Hello.. long time no see.... ahem. Moving on. I have been cooking, don't you worry about it. I went to the Taste of Health in Vancouver and I got to meet Isa Chandra Moskowitz which was needless to say the highlight of my week. Her cupcake book made me realize I could be a vegan if vegan's could eat these delcious cupcakes!! She did a demo for us from her new brunch book, so tasty! And I also saw a demo by Raw Rose on raw food and bought her cookbook. I'm not saying I'm going raw but I really like the concepts and I'm not going to say, I could never do that because I used to say that about being vegan so I can do anything! mwahaha! So what have I been up to well I'm glad you asked... let me show you.
Above you'll see probably the most ridiculously easy concept salad ever. I put down some spinach, some tomatoes, some avocado, black beans and covered it in salsa (this particular kind was corn and black bean) Then I put some tortilla chips for scooping. The only prep work was soaking and cooking the black beans ahead of time. It was so delicious and simple though. Take away the chips and I'm not sure it could be healthier. Awesome.
OK above is a variation on a recipe from VWAV. There is the Sesame Asparagus recipe. So instead I just added more of everything and more vegetables and served it over quinoa or rice. So it's garlic cooked in toasted sesame oil then add rice vinegar and soya sauce and I added a little bit of miso paste too. Then I put it all together with toasted sesame seeds on top. Mmmmmm for days.
Herb-Scalloped potatoes from Veganomicon. It was ok. I used potatoes that were little. I think it needed a little more liquid cuz I found it dry. But then I fried it up the next day for breakfast with hot sauce. Freaking good! I love leftover potatoes in the fridge! Instant breakfast!
So it was my co-workers birthday on September 28th so we celebrated at work this week and she loves bananas. And since I am the cupcake ninja and always make the cupcakes on anyone's birthday I found the banana split cupcakes. I didn't make enough icing to make them look super fantastic like the pictures in my book but they were pretty good. REALLY SWEET! Too sweet for me but I did use strawberry pineapple jam instead of pineapple preserves since I couldn't find any so maybe that contributed to it. It also made them kind of mushy. But not a terrible experience. I'm determined to make every cupcake in the book eventually. My friend Jeff missed out on cupcakes for his birthday since we didn't meet him until a couple months ago so we're celebrating his un-birthday (6 months after your birthday since you literally can't get further away from a birthday) which is coming up in a week or two. He wants the hardest cupcakes in the book... of course. Tiramasu here I come!

I also made the cookies and cream cupcakes just for the hell of it. OMG! My top three for sure. If you're wondering what the other two are they are the Brooklyn Brownie Cupcakes and the Green Tea Cupcakes. But yeah these were a big hit with everyone. My only tip is to keep them in the fridge... if it was possible to make them better... cold did it!
Well that's about it for now. I'm excited for thanksgiving! I'm hoping my mom might make me vegan perogies again. Oh and she also made us vegan spaghetti sauce (she usually uses butter), salsa and applesauce. I am SO spoiled! I also bought a huge bag of potatoes so you may see more potato recipes soon. Hopefully squash too but we haven't bought one yet! Why oh why!?
Happy cooking till then!