Cupcakes!

I decided to finally make Chef Chloe's winning Cupcake Wars recipe.  I had some strawberries that will go bad if I don't eat through them quickly enough.  Though they did not turn out as beautifully as hers (I apparently didn't fill the cupcake wrappers up enough so they didn't rise as high.  Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes
Secret Winning Recipe!

(Makes 12 Cupcakes)
Ingredients:
 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar    
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut milk 
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder 
Frosting, recipe below
1 ½ cups hulled and sliced fresh strawberries
Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish

Procedure:
1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a 12-cup cupcake pan with paper liners. 
2.    Sift or whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the coconut milk, oil, vinegar, vanilla, and espresso powder until smooth. 
3.    Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix with a fork or small whisk. 
4.    Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners until each cup is 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 
5.    Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, slice off the top 1/3 of each cupcake and slather with frosting and sliced strawberries. Place the top of the cupcake back on top and add an additional bit of frosting and sliced strawberries. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Frosting
Ingredients:
4 cups confectioners' sugar, preferably organic
1/2 cup refined coconut oil at room temperature OR margarine (recommended: Earth Balance Organic Soy-Free Non-Hydrogenated Buttery Spread)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ cup water

Procedure:
1.    Combine the confectioners' sugar, coconut oil, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer. 
2.    Beat on medium-high speed until combined. With the mixer running, add 1 tablespoon of water at a time, until the desired buttercream consistency.

Here's what mine ultimately looked like.  And they were YUUUUUUUUUUUM!

Lasangna!

So the other night, I decided to make vegan lasagna. I made it once before for Becca and her friend, Brooke who was crashing on our couch. It was Brooke's last night in LA before she moved on to the wonderful world of Philly.  Now Brooke is a cool rock n roll mama that cares little about veganism in general. Her world revolves around Hollywood nightlife, dive bars, and late nights.  Food doesn't really come into it.  However, I was very pleased to see her eat my lasagna with gusto.  She said it was as good as the real thing, which I took as a huge compliment.

So now I've decided to do it again.  I looked up this recipe on Tami Transcends Tofu. I used more spinach than was called for (gotta hide my lady's vegetables somehow) and fresh basil that I received from my CSA.  Now I don't really know what the fresh to dry conversion is but I love basil so I just grabbed a couple of handfuls and threw them in with everything else. Of course my blender decided to suck and made me wish more than ever for this is in my life.  So I had to pull everything out of the blender and put together my mini-food processor.  This thing is good enough but soo small.  Anyway, it didn't matter. It did the trick and processed my food.

I always forget that although the recipe only calls for one jar of sauce, it's actually better to have at least 1 1/2 jars.  I need to remember this for next time. Anyway, this is what I turned out with. The picture honestly doesn't do the meal justice because it was super flavorful and yummy. However, scraping it out of the pan made it a little...well a little ugly.  I had planned to saute some veggies to accompany the lasagna but I got lazy so I opened the bag of spicy mixed greens, added some CSA radish sprouts (one of my new favorite things I learned) and voila.  A ready-made albeit a little lazy meal.  Take a look.

Anniversary and more

So I've really been slacking in my blog. The mothers survived their weekend together as did we. Dare I say it, everyone had a pretty good time. On Monday, Becca and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary together. We went to Cowboys and Turbans in Silverlake.  The vegetarian samosa was by far the hit of the night with a side of spicy masala sauce. We also ordered the Indian Dali, Tofu Masala, and Channa Saag.  All three were good but way too much food so we ended up taking most of it home. Sadly, none of these dishes heated up particularly well so my advice to anyone is to eat all they can while still at the restaurant. We also brought our own beer because the restaurant is still working on getting a liquor license.

Mostly all week I have stuck with my usual haunts, Native Foods and Whole Foods. I am currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, or rather listening to the book on tape for my long commute to work (about an hour each way).  While the narrator sounds pompous, there's a lot of interesting information in this book. Since I'm allergic to corn, it's amazing to learn all the other things derived from corn. No wonder I can never quite get rid of all my skin rashes! I am armed with more information to combat the factory farm/business as usual mentality.

