Not here. Just kidding! But seriously.

I had a (vegan) luau party last night, and so I absolutely had to post the pics before I left! Here we are, the fab (albeit blurry) four.

We had so much food, it was crazy. All of it was awesome though. ^_^

For dinner, we barbecued skewers. They were really good, and we all had fun stabbing veggies and tofu and chickenless strips onto them poles (can't you tell it's summer by my use of horrible english? haha).

BEFORE DINNER! This was an everything skewer. On it were zucchini, summer squash, teriyaki marinated chicken-less strips(haha, tricked the omni's with this one!) and tofu, mushrooms, and pineapple.
Oh-so-good.

I loved the tofu the way that it was marinated (random teriyaki sauce that I made with pineapple, soy sauce, brown sugar, mirin, chili, garlic, and a splash of water)! It was really, really good. In fact, when we were skewering, my VERY omni-friend said "I'll try some tofu..." (with certain hesitancy), but then after she took a bite, I asked her if she liked tofu, to which she replied, "I like tofu the way YOU make it." (*claps and cheers in her head*) Hey, I'm not tofufreak for no reason. ^_^

AFTER DINNER! haha, actually this was before I REALLY finished eating. In this picture, there are only 5 skewers. But by the time ACTUALLY finished, there were more like 8. haha.

Guess who made vegan ice cream and vegan pizzelle cookies-turned-ice cream cones! That's right! ME! ohhhhh yum! The ice cream (from V'con) flavors were chocolate and vanilla bean(I used vanilla paste so you could actually see the specks of seeds, though the picture doesn't quite show it). But anyways, both flavors are quite delicious. I think my favorite is the vanilla, though, because the chocolate used melted chocolate which didn't quite blend right which resulted in a slightly less creamy chocolate-flecked ice cream. Next time, I'll probably end up using cocoa instead of melted chocolate.

For breakfast, I made brownie waffles from V'con and also Hello Kitty waffles (from VWAV)!

These are the brownie ones, in case you couldn't tell. ;)

Meet My Melody, Hello Kitty's bunny friend. Aww, so cute!

Hello, Kitty! Hello Kitty! Here she is, in all of her waffle-y, carb-y glory.

Aren't they so cute? These are the teddy bear ones. I have no idea what his name is, although I have a feeling that I used too.

Okay, this really will be my last post until I get back from Hawaii. So for real this time, see you in two weeks!

I'm a carbie girl, in a carbie world: scallion pancakes, Pattycake Bakery, and homemade danishes!

In preparation for my trip to Hawaii, let me show you all the foods I have been eating to help me look my best(drumroll please!):

Inspired by the King Arthur Flour blog, I followed their basic guidelines and made some of the yummiest scallion pancakes!

Guess who went to Pattycake Vegan Bakery!!! ME!!! I bought a snickerdoodle(ginormous), an everything oatmeal (also ginormous), and a mint chocolate whoopie pie! They were super good, especially the whoopie pie which was extremely moist.

I recently made my first laminated doughs, which magically (ha! yeah right) turned into awesomely delicious pastries for my ever expanding waist line and thighs and abdominals and.. well you get the point. They were fattening, and therefore; delicious.

This was the first version that I made; blueberry lemon. Like the pinwheel shape?

These are the almond pastries. The filling was an almond cream made with chopped almonds. Yum!

Acchhh! This is so not helping me get ready for my vacation (I mean,think of all the things that I haven't posted i.e. those secret chocolate chip cookies at midnight *ahem*), but whatever. See you all in two weeks!

Beans, beans. Not really magical. Not really a fruit. But tasty, nonetheless.

I confess. I have a slight obsession with sweetened beans.

Mung beans are closely related to adzuki beans, I think. If not, they taste like it. They also resemble each other, so yea, I think they're probably related.

Here, I used mung beans to make a cold mung bean soup. It sounds incredibly odd, but it is a traditional dessert typically made and eaten during the summer months due to its refreshing qualities. It is also said to heal acne and bring down fevers and such.

Here are the beans before cooking.

After cooking and such, here is your final product! Simple and divine.

So go try it! Now!

3 cups mung beans
3 cups water

1 3/4-2 cups water
1 cup sugar (brown is preferred)

Cover the mung beans with water (at least one inch above) and soak overnight. Pour off the soaking water and add 3 cups of new water. Cook over med-high heat until the beans are tender.

In a separate pot, combine the water and sugar over med-low heat, stirring until dissolved. Once it has dissolved, set it aside.

Combine the sugar water and the beans and stir until homogeneous. Refrigerate and serve when icy cold. yum!

Mini vacation- and first farmer's market!

