Should I keep you all in suspense or spill the exciting news first? Hmmm… tough call. Okay, okay– here’s the exciting news:

Some of my recipes are featured in a free “Back-To-School” e-book. Yes, it’s free! Alisa over at One Frugal Foodie and Go Dairy Free had the brilliant idea of producing this e-book to help moms and dads with the back-to-school transition after seeing the back-to-school grocery ads featuring cheap cereals and other convenience items that contain little nutritional value. It was a great idea and, of course, healthy eating is something I fully support.  The book is not vegan, but there is a good selection of recipes to suit everyone’s needs and some can probably be made vegetarian or vegan with a quick swap of ingredients.  Download your free copy by either clicking on the image above or by clicking this here link.   My biggest, sincerest thanks to Alisa for coming up with this awesome idea and for putting so much time and effort into it.  And thank you to everyone who participated and contributed their recipes.  I hope this e-book is a big success and kids everywhere are able to enjoy healthy, homemade breakfasts and lunches.

Here are the direct links to the recipes of mine that are included in this lovely gem:

• Sweet Potato Waffle
• Granola
• Faux Tuna Sandwich Filling
• Black & White Hidden Treasure Burritos
• PB&J dilla

This new recipe is a spin on my Whole Wheat Oat Bread recipe, which is also featured in the e-book.  When this recipe was chosen for the book, I realized how long it’s been since I’ve made it so I thought I should give it another test before the book became available.  While testing it, I actually improved upon it and came up with a few substitutions for some of the ingredients.

Whole Wheat Oat Bread for the Bread Machine

1 1/4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons vegan margarine, canola/veg oil or olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 TB vital wheat gluten*
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar, maple syrup or agave
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 TB flax seeds

Put ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer.  Use medium setting.

*In lieu of vital wheat gluten, you could use white bread flour and wheat bread flour in place of the all-purpose and wheat flours.  Adding 1 TB of vital wheat gluten for every one cup of regular flour is a DIY way of making bread flour.  I add an extra TB just for kicks.

I used up the last of my zucchini last night when I whipped up this coffee cake to have for breakfast this morning.  I definitely put the zucchini to good use, though, since it tasted so delicious that my kid even ate a piece.  Of course, she’s not likely to pass up anything with the word “cake” in it.  The cake part is spiced up with some cinnamon and nutmeg and the crumble topping is kicked up with cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans. Perfect for a weekend breakfast.

I made this by combining a half recipe of the zucchini bread with the crumble topping recipe from the coffee cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Does that even make any sense? Didn’t think so…

If you wanted to make this exact coffee cake, prepare half a recipe of the zucchini bread using whole wheat pastry flour and half oil/half applesauce. Pour that batter into a greased 8″ cake pan. Next, prepare the crumble topping recipe from the cinnamon coffee cake and sprinkle on top of your zucchini batter. For the crumble topping, I also used whole wheat pastry flour and half oil/half applesauce. Bake the whole thing at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

I LOVE this book! If you were ever going to invest in one baking book– vegan or otherwise– that’s the one I’d recommend over any other. My one complaint is that the binding totally sucks. You may remember my post about how my original copy of this book completely feel apart… well, the replacement copy that the publisher sent me has also completely fallen apart. When will publishers get smart and publish cookbooks with spiral binding? Doesn’t that make the most sense? And really, this has not happened to any of my other cookbooks. This is the only one that has serious binding issues.

I saw this recipe posted last night and couldn’t wait to make these cookies! I’ve actually attempted to make gluten-free cookies before and they didn’t turn out so great, so I was excited that this recipe looked foolproof. Indeed it is! I didn’t have any almond butter, so I used peanut butter instead. I also omitted the nuts because I’m just not a fan of nuts in my cookies. To make these completely nut-free, I’m sure you could easily use a sunflower seed or soy nut butter in place of the nut butter. Also, I made the batter in my food processor and that worked well.

These taste super chocolaty with a texture like a fudge brownie– at least, that’s what they taste like straight out of the oven. Next time, I will grind up the coconut. I like coconut, but I’m not really enjoying the texture of it in these cookies. It’s not ruining the cookies by any means, just a change I will make next time.

My good friend hosted a baby shower for me yesterday.  Actually, it was more of a “Big Sister” party for my 4-year-old to get her excited about her baby sis.  Everything was completely vegan and I don’t think any of the guests actually noticed.

