Welcoming Vegan MoFo

I welcomed Vegan MoFo by making, quite potentially, the biggest baking blunder I’ve made in quite some time.

I got as far as spooning the batter into cupcake tins, licking the spatula, ad immediately spitting it into the garbage ad licking a paper towel to get the taste off my tongue.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite so dramatic. But almost.

Why? I forgot the sugar. The wording of the recipe confused me, so I didn’t see it instructing me to even add sugar. Being that I usually don’t add much sugar anyway, I didn’t think twice.

I. was. gutted. I didn’t know what to do, but I was certain the scooping the batter out of tins and back into the bowl, to mix with sugar was not a viable option.

It got chucked.

I’m still gutted. I don’t throw food away. In fact, my mom (a tapioca lover) noticed those tapioca cups still in there, and asked if I was eating them.

“They’re not very good, but I’ll eat them.” I replied.

“Can I try one?” she bravely asked, only for me to respond, “Try them all” in a bit of a challenging voice.

“Oh, these are terrible! Why don’t you throw them out?!”

“There’s starving children in China. I’ll eat them.”

“The reason they’re starving is because they don’t want to eat those.”

There are two morals to this story:

• read your recipes carefully. chances are, they need sugar.
• anything with a brand name of “SoYummi,” is probably a lie.

Oh, right, before I went off on that tangent, you were wondering why I was calling myself a Vegan MoFo.

Well, Vegano MoFo is not actually anything profane, but rather the Vegan Month of Food. Unfortunately, I’m not actually officially participating in the Vegan MoFo as I missed the deadline to “enroll,” but I’ll still celebrate. And celebrate is just what I did today, starting with breakfast.

 

…And these pancakes did not disappoint. They were the “Raspberry Cornmeal Pancakes,” as seen in Eat, Drink and Be Vegan, though I made them with what I had on hand:

• peaches instead of raspberries
• graham flour instead of spelt
• added nutmeg

I had grandiose plans of making peach-ginger cornmeal pancakes, or peach-coconut, but then decided to just follow the recipe first.

This. was. delicious. I loved the texture and taste! I will surely be waffleizing or at least keep pancake-izing. Or something like that.

That’s date molasses you see on top, which definitely took them to a level of epicness that cannot be messed with.

And then, this happened:

Oh, surprise, surprise – another ED&BV recipe. This time, Polenta Casserole. Because, as you know, I like casserole, as evidenced by the past…month.

I was really excited to bust open my Bove’s sauce, too. It’s local and seen on Food Network, as well as the only sauce I could find with no added sugar.

And it’s delicious! I will definitely start being more picky about the sauces I use. Of course, I should have just made my own when I had tomatoes out my ears this summer, but I had too many scalloped tomatoes for that to happen!

Anyways. For the Polenta Casserole, I ended up using frozen broccoli instead of frozen corn, and instead of mixing the grated polenta with grated imitation cheese, I mixed it with hummus and nutritional yeast.

And yeah, yeah, I just talked about Vegan MoFo, but I wasn’t about to pay $2 for a single yogurt and not eat it. Although I would have been better off…I should have listened to everyone that said they were unimpressed with Siggi’s – because I wasn’t impressed, either. In fact, I was a little grossed out and left most of it for my  mom. It had a weird texture, and not much “orange and ginger” flavor to speak of, either.

But, speaking of yogurt, I was a featured blogger on Chobani yesterday!! Go check out Emily’s write-up on me…I was practically blushing

What’s been your biggest kitchen “whoopsie”?

Are you participating in Vegan MoFo?

Waffle With Me

Has everyone seen or heard the new Dunkin’ Donuts commercials advertising their waffle sandwich? I swear I hear it every ten minutes – but tt makes me laugh every time. Why? Because, well…I waffle on a daily basis. I even use the term waffle. So when I heard waffle all over the radio I felt a little cheated. Here is a days worth of waffles for you.

Fortunately, this mornings breakfast was almost waffle free due to this cool chica’s mention of carrot cake ice cream. I read this comment at 1 am during my nightly “I need to stop drinking so much water” moment – and immediately realized it’s been far too long since I’ve had carrot cake oats. You’d better believe I had difficulties falling asleep when I could hardly wait for morning. Just the thought made me have a nightly rendezvous with the kitchen involving nuked puffins. Luckily, morning finally came.

I love you, carrot cake oats. And this bowl was especially stellar, for what reason I am unsure. Possibly because this was the first time I’d had it with oat bran? Possibly. It was much fluffier than usual. Or maybe I just forgot how fluffy bananas make oats?

I suppose one of my breakfast waffles occurred just moments ago, trying to narrow down my breakfast photos. Apparently, I went a little overboard this morning. I was enamored.

In the Mix was oat bran, spelt flakes, barley & wheat bran, brewed coffee & almondmilk, ~1/4 sliced banana, vanilla, goji berries, pineapple, 1/2 carrot, grated, ground clove, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon

On the Top was chia-acai icing, flax, crystallized ginger, a chopped walnut or two, strawberry-pom jam, coconut butter, and 1/2 grated carrot sauteed with maple syrup, coconut, raisins, pineapple, cinnamon, and a splash of water.

The waffle appeared when it was time to chose coffee. I think my problem is that I give myself too many choices. So many nut butters, so many jams, so many veggies, so many fruits, so many breads. Hey, variety is the spice of life, right? As long as I’m not wasting anything, I’m content.

Rain Forest Nut eventually won over, and I waffled about what I wanted to make for my birthday dinner while enjoying a cup of that and my cake. I love waking up early.

Next waffle: hurr. I’ve been having major hair dilemmas. I really need to cut it. But I don’t like paying someone $20 to take half an inch off my hair. That can be spent on fun food finds or new bowls, you know.

the usual, except usually I pouf it more. It's growing old.

reunited with my hair straightener: still pouffed on top.

the new? or too susie home-maker?

After all this waffling, it was time to pack the lunch-age and head to class. First, I waffled as to what I wanted for my drive in snackage. The rest of the nanner had apparently been eaten by a Henry-monster, so banana was out of the question. English muffin, or nuked Puffins?

puffins-1. english muffin-0

If you haven’t done this yet, you should do it now. 1/2c. original puffins, 1/4 c. almondmilk, drizzle honey-apple butter, and cinnamon. Nuke for 30 seconds. Enjoy. Yum.

Next up? Yogi Moroccan Spice – for the words of wisdom – or Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride – for the pure bliss?

sugar cookie sleigh ride - with almondmilk, vanilla, and honey.

I have a rapidly growing honey obsession.

Driving in to class I encountered a major waffle. Did I really want to waste this beautiful morning by going to class? I won’t say which waffle I toasted, but I will say sometimes…ya just gotta appreciate the beauty around you.

And right on time, hunger came knocking, and I gladly answered. There was no waffling here:

Rite Aid parking lot.

Nature valley Nut Clusters – I make sure I ration these out, or I’ll just nom down the whole bag. So good. These were the peanut ones. I’m tempted to try making something similar myself.

I just realized I ate a lot in my car today.

And sesame rice crisps. Fueling before my second class & a quick Rite Aid pit-stop. This was a good snack – the clusters held me over quite nicely!

After my second class I participated in a grueling workout that involved a pretty drastic makeover. Are you ready for this?

Gertrude. Don't think she stayed that clean for more than ten minutes.

This messed up my hair, made me freeze, and made me more than ready for lunch.

There was slight waffling involved in lunch: I was homeless! My mom was MIA and I didn’t feel like eating by myself at a random location on campus. Everyone has classes when I don’t, and vice versa 😦 I finally decided on just going to the welcome center because I was going to need to buy some hot water or coffee, anyways. I wanted to go to the lake lookout – but didn’t think I’d have time to do that and get tea/coffee.

lunch was packed last night, as usual.

Turkey Meatball pita-panini w/ ranch, dijonnaise, sundried tomatoes, red pepper, red onion, spinach, and a pickle. Oh and parmesan, of course!

And I'll never turn down a naranja.

Deee-vine. Loved the homemade ranch-dijonnaise combo. And the pickle. Oh, dill pickles. You make sandwiches complete.

Did I want a bar, too?

I ended up passing – I was quite content – but decided to take Clif with me, for his whole grains and vitamins – to my Photo class. I definitely made everyone jealous. If you’ve had a Blueberry Z Bar before, you know how deliciously blueberry – y they smell!

I munched half in class, and half driving home so I didn’t eat the kitchen once I got there. There was much waffling about exposures, negatives, and chemicals while in photo – but I won’t bore you. There was also much stress/frustration. Everyone kept asking me all these questions about what to do, how to do it, what to mix, etc. I get really stressed out when I’m asked too many questions about stuff like that when I’m trying to do it, too. I’m trying to get stuff done, too – and I probably only know as much as you! I know that sounds awful, but it’s just part of me. I could never be a teacher. The worse part is – I’ll even get frustrated if it’s even people I know really well.

I had already had a general idea for dinner planned, but I waffled the entire way home as to specifics. I’ll reveal the final product, first.

Bulgur-Chickpea Casserole

Did I want chickpeas, turkey meatballs, or shrimp? Chickpeas. Did I want sweets-meets-savory by including an apple? No. But next time for sure! Did I want to make it all neat and layered only for it to be messed up upon serving, anyway? Sure.

Classic Jess fashion.

Did I want to use nutritional yeast, feta, or parmesan in the veggie layer? Nutritional yeast. Parm on Top!

This was good! Chickpeas were the right waffle. Next time I’d love to try it with some chopped apple and sweet potato!

Dessert was waffle free:

you betcha!

Told you so: new obsession/old obsession meet.

I guess you could say I tend to get stuck in food ruts. I’ve actually been flipping through Clean Eating mags at breakfast and re-discovering some great recipes that I saw and wanted to try – but didn’t make note of…and completely forgot! I’ve been feeling rather uncreative, so these are definitely helping and I’m brewing some good ideas. I still openly admit to finding one snack and latching on to it, however. Oh, well, I guess.

I hope everyone toasted lots of waffles today – decisions are good! Do you like to have decisions, or have things laid out for you? When you do have decisions – are you indecisive, or black and white?

Do you pack your own snacks when you know you’ll be out and about, or just hope you’ll find something?

And lastly – do you tend to get stuck in “food ruts” ever?

I hope everyone has a great night – just think, tomorrow’s friday already!