Vegan Gal

can you tell me which flowers gonna go?

2009-11-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

so it's been a month..and between my computer not working, my camera breaking and then getting a new one but losing the battery..it's been a tough one to blog ;)
i've definitely been having some awessssome vegan eats though, so no worries on that one.

a couple of weekends ago the roomie and i went down to baltimore for a concert. oh, but not just any concert.. we saw Hanson with HelloGoodbye.
Quite a show, I must say. My inner 12-year old hanson fan was just bursting out of me and I was quite pumped for them!

While we were in Baltimore, we looked up a vegan place (which btw...emilys gone pescitarian, soo AWESOME for her! :) )
we found there was a "soul food" type place in the city..which we love the Nile Cafe in philly which is kind of vegan soul food, so this place sounded good. It's called The Yabba Pot and i was definitely amazed by how delicious their food was! You know this girl loves her veg soul food ;)

The Yabba Pot was a very hole in the wall place but the inside of it was decorated beauuutifully!

I loved the decor for the seating area, the tables and chairs were all so unique and cute. and the huge gorgeous butterfly on the ceiling was definitely something to look at :)

Where you ordered your food, they offered some wraps and sandwiches, but once emily and I saw the hot food buffet and saw that you could get 6 different things for a sampler, we were sold. We do love our food all together..and we wanted to try everything, so this was perrrfect for us. They also have a lot of juices that you could get, which we did not, but i've heard they are quite good and refreshing!

Our sampler plate. We chose to get one with the 6 different things on it to split, wanting to save room to try their desserts! Over brown rice, we got a raw kale salad, a black bean saucey dish, a chickpea curry, a collard greens and cabbage dish, seasoned mushrooms and tomatoes, and the most AMAZING tasteing "chicken" i've ever had. honestly, i tried to cut it..and thought I hit a bone so I was a bit freaked out at first, only to find it was on a toothpick (silly me) but the chicken was SOO delicious, i'd definitely get an order of that again.

Everything was awesome, and it was a perfect amount to split between the two of us, and still want some dessert.
Unfortunately though, all they had on the dessert front was a pumpkin pie..which neither of us are too fond of (i know, i know, everyone loves pumpkin..except for this chica) but we did venture to the awesome Whole Foods in baltimore and split a peice of raw strawberry shortcake. No picture available, but trust me..it was deeelish. :)

Also! I finally got to try the PB&J Larabar
Bloggers were not wrong..this bar is AWESOME. I'm not a huge fan of larabars, some flavors I like, and some I don't..but this one is definitely a keeper!

And for the hanson concert?
Let's just say it was prettttttty awesome!

Me and Zach Hanson..;) you know you have mmmbop on your itunes, don't even pretend..haha.

Also when I was home on sunday my mother made me a deliish dinner that I must share. It's not often..ever..that I get dinners from my mom soo this was quite exciting since usually mine are quick meals the roomie and I make up in about 10 minutes. :)

Butternut Squash Chili! And mannn this was tasty. the squash and the beans were quite delicious in it :) thanks mom!

As for the recipe, because I definitely recommend making this soon! especially with butternut squash in fullll bloom right about now..

Butternut Squash Chili:
2 T olive oil
1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 Tblsp mild chili powder
1 1/4 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp chipotle chili powder or cayenne pepper to taste (for spice)
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1 15-oz. can kidney beans
salt and pepper to taste

Peel and chop squash and set aside. In a large soup pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Sautee onion and bell pepper until soft – about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sautee 2 minutes more.

Add seasonings and stir well to coat. Add tomatoes (and their juice), water, squash, salt and pepper to taste, Cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes.

Add beans and adjust seasonings, if necessary. Cover and cook until squash is tender, but not disintegrating – about 30-40 minutes.

Have a good week! Soooon I'll be posting about the how AWESOME austin texas is for vegans..oh it was wonderful!

my heart like a kick drum..

2009-10-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

school has been keeping me quite busy lately with papers, mid term exams (how is it midterms already..?? i do not know.) and whatnot.. so sadly this makes my blogging fall to the back of the to-do list.

but i do have fun stuff to share about being in new york and a deliccccious veganized dessert recipe that i made last week!

a couple of weekends ago i was in new york with the boyy and of course, had a fabulous time :)
but we made some more stops at some fabbulous vegan places in the city.
on friday night we went to Baby Cakes for dessert after eating some tofu chinese food at a random spot.
Since I had been to Vegan Treats the weekend before, I was expecting something as awesome as that.

the outside and the sign-age was definitely very cute :)

I apologize for the bad and dark picture quality..I recently got a new camera and haven't quite figured out all the good settings to use..but i'll get the hang of it soon, hopefully..

Up first to try from BabyCakes was the frosting shots!

Ever since I heard that they had shots of frosting there I was already excited..i loove frosting so this sounded like an amazing idea. We both tried the chocolate and the vanilla..I was a bigger fan of the chocolate.. Oh and isn't he a great hand model? ;)

Minnne.. I chose the chocolate mint brownie cupcake.. it was reallllly tasty, and the frosting was perfectly minty without being too much. The cake was also super moist, de-lish!

If they didn't have the cookie sandwiches, jason would have been pretty upset haha he'd been looking forward to trying those..and luckily they had them. it was quite delicious as well :)

I will say that even though everything I had from BabyCakes was verry scrumptious, they had a much smaller assortment than I had been expecting, but there was still a few really good options there. I'd definitely love to go back and try another cupcake sometime though! :)

For dinner on saturday night we went to try out Candle 79.
Last time we came to the city we went to Blossom, which was soo awesome, so we had our expectations high for Candle 79 to hopefully be justttt as amazing.
I'd definitely say it was..

For an appetizer, we shared the Guacamole Timbale, no picture was taken though, but i assure you it was delicious and gone :) The description - chipotle black beans, caramelized onions, tomato-cucumber salsa, tortilla chips, ranchero sauce ...the caramelized onions in it was a really good combo with the salsa.

My dish was really good. I liked it more than what I got at Blossom I think, but they were both different so it's hard to tell. I got the Carribean Jerk Grilled Seitan which was brown ale black bean sauce, sautéed collard greens, caramelized onions, plantains, mango-papaya salsa, jalapeño-cilantro coulis

talk about amazing. the fruity salsa was perfect with the spiced veggies and plantains.

Jason got the Seitan Piccata, which is their "classic"..everyone talks about how amazing that dish it.
creamed spinach, grilled potato cake, oyster mushrooms, lemon-caper sauce
It was really good, and the sauce was really good over the seitan. It reminded me a lot of what he ordered at Blossom..which was also quite good.

Definitely too full after all this to try dessert at Candle 79, but I have heard good things..the specials of the day all sounded really good as well!

Also while we were in new york we stopped in the Whole Foods..i'm not sure which one it is or how many there are in nyc..but it was jam-packed! all I wanted was some almond butter and rice dream chocolate, but the line was wrapped around and it seemed pretty silly to wait for that. guess people in ny love their whole foods ;)

So last week for my sorority we were having a bake sale to support one of the sisters causes.. I dooo enjoy baking for bake sales, especially for non-vegans!
I wanted to make something that I hadn't had in a while, I mean cookies are great..but it's nice to switch it up a bit.
I remembered last years bake off someone made Magic Cookie Bars and I kept thinking how much I used to love those pre-vegan days!

These were soo good! Just as I remember of Magic Cookie Bars..soo many good flavor combos with the walnuts, chocolate chips, and coconut over a tasty crisp graham cracker crust. perrrfection. People at the bake sale seemed to enjoy them as well ;)

Magic Cookie Bars:
1/3 cup extra firm silken tofu
1/3 cup vanilla soy milk ( i used almond breeze)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1/4 cup earth balance
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2/3 cup flaked coconut
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray and 8x8 baking dish with baking spray. In a blender, puree tofu, milk, sugar, and cornstarch until smooth. Put margarine in a bowl and melt in the microwave. Add graham cracker crumbs and mix until well moistened. Pour into baking dish and press to coat the pan. Pour tofu mixture over the crust. Sprinkle with nuts, coconut, and chocolate and press all into dish firmly with a fork. Bake for 30 minutes, until lightly browned and the coconut is crispy.

I found this recipe on Fat Free Vegan and was soo excited to try it out! have i mentioned how much i LOVE her site? no? well i do. :) a lot. i'm even in the group on facebook..haha..

well i'm off to enjoy some vegan mexican food, margaritas, and enjoy whats left of the weekend! happy saturday! :)

party in the usa

2009-09-11T09:20:00.001-07:00

so i'll be honest and admit that i'm a huge miley cyrus fan..and her song party in the usa is constantly getting stuck in my head lately... don't hate, you know her songs are catchy! ;)

haha on that note..
last weekend my fantaaaabulous boyfriend and i went to Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA...you know, the super amazing all vegan bakery that sends their delicious-ness to TONS of places in philadelphia, nyc, and all over the east pretty much!
linkage - Vegan Treats
caution: by looking at the menu, you'll feel the urge to go there immediately..or at least whip up some delicious desserts yourself ;)

most people probably don't get this excited over a bakery...but being a vegan..you all can definitely understand how excited I was. :)

anyway!
I definitely got to try a few things, and they were all a-mazing, of course!

despite the silly stop-and-go traffic, we finally got there..i'd say it was worth it.

