Easter Treats and Eats

I hope everyone had a good Easter! My Easter was full of friends and good food, so I would count it a success.

The University of Montevallo’s Family and Consumer Sciences Student Group had an Easter-themed bake sale on Wednesday. For that I made pumpkin spice cake bunnies with cream cheez frosting.

I also made cookie dough bites from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. These were a great hit and multiple people kept asking “There aren’t any eggs in these?!” Um, no. I’d prefer vegan cookies over a case of salmonella any day.

For actual Easter day I had a lovely lunch with Peter and our friends Charlie and Sierra. Then afterwards we spent time playing board games and making Easter things.

For a festive look, I knitted this adorable bunny hat. I used Slip Slip Knit’s knitting chart for the bunnies.

Instead of the traditional egg-dyeing, I went an animal friendly route and got some blank plastic toys from Hobby Lobby and decorated them with markers.

For lunch we had a mish-mash of snacks.

I made some tea sandwiches with whole wheat bread, sliced cucumber, spicy sriracha bean dip, and Vegenaise.

Avocado hummus with pita chips

I used my go-to potato skins recipe, but got lazy and boiled the potatoes with the skins on and mashed them with the other ingredients (minus the onions and Tofutti cheese). They had all the taste of potato skins, but without the added effort of scooping out the filling.
And for dessert Sierra made this delicious spicy peach pie. Can you believe this is the first pie she’s ever made? I never would’ve guessed.

Post of the S – Spaghetti, Sandwich, and Soup

Okay, so I have a hard time coming up with cute titles for these posts. So there are others meals in here that don’t start with S, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just as yummy as the food included in the titles. 😛

I am way behind on posting regular food pictures, so don’t be too surprised when I mention Halloween in this post.

Tomato herb couscous (recipe coming soon!) and barbecue  Morningstar chick’n strips

Mushroom spaghetti and salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

The glorious thing you are about to see below is an artichoke-bacon chicken salad sandwich. This is probably the best sandwich I’ve ever had. It’s not very healthy, so it will have to be only made on occasion, but anyone who likes chick’n salad should try this.

Peter’s family made a wonderful dinner the other day. I had a Boca burger patty with A1, roasted sweet potato, steamed broccoli, and fried green tomatoes.

The Family and Consumer Sciences Student Group at UM had a Halloween bake sale and so of course I had to make lots of vegan treats!

Carrot cake cupcakes with cheez cream frosting
Peanut butter cereal “bars”, which fell apart so I just mooshed them into balls

Cookie dough bites (from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar) dipped in chocolate

Soy-Tan Dream Cutlets (which are amazing!) with buttery pasta
Potato soup with bacon bits

Thanksgiving 2012

Even though it was a few weeks ago, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I know we did. Below is our oh so formally set table:

We had sliced Tofurky roast.

Firehouse cornbread, veganized by using soymilk, margarine, and an Ener-G egg.

Roasted balsamic zucchini and onions

Mashed potatoes
Green bean casserole

Campbell’s accidentally vegan mushroom gravy, for the mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce for the Tofurky.

And lastly, a cinnamon pumpkin pie brought by our friend Kyle.

Summer Snacks

I have only been back home for a week and half, and I am already incredibly bored. School starts back at the end of August though, so I can survive for that long. But all this free time gives me a chance to cook good meals and try new recipes. Here are some of the things I’ve been munching (or slurping) on the past week:

Cape Breton corncakes (recipe) for breakfast! Little cakes made with creamed corn, flour, saltines, salt, and pepper. Super yummy.

The ultimate Southern dinner. Gardenburger BBQ riblets, mashed potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob.

Vanilla bean frappuccino (made vegan with soymilk and no whipped cream) from Starbucks. It’s so flippin’ hot here, I couldn’t resist getting a giant cold drink like this.

 Peter’s family made an awesome dinner Friday, with grilled Boca burgers, broccoli, and other yummy stuff. Check out the adorable ’60s plate, part of his mother’s collection.

And lastly, I made seitan for the first time in a loooong time. It’s based on the basic seitan recipe from Table for Two, but I added some original Mrs. Dash and chicken bouillon.

I tried to make semi-uniform nuggets with a biscuit cutter. The nuggets were then dipped in a cornstarch/water mixture and breadcrumbs. I then fried them and served the finished (and delicious) nuggets with dipping sauces and stuffed potato skins.

Spring Break Noms

I have been on a blogging break for spring break, but it’s time to start back now that school begins tomorrow morning. I ate a lot of good food over the break and now it’s time to share pictures of all my noms.

