Thank You, Duncan Hines

Since I finally got my much-coveted KitchenAid stand mixer and this awesome vintage cake carrier for Christmas, there was no question as to what I would bring to today's Ethical Eating lecture and potluck at the Unitarian Universalist Church. A layer cake, of course!

My parents found this on eBay! It's all metal and I love that it has a lid holder.

You may remember my Granny's yummy vegan Coconut Icebox Cake picture from my Thanksgiving post. It was a moist yellow cake topped with a frosting made from fresh coconut, cream of coconut, and sugar.

I knew I wanted to include her recipe in my cookbook, but since I didn't have the recipe, I gave Granny a call. She revealed that her secret yellow cake recipe was actually Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix (which is vegan, by the way)! Since I didn't want to put Duncan Hines in my cookbook, I attempted to develop my own vegan cake recipe.

Not such a good idea for a last-minute potluck cake. Though the taste was spot-on, the cakes were gooey in the center. I know I used too much liquid since the batter was soupier than it should have been. But I'll tweak that recipe for the cookbook later. In the meantime, I had to act fast. So I ran to Kroger and bought the Duncan Hines. The layers baked beautifully and tasted like heaven.

I frosted the cake with coconut mixed with evaporated cane juice and Tofutti sour cream (even though Granny used cream of coconut last time, she advised I try vegan sour cream since the cream of coconut was hard to work with). Here's the result:

Admittedly, it's not the prettiest cake. The top layer broke in half when I flipped it out of the pan, so I tried to mask the flaw with frosting. And then since I used extra frosting in the ugly spot, I ran out for really filling in the sides.

But the cake was a hit at the potluck. Oh, and I didn't tell anyone it came from a box. :-)

Pita Pizza!

My pal Leslie gave me a copy of Vegan Bites: Recipes for Singles as a Christmas gift, as well as a jar of her amazing homemade Jasmine Peach Jam. The book is great for folks like me who live alone. I always end up with days and days of leftovers any time I cook. Sometimes that's awesome, especially when a dish is freezable. But my freezer is at the overflowing point now, so this book came just in time. Vegan Bites features recipes with 2 to 3 servings (just enough for the next day's lunch).

Last night, I made my first recipe from the book — Pita Margherita:

It's just a simple pita pizza version of Pizza Margherita with Ezekial pita bread, mozzerella Teese, tomato slices, Parma, fresh basil, and a drizzle of olive oil. These were perfect with a side salad. Such an easy week night meal. I'll definitely be making this again and again.

W.I.P. Wednesdays

Before Christmas, Shellyfish over at Musings From the Fishbowl started a little thing called W.I.P. Wednesdays (or Work In Progress Wednesdays), during which folks would post their crafting projects. At the time, I had a few crafty works in progress, but since they were meant for gifts, I couldn't blog about them. Now that all the gifts have been handed out, I'm taking this W.I.P. Day to show ya'll what I made.

This past fall, my co-worker Shara told me about an awesome website devoted to sassy and crude cross stitching sampler patterns, and even though I didn't really know how to cross stitch, I ordered Julie Jackson's book Subversive Cross Stitch. Learning was really easy since the book has step-by-step instructions right up front. After making the designs, I bought unfinished wooden frames at Michael's and painted them to match.

I made this one for Stephanie, a.k.a. Poopie Bitch, a vegan pal and pro cake decorator:

I made this one for my cynical friend Nathan, whose mood is often summed up by this sentiment:

This was given to my pal Wes, a dear friend who just so happens to be gay as the as the day is long:

And this one was made for Vaughan, my veggie buddy and part-time drag queen:

And finally, this was perfect for my long-time bee-yatch Misti:

Ya'll should definitely check out the Subversive Cross Stitch website. You can order all sorts of awesome individual patterns (complete with a kit of floss, fabric, and a hoop) or opt for the book.

Rawsome Tuesday

Another Tuesday night, another Raw Day gone by. I started this morning's uncooked cleanse with a veggie-packed glass of V5 Juice in my cool "I Voted for Barack Obama" Glass:

The juice contains two tomatoes, three celery stalks, one green bell pepper, two carrots, the juice of half a lemon, a dash of salt, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. I made it in my trusty Jack Lalanne juicer. Though I typically opt for a heartier breakfast on raw day, I thought it'd be nice to start with a healthy dose of liquids. I drank a giant cup of water with lemon, two glasses of the V5 Juice, and my usual iced blueberry green tea (I drink tea on raw days).

