Cinnamon Buns

Tee hee, I wrote buns! Okay, enough of my 3rd grade humor, the other day I was creating cinnamon buns something awful. I was at work and my tum tum was a grumblin' and the only thing that could fill my tummy with enough food love was a bigger than life cinnamon bun and a hearty glass o' almond milk. I can home opened up my "Joy of Vegan Baking" cook book and went to town. Now, I have never made cinnamon buns before so I did follow the recipe word for word and I will say that though these guys were a bite of heaven, there are a few things I am going to do differently the next time I make these bad boys. I will definitely use more whole wheat flour and add flax meal, toss out the white sugar and replace it with agave, and make a maple frosting for the tops. I am also thinking of blueberry cinnamon rolls, oh yum!

Plantain Chips

I am not sure where I got this recipe, as my memory is often fuzzy and alludes me. I tried sifting through my many cookbooks and a recipe was never revealed. I am thinking it may be from the Thrive vegan book by Brendan Brazier, but alas, who knows? The point though is that these plantain chips are amazing. I dare you to eat just one, really, I dare you.

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees
Slice two large plantains and place on a well oiled baking sheet, I used coconut oil. Then sprinkle on cinnamon and bake for 45 minutes to one hour.

They make a perfect work snack and are wonderful for taking to the movies as a healthy alternative to all that silly stuff peddled in theatres as food.

Birthday Timmy

As sneaky as Tim was tyring to be with not letting on that he had a birthday coming up, he wasn't aware of the sleuthiness (I made that word up) of his friends and super awesome fiance (me, silly). I had been planning for Timmy's birthday surprise since December and had commissioned my friend, Mike Maas, a super talented artist to create a painting of our dog Ellie for Tim's special day. I thought of the painting when Tim and I had been watching Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" when the scene with Ed (Johnny Depp) and Bella Lugosi (Martin Landau) were in Bella's house and his chihuahuas start howling and Mr. Lugosi says, "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." a quote from the 1931 Dracula. This scene gave Tim the giggles. This is all it took for my brain to come up with the perfect birthday gift.


"Ellie Lugosi"

He went berserk! He shouted out a few swear words and have me one monstrous hug. In other words, he loved it.

I was not the only one who had a creative and super rad present for Tim. His dear friends Lucy and Kyle in Portland shipped him vegan donuts from Voodoo Donuts and we both did a little donut dance of joy and ate them like ravenous vegans eat donuts. They were gone in two days!



ugh I am drooling just looking at these photos

Then as a b-day celebration we went out to dinner at Thai Elephant in Tempe with Celine, Dani, Bill, Marcus and Tim Moustache. Celine and Dani gave Tim a fantastic bottle of wine and Bill gave him "squat". We all came back to our house and enjoyed the chocolate, chocolate and chocolate cake I baked for the occasion.


"Dine, dine my darling"

"Turning 30 was awesome!" said Tim. Ha! Thirty, yeah right! (:

Baby Shower

Today I got up very early and started to prepare for a baby shower taking place this evening. The mother to be is an adorable girl (and when I say girl, I mean full grown woman) named Jen who is just overjoyed to be having her child. The theme of her shower is all things she has been craving during her pregnancy. I imagine there will be a wide array of bizarre goodies at her house this evening. She recently attended an event that I had baked for and fell head over heels for my mini cupcakes and now she will have six dozen to enjoy all to herself, or with her guests if she so chooses to. The flavors she wanted were chocolate with chocolate frosting and a yummy little cherry in the center, vanilla with oreo cookie frosting, and lemon with lemon frosting and fresh fruit. Good choices Jen! I hope you enjoy them.


lemon

chocolate chocolate cherry

oreo goodness

Bisbee

Arizona is such a crazy place. We live in the city surrounded by mountains on all sides. When in the middle of the city all you see are the typical city scenes fast cars, freeways, convenience stores, the occasional cute kid on a bike and smog, lots of smog. But, if you try hard (and really not that hard) you can find the most wonderful and beautiful spots in this state. Timmy and I went south last weekend to Bisbee Arizona. Bisbee is an old mining town south of Tucson and it is full of charm, friendly people and a blossoming art scene.



