Healthy PB Coofins with Hints of Banana and Cinnamon.

I couldn't think of a shorter name to call these cookies/muffins that'd describe them enough. They aren't quite a peanut butter cookie and have more of the texture of a muffin. So therefore here became the Healthy Peanut Butter Coofins with Hints of Banana and Cinnamon.

I started out looking for a great recipe for cookies. Little did I know my results would give me a nice moist coofin. The great thing about coofins if they pair well with jam. You could even, if you'd like make your own PB &J coofin sandwich using this coofin as the bread. Sound delicious, right? Onto the rest of this story....

I wanted to find a recipe for cookies that are healthier then your regular sugary ones. So I found these peanut butter cookies from  Heidi at 101 Cookbooks. Those looked nice I thought. I didn't want to use oil this time though. I was about to use applesauce in replace, but my apple sauce in my fridge was slightly moldy(yuck). That idea went out the window. I had one ripe banana on the counter staring me down not to waste it. So the banana was mashed and used. Once I used that everything else in the recipe changed slightly or you could say more then slightly so much that they aren't even really a cookie or even remotely close to the recipe I found besides the peanut butter and maple syrup pretty much.

I'll admit I can't follow someones recipe for the life of me. My Dad keeps saying "when baking, things need to be exact or it won't turn out right". In my defense I say "I'm learning from my fails". Which is absolutely true. I am becoming a better baker and learning what things work and don't in baking. Lately I've become rather good at baking and coming up with more of my own recipes. Which is a lot of fun, it's nice to share something and to be able to call it your own.

Now finally my Healthy Peanut Butter with Hint of Banana and Cinnamon Coofins. I hope you make up a batch soon and try not to eat them all at once. Don't forget to share too!

Healthy PB with Hints of Banana and Cinnamon Cookies

yielded about 19 cookies for me

1 3/4 cup spelt flour (you could easily use whole wheat pastry flour or maybe others)

1/4 cup golden flax meal, regular flax meal works fine too

1 cup peanut butter, I used crunchy

1 very ripe banana, mashed 

1 cup 100% pure maple syrup(Can be subbed with agave)

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 tsp salt (I used less since I'm a little more sensitive to salt)

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F

Combine the wet ingredients; mashed bananas, maple syrup, peanut butter, and vanilla into a bowl and mix tell some what combined. In another bowl add the dry ingredients; flour, flax meal, salt, and baking soda in to another bowl mixing thoroughly. Slowly combine the dry ingredients to the wet. This will form a super sticky dough(I highly suggest putting it in the fridge for a while before working with. I didn't put it in the fridge and it took me a while to form them on the sheet.). Drop the cookies onto a oiled baking sheet or a parchment covered baking sheet. 

Cook for 8-12 minutes depending on your ovens or the size you made the cookies. Keep and eye on them so they don't burn! Because who would want burnt cookies? Certainly not me!

P.S. These cookies make a great before or after a work-out snack! Or even a snack in general when you don't want anything overly sugary, but want that subtle sweetness. 

Seabirds Food Truck.

        I am such a bad blogger, I know.....that's another topic though for some other time. Over the weekend if you didn't hear about it in Salt Lake City we were lucky to have some food trucks storm in. They we're all on the Food Network's reality show The Great Food Truck Race(or at least that's what I think it's called) for it's second season. What ever truck sold the least was booted off. I wasn't in town on Saturday to get something from the trucks, but I was happy to find out they stayed Sunday. I got home and had just enough time to figure where some of the trucks may be. They all had a challenge (I think) called a bump challenge so all the food trucks would be switching locations a lot. It made it harder to find all of the trucks that's for sure. The trucks competing that I knew of are; Rocky's a gourmet grilled cheese truck, Korilla a Korean barbeque truck, The Lime a light california cuisine truck, Seabirds a all vegan truck, Cafe Con Leche i'm not sure what they serve, and Devilicious which serves crazy unhealthy food, I'd call it. 

So I'm sure you can pick what one I went to.....Seabirds! I wanted to go to the Lime truck, but didn't have enough time, wasn't hungry, and my dad didn't want to chase another truck for me. 

