So I spent yesterday cleaning the kitchen, cooking, and then cleaning the kitchen again.

But that's okay, because one of the outcomes of this was a batch of 'special' chocolate cupcakes, inspired by this chocolate that The Princess and I enjoy. I started with the Basic Chocolate Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I doubled the cocoa and added some chocolate chips. And then... I blended the soymilk with two large jalapeño peppers and a big chunk of fresh ginger. I ran it through a strainer, added a little more grated fresh ginger and baked them! They came out a beautiful chocolate colour and I piled on Fluffy Vegan Buttercream Frosting mixed with a little chili powder and dried ginger, before dripping on some Quick Melty Ganache and sprinkling them with sprinkles (because who doesn't love sprinkles?) and some more ginger and chili powders.
In the end they weren't as spicy as I'd hoped (or nearly as spicy as the batter was. I should know because I ate extensive amounts of it). However, they still had a unique twist of flavour. I'll probably try this again with maybe twice the jalapeño and some more ginger. At least they turned out rather pretty:
So that's my big cupcake news of the week!

So!
I don't have any of my own pictures to post right now (my camera batteries are dead) but I can assure you that I've been eating quite well!
The Princess and I have challenges for a month beginning... well, a while ago. She has pledged to eat only foods grown and processed within 100 miles of her farm! I am not quite so bold, and have instead occupied myself on a month long vegan diet.
I'm also in the process of moving (only a few blocks away), so my access to a kitchen has been somewhat sketchy. However, I have still had plenty of opportunities for good food, having played around with whatever fresh vegetables I can find at our local fruit stand. I also visited Castlegar's first Farmers Market this last Saturday, but was sadly disappointed by the lack of food and the abundance of sea shells, plants, and jewellery. (Not really my idea of farming!)
I have had the opportunity to sample a few unusual things: the first is Wild Garden Hummus. The Internet had told me nothing but good things about this jarred hummus, and I was excited to try the stuff out. It wasn't cheap- over four dollars for what I didn't consider a very big jar. (I could make a lot more from scratch for that price!) I chose the roasted garlic flavour, figuring I couldn't go too wrong. Unfortunately I was disappointed right when I opened the jar. Rather than the grainy, textured hummus I purposely prepare (and absolutely love at a local coffee shop), this was a smooth paste. I was disappointed again when I dipped a finger in it- not nearly enough garlic, and far too much of what I assumed was lemon juice until I read the label on the 'all natural' dip- citric acid. This must have been to make up for the loss of flavour associated with the fact that this little jar had made it to my local grocery store all the way from Jordan! I couldn't believe how excessive this snack ended up being. I can't wait to unpack my food processor and start making my own again. Even if chickpeas and tahini aren't grown locally, I'm sure I can find a closer source than the Middle East. (And without sacrificing authenticity, since I'm pretty sure traditional hummus makers, like me, left out the citric acid.)

The other thing I've been consuming is books, specifically, books about consuming. The most recent is the classic "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. This is one of those books that should really be a prerequisite to consuming anything else. Pollan manages to present the facts without coming off as too preachy or self-consumed. My only argument is with how quickly he shrugged off vegetarianism. No, I don't think that vegetarianism is for everyone, nor do I think that 'well-raised' animals have had any harm done to them in their raising. However, the "Vegetarian's Dilemma" of culture versus ethics is one that lasts only slightly longer than he bothered test driving vegetarianism. Thanksgiving is not about turkey; a ballgame is not about hot dogs. Eventually, a person adapts to saying "No thanks, I brought my own ^^" in various social situations, and, for me at least, culture is not injured so long as we do not dwell on something so unconsequential. Besides, most people are willing to adapt. Just last night at a community 'open air theatre' as I put money in the food bank jar and explained why I wasn't taking the popcorn offered 'by donation' (so they would not take offence as they were visibly trying to give away as much of the popcorn as possible), they happily grabbed me a bag off the top of the air popper that had not yet been covered in butter. No harm done to my Indiana-Jones-watching cultural experience.
Does vegetarianism come without its faults? Of course not. There are plenty of qualms with sugar; probably moreso than with honey. There are problems with shipping hummus from Jordan just as there are with eating the endlessly available "Mock Meats" available in stores. No, my dinner (carrot, potato and garlic soup and homemade whole wheat biscuits) was not without harm to the earth, especially since the local fruit stand was unusually devoid of carrots and yes, they were conventionally farmed carrots shipped to my town from far away. However, adding a piece of meat to this meal, no matter how earth-and-animal-friendly the farming conditions, would not have made it any more ethical. I suppose I take offence at being pitied (yes, Pollan made it clear that he pities the tofu-eater). Sure I work hard at making the things I ingest animal-free, but I refuse to suffer. Certainly I enjoy food a lot more than my omnivorous family (who tonight dined, in seperate rooms, on frozen pepperoni pizza. Surely a 'edible foodlike substance.')