I only took photos of the cake and favors, but here’s a list of the snacks we had (it was an afternoon party, so no need for a full meal): pretzels, popcorn, chips with guac and salsa, pita chips with hummus, veggie platter with dip (veg soup mix stirred into Tofutti sour cream), olives, and bruschetta with sundried tomato pesto and sauteed portobellas.  Everything was really good!

The cake.  Top tier was zucchini with vegan cream cheese frosting; bottom tier was chocolate/chocolate.

This time, I took a video of the cake, which I’ve never done before. I should do this more often. (YouTube is in the process of doing an audio swap so that you hear music with it instead of my kiddo’s chattering. I don’t know how long this will take, but hopefully it will be done soon.):

And here’s the favors. Lemon cupcakes frosted like flowers and topped with gum paste butterflies. I boxed these up the day before and by the party time, the butterflies had melted into the frosting. This has happened to me before and it wasn’t totally unexpected, but I wouldn’t have had the time to box them up the day of the party. While these cupcake boxes are attractive, they are a pain in the rear end to put together. I had all of the lids and bottoms pre-assembled, but it still took me over an hour to box up and all of the cupcakes. I was thankful that I only had 16 to do. I would definitely not recommend these for wedding favors or something, unless you’re paying someone else to do it for you. (BTW, the butterflies softened I think due to the moisture from the cupcake from being enclosed. This happens every time I top the cupcakes and enclose them in a container that doesn’t allow air to circulate freely.)

If you’re interested in making these cupcakes yourself, here’s where I got the idea, but I didn’t follow the instructions exactly:

Thanks to my parents, grandma and aunt, I am back in business with a camera! It’s so nice and fancy and takes the best looking photos. Check out our dinner last night:

I’ll admit that it’s not the best photo but that’s because the food was so hot that I kept getting a picture of the steam coming off of it.  This dish was really easy and is perfect for those clean-out-the-fridge nights.  I sauteed one small red onion with one clove of garlic in some olive oil.  Once soft, I added some frozen artichoke hearts, some chopped broccoli and cauliflower and sliced zucchini (broccoli, cauliflower and zucchini all organic from the farmer’s market).  After allowing it to cook for a few minutes, I dumped in one jar of organic marinara sauce and let it simmer for about 10 minutes or until the veggies were soft.  A little basil from my garden and the sauce was done.

We had this with some brown rice noodles, a gluten-free pasta that I picked up from Trader Joe’s.  I’m toying with the possibility of going gluten-free in an effort to fix my thyroid (that’s another post for another day), so I’ve slowly been buying G-F cereals, pastas, etc to try.  This is similar to how I transitioned to a vegan diet and I found that it was the best way for me to transition.  I’m not saying that I’ll for sure go G-F, but cutting out some sources of gluten certainly won’t hurt me.  Anyway, we all really enjoyed these noodles and I think I will buy brown rice pasta from now on.  No one was able to tell that it wasn’t wheat pasta.

I also made these cookies last week.  They are not G-F, but they were pretty tasty.  The recipe is a slight adaptation from the Cranberry-Walnut Oatmeal cookie recipe from Vegan Planet. I’ve made this recipe a few times– once with raisins and pecans– and this time with dried cranberries, pecans and white chocolate.  I think I preferred the first one with the raisins, but I liked this one too.  If you’re wondering where I get vegan white chocolate (good luck finding it in any store), I have to special order it from Vegan Essentials.  I order my vitamins from there too and usually do a big order once every three months.  If I’m low on the white chocolate, I’ll throw that into my virtual cart too.  Here’s a tip for ordering from Vegan Essentials: sign up for their email newsletter that they sometimes include discount codes in.

Have a good weekend everyone!

(I am still without a camera after breaking mine, so you’ll have to settle for this crappy phone pic.  Sorry!  A new camera should be mine soon.)

A good use up for all that zucchini you’ve probably got this summer… we were having a few playdates and I thought it would be fun to bring some “healthy” brownies.  Sure, there’s better ways of sneaking veggies into your kids, but when you’re making a treat, isn’t it an added bonus to make them with vegetables?  I think so.  I’ve never made these brownies before and was super skeptical when I was making the batter, but they turned out really delicious.  The batter will be incredibly dry, almost crumbly, but it will bake up fine.  These zucchini brownies are awesome!  Next time, I will add some vegan chocolate chips to the batter.