Picture stolen from YelpUtah's twitter.

Seabirds is from Orange County, California. They're organic, and can have gluten free and raw options.
Here's a quote from the owner herself.

“This truck came to life with a dream and a desire: A dream for vegan street food, and a desire to provide healthy, local food that’s convenient and fairly priced. Orange County is a great place to live, but it was lacking quality choices for those wishing to consume a healthier, plant-based diet. I started Seabirds because I wanted to make a difference not only in the lives of the people of Orange County, but in the world we love and live in.” ~Stephanie Morgan, Owner

When I got to the truck they were at Pet Smart and there was definitely a few slew of people around it. Kelly from Cake walk even showed up! One of the owners of the truck was out playing a uke(somewhat), she was very sweet. I wish I wasn't so shy I would've talked to her  more.

            On there menu they had a pesto flat bread that has balsamic mushrooms, chipotle sour cream, and a few other veggies. I opted out of that one since I don't like mushrooms. There was cinnamon sugar toast that my dad got since it was the only thing he could have, it was at $5 bucks. "Most expensive piece of toast I've ever bought" my dad said. I exclaimed to him that it was worth it though.

Lastly they had a Brown Fried Rice with veggies and tofu, I remember mine has bell pepper, cilantro,a lime wedge, onions and mushrooms(I had to pick around these). There was suppose to be snap peas, but I didn't have get any. I don't know if they didn't have any or just forgot. This was $10. Either way it was still delicious! I even have a few leftovers for lunch today, not much because I inhaled this and two pieces of toast. I think my metabolism is getting higher. 

The food was tasty and I sure hope Seabirds makes it far into the competition. I wish I had a chance to have tried The Lime truck, but I'm just happy I got to support Seabirds. 

I highly suggest to follow Seabirds on twitter.

Here's their website for more information.

Really VegNews?

    I'm sure you've all heard about it by now about VegNews not posting vegan photos. The article is on quarry girl here:http://www.quarrygirl.com/2011/04/13/rant-veg-news-is-putting-the-meat-into-vegan-issues/.

Here's my view on it. First of all a lot of us buy the magazine supporting a complete vegan magazine. Knowing that they are going the cheap way out and not using a vegan photographer or even photos of vegan food is complete bull. Second of all I like to look at photos with recipes to see how they are suppose to turn out. If it's suppose to be a veggie burger I don't think it'll come near as close to looking like actual meat. Thirdly, maybe I wouldn't be so mad about it if they weren't acting the way they are. It's absolutely child-like to ignore what your doing when people have called you out. Overall I think i'm going to un-subscribe. I'll wait a few days though maybe they'll man-up and apologize or say anything about what's been happening. I can't believe no one has caught their act sooner. 

On a lighter note Walmart is going to sell flax milk. Read more over at vegansaurus! I never knew that there was such thing as flax milk. I was actually just wondering the other day if you could even make flax milk. Well apparently you can.

Also look forward to a Sweet Potato Cupcake or Muffin with Pb frosting recipe coming soon. Here's a sneak photo. 

Have you ever had flax milk? Did you like it?

What's your opinion on the whole VegNews issue?


Update: VegNews has an written an apology. Read it here:http://vegnews.com/web/uploads/asset/3169/file/FromVegNews.pdf
I guess it's a little more understandable how magazines do have to have stock photos. I just hope that this whole controversy will make them looking into getting more vegan food photographs. I still don't think I'll get rid of my subscription just yet.

Hello Computer, Hello Blog It's Been Awhile.

   I swear my computer doesn't like me. I have had more problems with this computer then I can even count. All the money that has been spent could've gotten me a new computer by now. So anywho for the past week or more I lost the thing to charge my computer. I've looked everywhere and seriously can't find it. I had to go out and buy a new charger! One word can describe how I feel now about this UGH!

Between the time of the not having the computer I've tried a few new things, I went to the grand opening of a new whole foods(It's huuuuuuge!), went to the inside farmers market, went to the mexican grocery store(I found sweet potato flour and purple corn flour...now what to do with it?) went to Omar's Rawtopia(my first actual raw meal it was delicious and expensive, but it was nice to treat myself!), painted my bathroom blue, and made a somewhat life changing decision! All of this I had taken no pictures of. How sad.

