Another One Bites The Crust

With the absence of the sun on this overcast day, I turned to My Sweet Vegan by Hannah Kaminsky to brighten my day!  What could do this better than Lemon-Lime Sunshine Bundt Cake?!  Not much, that’s for sure.  There’s just something about a bundt cake that seems so special.

I’ve somehow accumulated a bunch of lemons, so I left out the lime and went straight up lemon.  Besides that, the only other part I had to change was because I don’t have any vegan butter at the moment.  I realized this after I had started, so I scrambled to find a substitute.  Just using oil instead crossing my mind, but then I realized I had just bought a jar of coconut butter and used that instead.  Coconut and lemon pair perfectly!  A match made in tropical heaven.

On top, I mixed together a quick icing of half a package of Tofutti cream cheese and a big drizzle of agave nectar.  I gave this a stir in my stand mixer and that’s that!  We dug into this cake right after lunch.  I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I adore the lemon flavor.  I’ve written before about how I used to avoid citrus desserts but I find myself liking them more and more with each bite.  I can definitely get down with this.  The sunshine bundt cake is a light and fabulous treat.

Now, backing up a bit to lunch.  I made soup and sandwiches this afternoon for my buddy Chris and I on his lunch break.  I know, I know.. I’m such a great friend!  I made two kinds of soup, split pea and lentil.  Oh, and by make, I mean I opened two cans and heated them up on the stove.

The sandwich is hummus and avocado on that incredible 7 Grain with Flax bread from Rudi’s Bakery.  You know what else I used this bread for today?  Breakfast!  (See what I did there?  Nice transititon, if I do say so myself.)

Mmm, I can eat White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter every single day.

Anyway, so I’m going to run to the store so I can get to work on a dessert that I’m making for a contest.  I hope it comes out well.  I will report back tomorrow!

Check out my articles for Examiner.com!  I’ve got two new ones: Photographing Animals in the Wild and Go Vegan for the Month of November!

About a week ago, I had promised a friend a delicious three course meal made by yours truly.  The day approached and only one thing was wrong- my oven wasn’t working!  My plan changed quickly and I sought out a cookbook I knew could help me in this situation, Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis.  Perfect!  I armed myself with my fancy kitchen knives and got to work.

Anything besides a salad or raw pasta always seems very daunting to me.  Living Raw Food has a lot of fancy and exciting recipes, but Sarma’s approach is welcoming and breaks it down in a way that does not seem overwhelming.  To my surprise, the recipes took barely any time at all!

Like I said before, I planned on a three course menu.  I decided on the Watercress and Seaweed Salad with avocado coriander dressing, Beet Ravioli with pine nut “goat cheese”, and per my guest’s request, Coconut Ice Cream.  The first two recipes are from Living Raw Food, but I took the ice cream recipe from Sarma’s other book, Raw Food Real World.

The salad was very easy to put together and it was my favorite part of the dinner!  I love seaweed, however, I did not soak mine because it is straight from the ocean for me when it’s not dried.

Next up, I served the beet ravioli.  I don’t have a mandolin, so it was quite tricky to get the beets thin enough.  The beet flavor was far too much and my thick slices were just not cutting it!  The pine nut filling was great!  I’ve never had goat cheese, so I cannot vouch for it’s similarity, but the nut cheese was hearty and flavorful.  Pine nuts are very expensive, so I substituted in half sunflower seeds.

The coconut ice cream was amazing!  Flavorful, light, and creamy!  It couldn’t be easier either.  I topped our ice cream with cocoa nibs.

I was so impressed by the raw vegan ice cream!  And what did my guest think?  He loved it!  The ice cream was his favorite part of the meal.

Living Raw Food is truly a great cookbook!  I am a huge fan of Pure Food and Wine and it makes me smile that I can have a little piece of it in my own kitchen.  The meal was perfect for tonight.  It was a great change of pace than the food I usually make.  To my surprise, I enjoyed every second of whacking, cutting, and grating!  I definitely recommend this cookbook.  Most of the recipes do not use any out of the norm equipment and with a restaurant like Pure Food and Wine, how could any of these recipes be wrong?

Written for GoDairyFree.com

When you’re pinched for time, it’s great to have a few pantry staples ready and waiting to go.  For me, that quick meal of choice is rice and beans.  I like to stock up on cans of rice and beans, specifically, Eden’s Organics.  They are pretty cheap, organic, and nutritious.  They come in plenty of different varieties, my favorites being the Mexican and Carribean ones.

I always like to spice things up a bit, so I like to bump up the rice and beans with whatever add-ons I can find.  Today, I peered into the fridge and pulled out an avocado and some collard greens.

I heated up the can of rice and beans on the stove, added some salt, and wilted in the chopped greens.  It’s as easy as that!  After plating my portion, I topped the mixture with a few avocado slices.

I wasn’t going to post this tonight, because it is kind of boring, but I wanted to tell you all about what I learned tonight.  I don’t know why I didn’t catch of earlier, but I finally learned the glory of my camera’s white balance settings!  Usually, I don’t shoot food after dark because the unnatural lighting gives the image a yellow tone that drives me crazy.  Tonight, however, I decided to play around with the white balance!  My camera has a lot of different white balance presets, so I just played around with those until I found one that suited the lighting in my kitchen- tungsten light.  I think it came out beautiful- I did not have to edit those photos at all!

For comparison, I took some photos of the sushi I brought home from Miya’s Sushi last night.  I had to edit the yellow tone out of this photo with photoshop, and it just doesn’t look as natural as the rice and beans photos!

By the way, the sushi was delicious, as always!  I ordered a sweet potato roll, curry cauliflower roll, and cauliflower/garlic/hot pepper/garlic/black bean roll. Oh my gosh.  Delicious!

I have some great plans for tomorrow- see you then!  Have a lovely night

Goodness, after all the stress of moving, putting together furniture, and finding all my things amongst packed boxes, I really needed a nice, relaxing stroll through the park.  I grabbed my camera and set out first thing this morning.

This park is one of my favorite spots in New Haven.  It’s hidden in the city and is the perfect spot to relax and take photos.  There is so much wildlife and gorgeous trails to explore over here.  You’d never know it when looking from the street!

Before I get into what else I love about New Haven, I’ll show you a couple delicious things I’ve been eating since getting here.

Doesn’t the veggie burger inside my wrap look like brains?  Good thing I didn’t notice that until after I had finished.  Anyway, it’s an Amy’s gluten-free veggie burger and it was so tasty!  The next photo is Amy’s split pea soup, and the last is pretty self explanatory.  I really wanted to bake but I keep forgetting that my oven is broken!  I still need to figure that out.

In between meals, I’ve been spending a lot of time setting up my apartment.  I love New Haven for it’s beautiful architecture and old houses.  I can’t remember how old the landlord said my house is, but I know it’s been around for quite some time.  One of my favorite parts, by far, is the stained glass windows.

They are incredible!  It makes the house so special.

The bathroom sink seems pretty old as well.  It’s got two faucets and an old fashioned drain stopper.  I love it!

And the new!  My mom, sister, and I spent so long putting together this kitchen table that my mom gave me.  It was well worth it though, it’s lovely.  I love how it looks in food photos.

Lastly, I set up my bed!  It makes me smile.

I think I’m going to walk to the store and get back outside.  It’s too gorgeous not to be out there!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes!  It means to much to me.  Each and every comment made me smile so much when I was reading them this morning!

It was so nice to wake up in my new bed.  It’s so big and comfortable!  After lounging for a while, I got up to make breakfast.  I don’t have too many options just yet, so I settled with my stand-by.  I’m sure you can guess

Just like yesterday, the french press coffee was amazing.  I can’t believe I hadn’t used one sooner!  I felt a little off this morning, so I lounged in bed and wrote a few articles while I waited for the cable guy.  I hope I’m not getting sick!  My sister has the swine flu, I’m hoping I didn’t catch it!  I’m not a fan of vaccines or needles, so I didn’t get either flu shot.

It took forever for the cable guy to set everything up and I was starving by the time he finished.  I’m happy to say that I am no longer using the tiny bit of internet signal from my neighbours!  Anyway, so he left and I got to work on lunch.  I originally was planning on roasted kombocha squash, but my oven doesn’t work, apparently!  It was stuck on pre-heat for about an hour and never warmed up.  Booo!  I tried roasting it with the broiler, but it was taking forever so I let that sit under there and I made a hummus wrap instead.

Along side, I had some cucumbers and fruit from my Edible Arrangement.  Eventually, the squash was kind of roasted so I ate some of that too.  It was really, really, really dry from sitting under the broiler for so long!  That’s nothing a bit of ketchup can’t fix, though

I even decided to be a little productive and unpacked a few boxes.  I’ll show you my favorite part of my new apartment.  I unpacked this..

And it turned to this!

There’s a little nook in my kitchen with a built in bookcase that is perfect for all my cookbooks!  I have one massive vegan cookbook collection.  This little space makes me so happy!

I’m stuck around the house today because I’m waiting for my kitchen table and chairs to be delivered, so I think I’ll go bake something delicious (edit: I can’t bake, my oven is broken!  Good one, Nicole!) .  Have a great afternoon

Oh, one more thing! Check out the article I posted on Examiner.com about farm photography in Connecticut.

