my kinda breakfast.

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pretty cuppies.

I finally used those pretty dried hibiscus flowers the lovely Celine sent me for something other than just straight-up snacking. Cupcake decorating!



These are the golden vanilla cupcakes from VCTOW, topped with basic buttercream frosting (also from VCTOW, of course). I don't remember the last time I actually baked something that was just plain vanilla. But they are mighty delicious, and simple. I found the red cupcake liners at the same dollar store that I got the popsicle tray I mentioned in the last post.
...and speaking of that. Thanks to all for the suggestion of running the tray under hot water before attempting to remove the pop. However, I am sorry to report that I am still not SMRT enough to get it to work correctly. WTF?

can't even cook a popsicle.

Why come I caint cook popsyckles? I got this tray at the dollar store, and froze some of this stuff in it. But I can't pull the frozen pops out! The stick just pulls out. I've tried the straight pull as well as the twisty pull. Any thoughts?

best pasta dish in the history of all pasta dishes?

This, dear reader, is a bread crumb topped dream come true. Dreena Burton recently shared a recipe on her website called Mac-Oh Geez!, and I'm telling you that you must make this right away. It's pasta swimming in a rich, creamy vegan sauce that uses brazil nuts and cashews for it's flavor, rather than the usual nutritional yeast or pre-packaged fake cheese versions. The recipe can be found here.
And I promise that if I ever meet that talented little Canadian, I'm going to hug her until it becomes awkward and she tells me to stop.

Next up, some friends of ours recently told us about an adorable place near our store called Lotta Frutta. They serve fresh fruit in cups, as well as smoothies. But the real kicker is that they make this vegan, coconut-based whipped topping. It is soooo damn good. And the fruit is really super fresh, too. I told the owner that the coconut cream topped fruit cup really made my summer. She also let us sample a luscious treat of fresh fruit covered in lime juice and sprinkled with chili powder. Whoa! So wonderful! Here's my smaller "chica" and Ken's "grande", along with the little lime chili sample:



I will leave you with a picture of the baby being extra sweet. Miles is a daddy's boy:

nothing says hot georgia summer like a soup.

I recently got my own copy of Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, and boy is it dog-eared. There's a lot of really tasty and simple looking recipes that I'm interested in trying out. Well, I did make the delicious pancake topper celestial cream a while back, but that was because Dreena so generously shared the recipe on the internets.

I got started tonight by making the White Bean Rosemary Soup with Jumbo Croutons. Except replace "jumbo croutons" with "huge damn sandwich". The soup was really very easy to make, with a very nice flavor payoff. Making it reminded me of how much I love our hand blender. The sandwich consisted of big slabs of sourdough bread, stuffed with Cheezly mozzarella, tomato slices and vegan canadian bacon.

Here's Moe wishing he was a person so he could eat soup and big-ass sandwiches: