Last Thursday, I went pumpkin picking with my mom. I have been doing this every year for basically my entire life, and I was not about to break the tradition. It was a great chance to test out my camera. I have been taking pictures whenever I have time, and learning how to use all the professional features (exposure, aperture, shutter seeds, things of that nature). I also made black bean burgers a few days ago. I know it is really cold out, but I grill all through the year (even in the snow). I just bundle up, and go for it. I swear, I live in California in my head. On Saturday, I went to Veggie Heaven and got take out. It is an amazing Chinese restaurant that my mom and I love (and my dad thinks is just okay). I got moo shoo veg chicken. It tasted so good. I bought a pumpkin lantern at AC Moore (it’s right next to Veggie Heaven). Hope everyone had a good weekend.


Black Bean Burgers
(On a whole wheat bun with BBQ sauce)
My recipe

G-Town

I am back! I got back late Sunday night and have a had an extremely homework saturated week so blogging was put on the back burner for a while. As I said before, I went to visit my brother at college. he goes to George Mason in Fairfax, Virginia. He is actually transferring after this semester because he does not like it. Mason is a commuter school so the campus is dead most of the time. We went down for family weekend. Instead of doing the activities the collage had planned, we went into Georgetown and shopped all day Saturday. Georgetown is like a mini New York City that is a lot cleaner (I have nothing on NYC, but G-town is almost spotless). The town had tons of upscale stores (Banana Republic, Urban Outfitters, American Eagle, J. Crew, and even Armani and other designers), it also had some great little shops. I have come to the conclusion that I love Georgetown. We ended up eating of this very antivegan restaurant for lunch. The only vegan thing was salad, which I got. I lived on peanut butter, soy yogurt (the hotel had a fridge), fruit, the banana bites I made, and the fruit and nut bars I made, the whole weekend. We ate dinner at Panera Bread and I got the black bean soup (yum!). Before we dropped my brother back off at Mason, we went I for lunch. We were driving around and we came to a vegetarian restaurant called The Sunflower. My brother and my dad actually agreed to go in, and my mom (being almost totally vegan, when convenient) was all for it. It was a cute little Chinese/Japanese/Americaish/other style place. I ordered the Organic Braised Tofu (the picture was with my camera phone). It was tofu, broccoli, and other asian veggies in a ginger sauce. It was very good. We also ordered a piece of vegan pumpkin pie (the entire menu was vegan upon closer review). Anyway, that was my weekend.

Away For The Weekend

I am dieing to make cupcakes! Sadly, I am going to have to keep you in suspense until next week. I am going to visit my brother in college this weekend and I do not want to have left over cupcakes sitting in the fridge while I am gone. I am sure my family could have eaten some before we left, but I do not want any cupcakes wasted. My brother loves my banana bites (as you can see by this post). I baked a bunch today to bring to him. I could have brought him cupcakes, but they are just too hard to transport and I do not have a container that they could fit in without getting squashed.


Banna Bites
(Original post)
I found letting the batter sit for 5 mintue before you scoop it out helps them hold their form. I do this while I am preheating the oven.

Getting Ready To Take Over The World

I have been so busy getting to know my new camera these past couple days, that I haven't had the chance to post my pictures from the weekend. I had a lot of homework and studying to do on Sunday (almost the entire day) so on one of my breaks I wanted to experiment with the fruit and nut bar recipe. They came out so amazing and I think I am going to continue to tweak this recipe. I also used silken tofu for the first time to make eggplant “parmesan” . My whole family loved it and I think the picture came out very good. When I got home today, a small box was waiting for me at the door. I picked it up and saw the smile synonymous with Amazon.com. I literally screamed out loud because it was, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz [who also wrote Vegan With A Vengeance] and Terry Hope Romero)!!! I, of course, had to take a picture of it and read it from cover to cover as I waited for my pictures to load. I am so souped to start making cupcakes! The book was not suppose to come until November, 2nd, so I am not prepared with cupcake papers (but I do have a piping bag). Stay tuned for cupcakes...

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Fruit and Nut Bars

I took this recipe and changed it to make these energy style, very healthy, bars. If you have the prepackaged prunes then all you really need is a 1/2 cup to do this recipe.

1 cup whole spelt flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup prune puree (or one 2.5 oz baby food container of prunes)

1/2 cup chopped dates (2 whole dates)

1/2 cup chopped driedapricots

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead with your hands until well blended. Press the dough into a parchment paper lined (or lightly oiled) 8 in. by 8 in. glass pan (or some would call a square casserole). Cut into squares before cooking. Bake for 25 minutes. Keep in the refrigerator.

Vegan Eggplant Parmesan
This recipe is from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. I have had this recipe in the "to make" section of my recipes binder (yes I am that organized). I wanted to save it until I had my camera. I used hemp bread to make the bread crumbs because I conveniently ran out of bread that day. I also used the almons instead of the vegan pamesan. I ended up baking it for 45 minutes because the eggplant was just too tough. It was a great recipe that I will be making again. I am planning on eating some left overs when I am done here.

Vegan Cucakes Take Over the World

I can not wait to start baking!

I LOVE MY NIKON D-50!

I have been saving for a good camera for as long as I can remember. Photography has been my passion from a very young age. I used to want to be a food photographer. Now I can finally pursue my hobby as a photographer; as well as producing fantastic pictures of my cooking adventures. I have had my Nikon D-50 for less then 6 hours., and I already love it. There are so many features I have to learn, and some I don’t think I ever will. Hope you all enjoy the new quality of my pictures as I strive for higher quality cooking.

Apples

My first food subject, the picture is so clear!

Pita with avocado, tomatoes, and fresh spinach

If you compare this picture to the other pita picture in a recent post, the difference in quality is astounding.

Spinach; Oh, How I Missed Thee!

Now that the quarantine on the amazingly flavorful green leaf has been lifted, it is time to celebrate! I used fresh spinach (not from a bag) to make these two dishes. First I made an all spinach salad with tomatoes and carrots. Then, I made grilled pizza with spinach and yellow peppers. We need to support spinach in it’s time of need.

3 Day Weekend!!!

I had a three-day weekend because of Yom Kippur. I am not Jewish, but for those of you who are, I hope you enjoyed your day; especially your break-fast. The three-day weekend gave me a chance to catch up on some much missed cooking. On Saturday, I made some hummus which I ate on a whole wheat pita with campari tomatoes, crisp lettuce, and crunchy cucumbers. Then on Sunday, I had to go to the Fall Festival in my town and help out, because I am in the National Art Honors Society. I had to paint kid's faces for an hour. One community service hour down, 19 more to go. Before I had to leave, I decided to try this recipe for fruit and nut bars that was just screaming to be made.

Hummus
















Fruit and Nut Bars

This recipe is from Jennifer Shmoo, of Vegan Lunch Box, and can be found here. It is part of my on going quest to bake no added sugarl, no oil, Eat to Live friendly, foods. I did not have enough raisins, so it was made up of mostly apricots. I also used pumpkin seeds and almonds because I did not have walnuts. I think I am going to use this recipe as a base and change it around a little bit.