Right before leaving for the break, the cafeteria actually made a nice vegan lunch. They had grilled eggplant “steak”, steamed broccoli, and spicy hummus paired with some tomatoes, olives, and cucumber slices from the salad bar.

My boyfriend, Peter, and I went to Arkansas last weekend to visit my mom, so we got the pleasure of not having to cook and let her be the one to feed us. She made some great blueberry muffins with streusel topping for breakfast.

Not everything was homemade though, we did get us some pizza from the US Pizza Co.

We got the veggie-lovers pizza. Though I had to eat mine cheese-less because I had no Daiya on hand, it was still really good. The thin crust gets super crispy and they use canned mushrooms which gives it a meatier texture. Yum.

Once back home in Alabama, I thoroughly enjoyed having my own kitchen to cook in. I am still not used to the icky public kitchens in the dorms. For lunch I cooked up some frozen hash-browns with spicy seasoning, a bit of salsa, and a ton of Daiya cheddar. I topped the hash-browns with Tofutti sour cream and added a Garden Burger black bean patty on the side.

The four ingredients in the following picture are magical… No, not really, but it seems like they are. (scroll down to see why)

Those ingredients turned into one of the best dishes I have ever made, chick’n and dumplings. I brought about half of the container of Imagine No-Chicken Broth to a boil, stirred in a vigorous dose of Mrs. Dash, added the chopped up Gardein chick’n, and lastly threw in the pre-made dumplings to cook. All in all, this meal took at most 15 minutes to make, and it was delicious.

Another experimental dish that turned into a keeper was this creamy pasta with sausage. I threw some spiral pasta in to cook and then began making a sauce. I added a can of diced Italian tomatoes, two big handfuls of chopped kale, a dollop of Tofutti sour cream, a healthy dose of Parma vegan parmesan, and some chopped of Yves Italian sausages. The sauce simmered for about ten minutes while the pasta cooked, then I threw it all together in a pot. I served it with a whole-wheat Alexandria’s roll on the side. This was delicious and my sister and her boyfriend (who are sometimes known to be picky around vegetable filled foods) sucked down all the leftovers with their compliments to the chef.

I know Easter is still two weeks from now, but I couldn’t resist making these cute cookies. They were pink lemonade flavored, and they were *gasp* from a box mix. The cookies tasted great though, but the bunnies were an issue. I found the adorable Easter decorations at  Walmart and since the box said “edible” on it, I assumed it was true. These sugar bunnies could literally chip your tooth if you tried to chew on one, they were like rocks. Everyone enjoyed the cookies though and just pulled off the decoration.

The End of the Year

As I told in my last post, I left my camera cord back in my dorm room in Montevallo. We have finally made it back to campus today, and I immediately began downloading the photos. Unfortunately I did not make a lot of food over the break that was “picture worthy”, but a few did manage to meet my criteria. Plus I came up with a new recipe I will be posting later. Much crafting was done, and the majority will be in a different post, but I’ll include one here.

Before leaving for school, I had $70 worth of “flex points” left to spend. So I bought (for me and  all my friends) several orders of fries, a couple of sodas, and 13 Naked juices, which are pictured below.

Inspired by seeing a delicious looking post on the Post Punk Kitchen, I made tater tot nachos. Soooo good. It was tater tots, topped with a nacho cheez sauce made with Daiya, and Yves crumbles with salsa. I could eat this every day.

Speaking of the Post Punk Kitchen, for the second year I’ve done a Christmas PPK package swap, and as usual it was fantastic. My swap partner, kilgore trout, sent me this amazing package:

From left to right: a bird card (with an awesome elephant drawing inside), homemade chocolate peppermint brownies in an adorable tin, Lush soap, Dandies vanilla marshmallows (!), Mexican cinnamon hot chocolate, a super warm and fluffy knitted cowl, an Enjoy Life rice and dark chocolate bar, and Biscoff spread.

I am so excited to try all the things in the package. I already tried the brownies and they were super yummy, and the marshmallows too, which was amazing because I haven’t had marshmallows in four years!

This year I vowed to do entirely homemade Christmas gifts, so I spent the majority of December crafting. I didn’t get pictures of all the gifts, but I did include pictures of two special ones. Other than the two below, I made: a pair of fuzzy slippers, Slytherin scarf, Tri-Force pillow, frilly apron, a grapefruit ornament, hedgehog pin cushion, a coffee mug with a mustache painted onto the bottom (to make the wearer look mustachioed when drinking), and a Skyrim ornament.

One of my favorite presents to make was for Peter’s brother, Sam. I cross stitched the Full Metal Alchemist symbol onto stiff plastic and attached a felt back and ribbon to make it into an ornament:

My best present though was Peter’s computer bag with the Skyrim cover symbol painted on it:

I also got around to some knitting and made a slouchy hat for myself from this pattern over at White Girl Knits.