I thought it was super cute inside..it was very pink and adorably decorated. They had a ton of articles from VegNews and other vegetarian magazines on the wall of their reviews and such.

We were going to each get something, but seeing how big this one dessert was, we decided to split it..gooood idea. Awesome for me, they had peanut butter soft serve! That was a must to get..but I wanted to try something else as well. I promise under this mountain of soft serve, there was a scrumptious peanut butter cup brownie. The peanut butter on that brownie was the most amazing thing I've had in forever. oh my love for peanut butter <3

We got some stuff to go as well, and I wanted to bring something for the roomie, of course! My first instinct was to get her the raspberry bar, but there were so many choices I really didn't know what to choose..so I called and of course she picked the raspberry bar as well haha.

She said it was quiiiite tasty..i figured ;)

I also brought home a Cookies N Cream filled donut..

I was really hopeing that they would have a boston creme donut, since those were my favorite before going vegan, but a cookies and cream filled donut was definitely good enough! The frosting was soo creamy and delicious..

No wonder people go a bit crazy for this place, everything we tried was SO good. I definitely recommend heading out there if you're not too far away! Or you can order stuff off the website as well..which might be an easier idea ;)

This weekend I'm going to New York and trying out Baby Cakes..so I'll see how that is up against Vegan Treats! I'm sure it'll be just as delicious :)
have a fabulous weekend!

birthday recap

2009-09-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

so between not having a camera for a bit and having trouble uploading pictures from my phone...i am FINALLY posting about my birthday..which was last week. :)

i can definitely say that i had a really good birthday..
when i got back from class that day (boo for classes on your birthday!!) i had a package from mi familia!
it was an all vegan snack basket!!

so pretty! i didnt want to mess up the wrapping and basket..but i was definitely eager to see what all this fun stuff was!

So what do we have here? Lara bars! Cherry pie & Ginger snap..i've never had the ginger one before so that should be fun to try.
Panda black licorice! I loooooooooove licorice..which not many other people do, haha but its one of my faves :)
All-natural potato crisps..
Cocoa-Java Almonds.. ooommmggg these were so amazing. i usually go for the more salty / spicy types of nuts...but these were so delicious.
Dried Pear Crisps by the same people of the potato ones.
These fun crunchy things called "Sticks & Twigs" which kind of make you think of pretzels except they dont taste like pretzels and aren't pretzels..haha they're made from quinoa, flax, and a bunch of other awesome things! they're realllly good :)
there were also a few more granola bars from brands i had never heard of..but they were all organic and natural and delicious! :)
Thanks Ma! ;)

So for dinner on my birthday we went to this restaurant in Mt. Airy called The Black Olive. I saw it on vegpa.org, which has a listing of all the vegetarian and vegan restaurants in pennsylvania. they have a website, but it really doesn't have much information on it at all except for its an all vegan restaurant.. i read some reviews and they all said it was great though and had vegan cake..which was what i wanted haha. i'm really glad we went though, all the food we ordered was really delicious!

as an appetizer, we shared the vegan crabcakes..
i took a picture, but it came out really bad and does them NO justice..thus i wont waste posting it..however, these were SO delicious! i don't think before being vegetarian i ever had a crabcake, so I can't exactly make a good comparison..but "the omnivores" at the table haha thought they tasted just like the real deal..

For entrees, after a LONG debate of which one to get, I finally decided on the spinach lasagna.

i made quite a good choice. it had a delicious layer of vegan cheese on top that melted perfectly on it..yum. i haven't had lasagna in forever so this was just perfect. it also came with a side salad that had this really good berry vinagrette with it..

the lovely roomie got the tofu wrap

i didn't get to try this myself, but she said it was quite delicious. it had a bunch of different veggies and beans and tofu in it.. :)

the lovely boyyyy got the seitan steak!

The "steak" came with mashed potatoes and asparagus as well. I tried a piece of the seitan and it was pretty good! The sauce on it was really good.. it tasted a lot like the seitan you can buy prepackaged in whole foods or tj's though..but they cooked it really well so it was quite tasty.

Annnd for my favorite part of the meal..I mean you can't have a birthday without cake, right ?? ;) Luckily Black Olive had a few choices..

I chose the German Chocolate Cake

I've had a lot of german chocolate cake in my lifetime, haha considering its my dads favorite, and even last year I made a vegan version for him! But I was really excited they had it here too. It was so delicious, the cake was perfectly moist and the frosting was definitely deliciously coconuty and scrumptious. The frosting was definitely my favorite part ;)

I didn't get a shot of emily's cake though..she got the lemon cake, which was really good and not too tart. the frosting on it was delicious though, of course...that is my favorite part of any cake though haha.

They had one other cake, which was the double chocolate cake, that jason got..and that was really good too! luckily my german chocolate cake had the same frosting as the double chocolate on top, so i got the best of both worlds haha ;)

So this place was really delicious and I'd definitely love to go back again, especially since there were a few things on the menu I still had my eye on as I ordered my lasagna ;)

My birthday night was quite good as well..definitely a 21st ;)

don't you just love the sash and tiara? haha bit much, but it was fun :)

one more time with feeling..

2009-08-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

While I was on vacation my camera decided to be really awesome *note sarcasm* and the stop the display screen from working...
i can still take pictures on it/upload pictures from it..but I just never know what I'm taking a picture of..and that can usually be a problem! :)
I have a nicer camera as well, but the battery on that one seemed to die just as I got home as well! Such luck, no?
Thus I am camera-less, but hopefully that will change soon and I'll be able to take more pictures/do more reviews as much as i want.

I did however make some cupcakes for a party my roommate and I had last week..and I used her camera to snap a picture..they were WAY too cute to not take a picture of!

kind of spring-esque, aren't they? maybe not the right season, but i thought they were cute anyway ;)
plus lets just say i didnt even get to try one..they were gone by the end of the party, but that might be because SOMEONE ate 6 of them!! i won't put the blame out there, but i was a little bummed i didnt get to try one, however, from everyone else i heard that they were quite delicious!

I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Joy of Vegan Baking, which I haven't used before. Usually my go to is always Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World .. (which BTW I need to get on getting Vegan Brunch VERY soon!!) I thought they baked the same, and I guess they tasted good too so that's a good switch up recipe!
For the frosting..I noticed we didnt have any powdered sugar in the house at the last minute, so I made one using regular sugar?
I found it online..and I have to say it didn't come out as "fluffy" as using powdered sugar..
I also used a pre-packaged thing of pink and yellow fondant that I had gotten for Christmas that I never got a chance to use yet! Fondant is SOO super easy and makes everything look adorable..I'll definitely have to use it again :)

So other than that I've just been attempting to "live up" the rest of my summer.. school starts up again in 1 week from today!
However..it will also be my birthday in a week and 1 day from today!!
Not just any birthday, though..
In recognition of my favorite game as well..
I'll be the big bad

Okay maybe not that big or bad..but i'm still super excited ! :)

hope everyone is enjoying the rest of their summers as well and hopefully i'll be able to post and do some reviews soon!
<3

conclusion of my euro-trip ;)

2009-07-31T08:49:00.001-07:00

So since I've been back to the states, I really haven't had much time to keep my blog up to date with the last of my food-finds in europe as well as stuff i've made since i've been back! no worries though :)

Rewind to being in Dublin, Ireland..
where the mentioning of being vegan was looked at like it was a disease..
even trying out a chinese buffet, i had thought before going in that there had to be at least an all vegetable dish or tofu or something!
not hardly..i ended up with a plate full of cut up tomatoes and cucumbers with some soy sauce.
however!
while trying to find something else in the city, we stumbled upon a Govinda's!
And I had just recently learned that the Govinda's in Philadelphia actually IS an international chain and the one in Dublin and London are all connected! how coooool ;)

The food was set up in a way that you picked your size plate, and then chose from the "buffet/bar" what you wanted on it.. unfortunately not everything was vegan..a majority of it was just vegetarian, but the things that were vegan were really good!

This was my plate, which consisted of basmati rice, vegetable samosa, whole grain bread, lentil curry, and a mix vegetable dish. it was quite delicious :) finally..some vegan food in ireland !!

Despite the food, Dublin was still absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!

The Dublin Castle!

