vacations and advice...

i recently decided that i was tired of not going anywhere. or rather, not going EVERYwhere, which is what i like to do.

if you followed this blog (and i'm sure you don't!) you would know that i went to san francisco for the very first time, earlier this month. now i'm about to take another first trip...to mexico.

i've been to a border town, loredo...but that HARDLY counts.

SO, tonight i will sling booze as per usual, then tomorrow i will pack, and monday i will fly into cancun. i know...you're thinking...WHAT? CANCUN? GROSS! BUT... then we will take a ferry to isla mujeres, where we will remain for an entire week. its supposed to be pretty and super laid back.

my goal is to get serious sundress and hammock relaxation time in.

ANYWAY...when i come home, i will need some advice. If you knew me, you would also know that i have digestive probs like nobodies biz. in the last year and a half, i've gotten it all mostly under control by not eating dairy (except a bit of cheese, since i cant resist) and overall just paying attention to how i feel when i eat different things. i also take medication.

recently, i've become nervous that it might have to do with wheat. SO, i'm going to try my hardest to do a gluten-free diet for a little while after mexico.

i've never done it before, and i'm kind of nervous...but i really want to make sure that by eating wheat i'm not further damaging my digestive system. if i DO have an intolerance, then i could really be harming my body.

i know a little about celiac's and the diet and i have some good resources for cookbooks, but any additional advice (tips, secrets, hidden wheat in everyday foods, etc...) would be great. i'm not sure how good i will be, or how long my trial will last. we shall see...

until then, i'll be sipping pina coladas near the ocean.

xo.

Oscar's 2nd Birthday

I've mentioned before that I made my good friend, (and awesome tattoo artist) Rachel Kolar some of Lolo's donuts for her birthday. She and her fam REALLY love them (and who wouldn't...Lolo is clearly a genius!).

SO...for her fabulous little boy's 2nd birthday soirée, Rachel asked me to make 4 dozen of the donuts. And a cake.

Rachel and Jason decided the toppings for the donuts. I was able to make all of them vegan except the milk chocolate, of course. In the giant box there were: dark chocolate with toasted coconut, glazed with toasted coconut (my personal fave!), glazed with rainbow sprinkles, and milk chocolate. It's really amazing to see SO many lined up in the box. I've always had an aesthetic fascination with a multiple of the same thing in rows...not sure why this appeals to me so. Simply put, it looked pretty cool!

When i asked what kind of cake, she just said something simple. Yellow Cake with chocolate frosting. I asked her if there was some kind of theme to the party that i could base the cake on. Her response was..."I dunno, maybe beach theme, fish or octopus or something". So, of course I was thrilled with the vague idea, and excited with the freedom to come up with something rad for little Oscar! (on a side note, this little guy is ADORABLE!)

Rachel didn't care whether or not the cake was vegan, so i made it vegan...except for the candy decorations. I know I could have used Swedish fish, but the Haribo clown fish were just SO much cuter. The seaweed was made out of sour belts and the bubbles were nerds! Decorating with candy is really fun!

I fashioned the Octopus out of Gum Paste, which i actually think might not be vegan either. but for the love of Christ, you would NOT want to eat that stuff. Especially when it becomes rock hard after a day or two. Some gum paste is vegan, and some has egg whites. Either way...again...you could eat it, but there would be no reason to!

I LOVED making the octopus...my favorite part was the little suckers on his tentacles. I also really like the sides with the fish and the sea weed. I think it was CUTE!






In conclusion, I might be the biggest nerd ever...but I was happy with the outcome, and I think Rachel and Jason were psyched with how everything turned out!

(sadly not vegan) white chocolate chip cookies

I've been movin' and shakin' a bit lately, which is definitely a good thing. I also have a bunch of baking projects at hand, which is rad.

Yesterday I had a serious craving for white chocolate. White chocolate isn't really chocolate, of course. Any chocolate connoisseur will be very quick to tell you this fact! White chocolate is made from cocoa butter and sugar. It usually contains milk and vanilla. The milk means I shouldn't really have it, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Sadly, I have yet to find vegan white chocolate.



