some much needed baking.

Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Muffins. I made these for breakfast this morning (yes, for breakfast. Don't judge me.) from the Damn Tasty! Vegan Baking Guide. I tell you, the book looks very unassuming, with it's simple layout and lack of food photos. But I have made some great stuff from it, for sure. We are going to be selling this cookbook in the store soon, because it's wonderful. But back to the muffins.
These have chunks of chocolate baked in them, and the "swirl" is a raspberry preserve I picked up at the farmer's market. I love baking with unsweetened soy yogurt now, too. A perfect muffin! We had some sweet nectarine slices with them, to counteract the chocolate for breakfast guilt. Um Hum.

Last night, I whipped up a vegan version of Paula Deen's Hot Chicken Salad, without the white trash potato chip crust. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about white trash potato chip crusts, I just didn't have any on hand for this. So we had a big scoop of "chicken" salad on top of some romaine lettuce, with the pricey and delicious heirloom tomatoes that were on sale, along with more of those white nectarines. Mmm. I could eat these tomatoes all day long.


It's been a long, stressful week. I think I need to bake more. And eat more chocolate.

Oh, we finally got our window sign for the store, and I hung curtains! It looks a lot better now.

across the street.

This is a crappy picture of some delicious vegan tacos. There's a Mexican restaurant next door to our store that opened around the same time as us called Across The Street. Now, as a vegan, eating out at a Mexican joint is usually out of the question. Making vegan Mexican food at home is always easy, but it's practically impossible to find a restaurant that can make you a decent meal without the excess cheese, lardy beans, chicken stock rice, or guac that's cut with sour cream (what a cheap trick!). So we were wicked-excited to find out that the nice ladies who run Across The Street not only know that chicken stock and lard are not vegan, but they don't use them in any of their dishes either. And the kicker is.....
It's not even a vegetarian restaurant. See? Lard isn't required for kick-ass refried beans!
So anyway, Ken and I eat dinner there when we can because the food is awesome. The menu actually states "vegan upon request" on several dishes, and we usually go for the tacos. My new favorite is the fried tofu taco. It's one fat finger of firm tofu, battered with cornmeal and fried to a crisp served with pico and lettuce. We always get guac to add to our tacos for extra moisture and yum. The TVP tacos are also very good, with a soft, spicy seasoning. I like it when restaurants know how to properly season TVP, and ATS does it well. They also have tempeh tacos with pineapple salsa. These are good too, but I prefer the spicy TVP over the sweetness of the pineapple. But hey, I give them props for offering tempeh on the menu at all. Remember- this isn't even a vegetarian restaurant! Imagine if other good "omni" restaurants start offering food that is clearly vegan and doesn't involve iceburg lettuce or mealy tomatoes. Why, it's like progression or something! Oh, and their beans and rice are amazingly fresh-tasting.
We aren't drinkers of the alcohol, but if you are, they have a pretty extensive lushy section. Sangria, fresh margaritas, etc. So go there! But only go there for dinner, because they don't open until 5:00.
Now, if we can only get them to get rid of the deer head hanging in the bar room. One step at a time, I suppose.

a tower of corn fritter.

Mmmm... fritters. I finally made something from Alternative Vegan. I chose the recipe for "Jimmy Crack Corn Crack" because it was just about the only recipe in the book that I happened to have all the ingredients on hand for last night. I'm no stranger to corn fritters, and this recipe is basically like any other fritter recipe, but the recipe is a solid one. So I packed some baked beans between each fritter layer, and placed it all atop a bed of kale. Silly, but very tasty.
I'm looking forward to trying something a bit more advanced from Alternative Vegan. Any suggestions?

And here's a pic of Moe's leg after his recent trip to the vet:



It's where his IV was. He had to have a tooth extracted, poor buddy. But the vet was happy with his blood work and his weight, which is a relief. Now that's he's considered a "senior", I tend to worry more about him. But he's doing alright.

roll out the red carpet.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I haven't been cooking much lately, which is a damn shame. I'm not very good at time-management, so it's been lots of eating out or eating junk food from the store. Lame!
Every human we've ever met has already heard about this because we can't quit talking about it, but in case you didn't hear, we were featured in last week's newspaper! It's a really cool article, even if I was misquoted a bit. Hey, it's free advertising and it's something vegan in the newspaper that (for once) doesn't involve dead or starving babies. So yay! We were also recently interviewed for an even more flattering publication, but I don't want to say anything until that one comes out. World famous? Ha ha. Now, if we can only get people to shop here, then we will be alllright.
But enough about me. How are you guys doing? What's new?

loft view.

*snort*

Ha. Thanks Matt.