Cupcake party!

I got a copy of Vegan Cupcakes take over the World something like a year ago. I wanted to make all of the cupcakes right away, but I have really gotten out of the habit of baking. So, I showed the book to some friends, and they were enthusiastic, too. We picked out some recipes, and made vague plans to have a cupcake party.

This weekend, we finally did it.

I invited two friends over, and they came with their two children each. S invited 2 friends, also. So, we had 11 people in my small kitchen. Well, we mostly kicked the 4 boys 7 and under out to play, but at one point we did have all three adults and all 4 girls crowded around the table. I was in charge of reading the recipes, washing measuring cups, and fetching spoons, forks, and various other implements to mix, measure and taste.

We started with the sexy low fat vanilla cupcakes with fresh berries. The girls made these under my supervision, and then we kicked them out, too. I think I may have underestimated my ability to handle chaos, but it really wasn't that bad once we got things calmed down for a bit.

We made gingerbread cupcakes with lemony cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cherry creme cupcakes with vegan buttercream frosting. This all took a lot more time than I thought it would, but it was so much fun! Most everyone had three cupcakes, one as we finished each batch. This isn't quite as unhealthy as it sounds, since we used whole wheat pastry flour instead of the all-purpose white flour, and at least there wasn't any high fructose corn syrup in anything. But mostly, it was so fun and delicious, we didn't care about the calories or sugar or fat!

My favorite was the vanilla with fresh berries, Tracy's was the gingerbread, and Andrea's was the chocolate cherry cream. This is not surprising, as those are the recipes we each picked. But they were all amazing, and we are definitely doing this again! I have my eye on the orange pudding filled cupcakes. We are thinking about an adult cupcake party with black forest cupcakes (the choc cherry cream made with cherry brandy) and maragarita cupcakes. I feel very in this cupcake trend, which no doubt means it is pretty much past the height of trendiness. No matter, I love the cupcakes!

A picture and a menu

First I have to say, Oh my goodness, but Whole Foods is expensive! Partly it's me stocking up on several things, and partly it's the rising cost of food these days, partly it's their great selection of vegetarian products, partly it's the awesome prepared foods they have. Lots of partlys adding up to a big bill. But, it should be worth it in healthy, delicious food this week.


First a picture from a while back:

This is the gnocchi I made after my kids spent a day at my parents' house eating nothing but junk. It's gnocchi with lots of tomato sauce and spinach. On top, and lurking in the background of the picture, is Parma! vegan parmesan. We had to buy this, because it has raw organic walnuts, red star nutritional yeat, celtic sea salt, and love. With an ingredient list like that, how could we pass it up?

Now the menu:

Tonight: Carribean Beans and Quinoa--so incredibly good! The girl even liked it. I am so glad that she is finally more open to more complex flavors.

Tuesday: I am making a Rachael Ray Curry in a Hurry recipe with the new Trader Joe's chickenless strips. Plus rice, and some kind of vegetable (maybe salad, or broccoli).

Wednesday: Fried rice. I threw some together on Friday, and it was so good, I am making it again. I heated up some coconut oil, pressed some tofu (just between my hands), diced it and fried until golden. Then, I added some onion and garlic, and when the kitchen started smelling really good, I added some frozen spinach and peas, and two cups of cooked brown rice. After I mixed all that together, I poured about a third of a jar of Trader Joe's Chinese 5 Spice Chef Sauce on top, and heated it all up until the flavors were blended and it was all hot. I couldn't believe how good it turned out, for something just thrown together!

Thursday: West African Peanut Stew

Friday, the girl is going to sing at the Cardinals game with her choir! I have no idea what we will eat, but I am sure we will have fun.

That's as far as my planning has gone, but I am going to do more planning next week. We eat so much better when I know what we are going to have (not counting that serendipitous fried rice).

You learn something new every day...

Like, my last post? I posted that on Wednesday, March 19. But I started it on March 6, like the publish date says. I did not know that Blogger could pretend like that...

Anyway, a camping update:

Not totally vegan this time, so I'll skim over the first night, when we had salmon and sugar snap peas cooked in a foil packet with teriyaki sauce.

