Let the food begin!

Okay, folks, here it is. We had our official grand opening this weekend so of course there was food! I shared baking duty with Lisa from Sweet Pea Baking, so there were plenty of sweets to go around!


Lisa made the best baklava I've ever had, vegan or otherwise, and an assortment of different rugalachs. The cherry one was killer. Lisa also makes the world's best cheesecake. If you ever come to Portland, or if you live here, seek out whatever place is serving her cheesecake because it is phenomenal. Turtle cheesecake? Yes please!


This is the lemon almond torte that I made in mini form for a SHAC7 benefit awhile back. This time it was jazzed up with more raspberries and some almond slivers.


There cupcakes were fun to make with these cool star-shaped cupcake tins I found recently. I made the chocolate cake recipe from my Black Forest Cake and the same chocolate frosting as well.

I also make the Banana Peanut Butter Frosting Cake that I made for Jim's b-day recently. I didn't get a good pic of it, but it wasn't too long ago, so you all remember!


These were made for my co-worker, Jessie's, husband. He has severe food allergies and can only eat limited things. It was too sad for me to think of there being a vegan amongst vegans who couldn't eat anything there, so I made him some cookies with ingredients he could eat. They are based on raw cookies, with the outer shell being made out of dates. I mashed the dates and mixed in a 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder to make them taste fudgey. I then made a nut butter center with some cashew butter, agave nectar and ground almonds to make it set up a little more. I flattened out a round of dates, added a scoop of the cashew mixture, sealed all the balls up and rolled them in cocoa powder to keep them them from sticking together. Adam seemed pretty excited and I thought they turned out rather well. I might make them again soon for us to have around the house, since you can just keep them in the fridge.


This was a sundried tomato garbanzo bean dip from a newer vegan cookbook called ExtraVeganZa! It was really delcious, I will definitly be making it again.


And of course, would a party be a party without one of Dreena's dips? Here is the Cannellini Bean Yam Hummus. Mmmm, it was so good, people were just raving over it. It was a nice smokey and creamy counterpart to the slight more sweet and gritty garbanzo dip.


And, on a more substantial note, dinner last night. Butternut squash filled with a basmati and wild rice pilaf I got from Trader Joe's and some mashed potatoes with Earth Balance on the side. Very tasty. I think squash is growing on me, while Jim eats it "because it's good" for him. I have a spaghetti squash sitting here, any ideas? It's a bit intimidating.

Also, for those who are wondering, I got a lot of work done on the book yesterday, so I'm hoping to have the first draft done within a week! Yay!