Dorkiness to the Extreme

So, remember that episode of The Office where Jim pops Dwight's exercise ball? Well, I am Dwight. I'm such a sloucher, and I hate my office chair, so when my cool friend Jill told me she sits on an exercise ball at work, I decided to follow suit (yes, I know, I'm such a follower!). I figured Jill's a cool chica, if she can do it and not think of Dwight, so can I. So last weekend I picked up a cheap ball at Target, and have been using it in leiu of my desk chair all week. And I love it. It makes me sit up straighter, and something about the bouncing/balancing keeps me way more focused. Also, I hope it gives me abs of steel. And just about everyone in my office has stopped in to "check out my cool ball." Yeah, I'm a trend setter. Or I'm a Dwight. Oy!

Amore Avocado Ice Cream

I am a huge fan of ice cream, but don't get to enjoy it very often due to Mr. Chris' lactose intolerance (I'm still in denial about my own dairy sensitivity), and I don't really dig that soy-based stuff for some reason (except for Temptation, which is fabulously delicious). So a few weeks ago Chris comes home raving about this avocado concoction that someone's brother had in Morocco or something. I love avocados, and guacamole is one of my faves, but I couldn't imagine a mixture of avocado, soy milk, sugar and ice tasting anything like ice cream. So Chris whipped up a batch and proved me wrong. So simple, yet so exotic and delicious. All you do is blend those four ingredients (we used our 'magic bullet'), and the result is an uber-creamy, lightly sweet frozen dessert.

Ask not what your cake can do for you ...

So, this past weekend the fam gathered at my parent's house for a low-key early birthday celebration for my mom. Like usual, I offered to make the cake, and my mom requested the rich vegan chocolate cake that I've made many times before. When I made it for my dad's birthday in October I layered the cake with a rich chocolate frosting and topped it with peaks of (definitely not vegan) fluffy white icing and dark chocolate shavings. It was beautiful and delicious--a winning combination, if I do say so myself. So I was planning basically the same thing for my mom. Easy, right? Nope. I think my kitchen may have been cursed over the weekend, because nothing went right. I divided the batter between two round pans and baked them until they were perfectly done. I let them cool for a bit (too long, I'm afraid) and when I went to remove them from the pans, they both completely fell apart. Each cake was broken and crumbled in bits. "Oh, well," I thought. "I still have time to whip up another cake, some filling and the frosting. No big deal." So I bagged up the ruined cake scraps and stuck them in the freezer for snacking on (they still tasted delicious), and went to work on my second cake. This one would be a simple 8-inch square, no layers, with a basic vegan frosting. But this time since it was only one cake, it must have been to thick for my crappy oven to properly bake. The top burnt and the bottom was still all gooey when I finally took it out of the oven. That one did not taste so good, and into the garbage it went. In the mean time, I was trying to boil the icing in a makeshift double-boiler. After an hour of so of the frosting not thickening up like it was supposed to I just gave up and decided we would buy my mom a pretty vegan cake from The Wedge. But alas, they had no vegan cakes that looked good, so we ended up with a pretty little white layer cake with butter cream frosting (for twenty bucks!). I did not enjoy it and I think the rest of the family enjoyed it only slightly more than I, except for Chris, who couldn't even try it because of the dairy in it. I learned an important lesson that night: Next time, just throw all the crumbs in a bowl and cover them with frosting--as long as it tastes good, my family couldn't care less what it looks like! As a side note, since my parents hadn't bothered to take down the Christmas tree, we were able to take our annual "aly and kev in front of the tree" photo, which somehow eluded us over the holidays.

Diva David: Full-fledged Fashionista

Ah, Diva David, how I love to dress you in fanciful frocks like this lovely violin accented ruffly pink number by Commes de Carcons (Yes, this is an actual runway design that I cut out of an Italian fashion magazines--I don't know the designer for sure, but by the look of the outfit I took a wild guess ...).