The second night, I went with the best kid-pleaser, beanie weenies, made with soy hotdogs. My friend made new potatoes, carrots and onion roasted in foil, and the kids devoured grapes with the beans.

The third night, it rained, so we had Taco Bell. Oh, for a larger town nearby with a Qdoba!

Breakfasts were largely fruit and whole wheat bagels with tofutti cream cheese, and lunches consisted of a lot of general snacking. I brought a bunch of guacamole this time, and whole wheat tortillas, and the boy ate some leftover hot dogs. Oh, and we had leftover beanie weenies. Hmm, we weren't very organized this time.

We did get some beautiful hiking in before the rains hit. We went down on a Saturday and stayed until Tuesday, so we were practically alone on the campground after Sunday morning. Monday night, when it was raining, we were the only camper there. We saw a lot of wildlife, though--probably 6 or 7 deer, some of them fairly close up. We saw a beaver on our way back from town on Monday, which was pretty cool. We played a lot of Trivial Pursuit and got a lot of reading done.

Wednesday night we had friends over and I made Curried Stir-Fried Noodles with Vegetables. Andrea requested it last time she came for dinner, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so I got it all when I went to the store to buy some supplements after returning from the campground.

Last night we went to my parents' house for pizza, and I got to feed S something other than plain cheese pizza. She eats too much plain food, so we are experimenting with more complex flavors. We had pineapple pizza, and it was a big success! We used rice milk cheese, and it was very good, melty and delicious.

Now the kids are at their dad's so I expect some eating out this weekend, but I am going to try to make some healthy stuff this weekend to prepare for next week.

Update on my plan, new week

I just found this post hanging out on my blogger dashboard. I am not sure what I was planning to do with it when I saved it and walked away, but I am just posting it as is and I will come back with something more updated later. Something with more camping thoughts, as we did that again this past weekend....

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I did pretty good on my plan from last week. Monday through Friday was just what I planned. I did go out on Tuesday, but that was my tentative plan anyway. My friend made a delicious veggie chili on Friday with all kinds of good veggies in it--much healthier than I usually make mine. I just do a basic bean chili with tomato sauce and salsa, but not much else in the way of veggies (well, onions and garlic, but that's a given). She had carrots and eggplant and zucchini and all kinds of good stuff in there. Very good!



The weekend was all right. Saturday we just had Tofurkey Italian Sausages (hallelujah, the girl likes them! They have flavor, and she eats them!) and hashbrowns, because I didn't feel like going all out and making falafels and tahini sauce and all that, when I was pretty sure the kids wouldn't eat them, or not much. Sunday, we went out for Vietnamese food. The girl was so picky and rude about it, I decided no more eating out for her for some time. She will learn to like more foods at home, or no eating out. I am tired of buying her chicken fingers and french fries.



This week, we have only been home two nights so far. Tuesday, we had a Match crab and cabbage stirfry with some kind of pineapple teriyaki sauce and sliced carrots. Yum! The kids ate theirs with only minimal complaining. I am wearing them down, ha ha.



Last night we had friends over and made pizza. No arguing for a change, everyone was joyful.

Menu plan

I went to the store with an actual plan and a list! I feel so organized when I do that.

Here is what we are having, starting with last night:

Monday: Beanie Weenies, steamed broccoli

Tuesday: waffling here, I may go out, or make falafels (kids are at their dad's)

Wednesday: Peanut noodles, steamed sugar snap peas, blood oranges

Thursday: Creamy chickpea and tahini casserole, salad, some veggie the kids will eat

Friday: eating at a friend's house

Saturday: Falafel, if I don't make them tonight, or I may do a grocery store run that day

Okay, it's not a great plan, but it's pretty good. It's better than no plan. I am trying to actually make some more of the recipes I have bookmarked on my computer, rather than marking them and forgetting about them.

