we've gotta live the best we know how to

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

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..

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

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

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!