Twenty-one.  I made it.  This past year has had its ups and downs, that’s for sure.  I struggled more than I have in my life but I’ve made it out alive.  I have shared a lot of my struggles on here, and some I have not.  Through all of it, I can confidently say that I am in a much better place, mentally and physically, than I was this year around this time.  There’s a part still missing, but for that, it’s out of my control.

I suppose this is enough of me being mushy, I’ll get onto what this blog is all about- the food.  I woke up this morning dreading the day.  I always build my birthday up so much in my mind that when it comes around, I want it to stop.  I tried to combat these thoughts with my favorite breakfast- english muffins and peanut butter.  I don’t have any jelly, but this was still very good.

I actually burnt the first english muffin to a crisp, so I had to make a new one.  It came out perfect.  It was doughy on the bottom and crispy on top.  I whipped out the french press today for this morning’s brew and it was so worth the slightly extra effort!  So smooth.

My breakfasts are never complete without a fruit, so I headed to the fridge and spread some hummus on this gala apple.  What a great combo!

My mom came over for the day to help me set up my furniture and get settled.  It was a very lovely day.  We broke for lunch around noon and headed over to Edge of the Woods for a quick lunch.

I ordered a cup of split pea soup and a hummus sandwich.  I hate to say it, because I love Edge, but this meal was just bad.  I couldn’t even eat any of it.  I took it all home and gave it to a friend who will eat anything, but I just could not get it down.  It was very disappointing.  The woman at the sandwich area was kind of rude to me as well, but what can you do?  Maybe she has having a bad day.

So, when I got home I ate this spiced pumpkie pie clif bar that I had stashed away.  While munching on this delicious treat, my mom and I put away everything in my kitchen.  It took a while, but we got it all done!

I love it!  It looks so clean and bright.  A little while after our bellies starting rumbling again so we broke into the delicious coconut truffle we had picked up at Edge of the Woods.  Finally, success!  These are so intensely chocolate with a hint of coconut.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, unpacking, and putting together furniture.  We got a lot of it done before I had to leave to pick up my friend for dinner.  I said goodbye to my mom and we parted ways.  For me, it was off to Thai Taste in New Haven for delicious Thai food with my good friend, Chris.

We started our meal with crispy tofu and we each ordered hot basil vegetables and tofu for our meals.  Incredible!  The meal was so spicy- just how I like it!

Mmmm.  After a lovely dinner, we headed back to my place for dessert and a movie.  We decided on Monsters, Inc. and a pumpkin bar!  I had picked this pumpkin bar up from Edge of the Woods earlier, so we split it while watching the movie.

The bar was pretty good, but the company was even better.  It was a lovely way to spend my birthday.

All in all, my birthday was pretty good.  I spent the past hour in a funk, but I’m working on snapping out of it.  I won’t go into it, it’s complicated!  In efforts to make myself feel better, I snacked on some dates with peanut butter and macademia nuts.  It sure was good.  Now it’s time for bed.  Here’s for an even better tomorrow!

PS: No pumpkin pie martini

Gosh, today was so exhausting!!!!  We moved pretty much everything I own from my parent’s house to my new apartment in New Haven, which happens to be on the third floor.  Then we had to go to Ikea to get me a new big girl bed and ended up with quite a bit more.  Let me just say, my mom and I got it all up the stairs by ourselves and it was far less than fun.  Yikes.

I’m finally crashed on my little couch with my laptop.  I am just so worn out.  Anyway, let me back track a bit.

Erica came to visit for the weekend!  I am so glad that we got to hang out!  I always have a blast with her.  We were super hungry when she got here so we headed right down to The Stand in Norwalk, CT to grab a bite to eat.

We both got the backyard salad.  It’s so tasty!  The mixed greens are topped with cucumbers, apple, sprouts, beet, and cranberries.  I’ll definitely be recreating this!  I really hope I can get a spiralizer soon.

The apple on my salad was so delicious and had me craving another pretty badly, so I asked my buddy Amy, who works at The Stand, if I could buy just an apple.  It was juicy and crunchy, as expected.

After we ate, I dragged Erica along to another anti-circus demo going on in Bridgeport.  We met up with my friend Chris and stood in the super-wind for a couple hours.  There were a lot of us out there yesterday!  It was great.  I wore my Jedi halloween costume and held a sign that read “Jedis Against Animal Cruelty (and the dark side)”.  I won’t deny how big of a nerd I am!  To my surprise, more people were receptive to our message and we had more people asking questions rather than just yelling at us to get a life.  Success!

