Giant post from a scattered brain
Oh boy, have I been a bad blogger/bloggee! I'm so sorry I haven't been around much lately. Things have been kind of nuts around here and I've been swamped, but things will be settling down in the next few weeks and I'll get back into a better blogging routine again. It seems like I have had a hard time getting back in the swing of things post-holidays, but at least I'm not the only one.
But, even thought I haven't been posting, I have been cooking and taking pictures, so here I go!
Chicken fried tempeh with mashed potatoes and mustard greens. This recipe is the one that Jess posted about a few weeks ago from Vegcooking.com. It was SO good. I would halve the recipe if you're using a regular sized brick of tempeh, because I had a lot of leftover batter.
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Valentine's Day breakfast. I got up early to make Jim his breakfast, which I don't normally do during the work week. A few weeks early we were at a kitchen gadget store and Jim spotted a cookbook called Peanut Butter Planet, by Robin Robertson. Jim could live on peanut butter alone, and I was so happy to see in actually interested in a cookbook, and actually cooking, so I made a mental note of the title and I got it for him for V-Day. At the store, he showed me a recipe for apple peanut butter pancakes that he was drooling over, so I made those along with tempeh white bean patties and some fresh kiwi. He was delighted to have pancakes AND peanut butter and I was delighted that he eagerly accepted a cookbook as a gift. I'll let you know when he finally makes something from it.
Random dinner last week when I really needed to go to the grocery store. Black bean and carrot stew, millet and mustard greens. It was "eh". But I got rid of stuff in the fridge.
A local restaurant here that normally only serves breakfast and brunch has started a series of 4 course vegan dinners that happen one Friday a month. They have become so popular they are booked well in advance, so you have to reserve your spot ahead of time. Jim and I went early this month and it was incredible. It costs a flat $15 a person and it's served family style, so you can go back for seconds if there are still some at your table. The Friday we went we were treated to roasted garlic and potato soup, fennel and beet salad, mushroom risotto stuffed chard with butternut squash sauce, sprouted wheat pasta with roasted veggies and chocolate and dried cherry cupcakes with chocolate mousse. OMG.
Our favorite item was the mushroom risotto stuffed chard, so I decided to try my hand at it this week. I made some mushroom risotto in the pressure cooker, roasted the squash and pureed it, blanched the chard leaves, then filled the leaves with risotto, rolled them up and covered them with the sauce. It was good, but not as magical as the ones we had that night. I know that March is all booked up, but if you're local, I highly recommend contacted them ASAP to try and get a slot for April.
Simple apple crisp with some vanilla Soy Dream. Soy Dream is my new friend, it kicks Soy Delicious' butt.
And our new fun treat! I've heard about people making frozen banana soft serve in the Champion juicer for some time now, but just recently decided to pull out our sadly underused juicer and give it a whirl. Oh boy, is it ever amazing! I expected it to be like banana smoothie texture, but it comes out as soft and creamy as soft serve. We've been alternating chunks of bananas with peanut butter for an amazing treat with no added sugar. I LOVE IT! I've gone bananas buying up ripe bananas and freezing them. 
A close up of the nana goodness.
We had a lovely dinner party last night with a handful of friends and I made tempeh fajitas! Naturally, I forgot to take a picture, but this is part of the leftovers, sans salsa. Marinated tempeh with red and yellow bells peppers and onions, tofutti sour cream and guac. Chris and Kate made two yummy salsas, one with roasted tomatoes and olives and another with bananas(! it was really good!) and Sandy and Joe brought homemade sangria. Delicious.
And what else goes better with a Mexican-inspire feast than Isa cupcakes? Especially Isa cupcakes displayed in my new cupcake tree?
Margarita cupcakes. MAKE THESE! The lime and tequila mixture was so freaking good, with the slight crunch of the rim sugar and the creamy frosting with an occasional bit of course salt. The frosting recipes make much more than needed so Jim and I were enjoying it on it's own and man, it is incredible.
Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes, sprinkled with powdered sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon. These have a combination of flours, all-purpose, corn flour and ground almond meal, for a really soft and delicate crumb, that was a nice compliment to the margarita ones. We love you, Isa!
And now, for our latest challenge. Maybe it was the cupcakes talking, but last night after our guests left Jim and I started talking about Lent. We're not religious and neither one of us has ever given up anything for Lent before, but our raging sweet teeth have gotten out of control. Jim is at the point where if there is nothing for dessert he will put chunks of baking chocolate in his mouth, wait for them to melt and then stuff in a teaspoon of peanut butter! So we decided, as of this Wednesday, we are giving up sugar for 40 days. Not fruit, because that's natural, but no sweets, no baking, no sugar added cereal, no maple syrup, nothing. It's going to be hard, but it will be well worth it to see how we feel 40 days from now. I'm really excited to have a goal and to have Jim in on the deal. The first thing is that in the next few days we need to clear everything out of the house that has sugar in it, which isn't much, but I have a handful of things that I need to have far, far away from reach. The Champion will be getting lots of use, so I'll have to go stock up on bananas!
