and i was your silver lining as the story goes

So last week my roomie and I were deciding where to go for lunch and we thought of this place that was near our old apartment last year..that we always talked about going to but never actually went to. (you know how that goes..)
We used to live right near Germantown..an outskirt of Philadelphia that isn't exactly the nicest neighborhood..and I remember seeing on menupages that there was a vegetarian restaurant right on Germantown Ave called The Nile Cafe. The menu online showed many different sandwiches, salads, mock meats,..even a questionable veg roast duck and spicy fish. And..a dessert menu which instantly wins me over anyway. ;)

So we finally went. And we walked inside and at first you walk into this store which has lots of different things such as books, cds, incense, different body treatments, etc. It was pretty cool.
And then you walked past it and to the restaurant..which is really just about 7-8 tables past the window where you ordered, which you could see the entire "homey" feeling kitchen.

It says it's a juice bar as well, though I did not ask, I didn't really see any place where they would've made different juices, but hey maybe it's hidden.

Anyway, I asked the woman at the window to see a menu, but she said they didn't really have one, and that they just cooked up different things basically all day and you could choose from what was already there. She had enough soup left for my roomie and I to share a cup while we waited for our food. It was a Lentil Vegetable soup..and quite delicious!


We weren't sure what we wanted..but she told us that she had a creole, another vegetable dish that I don't remember because I don't think I liked that kind of vegetable, mockmeat of fish, mockmeat of duck, and mockmeat of BBQ chicken. She nicely let us sample each of the mockmeats to choose which one we wanted, and we decided to go with the bbq chicken, though they were all quite good! We shared a plate because we were saving room for dessert, and it came with the chicken, rice and we chose the creole.

Everything was awesome! the sauce on the chicken was the best bbq sauce I think i've ever had, and it felt like such a home cooked meal, i loved it! The woman was also super nice and made us feel really comfortable with the stuff knowing it was our first time there.
We finally got the dessert, and I chose a scoop of vanilla caramel and a scoop of cookies n cream ice cream. Emily got a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of mocha ice cream. Both choices were really really awesome. :)



This place was such a different atmosphere than the usual vegan cafe's that i've been to in philly, and I really appreciated that. I know I'll definitely be back, especially since it's so close and I'm excited to see how they change up the lunch menu everyday! :)

Okay so I've been tagged by two super wonderful blogs for the 7 facts survey..so I'll do it ;)

1. I'm really really into the Twilight series and sometimes I admit it and sometimes I don't haha but everytime I see a commercial I get really excited and I can't wait to see it in theatres!

2. My ipod is full of underground, compelling, indie music that I really really enjoy.. but I have a seperate artist folder called "Stuff" which I have all my rap that I like to listen to when I feel gangster or get ready ...or just in the mood for it haha but I keep it all under there so it doesn't look like I just have a bunch of T.I. or Lil Wayne haha.

3. I have a bit of an overwhelming lust for Nick Thomas, the singer of the spill canvas. I first heard their song "the tide" about 6 years ago(yes wayyyyy before mtv had ever even heard of them) and I fell in love with them ever since with what talent at composing such heartfelt meaningful lyrics they had. But I really like Nick a lot even though everyone says he looks like a bear :(

4. I hate rainy days. I'd prefer to just stay in bed watching a good movie all day..but mostly I hate them because they make me have ugly hair all day.

5. I love having dreams. I get really dissapointed when I wake up and I don't remember any from the night before, but I love waking up and rethinking about them all day and trying to analyze them. A bit of a Freudian, I know. ;)

6. Freshman year of college I was sooo determined to transfer back to my hometown and finish school there, but luckily and thankfully I did not. Now I couldn't ever see myself doing that and I think I've learned a lot from being up here instead.

