Joanna's Better Than Basic Veggie Chili, a tester recipe. It's pretty fantastic. I made some cornbread to go with it, and the combination made for several days of enjoyable meals.


Pink lemonade cupcakes! Well, that's what they were supposed to be, anyway. I pinked up the batter, but it didn't bake that way. Very annoying. The cupcakes are the basic golden vanillas from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World with some lemon extract thrown in, and the frosting is the lemon cream cheese recipe from the same book. That frosting is AMAZING. Seriously, it's worth typing in all caps for. I took these to my family's easter shindig and they were a big hit. Even my dad liked them, and he's been known to have heart palpitations at the mention of soy.


A pink lemonade mini cake made from leftover cupcake batter and frosting. For some reason these little cakes baked up a lot pinker than the cupcakes. Maybe because I used silicone pans? Who knows. Either way, it was cute and tasty. Forgive the shoddy frosting job. I was pretty tired of it at this point and there wasn't enough frosting left to do it up right.


And finally, this my kitty getting her stare on. Obviously she is not food, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Her eyes stare directly into your soul. Can you feel it? I know I can. What you probably can't get a sense of from this picture is how damn annoying she is. For real, she drives me crazy. Crazy, I tell you! It's a good thing she's cute.

Labels: baked goods, cake, chili, cupcakes, sweets, yellow rose recipes

Posted by Amanda at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments

During the week I made this Pineapple Coffee Cake from the Fatfree Vegan blog. I'd been eyeing that recipe ever since Susan first posted it - I love coffee cake, I love pineapple, and her picture of it is so lovely. Plus it's whole wheat and low in points. So I had high hopes for this... and it met every expectation. It's wonderful. Moist, sweet, light, crunchy on top. Just delicious. My picture doesn't do it justice at all. (I'm having some issues with finding a good place to take pictures lately, what with the lack of sunlight.) I'll definitely be making this on a regular basis.


And here we have the famous Sloppy/Disorderly Lentils. Believe it or not, this was my first time making them. I don't really know what took me so long, but now I wish I'd tried them before - they're awesome! And super easy to make. I basically followed the standard recipe, with just a few tweaks:

Sloppy Lentils

2 c water
1 c red lentils
1 1/2 c tomato sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce or tamari
2 carrots, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
a few handfuls of spinach, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
generous pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
generous pinch of basil
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the water, lentils, tomato sauce, and soy sauce/tamari in a pot. Bring to a boil. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir well, and lower the heat to a simmer. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This made 4 servings for me, and I worked it out to about 3 points per serving. It's mostly zero-point veggies, so really the only thing to count for is the lentils.

I am pretty much in love with these right now. I had leftovers for lunch but I still want to make them again for dinner tonight. Yum.

The only other noteworthy thing I've made recently is the Eggnog Muffins from La Dolce Vegan. I was so excited for them - I love nog! I love muffins! Hell yes. Unfortunately I didn't like them at all. They were very bland and unpleasant. I actually threw them away. They rose well and had a nice texture, though, so I think the problem lies not in the recipe but in my sweet tooth. Or rather, the fact that I don't just have a sweet tooth - I have a full set of 32. So they may be sweet enough for other people, but for me they didn't really taste like anything. Gross.

Labels: baked goods, cake, lentils, recipes

Posted by Amanda at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments