Back.... with Avengance!

Yeah... it's been awhile. Ok so I have some good excuses, I think. I got laid off, went to Hawaii, moved cities, got 2 new jobs. It's all good though I don't really have to explain myself to you all, I probably don't even have a following! If I do, don't be offended, please forgive my absence and thanks so much for reading!

So what have I been up to lately. I have gone from making normal dinners to being laid off and having lots of time for more elaborate things, to being in Hawaii and being very lazy and wanting to eat out and eat bad (btw Hawaii has some AWESOME Mexican food, try Maui Tacos, it's a fast food chain), then to moving here and having two jobs and no time to cook.

So I'll start with a couple cupcakes I made. The first were peanut butter cupcakes which I loved so much for their simplicity. They were so creamy and tasty.

The second set of cupcakes are the Chocolate Cherry Creme Cupcakes. I made them for my hubby's birthday because he loves blackforest cake. They are pretty neat looking. I don't like cherries so I can't tell you about taste but my man sure loved them. So pretty!*Warning - the next one is NOTcompletely vegan*
While we were in Hawaii, basically the only food we could get was Mexican food. So we ate A LOT of it. Mind you there was this place called Wok Star on the main road in Kihei, Maui which had vegan and vegetarian options, not to mention one hell of an awesome owner. But anyway one of the first meals I remember while we were still on Oahu was at Chili's. I ordered this crazy big Taco salad with cheese quesadillas on the side.

So basically I made a black bean and corn relish with some red peppers, red onion, cayenne, chili powder, cumin, vinegar, and olive oil. Then I let it sit for about an hour before throwing it on some lettuce and tomatoes then I added salsa as more dressing to the relish (you could also use a balsamic vinegar) and of course some avocado!! YUM!
One thing that my hubby wanted these Medjool Coconut, Almond Date Treats from Save On. I bought them and then thought, what the heck!? I could make these! So I did. The ingredients are Dates, Almonds, and Coconut. All you need is a food processor. I also rolled them in Coconut afterwards.

Now this next one I'm very, very proud of. I made gnocchi. It was a long and tedious process but I was unemployed so I had the time. I used the good ol' pesto recipe from VWAV which is also where the Gnocchi recipe came from. My friend Jeff helped me and it was lots of fun eating the fruits of our labour.Ok, then I went on a pancake kick and these were my best attempt, using my Dad's good old family recipe, veganized. Then I melted chocolate chips and let strawberries sit in sugar overnight and topped with those. Not healthy for sure but man were they delicious. I had them for dinner/dessert even.

Lastly, I made this beautiful Chocolate Raspberry Blackout Cake from VWAV also! This cake was amazing. I made it as a dessert for a Sunday night dinner I made for my parents. I made the raspberry glaze though rather than using preserves. Do we even have preserves in Canada? Is that like jam?

Anyway until next time!! Keep baking what you love and loving what you bake!

Well I went out for breakfast a couple times in the past month or so and my favorite thus far was The Pantry's Smothered skillet (without cheese and eggs) but I did cheat and have the hollandaise sauce (I know I know , it's made with eggs but it's yummy). And I would have had it without the sauce but then it would just be vegetables which are good and all but pretty dry. So I thought about it at home and made some little cubed hashbrowns with mushrooms, onions, peppers and hot sauce (I don't have banana peppers at home sadly) and then made cheezy sauce from Veganomicon and then topped it with tomatoes and green onions. Over all amazing but I added too much hot sauce but that's easily enough to fix next time. Oh and look how pretty it looks!!LOL! I just love this picture. I made my Dad Boston vs. Brooklyn Cupcakes for his birthday (lots of work but yummy) with chocolate buttercream icing and this is what happens when you don't pay a lot of attention. I actually did it 3 times.I also made a couple dozen cupcakes for my friends shower (VCTOTW the Vanilla made with whole wheat flour with chocolate buttercream icing).

Then below is Maple Mustard Glazed Potatoes and String Beans recipe but with Asparagus rather than beans, we decided it tastes better this way. My hunny made this! It's awesome!

Finally, I love love love love the following recipe. Whole Wheat Naan bread with spaghetti sauce as pizza sauce then onions and peppers then covered in beautiful pesto sauce (VWAV). I added pineapple as a topping and it just made it perfect with the salty pesto and sweet pineapple. This is one of my favorite things ever I think.

So that has been what I've been up to lately. Sorry all the pictures come at once, kind of overwhelming. The past week I've been doing the master cleanse and I ended up stopping after 5.5 days cuz of being sick. I just couldn't handle both and my heart really wasn't in the cleanse anyway. So I am weaning back onto food and loving every bite. Trying to start off on the right foot with lots of fruit and vegetables. The breakfast I am loving right now is chocolate almond milk with Vanilla Almond Cereal and a banana. I'm used to my hunny making me breakfast, he always makes us smoothies from the Thrive Diet book so I was kind of lost but I'm liking non-liquid breakfasts, haha. So I am excited about food again, feeling pretty creative! Hopefully lots more great recipes to come!

Crepes!

Don't let the exclamation mark scare you... these are not scary they are delicious. And so pretty! Below are my strawberry chocolate ones and at the bottom there are my peanut butter banana ones (with a little chocolate drizzled).

So basically how I made these was using my pancake recipe. I veganized a pancake recipe that my dad passed down to me. I will tell you the veganized version:

Pancakes:
1 cup of flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup soy milk (I use chocolate usually)
1 mashed banana
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder

You mix the first three ingredients together then the next three and add a little more soy milk if you want a thinner batter (it will go a little further). If I do this I add maybe a tsp-tbsp extra. Then you fold in the baking powder and let it sit for a few minutes.

So to Crepe this recipe I used about 1 & 1/4 cup soy milk (chocolate) to make it a little thinner yet.

Then you just put some batter on a pan and shake the pan at every angle to get it nice and covered in a very thin layer. This is what it looks like after a flip:

Below are the ingredients I used. There were amazingly tasty smelling strawberries which prompted me to have a crepe morning in the first place. Then I melted chocolate chips with some soy milk to have chocolate sauce.

So that was my crepe adventure, delish! There were leftovers but you can't have any nah nah! I did miss whipped cream a bit but not too much . Here's one more picture for the road of the banana, peanut butter chocolate one....