Seitan is Not Evil

I'm not sure if yellow was the best color for plating this meal, but I can assure you it tasted better than it looked. Last week I tried out yet a few more new recipes from my ever faithful Veganomicon cookbook. This meal took me two-and-a-half hours to make. No, your eyes are not deceiving you, it is what it looks like: a simple sandwich and greens (Vietnamese seitan baguette and sesame baby bok choy to be a bit more specific). What made it so excruciatingly long, was that I made the seitan. Until recently I didn't know there was any other way of obtaining this meaty delight other than tearing open a plastic pouch from the grocery store, or ordering up a nice mock duck dish at my favorite Thai restaurant (King & I Thai, in case you were wondering). In fact, it was relatively simple to make. Just mix up some vital wheat gluten with a few other simple ingredients that I can't remember, then simmer it in a broth mixture for about an hour. It made quite a bit of seitan--probably about 3-4 times as much as you get in those wimpy little store packets--and only cost me a few bucks to make. Hooray! I sliced and pan-fried the finished seitan, and stuffed it into warm baguettes along with a bit of vegan mayo, and thinly sliced cucumber and red onion. I made a spicy ginger-garlic broth (sort of like an au jus) to dip the sandwiches in. Did I mention they were delicious? The bok choy on the side was yummy and easy, and a nice departure from our usual kale or Brussels sprouts. Here's a great photo of Chris enjoying the meal:

Happy New Year (better late than never)

Here are my top new year's resolutions, in no particular order. I figure if I get them out into the public domain, I'll have to feel somewhat more accountable to them.

• Eliminate (as much as possible) overly-processed foods from my diet. I'm pretty good about it as it is--I've stopped buying veggie corn dogs and frozen lunches, and I've always steered clear of packaged cookies, but this year I'll do my best to say no to that occasional Oreo (or five).
  



• Keep blogging. It's been fun so far, and a good way to share my experiences.
  



• Recycle more. Did you know you can recycle almost all plastic bags? I've started saving produce bags, cereal bags, plastic shrink-wrap packaging and more. When the box under my kitchen sink gets full, I'll bring them all down to the plastic bag recycling bin at the co-op.
  



• Have more adventure--or at least be open to it. Move to Morocco? Why not!
  



• Learn Spanish. For real. I need to learn another language.
  



• Create my own happiness in the world. Be more Zen.



• Lose 15 pounds (hey, it wouldn't be a new year without that one)

Almost-Famous Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are probably the best chocolate cookies ever, and the great thing is they're vegan and even slightly healthier than regular chocolate chip cookies. I usually stick to my standard recipe, but the other day I improvised a bit and they turned out quite well, so I'll post that variation below.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar (I use evaporated cane sugar rather than that overly-processed white crap)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 sticks (one cup) earth balance spread (it doesn't have any hydrogenated oils and it's totally vegan so I love it, but I suppose you could use regular margarine or even butter)
1 banana (the browner the better), mashed really well or even pureed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (or more) chocolate chips
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350. Mix sugars and earth balance spread in a large bowl until nice and creamy; add banana and vanilla and mix until well blended. Mix flour, soda and salt in another bowl, then add gradually to the sugar mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and help yourself to a healthy spoonful of delicious dough! Drop spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until they've barely started to brown. Let cool for a few minutes and try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

Tips and Variations:

• Last time I made these cookies I replaced half the flour with whole wheat flour, reduced the earth balance by half (to 1/2 cup or one stick) and added an extra banana. They turned out really good and are even healthier with the addition of whole wheat flour and less oil.
  
• Big or small, these cookies turn out really well. When I want to get more out of a batch, I just make the dough balls a bit tinier.
  
• Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper--cookies don't stick and it makes clean-up super easy.
  

Bad, Aly!

I can't believe we're ten days into the new year and I haven't posted since before Christmas. I am so lazy! Christmas was wonderful and busy and crazy and fun. Then I took most of the holiday week off, so that was nice and relaxing. We got a new camera from Chris' parents, so now I have no excuse not to post pictures. But of course I'm at work, and my camera is at home, so pictures will be posted later (tonight, I hope)!.