Of course I was starving by 10:30 a.m. Luckily, I packed plenty of between-meal snacks at work. First, I noshed on this Coconut Cream Pie Larabar:

I've seen this flavor on other blogs, but didn't know my Whole Foods carried it. OMG, this is totally the best one! And it satisfied my cravings for coconut bread.

For lunch, I brought this Raw Caesar Salad from Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy:

The dressing is a raw ranch made from soaked cashews, onion and garlic powder, and dried basil and dill. It's pretty chunky and tastes surprisingly like tofu ricotta. This is the best raw dressing recipe I've found so far. It's nice to feel like you're eating tofu on raw day.

For dinner, I made Cornbleet's Spring Rolls. Here they are before rolling:

The wrappers are savoy cabbage leaves and the insides are filled with cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and Cornbleet's Mock Peanut Sauce. It's made from processed almonds with garlic, ginger, and even maple syrup (which I doubt is raw, but the book called for it and I'm not that picky). IT IS SO GOOD! After filling these, I ate more of the sauce by itself. Here's how they looked all rolled up:

As usual on raw day, I stayed super hungry all day long. In between meals, I ate a whole mango, an apple, an orange mixed with fresh pineapple, and a couple of raw brownies that I froze a few raw days ago. It feels good, but I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow and eat some more coconut bread.

Cuckcoo for Coconut

I love coconut more than life itself. Okay, maybe not that much. But if I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have one fruit, I'd pick coconut. Lucky for me, coconuts just so happen to grow on deserted islands.

When I saw Lucious Coconut Bread on Krys' Two Vegan Boys blog a while back, I asked Krys for the recipe. She copied it from VegWeb and e-mailed it to me and I put it aside for a future breakfast treat.

Check out the cool vintage snack tin with cracker, potato chip, and pretzel flowers in the background. My mom got it for me for Xmas!

I finally made it last night and it is so super good. The coconut is toasted in a skillet before adding it to the batter, so it has that special magic that only toasted coconut can have. You can find the recipe here, but I subbed whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose and added a 1/2 tsp. of coconut extract.

Now I'm just a little sad cause tomorrow is Raw Food Day, which means I don't get to eat any coconut bread tomorrow. Of course, I'll consume the rest every other day this week ... just not tomorrow.

Also tester friends, the new recipes are up for this week! Happy Testing!

When It's Chilly, Eat Chili!

Brrrr ... the temperature in Memphis has dropped from 70 degrees yesterday to a chilly 40 degrees tonight. And it's also drizzling and windy. Ick! The best solution to staying warm on a cold, cold night? A steamy bowl of my Chipotle Chickpea Chili:

This is another one of my cookbook recipes. I developed it last winter, but haven't made it since. After consuming the above bowl a few minutes ago, I'm not sure why I waited so long.

It contains all my favorite chili ingredients: chopped chipotle peppers, cubed tofu, chickpeas, and mushrooms. So tasty! I served it with Garden of Eatin' Organic Corn Chips, the natural version of classic Fritos. If you haven't tried these yet, you gotta pick some up. They're my new favorite chip!

By the way, if you're a tester, this recipe will be up tomorrow on the tester site, along with a couple of others. And for everybody else, I should be back to regular posting now. Sorry I've been so sporadic. I didn't cook much over the holidays, but I have plenty planned for this week.

To Health and Wealth!

In the South, we celebrate New Year's Day with black-eyed peas (to ensure health in the new year) and cabbage (for prosperity). My Granny always fixes a big dinner of the traditional foods, but she also makes hog jowl (some nasty pork product that looks like really fat bacon). I used to dine with my family on New Year's Day, but for the past several years, I've stayed at home and made my own traditional foods.

Today, I took the opportunity to develop a new recipe for my cookbook. It may not be that pretty, but here's my Hoppin' John Veggie Sausage Bowl:

Instead of serving cabbage on the side (as is customary), I boiled the cabbage with my black-eyed peas and tomatoes. I also threw in some veggie sausage chunks for added flavor. Served over brown rice, this one-pot dish was wholesome and yummy. And hopefully, I'll stay healthy and get wealthy (fingers crossed) in 2009.

Some Hoppin John trivia: According to , Wikipedia leftover Hoppin' John eaten the day after New Year's Day is called Skippin' Jenny. So I'll be having Skippin' Jenny for tomorrow's lunch.