"I Wanna Dip My Balls In It!"*

My sister decided to have a small get together to share a photo project she worked on throughout March, so she enlisted me to help with the food. She requested the "Smoky Curls" and "Great Smoky Mountain Cheeze" from Vegan Diner and the rest was up to me. I wanted everything to be easy to grab and go but also wanted it to be cute and impossible to resist. I knew for sure I would make Oreo truffles, which set me on a path of small, ball type snacks. I offered to make chocolate dipped macaroons but she said she'd prefer the truffles. 

I wanted one more poppable dessert so I decided to make the "Cookie Dough Scoops" from VCIYCJ.  I have really underused that book so I was excited to try a new recipe. Plus, it gave me a chance to use the new hand mixer I bought myself for Mother's Day. It's so much better than the one I had been using, plus it's my very own which makes it so much more fun to use. I don't have my own kitchen (yet) but at least I have my own equipment.

I am still working on my chocolate dipping "skills". I've gotten better but still have a way to go. I dipped all the oreo truffles while the cookie dough scoops were in the freezer. I think I had about 4 dozen of each so that was a lot of dipping. I originally planned to cover the cookie dough bites completely but ended up just dipping the bottoms in chocolate like the recipe suggests. They're so yummy. I can't wait to mix them up with some ice cream.

I put them in mini cupcake wrappers so they would look fancier on the table. I wanted to bring s'mores bars too, but I just didn't have time to make them on Sunday. I ended up making them yesterday before work so I shared some with my co-worker and brought the rest to my sister's for our slumber party.  Even though I've made and enjoyed all these sweets the last few days I have actually been eating a lot healthier lately. I am working really hard to get my weight down so I can eventually get off of my blood pressure medication. I am going to kick it's asparagus!

*if you don't know, now you know. 

Cut It Out!

I have a love-hate relationship with sugar cookies. I love how adorable they can be, but I hate how long I take to make them. It's one of those things that I complain about from the moment I begin but by the time I am almost finished I wish I wasn't. Today I took a shortcut and used a packaged mix. I thought it would make it less stressful and more fun.

It still took forever and I swore I wouldn't do it again, until I was on my last bit of dough and wanted to roll out a few more. The directions didn't say to chill the dough, which seemed odd. I ended up adding a lot more flour to the dough since it was super sticky. I divided it into two balls and put one in the fridge, but still had to add flour to that one when I started working with it.

The leaves are cute and all but the stems were a real pain in the butt. The cutter is really small on that portion so they would break off or come out oddly and I'd just have to start over. I probably won't do that shape again unless I find a cutter with a wider stem on it. I tried to do red, yellow, and orange frosting but my red was more rose than anything. My niece had fun decorating and eating them, so it wasn't a complete loss. I am still tired from yesterday's marathon kitchen session so it probably wasn't the best time to do something that requires patience. I'll have to try these again on a whim, when I don't have other projects scheduled and I won't care how pretty they do or do not turn out. I'm going to have some beers, watch Revenge and try to get in a better mood for tomorrow's feasting.

Vegan Mofo V Day 23- Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater

This was my wiped out weekend. It took me forever to get a grocery list together. I'm not kidding, it was at least an hour of flipping though books and binders trying to decide what to make this week. I'm still not even sure what's going on, but there should be some tasty things in the near future.My original intention was to get a lot of cooking done tomorrow since I have an interview on Tuesday. I don't want to risk not being prepared for that by having too much going on in the kitchen (I don't even want to look at my resumé!). Of course now, I'm past my bedtime for that goal, so we'll see how tomorrow goes. I predict caffeine will have an appearance.

I baked from scratch all day yesterday so today I thought it was time to take a shortcut. When I was at the store today I saw the Betty Crocker Pumpkin Spice cookie mix that Celeste from Growing Up Veg used a few weeks ago. I grabbed two packages and tossed them into my cart. I wasn't sure when I would make them but I knew it would be soon. I haven't made anything with pumpkin and we're almost through with October.

My mom asked me to mix and bake the brownie mix she bought, so since the oven was already on, I thought I'd bake some vegan cookies to cancel out the omni brownies. I'm glad I did since the brownies did not turn out well, they made a lovely consolation price. I do feel bad that her treats didn't work out, but I warned her I have never had much success with brownies. I have not tried the ones from VCIYCJ yet, so hopefully that will be the end of my brownie failures. I had no luck finding milk-free bittersweet baking chocolate for the pumpkin pie brownies, I'm wondering whether unsweetened will do. I'll have to consult the ppk.

Vegan Mofo V Day 22 : Time for Treats

We're having our Friday "Dinner and a Movie" tonight since last night was too hectic. Since my sister is cooking dinner, I decided I would make dessert. We won't have any of the kids next weekend so this is kind of our last Halloween hurrah.

