TBT 50-90

Vegan Chocolate Brownie Cake with Vegan Cream Cheese Icing!!!! and Organic Vegan Sprinkles!

Today was my derby wife's bday, so I made her a vegan cake. We devoured half of it with my family over lunch time and all experienced sugar high. I reduced the sugar in the cake by 1/2, but the icing was too much and too delicious. I ate 1/2 bad and 1/2 good today. I will now wrap up any loose ends and get ready to hit the road in the morning. Speaking of hitting the road, despite me taking my iPad with me, I'm not going to blog often until we get home. I swear on my roller skates that I won't eat any worse than I have, and I will try to be better, promise. Stress = slacking for me. I need something else to be able to do it all.


What I Ate Today:
Oatmeal with good for you museli
green tea/white tea blend
2 big pieces of said birthday cake
mint tea
a few bites of lentil red thai curry
double roasted potatoes with nooch and veggie/tofu teriyaki stirfry on top
popcorn with nooch

Exercise:
FML. Hosted a bratz meeting so missed any chance of working out tonight. Sad Panda. (But those bratz are AWESOME!!)

summer? is it here?

obviously the swimming in the lake, the sacrificing our not-so-virgin bodies to the god of summer has brought the heat down upon us. and it's G L O R I O U S ! ! this is probably the best weekend i've had in known memory. or at least since last summer. saturday morning equaled a sleep in, chores, farmer's market (blueberries! kale! dill! peas!), loonie toonie at the Friendship Center, a lot of knitting, a lot of playing outside, a long nap with my babe, women's liberation book club meeting, and an early morning (today) with lots more chores, farmers market II, breakfast out with some family, more knitting, more playing outside, getting sun tanned, cooking a huge vegan dinner (to celebrate my 7 day cleanse that i didn't suck too much at), and now a movie, more knitting, and a non-cleanse approved chocolate snack.

the cleanse. what a genius fucking idea. i mean, i didn't stick to it 100% especially past day four, but it's changed the way i eat fundamentally (or re-routed me to how i used to eat). i'm going to try and not go back on caffeine, minus green tea, and we're getting closer to a vegan/veg diet. and i'm looking forward to august's 14 days, and will try harder to stick to it.  the best part was that i felt phenomenal, though was tired for the first 5 days or so. good stuff.

Recipe: Marinated Mushrooms

I found this recipe in Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook, which jumped out at me from the shelves at the library as the lone non-Christmas book on the "Christmas" themed book shelf. This cookbook was like a light turning on for me for some reason. All of these amazing recipes in one (big) book! How could I have not known about the wonders of Jewish Holiday Cooking (well, I had an idea, but I didn't really know)? I quickly took on a few favourite recipes and cooked them for the Hanukkah feast we had, but a few of them really stuck (like the vegetarian chopped liver with eggplant OMG).

I like this one the best because it's easy peasy, never something I would have considered making myself (!), it's cheap for entertaining, and is just SO delicious! And, it has one of my favourite foods: mushrooms. I altered the recipe to include dry herbs because really who has access to fresh herbs cheap in the off season, and made it a bit spicier. I also double the mushrooms and reduce the marinade. Less oil = good times.

XO






Marinated Mushrooms
adapted from Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook (pg. 61)

Ingredients

2 lbs of fresh button mushrooms
1 small yellow onion, peeled and sliced into paper thin rings
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup salad oil (I used canola)
1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar
1 heaping tablespoon prepared HOTT mustard (I got ours at a european deli!)
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 teaspoon ground cumin (though cumin seed would be yummy too!)
three pinches of salt
shake of pepper

How To:

1. Put 1" of water in a large pot (one that you have the lid for) and turn on MAX. Wash and trim the stems of your mushrooms. Once washed place in your pot and cover. Let cook for 1 minute once water is boiling. Drain water and place mushrooms in a crock, casserole dish, or glass bowl (preferably one with a lid to reduce the onion stink into your fridge).

2. Lower heat to medium-low. Using the same pot combine the onions, vinegar, oil, sugar, mustard, basil, cumin, salt, and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, for about three minutes. (I found the mustard got this specific smell like burning hot stuff, ha, that triggered me to pull it off the stove. It took me 3 minutes simmering to get there).

3. Cover the mushrooms in the marinade and stir to evenly coat. Place bowl/crock/whatever covered in the fridge for a minimum of 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

Joan Nathan says to serve with toothpicks, but I put a huge serving spoon in mine and encouraged peeps to eat them like candy :)

diandra's vegan brownies

So, I've been looking at my analytics page a bit for fun. And found that time and time again the thing that people search for when they search and get d-funk.blogspot.com is my vegan fudge brownies. they're an adaptation of the rebar recipe and can be found on the old endearing records site here. and below, with a few modern-day-diandra modifications. i haven't made these in forever since discovering the kinikinik gluten free chocolate cake mix (which i use bananas and soymilk with, so it's very much the same, just no gluten). loves!

Diandra's Vegan Fudge Brownies

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour (or 1 cup unbleached, 1/2 cup kamut)
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups thick soy milk (like vitasoy original)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup walnuts, roasted and chopped
1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

1. Pre-heat oven to 325F. Prepare a 9"X9" pan by greasing it.

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, stir together the coffee, soy milk, and olive oil. Combine the wet and dry mixes and stir to mix well. Stir walnuts into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, sprinkle the top with dairy-free chocolate chips and bake for 25 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

3. Divide the pan into 12 squares and enjoy!

(Diandra came up with this recipe by adapting the brownie recipe in the Rebar Modern Foods Cookbook, p. 318.)

YUM! pumpkin scones

I just made these.

They're cooling with icing on the stove. My ingredients list looks like this:

* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 3 1/2 cups flour (1 cup kamut, 3/4 cup all purpose, 1 3/4 cups whole wheat)
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 3 tsp ginger powder 2 inches of ginger root, grated
* 1/2 3/4 cup vegan margarine mmmmmm earth balance!!
* 2 cups pureed pumpkin errr, one med-sized can of pumpkin puree

Then I made icing with around 1/4 cup of earth balance, a table spoon of vanilla, 2 cups of icing sugar and soy milk to thin.

No food porn pictures today!

xo