We went to Columbus (OH) this past weekend to send my brother off to an international leadership camp sort of thing in D.C., spend some time with my dad who was taking seminary classes there, and celebrate my parents' 24th anniversary. While we were there, my dad suggested that we go to a Japanese restaurant. Apparently, it's the oldest Japanese restaurant in Columbus. It's located in an old building and honestly doesn't look like much. The food is better than it's environment, I believe. Here is the vegetarian delight from Otani.
While looking up veg-friendly places on vegohio.com, I came across the North Market. It seemed intriguing enough, so I decided that, if we had enough time, I would try to convince my mom to make a stop. Fortunately, we did, and with our handy dandy GPS, we made it!

This was the first time that I had ever seen a lavender eggplant, so for novelty's sake, I had to buy some. Ironically, I never really liked eggplant until yesterday. Perhaps it's because the last time I had it, I was an ignorant 6 year old omni saying "yuck" to every vegetable alive. Oh, how I've spent these past 8 years in depravity! Not really, but you get my point. I like eggplant.

Awesome looking okra, no? Having never really liked the way okra looks in my grocery store(brown and shriveled-ish), I was rather excited when my mom picked up these fellas at a stand. Unfortunately, when we cooked them, we found that the outside was much too hard, almost woodsy, to eat. boohoo. So anyways, we all had a great time on our mini vacation, and I had a fabulous weekend of mom-daughter time.

P.S. On a vacation related note, does anyone know of any good vegan/vegan-friendly restaurants in Hawaii? We will be leaving soon, and I am super excited! I have found a couple already; the Blossoming Lotus for one, but other than that, I haven't. Any suggestions? We will be going to all islands sans Maui .

Method to the Madness: How to make Taiwanese Bread, part one

*I must say something about the filling of this bread. Though it may sound slightly repulsive, it really is quite sumptuous. If you can find a high quality brand at your local asian grocery, it will be well worth it. The taste? Sweet, smooth, and delectable; and if you're making it yourself (using brown sugar), there are caramel-y undertones. yum! Anyways, onto the directions.

While I haven't quite perfected the dough recipe to my liking, I thought that I would post pictures of several of the steps. Sorry about some missing pictures; my friend was helping me with the shots and several were too blurry to be used. Now, without further ado (please excuse the name; it really is much better than it sounds).....

Taiwanese Red Bean Bread
What you need:
vegan sweet yeast dough
preferred filling of choice (sweetened adzuki bean paste)
sesame seeds

Roll out a slightly-smaller-than-a-tennis-ball size of dough into a circle. Dollop on about 1-2 tablespoons of your preferred filling. (Traditionally, this is filled with sweet red bean[adzuki] paste which can be found at an asian grocery. If you either don't like it or can't find it, you could also try some not-ella or something like that.)

Enclose the filling in the dough and then form it into a ball.

Roll each dough "ball" into an oval shape.

Run a pizza cutter or sharp knife through the dough, making 3 slashes. Don't cut through the ends; the dough should still be connected.

Twist with your fingers and sort of tuck it in a coil shape. Sprinkle with sesame and let rise. After letting it rise for an hour, bake in a 375 oven for about 15-20 minutes.

..... and voila! Here is your finished product!

Lions-Head Cabbage Rolls. Really. They. Are. Good. RAWR! haha

Tonight, I felt like splurging. I typically try to avoid processed, prepared foods, but today was a binge day. woohoo! so yea. I decided to go with Gimme Lean! ground round (beef style). At first, my dad was like, "Hmm.... will you make me my own with real meat?" Fortunately, I couldn't have anyways, seeing as how we were short on cabbage.

So where did I get this wacky idea? Mi Abuelo. Wo de Ah Gong. My Grandpa. You see, this used to be one of those foods that he would always make when we visited him. They are typically superhuge meat balls, hence the name "lions head" or "se tze to." So I did my own take on this traditional family classic and voila! here we are.....

Here we have our ingredients: napa cabbage, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, garlic, ginger, green onions, water chestnuts and Gimme Lean! beef style ground round. Not pictured: soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper. Those little "meat" balls were made out of leftover roll filling.

Add the lion's heads and lion head rolls into the veggie stock/soy sauce/mirin/sesame oil mixture and cover.

Here we are, simmering for about 20 ish minutes.

TaDa! the final product. (i know, i said better pictures, but i was hungry!)

So on an unrelated note, I am still testing the recipe for the Taiwanese bread in case you were wondering about that. I'll get around to posting sometime in the near future. So stay tuned!

My Resolutions....

Okay. I have some new half-year resolutions. (i know, the second half of this year has already started, but oh well. better late than never!)

1. i resolve to take better pictures!
2. i resolve not to blog so infrequently!
3. yea, that's about it.....

so here we go! onto the food......







.......not bad ehh?

1. almond raspberry tarts
2. raspberry pecan rugelach
3. taiwanese bread (hong do mien bao)
4. chocolate cheEZcakes hehe

so what do YOU think?