The luck of the wanna-be Irish!

Hey, guys! I'm back after my unplanned birthday week vacation. What with Bean and I celebrating, I decided to go ahead and take a blogging hiatus. But now I'm back, with a mess load of pictures to show, too.

First and foremost - my birthday cake!

I decided on a German chocolate number, which I made courtesy of Susan at Fat Free Vegan. If you haven't tried her beet chocolate cake, go for it. You'd never know the little red devils lurked beneath that fudgy surface, I swear. The frosting wasn't half bad, either, though next time I think I'll go with the old-fashioned condensed milk version; I kind of missed the creaminess.

Bean's birthday arrived a few days later, and with it came more desserts (hence the mini cakes on my big day). She had a full-sized banana cake with cream cheese frosting, made to Kittee's specifications at Cake Maker to the Stars. This was some seriously good cake. I made the mistake of licking the spatula after I poured it into the pan, and then proceeded to scrape the bowl clean. I'm a glutton, I know, but the cake batter was just too good to waste. I kept thinking that it would make a killer mousse or ice cream. I'll have to get on that.

(The red stuff in the middle is seedless raspberry jam. And the decorations were jelly beans - in honor of the Bean herself, and in remembrance of when Bean and I still traveled in tandem; jelly beans were my number one craving then. There was no gelatin in these beans, but they were covered in beeswax - so not a vegan friendly decoration, I'm afraid).

I also got a few food-related birthday presents, one of which I tried on Bean's birthday. Behold, the French boule from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day," by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. This book is amazing; it's full of no-knead bread recipes that require mixing, refrigeration, and a breif rise before they bake into crusty, soft-crumbed perfection. Red, my mom, Bean and I pretty much cleaned up that loaf in a single sitting. Yum.

Then, of course, there's my final installment of my pantry-clean out and skinflint series. I started to use these ingredients last week, but partying and convenience took over and now I'm extending the challenge to cover this week as well. I have some whole wheat lasagne noodles, a can of chickpeas, some pearled barley, and about a half pound of brazil nuts.

The chickpeas met a sad fate when they collided with my kitchen floor a few nights ago (this was after I'd made them into some of Vegan Dad's cajun chickpea cakes - a heartbreaking moment, since I really wanted to try those puppies). I also made a half cup of the Brazil nuts disappear into a frankly bland korma.

The barley, though, was the star of my week. It went into a flavorful pilaf, thanks to the fine folks at VegWeb. I'd never had barley in anything but soup or cereal, and I must say that I'm enchanted - though Red's review was "It's okay, but I can't get past the fact that I'm eating horse food." I'm now wickedly considering sewing him a feedbag so that I can serve my next barley masterpiece in style.

I still have plans for the noodles and some more of the Brazil nuts. They should figure prominently in my very first Meatout dinner on Friday. Hurray for veggies!

But before Meatout comes St. Patrick's Day. Deep down I suspect that this is really a non-holiday, invented by beer companies, but that doesn't stop me from hauling out the Cheiftains CDs every March 17th and then burying my family in Oirish-y food. This year in particular I went stir-crazy in the kitchen.

First, we had soda bread muffins. This is the Americanized version of soda bread, with white flour and sugar and caraway seeds and sherry-soaked raisins. Probably about as authentic as a green plastic bowler hat, I know, but it's still a crowd-pleaser. I made these for a bake sale in college and they sold out for two days running.

Then, Dublin coddle with wholemeal bread for dinner. I'd never heard of Dublin coddle, but once again Susan at FatFree Vegan enlightened and delighted me! It was easy and delicious, especially since I was lazy enough to substitute Tofurkey sausages for the homemade ones and then just braise everything in my toaster oven all afternoon. It was luscious, but the sausages got a little soft after the long cooking time. I think that next time I'll substitute beans in my dish, though Red enjoyed his as-is.

And finally, two little apple pies for dessert. I don't think there's anything particularly Irish about apple pie, but I had some apples I needed to use. Plus, I put a shamrock cut-out on each one. These were so adorable I made Red, Bean, and Gretchen the dog all admire them before I put them in the oven.
Red and I split one, and the other one will be our treat for tomorrow night. I drowned my half in Bird's custard. I love custard. I keep telling Red that if I lived in the U.K. or Ireland, I would weigh about two hundred pounds due to the availability of sticky toffee pudding, custard, and chip shops. I also used to have a black pudding fixation, but turning veg took care of that particular temptation.

Whew! That was a lot of ground to cover. Anybody still with me?

If you are, I'll leave you with a little bonus.


She stole the empty wrapper while I was cooking dinner tonight. I think this qualifies Gretchen as a veggie dog. And she does love her Tofurky, I must say.

This one's for the Redster

I don't spend nearly enough time singing my husband's praises, so I'll devote a little bit of my Friday night to doing just that.

This is for Red, a king among blogger spouses! He endures strange meals I find on the internet. He puts up with the fact that I must constantly tinker with beloved family recipes in order to see if it's better with another secret ingredient added - like chocolate chip cookies made with bananas and oats, or the time I sprung vegan Rice Crispie treats upon his unsuspecting palate. On top of this, he regularly eats lukewarm dinners because he patiently waits while I dash off to photograph my meal - from multiple angles.

For this, I declare today Red Appreciation Day. In his honor, I bought a box of Thin Mints (even though I was dying to try the recipe on 101 Cookbooks). Red, eat them with joy and know that I appreciate you!

***

The past couple of nights have been just soul-drainers for me - I couldn't tell you why I've been so tired, but tired I have been. So dinners have been mainly leftovers/thrown together messes, nothing worth reporting. Instead of the normal cooking roundup, I'll leave you with a couple older pictures I never got around to posting.

First up, Coconut Lime Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. These were so darned pretty, but just okay in the taste department. After this batch I decided that vegan buttercream just doesn't do it for me - I just can't get past the margarine taste. I still have every intention of baking my way through VCTOTW, but I just cupcaked myself out after Thanksgiving. I'll be back in wee cake baking order in no time.
And my Mom's birthday treats from her January celebration. Who doesn't love a good carrot cake? This is the one from Vegan with a Vengeance, made by yours truly. It was moist, dense, yummy, and way too much food for four people. The little cakelets in front are miniature tiramisus from Harris Teeter, courtesy of my buddy Inky. They make some of the best in the Southeast.Speaking of birthday cakes, I need to go frost mine. I'll be back with pictures of my final decision on Tuesday. Until then - have a fun weekend. I know that I will :)

Kasha and Amy, what did I ever do to you?

I've had mixed results with my recent phase of the pantry clean out. As I mentioned on Sunday, I'm trying to use some whole wheat pasta, a can of kidney beans, some buckwheat groats, and some sunflower seeds. As of today, I've managed to make a pretty sizable dent in the stockpile.

The pasta went into Vegan Dad's creamy macaroni and cheeze, which Red and I tried on Sunday night. I have strange luck when it comes to Vegan Dad's recipes; the results are either so good that Red and I are fighting over who gets to lick the pots, or we're both underwhelmed. This one fell in the latter category. It was okay, but both of us felt that it was lacking that certain something (Red, ever the smart ass, said "Cheese?"). This was a good double dipper, though, since I also cleaned out some half-bags of veggies from my freezer in the making.

Yesterday (Monday) was the day of my buckwheat groat experiment. These were in my pantry as the result of an impulse buy a few months ago, and I'd decided that March 2 was their night. I figured these would be a home run. I like grains, and I like everything that's made with buckwheat flour (crepes, blinis, etc). I even found an appealing recipe that called for caramelized mushrooms and onions. But it turns out that buckwheat groats, even after being meticulously roasted, sauteed with egg substitute, and simmered/steamed, have a texture that makes me gag. Mushy and almost slimy. I pitched the pot of kasha, and then threw away the rest of the bag of groats. I never throw anything away, so this will tell you how much I disliked those little suckers. Yech. Luckily the rest of dinner was good; I managed to remake another old chicken dish into an eggplant delight. The recipe is heavy on eggs, which I know will make it off-limits to a lot of folks, so as soon as I figure out how to replace them adequately I'll post it.

Today was just a cooking frenzy. Bean hasn't been sleeping well the past couple of days (we think she might be teething) and as a result Red and I haven't been getting our eight hours, either. I decided that I needed to keep as busy as possible today so that I might avoid falling alseep at an inopportune moment. In between laundry, walking the dog and the baby, and other little maintanence things, I made Tracy's vegan soy-free sausages (available at A Veg*n for Dinner).

These normally call for lima beans, but I substituted the kidneys with no ill effects. This is about my third batch of these beauties, and they do keep me happy when I can't get my hands on my favorite store-bought soyless sausage patties (more on that later).

I also decided to further tackle my bread phobias. The King Arthur Flour website yielded a recipe for Sweet Potato Sandwich Rolls, which I decided to make for dinner tonight. They were just perfect: a pretty color, a nice soft texture, and flavorful without being overwhelmed by yam. Next time I'll definitely make them smaller, though - these guys were huge when they came from the oven.


[While I'm on the subject of bread - I've decided that in order to master this stuff, I need to bake a lot of it. I'm going to shoot for two new recipes a month. I'll call it my Semimonthly Bread Experiment, or SeMoBreadEx for short :) May the leavening be with me.]