7. I honestly don't even know how I wound up with Psychology as my major, I mean I was interested in it in high school but I guess I just wasn't interested in anything else enough. I really hope to go on to do something with nutritional psychology. Though it does make me really really nervous when people tell me that there isn't hope for a good job with just a bachelors in psych, and that you have to basically go all the way. But we'll see ;)

So a lot of people have already been tagged for this one, but if you haven't been...then I officially tag you because I love reading these! :)

it keeps getting better

so i've been a bit mia for the past week or so...mostly super busy with school! from now until thanksgiving, i have more presentations/papers/exams then i know what to do with..it's a bit overwhelming, but once thanksgiving break gets here, I'll pretty much be carefree. can't wait :)

I did have time to bake last week though, so that was fun. On Thursday my sorority had a bake off..and yes, i'm the only vegan in the sorority, so not much for me to taste-test..other than my own. Butttt other people got to try what I made so that was exciting for me. :) I wanted to try again from VCTOTW, since the icing on the cookies n cream one didn't work out too well for me. I chose the Peanut Butter Heavencakes since who doesn't love a good pb and choc combo??
It was the same basic chocolate cupcake recipe as the cookies n cream one, but instead you fill the middle with the peanut butter cream frosting and then you're supposed to make a chocolate ganache for the top..
welll... leave it to me to have to change the plans.

I was excited once I put them in the oven because the frosting for the middle tasted awesome and I was just hopeing they'd come out right. After baking when I checked on them, the peanut butter cream was just ooooooooooozing everywhere! All over the pan bursting out of the cupcakes. hmph. :(
I didn't use that much in each cupcake, I'm thinking maybe I just had them too full in general? I thought they were a nice 2/3's full...hmm. maybe next time only 1/2?
Well anyway, so I scraped the frosting away off the pan and there was still a nice amount still in the cupcakes. But the tops were sunken in and they didn't exactly look that pretty. So I knew that just having ganache on top wouldn't make them look any better. So I whipped up some more of the butter cream frosting and just frosted them all with that, adding a few chocolate chips to the tops instead of the ganache.
Needless to say, they tasted awesome, and isn't that what matters? ;)




So even though I couldn't try anyone else's delicious looking treats at the bakeoff, I had more than enough of my own, so I'm glad they were so delicious! :)

On Friday I finallyyyy got to try this vegetarian restaurant in Germantown that noone has ever heard of..and it was amazing. So once I get the pictures off of the roomie's camera I'll give a review of it...it was quite an interesting place!

yay phillies :)

soo in case you didnt already know, the phillies won the world series.. so it's been pretty exciting around here haha. you know, the screaming and beeping of horns outside from the moment they won until about 1:30 this morning. ohhh well..theres a parade for it tomorrow in center city and i'd really like to go. we'll see :)

I've been in the halloween spirit lately because it's definitely one of my favorite holidays. Besides Christmas..which I like the weeks before Christmas more than the actual day though. :) Anyway, so I made another recipe from Joy of Vegan Baking. This book has yet to let me down!


boo!



I used the Sugar Cookie recipe, and bought sprinkles and orange decorating icing from walmart in the party aisle, which suprisingly was vegan! :) basically just sugar...but hey who said sugar cookies were healthy? This made is a lot easier for me because lately my icing skills haven't been very good :(

Sugar Cookies (from Joy of Vegan Baking):
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated, nondairy butter, room temperature
3/4 cup graulated sugar
1 egg replacer (i used 1 T flax blended with 3 T water)
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder and set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg replacer and vanilla and beat for another minute. Add the flour mix and beat until a smooth dough. Divide dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour, until firm enough to roll. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove dough and on a lightly floured surface, roll out to a thickness of 1/4". Cut out the cookies with cookie eased bakinutters and put onto grg heet. Refrigerate for 10 minutes so cookies will keep their shape. Put into oven and bake 12-15 minutes until just browned on the edges. Decorate with frosting and sprinkles!! :)

I really liked the simplicity of this recipe, with the ingredients. In a lot of sugar cookie recipes I was looking up involved tofu or some random ingredient, which obviously is not necessary. These tasted just like the sugar cookies I had this past Christmas, non-vegan days. So I'm looking forward to making them for this upcoming holiday season!
Hope everyone has a great halloween! We're having a party tonight, and I'm being a greek goddess! I'm excited :)

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 ;)