Category: photo

Persephone Cupcakes

The quest to use up the POM Wonderful pomegranate juice continues! For our vegan potluck today, I made the Persephone Cupcake recipe I found while googling around. I made the recipe as written except I substituted soy yogurt & milk for the coconut yogurt and almond milk and I must say it needs some work. I forgot that I usually don’t like the results when using yogurt in a baked good. The texture seems a little gummy. But the flavor is lovely. 

The frosting also had issues. The pomegranate juice will not stay incorporated with the rest of the ingredients. Whip all you want, it’ll look all fluffy and mixed, then slowly the pomegranate juice seeps out. And it does appear to be just the pomegranate juice, not the soy milk. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to tell if the rose water seeped out since it’s clear. I’m sure there’s some chemical reason for this. Frosting still tastes okay, but looks funky. Also, to avoid an unappetizing color, I ended up using a drop or two of food coloring like I did with the Pomegranate Bars. All in all, I loved the flavor mix here and I’ll definitely be playing with it. I think I’ll start from scratch though and not bother trying to salvage this recipe.

Lemony Cashew-Basil Pesto on Pasta

Last night I whipped out this recipe from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. You can find the recipe here. I admit that I drizzled in a couple more tablespoons of olive oil, but it still has way less than a standard pesto recipe.  And doesn’t it look like Spring? Yeah, I know basil is a Summer thing, but work with me here. Also, I only used half of the pesto on half a pound of pasta. The rest I froze in a bucket for an even quicker meal some time in the future.

Pomegranate Bars

Last night I got experimental with the POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. Instead of stocking up at the liquor store and mixin’ and drinkin’ until I ended up with my arms wrapped around the toilet, I decided to try something a little safer. Pomegranate Bars. You know, like lemon bars, but pomegranate. I also tossed in some orange zest to make it interesting.

I was a little concerned when I tasted the filling. The pomegranate wasn’t coming through as much as I’d like. Also, the mixture ended up a kind of muddy greyish pink. So I added a little food coloring. The finished bar actually tasted better than I thought it would come out. But it still needs work. The bars would be awesome if some pomegranate seeds were stirred in just before pouring the filling into the bars. It would be pretty and give an interesting texture to them. To get more intense pomegranate flavor, next time I would reduce the pomegranate juice a little over heat to concentrate it. Another possibility is to mix it with lemon or lime juice to give it more of a tart flavor.

Local bar gives us a vegan night

In January, the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta started serving a vegan special on Thursday nights. So far it’s been a three course menu with an appetizer, salad or soup, a main dish and dessert. These are definitely different offerings than you’ll find at the veg restaurants around town so it’s a nice change. I’ll take you on a tour through crappy, dark iPhone photos. 

Ha, don’t judge this poor veggie stack by it’s pic.

This was basically pasta & veggie sausages in sauce. Good, but I can do at home.

Dessert was kind of like a smoothie. Nice, but lacking my favorite dessert ingredient, chocolate.

All in all, off to a good start! Our next visit, we were greeted with these lovely fried tofu nuggets. These were amazing! I think it was an asian sweet and sour sauce with it. BBQ sauce might have been better. But honestly, they were so good naked that it didn’t matter.

Main course was a shepherd’s pie. Again, good, but something I can make at home.

Now this is the kind of dessert I can get behind! I think it was a chocolate mousse in a sort of peanut buttery crunchy shell. Really good.

See, these are just getting better! Next visit:

The green and gold minestrone soup was slightly salty but otherwise excellent.

Beer bangers, mustard mashed potatoes and onion gravy. Again, good, but I can make.

And I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin pie. It’s okay, but again, lack chocolate. I think this particular meal was my least favorite. Again, it was still pretty good.

After a little break from vegan night, I got my favorite meal there so far! Collard green wontons with sweet chili sauce. I could eat a bowl full of these.

Gnocchi with cashew thyme pesto. Now THIS is what I’m talkin’ about! If you’ve ever made gnocchi you know why they’re appreciated so much more if someone else does all the work.

 

Dessert did lack chocolate. But the gnocchi was so rockin’ that I didn’t care. Brandied peach and almond cobbler:

So that wraps up the vegan nights I’ve tried so far. I know there was one more I forgot to take pics of. Oh well. If you’re looking to shake up your vegan routine, give it a try.

A new year

I just finished up banana pecan waffles and apple sausages Kevin made me for breakfast. Yummy! It tasted even better because I got to sit here and look at the internets while waffles magically formed and landed on a plate next to me. How cool is that?

Last night we joined up with Taylor and Beth and headed to get sushi at Sushi house Hayakawa. The owner is a former MF Sushi Bar chef. While they ate fishy bits, we had a bunch of yummy vegan rolls, edamame and seaweed salad. Our favorite was the pumpkin tempura roll, on the ends in the pic. Oh, the chef also gave us these marinated shiitake mushrooms that were amazing. Taylor and Beth ordered roasted gingko nuts so we got to try those. They’re hard to describe, but I could see myself busting open piles of them and chewing on the soft centers. I bet they can be had on Buford Highway. I’ll have to look. 

New Year’s Eve Jill & Tony came over and played Wii while I kept falling asleep. I blame the sake and the beer. Yeah, all one of each. Pfft, lightweight. Anyway, it was a nice mellow end to the year. And somehow, despite having my house broken into and watching my 401k dwindle, it was a really, really good year. And 2009 will be even better. We have plans…big plans. Mwahahahahaha!

Oh yeah, and today is this blog’s 8th birthday. Awww!