I don’t always post all of my cake creations here on this blog, but I thought I would these.  My very loyal friend always contacts me about making a dessert for her law firm whenever they are hosting parties or gatherings.  I’m not sure what the the event was this time, but they requested 50 chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.  The colors of the linens were turquoise and pink, so I made some fondant daisies to match the linen colors.

And here’s some photos of the cake and cupcake display I made for my cousin’s graduation party.  It’s hard to believe she’s done with high school already; it feels like she just started last week!  The pattern on the cake matched the party invitations:

It’s interesting to note that most of the people who I make cakes for are not vegan.  Actually, most are not even vegetarian, but vegan cakes is a fun way to show them that vegan food isn’t weird or scary.  We eat what other people eat, we just make it in a different way.  At the party, it was interesting to see peoples’ reactions when they found out the cupcakes were vegan.  One party-goer who has a fondness for cupcakes ate 4 and told me that these were some of the best (or maybe he said the best) he’s ever had.  Another couldn’t believe I made them without butter.  I have to say that the reason why these cakes taste so good is that they are all homemade from scratch, I make them in small batches, and they are vegan.  If you stop eating dairy for any length of time, eating it again is totally disgusting.  There have been times when I’ve nibbled on something that has dairy in it (just to see if I would like it) and the only thing I can taste is the dairy.  I tried to eat a cookie made with butter and it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted.  Yes, me… former lover of cheese and butter.  When I was vegetarian, I always said veganism was “too hardcore” because I love cheese and could never give it up.  Well, I did miss it at first, but now that I haven’t had it in a long time, there’s absolutely nothing appealing about it.

I digress… the point I’m trying to make is that I do enjoy making cakes for people who are unfamiliar with a vegan lifestyle.  It’s an easy, non-confrontational way to introduce them to vegan eating.

My dad’s favorite dessert is peach pie. I didn’t have it in me to make pie dough and roll it out, so I decided to make a peach cobbler instead. And man it was good!

I used the peach pie filling recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking, then used the biscuit topping recipe from the Blueberry Cobbler recipe. It turned out really delicious, but next time I will use more peaches and let them defrost before putting into the recipe (I used frozen organic peach slices). As delicious as it was by itself, it was even better a la mode:

I picked up a pint of soy ice cream– this flavor was cinnamon caramel– and it was SO YUMMY! The perfect summertime dessert for Father’s Day weekend.

I was asked to make cupcakes for the Redwood City Mother’s Club holiday party.  I ended up making 175 cupcakes.  Unfortunately, most of my photos turned out blurry.    It wasn’t my day.  I had bought a very nice, sturdy, professional looking wooden stand to use as my display.  I had assembled it days beforehand since I knew I was going to be in a time crunch that morning.  When I went to pick up the stand, the screw hole that holds the bottom tier on was completely stripped and the whole thing came apart.  There was no saving it and I’m asking the maker to send me a replacement part which he hopefully will at no cost to me (or there will be hell to pay!!!!!!!!!). 

On the bright side, all of the cupcakes made it to the event without injury and there was a nice big table waiting for me to lay them all out on.  Flavors:  apple spice cake with maple frosting, pumpkin spice cake with “cream cheese” frosting and vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.

For Thanksgiving, my daughter conned me into making two pies! She gets me to do these things by saying that she wants to help make it but in the end, I’m the one who does all the work. Oh well. It’s a good thing I enjoy baking.

The first pie “we” made was this pumpkin pie.  The recipe can be found in The Joy of Vegan Baking. It combines pumpkin with silken tofu, some spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg), and some cornstarch to thicken. The crust is made from toasted pecans, oats and whole wheat flour. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of maple syrup, but I substituted agave because it’s much, much cheaper. It turned out good, but I thought it could have used more spice. That’s just me. Everyone else really enjoyed it.

Next, I made a caramel apple pie. The recipe can be found here. (I got this recipe– and many other Thanksgiving recipes– delivered right to my inbox because I signed up for the VegNews newsletter!!) This pie was yummy, but I added some vanilla to it (based on what some of the reviews mentioned). I didn’t like it with the vanilla. It’s also a very sweet pie, so I recommend using the most tart apple you can. I used granny smith, but still found the pie to be pretty sweet. Everyone else really enjoyed it, though. Perhaps I am just to critical.