Howth area of Dublin, right on the water. Quite a lovely view :)

Fast forward back to London...
After we got back from Dublin, we only had 9 days left in London to explore and do everything else we wanted to do before we had to come home..so that meant a really strict schedule that we TRIED to go by..haha some things got a little rearranged though ;)

We found a really awesome health food store really close to our apartment though, so that was exciting! We had bought sandwiches to take on the plane with us incase the food wasn't good...but realized they might not let them take us through security, so we ate them while in london and they were delicious! Mine was a vegan stromboli sandwich! :)

Also in the health food store I really wanted to try the soy chocolate milk, but none of them were cold..so I picked strawberry instead..

This was AMAZING! I'm glad I got to try this flavor instead.. it reminded me exactly of those nesquick strawberry syrups with milk..except a million times better and better for you :)

Another RANDOM find that we stumbled upon while going down a wrong street, was a vegan cafe literally down the street from our apartment! I hadn't even seen it on Happy Cow or anything like that.. but I'm really glad we found it because it was suuuper awesome.

The board..it seemed as though they changed up the menu & soup everyday..which is definitely a good idea. I cannot remember the name of this place actually..and it was so tiny that i couldn't even look it up online!

A lot of the vegan places we had gone to throughout London did the same sort of concept..you choose the side of the bowl and then fill it with whatever you want. Emily & I really LOVED this idea..because we definitely dont mind our food touching, and we think it tastes better all mixed together anyway. ;)
My bowl was a bed of greens and a potato salad, a lentil and chickpea dish, and a vegetable dish. it was all really good mixed in. :)

While we were in London for the 5 weeks, we kept passing a TON of McDonald's..and they all advertised for this "spicy veggie burger"...i was intrigued..so we looked it up online and checked if it was vegan or not.. it IS if you get it without the ranch sauce...
Although I am not one to support McDonald's...I think it was pretty cool that they were willing to have a vegetarian and vegan option for customers if they choose so instead of choosing their gross burgers. SO it was one of our last days in London, and i tried it..

See the bite taken out of it? That was the only one that was...
Unfortunately, I WANTED to like it..so I could think wow way to go mcdonalds!
but it was soggy..and the first time I got it they messed it up and put the sauce on it, so I had to go back and get a new one.. but it was just mushy and not very good..nor was it spicy at all!
Sorry McDonalds...at least you tried.

Now that I've been back in Maryland and Philadelphia..I've done a little bit of cooking, definitely not as much as I'd like to..so hopefully the baking will shine through me again and I'll be back in the kitchen with some new things soon! :)

Vegan in London pt. 2!

2009-07-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

As we're exploring more and more of London, i've found soo many awesome restaurants and cafes that cater directly to vegans, as well as others that have so many vegan options! I'm becoming more convinced that it really is more veg friendly than the states! It's gonna be a bummer to go back.. ;)

One place that we actually have been to a couple of times since being in London is located in the Camdentown Market area.. It's an all vegetarian cafe, with the majority of the options being vegan, and also has a smoothie/juice bar as well as music and social events in the evenings!

Inspiral Cafe & Lounge on Camden High Street.
So far from there I've gotten a lunch bowl, which shares the same concept as a lot of the cafes around here... you choose a size bowl and then pick from the hot and cold food bars as to what you want. I really like this concept a lot, since it lets you try different things, but I guess you have to choose carefully if you don't like your different foods being mixed!

The first time that we had went, we had actually already eaten lunch at a mediocre cafe where I had a sandwich..but we should have waited a little longer and we would've found Inspiral instead! We were so excited for it though that we ended up getting one of the smoothies anyway..all made with soya milk!!

Organic vodka in your smoothie, anyone? ick..can't say that sounds very good at all!
However, I got the Berry Bliss smoothie and it was really really good! Very fresh tasting and perfectly creamy with the soy milk! :)
This place also has an "ice cream" section... and we were planning on trying it out one day when it was actually really hot in london! I sampled the Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream, hoping for something delicious...unfortunately it was made with wheatgrass and spurlina.. which I don't mind those at all in a smoothie or something like that..however, I was expecting sweet, delicious ice cream...not quite what I had in mind..so we ended up passing on that.

Skip to another all vegetarian cafe located in the Soho Area of central london..called Beat Root

This was located just a street away from the VitaOrganic vegetarian cafe we went to a few weeks earlier, but we wanted to try something new.
The people working there were really friendly and they had a ton of options.. only two of the options were not vegan too..so that was exciting that I could try a lot :)
Same as Inspiral...the concept is you choose the size box and then pick whatever you want to fill it... I love getting a whole mix of different things..usually I just say "whatevers vegan"... ;)

Everything that I got was SO good!
Theres a mixture of a potato curry dish, brocolli and sprouts with peanuts in this really good "creamy" sauce, a quinoa dish, and a few others I can't really remember..but I really thought everything I got was so delicious. :)
They also had a few things for dessert as well, and we chose a chocolate crispy ball to split..

it tasted like a chocolate covered rice krispy treat..except even better ;)
SO good! This might've been my favorite vegan cafe place so far in london...

So as if London wasn't amazing enough by having the Veg all vegan chinese buffets on nearly every street... we were lucky enough to stumble upon by accident an all vegan Indian buffet as well!!
It's called Indian Veg Buffet and it's located around the Islington area of London.
First of all, it's only 3.95 pounds for all you can eat... so that was pretty sweet to begin with..
We can in to see what it looked like before we decided on it, and once we saw the curries we knew we had to eat there.
London is actually pretty well known for their impressive indian food..i'm not so sure if this vegan version of it is as good as the omnivore version..but I was a huge fan ;)

My plate.. they had four different curry options available, along with many different sides to choose from, naan bread, and a few different rice dishes. I chose the chickpea curry and the spicy cinnamon potato curry. The rice I got had a really good seasoning to it as well and went perfectly with the curries. Everything I got was soo good, of course :)

ALL around the restaurant they had these different posters regarding how healthy a vegetarian and vegan diet is as opposed to a meat-filled diet. It was really cool to see so much information on it everywhere!

Yay for the benefits of a cruelty free diet!! :)
Not gonna lie..this guy totally thought I was taking his picture though and I think I made him blush ;) haha oh the things I do for taking blog pictures!

This place was definitely amazing and I'm so excited there are soo many vegan "buffet" options as well as different places to go for just a quick lunch..
Another thing that i've noticed in a lot of places is they have a TON of different vegan mediteranean foods as well..such as tabouli salads, hummus and falafel, chickpea salads, etc. It's so easy and convenient to just pick these up from grocery stores and such for a quick meal!
In a nutshell, I've basically fallen in love with how vegan friendly london is.. :)
We only have 4 days left of our european vacation though, so i'm a bit bummed about that..but at least it's been an AMAZING experience..

Next up I'll post about the not so vegan Dublin, Ireland! :)

Vegan in Valencia, Spain!

2009-07-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling all over London as well as Spain and Ireland, but have had no time to post!
I've been trying to find vegan food that is actually good...as opposed to a side salad of lettuce and tomatoes...and some places have definitely been harder.
Take Valencia, Spain for instance...
I definitely had a much harder time finding vegan food here...even trying to tell people that I was vegan was quite difficult! the language barrier could have been something to do with this as well though...
Valencia has a lot of italian food places though, which was quite surprising..as we were expecting to eat a lot of spanish food..not as much though.
anyway, the first place we went luckily the waitress spoke english, so I explained to her I wanted something all vegetables and no cheese or meat...
She brought me out this..

It was a toasted piece of bread covered in a tangy marinara sauce and topped with tons of grilled vegetables, including tomatoes, artichokes, brocolli, and a few others as well!
For such a simple meal, it was really really delicious, so I was glad she was able to help me out there! especially for our first meal..since we were both just so hungry from the flight..
Other meals were mostly salads...that I had to customize to tell the server not to put any eggs or meat on it..
but regardless, I was only there for 3 days so luckily the monatony of the plain boring salad wasn't tooo awful.
There were though really nice looking Falafel eateries everywhere though..

Can't really go wrong with falafel wraps..
that surprises me a lot about not just valencia, but also in london... there are SOO many places with falafel.. which i absolutely love and usually have to search for a falafel place in philly!
So even though the food in Valencia isn't quite vegan or vegetarian friendly..
The beach was beautiful..

Warm sunny beaches was exactly what we needed as opposed to London's rainy and chilly weather...
The architecture in Valencia was absolutely gorgeous as well..

It was definitely a fabulous 3 day trip to the beach...I'd definitely recommend anyone going, it was a really beautiful city. Just make sure to try and find some vegan or vegetarian places before hand and it should be good ;)

Vegan London Adventures pt. 1 !!