Leftovers

Last night, when we had guests over for dinner, this was baja tempeh tacos in blue corn tortillas, with red cargo rice and black beans with adobo sauce on the side. For lunch today, I threw the whole thing in a bowl, minus the tortilla. It was delicious both ways, which isn't a shock, because I got the recipes from Veganomican, which hasn't let me down yet. The marinated tempeh was amazing, and the slaw and lime crema were the perfect complements. I loved the recipe for the black beans with adobo sauce, because the beans were nice and bland, and the sauce was nice and spicy, with lots of flavor. Since the recipe called for adding the sauce at the table, it was the perfect dish to share with people with a wide variety of tolerance for hot, spicy food. I garnished with fresh radishes, avocado and orange tomatoes, although there weren't any tomatoes left to garnish my leftovers. The radishes came fresh, still attached to the greens; I find they are so much better than the blandly hot radishes that come in bags from the big food processors. I would have thought that bland and spicy don't go together, but those just taste hot without any flavor to go with it to me. This was a very successful meal with guests, and something we will definitely be having again!

Several things

Why did I think I would get back here during the holiday season? I have been busy, busy, busy. On the bright side, I have done a lot of good cooking, but almost no writing. Here are some updates on the many topics I have thought about blogging in the past few weeks.

Having Friends Over for a Thanksgiving Meal

This is the meal with 3 other vegetarians sitting at the table, plus two friends who were just along for the totally vegetarian meal. We had a great time, and ate way too much food!

First, the appetizers--I made the dill dip I referenced in my last post, and my friend Tracey brought over olives cooked in crescent roll dough. These were SO GOOD! It may be a very 70's dish, but who cares? While we munched and I finished other things, I instructed Tracey in the making of the cranberry upside down cake from Urban Vegan. She did a great job! That was one of the best cakes I have ever had, just the right amount of sweetness without being too much.

I made:

A Tofurkey roast with carrots and onions
The gravy that came with the roast
My veggie sausage stuffing
Cranberry orange sauce
Pecan pie

My friend Andrea brought:

Nut loaf (pecans and sunflowers seeds, with rice and other yummy stuff)
Red potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes
roasted Brussels sprouts with lots of pepper (so I didn't steam the broccoli and cauliflower that I had purchased for the meal)
Some spiced apples that we forgot to get out of the microwave until after everyone was totally stuffed

We had some wine, and we played Boggle after we ate. I loved having my friends from different spheres over--one couple who have a daughter in S's class, two moms of boys in M's class, and Mandy, my friend from high school. Everyone got along and I had a great time.

An Update on the Egg Thing

I had some eggs for breakfast the other morning, and they tasted kind of yucky. That was partly because the egg whites were still a little runny (shudder), but also, I think I am getting over the weird craving, whatever that was all about. I don't fantasize about eating eggs anymore, and I can easily look past the eggs in the morning to grab something else for breakfast. I don't know what that whole thing was all about, but I am glad it is over. I am still not cutting eggs out entirely, but I am making it a much more occasional thing.

Christmas cooking

I had friends over for Christmas Eve, and I made Snobby Joes, from the teaser recipes on the Veganomican page over on The PPK. I also made a bunch of Herb Roasted Potatoes from Vegan with a Vengeance, because I wanted them for Christmas breakfast, but I didn't want to get up over an hour early to get them ready. I thought both recipes were delicious, but the kids thought the joes were a bit too spicy. Next time I will tone down the chili powder, because I want this to be a kid-friendly recipe.

I did get up a little early on Christmas morning to make the asparagus and tomato fritatta, also from Vegan with a Vengeance. Wow, was that so good! After my mother ate a serving and talked about how good it was, I told her that it was a tofu fritatta, and she was surprised. She asked, "There's no egg in this at all?" Nope, and it was extremely yummy. I think it would have been even yummier with the sun-dried tomatoes that the recipe called for, but my mom doesn't like those, so I used fresh. I have enough trouble getting her to eat my "weird" vegetarian food, I don't need to start on a bad note with something she doesn't even like. I heated up the potatoes in the oven right after I pulled out the fritatta, and they were great.

New Cookbook

No one gave me a cookbook for Chirstmas, but my brother gave me a gift card to Border's, and Veganomican was the first book I picked up. I have been drooling over that book since it came out, but I was holding off and spending my money on gifts for other people. I went right to Border's the day after Christmas though and picked up the book first thing! I cannot wait to start cooking from that book!

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That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Have a happy new year, everyone!