and you didn't even notice when the sky turned blue

The weeks are just flyyying by and I can't believe it's already midterm time! I have to register for classes for next semester in 2 weeks...its insane! haha but I guess it's all good because I have a lot to look forward to. :)

This past week I made a brownie recipe that I found on veg web. It struck me as interesting because there wasn't an eggreplacer in it...so I was curious as to how everyone was saying how "fudgy" they were. I've made brownies before and they've been either too oily or too cakey. These turned out really well though!




Brownies: (found on vegweb)
2 cups flour
1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Boil water and 1/2 cup flour over low heat, stirring constantly, until it becomes a thin gluey paste. Remove from heat and let cool. Mix sugar, salt, vanilla, cocoa, and oil. Then add flour-water mixture and mix well. Add the rest of the flour, baking powder, and chocolate chips and continue to mix. Spread into a greased 7x11" pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

I would definitely use this brownie recipe again because it was so simple and they came out fudgy enough.

Last weekend I had some leftover tofu from a stir fry I had made the week before, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. More stir fry? Well, of course..but I wanted to try something new. I've never made a tofu scramble before, and I see them on everyone's blogs all the time and they always look soo good! I was never a huge egg fan..I actually don't remember the last time I ever ate eggs, even as a vegetarian I stopped eating them cooked for breakfast and such.
But I decided to give it a try. And it came out soo awesome! My roomie really enjoyed it too, so that was a plus. I added lots of salsa to mine, because I basically eat everything with salsa. that or peanut butter..never both though. haha




All I used was a green bell pepper that I had, some garlic, season all, a bunch more random seasonings, a bit of hot sauce and soy sauce. haha but blended allllll together, it was quite tasty! :) I'll definitely have to experiment with some more scramble recipes.

Well off to pack..I'm going home this weekend for the first time in a while so I'm pretty excited. :)

you can have whatever you like

so still no luck on finding the cord for my nikon..haha butttt i just switched the memory card into my other camera and i can upload them. :)

so i really wanted to try another recipe out from joy of vegan baking..so i decided upon the peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. peanut butter and chocolate..you can't really go wrong.
anddd they didnt..they were absolutely delicious!



Peanut Butter Cookies: (From Joy of Vegan Baking)
1 3/4 c flour, sifted
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg replacer (I used 1 T flax blended with 3 T water)
1 1/4 c packed light brown sugar
3/4 c peanut butter
1/2 c soy milk
3 T vegan margarine
1 T vanilla extract
1/2 c vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, peanut butter, butter, milk, and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Then add egg replacer and blend. Add flour mixture and chocolate chips and mix. Drop the cookie batter by tablespoonfulls onto ungreased cookie sheet and flatten slightly with a fork to create criss cross pattern on top. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies are just turning brown, be careful not to overbake! Remove from oven and let cool. :)

So those I was really happy about. Also the sorority I'm in was having an Alumni Event this past weekend, so I had the opportunity to bake something for that as well. I still had not gotten around to making any fun cupcakes from VCTOTW, soo that was a must! I decided upon the Cookies N Cream ones.



Okay so taste wise? Awesome!! The cupcakes were perfectly chocolate-y and had oreo crumbles throughout them which were great. The icing was soo sweet and delicious that I loved it with the contrast of the dry-er cupcakes. But ...those look NOTHING like the picture in the book :(
The frosting definitely did not get to the consistency that I was aiming for..thus I could not put the half of a cookie on the icing like in the picture. I think maybe the milk did it? i added 1/4 cup of soy milk like the recipe said..but obviously it didn't work out right. I kept adding more sugar & butter to it too to hopefully even it out...nope...nothing. anyone make these and have more successful frosting??

food wise for me hasn't been anything too interesting..our kitchen is seriously EMPTY ...luckily we're going grocery shopping on friday..i've been living off of canned soups and popcorn! haha nothing wrong with that though ;)

if you jump i will jump too, we can fall together

Okay so I have pictures on my Nikon of two things that I baked last week that were AWESOME (no i'm not saying what yet) buttt I can't seem to find the cord to upload the pictures. so that's being saved for next time haha.

anyway i have much more exciting news.

Sooo last week I went to Kingdom of Vegetarians which is an all-vegan chinese restaurant in center city with my friend. The food.. was AWESOME! i got general tso's "chicken", hot & sour soup, these fried banana things for dessert..and tried some other stuff. it was amazing so I told my roomie about it, and she got pretty excited.. so we treated ourselves to a day of lunch and manicures&pedicures haha. can't go wrong with that! :)

Soo we started off with soup! I got the Won-Ton soup and Emily got the Hot and Sour Soup since I told her how awesome it was!