2009-06-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone from London!! :)

We got here about a week ago, and so far it has been absolutely amazing. The town we're staying in is so beautiful and has so much to do! I really feel lucky to be able to experience all of this.
Coming to London though I was a little bit nervous about where I would find good things to eat. I knew I could rely on salads, but I knew that would drive me crazy to only eat salads for 5 weeks!
however, that is not the case at all!!
Honestly, I feel as though London is much more vegetarian and vegan friendly than Philadelphia! Or anywhere in the states for that matter.. it's crazy!
Every restaurant has a "V" for vegetarian next to food items (not vegan though..so make sure you point that out..) and on all the food products they have little symbols as well..

yes, even the ketchup..in case you didnt know it was vegetarian, haha. :)

Also..another thing that is awesome about london in general for vegans, is that ALL the coffee places have soy milk!! I hate that being home my only option is usually Starbucks to get a coffee with soy milk.. or smaller coffee places, but as far as chains go, its usually just Starbucks. Not quite the same here..every place we've gone so far has offered it! :)

that would be a most delicious soy latte from this really awesome coffee shop right down the street from our apartment!!

The first place we found that was all vegan was a place called Veg. It's a all-vegan chinese buffet!! It reminded me a TON of New Harmony in Philadelphia, which I'm in love with and has the most amazing food! We were soo excited to see this place here in london..plus its SO very cheap. and we've passed a lot of them as we're walking around, so it must be a all vegan chinese buffet chain??? CRAZY! :)

The front of it..they all look the same and are really easy to spot! :)

The inside..was SOO cute and beautifully decorated. I will say, that is what impressed me about it over New Harmony..not that new harmony doesn't look good, just the decorations here were much more intense.

and of course, the food!! They had a lot to choose from on the buffet, and i'm not sure if it changes up any time or if different locations had different things. but the food we had was awesome, so i wouldn't mind if it stayed the same. they had plenty of tofu and seitan dishes, vegetable dishes, sesame toast, a fruit salad that looked amazing but i avoided (fruit in other places never is a good idea for me!! weird, i know..)
but yes, this place is awesome, and for only 3.50 pounds for take-away, i think it was 4.50 pounds to eat there for lunch, it was quite the deal!! :)

While we were in Central London seeing Big Ben and The Eye and all that fun stuff, we looked up a vegan restaurant to stop in for lunch while we were down there..
I found a place called Vita Organic, and it was absolutely amazing as well!!

The entrance for it, although the directions did make it a little hard to find! Luckily someone we stopped and asked for directions were already on there way down the street and had told us how good the food is! :)

all vegan and some raw!! :)

The buffet of food. You got to choose how many "scoops" you wanted and which ones you wanted..only a pound a scoop! another awesome deal!

My plate.. I chose 3 things, a chickpea curry, the green vegetable dish, and the other spicier vegetable dish. They were all really really good and tasted good all mixed in with each other too!
They had a huge juice bar as well, and some vegan cakes and desserts..although they were a bit pricy. Everything there looked amazing though. We'll definitely have to go back again before we leave!!

So far in London I've encountered no problems what so ever finding something delicious and vegan! So i'm very excited about that and I can't wait to try out more vegan restaurants here!!

We're off to Valencia, Spain this Saturday though, so we'll see what the vegan food is like over there!! :)

they made a statue of us, and put it on a mountain top

2009-06-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

So I finally found some time to bake today now that I'm home and I'm really glad because I've missed it :)
I recently got Happy Herbivore's fabulous new e-cook book...Backyard Vegan..and i'm in love! it has soo many delicious sounding recipes that i'm really excited to make. Earlier today I made the PB&J Cookies using strawberry preserves.
the result?

delicious-ness!
The preserves taste really good in it, and the cookies are just peanut-buttery enough but not overly sweet with the preserves also. Perfect. They don't really spread though, at all while I baked them, so if you make them definitely don't be scared to make the jelly-centers even bigger to fit the preserves in there better. The root beer float cupcakes sound like my next creation from there... they sound so clever ;) and who doesnt love a root beer float..in cup cake form??

Also!
A couple weeks ago I made scrumptious pizza while I was still in philly.

The dough was a really simple recipe that I had found through other blogs..

Vegan Pizza Dough:
1 package of instant dry active yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 tablespoon sugar
3 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Add the water, yeast, sugar, and 1/2 cup of flour into a mixing bowl. Stir well and let sit for 20 minutes until it gets bubbly. Add the olive oil, salt, and 2 cups of flour and mix well with a wooden spoon until together enough to knead on a floured surface. Knead for about 10 minutes, while adding more flour at a time to create a soft, elastic, slightly sticky dough consistency. Form the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl, while adding some oil to the top to prevent drying out. Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit for 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size (mine took about an hour and a half.) Punch dough down and divide into 2 small balls, and place in large zip lock bags (or wrap in saran wrap if you realize you dont have zip lock bags..like i did...boo) and refrigerate overnight. Let the dough get to room temperature before ready to use, and roll out to the size you want when ready. :)

So the dough I thought was pretty good..although we might've overcooked it a bit, but other than that I thought it was a really good recipe to use!
The sauce that I had used was just a creation from heating up a can of diced tomatoes with seasoning, extra basil and oregano, chopped garlic, and about 2 T of tomato paste, and then putting it all into a blender to minimize the chunks.
The pepperonis were the Yves brand..which I had never had before, but I was quite pleased with how they turned out.
The cheese was Vegan Gourmet mozzerella, which actually shredded quite easily with a regular cheese grater, so I was quite pleased with how that turned out..not to mention it really DOES melt! soo that was great.

So yeah basically, the pizza was awesome, and I had really missed pizza with melty-cheese ;)

Today I stopped by the health food store for a couple of things and saw a new random product and decided to try it out :)

Chee-Cha Puffs in Sea Salt & Spiced Pepper flavor.

I'm a huge fan, they're really air-y..but the seasonings and spices for them are so good. and with only 90 calories for 2 cups! how exciting, i know. ;)
They're also gluten-free, so if gluten is a problem for you then i'm sure you'll like these as well.

Well off to MORE packing.. I leave in 2 days for London and I have lots to pack still...maybe i'm just trying to fit too much? no way haha :)

hardcore superstar, by far, you're the ultimate.

2009-05-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I haven't really been baking or cooking much of anything lately..
having classes over has been SUCH a relief this past week though.
its so nice to not have the stresses of having papers or tests or anything! freedom! :)

Last week though I did find this amazing place..yet only 3 miles away from my apartment!
It's called Weaver's Way Co-Op and its a co-op store in the Germantown/Mt. Airy part of Philadelphia that has couple stores as well. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect before I went,
however, I had been on a MISSION to find Whole Soy Frozen Yogurt..and i had yet to find it ANYWHERE..including whole foods and other super markets that usually carry a lot of soy products. But on the Whole Soy website, they said that Weaver's Way carried it..so I had to make a stop!
Alongside the AMAZING chocolate hazelnut frozen yogurt... (oh gosh its so good)
I also wandered the aisles and picked up a few other things, including some new flavors of fruit leather (i'm addicted to these) and a bag of nutritional yeast!!
I've yet to have ever cooked with this..so i'm SOO excited to make some delicious cheesy recipes!
In a nutshell, Weaver's Way had SO much to offer..plenty of different vegan foods, produce, and they also carried a lot from Mosche's line of vegan sandwiches! It is a $30 charge per year though to become a member (since i wasn't a member I had to pay 10% more..not a big deal though) and you have to work 6 hours of the year there..which I think would be totally fun anyway! When I get back from london..i'll definitely look into joining it :)

Anyway!
Onto my super amazing weekend which also included super awesome vegan food ;)
This weekend I was really lucky enough to stay in new york city with my incredibly awesome boyfriend. and also extremely lucky that he was totally up for trying out some awesome NYC vegan eateries!
On Friday we went to Lula's Sweet Apothecary, which I had heard about ALL over the "blog-world" being amazing vegan ice cream with a huge assortment of different toppings.
It definitely lived up to its reputation ;)
Although the ice cream maker was apparently broken, they still had 3 flavors of soft serve to choose from; vanilla, twist, or cake batter. The list of toppings on the wall definitely seemed like a good amount to choose from as well!

This was mine, which included Cake Batter soft serve with mint newman-o cookies, and deliciously amazing hot fudge. oh how i've missed hot fudge.

This was the boyyy's...he got the Twist soft serve with the mint newman-o cookies and coconut whipped cream! The whipped cream was quite delicious..i've missed that too!

I also got a chance to go to Blossom for dinner last night, which I had also heard a ton of awesome reviews about..
The place definitely has a very small and cute atmosphere..and I really liked the setup a lot! The menu wasn't huge but had a good amount of things on it..and had me torn between a few options.
The pictures however are not the best...due to my camera wanting to stop working..so I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of..note the un-centeredness haha. oh well, trust me..it was gooood ;)

I decided on the Crispy Thai Tofu with Bok Choy,rice and this delicious tangy coconut-milk based sauce. Sooo delicious! The tofu was crispy enough just the way I like it and the bok choy was really well done also. I'd definitely get it again.

Okay so not the most flattering of pictures, BUT this meal was AMAZING. It is the Seitain Scallopini, which was seitan cutlets in a a white wine, lemon, and caper sauce. uhh....wayy too good! I totally would've gotten this instead if I knew how awesome it was!

