Another One Bites The Crust

It seems like my mystery illness has struck me ill again!  I have a feeling it’s something I’ve been eating, but I really have no idea what that would be.

Hopefully not these two delicious foods I’ve eaten lately.

sweet potato hash

ice cream sandwich

Okay, I’d like to post more but I can’t stand to look at food much longer!  I feel gross.  I hope this goes away again soon.

I was struck with the urge to bake bread again, yesterday morning, as I waited for a friend to come over.  My search for a recipe did not take long- I immediately chose to make the Whole Wheat Bread, sweetened with agave, from Veganacious.  Not only is this site absolutely fantastic, but the bread turned out perfectly as well.  I always get a bit nervous using yeast, but the instructions were quite simple and very easy to follow.

While waiting for the bread to rise, my friend and I headed out to a local park for a hike!  It looked very sunny and warm outside today, but it was actually quite cold.  Still, I had a very wonderful time!  We met some really cute dogs wearing sweaters.  Have I talked about my obsession with pit bulls here?  I am in love with these dogs.  At the local shelter, every single spot is filled with a pit bull.  It’s very interesting and sad to me.  As soon as I move to an apartment that allows animals, I sure will be adopting one.  Until then, though, I plan on volunteering there!  The orientation is on February 14th and I am quite excited.

Anyway, back to the bread!  When we arrived back, I punched it down (VERY FUN!) and kneaded it a bit more, let it rise again, and baked it off.  Forty five minutes later, and one deliciously smelling apartment, I had whole wheat bread!  So satisfying.

Time to answer the questions sent in to me!  But before that, I want to show you the delicious pancakes I made yesterday.

Hi pancakes, I love you.  These are from an oat bran pancake mix and are absolutely delightful.  To the mix, I simply added a tiny bit of oil, a little sugar, and almond milk.  They came out great and were so easy to flip.  I heated up the skillet slowly, because I read that somewhere in the blogosphere (and now I can’t remember where!), and it worked perfectly!

Now, onto the questions!  Remember, if you’d like to ask an anonymous question, click here to do so!

are there any celebrity chefs you look up to or love the most?

Well, I suppose I admire Rachel Ray! She started off as a waitress and is not trained as a chef, but her love of cooking took her so far.  She seems to also love animals like I do.  It would be super cool if she went vegan!  As for vegan chefs, it’s so hard to choose a favorite! I love them all.  It seems like all my favorite cookbooks are written by Isa!

what kind of cupcake would you be if you were a cupcake?

Oh gosh, I’d say a cereal surprise cupcake from Sweet Avenue Bakeshop! They are usually pretty colorful and always a surprise.. like me!

What was the 1st thing you ever baked?

Oh gosh, I don’t know! I do remember that before I went vegan, I tried to make cupcakes from scratch for an ex-boyfriend and I failed miserably. It was a total mess! I think the first vegan baked good I’ve ever made was cookies or pancakes for the club I was in at college!  Vegan baking is how I learned to bake.  I never really baked before that.  However, when I was younger I did want to be a chef and open a restaurant.

What lenses do you use to shoot your pictures?

For food photography, I use either my 100mm macro lens or my 50mm lens. Both are fantastic for food photography! I would suggest the 50mm lens for someone looking to get into food shots. It’s very versatile!

For weddings and other shoots, I also have a wide angle and telephoto lens.  I’ve written a post about photography, if you’d like to check it out.

How tall are you?

I’m about 5′2″ or 5′3″.  I’m not exactly sure!

Did your tattoo on your foot hurt? I want a small one on the upper right corner of my foot but am afraid it will hurt relly bad!!

Yes, it hurt very much BUT my covers the entire foot- right on the bone. I don’t think the area you want will be too bad, especially if it’s small. Either way, it is a tattoo so you will feel something, but it’s honestly not too bad! The pain is temporary

That was fun!  I like answering your questions.  I’m open to answer anything!  So, anyway, this past week has been great!  I saw a bunch of my friends, went to New York to Erica, and posed for my friend Christi who is working on an art project!  She dressed me up and is going to paint me with a steampunk limb!  Isn’t that neat?  Here’s a photo from the shoot.

I’m posed like that because she’s going to add something into the painting.  I can’t wait to see how it comes out!  It was a lot of fun to be on the other side of the camera and to get all dressed up for it.

This was a fun post to write!  I hope you all have a wonderful day!

After seeing this post over at Eating Bender, I knew that I had to bake some banana bread!  It’s been far too long.  I don’t love banana bread, but it’s surely something I can get down with every once and a while.

The recipe calls for four bananas, which make the bread super flavorful and plenty moist!  I doubled the recipe, so I needed eight bananas!  That’s a lot.  Luckily I had picked up a ton of extremely ripe bananas at the store earlier.  I baked half of the batter as mini muffins, and the rest in the loaf pan.  The muffins took about 20 minutes, while the bread took around 50 minutes.

Because when I start baking bread, I simply cannot stop, I decided to make some sweet potato bread! It’s finally time for me to share this delicious recipe.  I’ve made it three times, twice with regular sugar and once with agave.  I have to say, although I usually prefer agave nectar, I love this bread with the cane sugar.

