pictures

Here is that quiche from the last post. The scones were eaten before I could take pictures of them.

fantastic recipes

I looked up other cooking blogs and found the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. She has wonderful recipes for nearly every occasion. I made an asparagus and mushroom quiche with brown rice crust and it is pretty close to the real thing, except it only has about 210 calories per serving instead of 5,000. I also made some zesty cranberry scones with orange glaze (using oranges from my backyard). They were amazing! Pictures will come soon.

But yeah, if you're in a pickle and don't know what to cook, look up the Fat Free vegan Kitchen blog.

Carbaholics anonymous

In honor of my out of town visitor, I wanted to prepare him a nice Italiano style dinner. I knew he'd be starving, and I had this great pasta recipe. It was pretty easy but absolutely tasty.



Spinach fettucini topped with a sundried tom and basil pesto sprinkled with soy feta


Spinach salad with a homemade balsamic dressing


Italian baquette with olive oil to dip


Boy was so hungry he couldn't even wait for me to take the damn pictures...



I had a ginger chicken craving so I used the ginger seitan recipe...yum yum

a scookie

I had this wild non-PMS related sweet craving today. I looked up the basic choco chip cookie recipe in Vegan with a Vengence, and followed it exactly. Instead of dough, I get this dry mixture of mostly flour and turbinado sugar. What the hell? I decided to add 1 cup almond milk. Too soft. More flour. PERFECTO! Place them on a cookie pan and pop these babes in the oven. After 8 minutes, these are not looking like cookies. I let the bottoms get a little more golden and take them out. Once cooled I break one open and try it. Caky like a scone and not as sweet as a cookie. Thus, a scookie. Not bad, but not the oooey gooeyness I craved. Whatever.

Here are the little Frankensteins:





Ingredients from recipe:

1 cup nonhydrogenated margarine
1.25 cup sugar
1 tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Bake at 350 F for 8-10 mins.


If you can help me figure out what went wrong, that would be peachy keene. I'm not much of a baker.

Lunch date con mi padre

So I had this awesome story with a moral ending relating to health and my dad but it deleted itself when I went to post pictures. Now I don't feel like telling you the story so I'm just gonna give you pictures :p

Lunch:
Green split pea soup prepared from dry beans in the crock pot

Ezekiel whole grain toast with holy hummus, spinach, sundried tomatoes and faux feta

More of that yummy tortilla pizza from the a previous post

Hits-that-naughty-spot-good

Real quick, here's a smoothie when you're craving sweets or need something fast to take to work.

Blend:

1 cup choco soy milk
1 cup crushed ice
1 small or med ripe banana
2 tbsp organic vegan peanut butter

Serves 1

You can play with the proportions to your liking.

Later,
Cris

The beginning

So in the past 2 years I've really developed a love for cooking. In the hunt for the "perfect diet" I've changed the way I ate countless times. In the end, I realized I was striving for purity. The closest to this "god diet" is going raw. For me, this is ridiculous and I could only do it as a cleanse because I'd get cranky. So, vegan is close enough, right? I mean, eating without causing pain to another being, that's got to be godly. My boyfriend is a little saddened to see that my third attempt at being a green goddess might last longer than he intended. He says I make good meat, which is true. I'm a steak and porkchop master. I'm trading in my dead carcass skills to aquire some new ones that will help me feel great and lose weight.

Some books that inspired me: Skinny Bitch, Vegan Planet, How It All Vegan, and Vegan with a Vengence. Bethany Frankel's book, Naturally Thin, also helped me have a healthier relationship with food. She is not strictly vegan, but is a natural food chef (Real Housewives of NYC, hello?).

A little bit about me, I'm Cristina and I'm 22. I'm currently working towards my nursing degree so that I can learn more about how our bodies work and help people maintain theirs. I love working out, even though I should do it more often. Music keeps me going (not country) and I have a baby, my 2 year old Maine Coon, Nora. I'm hispanic, so genetically this vegan thing should be impossibe. Have you been to our Christmas Eve parties? Ghandi would even eat the mojo pork.

This blog is just for fun to track my culinary experiences, hopefully from now on they'll be of the vegan persuasion. I'll have pictures and self criticism posted.

Here are some professionally taken sidekick slide photos:

Sprout tortilla pesto and sundried tomatoe pizza

Greek tofu scramble

Ginger "chicken" with veggies and brown rice

Quick "Chicken" parm on whole grain spaghetti

I'll take better non-sidekick pictures in the future.