So yeah, both of these places definitely lived up to the expectations..pure amazingness ;)
New york is just so amazing in general, as well as full of awesome vegan places..i'm quite jealous ;) surre philly isn't bad either i suppose!
After the long weekend i'm completely tired though, so i'm definitely looking forward to a nice long sleep tonight.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!
:)

i've been dancing around the truth

2009-05-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's been an extremely busy past few weeks, but today is FINALLY the last day of classes for the semester! I cannot even explain how excited that makes me..this semester had definitely been a long one, a good one..but really long! And it's so refreshing to know that it's almost over. :) Senior year..here I come! crazyness!

So aside from being busy with exams, papers, and presentations.. I have cooked a couple of things. And I'm making something this weekend for our sorority Senior Sendoff...so I'll make sure to post about that next week ;)

While I was home a few weeks ago I made the Vegetable Skillet from myvegancookbook.com
This site is just amazing, the recipes are all SO awesome!!

There it is alongside vegan mashed potatoes and cooked asparagus with garlic... scrumptious meal!

Bean & Vegetable Skillet:
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 medium zucchinis cut into 1/4" medallions
1 medium eggplant, diced
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained (i used fire-roasted...soo good!)
14.5 oz can white beans, drained and rinsed
1 c water
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp black pepper
i added about 1/4 tsp of cumin as well, just because I <3 cumin. :)

In a large skillet, cook the onions, peppers, zucchini, garlic, and eggplant with cooking spray for 10 minutes on medium heat, stirring often. Add water, tomatoes, thyme, red and black pepper, and cumin, cover and cook for 7 minutes. Uncover and add beans and cook for 5 more minutes on medium heat until zucchini is slightly crisp.

This recipe made a lot and made me realize how much I really do like eggplant! It was really good in this recipe.

Last week my mom came up for a study abroad meeting at school, so she was here for the weekend. I wanted to make something for her, not to mention I couldn't let the people from work down, I was bored of making cookies and brownies..so I decided on a healthier? dessert. I chose the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from joy of vegan baking, of course! This simply is my go-to for all my baking needs, the recipes all have come out perfect! And these muffins are no different.

The recipe definitely made more than 12 as well, or maybe I just had small muffins. Either way, there were plenty to give out and everyone loved them. I did add peanut butter to mine, of course, just because there really is no better combo than bananas and peanut butter... + chocolate chips..perfection!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins:
2 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 c canola oil
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 c water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease muffin tin, or use super cute cup cake papers like I did.. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the sugar and the oil. Add the banana and the chocolate chips. Stir in the water and vanilla until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and stir until just mixed. Fill the muffin tins and bake about 30 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Onto some London news - it's official that we're leaving on June 4th, arriving in London early on June 5th and staying until July 10th!! I'm SO super excited and hopefully we find a good place to rent while staying there. I've already looked at a ton of vegan restaurants in london..and wow! I was expecting it to be hard to find places there, but there are so many that I can't wait to try them!!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!! Only 2 exams until the semester is truly over! :)

i listened in, yes i'm guilty in this you should know this..

2009-04-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

This post is just drenched with chocolate...
I warned you ahead of time ;)
Not even on purpose really, I guess I just was on a chocolate-fix this past week or so..nothing wrong with that though.

I did a take-two of the peanut butter brownies that I tried to make a few weeks ago, but turned into a pan of a too gooey mess!
So I used an old brownie recipe that I knew worked well... and I just mixed up peanut butter and spread it into the mixture..
It came out pretty well, however for some reason these did turn out a bit cakey-ish than when I remember making them..

I used the same recipe from this post.

But I did bring them into work last week, and they were all quite pleased and happy with me again :) so that's always good.

While doing a quickie whole foods trip last week, I saw they had the So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurts in an array of flavors..and I've been meaning to try these for a while. I've tried the coconut milk ice cream made by them..in the mint chip..and was VERY impressed. I am not a fan of soy yogurt though.. I've tried REALLY hard to like it though, but I just can't get over the texture. so I was hoping for good things from this!

Again, i tried REALLLY hard to like it..
seriously..
with each bite I'd be like "it's not..that bad..."
honestly, I really did not enjoy it at all. the tangy ness through me off as well as the texture. maybe i should try a different flavor..
but it was kind of a big dissapointment because i used to LOVE eating yogurt pre-vegan days.. and I'd really like to find a replacement that I like. any suggestions ??

Another fun thing that I found that my mom had told me she had seen in my hometown in maryland ...and I hadn't heard anything about these..

Nasoya Silken Creations.. they had it in the shoprite near me randomly, in the refrigerated tofu section, and i really wanted to try it out! they had it in all three of the flavors, strawberry, vanilla, and..my choice..dark chocolate.

I was thinking of what to make with it, and I thought that my usual peanut butter chocolate tofu pie would be AMAZING using it..

However, I must say..on the package it says to be used in recipes or eaten straight from the box. I gave the straight from the box thing a go just to see how it tasted..and wowwww I think I might just buy it to eat! It tastes like AMAZING chocolate pudding..perfect consistency..and I'm really excited to try the other flavors out like this.

I figured it would already be SUPER chocolately so I halfed my usual 1 cup of melted chocolate chips to only a half of a cup..as well as I left out the soy milk since the tofu was already a pudding-consistency as opposed to when I use the usual silken tofu.
I will say, it did not firm up as well as previous times that I had made this pie and used regular silken tofu.
It was more of a pudding-pie..which..is still quite amazing.. but a bit messier.
I put it in the freezer however in hopes of it firming up quicker, and the next day it was a frozen-ish consistency... but kind of like an ice cream cake texture..which was actually really good! :)

And lastly for the chocolatey-goodness of this post..
my sorority had its retreat for the new girls this semester last night.. and since it was late night-ish we were asked to bring a dessert for it. Of course I jumped at that opportunity, how can I ever turn down making a baked good for others to eat ? Plus, it was thursday..and i couldn't let the friendly applebee's co-workers down!

I tried out the chocolate mint chip cookies from Joy of Vegan Baking. This book never lets me down!

These cookies were AWESOME.
People at work were upset that I didn't bring more of them, and were raving about them all night! I still love that they don't ever believe they're vegan too ;)
I got to the retreat a bit late due to work, but a few of the girls were able to try them and said they were really good. So theres definitely another keeper in that book.. :)

Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies:
1 egg replacer (I used Ener-G)
3/4 c vegan margarine
1/2 c firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 c cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and sugars together in a large bowl by hand or with electric mixer at high speed. Beat in the egg replacer as well as the vanilla and peppermint extracts. In another bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture along with the chocolate chips. Stir well until mixed, but do not overmix. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a nonstick cookie sheet, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Should make about 1 1/2 dozen cookies

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!! I'm going home tomorrow to be with the family for Easter, so I'm really excited for that :)

theres not a lot to give if you're giving in..

2009-03-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

So one of the nights that I was home my brother and I as a duo made dinner for the two of us.
I will say though, even though he does make meat dishes, he does have quite a good mindset for cooking! He seems to always think of interesting types of meals and such..

Onto that, he decided to make homemade spaghetti from scratch, which seemed like an interesting idea that I hadn't really thought to do.. I mean spaghetti is just so simple to pull from the box and boil in a pot!

He had used only about a half of a cup of flour, 1/4 cup of water, and about a tablespoon of salt. Then formed a dough with it and rolled it out, and cut it into spaghetti-like strips. Make sure to roll them out quite well though..they did seem a bit thick!

The sauce that we made was just a can of crushed tomatoes, mixed into it was sauteed green peppers and onions with garlic and a bunch of italian seasonings such as basil, oregano, parsley, etc.
It tasted quite delicious and really fresh tasting as opposed to a sauce from the jar! It was so simple as well :)

I had some pinenuts in the cabinet from when I made the macaroni casserole from previously in the week...as well as my brother had gotten fresh basil, so I found a simple recipe for pesto and blended that up..

I belive I just used olive oil, pine nuts, basil, and garlic. It was a bit garlic-y..maybe use less of that..but it was really good!

all together now!!

The pesto was put on a toasted piece of french bread, alongside the homemade spaghetti with the sauce. Quite delicious!

Oh, I had attempted this past week to make a new recipe that I found for "extra fudgy" vegan brownies...
fudgy they were!
I had mixed in some peanut butter into the recipe to make it extra decadent.. however the brownies were TOO fudgy and couldn't even be picked up :(
I will say though..digging into the pan with a spoon could have been a good option..but I didn't think that seemed respectable enough when trying to let other people try them... ;)
hopefully going back to my "safe" brownie recipe this week will make them much better.

and we'll send up our shooting stars and comets..

2009-03-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm back in Philly at school, and going back to class and work yesterday was just unreal! It really didn't even feel like I had nearly a week and a half away from here at all!
Oh well.. on the bright side, only 38 days (including weekends!!) left until the last day of class.. but hey, who's counting? ;)
this just means the closer to being in london i will be..so i'm pretty pumped.

