School, Pollen, and SnoBiz

Not too much cooking going on this week for many reasons - school work has been attempting to swallow me whole, Andrew's been out of town and cooking for one is No. Fun., and myriad other little problems have been popping up out of no where.  The great pollen inundation of the spring has begun, coating everything in a fine (and sometimes not so fine) layer of yellow.  Washing your car or anything else is of no use as the pollen will start recollecting as soon as you're done.  Note the greenish/yellow tint to the outdoor table in the picture below.  All this has resulted in many people's allergies going haywire, including my own. 

However, I did treat myself to my personal "Official Start to Summer" a.k.a. SnoBiz (yes, I can say it's the start of summer if it's 89 degrees).  I have a seriously unhealthy obsession with this wonderful combination of finely shaved ice and sugary syrup.  I'm not a huge ice cream person, but I will pretty much always take this stuff.  And about 90% of the time I will order Tiger's Blood which, if you've never heard of it (shame on you!), is a combination of strawberry and coconut or piña colada.  I wish the shaved ice had stayed as vibrantly colored as when I purchased it, but I had to wait until I got home to take the picture.

Vegan Zucchini Bread

I enjoy cooking for my friends and, as I'm mentioned before, I have a very good friend who is vegan.  So from time to time, you will see a few vegan recipes pop up around here.  My feelings on being vegetarian or vegan are mixed.  I certainly understand doing it for health reasons (for example, another very good friend of mine who is vegan does so because of severe lactose intolerance and food allergies).  I also understand the desire to eat healthy and more natural but I feel that this can be done without such radical steps as to completely cut large food groups out of your diet.  Just about any diet or lifestyle change can work for you, as long as you watch your portions and make smart choices - but certainly to each his own.  Plus, I just really like food :)  Regardless of my personal opinion, vegetarians and vegans do lend an interesting challenge to cooking and baking!

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I ran across this recipe on Fake Ginger's blog and couldn't resist.  Now I have an amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe from my friend H's mother that I'm sure I will share on here sometime, but it never hurts to try something new!  Plus, upon querying Andrew as to what he would prefer - oatmeal chocolate chip, chocolate chip, or snickerdoodle - he chose chocolate chip.  

This recipe was amazingly quick and easy to throw together.  I'm an instant fan of any baking recipe that called for melted butter rather than room temperature butter because I rarely have time to let butter soften properly (and I've yet to find a method that softens it better than just leaving it on the counter for a few hours).  The original recipe called for huge cookies - I'm not kidding!  It used a 1/4 cup measurer to scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet!  While that may be fun for kids, I thought this size was a bit more manageable.

I made these cookies to go with Andrew to a soccer tournament he was refereeing this past weekend - for him and to hand out to the other referees there.  The result?  I'm apparently making them for the next tournament too.

Asian Noodle Soup

I love soup.  I especially love soup that's quick and easy, which you don't see too often.  I also adore Asian food but I find that what I can make at home never measures up to what you get at a decent Chinese restaurant but that is not the case with this soup.  The flavors that the spices lend to the chicken broth really make the dish.  Try them all the first time you make this - I promise you won't be disappointed.  I don't really like star anise or too much ginger but they really work together well here.  Obviously, you can substitute the vegetables to suit your preference and just swapping the chicken broth for vegetable broth makes this dish vegetarian and vegan!

Pizza Bites

Tonight I made pizza bites via Carole's recipe at My Kitchen Escapades.  You'll notice that the pictures look a little better than those of the birthday cake.  This is because I was able to find the charger and cable for my Pentax point and shoot!  And, to my amazement, it even has a food setting!  I'm still no photographer and never will be, but at least it's a good step up from using my iPhone.  From now on, all pictures will be from my Pentax unless otherwise noted.

Chocolate Chip Poundcake with Whipped Chocolate Ganache Filling topped with Chocolate Glaze

This cake was an ordeal, let me tell you.  I started the entire process at about 6pm and stuck the final product in the refrigerator to harden at about midnight (I saved most of the clean up for a few days).  Even though it was very time consuming and had multiple steps, I enjoyed making it. 

(picture using my iPhone*)

The three recipes used for this cake come from The Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye Hansen and Liv Hansen, which my mom got me for Christmas.  I've been dying to try my hand at making a cake from their book because the pictures are just too cute.  Andrew's mom's birthday is next Tuesday so we went to visit this weekend.  This gave me a good opportunity to try one out!

Vegan Chocolate Truffles

The event that pushed me to actually create this blog was making these truffles.  Katie, a very dear friend of mine, is vegan.  It was Valentine's Day and since she is one of the few close friends that I see on a regular basis, I wanted to make her something.  I thought this was going to be a challenge.  Vegan + candy usually does not = easy to make.  Candy making isn't something that I've dabbled in much (if you don't count Christmas treats and if you DO count Christmas treats, I'm pretty much a failure because divinity is HARD) but when I stumbled upon this recipe, I had to try it.  The ingredients were fairly simple and straight forward.  The only "strange" substitution was vegan cream cheese.  I intended to send Katie home with the entire batch until Andrew tried one and demanded that we keep some.  They were that good.

(picture courtesy of Katie Cosby)