my heart like a kick drum..

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

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

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..

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 ;)

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! :)