These last few days have been more chaotic than usual. My husband ran a half marathon over the weekend in Fresno and we all went to cheer him on. This is is second half marathon– the first was about 5 weeks ago. Even though we were standing at the finish line waiting to watch him cross at the first marathon, I managed to somehow miss him completely. This is why it was important to me to go this time because I really wanted to be there when he finished. For those unfamiliar with California, our house is the “A” and Fresno is the “B”:

It took us about 3.5 hours to get there and it wasn’t too bad of a drive.  There are a lot of farms (like fruit/vegetable farms) south of us and that’s always fun to drive through.  There are  a lot of fruit stands off the highway that sell fresh, local produce for pretty cheap.  The best deal I saw was a 5 lb. bag of oranges for $1.  If we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get there (he had to be in Fresno by 6 pm to pick up his race packet), I would have stopped for some.  The best part of the drive is that Amanda slept the entire way and Emma took a nap for a good part of it.  Matt and I were able to have a conversation with each other where we could actually hear each other and not be interrupted.  It was nice.

Matt finished in 167th place out of 3316 overall; 142nd place out of the 1220 men; 27th of 196 in his age group; with a time of 1:41:47. He was in the top 5%!  Ok, I’m pretty impressed.  I’m not a runner and lost most of my athletic ability when I graduated high school, but I’m sort of inspired now to maybe start training for an itty bitty run– like maybe a 5K.  And our friend whom Matt ran the race with is the biggest inspiration of all.  Check out Travis’s blog here.  Travis has lost nearly 100 pounds so far and is training for a full marathon coming up here in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, so that’s why I didn’t post anything this weekend.  And prior to our trip, I had gotten a cupcake order that was pretty time consuming.  About a year ago, I started baking on the side in my spare time (back then I actually had some).  I started making cakes and cupcakes for people and really find it to be a lot of fun.  If you want to see some of the stuff I’ve done, you can fan me on Facebook and check it out:

Bliss Bakery

This particular job was 4 dozen mini cupcakes, a mix of chocolate and vanilla, each topped with handmade race cars.  The race cars are all made from fondant and are 100% edible, but were very time consuming to make.  Now that I have so little free time I realize just how time consuming these special details are.  Before Amanda was born, I would make these types of things at night while watching TV.  Now that she’s here, I make it a point to go to bed when she does so I have to find time to do them during the day. My client picked these up the night before the party so I had to send the race cars separate from the cupcakes (otherwise the fondant softens too much from the moisture of the cupcake).  Here’s all 48 race cars boxed up and ready to go:

I had a few leftovers and made a little display to get some photos:

Emma always loves it when there are leftovers!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

So I missed a day, but I did actually start this post yesterday.  I was just too busy to finish it.  I do have some good news to share:  Amanda is feeling better and it turns out she just has a cold.  Her lab work came back negative for any of the major viruses that cause the flu.  The best part is that she slept well last night, which means I actually got some sleep.  It was nice!

In my last post, I said I was going to make muffins and I actually got it done!  I ended up making LOTS of mini muffins because I like to save some to stash away in the freezer for Emma’s lunches or for snacking on when we’re low on snacks.  Besides that, when you’re making muffins, it’s not that much more work to make a double recipe– it’s certainly less work than making a single recipe on two separate days, right?  I like to think so.  My doubled recipe made about 5 dozen mini muffins.

I’ve been making lots of variations of this muffin recipe lately and it’s served me well.  I can change it up a bunch of different ways and it has always turned out great.  Use fruit in place of the veggies, add some dried fruit, change the up the spices– the possibilities here are endless.  The only fruit I wouldn’t try in this recipe are bananas.  While I’ve never tried bananas here and can’t say for sure how it would turn out, I can say that I’ve never had luck making banana bread or muffins when the recipe uses vegetable or canola oil as the oil.  The best banana bread I’ve made uses vegan margarine.

Spicy Carrot Zucchini Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/16 tsp mace

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp allspice

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup non-dairy milk

1/3 cup oil (or half oil, half applesauce)

1 TB vinegar

1 cup carrots, grated

1 cup zucchini, grated

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper liners.

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and spices.

3.  In a large bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and the carrots and zucchini.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir well.

4.  Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake.  Mini muffins take about 10 minutes.  Regular size muffins take about 15.

Friday is our turn to bring snacks to Emma’s preschool and she wants to take muffins.  I’ll be making an apple cinnamon batch of these tomorrow and will post that recipe variation.  Enjoy!

In my last post, I mentioned that our oven caught fire while making some oat cakes. Before extinguishing the flame with baking soda, I first grabbed my phone and took a video of it. It was just too crazy not to video and I didn’t sense that there was any danger letting the fire burn for an extra few seconds. What happened was there had been a small crack in the heating coil and that crack broke all the way through, which made the rest of the heating coil catch fire.

Well, I had already made some muffin batter that was bound for the oven as soon as the oat cakes came out and, not wanting to waste it, I had to think of another way to “bake” it. I used my apple-carrot-raisin muffin batter recipe, but added in one small grated zucchini. So, instead of making mini-muffins, which was my original intention, I ended up making it into a loaf and “baking” it in my slow cooker. The slow cooker method worked out really well, even though it took like 20 times longer to bake than if I had been able to bake them in the oven. Oh well– they still got made, we still get to enjoy them, and I didn’t have to waste any food.

To bake in your slow cooker, you will first need a loaf pan that fits in there. You will also need the little trivet thing that comes with the slow cooker (it’s the rack thing that people probably use to make something like a pot roast). Put the trivet in the bottom of the slow cooker and fill the bottom with boiling water. Mine took about 5 cups of water and I think it’s important to use already hot water since the slow cooker would take forever to heat up all that water. Once you’ve got all that assembled, put your filled loaf pan on top of the trivet, cover and turn the slow cooker to high. It should be done in about 4 hours. If you wanted to prepare this at night to bake while you are sleeping, I imagine cooking it on low would do it. Low would probably take anywhere from 6 to 8 hours.

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.