I had a great Christmas and happy New Year, and I hope everyone else did too!

Thanksgiving – Pigs, Cards, and Cake!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and survived Black Friday (if you dared to venture out). Now is the time to begin prepping for Christmas, and since I’ve decided every one of my gifts will be homemade, I need to get to work asap. But there is no need to skip Thanksgiving, like many major store chains seem to be fine with doing. It should get just as much air-time as Christmas.

Before I blab about our holiday surrounding thankfulness, food, family, pilgrims, and football, I need to give you a daily-dose of cuteness. Look at the adorable little pot-scrubber Peter gave me for my birthday:

I love this little piggie, and it makes the annoying chore of washing dishes much more pleasant.

On to Thanksgiving though! My mother enjoys sending me cards at school and they’re sweet reminders to not stress too much about classes and enjoy life as much as possible. Here’s the most recent card she sent:

It says “Go stuff yourself!” inside. What a cute and vegan-friendly card.

For our Thanksgiving meal we had Tofurky roast, mashed potatoes topped with “poultry gravy”, green bean casserole, and buttery Bisquick biscuits.

For dessert we had cream-filled gingerbread bundt cake.

This was the first bundt cake I’ve ever made and I was quite pleased with how it came out. I looooved the cake’s cream “cheese” filling and how it coordinated with the spices in the cake. It was a tad dry, but I think I may have just baked it for too long.

Peter’s family also had Thanksgiving celebrations later in the week. I brought another Tofurky roast with some mushroom gravy (which I didn’t bother to photograph) and a lemon-berry cheez cake.

Happy holidays to everyone!

The Day of the Disappointing Potatoes.. And Some Zombies

There nothing quite as disappointing as a bad recipe. It’s one of those where when you see the recipe you think “That sounds like it would be fantastic!” and it turns out soggy, flavorless, or whatever else will throw off the entire dish. That is what happened to me today. Look at the meal below:

It looks yummy, right? Well I’ll admit, the slices of Tofurky roast were good, but the potatoes were quite nasty. It was the potatoes gruyere recipe from Vegan Vittles, it’s supposed to be similar to an au gratin potato casserole but was nothing of the sort. Don’t get me wrong, I love Vegan Vittles, but this combo of potatoes, silken tofu, cashews, and nutritional yeast turned into a soggy flavorless mess. Guess I’ll have to put a red X next to this one in the book.

On a better note, I noticed a funny vegan reference at the local Decatur comic book shop:

Look, a vegan zombie! I found this on one of the comic shop’s little signs they put up every week to show which comics have been newly released.

And on a final note, my boyfriend, Peter, has started a new writing blog. It’s called The Daily Pen. He’s a great writer and I think you should check it out. He’ll be posting short stories, poems, chapters on his novel works, and just about anything else his pen gets to working on.

Eating Out and Party Food

Thursday night my mother and I had a girls’ night out. We went to the movies to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and for dinner we went to Carrabba’s Italian Grill. Though there was only one vegan option (besides salad, of course) it was very tasty so I didn’t feel left out. I got the Penne Franco (without cheese) and it was simply divine. Penne pasta tossed in roasted garlic olive oil and freshly chopped basil. It was mixed in with roasted mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, black olives, and artichoke hearts.  Yum, yum.

Saturday was my Sunday school group’s Christmas party. Everyone brought finger foods and I made these lovely double stuffed potatoes to share. The recipe is here on VegWeb. I left out the Tofutti cheez and the white and green onions, but these were still very delicious. Cheezy with a hint of spice from the hot sauce mixed in. Definitely try this recipe if you haven’t already.

National Pig Day!

Today is National Pig Day!

It’s not an official holiday as of yet (Congress has not made it official), but many people take this day to celebrate pigs.

Though best known for “being tasty”, pigs are very intelligent and learn quickly. Pigs have been placed fourth on the intelligence list (humans are first, primates are second, and dolphins/whales are third) and they are very social animals. Pigs form close bonds with each other and other species. They enjoy close contact and will lie close together while resting. 

In honor of Pig Day I’m making a breakfast with vegan “bacon”:

Vegan “bacon”, tofu scramble with veggies and home-made hashbrowns.

A super yummy and filling breakfast. Smart Life Bacon is also great in a BLT or crumbled on top of a salad. Way better than the cholesterol saturated strips of dead animal that most people tend to munch on in the AM.

I’ve been saving this adorable video for today:

That sure is one cute and talented piggy. I hope you have a happy Pig Day!