Then we got two appetizers to share, the Spring Rolls and the Pork Dumplings




The spring rolls were very very tasty, and awesome in the duck sauce they serve! I would not order the pork dumplings again though, we actually didn't even finish them. They were quite soggy and just not that tasty. Oh well, win some, lose some!

For the entree, I wanted to get something different even though I lovvvved the general tso's. So I ordered the Kung Pow Chicken, which the waitress told me had lots of veggies and had peanuts in it! so I thought i'd love it. Emily ordered the general tso's too, good thing! haha


Kung Pow!


I really liked the variety of vegetables that were in my dish, however between the two, I'd definitely choose the general tso's again. the peanuts in it were really good too.. I just felt it was lacking in sauce (but i love my dishes with lots of sauce so that could just be me)

So yeah, next time i'm going to try all new food haha i LOVE this place.<3

So afterward we went and got pretty manicures and pedicures, because I woke up and I had myself convinced that today would be the day that I would finally FINALLY get my tattoo.





I'm not going to lie, it was extremely painful. haha and everyone says your foot hurts the most, but hey, i'm the biggest baby in the world and I got through it! =D I'd say definitely well worth it!

man shapes himself through decisions that shape his environment

So after the past 3 weekends of leaving philly and going to New York for different reasons, I am hopeing I'm back here for a while at least! I'm pretty sure my next break is at the end of October, but that's enough time :)

So I made the Chocolate chip scones from Joy of Vegan Baking last week. This is my second recipe out of this book(first being the AMAZING choc chip cookies) and they came out really well! I had multiple test-tasters, so that was always nice haha.



Chocolate Chip Scones:
1 egg replacer (i used flax seed blended with water)
2 1/2 c flour
1/3 c sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c non hydrogenated nondairy margarine
1 c vegan chocolate chips
1/2 c non dairy milk
cinnamon for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Lighlty oil a cookie sheet. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the margarine and cut into small pieces with two knives to create a coarse crumbly batter. Stir in the chocolate chips. Add the milk and egg replacer and keep mixing to a minimum. Mix with a fork until the dry ingredients are just moistened. Gather the dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface. Pat dough to a 1/2 inch thick round and cut into 8-10 triangle pieces. Place them 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake for 12-15 minutes until tops are golden brown.

I wasn't sure if they were done or not, since they never really got that "golden brown" on top.. but they tasted really good and completely done, so I guess maybe my oven is weird. ;)
For the sorority, we have an alumni tea this weekend..so the girls have to bring something such as an appetizer or dessert, etc. I'm figuring this is a perfect opportunity to finally whip up some beautiful cupcakes from VCTOTW, so i'm really excited! I'm thinking the cookies n cream ones? Or maybe there are other favorites?

Oh yes! and i'm also really really excited because tomorrow i'm going to this vegan chinese restaurant in the city with a new vegan friend, so that should be pretty sweet. :) i've heard about the place for a while sooo i'm excited i'll get a chance to go..definitely expect an awesome review :)
well off to finish this never-ending paper that I keep procrastinating about ;) ohhh college..

phosphate free!

It's starting to cool down now and as much as I like the fall/winter months..I really do not like being cold, at all, and I'm cold all the time. it's a bummer..but at least the leaves will be changing and it'll be beautiful. :)

So I bought lentils because I lovvved the snobby joes from Veganomicon I made over the summer, and I really want to make them here. But I wanted to make something new with the lentils, so with half of them last week I made a lentil salad. It came out pretty good.. I could eat it just by itself, but I found it to be more substantial and delicious on top of lettuce with a bit of italian dressing.


Lentil Salad:
1 c dried lentils
1 diced medium sized carrot
6 thinly sliced green onions
1 diced red bell pepper
1/2 c chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 c chopped italian parsley leaves
1 minced clove of garlic
1/3 c lemon juice
1 T olive oil

Bring 3 cups of water in a large saucepan to boil over high heat. Add the lentils and bring to medium low. Cover, and let simmer for 15 minutes. Drain the lentils well and spread them out to cool quicker. Toss the rest of the ingredients with the lentils aside from the lemon juice and oil in a large bowl. Drizzle oil and juice on top. Eat then or ontop of lettuce with a bit of dressing as i chose :)

So we also have a new addition to our family! Meet Ziggy!:


This cute little kitten is soo hard to get a picture of! He will never stop moving! I can't even find him asleep to get a good picture. One day :) But we adopted him on Monday from PAWS (the animal shelter in philadelphia) and he's so adorable. Usually I'm not much of a cat person, I prefer dogs, but he's so cute so it's okay. :)