I did chocolate cupcakes with orange-ish buttercream on top, both recipes from VCTOTW of course. Then I put chocolate sprinkles on top of that. I don't have a proper cupcake carrier (yet) so they don't look very pretty in the makeshift rig I've got going right now. I didn't want to do the sprinkles on the table and make a bigger mess than I already had.

When I told my sister the cupcake idea she wasn't too thrilled. I took it the wrong way and got upset for a minute until she reminded me that we had chocolate cupcakes a few weeks ago and again a few days ago from the bakery. It was a good point, but not as good as the argument that you can never really have too many cupcakes of any kind. She suggested cookie sammiches, but I wasn't really in the mood for those. I wanted to practice my piping, which still needs practice (see pics).

Luckily I was able to find a solution. I would do my cupcakes and the cookies, just not cookie sammiches. I made my favorite chocolate chip cookies, probably the only one I will ever use until forever. It's from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I am going to bring six cupcakes and a dozen cookies, so each of us will get one cupcake and two cookies. I'm probably going to bring my own almond milk along too. It's been a while since I switched from soy to almond milk but the other day I had my first sip of vanilla Silk in ages. It was so sweet I couldn't believe it. I love my o.g. almond breeze but am going to try the unsweetened one since it's probably just as good, if not a million times better. What is your go to beverage for washing down desserts?

Fillin' Good

Last week when we were at Babycakes I was the only one stupid/nice enough to let everyone else have a taste of my dessert. I wanted to get more treats to try later but since they would have to sit in the car during the Sparks' game as well as the drive home, it wasn't a good idea. I did not get a bite of the cookie sandwich my niece chose, but I heard it was delicious.

Today I made cookie sandwiches of my own (sort of). I did all the work but I used the recipes my favorite bakers to do so. The cookies were from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. She is a genius and I cannot believe I have only made four recipes from it so far. These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. I slacked a bit on the uniform sizes so I yielded eighteen instead of a dozen, and they were still on the larger side. Actually there was a nineteenth cookie that no one is supposed to know about so shhhhhhh.

After I had the excellent cookies, it was time for the amazing icing. I already knew I would use the "Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Icing" from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (my vegan she-roes, Isa and Terry!). It was my first time making half the recipe so I had to get down with some fractions before I started. I was good until I needed 1/8 cup of soymilk. I had to look that one up. For everyone else who didn't know, 1/8 cup= 2 TBSP. I penciled it in for next time (and there will be a next time). The icing turned out just as lovely as when you make the full recipe and it was the perfect amount to fill the cookie sammiches.

We each had one full sammich, half before dinner and half after. The ones we had after dinner were even better because they were nice and cold from the fridge. Just in time for summer!

p.s. I'll have to try the original Babycakes recipe to see how these compare. I already had everything I needed to make them this way.

Sorry I've bean busy

Oh my goodness. I totally had a "mofo italiano" post in my head for Friday night, but I fell asleep around 9:30 before we even finished watching "Ghostbusters". We had eggplant parm, which is always a favorite of mine. I don't know where my mind was since we used our go-to spaghetti sauce instead of marinara. It wasn't bad but it wasn't as good either. We did have tons of bread sticks to make up for it. As for the rest of the weekend, I have no excuse. I didn't cook a thing and did not even do a proper grocery run since we decided at the last minute to go watch "Paranormal Activity" instead (where is my mind, pt. 2).




My niece has minimum day all this week so today I left work at noon and am babysitting until 5:30-ish. Since it is longer than our normal after-school hang out time I told her we could probably bake and watch a movie. She chose "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and wanted to make Mexican Wedding Cakes. I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies or finally try Isa's pumpkin pie brownies, but I can make those another day. Sometimes I have to be the adult and let the six year old make the call. Since we normally make mwc's at Christmas time I thought it would be more halloween-y to make them orange. I haven't worked with food coloring since I was her age so it was definitely an experiment. Unfortunately I was so focused on getting the color right I forgot to add vanilla and didn't realize until after I put the cookies in the oven. I'm hoping they'll be gobbled up before anyone notices. I know my niece and I can make light work of them, but they're also a favorite of my dad's.

On a pantry/organization note, I finally went though my shelves and tossed out some unused/expired items-bad lady! In the process I also discovered I have cannellini beans coming out of my ears. I think there was a "Get It Ripe" recipe I wanted to try for spinach and cannelini bean soup, gotta find it. They're super salad friendly too so I know I won't run out of ways to use them. I love my bean shelf and I hate when I let it get unorganized. It should be easier to keep things neat in a limited space, but like everything else, I make it complicated by always trying to shove more in. Unfortunately my awesome tetris arrangements don't last for too long since everyone else doesn't have my stacking skills.




The movie's almost over and I've still got a bit of clean up to do, arrivederci baby!