Since there's no pictures this blog post is kind of boring, but on a exciting note I've decided to go vegan for a whole year! I'm not going to be starting on this right exactly now, but in the next couple of weeks I will on my way to a adventurous vegan journey. I figure I have a small block of Queso Blanco cheese in the fridge and I don't want to waste it so once that's gone I'm done with any cheese. I will still be having some honey every now and then, but I will limit my amounts. This step doesn't seem overly dramatic to me since I already eat mostly vegan, but it's still exciting to take on the full time vegan.

Hopefully I'll be back blogging soon about more food and i'll tell you about how the vegan thing goes with the family. I told my dad I was thinking about it and he wasn't happy at first, but then he calmed down. So we'll see what the future may hold. 

Have a nice day! and sorry for the boring-ish blog post!

Carob Balls? More Like PB Balls.

    My dad and I are in LOVE with carob after trying some type of carob square or bite. We first saw them at a health foods store in Cedar City months ago. I admit I didn't try the ones from Cedar City, but my dad said they were good. My dad tried to make them last as long as possible, but at last nothing last forever. Lucky us when we stumbled into Cali's Natural Foods for our first time we saw that they had carob bites! These had a few different ingredients then the others, but they are full of nut and very light and crunchy.

For those of you that don't know what carob is it a lot like chocolate. Unlike chocolate though it has a naturally sweet taste to it and is completely safe for dogs. It's even said that in Ancient Egypt it was a common sweetener and used in hieroglyphs for "sweet".

Carob has some amazing heath benefits to it as well. 

• It's great for digestion.
• It's great for infants or adults who have diarrhea 
• It has no caffeine for the people that are worried about lowering their caffeine intake.
• It's said to help lung cancer if eaten on a regular basis.
• It lowers the cholesterol level in blood.
• Carob contains vitamin E which helps cure flu, cough, anemia, and osteoclasis.
• Plus probably more that I don't know about.

Carob is a great alternative to people that can't eat chocolate like my dad for instance. Even if you can have chocolate I recommend carob because of all it's health benefits alone! Warning though it may take you a few bites to get used to it, but after three bites of it I was hooked!

Since the getting buying carob bites can get so pricey my dad told me I should make some. I told him I couldn't make them into squares, but in the form of balls would easily be do able. So off I went searching for a recipe that sounded something like the carob bites we've been eating. I found nothing that sounded like them, but I did get a few ideas. There I was grabbing a jar of peanut butter(since I didn't have any almond butter(that I wanted to use at least), oats, pumpkin seeds, raisins, and some raw honey(you could easily use agave, brown rice syrup or even maple syrup). I threw them all in the food processor and formed some balls(I have the hardest time not laughing while saying that). They turned out good, but more like a peanut butter cookie with a after taste of carob. In fact.......I just went and got one to eat right now. mmmmmmm(:

Peanut Butter Balls with Hint of Carob

made about 22 1in. balls

2/3 Cups pumpkin seeds or pepitas

1/4 Cup oats

2/3 Cups peanut butter

2 Tbsp liquid sweetener of choice(like raw honey, 100% maple syrup, etc.)

2 Tbsp + 1 tsp carob powder

1/2 Cup raisins*

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until combined.

Then form them into balls or shape them into a mold and put in fridge for at least half an hour so they set.

* for the raisins pack them down in a cup if they're loosely packed then measure about 2/3 cup. I recommend putting the raisins first in the food processor unless you want chunks of raisins.

Up Close Shot

I think this recipe needs a bit tweaking(swap with almond butter and more carob or carob chips?), but for my first try they weren't terrible. I can't wait to have fun experimenting with these though. I'll definitely be venturing of from different flavors besides carob and peanut butter too.

Diva's Cupcake & Coffee

    

     The other day I had the pleasure of going out to lunch with my dad. I wanted to try some place new to eat. So he suggested we go to a place called Diva's that I've said I have wanted to try. Diva's wasn't far from his work so to Diva's we went. 

Diva's is a popular place most popular for their cupcakes(or so they say). There's a vegan and a gluten free(not vegan though) cupcake daily which I think Diva's gets a bonus for. They also have soups, sandwiches, coffee and other sweet pastries. Diva's has been open since fall of 2008 by Gordon Wilkins.

   I didn't take pictures of my lunch, but I got the Veggie Hummus Wrap without the avocado and a side salad. The salad has a nice dressing which i'm guessing was balsamic and little olive oil. My wrap was loaded with veggies such as carrots, mixed greens, beets, cucumbers, plus more and gouda cheese. It came with a balsamic dipping sauce too! I loved my lunch and would order this again. Lucky me I still had the other half left to eat for lunch the next day. My dad ordered a side of chips and Ham & Brie Panini on White that included avocado, cucumbers, spinach & homemade apple butter. He figured this would hurt his bladder less(side note: I will most likely do a post soon so you can understand his bladder disease better). He said he liked it and that having warm cucumbers was a weird touch. He did complain about that the chips were to salty though. I will definitely go back to Diva's for the food.

   

   I've heard mostly bad reviews about the cupcakes at Diva's. I've heard my cousin complain that the cupcakes frosting have no taste. I've heard reviews at Urban Spoon saying they are dry. My dad got the vanilla bean cupcake(I didn't get a picture). I stuck my finger in the frosting to taste it and it tasted like pure sugar! Blech. The frosting does have this interesting smooth silky soft texture. I did try a bite with the cake and the frosting together. Somehow the cake made the frosting taste plain and not so sweet. It still wasn't any good though. 

I don't know why, but I still got the vegan cupcake of the day which happened to be chocolate coconut topped with toasted coconut to go. It came in a perfect cupcake to go with a nice dome top. Well I was hoping it would be different and better. Sadly it wasn't. Starting off with the frosting it was overly sweet I had to scrape most of it off besides a thin layer. Before scraping off the frosting I got chunks of coconut oil(i'm guessing) in it. Two words NOT PLEASANT! Now want to hear about the cake? I liked it first bite, it was nice and moist and had a lovely deep chocolate flavor...then it crumbled apart. Let's say i'm glad I didn't eat this there because I made a mess. 

I hope no one gets their first vegan cupcake their because they might get the idea that vegan cupcakes suck which is not true.

I do not recommend getting the cupcakes at Diva's at all either vegan or non-vegan. I wish they could be better because they decorate them perfectly and so cute. Don't let the cupcakes stop you from going to Diva's though because the food really is nice, but just look at the cupcake case and admire their decorations just not their taste.

Diva's Cupcakes & Coffee

1560 E 3300 S

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Baked Flax Meal Sweet Potato Fries

      I know during sometime of mofo I mentioned how much I love sweet potato. I literally eat Sweet Potatoes 5 out of 7 days a week. It's kind of crazy how I never get sick of them. I usually eat them in the form of baked sweet potato fries because that's usually healthy, easiest and fastest. I've seen some recipes for baked "fries" of people coating them in nut butters or potato starch. So I got the idea to coat them in flax meal. You'd get that nice nutty-ness and also a crunch.

(I have terrible lighting in my kitchen at night so the pictures more orange then it should be. Also forgot to take a picture after the fries were baked I'll add one later most likely)

Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Flax Meal

 1 large sweet potato

1/4 cup flax meal

coconut oil(other oils will do I just prefer coconut), enough to coat pan and fries

Preheat oven to 415 degrees. 

Cut your sweet potato into fry like shapes. Then throw the sweet potato in a bowl and coat with oil. Pour your flax meal onto the fries making sure they are coated evenly. Oil your pan then toss the fries onto the pan.

Bake for 10-15 minutes on one side. Then flip the fries and bake for 8-12 minutes on the other or until they're done.

I love the flax meal on these fries I think it brings out a sweetness and gives a nice crunch. I like to either eat these plain or with some mustard. If your a sweet potato and ketchup person then go ahead and just don't look at me giving you a odd look because ketchup is just weird on sweet potato(in my opinion). 

Now go enjoy some healthy baked sweet potato fries!

A Vegan Cheesecake Review!

       The second to last time I went to Whole Foods I was going to get some of my favorite bread when I walked past the little dessert case. I was quite shocked to find this from Candle Cafe!

        Sometimes I'll look at that little case just to see what they have. I'm not normally a huge sweets person. Recently I have been though...which I need to stop. Any who I figured I haven't had any cheesecake in a while and certainly not a vegan cheesecake so I put this baby in the basket. They also had a chocolate mouse tart which looked yummy, but my dad can't have chocolate and I didn't want to eat the whole thing so we stuck with the vanilla cheesecake.

      I've heard of Candle Cafe before and would love to go if I find myself in New York. For those of you that don't know about Candle Cafe it's an all vegan cafe in New York, New York. Candle Cafe has been serving Vegan food since 1994. They also strive to use the freshest and organic produce when possible. Candle Cafe was so popular that the owners opened Candle 79 a few block away from Candle Cafe. If you've been to Candle Cafe or Candle 79 and liked the food you can make it at home with the Candle Cafe Cookbook. Even if you haven't been to either restaurants you can still get the cookbook to cook some yummy vegan food. 

(close up of the vanilla cheesecake, can you see those vanilla bean specks? yum!)

     Now onto the review. This was good. I wouldn't call it world changing good, but good. You can easily taste the vanilla. It wasn't overpoweringly sweet which I loved. The only thing I didn't like about this was the texture. It was really light and fluffy. I like my cheesecake more dense. My dad didn't say what he thought about it besides that it was good. I'd give this a 2 and 1/2 stars out of 4 though.

     If you ever happen to come across this I would say buy it if you like a more lighter cheesecake or vanilla dessert. That is if the price is good because I can't remember how much I(I should say my dad) bought for it.

Maybe next time i'll try the chocolate mouse tart if they still have it. Chocolate is more my thing anyways.

Have you tried Candle Cafe or Candle 79 if so what'd you get and did you like it? Do you have the cookbook or is it on your wishlist?

I know the cookbook is on my wishlist, but what vegan cookbook isn't?

Este Pizzeria

   As I said last post I would be going to Este Pizzeria to celebrate Vegan Pizza Day. I didn't know what exactly to expect from Este since I've never been and haven't heard many reviews from it. All I knew exactly is I lived close by one of the locations and they offered vegan pizza's. As I walked in this place I love it the atmosphere is so modern and just screams fun!

   My dad and I ordered the White Vegan Pizza. The description for it was a pizza with olive oil, vegan cheese(they use diaya), garlic, oregano, tomatoes, and red onions plus we added spinach. We first ordered it to stay, but after having to wait for so long I decided to ask for it to go. That and with the music in the background and other people talking I couldn't understand what my dad was talking to me about.

    The pizza smelled delicious! I was a little hesitant to try it since I hadn't had the mozzarella version of diaya. My dad didn't seem to mind the fake cheese. I was rather shocked by this, but my dad isn't really picky. Although his second slice he put on some actual cheese. As for me I wasn't a fan of it. The taste was fine, but it had this silky texture that I didn't like. By the end of the pizza I couldn't take it and had to take it off.

The crust of the pizza is good it's thin, but it isn't that crispy thin that I really like. It had a nice fluffy texture to it though. 

The topping of the pizza I think there needed to be more, I didn't taste any garlic and had only one bite of the red onions.

Even though I didn't really like the pizza I still want to go back to Este and try one of their vegetarian pizzas and garlic knots. I still think i'll be going to Whole Foods for my pizzas. If your vegan and in Salt Lake that likes daiya I think you should come here. I can't speak for their vegetarian pizzas yet so you'll have to decide for yourself on that decision. Este also delivers as well, but I believe it's only the downtown location.

Este Pizzeria

2021 Windsor St.

801-485-3699

and

156 East 200 South

801-363-2366

(winter hours to April)

Mon-Thur

11:30am-9pm

Fri-Sat

11:30am-10pm

Sun

4 pm- 9pm

(Summer hours)

Mon-Thur

11:30 pm - 10 pm

Fri-Sat

11:30 am- Midnight

Sun

4pm-9pm

Happy Vegan Pizza Day!

HAPPY VEGAN PIZZA DAY EVERYONE! Sorry was that a little to loud for you?

I hope everyone is celebrating this fantastic day. 

Now I didn't used to like pizza at all. I always felt like an outsider when we had pizza parties at school and everyone was excited about them except me. I didn't like pizza because of the tomato sauce I was not a cooked tomato type of girl. Oddly enough now my taste have changed and I am growing to like tomato sauces sometimes even crave it. I still prefer to have a pizza with a hummus or pesto based sauce though and loaded with veggies and very little cheese if any at all. I guess you could say i'm more of a non-traditional pizza lover.

So for vegan pizza day my dad and I will be going to Este Pizzeria. I'll blog about it tomorrow most likely. So now go enjoy some pizza I know I will because I've been craving some!

Homemade Coconut Butter!

      I've never tried coconut butter before and I do love dried coconut. So I wanted to give it a try, but when I went to the store to find out the jar cost around 10 bucks I just had to say no(for now) and wait for another time to buy it. Lucky me though I was looking at the blog Heather Eats Almond Butter or HEAB for short. I saw that she made some homemade coconut butter and since I had dried coconut flakes that have been sitting in the cupboard for to long. I thought I should make them into coconut butter since I hadn't used them in anything else.

  Making coconut butter is a lot easier then I thought it would be. All you do is keep blending it up in a food processor until it gets silky almost.

(after blending a while)

(getting there)

(blending a little more)

(looks good to me)

Well it did look good and smooth, but when I transfered it into a jar it was still a bit chunky. I think I could have blended it more. Texture wise I kind of like it though. It wasn't that sweet or to coconutty for me. I think maybe the coconut I used was to old. I'm not sure I think I need to test out the store bought kind first. 

I did add some raw honey(I know honey isn't vegan, but I love it so I use it here and there) to make it more sweet. I think that helped a little but, but it did seem to make it more chunkier. It did solidify after a while like it should which is a good thing though! 

In conclusion i'm going to buy the store stuff eventually and see if it taste at all the same to what I made.

Single Dad Cookie

   Over at Chocolate Covered Katie's blog she makes all sorts of yummy single serving things like cookies and cupcakes! She calls them single lady cupcakes/cookies.

    Well i've been dying to make one and since my dad loves cookies so much I decided to surprise him when he got home from work...well I called him to tell him about them because I was to excited. So it wasn't as much of a surprise. 

The cookie turned out great! so here you go a single lady cookie turned into a single dad cookie. :)

Single Dad Cookie

inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie's Single Lady Cookie

serves: one of course or two if you want to share.

4 tsp spelt flour(any flour will do, i'm sure)

1/16th tsp baking soda

1/16th tsp salt

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp vanilla almond milk(I used unsweetened)

handful of dried blueberries

handful of chopped almonds

2 tsp 100% pure maple syrup or maybe maple sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry then add in wet ingredients or the other way around however you want. Then mix well with a fork. Pour the batter onto a oiled, buttered, or parchment papered baking sheet. Cook for about 8 minutes or until done.

(look at how the dried blueberries are exactly like each on one end and one perfectly in the middle)

   This cookie was sweet, but not overly sweet which is my favorite thing if I make a cookie. I was glad because I wasn't to sure about how much maple syrup to do and was afraid it would either be not sweet enough or to sweet.

In fact this cookie was so good I doubled the recipe and made another larger one for dessert after dinner. That time I added 2 tsp flax meal for a nice nuttier taste and I only did 3 tsp olive oil. It turned out great great as well. I have even been asked to make this cookie again, but make a whole batch of them goes to show how good they are...or maybe how much my dad likes sweet things...or both.

The Complete Book of 400 Soups.

    My aunt gave my dad and I a soup cookbook called The Complete Book of 400 Soups(pictured below). None of the soups are vegan, but a lot of them are vegetarian. They are easily veganized though. Even without vegan soups I still would recommend this book, because of all the great ideas for soups it has. Well onto my boring story of what soup I made.