Finally, I'm currently working a summer job at Tim Hortons. I had gotten the idea that my vegan experiment would clash with being surrounded with conventional baked goods. Luckily enough, the Tim Hortons website has just assured me that our fat-free muffins (of which at least one variety is usually prepared daily) and our bagels are vegan! This is actually a pretty exciting discovery for me. Tomorrow morning I plan to give the 1-800 number a call and find out if the 'java concentrate' that we mix cream, milk, or chocolate milk with to make our ice capps contains milk. If not, I think I might bring a small bottle of soymilk to work with me on Friday and make myself a custom vegan ice capp! If only we could convince Tim's to start carrying soymilk like Starbucks...

This blog entry has gotten surprisingly long. I hope The Princess decides to post a few pictures of her local eating experience! (Sorry I'm such a nag ^^;)

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Now playing: Nine Inch Nails - Terrible Lie
via FoxyTunes

Woah! I ACTUALLY updated! Well, I'll admit, it was at the prodding of my fabulous Soulmate, Moonchild.
Here's some things I've been up to:
With Moonchild:
Sorbet (also known as sherbert). It's vegan.

It is some coconut (shredded), frozen raspberries, canned pineappple, and a dash of pina colada mix. Well, more than a dash.

We chucked it in the icecream maker, let it freeze and then enjoyed deeply.

The second picture is after it had been frozen, and then left in the fridge for a couple of hours 'cause we were too full to eat it all.

And then, by myself I think, I made some devilled eggs. Pretty basic: I boiled 'em, mashed the yolks with mayonnaise, dry mustard powder, pepper, a hint of minced garlic, and a dash of tumeric. Topped it with paprika and chopped green onion. Not particularily exciting, but the photo was already on my computer. Plus, devilled eggs are pretty.

Like Moonchild, but she has less mayonaise in her.

Peace.

Oh look! A blog!
Yeah. So I [Moonchild] have decided to post the whole mess of food pictures I've taken in the last couple weeks on the grounds that maybe if I send it to The Princess after, she might go "Oh look! A blog!" and start using it herself. Moreover, maybe she'll even use it when she goes to Italy to post pictures of pretty Italian food. [Well, I can hope, anyways.]

First! A Cupcake!
This here is a [vegan] carrot cupcake, based off of some recipe on the internet somewhere that I altered. It had pineapple and I believe an applesauce binder. They were pretty darn good, and decently fluffy. The icing is just icing sugar and margarine [not vegan T_T] and soymilk and vanilla. And then I threw on some fresh strawberries because I'm decorative like that.






Next! An overly processed veggie burger lunch!

This was before Relay for Life [which was freaking awesome] and I wanted something good. This is an Yves ground 'beef' veggie burger, with fried onions and spinach on a whole wheat bun. The potatoes beside the burger are the 'Jojoes' that we [Princess and I] learned to make in the eighth grade. I swear that was the only useful skill I gained from Foods class. Slice potatoes into 'coins,' coat with olive oil (although we used melted margarine in class) and spices. I think the ones here are just salt and coarse pepper, although the foods teacher made us use 'seasoning salt' (whatever that is).

Oatmeal Pancakes!

