I knew I shouldn't have left the house this morning.

After my self-imposed weekend exile, I emerged this morning to go to work. I have been slammed every which way, by customers and co-worker's alike. I also spilled my lunch down the front of my body. Oh, yeah, it was oatmeal. Nice hot, gloopy oatmeal. I washed it all off and now I look like I am fresh from a wet t-shirt contest, and I smell like a dog that just rolled in wet hay. Hotttt. I got right back up on the oatmeal horse and made some more. I would have starved otherwise. But, really. I wish I had called in sick.

Thanksgiving...

this year, as usual, was very non-traditional. We indulged in a large pot of vegetable soup with cornbread muffins. Oh, yeah, there was pumpkin pie; that was the only normal part of the meal. After a non-successful try at the cornbread recipe in V-con (I'm sure it was all my fault!), I pulled out La Dolce Vegan and made Wolffie's "Buttermilk" Cornbread into muffins. I halved the recipe and came out with 7 golden beauties. Some of the best cornbread I have had in a while. I accidentally halved everything but the sugar. Still good.

Unfortunately, I do not have a pic of the soup. It consisted of kidney beans, carrots, potatoes, peas, green beans, onions, corn and tomatoes. It was perfect for the weather we are experiencing. Yesterday we went from the mid-70's to the 40's. It was snowing this morning.

My baby was the pie. I made Bryanna Clark Grogan's tofu-less pumpkin pie this year. Last year I made a tofu based one. Guess which one tasted the best...yeah, NOT the tofu one. Last year was my first experience with a tofu-based pie. I definitely picked up on the soybean aftertaste. This year was a taste success. The pie was creamy and not too spicy. I used 3 Tbsp of cornstarch and I did cut back a bit on the spices after reading other's opinions. It firmed up nicely after sitting all night.

Yes, I was too lazy to make my own crust. It was very late, and I was very tired. Sue me.

Freshly cut. Radiating yumminess. Pure, vegan yumminess. Eat that, omnis. I think I am going to make another one of these for the December birthday party at work.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Redux

Saturday I was left to my devices - all alone in the house with a cookie craving. I tried to ignore it. I tried to fight it. I tried to talk myself out of it with the reason that I didn't have any chocolate chips. None of those tactics worked. Turns out I'm an easily swayed wimp. I pulled out a candy bar from my stash and chopped it up for a half batch of these. I made no changes other than the chocolatey chunks, as they were perfect already. See what I mean?




Though, this batch did come out somewhat fuller, thicker. Whatevs, they were good.

Purdy.....

Their beauty is blinding. Okay, so it's the oven light.

Lower-Fat Banana Bread

Today's V-con project: Lower-Fat Banana Bread. Very spicy and very moist. I took liberties with it, of course. I used part demerrara sugar and half spelt flour, and I also added walnuts (that defeats the purpose of low fat bread, I know) and currants. I also sprinkled demerrara and granola on top, just to be pretty. The end result looks something like this:

And a top shot because I love how bread cracks on top:

And another just because:

Lastly, I have read and re-read my Veganomicon, every time finding something else that I am dying to make. This is my habit with every cookbook I buy now:

Look real close. See all the little pink pieces of paper at the top? I don't have the heart to defile a cookbook buy folding the corners down, so I stick post-it's on the pages with recipes I want to make.

Chocolate Jackpot

Today, I hit the chocolate lottery. Walking down the holiday candy aisle at the drug store I stumbled across an old favorite of mine: Chocolate Stars. I let out a sigh and lamented that "those definitely aren't vegan." Laying next to the so-not-vegan milk chocolate stars was something new to me: Dark Chocolate Stars.

Like most commercial dark chocolate candies I assumed that it would also include some form of dairy, but just for kicks I picked the bag up to check out the ingredients:

I don't know if you can read that, but they are totally vegan! Also, surprisingly, very minimal in ingredients. I haven't ripped them open to try yet, so I hope they don't let me down.

At Big Lots I found these:

They are by Valor and Barton's. Nothing special, I know, but I tend to buy boring chocolates, plain with not a lot going on.

Brownies

Brownies. Unassuming, no frills. The perfect balance between fudge and chocolate cake. It is hard to find a good non-cakey vegan brownie. You know, the brownie that dreams are made of. I have been on a brownie kick lately, and have been dying to try to perfect the vegan brownie. I think I may have came close. In my mind, I hit the nail on the head, but I will have to wait for all the opinions to come in. While still warm, they were chocolatey, and slightly cake-like. After they have completely cooled, they are a hunk of fudgey heaven.

There they are in the pan, after the initial massacre straight out of the oven. It was beautiful.

Here they are close-up, in all their fudgey glory. The recipe was based on the sour cream cookies I made a couple of months ago. I used an Endangered Species chocolate bar and threw in some walnuts, and of course used Tofutti Better than Sour Cream. They're dreamy.