   My dad wanted to make a recipe from one of the cookbooks we have. I wanted to do something easy and not to hard so I grabbed the soup book since I hadn't made anything from it yet. I bookmarked a few recipes that seemed yummy, easy, not to many ingredients, and some what fast. I wanted to make red pepper sweet potato soup if I remember right, but I didn't write down the ingredients for it and went straight to the grocery store. Well when I arrived there I forgot exactly what I needed for the soup I wanted to make. My dad remembered a broccoli almond soup that he wanted. We had most of the ingredients for it besides the broccoli and almond milk to replace the cream. When we got home I double looked at the recipe and changed a few things of it like using olive oil instead of butter. I then made the changes, measured ingredients  and then put my dad to work making it because I had other stuff to do. He toasted almonds did whatever else the recipe called for.

Well the soup was taste great even though my picture isn't! I could easily make this again, but I should probably slurp up the rest that I threw in the freezer first! 

Do you ever freeze soups and then reheat it? Does it still taste as good as when you first made it?

Purple Cabbage and Apple Gingery Sautee! What a Mouth Full!

      My dad and I one weekend were being sluggish and sat on the couch watching the food network. We came across the show Ten Dollar Dinner. I really wasn't interested in watching it, but when the host Melissa d'Arabian mentioned a sauteed cabbage dish with apples, my dad wanted to watch. So I put down the remote about to change the channel and let him watch as I sat there waiting for it to be over. Well after watching it the dish did look pretty good not to mention easy! So I went and made my own version.

        

My version swapped everything the recipe called for except the cabbage. So if you want the recipe I got the idea from it's here, but here's my recipe. I didn't write down all the measurements, but it should be fine if it's not exact just use your own taste.

Purple Cabbage and Apple Gingery Sautee

Ingredients

1/2 head of purple cabbage or one small cabbage

1/2 to 3/4 one large honey crisp

Enough olive oil to cover most of the pan(or earth balance)

Fresh Ginger(or powdered ginger) I can't remember how much I used so just do this to your taste

Pinch of salt

splash of apple cider vinegar, optional(I didn't use this since my dad can't have vinegar)

enough Pear Juice to deglaze the pan(the recipe called for red wine)

Core and slice the apple into wedges, but not to thin. 

Cut the cabbage into strips.

Heat a large sautee pan. After it's been heated add the olive oil. Make sure the heats at medium heat then add the cabbage, ginger, apple, and salt. Let sit until the cabbage wilts around 20 minutes. Stir the cabbage and apples every now and then. When ready deglaze the pan with pear juice or red wine and the splash of  apple cider vinegar. Now serve!

I know the pictures I took probably don't do it justice(I have bad lighting in my kitchen at night), but it was still good. I really liked the warmth of the apples, and the subtle kick of ginger. I would make this again next time i'll  write down the exact amounts I used though.

Cakewalk Vegan Bakery and Grocery.

Now if you aren't familiar with Cakewalk Vegan Baker and Grocery in Salt Lake City, Utah. I'll give you a little information about it. Cakewalk is the first all vegan bakery in Utah. They have two locations one in Woodcross and one in Salt Lake. The owner of the bakery Kelly Collobella started Cakewalk in hopes of paying the vet bills for German Shepard. Cakewalk is also where the dillos a vegan twinkie began(I have yet to try one of these yet, shame on me!). If you want you can get them at Vegan Essentials, Food Fight Grocery, and Sidecar for Pigs Peace. To read more about Cakewalk/Kelly Collobella here's a few articles on it here and here. Plus two blog post from Utah Eats Cupcakes and Vegan Salt.

I've been to cake walk a few times before, but that was before I started this blog or forgot my camera. Well anyways over the time of me not blogging and all the holiday crazy-ness my dad and I was able to go to cakewalk three time...I think, but I only took picture of my eats twice. I love love love love love love love cakewalk(is that enough loves?)! I like it's; green walls, I like it's shelves filled with vegan dog food, vegan candy bars, vegan rice milk chocolate bars, and other vegan treats, It's some what little fridge full of vegan cheeses, it's always yummy treats in the display case, the nice people that work there and that are patient when I don't know what to order, it's soft serve ice cream, and most of all it's coffee! Yes I said I like the coffee most of all. It is literally the best coffee I have ever had! Okay enough of my non-stop love for this place you just want to see what I got huh? 