This weekend I am heading back to my hometown for my 10 year high school reunion. I still can't believe it has been 10 years. I remember when that seemed old. I thought by 27 I would be an established screenwriter with perhaps a boyfriend. I was actually hoping to be dating Conor Oberst so that I could take him to my hometown and drive all the girls crazy that I dated such a sensitive musician. Alas, I return with my girlfriend, who actually does resemble Conor in that picture, and a job as an assistant albeit at a major production company. Here's the thing about my hometown, most of them don't even know what a prodco is or what we do. All they care about is if you work for Microsoft so this will be interesting. I look forward to seeing those that I haven't seen in awhile and maybe forgiving a few people that were awful to me.  Who knows? I'll prolly stay so drunk that I don't even notice half my class. All I know is that it will be nice to get out of LA for a bit and spend some time in a state full of green.

My two Moms

So Becca and I have gotten our mothers together.  This is their first meeting and they are both here all weekend long (Lord have mercy).  This is two very different bags of crazy, though I must say I love both women that gave us life. It's just that they are both very different personalities.  I would like to say at dinner they high-fived not once but twice.

So I took them to Cliff's Edge in Silverlake. This place looks so incredibly beautiful. The outdoor seating area was lovely with a huge tree in the center of the restaurant. I chose this place because there was a variety of different things on the menu from fish to steak to vegan stew and couscous.  My mother got fish, my brother the steak, Becca got pumpkin ravioli, Becca's mom got french fries with gorgonzola dipping sauce, and you guessed it I got the vegan stew and couscous.

I enjoyed my meal thoroughly. The veggies were stewed just right and although I usually don't love garbonzo beans, this time they were perfect. Maybe it's just that I prefer them warm rather than in salads.

This was the first time I'd gone out to eat with either of them since I committed to veganism. Becca's mom was good about it, although she did try to get me to eat the cheese sauce.  It's funny how difficult the idea of veganism is for many people. For whatever reason, they just don't think of cheese or butter as an animal product. My mother, on the other hand, worried that I don't get enough nutrients.  (I had mentioned that my skin is a little bad right now due to the toxins filtering out of my body.)  Now my mother is an RN.  She's in the medical profession and yet she still asked if I get enough calcium and protein, two things that I guarantee I am in no way deficient. When I told her that kale has more calcium than milk, she responded, "Well if you're eating 16 cups of it maybe." Oy vey.

Then at dinner the politics of food somehow got brought up.  The moms talked about genetically modified foods. See in my family, my sister and I are allergic to corn.  Both my brothers (and actually my sister as well) are allergic to gluten.  So basically the worst family ever to eat with.  However, this prompted the moms to talk about how genetically modified foods are altering the health of young people. The more they talked, the more I realized that neither one of them had a clue what they were actually talking about. Rather they were merely reiterating talking points that they had overheard somewhere.  Becca's mother mentioned that pesticides and genetically modified foods were to blame for the overdevelopment of youngsters (she works in a school) but then said, "I mean, it's just sad for them. It won't do anything to me because I'm old."  I had to bite my tongue super hard to keep from blurting out, "You've been eating this shit for over a decade too. It's equally as harmful no matter the age."  This is a woman that has suffered colon cancer that truly believes that buying Target brand organic milk somehow exempts her from any food-related issues.  Just like my mother truly believes that meat is a necessary part of a balanced diet.

As much as I wanted to fight and speak up, I realize that no one wants to be preached to or made to feel badly about their food choices. I also feel like although I've read a lot of books, I'm not so knowledgeable that I could really educate them. After all, I don't want to spout off factoids that I've read like they did with talking points. Becca has already gotten on my case a bit for sounding self-righteous and I don't want to be one of those bitchy vegans that feel superior to everyone. I want to educate myself further so that when this subject comes up again I can feel more prepared to explain my position.

How do other people deal with this?  Do you have family members who do not understand the basic principals of veganism?  If so, leave a comment and let me know.

