i have a serious brain disease. please bring me a cat.
Ever since I saw this picture, I’ve been obsessing over vibrantly colored cake batter. What better excuse than a 4th of July gathering to experiment. I gave the batter a light lemon flavor with zest and extract. The frosting was just vanilla, mainly because I ran out of lemon extract. Strawberries and blueberries on top rounded out the red, white and blue theme. All in all, it was a hit. I need more excuses to bake cakes. Excuses that involve it not being left in my house.
While we would have been perfectly happy going back to Harrison Street Coffee Shop for lunch Sunday, we decided to continue the standard food tour every vegan does when they visit a different city. So we went to Ipanema Cafe instead, which was right around the corner from Harrison Street.
Ipanema Cafe is in the basement of a building. Lots of exposed brick and definitely on the dark side. I can see it being a favorite of people with hangovers and vampires. The place was full when we got there, but the bar was empty so we decided to go ahead and sit there to eat. They were serving the brunch menu but while we were sitting there we could see the dinner menu posted on the wall and spent some time drooling over those options and wishing we could come back for dinner.
I ordered The Rubi (Tempeh Benedict) – smoky grilled tempeh resting on homemade english muffin, sautéed spinach, mushrooms, onions and marinated tomato. Topped with a vegan citrus béarnaise sauce. The tempeh was packed with flavor and sliced thin. Baked, I think. Everything else complemented it well. It was definitely a winner. It also came with sweet potato hash and fresh fruit. Here is a blurry picture thanks to the fact that my camera only focuses when it feels like it. I’m sure someone on some blog will make a snarky post about crappy food porn pics. That person can bite it.
Kevin got the French Toast with Warm Apple Compote – Billy Bread dipped in sweet apple sauce batter and griddled. It was good, but apparently didn’t come close to touching the french toast at Pick Me Up Cafe in Chicago.
The girl at Harrison Street said we HAD to get a piece of pie at Ipanema. Just as we were getting ready to ask about that, the bartender came out with a free piece of blueberry pie for us since we were from out of town. How cool was that? It had a shortbread crust with a tasty, crunchy streusel on top. It was really good, but the baker in me is always thinking of things I’d do differently. Can’t help it. 🙂
I don’t know what we’re going to do about food today. Harrison Street and Panda Veg are both closed. Time to hit up Happy Cow!
It’s always a good idea to have a few gluten free recipes up your sleeve just in case. And gluten free baking fascinates me. So I keep my eye out for interesting looking recipes. I had the ingredients around for these Coffee Biscuits so I whipped up a half batch. I used the buckwheat flour and potato starch options. Oh, and a couple of other changes. I used guar gum and soy milk. And of course, the vegan options. The texture was really nice. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. The buckwheat flour taste was a little strong and I can see how it might turn some people off. These don’t have a long shelf life and started getting stale within 3 days. They started getting crumbly too. I’d say these should be eaten within a day of being made for the best texture.
As the weather gets warmer, I enjoy lighter dinners. After two nights of the avocado grapefruit salad and then sushi at Rusan’s I moved on to a lovely Mediterranean Kale Salad from Raw Food Made Easy. I love raw kale and I don’t know why I don’t eat it more.
So how did I negate any possible health benefits I got from eating this lovely plate of greens? I made peanut butter cookies. With chocolate chips in ’em. And ate four. If you haven’t tossed chocolate chips into your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe yet, you’re missing out.
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.
