego with surprisingly delicious and abundant vegan fare went un-photographed and unrecorded…  The list goes on.

Lucky for me, the wondrous do-it-all righteous director herself Flo of Mynah Films managed to capture the fun and essence of shared sweets, that love is love is love and of course, a bit of my handiwork.

Pride Weekend was coming up.  Here in the Bay Area, Pride tends to be a pretty big event!  To boot, “Fiona’s Script” (maybe you can still catch it!) was playing at Frameline’s thirty-third San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the largest in the world.  When she asked me to make some miniature rainbow cupcakes to share with friends and potential friends at the park pre-march Saturday, I had to oblige.

Er, and let me publicly apologize for not making all of the cupcakes rainbow.  It was late and I am sure the peach ones were good too, but still.  Consider this your public IOU for rainbow cuppies next year.  Seriously, I will put in my calendar to remind me if I need to!

Enjoy these lovelies enjoying some little yummies!

A quick but cute, cute story.

I got an international request probably about a week ago.  A co-worker/friend of mine, who has given me many an opportunity to flex my culinary muscle, put in a request for a surprise delivery.  As our dialogue via e-mail continued, the details were hashed out and it turned out the recipient-to-be was having a less than pleasant week.  This was going to be a happy way to end the work week, we hoped.

So I made pumpkin cookies two ways, wrapped ‘em up pretty, and delivered them, skull-and-roses apron and all.  If you saw a woman in an apron walking down 4th Street in Berkeley today, it was probably me.

It turns out that she had started out that morning a not-so-happy gal and then was quite pleasantly surprised.  My guess is that the day ended fairly well.

Happy Friday Holly. You are one lucky girl

Maybe I am alone on this one, but I always felt the oddball because practically everyone I knew growing up loved those junky, too-long-ingredient-list-last-time-I-looked sugar cookies, bright pink and yellow with jimmies on top, sitting in their sealed plastic clamshells in the bakery area at the supermarket. Yeah, guilty parties, you know who you are. Honestly I never liked them. Soft cookies usually don’t do anything for me. Chewy or crunchy is more my style.  My sister has a soft spot for them.  Not me.

But these. Oh man. These made me a convert. Sure, they made me like soft cookies, but just how good were they?   Savory is my SO’s style. After dinner last night, he announced excitedly that he was then going to eat those frosted cookies I had made — but I had taken them to work and they were long gone. I believe the dialogue went something like this:

“Noooooo!!! No! No! Make it stop! Make it stop!”

He was banging his hands on his head as he yelled this repeatedly. I ran for the fridge and my apron and made more  as quickly as I could. And all was well.

True story.

I want to make one more batch before I share the recipe because I would hate for anyone to be let down!  Two batches so far and the second batch was the winner, so…  there are tests to be run.  Crumbly but cakey, soft and sweet, these babies are worth waiting for.  I promise.  And then you too can make them so your SO doesn’t go crazy.

In my department at work, we like to do birthdays up big, taking over the birthday gal’s desk and surrounding area with an all encompassing theme.

Made for a ‘birthday barn dance,’ I present to you the first cupcakes I have actually made and decorated since receiving a copy of Hello, Cupcake: some vegetable garden cupcakes.  While I did not have all the different types of candy they listed, I think I did a pretty good job improvising if I do say so myself.

Everyone enjoyed eating their veggies today!

a birthday wish for the birthday gal

Rabbit got to the carrot patch…

Also, a little shameless self-promo: don’t forget, Iron Cupcake Earth Battle Soda Pop voting is now open!  If you fancy, please show my Sunny Piñacocopop Cupcakes and two of your other favorites a little love