Sweet Potato Bread (one loaf)

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup mashed sweet potato (for me, it turned out to be two small sweet potatoes, boiled then mashed)

1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ginger

a dash of cloves

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together the sugar, water, oil, and sweet potatoes.  Once combined, sift in the dry ingredients.  Mix until just combined.  If desired, walnuts are a lovely addition to the bread.  Bake for 40-50 minutes.  My oven is a bit off, so it’s hard to give an exact time.  Keep an eye on the bread!  Let cool completely before slicing.

If you’d like to substitute agave nectar or maple syrup for the regular sugar, just omit the water and reduce the oil down to 1/4 cup.  I’ve only tested that way once, and it was quite delicious!  Let me know if you try it!

This sweet potato bread is so moist, just like the banana bread, but it’s much more spicy.  I love it, and I think you will too!

Although I’d very much like to just eat sweet, delicious bread all day, I chopped and chopped a whole bunch of veggies for lunch.  I intended to create a Thai-style cashew vegetable stir fry, but I can never get the flavors right.  This massive pile of veggies was terrific, but not even close to the Thai flavors I love.

Still quite beautiful, eh?

Hi friends!  The day after my cupcake-fest, I was struck ill again!  I think that my post-illness delicate belly might have been quite overloaded with sugar and that’s what stirred up that nasty stomach bug again.  Either way, I’m back and ready for delicious food once again, but maybe just a little toned down for a bit.

I received a special little package in the mail a few days ago.. Glo Bars! I’ve been a big fan of Angela’s blog for a while now and I finally got my hands on some of her wholesome, vegan glo bars.  I immediately tore up one of the Adore variety, which is S’mores flavor!  The bar was quite flavorful, infused with marshmallow and homemade graham crackers!  I loved the chewy texture.  I’m going to have to order quite a few more of this Adore bar!  I ordered a mixed pack, and I assume that each and every other one will be just as delightful!

I’ve also had a little obsession with hummus sandwiches lately.  Sometimes it’s peanut butter and jelly, right now it’s red pepper hummus on toast.

I feel like I’m really grasping for quality posting material at the moment and I don’t want to bore you guys!  I’ll answer a question I received on formspring.me.

How many tattoos do you have? Are you thinking of getting any more?

I have eight tattoos- the tops of both feet, on both upper arms, one on my forearm, two on my back, and one on my ribs. I’ll post photos one day! I’m thinking of getting more, yup! I would like to get a sleeve on my right forearm with arctic animals, but I think the next tattoo I get will be a chrysanthemum on my shoulder.
Got anymore questions?  Click here and ask away anonymously!

The only food I ate today that is blog worthy has got to be these vanilla cupcakes from 500 vegan recipes.  This is one seriously good cupcake, and easy too!  The ingredient list is super short.  I threw together all the ingredients in probably five minutes!

For the icing, I just quickly whipped together some non-dairy butter, powdered sugar, a bit of almond milk and blueberry agave nectar.  It’s the perfect topper for these beautiful cupcakes.  Oh, and I added sprinkles to the batter to make funfetti!

By the way, I’ve jumped on the formspring bandwagon. If you’d like to ask anonymous questions, here’s you chance!  Click on the link and ask away.  I’ll make a Q&A post if I get any questions

With a bit of time in the morning before my first class, I got to work in the kitchen with Mama Pea’s recipe for Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas!  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how delicious they are.

I had all the ingredients ready in my pantry!  Hooray, I love it when that happens.  Anyway, so I mixed together all the ingredients in a bowl (just sort of eyeballed it) and then threw it onto a baking sheet with some cauliflower.

Looking good, eh?  It took most of my self control to not inhale the entire recipe before it cooled!  Once cooled, I packed a portion up into my lunch box, along with the cauliflower, a salad of mixed greens and broccoli, and apple slices.  Once I got to school, I mixed together the greens, cauliflower, and chickpeas.  So satisfying!  This lunch was so much better than the one I bought on campus the other day.  I’ll be packing my lunch quite frequently!

Isn’t that box cute?  It’s a bit small, but I managed to pack a hearty portion in there.  There’s two stackable containers with removable dividers.  I ate my lunch by my lonesome in the incredibly crowded student center.  My classes today, History and English, went quite well.  They seem very interesting so far and I’m looking forward to getting into the swing of it all.

After class, I bundled up and headed back to my apartment.  I walk to school, since it’s only a little over a mile each way, and I quickly learned that flats are not suitable footwear for this commute!  I’ve been back home for about an hour and a half and my toes are still frozen!  I learned my lesson there.

I’m usually starving by the time I get home, so I eat dinner pretty early.  I developed an extreme love of tater tots when I was sick.. and it’s clear that this love is here to stay!  Goodness, I love those pillows of potato deliciousness.  A woman cannot live on tater tots alone, so I roasted some broccoli along side.

All dipped in ketchup!  Except for the carrots and hummus.  Dinner was quickly followed with hot chocolate made from almond milk, topped with Dandie’s marshmallows aaaand a mini nondairy ice cream sandwich spread with white chocolate peanut butter.  Oh, chocolate.. I love you.

