Vegan Brunch yummies!

It's been a busy week, but I still managed to find some time to cook stuff from Vegan Brunch. Hooray! I was eyeing the english muffins, so I attempted those, except subbing in mostly whole wheat flour. Has anyone done this before and were able to achieve the nook 'n cranny effect? Or is that just only with white flour. Still SUPER yum, but I will try it the real way for optimal nook and cranny action. And awww, heart shaped muffins; aren't I the corniest? I had these with some earth balance melted on and tofu scramble.

English muffin burgers the next day! I made Jessy's Brown Rice Burgers, which were deeeelish.

I went home to visit the family over Memorial Day weekend, so I made up a few batches of cookies to take along. Isa's PB Pillows and some white chocolate macadamia cookies (I KNOW!) Both were uber-appreciated and gobbled up. Especially the white choc. macadamia cookies, wooo baby!



While I was home, I made some BBQ tempeh to go along with my mom's German Potato Salad (with added green beans!), and watermelon! Ohhh melon, you have my heart. Summertime, my friends, summertime!

Tonight I made the Tofu Omelette from Vegan Brunch, with steamed asparagus, spinach, spring garlic, and a cheezy sauce. I'm all about the brunch for dinner. Nik's reaction was rather funny when I added the black salt into the blender; Not a fan of the smell. Haha. So potent, even in just a teaspoon!




I'm a busy bee working on stuff for Renegade and that will continue on until next weekend when the big shebang takes place! Woooweee! Okay, off to paint some more faces on raindrops for my banner.

Broccoli Flowers, White Choc. Chips, and Frittata!

My first recipe from Vegan Brunch! I made the frittata, except with spinach and those mystery flowers from my last post (which turned out to be Broccoli Flowers!) This was soooo good. I also acquired some black salt recently, so I added some of that in. So freaky how eggy it was.



Had a severe cookie craving mid-afternoon today, so I put some of those white chocolate chips I got last week to work in some cookies. I used Isa's choc. chip cookie recipe. Mmmmm.


Dinner tonight was some grilled portobellos on a yummy salad, with balsamic dressing. Those broccoli flowers are pretty good raw too! Edible flowers have always kinda weirded me out, but these were very un-flower-like in taste. Or I guess, how I imagine flowers taste.

Best package and MYSTERY!

I got the best package in the mail, the other day. Two actually. I finally managed to get my new J-41's from UPS' clutches, and my Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe order came, with my new copy of Vegan Brunch, two packages of white chocolate chips, and the vegan marshmallow kit! Yessssss! I see lots of delicious brunch for dinner and actual brunch, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, s'mores, rocky road ice cream, rice crispy treats, and who knows what else! (any other ideas, pass them along!) New Shoes are pretty sweet too. They were only $20! Amazing sale online last week where they were like crazy marked down (originally $80 or so!)


Mystery! I got these in my CSA today, and it isn't in the list they send out via email beforehand. Does anyone know what it is? It looks like some sort of edible flower, but I have zero experience with that. Do I eat the stems? Raw, saute? Help!

Sketches vs. Final Painting

So, I have been sitting on these sketches and paintings for quite some time now. This has been my low-level, no pressure project that has been put on the back-burner, but has kinda peeked it's way to the front because I reallyreally wanna work on it. I am kinda attached to these sketches, and that can be a problem for me sometimes, as the final doesn't always outshine the sketch. I thought I'd show you all four sketches, even though I have only painted two of them so far. This one is my favorite of them all, and is quite large (for me).

Spring Siren
Watercolor, gouache on gessoed pine board
18"x24"!

Sketch is with pen and acrylic





Now this one is the one I don't think lives up to the sketch. Maybe it's just more striking black and white, not sure. I just like the sketch waay better. Her eyes are funny or something in the painting.

Diamonds in her Hair
watercolor, gouache on gessoed pine board
12"x16"

Sketch is pen and acrylic





These are the other two in the series. Unsure when they will come into technicolor reality, but in my pile nonetheless.



I would like to say that I would just do something digitally with the sketches, but sadly I can never muster up the energy to work digitally at home anymore. I think it is because I do it for 8+ hours a day at my day job, and it's the last thing that I want to do when I get home. Funny how I used to think my personal work was heading more in the digital direction, but not so much since working the last five years at my job. How have events/jobs in your life altered how you work in a way you didn't expect?