Yay! This was breakfast before my social studies 11 provincial exam yesterday. The recipe is stolen from here. I ran out of white flour, so it's about half and half between white and whole wheat. I used organic sugar and used a little more than in the recipe. They were really good, although my brother refused to even try one. As you can see, I topped them with kiwi and syrup [sadly not real maple syrup as we don't have any right now.] The mug is filled with orange juice. There you go.


Curry-fry!
This was dinner last night! I make this probably at least once every two weeks. [And I generally don't repeat recipes very often.] This is basically fried vegetables, chickpeas, and curry powder. It takes probably ten minutes including the chopping and frying. I love spinach in this, but last night we didn't have any. This one does have zucchini, broccoli, and frozen peas. Chop up most of an onion and some garlic and fry it in olive oil until soft. Add chopped veggies and fry them as well. Add chickpeas and several good hard shakes of curry powder until the whole thing is kind of yellow-ish. Fry until the chickpeas are hot and then eat!

Vegan Ice Cap! (No, really.)

Okay, this might be the worst food picture I ever took. I drank mine quickly, and then my mother wanders in and goes "Hey, can I have one of those?" She insists on using the dark, thick chocolate syrup that doesn't dissolve (and contains milk) and which gets all over the cup. She drinks a bunch and then I go "Wait! I need to prove to the world that it's possible!"
Plus the ice isn't crushed because I'm currently living with our blender and food processor in a box in the basement until we move houses again. Oh well. It's delicious. Trust me. Instructions? Take some soymilk. Probably a little less than three cups. Add about a cup of sugar and a little cornstarch. Cook it on the stove in a pot until it's just starting to thicken. Add several scoops of instant coffee. Cook until the mixture is good and syrupy. Take it off the heat and put it in the freezer until it's cooled. Take ice that you've smashed in a baggie against your deck and put it in a glass. Pour a big spoonful of the syrup and a good squirt of chocolate syrup onto the ice, and then fill the glass to the top with soymilk. Mix it well and then drink. It's really, really good. One day I will have my blender back and I will be able to make a Timmies' style one with the ice blended in.

And finally! Brunch!
Hurray! This is what I was just eating when I started typing this up. After not being able to sleep for quite a while after drinking that ice cap at nine last night, I woke up late and needed brunch. I wanted biscuits, but we ran out of white flour. [Because I used the last of it in the oatmeal pancakes.] These ones are entirely whole wheat. In theory they are the ones from Vegan with a Vengeance, but again, whole wheat. I also used shortening for all of the fat (rather than half margarine) because vegan margarine is expensive and hard to come by and I hate knowing that there is whey in my cooking for really no good reason. The stuff in the middle is a fried 'patty' made out of black beans and onion, held together with flaxseed and soy flour. The biscuits were a little dense [of course] and I couldn't get the patties crispy enough for my liking, but it was a decent and easy enough brunch.

Okay Princess, your turn!

Number 52, Become a more frightening monster than the one they think you are.

Extra Credit: Write an essay, poem, recipe, film, or performance piece on this question: if a culture's monsters reflect its greatest fears, what does it say about uber-American culture that its monsters are for the most part shape-shifters and mutants?

So... here goes. I've deliberately not included any numbers because it should never turn out the same way twice. I did take pictures, but the camera cord's missing. They'll be on here eventually.

Edit: Yup, picture finally up!

Ingredients:
Frozen Strawberries
Natch Peanut Butter
Lime juice (Fresh squeezed)
Paprika
Chocolate Syrup
Sesame Seeds
Soymilk
Flaxseed Oil
Ground Flax
Raisins