Erica and I decided to forget about the halloween party we had planned for later and decided to do way more fun things together!  We’re too cool for halloween.

When we woke up today, I tried to pack until the restaurant Erica and I wanted to go to opened up.  We got in my car and drove into West Haven to visit Catch A Healthy Habit Cafe for some raw-some treats (hehe).  To my surprise, I found out that this was the cafe’s last day in West Haven!  So bummed, since I live so close now.  They are just moving though, so no worries!

I ordered a caesar salad.  So delicious!  It’s pretty self-explanitory.  I want to eat this everyday!  After lunch, we enjoyed some macaroons.  The macaroons are the cafe are so moist and coconutty.  This is what my dreams are made of.  By the way, it took me a million trys and google searches to figure out how to spell caesar and I’m still not sure if it’s right.  What a funny word!

Shortly after lunch, I had to take Erica to the train station!  Such a bummer!  It’s always so sad saying goodbye to my best friend.  I don’t plan on it being too long before we see each other again, though.  Hooray!

After I dropped Erica off, things start to get stressful.  This was kind of a moving day from hell.  All is well now, I suppose, but I have so much to set up tomorrow, which happens to be MY BIRTHDAY! Yep, I’ll be 21 tomorrow.  Look at that.  Honestly, I’m not too excited.  I wish I was!  I always build up my birthday so much that when it comes and is like every other day, I get let down.  I’ll probably just set up furniture until my friend gets out of work and we can hang out.  We’ll see!  I don’t really ever drink, but I think I’d make an exception tomorrow if I can find a pumpkin pie martini.  I saw one on Tina’s blog (I think!) awhile ago and I’ve been dreaming of it ever since.  I think they will have milk in them though, so hopefully I can find a vegan one!

Sorry for being a downer!  I am going to get caught up on Gossip Girl.  Have a great night.

Three posts in one day!  I think it’s a new record for me.

My fabulous vegan dinner was too noteworthy not to post about.  I was craving a bunch of things, so I just threw them on a plate.  A pokemon plate, at that.  What we’ve got here is the rest of the baked acorn squash leftover from lunch, raw kale and chickpeas, a cracker with spicy hummus, and a pear!  The best part was definitely the hummus and cracker.  I received a package of Dr. Krackers of the 3 seed variety from the Whole Grains contest.  It’s the first time I’ve tried them and I was so impressed.  It’s one huge, hearty cracker!

While I was waiting for my squash to finish roasting, I decided to make those lunch-time pretzels into Chocolate Covered Pretzels! Nora left me a comment on flickr about them and I couldn’t get the idea of out my head.  Before I go on, I want to take this time to tell you all how FABULOUS Nora is!  Real fabulous!  Anyway, so,  I used the rest of the bag of chocolate chips from the scones and melted them, dipped the pretzels, and put them on a sheet lined with parchment.  I decided to kick them up a notch and I melted some PB&Co. White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter and drizzled it on top.  Oh my goodness.  Aaamazing!

They taste kind of like peanut butter cups.  Good thing I only had enough chocolate to make six of these guys.  I can EASILY eat a whole bag of them!

Gosh, so after all this fun in the kitchen, it was time to head back to Bridgeport for the second day of anti-circus demonstrations.  It seemed like there were a bunch more people out there for the animals, so that was great!  I can’t wait to get back out their again tomorrow!  I have a really awesome outfit and sign planned.

Talk to you then

Upon arising and reading Meghann’s post about scones, I knew I had to make them.  When I got into the kitchen I realized I didn’t have pumpkin, so I instead of making the ones I found on her blog, I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks, My Sweet Vegan.

Hannah has a recipe for Graham Fig Scones which caught my eye when I was looking for something to make.  I didn’t have graham flour or figs, but I just replaced the graham flour with whole wheat flour, and the figs with chocolate chips.  Oh, and instead of soy creamer I used a mixture of almond milk and a little apple cider vinegar, to create a buttermilk effect.  Besides that, I followed the recipe exactly.

The scones are very, very delicious.  Not being too sweet, these are perfect for breakfast or brunch.  I followed Hannah’s suggestion and served mine with a bit of Earth Balance margarine.  The light, fluffy scones are such a great treat!  I can only imagine how lovely the graham flour would taste in this recipe.  Next time I go to the store I am surely going to pick some up.

After lounging with Pokey and writing a few freelance articles, my stomach started rumbling and I was craving a veggie burger!  I pulled an Amy’s Bistro Burger from the depths of the freezer and ate that along with acorn squash fries.  Deeelicious.

For the acorn squash fries, all I did was cut the squash in fry-like form and baked them for a half hour or so at 400 degrees.