This is a plain vanilla and a carrot cake. I got the carrot cake while my dad got the vanilla. Since my dad has the bladder disease that I am from now on going to call the ICC disease he can't have any chocolate or soy for that matter, but the soy in these cupcakes haven't bothered him yet...I don't think. Okay i'm getting off track here. The vanilla cupcake is a nice cupcake where the frosting is sweet, but not overly sweet. My dad says and I quote "this is the best cupcake I have ever had". This makes me feel great since he goes and tells everyone about this is the word cupcake is even brought up. I bet he'd never think that a vegan cupcake would be the best he'd ever had. :) yay!

The carrot cake has raisins, walnuts, and well carrots of course topped with creme cheese frosting! If you like carrot cake with a bunch of add ins I would get this. I personally didn't like it because I like my carrot cake simple, but don't get me wrong it was not terrible!

This is my favorite of all things I have ever tried. I am not over exaggerating when I say I would have not died happy without trying this(okay i'm exaggerating a little). This here is the nog soft serve, they had this for the holidays. It is the perfect blend of spices and taste exactly like egg nog. My dad even liked this(I barely got enough strength to give him a bite). Even though it was cold as hell outside i'm glad I got to try it. If they have this next year then I'll ask for it by the buckets.

Another holiday treat gingerbread cookie! yummy yummy! Sorry I ate almost half of the cookie before I took the picture I just could not wait! This cookie is fantastic if you like gingerbread. I think it could have had more ginger, but then again I was on a super gingery kick at the time of trying this. If you are ever able to get this cookie It's recommended dipping it into the nog soft serve and eating it. Mmmmmm just thinking about this makes me want the holidays to come back!

The last treat I have to share with you is the candy cane cupcake. My dad got this so he got a vanilla based cupcake, but it was also available in chocolate. I was lucky enough to get a two small bites of this cupcake. The cake part is exactly like the vanilla light and fluffy. The frosting had a nice not overly powering taste of peppermint. I wish I had gone back one more time to get this cupcake.

If you ever find yourself stumbling into Utah you must go to cakewalk and get yourself some treats. Oh and coffee!

Cakewalk Bakery and Grocery

Salt Lake Store
434 S 900 E Salt Lake City, UT 84102
(Located next to Raincheck Payday Loans in front of Office Max)
Phone#
Hours:Tues-Fri: 12PM-8PM, Sat: 11AM-9PM
info@cakewalkbakingcompany.com

Woods Cross Store
566 W 1350 S Woods Cross, UT 84010
Phone: 801-860-5473
Hours: Friday and Saturday 2-8 p.m. , Sunday 2-5 p.m.
Web site: http://cakewalkbakingcompany.com/

Twitter:  @cakewalkvegan

Sorry for my Absence

    Wow! Can you believe it, it's now 2011! Here's to hoping it will be a great year!

Sorry for my absence I can explain. First my computer decided it didn't want to work for me so I had to go get it fixed. That took about a week to finally get it back. So that makes up for a big part of me not blogging. Then at the end of mofo I really didn't have any food experiences worth blogging about. I could probably go on with other reasons why I haven't been blogging. I thought I should update at least and tell you in a short paragraph about what's been happening. I hope soon that I will be able to start blogging, because I have some wonderful things to tell about. Like maybe a certain wonderful vegan bakery/small grocery called Cakewalk and whatever other pictures of food I made and maybe a recipe or two(I can't remember).

My computer still is a little weird though and I have to download stuff back onto it and whenever I try to upload the pictures on from my camera it won't let me(Grrrrrrrr!). I plan on trying to fix this soon....so I should be back to blogging soon(maybe? hopefully? should be?).

Well that's about it I hope everyone has had a great holiday and a happy new year!