Anyway, I had some white chocolate chips in my freezer. And I had some eggs (which my friend gave me from his chickens). I figured that if the cookies were going to contain the white chocolate chips (and therefore not be at all vegan anyway), I might as well use an egg or two, since they will probably go bad otherwise.

Soooo...here they are. Sadly not vegan white chocolate chip cookies. Moist and delicious, for sure. Good for my tummy, most surely not. Luckily, I know lots of people who like to eat sweets.

Be sure to check back at the end of the weekend, because I'm making my friend's (2 year old) son's birthday cake, as well as a TON of donuts.

now off to slang the booze...

Finally inpired!

So, lately I really haven't been very inspired to cook. I'm not sure why.
Yesterday, however, I decided I better bake some sourdough bread. Instead of baking all of it in loaf pans, i experimented, and baked one loaf on a sheet pan in the shape of french bread. It turned out superbly, and I liked the size and texture a little better.


Let's talk about SAVORY french toast for a minute. I didn't even know it existed! I learned recently that french toast is sometimes made with garlic and italian-type spices. While that doesn't sound half bad, it DOES sound a bit blasphemous as far as I'm concerned! I think I'll stick with the sweet goodness that found its way into my kitchen this morning. The sourdough i baked last night made the tastiest french toast ever! It was not vegan french toast. BUT...the eggs were from my friend's chickens, the bread was homemade and the fruits i had were the the perfect ripeness. Breakfast of champions. Especially with the organic guatemalan coffee i bought. daaaaaamn.




Some people find tempeh to be a very intimidating food. If you are agreeing right now, then you probably don't know that you really MUST steam it before you marinate, grill, broil or bake it! This way it gets all puffy and soft and absorbs twice the flavor it would otherwise.

I steamed some yesterday and marinated it overnight in a sesame ginger marinade.
Here's what went in:

ginger
toasted sesame oil
crushed red pepper
garlic
soy sauce
brown sugar

This evening, I baked the marinated tempeh for maybe 20 minutes, at 350 degrees. This turned out to be the perfect amount of time to cook some basmati rice and stir fry a colorful array of veggies with hot sesame oil, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, umoboshi plum vinegar and a splash of pomegranate juice.

For someone who goes out to eat WAY too often, there is none more satisfying than a day of nothing but home cooked food.

Cheers to a little inspiration!

I left my fork in San Francisco...

Since I didn’t take any pictures, and I know how a long post without any can be a little daunting, I’ll try to keep my SF restaurant reviews as short and sweet as meghanly possible.
In order of eating: ALL VEGAN, so any “chicken, beef”, etc…is faux!

-Weird Fish: Interesting little diner. Very small, but not the longest wait ever. Seems like Sunday brunch really IS the new thing. Or maybe the old thing. We love it in Austin too, although since I don’t like people all that much, I usually skip out on actually going out for it.
Weird fish had a relatively boring tofu scramble. Decent, but definitely not as good as most others I’ve eaten. We also had tofu wings, which I forget what they were called “tofu girls” maybe? Which were AMAZING! the home fries were also delish!

-Golden Era: This place was amazing! We got tofu wings here too, and they were drumstick style. I liked them SO much, even though my friends didn’t think they were as good as the ones at weird fish. The veggie wonton soup was outstanding as was the “gourmet chicken”. The “beef and broccoli” wasn’t great, but I am rarely a fan of fake beef. GO TO THIS PLACE. You will love it!

-Avatar’s Punjabi Burrito: This is actually located in Mill Valley, which is in Marin County. On the way to Muir beach (which is amazing too!). This place was SO awesome. Think Indian Burrito, full of veggies, potatoes, rice, fruit chutney (and optional yogurt sauce) all wrapped in a soft naan type wrap. YUUUUUM! So so so good. I do not, however, recommend eating the second half (which you saved because you couldn’t eat it all at once) whilst riding along crazy curving mountains. It might give you a belly ache!

-Ritual Coffee: Amazing coffee! ‘nuff said.

-Herbivore: HOLY DELICIOUSNESS! (duh!) Everything there is pretty good. I had mac n’ cheese. And the most delicious carrot cake ever. Not super sweet, which I love. I wasn’t sure about how it ranked until later, when I couldn’t stop thinking about it!