While I was home though I did get a chance to make a few more things! so that was super.

My parents had left on vacation for a majority of the time that I was home, leaving my two siblings and I to fend for ourselves while they baked in the beautiful Dominican Republic sun... i'm not bitter, i promise :)

So I cooked a tad bit..
One night I found a really simple recipe for homemade falafel, and decided it was something to try. The only time i've made falafel before was using a box mix from Fantastic Foods where you just added oil, i believe. Which were awesome though, so I'm definitely not complaining.. but I felt better about making it from complete scratch this time.

The recipe made quite a bit, and I managed to fit three of them in a pretty big sized pita filled with lettuce, tomato, and hummus :) delicious!

Falafel:
1 can of chickpeas
1 small onion, finely minced (okay so mine wasn't exactly minced persuay..still came out good!! haha)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3 T chopped parsley
3/4 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp tumeric
dash of red pepper
2 T flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, and then put them in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Form into ping-pong sized balls and put onto an ungreased baking sheet, and flatten down a bit with a fork. Bake for about 10-15 minutes, flipping halfway through and they'll be done when they're golden brown. You could also try frying these up, but I figured baking was better ;)

For dessert the night before this, on the last night my whole family was home, I decided to make a Hot Fudge Cake. I stumbled upon this recipe while searching for a hot fudge recipe..craving a hot fudge sundae one night..haha but this cake just seemed too good! And made me think of those non-vegan but delicious looking lava cakes that i serve to people everynight at applebee's...

Hot Fudge Cake:
1 1/2 c flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/8 c sugar
9 T cocoa powder, divided
3/4 c soy milk
3 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 c brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 c hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and 3 T of cocoa. Stir in soy milk, oil, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Spread in ungreased 9x13 glass baking pan. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar and 6 T of cocoa. Sprinkle over the batter, and pour the hot water over it all, but do not mix. Bake for 45-50 minutes and serve warm!

I originally found this recipe from jewishvegan.blogspot.com, but it says its truly from Taste Of Home, but just with soy milk as opposed to regular.
I did in fact half this recipe though, and I made it in a 8x8 pan..which kind of made it look like brownies, but this was definitely delicious.
And the fudge sauce stayed delicious and gooey for days after as well :)

Back to the grind of work though now, but hopefully now that spring break is OVER spring weather will finally start to appear! one can only hope ;)

we've gotta live the best we know how to

2009-03-15T15:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm home for spring break in maryland..
and even though its not exactly a spring break destination... with the rain and cold weather.. it's still nice to be home and relax. :)

Before I left though I made a recipe I think I found on vegweb a while ago, it seemed quite simple and quick to make so I thought my friends at work would really like it.

All it was, was to melt a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (shoprite brands is vegan! yay) and mix it with a tsp of peppermint extract..
and then dip Ritz crackers in the mixture, put in the fridge to harden them up..
and they're quite tasty! kind of like a thin-mint..kind of sweet and salty..
but very simple and delicious.

I brought my cat Ziggy home for spring break with me, and I was a bit nervous about having to keep him in my room for an entire week since I have a dog at home and I didn't know how they'd react to eachother. After having Ziggy keep me up all night the first night, we decided to see if they would be able to roam around the house together.
Luckily, it hasn't been too bad.
Ziggy likes to pretend he's tough, but when hes on the same ground level as my dog, he runs away scared.. but they're fine and they don't actually fight, so luckily that's been taken care of :)

Yesterday I made dinner and dessert for my family, and I decided on the Mariachi Macaroni from myvegancookbook.com (which I just recently stumbled upon and LOVE!)
The casserole was awesome! Since I don't have nutritional yeast..and most macaroni dishes usually call for it..I was excited to see that this one didn't. And yet, the sauce still tasted absolutely amazing and creamy and wonderful. :)

Maybe not too photogenic..but definitely delicious!

For dessert I wanted to make something delicious, but not too filling since I knew the macaroni would be a bit heavy. Theres another dessert that I definitely have my eye on to make sometime this week while i'm home though!
But I made Peanut Butter Coffeecake, which some could call it banana peanut butter coffee cake as well, since i could definitely taste the banana...which made it even better. :)

I believe it is originally from crazyveganmom.blogspot.com. :)

For the topping:
1/2 c light brown sugar
1/2 c flour
1/4 c peanut butter
3 tablespoons of margarine

For the cake:
2 1/4 c flour
1 c brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c soy milk (i used almond breeze..yum!)
1/2 c peanut butter
1 ripe banana, mashed
1/4 c margarine

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9x13 baking dish.
To make the topping, mix the flour and sugar together. Then with a fork, mix in the peanut butter and margarine to make a crumbly texture and set aside.
For the cake, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. Then add the milk, banana, peanut butter, and margarine. Beat this until smooth, approximately 3 minutes. Pour mixture into the baking dish and top with the crumble topping. Bake for 30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

If I were to make it again, I might add more banana..just because I LOVE the combo of banana and peanut butter and having the banana even more pungent would be delish. or maybe chocolate chips as well ;) but thats just me.

I'm sure I'll be baking up some more deliciousness while being home, and I hope if anyone else is on spring break, that yours is much sunnier and warmer for you! :)

and you're finally free to twist and turn like a skeleton key

2009-03-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

Okay so i'm sad to say i don't have any new, fun, interesting food.
spring break is next week so our grocery trip wasn't even that exciting..just the basics till we get back and will splurge at whole foods and tj's!
no worries though, when i'm home..i'm sure i'll be cooking up tons! :)

HOWEVER!

i do have quite exciting news regarding myself!!

First up.. as its quite apparent, I had gotten my first tattoo this past October of the vegan society symbol sunflower on my foot..and i love it. and it was painful and i'm a huge pansy. BUT i've been thinking ever since how badly I wanted another one..
and so the roomie and I both got what we wanted this past saturday!!

it's on my right ankle..right above the ankle bone..and i absolutely LOVE it! it's still in the healing process right now..so not exactly looking its best..but once its nice out I can't wait to show it off!!

now i will admit, there is one more that I want.. but i think i'm going to hold off until summer ;) i guess it is true...they are addicting.. even with someone like me who is scared to death of getting her doctor shots!

okay exciting news number two...
I received my acceptance letter from my school and then got through two phone interviews and got accepted into American Intercontinental University in London!! for the Summer 09 semester!!

i'm SO SO SO excited. The semester is from June 5th until July 11th. Which I think it just long enough to really live there and experience it, without feeling like it's tooo long. it should be an amazing time...
although i've heard it's a bit difficult for a vegan diet.. but i'm not too picky..so i'm sure i'll be okay! :)
If anyone has been to London or has any recommendations or tips or anything, definitely let me know!!

Oh! And in other exciting very UPCOMING news.. i'm going to be seeing Chelsea Handler tomorrow night at the Tower Theatre!!
I'm obsessed with the show Chelsea Lately, and I think she's going to be hilarious. I hope she brings along chuey!

Have a wonderful weekend!!
I promise I'll post about delicious food next time ;)

thats why i wrote this song to sing..

2009-02-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

How is it already thursday???
i feel like this week has just blown by me and I ended up with today. ;)
crazy-ness! 2 weeks till spring break though..which equals a week and a half of NO school work and no waitress work! i'm pretty stoked.

So since I didn't have anything last week to bring into work..I made sure I bought ingredients to bake up something scrumptious this week..
"chocolate chip cookies" is of course, a frequent request.. but theres only so many batches of cookie a girl can bake in only a short time span!
However, I will admit, I'm a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies.But wanted something a bit different..
Which perspired the idea of chocolate chip cookie bars
which actually do taste quite a bit different! in a good way though, of course.

I basically took the same ol' "tried and true" recipe from Joy of Vegan Baking (i really need to make new recipes from this!!)
and spread it out into a 13 x 9 pan.
The cooking time was a bit off..and I honestly wasn't sure when to take them out or when I did, if they were even close to being done or not.
I'd say the total time they were in was probably close to 25- maybe 30 minutes?
I checked on them a few times..decided they were still too "mushy" and would put them back..
However! They came deliciously wonderful. :)

I made a batch of chocolate chip blondies over the summer..which was not what I wanted from this recipe..and not what I got..so it worked out well. The blondies I made were much more of a chocolate chip cake, but these were more like chocolate chip "brownies" consistency?

