halloween fun

Sorry for not posting this week. I've been so busy! I did bake another batch of cuppies for a Halloween party last night. These are the Cookies n' Cream cupcakes from my new favorite book.



These were gooooodddd. I love them so much. Skele-cuppies. Heh.

And! Moe wore a Halloween costume! What a good boy.



Of course he looks miserable, but it's all for a good cause.

the power of cuppies

I was having a kind of crappy day yesterday. That is, until I spoke to Ken on the phone and he said, "Guess what came today?". I yelped, "The cupcake book?!!? Yaayy!!"

Yeah, I'm a simple girl. It doesn't take much to make me happy. Just give me a copy of the best vegan dessert cookbook ever and get out of my way. The first recipe I decided to attempt was the S'mores Cupcake. They are freaking great. They don't actually have any marshmallow in them, but the fluffy buttercream frosting makes up for it just fine. The cake itself is a nice, light graham cracker-flavored treat. The chocolate splotches are ganache, which I couldn't figure out how to put on them more delicately.
Here's what's left after Ken and I had our way with them:



I'm taking the rest to work tomorrow so nobody gets hurt. I packed Ken one more for tomorrow in our single serving cupcake holder:



What? You don't have a cupcake holder? Well how the hell do you transport your lunchtime cupcakes?

So, I will probably try to make the Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes next time. So many cupcake choices! If I ever meet Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero, I may try to give them a hug for creating such a glorious cookbook. Then I might get punched in the cupcake hole.

...and called it macaroni

We spent all day Sunday busy with house stuff and grocery shopping, so I wanted to make something simple for dinner. I wanted mac & "cheese", but didn't want to bother with the usual fatty recipe I use. I opted for the Cheezy Macaroni Casserole recipe from The Compassionate Cook, which is less oily and kind of tomato-y. It tastes great, but it's pretty much just a super-creamy, tomato sauced pasta. I roasted some asparagus, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic for a side. That roll thingie is one of these ciabattas.



The little tomato slices are from some juicy tomatoes that some friends of ours grew. I'm going to miss tomato season!

Power Plant, finally.

We managed to make it out on Sunday night to the new vegan restaurant in town, called Power Plant. (I would link it, but they have no website. WTF?)
I had pretty high hopes for this place because the menu sounded so amazing. Some friends of ours had been there once before, and they liked their food, but had some issues with the service. They had also complained that they were out of several of the dishes. Well, the same thing happened with us on Sunday. We can probably chalk it up to this being a new place. Maybe. Our friends also found out that the owner of this restaurant isn't vegan. Not that it matters, really. But you have to admit, it's a weird business to get into if veganism isn't your thing. This would explain the use of honey in a few of their items. Yeah, I know that some vegans eat honey. But you would think that they would err on the side of caution since they refer to themselves on their window sinage as "The Best Vegan Restaurant on the Planet". But more on that later.
We got two appetizers, since there were four of us. The first was an order of hot wings with peach barbeque sauce:



Holy fucking shit. This was my favorite of the night, by far. The wings were super crispy on the outside, and soft and tasty on the inside. The BBQ sauce was nice and spicy, and a little sweet. The wings had wooden sticks in them to serve as the bone, I suppose. Man, these were good.

The next appetizer was a vegetable tempura. I'm all for fried foods, but the tempura was just okay. There were too many pepper slices, and the texture was a little soggy:



For my main dish, I ordered Barbeque "Beef" Ribs with herbed mashed potatoes and roasted garlic asparagus. I was such a piggy that I forgot to take a picture before I started eating it:



It was realllly good. I did find it pretty funny that the roasted garlic asparagus comes with about five of their main dishes. Including the "chicken" and waffles, which I ordered originally, but they were out of. Hmmph. That's alright, because the ribs were lip-smackin'.

Ken ordered the Philly "Cheese Steak" Sandwich, and it was very good as well. The bun it came on was really nice. They might make those fresh at the restaurant, because it's referred to as "signature coco-bread" on the menu. I thought the fries could have been better, though. They were a little soggy:



Now, for drinks, they offer water, bubble tea, smoothies, and "natural sodas". I ordered a blackberry "natural soda". They brought out the empty can along with the glass of soda, and I noticed that it wasn't so much a natural soda as it was one of those vitamin enhanced energy drink kind of thingies. I also noticed that it had vitamin D3 added to it, which is not vegan. Again, I know some vegans don't care about this stuff, but many do, including myself. I (nicely) mentioned it to our server, and her response was, "Oh." And she left it with me. Another server came over, and was asking me what the problem was. "What is it?? Vitamin B?? What's it made of?" At this point I was embarrassed, and I normally wouldn't have mentioned it, but I figured that a damn VEGAN restaurant might want to know this. I told him, "Vitamin D3 is derived from sheep's wool". His response was, "I don't think anyone would notice that."
Hmmmm. Yeah. I'm the only vegan on earth who cares about this. That's why 8th Continent has caught so much flack. But maybe it's just me, huh?
But anyway. When the check came, they included the $4.00 for the non-vegan soda. I asked the server to take it off of our bill, and she did. But they tried, didn't they? Ha.