Flore

Last night I met up with an old co-worker of mine that just returned from a three month journey in India (cue jealousy).  This is a guy that made over $50,000/year working at a major studio for a boss that never showed up to work. Literally he didn't have to go to work unless he felt like it. He gave it all up to do some traveling and now couch surfaces while he looks for a temporary job until he goes back to school. Obviously I'm more than jealous now.  One of the cool things about this transition however is that he is now a vegetarian and agreed to meet me at an East Side vegan restaurant called Flore.

I ordered The Wrap, which is brown basmati rice, roasted veggies, kale, baked tofu and dill dressing all wrapped up in a whole wheat tortilla.  Honestly I'm not usually a wrap kind of girl. While I like tortillas, I don't LOVE them. Wraps are usually more Becca's style. I suppose part of me knew I would never finish it all and could give the left-overs to her (for which she was totally grateful at 10 pm when she finally stopped working and burst into tears over the stress of starting her new job while still working at the old). The Wrap was delicious but what made this all the more amazing was the POTATO SALAD. Omg this was amazing, tasted perfect despite all animal products. I practically gulped it all down in one swallow while trying to politely maintain a conversation with my dinner companion. I didn't get to take a picture of it because I always feel a bit awkward when in the company of work-related friends.  Suffice to say that Flore will be on my list of second go around restaurants.

Then today I had the best beet salad from Whole Foods.  I love that they are embracing the whole vegan lifestyle in their display cases, although I did notice that one item said Vegan on the label but a closer look at ingredients clearly mentioned eggs and egg whites...hmmmm.  However, the golden beet salad was amazing.  The picture does not do it justice. Granted a medium sized container was $7 but I couldn't even finish it all at lunch.  The funny thing is I've always loved pickled beets and canned beets. However, I never realized there was such a thing as golden beets until I joined a CSA and started to embrace a vegan lifestyle. Now I realize there are a myriad of colors, shades and textures. My favorite is still the blood red beets that stain everything with their color but golden come in a close second. They're sweeter and soak in everything when cooked; in this case onion, parsley, oil and celery. Man I might actually head up to the fridge momentarily and finish them up!

Tonight Becca and I have dinner with one of my best friends. She is moving back to the Bay Area (again cue jealousy) and this is one of her last nights in town. I am so proud of her and we're heading to Toi so I'm excited to see what vegan cuisine options I have!  Cheers.

Flore
3818 W Sunset Blvd.
(at Hyperion)
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Technical difficulties

Ok, so I tried mobile blogging yesterday but sadly it did not work out so here it is. Last night (which is now 2 nights ago) I made dinner. Not the most nutritious thing I've ever cooked but I have a girlfriend with the tastes of a small child. She prefers grilled cheese to most anything so I relented and cooked up a Daiya grilled cheese sandwich with sweet potato fries and sauteed veggies, all of which came from my CSA. There were brussell sprouts, bell peppers, bok choi, radishes, serreno peppers and more. She didn't really like the veggies much because it was too spicy (I used one small pepper) but happily dug into the rest. Here's a poor pic.

Tonight I have drinks with another assistant. Ah yes, the great "networking" people talk about. Basically just an excuse to drink beer on a Tuesday. So I'm not cooking tonight BUT I will be transferring my first herb transplant to a bigger pot. I grew basil out of seed. Out of the five herbs I've started this is the only real survivor but I'm really excited! Wish me luck.

Ok so now that it is today rather than yesterday, I can say that sadly I did not get around to transplanting the basil. Instead drinks ran long at the Village Idiot. I also ate fish, which was actually quite gross. I even dipped it in their gross homemade tarter sauce on accident before I realized what tarter sauce is made out of. Double gross! So this is the official first fall off the wagon. However, this morning I just dusted myself off and decided to take today as a whole new day. Wow that sounds like an AA meeting, right? Well anyway I had an Amy's Organics vegan, dairy free veggie pot pie for lunch. I could seriously eat those things every single day. I love them that much.

So I'm not sure what to make for dinner tonight but will check out my many vegan cookbooks in order to figure it out.  Cheers!