Soon after posting, I curled up in my little nook and vegged out on the couch for a bit.  If you follow my Twitter, you’ll know that I am completely obsessed with Law and Order: SVU.  Two of last night’s episodes had an Environmental / Animal Rights theme going on, so I was pretty excited to watch.  Of course, they portrayed a lot of the activists as bad people, who were being investigated by the FBI on terrorism charges.

I’ve read that animal and environmental rights activists are pretty high, if not number 1, on the FBI’s terror list.  That’s pretty ridiculous.  As far as I know, no animal or environmental rights activist has been charged with harming anyone.  There’s also some pretty crazy legislation that, as Will Potter say’s, ‘uses “terrorism” rhetoric to chill free speech and to protect corporate profits‘, and I think he’s spot on.

It seems like I’ve gotten pretty off topic over here, but it’s my blog and I sure can do that!  Back to breakfast.  I fell asleep in my living room nook last night and turned to some more familiar nooks and crannies for breakfast.

I don’t have that many english muffins left, so I’m going to work on getting some more interesting and creative breakfasts going on!  I love english muffins, so crisp and chewy, but I do need some variation in my life.  Along with the peanut butter and jellied muffins, I noshed on apple slices and strawberries.

Thanks for the lunch suggestions in my last post!  I’ve got tons of new wrap ideas to bring to school.  I’m going for a different route today, however!  Time to throw on my apron and get to work.  I’ll be back after class   Have a great one!

Oh!  One more thing! Make sure you check out the bake sale for Haiti over at The Chic Life- I’ve donated vegan banana chocolate chip muffins!  Go bid!

Anyone know the song from my title?

Today was way more awesome than usual!  The day was focused totally around love.  Love for photography, love for friends, love for kabocha squash, love for hummus.. I could go on, but let me get to the fun stuff.

In anticipation of a whole lot of running around, I fueled up accordingly.  I roasted half of a kabocha squash, just tossed in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Let me tell you, I am in love with kabocha.  I’d like to go steady with kabocha- give it my class ring and let it wear my letter jacket.  Or something.  Moving on, before I take this too far.  Ah, well.. alongside, I made a hummus wrap with red pepper hummus, arugula, green peppers, and pickle. That combo was quite delicious, but I do eat this combo very often.  I’m thinking that wraps are going to become a staple in my lunch rotation while I’m back in school so I’ve got to find some more exciting insides.  Suggestions?

Soon after, I ate an un-pictured apple.  Filled me right up!  Very soon after I finished my crisp, juicy apple, my old college roommate showed up at my door!  Melissa and her fiance, Jeremy, are getting married in November and asked me to be their photographer!  We had planned to take the engagement photos last week, but I ended up in the hospital on the day, so moved it to today instead.  It was incredibly windy and quite overcast, but Melissa and Jeremy totally worked it.

What do you think?  I’m quite fond of them!  These are just a few super quick edits, but I am sure I will have more to post over at my photography blog, Nicole Lee Photo, very soon!

I was starving after all this, so I immediately headed into the kitchen to find something quick.  I started with a salad of baby lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, green pepper, and hummus.  With my salad, I ate a vegan BLT that my friend Jeff brought me yesterday!  So nice of him, and it was really delicious.  It’s got tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato and vegan mayo, I assume.  I’m lucky to have great friends!

I better go finish up my homework- I don’t want to be slacking already.  Oh, and I think I hear a tofutti cutie calling my name from the kitchen!

I woke up pretty early this morning, considering how late I ended up staying awake last night!  After a quite boring dinner of peanut butter and jelly and my salad leftovers, a friend and I watched about four hours of Twin Peaks.  Have you seen Twin Peaks?  It’s the greatest show in the history of television, I’m telling you.  I’ve you’ve never heard of it, you should rent the DVDs!  It’s a very absurd detective-esque series from the early 90s.  It’s by David Lynch, and if you’ve seen any of his films you’ll probably have a good understanding of how bizarre it can be!

So, yeah, I ended up going to sleep fairly late.  Even so, I bounded out of bed this morning for breakfast.  I don’t have too many breakfast options at the moment, so I settled on peanut butter and jelly on an english muffin- again.  I love this combo, but it is getting a bit old!  I believe it’s time for a grocery store trip.

Of course, consumed with mass quantities of coffee.  I think I’ve been over-doing it on the coffee the past two days.  Just because I am able to drink it in excess now that I am not sick, doesn’t mean I should!  I’ll have to remind myself that this morning.  Or later this afternoon when I reach for a cup.

The urge to bake struck me soon after breakfast!  I found a can of pumpkin in my bare cabinets and got to work on pumpkin muffins from the Post-Punk Kitchen.

It’s barely past breakfast and I’ve already consumed one.  They’re really good!  I added walnuts to mine and had to sub half of the oil for applesauce, since I ran out.  Because of that, or because I couldn’t wait five minutes to cool, they stuck to the wrappers.  It’s all good though, no scrap muffin was left behind!

Time to get going with my day!  Lots to do, lots to do!