Oh! I forgot to mention that they also serve the luscious vegan cakes from Southern Sweets Bakery for dessert. Pretty much every veg restaurant in Atlanta serves them, but that's a good thing because they are awesome. They did our wedding cake, in fact. That's our wedding cake on the Southern Sweets homepage! It's the chocolate one, of course.

So, I do want to go back to Power Plant, despite the annoying soda thing and the lack of waffles. Hopefully they just have grand opening pains, and won't continue to fuck around. The food was fantastic, so it's worth it.

apple pie pancakes

Three posts in one weekend, I know! See what happens when I have time to cook and...breathe? That pesky job of mine gets in the way of my internet time.

So. I made the yummo recipe for Apple Pie Pancakes from La Dolce Vegan. I haven't used this book quite enough, and this recipe is simple and lovely. The recipe yields just a few pancakes, so we're not stuck with a ton of batter to use up or toss out. And there are diced apples right in the batter. Mmm.



Okay, we did have some vegan sausage patties with our pancakes. Yeah, more pre-packaged stuff.


I'm dying to try out a new vegan restaurant that just opened in town. We wanted to go there last night, but Ken was tied up working on the Cosmo's website facelift. It's taking forever, but it looks slick. What do you think so far? I also re-wrote the "About Us" page. It's kind of silly.
Anyway, maybe I can talk Ken into going to the new restaurant today. They serve crazy shit like "chicken" and waffles, buffalo wings, "fish" sandwiches with hush puppies, and so on. How can I miss it?

junk food

I love to cook, really I do. I prefer to make most things from scratch and from fresh ingredients, but I admit that sometimes I rely on pre-packaged stuff for time/laziness reasons. Tonight was such a night. I usually like to make something kick-ass on Saturdays, and this meal was kick-ass, despite all of the pre-packaged crap.
Here's how a lazy vegan makes calzones and battered artichoke hearts:
Open a can of artichoke hearts. Drain 'em. in a small bowl, mix up a few spoonfuls of Vegenaise with a few spoonfuls of dijon mustard. Dip the artichoke hearts in the mixture, covering them evenly. In another bowl, mix about a cup of all purpose flour, a scoop of cornmeal, some garlic powder, and salt. Coat the artichoke hearts with the flour mixture. Now fry up those bad boys in some canola oil over med high heat.



Fatty oil goodness.

Now for the lazy calzone. Thaw out a pre-made doughball (we get them from Whole Foods). Divide it in half, then roll out each half into a rectangle of sorts. Fill it up with whatever you like- tonight I did jarred pasta sauce, frozen "meat"balls, Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella, diced onions, and black olives. Fold over the dough, pinch it shut around the edges, and bake it up.



It was a good time, even if the pictures seem lackluster. Now here's another confession. I never make my own pasta sauce. I respect those who do, but there are so many good organic sauces out there, I just don't see the point. But then I'm only Italian by marriage.

great balls of fire!!

See the giant balls that Miles has?



....and they will be going away very soon. He's getting neutered this week. Poor boy. But it has to be done. We are hoping it helps take the edge off of his el gato diablo-ness in addition to just being the right thing to do for him.
In Miles' honor, I dedicate the following song by a little band called AC/DC:

I'm ever upper class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I've got
The biggest balls of all

CHORUS:
I've got big balls
I've got big balls
And they're such big balls
Dirty big balls
And he's got big balls
And she's got big balls
But we've got the biggest balls of them all

And my balls are always bouncing
My ballroom always full
And everybody cums and cums again
If your name is on the guest list
No one can take you higher
Everybody says I've got
Great balls of fire

CHORUS

Some balls are held for charity
And some for fancy dress
But when they're held for pleasure
They're the balls that I like best
My balls are always bouncing
To the left and to the right
It's my belief that my big balls
Should be held every night

CHORUS

happy anniversary baby.

2 years today!

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey...



You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.