-St. Francis: Living in texas, I REALLY miss northeast diner’s. This was pretty close, with a ton of veggie options. I actually really loved this place! I ate eggs here, but the high point was how delicious the home fries were. DAMN! And apparently you can get them with all kinds of stuff on top. They are, however, really good on their own. I wonder why Californians know potatoes so well? Some of the best I’ve had, I think. Seriously.

-Saturn Café: Located in Santa Cruz. Really cool old school décor diner. Employees, totally gay, thank god! I liked this place a lot. We shared some vegan nachos, which were up there with the best ones EVER. They were topped with black beans, guac, delicious! Tofu spread sour cream type stuff, and tomatoes, among other things. SO SO good. I had a fake turkey club, which was pretty good. Billie had some veggie dish with brown rice and peanut sauce that was definitely NOT great. The veggies were overcooked and the peanut sauce was mediocre. But still go there….even if its just for the nachos! OH, and get a milk shake, cause that shit is GOOD!

-Millenium: REALLY REALLY awesome. And thank god... for that kind of money. I am a person who never buys fancy stuff…unless its food. I’m not a snob, I just like really great food and am willing to spend what needs to be spent on it. Millenium did NOT let me down. We had the breaded oyster mushrooms as an app, which were totally amazing. We also got the special appetizer, which was gnocchi with delicious sauce. I really liked that too. Ohh, and the strawberry mojito…YES PLEASE! I could drink way too many of those if I let myself! We all got different things, but I think I won the contest. I had grilled tempeh over coconut sweet potato puree, with some delicious greens and a side of strawberry radish salad. WHO KNEW that radishes and strawberries were so good together? Millenium is definitely on my HELL YEAH list.

WHAT a delicious town San Francisco is. And yes, we ate at all of these places in the span of 4 days. Is that not the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Gluttonous for sure!
I also ate a bagel there, which was decent. Way better than anything in texas, but not nearly as good as ny. But good enough to curb my bagel craving for a little while!

YUM YUM!

Melisser, you sure do have it lucky out there!!!

San Francisco...

SO, i just went to san francisco for the first time ever.
and i ate the town to the ground!
non-stop vegan goodness for 4 days.
i don't have pictures, but i DO have opinions.
so, at some point when i'm not so tired, i will do a mini restaurant review of my whirlwind trip.

i loved it there.
it was delicious.

more to come...

Vietnamese Sandwiches & "green on the inside" smoothies!

First...I am going to state, for the record, that I will no longer feel guilty when I make posts about things that are not dessert. SO, this is me, asserting (to myself) that it is totally ok for me to blog about real food. Right here. On this typically-non-sweets-discriminating blog! Done and done.


Second, I would like to reiterate how fun it is to be a part of food-blog culture. I am constantly inspired to try new recipes and push myself to cook more (or just prepare more) because of all YOU awesome crafty blog ladies! So, thanks.

AND...the real point of telling you, is that I was inspired today to make a "green smoothie". People have been blogging a lot about them lately. SO...here's my version, which although may not have APPEARED green, it was certainly green on the inside!


Ingredients in my concoction:
banana
frozen organic cherries
handful of spinach/arugula mix
unsweetened soy milk
pomegranite/cranberry juice


YUM! Delicious healthy cool down! Hopefully it will have the added benefit of making the greens easier for me to digest, since sometimes raw greens make my tummy freak out. I'll let you know.

Third, I'd like to rave about my new favorite sandwich. In Austin, the hottest trend in food is to sell things out of a truck/airstream/etc. I know that's not the most novel idea in the world...but here it's catching on like wildfire. Honestly, I couldn't be more thrilled... because any new deliciousness is always desirable.

This sandwich is from
lulu b's, which is a Vietnamese Sandwich truck on South Lamar. My personal fave, and newest obsession is this:

Lemongrass Tofu (add avocado, PLEASE!). It comes on delicious crusty baguette-type bread, and is full of crunchy julienned carrots, jicama(maybe?), cilantro and a coupla' jalapenos (seeds removed, for just a touch of kick)!!




Mmm, mmm...heaven on white!