Assembly:
Nuke the strawberries for about a minute, until they're partially thawed. Arrange these in a circle around a plate. These will represent the normalcy of North American culture.
Mix together some of the peanut butter, lime juice, chocolate syrup, flaxseed oil, and paprika. Mine was a playdough-ish consistancy. Form that into whatever shape your mutant will have and throw it in the middle of the plate, being stared at by North American culture.
Mix together soymilk, more peanut butter, more lime juice (this may make your soymilk curdle. I contemplated not adding it but I realized that mutants had to drink sour milk sometimes), ground flax, and sesame seeds. Mine was pretty liquidy but solider than soymilk... maybe maple syrup consistancy? Then pour the 'slime' all over the mutant. This will be everything the mutant stands for, and that the culture can't deal with.
Some of the slime may get on the strawberries. These strawberries should be wiped off, lest they become mutants themselves. The slime will have forever changed the strawberry, but it's important that the strawberry LOOK the same as the other strawberries.
Finish off your mutant by adding raisin features- eyes, ears, claws, etc.
I wrote "FEAR" on the outside of the plate in slime, then dipped each strawberry in the mutant before eating it. Mmm... infiltration of fringe culture...

[-Moonchild]

Lent-Proof Chocolate Nut Pudding Pie

When Moonchild gave me the recipe for this, I was, to say the least, hesitant. Under her earnest testimonials, however, I was convinced enough to try it. It seemed simple enough, a no-bake wonder with very little (if any) bad-for-you stuff. It needs a blender very much, though.

Crust:

• 1/2 C. walnut, hazelnut, almond, macadamia...whatever floats your boat. I used walnut.




• 4 plump dates, or 3/4 C. dried dates




• 1/4 C. Shredded coconut

Blendify the nut of choice, the dates, and the coconut. This can take a while, and cause alarming noises, 'cause dates are sticky. My blender lived, but keep your fingers crossed. Or use a food processer. Press this glop into the pan, and even out the thickness.

Filling:

• 1 1/2 'Cados (Avacados, for those unfamilliar with the term. Now start using it.)




• 3/4 C. of the nut of your choice, not nessecarily the same as above. Once again, I used walnut. But Moonchild used hazelnuts, and she liked it.




• Double the amount of dates used in the crust




• 4 tbsp cocoa powder




• Enough water to make it blend well (you'll need it!)

Blendify all of these things together, and pour into the crust. It was as easy as that. If you feel you haven't worked hard enough, I used a garnish of sliced strawberries, but they aren't shown in the picture. The pie tastes best chilled, but it's fabulous to eat right away, too.

A Lenten Sundae

So, here I (Moonchild) sit in The Princess' living room as she scambles around looking for camera, cord, and disk.

"Where could I have put it?" her voice carries through the hall as I sit on her laptop. Not wanting to prune apple trees has brought us to actually update The Blog. I'm not sure if all the photos will go on one post or several. I guess it's up to The Princess since she's the pretty one. "Maybe it went over the edge. I found an uber amount of glowsticks. Like we're not even talking... this is uber. Like uber uber uber... uber." She just walked in. There is an uber amount of glowsticks in her hands but no disk.

But I, the princess have managed, and so here is a picture from this morning's delight. A Lenten

Sundae. We're both on lent, like good girls, and we wanted something yummy and fattening. So what we came up with is a "healthy" sundae -or as healthy as a sundae's gonna get.

We started with a Banana, on a microwave-safe plate. Three lumps of peanut butter, Kraft's Chunky, were lumped on top. We sprinkled on frozen blueberries, drizzeled on honey, and then threw it in the mircowave for a minute. Adding a handfull of crumbled pecans and deeming it uncooked, we gave it another minute. At this point, both the peanutbutter and the banana were pretty melted. Topped finally with a marachino cherry each (we hadn't had our dailly allotment of preservatives), we grabbed spoons and enjoyed.

Focaccia Bread and Cream of Broccoli Soup

-Moonchild

Today I'm being a Savvy Vegetarian with their Cream of Broccoli Soup and Italian Focaccia Bread- dinner for my parents and I. Everything was delicious, especially the bread. I nearly followed the directions- just left the rosemary out of the soup and the majoram out of the bread because we didn't have any and our sad little grocery store doesn't stock it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE PRINCESS TODAY!

Yes, she is FIFTEEN as of today, and we are all very proud of her. She's making her own birthday cake (as her family tried to buy her a "Sara Lee" one and she was horrified.) which she says she'll post pictures of when she gets back from the lake in a few weeks, along with our recent lunchtime escapades at the lake this weekend.

Have fun ^^
-Moonchild