Oh! And I did not take any pictures..
BUT this past sunday.. I was lucky enough to go to the New Harmony Buffet!!
New Harmony is an all vegan chinese restaurant in the city, which basically has EVERY thing that a regular chinese restaurant menu would have..except everything is vegan! uh perfect!
But usually they have a $12 buffet once a month..and its usually on a monday, which I always work so I've never been able to go. But they switched it up and it was this past Sunday.. and oh my gosh i've been missing so much!! haha
The only thing that was a BIT off...was they had a fried shrimp on the buffet..
which look WAY too much like the real deal.. shape..white with pink like real shrimp..
it was quite strange, i mean of course it wasn't real..but i think it just looked too much like it, the roomie and i were a bit thrown off! haha
this is another MUST go to restaurant in philly. :)

tonight we're the constant buzz

2009-02-18T15:44:00.000-08:00

This past week so far has been kind of busy for me, but over the weekend I got to try a new all vegetarian restaurant in the city that i've heard a lot of reviews on!
We went to Mi Lah Vegetarian, which if you're familiar with Philadelphia vegan restaurants, you may know about Horizons, which is an up-scale all vegan restaurant, and people have been comparing the two. I actually went to Horizons last Valentine's day, and it was amazing. I might have liked Mi Lah better though..?

Onto the food.. the roomie and I decided to drive down there, which I do not suggest doing ever. Parking was miserable to find, and not to mention..all the parking meters in the city have gone up! So that was a downfall..and we were extremely hungry so driving around searching for parking was not a good start...

However, once we got there, we were so excited that the parking problem was just a vague memory.
We had a reservation, since we went on Valentine's day, but for lunch I don't think you really need it. Our menu was limited, since we went for lunch instead of dinner, but the options they had for lunch were enough to choose from.

To start, we both had the soup of the day - tomato bisque

The cup was pretty small, but it was quite delicious! However, I saw someone get a bowl of soup, and it looked huge..so I'd probably just stick with the cup. The tangy and sweetness of the tomatoes were perfect while we waited for our entrees to come out.

For my entree, I got the Vietnamese Hoagie which was "marinated tofu, pickled green papaya, chile veganaise, carrot, cucumber, and cilantro."

I could definitely see myself getting this again. It was so delicious, and the seasoned veganaise was perfect, as well as the seasoned tofu. There was a bit of oil/perhaps just veganaise or tofu "sauce" dripping out it, which made me realize it would be an awful date food.. the sauce dripping, the tofu falling out, the turning the head to the side to take a bite...not too attractive. However! It was so delicious, and I was with my roomie..thus it was perfect. :)

Emily's entree - Grilled Flatbread Pizza which was "white bean and tomato puree, kale, and fried shallots"

We swapped bites mid-way, and I tried hers..it was really good. The flatbread was perfectly "grilled" and the whitebean puree was delicious with a hint of garlic. I definitely would try it myself another time, as well as the other flat bread pizzas sounded really good too!

We asked for a dessert menu, and we were torn between two..so since it was V-day, we went a little crazy and got both ;)

This would be the Oreo Cake...it was two brownie consistency cakes with cream in between them..reminded me a lot of a Whoopie pie, with a scoop of Vanilla soy cream (I believe I read somewhere they used Temptation) and delicioussss chocolate ganache all over it. Heaven.

Peanut Butter Custard. It was warmed thick decadent peanut butter custard with a scoop of vanilla soy cream and strawberry preserves on top. This was absolutely amazing and I would eat it every day if i could. With a mix of the strawberry and peanut butter, it tasted like a PBJ. scrumptious!

Basically, this place was amazing. The lunch prices weren't bad either, I noticed on the dinner menu online that it is a little higher, but they have a lot more options for entrees for dinner, so i'll definitely be going back..hopefully soon!

Also...best part.. on Sundays from 11 until 4, they feature a Vegan Brunch, for $20 a person, you get a cup of coffee or tea, a plate of fresh fruit, homemade muffins and scones, a pitcher of either Bloody Marys or Mimosas (uh mimosas please!)
Plus an option of the many bunch entrees they have, including pumpkin pancakes, tofu benedict, seitan and waffles, etc.
I need to request off of work a Sunday Morning and make it my mission to get there..this sounds amazing. !!

basically, if you're in philly, you must make sure you squeeze in a stop at Mi Lah.. and let me know so i can come too ;)

the bays got stories that we don't know

2009-02-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

It's Friday!! :)
Even when I don't have plans for the weekend..just getting up to friday is always such a satisfying feeling...but luckily this weekend is jam-packed with things so I'm especially excited!

I had quite the dilemma this week though! On such a simple task - finding a heart shaped cookie cutter
And what irked me the most was that my parents got me this HUGE thing of a million different cookie cutters, including many heart ones, but I left it at home :(
Thus, I went to about 7 stores looking for one..and couldn't find one at all! It was quite ridiculous, especially so close to the big V-day!
Luckily I was at the mall wednesday night, and my friend helped me find one in this cute little kitchen store!
Problem solved ;)

So I present to you my special cookies for Valentine's Day

So scrumptious! I used the same sugar cookie recipe i used for my Halloween Cookies from the fabulous Joy of Vegan Baking.
I also used the Royal Icing recipe from the book, which i've never used before. But all it is was 1 egg replacer (I used Ener-G) a tsp of lemon juice, 3/4 c powdered sugar, a tsp of vanilla. it came out really well..although i spilt a little extra lemon juice in it on accident, and you could kind of taste the tart-ness in it..but still good! haha oh well ;)

The guys at work approved..and thursdays have now become "Tasty Treat Thursday"
haha they do get dissapointed when I don't have anything for them on thursdays... but I love when people love the stuff I make, so I definitely love bringing stuff for them!
all this talk about love..

hopefully people at our party tonight enjoy them as well..i mean seriously, what college party can you go to and expect vegan baked goods??? haha mine! :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!

realization is key

2009-02-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday! :)
Hope your week has been going good for everyone so far. I had quite an interesting and fun weekend so the school/work week has kind of been in the back of my mind.
I'm really excited for this weekend though, already, I know.. ;)

But Friday night is Friday the 13th as well as the day before Valentine's day, thus we're having a party at our apartment to celebrate! Should be quite a fun time, and the "I need a perfect outfit" dilemma is already sorted through, so no stress there.. just a fun time coming up!

Also for Valentine's Day, this is the first time in 4 years that i've been not only single, but also not with the same guy! So this is quite a self-empowerment/new/fabulous experience for me! :)
I know during the day the roomie and I have a lunch date at this moroccan all vegetarian restaurant in the city! So I'm super excited for that, and I will definitely have a review for it ;)

Okay! On to some eats!
Last week after grocery shopping, I got all the ingredients to make the Curried Tempeh-Mango Salad Sammiches from Vegan with a Vengeance. This is the first recipe I've tried from it since I got it from Emily's mom for Christmas.. (so sweet of her!!) and they came out sooo tasty!!

I used a yellow onion instead of red for the sandwiches afterwards, but for the rest of the recipe I followed it to the T. I loved the sweetness of the mangos and the spicyness of the dressing..soo perfect. Although I'd probably add some more curry powder, since that flavor was what I was REALLY expecting..and it wasn't too strong.

Heres the recipe since its just so-o delicious and really easy to put together.

Curried Tempeh-Mango Salad Sammiches (VwaV)
1 8oz package of tempeh
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 cup mango, peeled and chopped into 1/4" chunks
1/4 cup scallions, chopped
For the dressing:
3 tablespoons of vegannaise
2 tsp curry powder (might wanna up this one!)
juice of 2 limes
2 tablespooons of apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp hot sauce (i upped this one too..but i love hot sauce)
For sammiches:
2 large pitas, cut in half to make pockets
thinly sliced red onions
lettuce
extra mango slices

Tear the tempeh into bite-sized pieces and place in a small sauce pan. Cover with water and add the soy sauce. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and transfer tempeh to a bowl to cool.
Meanwhile, whisk together the dressing ingredients.
Add the mangoes and scallions to the tempeh. Add the dressing; mix well. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve in the pitas with the lettuce, onion, and mango. Delish!

I'm already falling in looove with this cookbook. I have another recipe lined up for next week that i'm pretty excited to make! :)

Oh, and just to share my new favorite/weird snack..

I bought a box of Cinnamon Puffins a few weeks ago to try something different since I had only had the peanut butter ones before (which are fabulous)
they're really quite tasty, but I think I prefer the PB puffins. Butttt when you add a handful of them to your coffee...the mix is perfect! The puffins get tender and coffee-tasting...and your coffee gets cinnamon deliciousness tasting! perfect combo, no? ;)

your life is hype, your love is hype

2009-02-03T11:57:00.000-08:00

It's slightly snowing outside, nothing too bad luckily, but nothing good enough to cancel classes. hopefully tonight we'll get something good ;)
I did however have my afternoon class cancelled today, which was nice, and gave me some time to finally do laundry as well as get some delicious sushi (yes i love cucumber rolls, as boring as they are to regular sushi-eaters, i find them fabulous!)

This past weekend I found a new place to go for lunch/dinner. My roomie and I have decided that we are experts at finding awesome, new places! And it seems pretty good so far!
I found this place called The All Live Cafe
which I saw on the website, they did not have a menu on there, and that they were only open on saturdays and sundays during the day and at night for dinner. So I called and asked what their menu was like, and she told me that it was 85% Raw and all vegan! sounded perfect, no?

So the roomie and I headed out with the address, according to mapquest it was only about 3 miles away..awesome!!
We drove down the street it was on and passed the address, and did not see a restaurant..at all. just lots of houses! So we called again, and she said it was inside the building through a fence...... nervous.... haha but we went inside and I'm so glad we did!!

Isn't that just the cutest eating set-up ever??!

The menu was typed up on the papers that you picked up at the door, and she said that it changed a bit every weekend. They're only open on weekends, but they do a service for $100 a week where they deliver you a whole weeks worth of meals!! That's an awesome price, for AWESOME mostly raw, vegan food! I really think that'd be a great idea to do once in a while.

We were STARVING when we got there, so we decided to start with a bowl of the Chickpea Chili. It was VERY delicious! It had a hint of cinnamon in every bite, which really made it different, and very savory. perfect way to start the meal.

For your meal, you can choose 3 items on the menu for $10 and they are served in portions over a bowl of spinach mix. we both ordered different things to try a little of it all.

My bowl.. It consisted of Sangi, which was mixed veggies cooked with mild indian spices, No Meat, Nutmeat, which was walnuts, onions, and savory herbs, and Wild Rice, which was sprouted wild rice with fresh kale, peppers, onions, and herbs.
At first bite, i LOVED them all. However, after a few more bites of the No Meat, Nut meat, I was not that impressed with it, and left it in the bowl afterwards. The other two were so delicious, and blended well together!

Emily's bowl, It consisted of Marinated Cabbage, which was green cabbage marinated in savory herbs, Quinoa Salad, which was quinoa with fresh vegetables and cilantro, and Forbidden Black Rice, which was black rice with kale, marinated onions, peppers, and herbs. All of hers were really delicious too, and I wasn't sure how I felt about cabbage, but it tasted awesome! I might've liked her combo better ;)

After the delicious meal, we knew we had to try the raw desserts they had! There were a choice of three, the raw cheezecake, the raw carob cheezecake, and the apple pie. We talked to our server, and she said the apple pie was the least heavy, even though the carob cheezecake definitely sounded good...we were getting pretty full.
So we decided on the pie.

We already started eating it before I remembered to snap a picture ;) Yes, it was that good!
It was fiji apples and sweet spices in a date and almond crust.
It was perfect! Raw desserts just taste SO much better and less processed and fake tasting than regular desserts.
perfect way to end the meal.

Needless to say, we will definitely be back in a near weekend! It was amazing, the woman that worked there was very very sweet and it was just a wonderful experience. Oh, how I love finding these small little places of awesome vegan-ness. ;)

i wake up every evening with a big smile on my face

2009-01-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

Thursday classes are done... meaning its soo close to the weekend!! :)
its been a bit icy and snowy lately, so the roads have been a bit tricky to drive ..or just walk on, without moving around a bit. hopefully the sun today will melt it all and ill be able to walk normally without making sure i'm not about to slip on ice! :)

So yesterday I went to Acme to get some chocolate chips because I knew I wanted to bake. Usually I can find a store-brand semi-sweet that are vegan, which is always lovely, but if not then I go for the Ghiradelli, which is fine too, a bit pricier, but they taste great. Unfortunately, all of Acme's had milk in them and they didn't even have Ghiradelli! Ugh, Acme is not cool.
But I finally got my chocolate chips..not sure what brand they were, it was one i'd never seen before..but on the packing it said "Dairy & Gluten Free" so I was happy :)

Anyway! What I really wanted to bake was BIG chocolate chip cookies. I'm a huge fan of the regular sized homemade ones, but I wanted those that you buy from a store that are always so big and mushy and delicious. So since I didn't have too much of a reason for baking (i'll get to that later ;) ) so I decided to half the recipe from Joy of Vegan Baking (my favorite cookie recipe!!). The regular recipe said it made one dozen...but I halved it and made them pretty big and I got 6 of them out of it...doesn't make much sense, does it? ;)

delicious. absolutely delicious.
this was the first time I had baked cookies using Ener-G...and it worked magically, of course :)

share your knowledge

2009-01-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

So I've honestly not posted in what..2 weeks, i believe? ridiculous! :(
But i've really not been making much that has involved more skilled baking/cooking than using a microwave. i know, it's shameful. but living on your own in a college apartment, you just don't want to cook fancy foods! convenience and cost is where its at.. which sums up what i've been eating, i mean aside from eating food from restaurants, I've been eating a lot of Amy's foods (the shepards pie is definitely one of my favorites!!) Dr. McDougall soups, Lightlean "turkey" sandwiches, etc.

however, my roomie made this DELICIOUS vegan sausage soup last week (using the tofurkey brand spicy sausage links) and it was soo amazing. i did not snap a pic or anything, but take my word for it ;)

We've also made another hungry girl recipe, her Sassy Salsa Soup. Which was awesome!! Who knew putting pumpkin in a mexican-ish soup would be so fabulous??
(I definitely recommend everyone to get this cookbook, even though majority of the recipes are not vegan, it's SO easy to veganize them!!)

Yesterday though, I made the Moroccan Lentil Soup from Happy Herbivore's blog. My mom made it for me while I was home for winter break and feeling a bit under the weather.. and i loved it so much! The curry powder and cumin in it really make the soup, and blending half of it in a blender and then adding it to the rest of the soup really makes the consistency SOO perfect!
I definitely recommend making this soup ASAP!

Deliciousness in a bowl..although when my mom made it, of course it was better ;)

Oh and I must talk about my most recent food obsession. Not so new, but for me, it's really hard to find a bar that I REALLY like.
I'm a huge fan of eating Nature Valley granola bars for breakfast and stuff..they're really delicious and most of the flavors are vegan..which is rare for granola bars that they sell in most supermarkets.

But I've seen the Gnu bars on SO many blogs and the 12 g of fiber with low calories REALLY made me excited to try these! And they're awesome! I've tried all the flavors, with the banana walnut bread or the chocolate brownie being my favorite, and the orange cranberry one not being one that i'd get all the time (something about orange flavored things just don't work for me!)

oh and the cinnamon raisin one of course is delicious too! :)

Oh, and ANOTHER awesome new food obsession - Trader Joe's Fruit Floes!
I'd take a picture, but the 4 bar box was gone in 2 days between my roomie and I! We tried the Carribean flavor, and with every bite we kept saying "oh my gosh these are sooo good"
we will definitely be stocking up and trying the different flavors on our next TJ's trip!

Well back to classes tomorrow, this is the first FULL week of classes..all 5 days..ugh! haha i'll make it though.
and hopefully it wont be two weeks till I blog again!! haha of course it won't! :)

i put myself in a picture of success

2009-01-11T09:09:00.000-08:00

I made it back to philly yesterday and since then i've basically just been unpacking! You don't really realize how much you have until you pack and unpack it all :)

The second to last night that I was home I made another recipe from the lovely hungry girl cookbook (i might be obsessed..thats okay)

I made the Dan Good Chili, which was ALMOST vegan..it had worcestire sauce in it, so i just left it out, and i'm not sure if it even made a difference. i doubt it! (I subbed in celery and left out corn too..soo the recipe is a bit different from her actual one in the book)

Dan Good Chili:
4 1/4 c canned tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilies
3/4 c black beans, drained and rinsed
3/4 c light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 c chopped onions
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 3/4 c chopped carrots
3/4 c chopped celery
1 1/2 T chili powder
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp ground cumin

Place tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chili powder, and cumin in a large pot. Stir over low heat. When mixture is heated, add the garlic and continute to cook for 5 minutes. Add carrots and celery and and continute cooking over low heat. Meanwhile, over medium heat, cook onions, and peppers for 3-5 minutes in a large pan with just 1/2 c water. They should still be a little crunchy. With a slotted spoon to drain water, add veggies to large pot. Add beans to the pot and mix well. Cook over low heat for 2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so. Chili is done when carrots have lost their crunch!

Just a heads up, at first taste, I thought it was quite spicy. My mother thought it was too..of course the guys didn't..or didnt admit they did ;)
So I suppose if spice isn't your thing you should probably reduce the amount of chili powder, but I thought it was a really good spice after the first bite!

Oh yes! And I also made cornbread to go with the chili. I used Happy Herbivore's recipe for thanksgiving, but I wanted to try something different this time. I used one that I just randomly found on VegWeb..but it came out really good! So heres the recipe, i definitely suggest making it alongside the chili!

Cornbread:
2 egg replacers (i used ener-g)
1 c soy milk
1/4 c oil
1 c flour
1 c cornmeal
1/4 c sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray 8 inch baking pan with nonstick spray. In medium bowl, whisk flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add "eggs", milk, and oil and beat until just smooth (do not over beat). Bake for 20-25 minutes.

So I don't start up with classes until Wednesday..so these next few days are going to be quite relaxing, and i'm really looking forward to it. :)

Have a wonderful, relaxing Sunday!!