And to top these golden buns, I made a batch of knock off Sunshine Burgers. The recipe is courtesy of Sneaky at the ppk, and I owe him a million thanks and a batch of cookies. They are simple and delicious. I'm going to make another batch tomorrow, so that I'll have a steady supply in my freezer for lazy lunch days.

An added bonus to these is the texture. It's pretty darned close to that of an Amy's soy-free breakfast sausage patty, which is my gold standard for good morning eating. This is hot news - especially since I just found out that Amy's has DISCONTINUED those glorious things!!! Penny-pinching or no, I will be going to the health food store tomorrow in order to buy all the boxes they have so that I may hoard them like a squirrel in November. But they won't last forever - and they don't have to now that I have a base recipe from which to work! As soon as I finish my consignment of Tracy sausage, I will hit the test kitchen. I'll definitely still have enough sunflower seeds to try a couple of different sausage incarnations, if need be. Hopefully I'll strike gold before I eat my entire stash.

Despite the kasha failure and Amy's spitting in my eye, I'm pretty well pleased with myself. It's only Tuesday, and I've already blasted through my pantry items. My goal now is to finish up the rest of the beans by the weekend and maybe try to work the pasta into another meal (maybe a pasta salad for my lunch one day? Hmmm...). And, of course, I need to come up with some birthday cake ideas, since my twenty-ninth and Bean's first are just days away. Right now I'm thinking German chocolate, but red velvet, banana, and coconut cakes are also distinct possibilities. I'll have to see how I'm feeling this weekend.

Until Friday - don't work too hard everyone!

Just a wee bit late

I know, I know - late again! But I have a really good reason, I promise-

Sexy men in kilts!

This weekend brought the Northeast Florida Scottish Games to my neck of the woods. It's a tradition for my mom and myself to attend these festivities together, and this year was no exception. The festivities kicked off on Friday night with a whisky tasting at the Hilltop Restaurant in Orange Park. The place is located in an old Victorian stately home, complete with surrounding gardens and grounds intact. Mom and I enjoyed a nice selection of scotches (check here if you'd like to see what we imbibed), then staggered drunkenly to the hotel dining room for a meal. The food was pretty good, and I'm proud to say that this place is one of the few facilities in my area that offers a bona fide vegetarian selection on the menu.

The Fitzpatrick tartan in all its glory.

Everyone at this shindig puts on the dog, and kilts, arasaids, and plaids are on full display. Mom and I have not a drip of Scottish blood in either one of us - Mom's people are almost totally Pennsylvania Dutch, and I inherited a mostly Anglo and Irish lineage from Dad's side of the family. We do, however, have access to the Internet and a last name that can lay claim to one of a handful of Irish family tartans. We ordered some shawls in said pattern, and blended in quite nicely amongst all the real (American) Scots. The only tricky times came when someone asked us about our clan. Mom's answer was "We're pretenders," but I preferred to say that we were members of Clann McFaker.

The games got started the next day, and Mom and I managed to drag our whisky soaked carcasses to the events. It was great as usual; lots of food, lots of crafts, and lots of buff guys in kilts performing deeds of strength, ie., throwing heavy stuff around. We got to see almost every pipe and drum band in Florida perform:and attend a demonstration by a falconer who also trains owls (hurray!):and check out some Scottish livestock:All in all, a good time was had all around. Though next year, Mom and I agreed that we'll eat before we drink six shots of booze. Our constitutions are too delicate for that kind of abuse on an empty stomach. We're a shame to our Germanic and Celtic forebears, but you just can't fight all those generations of Protestant American influence :)

***

What with all this fol-de-rol and whooping it up (not to mention all the female chauvanist comments I had to make about sexy Scottish American legs) I haven't done much cooking recently. Red hasn't really minded, since Girl Scout cookies arrived this weekend. He's been living on a steady diet of Samoas, and he seems quite happy.

We've also had wine as well as whisky and cookies. Saturday was Open That Bottle Night, and we celebrated with a rose. I've always wanted to try a Spanish wine, so I picked up a bottle of Tapena at World Market a while back. We cracked it open this weekend.Verdict? Kind of bland, actually. My hopes rest on making it into a nice sangria. And yes, I know that I really shouldn't place high hopes on a nine dollar wine.

So now I'm trying to plan ahead for the next week, which will unfortunately include lots of laundry and housecleaning. And creative cooking. I've gone through my pantry and served eviction notices to a few residents.In case you can't tell, this includes a can of kidney beans, way too many sunflower seeds, some whole wheat pasta, and a bag of buckwheat groats. I've decided that they can't stay rent-free in my kitchen any longer, but I can't quite decide what their next incarnation will be. I'll have to hit the internet to find out. I'm also getting rid of some bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, but since their future is in a stir-fry I didn't include them in the mug shot.

That's it for my weekend. Hope everyone else had as good a time as I did.