Melty pizzzzzzza!

I tried to go to a craft fair this past saturday, and got there around 5ish to find that it ended at 4pm. D'oh! It kinda took awhile to get there too (as it is impossible to go north-south in brooklyn very easily.) Good thing I had a backup! I've been wanting to try Pizza Plus, in Park Slope, for awhile now, but again, I never find myself in that area too often. Anyways! They serve up a whole vegan pie (with teese I think!) with toppings of your choice! I took foreverrrrr to decide, but went with mushrooms and sundried tomatoes in the end. Look! They even made it all melty! I love my slices from Vinnie's, but they do NOT know how to melt the teese. Needless to say, it was pretty awesome. We even got to eat outside in the backyard. Afterwards, Nik and I got some bubble tea to go (he got coconut and I got peach) and headed off to Prospect park to walk around. I'm not too keen on the tapioca balls, and thought I just ordered the plain tea, but the balls still came in it. I couldn't even swallow them, but made myself keep trying. Not too bad once you get used to them. Peach tea rocked though! The park was beautiful. It was supposed to rain that evening, but had cleared up, so I think a lot of people had stayed inside. It was nice strolling around with not that many people out. Oh, and we had some cute duck sightings!



I've been craving all things lemon lately, so I made the golden vanilla cupcake recipe, from VCTOTW, with added lemon zest in my bundt pan (I did have intentions of doubling the recipe, but completely forgot until everything was all mixed together.) For the top, I just mixed the juice from one lemon with confectionary sugar until it was a bit pasty and drizzled over. Mmmmm.


On sunday, I spent a couple hours in the kitchen making the bundt cake, some homemade Rosemary-thyme foccacia (from VCON, with 2 cups whole wheat, 1 cup white), and some seitan. I always bake my seitan, because it's always too chewy-gross when I boil it and too mushy when I steam it. Hooray for sammiches! And hooray for sunny sundays, in which I am free to spend my time in the kitchen!

Fiddleheads and Ramps and Enchiladas.

Made enchiladas on Cinco de Mayo! Filled with white beans and spinach, salsa, tomato-esque spicy sauce, and a so-so cheezy sauce concocted last minute. Topped with guac! Even better the next day for lunch.


I was SO EXCITED to find both fiddleheads and ramps at the farmer's market this past wednesday. I sauteed them both in some olive oil, salt/pepper (the whole raw fiddleheads=stomach ouch thing that I've read about didn't appeal to me, so I cooked them for at least 15 minutes. Good news is that they stayed crunchy (kinda like asparagus), so it didn't even matter. I was worried about limp fiddleheads (try saying that outloud)! After sauteing for awhile, I added come capers, spinach, olive oil, white wine, and lemon juice, before pouring it over the whole wheat pasta. Super-yummy! I love a good wine sauce and don't have them often, so it's usually a treat. Verdict on fiddleheads: Tasty, but not super-worth going out of your way for. I'd rather hoard the spring asparagus, personally. I put raw ramps in my salad tonight and it made a world of difference from cooking them. Super-garlic/onion breath! So strong!

Halp! Trapped in the Terrarium!

Poor 'lil Gnome; Left to stare out of his mossy prison into the forest he once knew...

Watercolor on gessoed pine board
8"x10"x1"

available in my shop!

Mega Miniature Post!

So these are those mini paintings I've been yapping about, that have taken me forever to get photos of. I'm super-excited about them! They're LITTLE. Like 4cmx5cm little! I'm going to be selling them at Renegade in June and on Etsy. Speaking of, I mega-cut notecards and mini-prints and recipe cards this past weekend. My right bicep actually feels a little tender today from using the cutter all weekend! I'm trying to be a good little crafter and get the things I hate doing out of the way first. Like cutting paper. Save the fun painting for later! Plus I'm going to visit the family memorial day weekend, so I don't wanna be stuck doing things last minute, when I get back. Excited to spend a weekend in the country! My allergies always act up, even though I grew up in it. So weird! I move to the city and develop allergies.