I still was a bit hungry after lunch so I pulled a few pretzels out of this bag I recieved from the Whole Grains Council.  A box full of bags and bags of pretzels arrived at my door a few days ago as a part of the prize from the photography contest I had entered.

I am very impressed by these!  The ingredient list is wholesome and short, and the pretzels are packed with flavor.  I’m so glad I’ve got four more bags of these.

Anyway, later today I’ll be back at the Arena in Bridgeport to speak out against the circus.  If you’d like to learn more, you should check out the article I wrote for the Examiner about it, or visit circuses.com.  I also touched upon it in the post below this one.  I hate to be redundant, but this issue is very important.

Have a great day!

I planned on taking a whole day of food photos yesterday, but of course, I forgot to take a photo of my oatmeal   It wasn’t that exciting anyway, just cinnamon oatmeal with a big scoop of White Chocolate Wonderful.

I spent much of the morning making a poster to bring to the circus demonstration that was at night.  I finally broke for lunch and had this fabulous kale, pickle, and hummus wrap with an apple and rice and beans on the side.  YUM.  It was amazing.  I loaded up on more rice and beans because I was not sure when I’d be able to grab dinner.  Anyway, yeah.. pickles make anything taste good.  I love them!  I even used to have a screen name that was ILovePickles8.  Ha!

I’m a bad daily food blogger!  I forgot to take a photo until I was done eating this apple.  I was rushing around all day and thankfully I had bought this apple and a clif bar, because I would not have had time to eat!  After running errands in downtown New Haven for quite some time, I rushed over to pick up my friend and head over to Bridgeport.  On my way there, I noshed on this carrot cake clif bar.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a clif bar, and it was pretty darn good!  I kind of got burnt out on them earlier in the year, but it was a tasty, quick bite.

Mmmm.  Anyway, so I picked up my friend and we headed down to Bridgeport for an Anti-Circus Demonstration.  When we got there, we walked down to scope out the area and saw some signs.  We assumed these were the peope we were meeting and headed towards them.. their signs started coming into focus..

What?  This is not true!  These are not the droids we’re looking for (hehe).  Anyway, we found out Anti-Circus friends and started setting up.  We walked back to the car to get my buddy dressed in the elephant costume.

The demonstration went well, I think.  We got our message across and everything stayed peaceful.  It was quite comical with the mix of Ringling employees and their signs, and us.  I was so glad to see so many animal rights activists coming out!  We’ll be back every single performance until Ringling leaves.  I am so glad that I can give a voice to the animals in the circus that have none.

Since it’s relevant at the moment, I’ll post a letter that I wrote to the Connecticut Post about Ringling cruelty.

“While it may seem “cool” to see elephants walk down the street, I know for sure that it is far from “cool” for the elephants and other animals involved.  Before those animals are paraded down the street, they spend anywhere from, on average, 26 to 100 hours at a time in crowded boxcars to travel to each location.  If the horrid traveling conditions aren’t enough, the animals are forced to perform night after night.  A 2009 PETA investigation of Ringling videotaped many circus employees abusing the animals with bull hooks, and other terrible instruments, until they screamed in pain.  The video footage also shows Tonka, a circus elephant, who clearly suffers from extreme psychological distress, from the inhumane and cruel treatment from Ringling trainers.

Ringling has also been cited numerous times by the USDA for not meeting the minimum standard of animal care of the Animal Welfare Act.  The USDA currently has at least 6 investigations of Ringling for animal abuse.

It outrages me that Bridgeport would support such cruelty.  If you choose to attend the circus, you are supporting an extremely cruel institution.  Without our support, Ringling will not be able to continue abusing animals.  The animals involved in the circus do not deserve such treatment and belong in a sanctuary where they are safe and are able to live out their lives happily and without pain, just as you and I deserve.  There are plenty of other circuses that do not use animals for entertainment that we can and should support, rather than Ringling.

Please, do not support the circus this upcoming week!  We need to get the message across to Ringling that we will not support animal abuse!

For more information on Ringling cruelty and to see the video for yourself, visit circuses.com.”

Gosh, so, after the demo we drove back to New Haven so we could catch a show at Toad’s Place!  We were there to see The Get Up Kids and Kevin Devine! We even got to see Ralph Nader speaking in a bookstore next door.  Pretty cool!  The show was great.  Both bands were awesome.  I especially love Kevin Devine, I think I’ve seen him every time he’s come to Connecticut!

After the show I was exhausted and tried to write this entry, but fell asleep!  I’ve got an incredibly busy couple of days coming up and I am so excited for it!

Check out my article about the anti- circus demonstration on Examiner.com!