We left Tempe after I got off from work and arrived in Bisbee as the sun was setting. The weather was a bit cooler, the air fresher and the atmosphere was calm. We checked in at the Shady Dell RV park which has been featured on the Travel Channel and is one of the hottest destination points in Arizona.



The Shady Dell has classic 50's and 60's Air Stream trailers that have been refurbished and are fully functional.



Timmy was like a kid in a candy store! He opened all of the cupboards, rummaged through the Frank Sinatra records and even poked his head in the old 1950's oven. "This place is great!" he proclaimed.



We cozied up on the couch for a bit, then headed out downtown.


even comes with an apron, this place has everything!


bathroom tile

Downtown Bisbee is a small area located a skip away from the big copper mine that is no longer in use, though if interested the mine does offers tours. We went into a few different antique stores, passed by a row of protesters (Woman in Black Protesting the War) stopped in for a great cup of coffee then went to Cafe Roka for dinner. I had made reservations and notified the staff that we were yikes...vegans! Not one person flinched at the "v" word and to our surprise the chef made us a wonderful 4 course vegan meal, it would have been 5 but vegan desserts are a hard one to master.



Our main course was tempeh on a risotto rice patty with green beans, peppers, onions and three different sauces to drizzle on top. The meal was fantastic!
Back in our trailer we had some dark chocolate and Italian red wine and enjoyed the classic radio tuned in to an oldies station that featured adverts from the past and a great collection of music from the 40's, 50's and early 60's.
The next day was freezing and wet. We ate breakfast at Dot's Diner which had scrambled tofu and bought some great items at the Bisbee Co-Op, then headed to Tucson. Timmy and I took his mom out to lunch at the vegan restaurant Lovin' Spoonfuls then drove home in the pouring rain listening to our Bisbee compilation CD. We even saw a rainbow on our way home. Best day ever!

Yummy Quinoa and Spicy Tofu Salad

Normally I am not a fan of salads. To me they equal lack of creativity and they are what a vegan or vegetarian eats when there are no other options available. My grandma has always invited me over for dinner with the promise of there being salad for Tim and I to eat and though I appreciate her offer salad is just so darn unappealing. This is why I was taken by complete surprise when my little baby belly started craving the green stuff on a daily basis. I did not think I would ever wake up in the middle of the night desperately seeking arugula or biking around town with the thought of spinach following closely behind.

The other day as I worked the produce section in my grocery store I realized I was drooling. I kept eyeing the carrots and hugging the broccoli and whispering sweet nothings in the direction of the celery and cucumbers. This was enough! I was starting to go loony from lack of salads! That day I went home and pulled all the veggies out of the fridge and got straight to work, but wait, what about the pantry? There must be goodies in there too, no? This is when I found the quinoa hiding behind the wild rice and a light went on or a bell chimed or the proclamation of Eureka was shouted. Which one happened, I am not sure because I was already preparing the quinoa on my stove top before I fully understood the golden delicious salad I was going to be shoveling into my tum tum later.

With the addition of quinoa to my veggies I was ready to start building my dream dinner. Spinach, Romaine, heirloom tomatoes, carrots, pine nuts, dried cranberries, quinoa and something else, I needed something else. This is when my genius self (OK moderately smart self) grabbed a red onion, a few cloves of garlic and got to chopping. I sliced up some extra firm tofu and added it to the onions and garlic in my frying pan then for fun tossed on Sriracha and Bragg's Liquid Aminos and the end result was fantastic! A spicy delicious salad with the sweet/tart dried cranberries made my heart skip a beat. I am going to make this again, I am going to make it tonight, and eat left overs for lunch, it is that good!

Brendan Brazier, creator of VEGA

A few weeks back I was at Whole Foods doing my weekly shopping, listening to the new Antlers album, spacing out. You know, my usual shopping mode, when I chanced on "Thrive, the Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life." If there is anything I want to perform in life, it it definitely optimal. I was drawn to the book because of two things, the word Vegan and a bicyclist on the cover. Being a bike riding Vegan I was more than sure this book was going to "speak to my soul," as my friend Althea refers to anything she purchases. It was a mere 15 dollars, and as far as anything being bought in Whole Foods for under 20 I felt like it was a steal!

The past few weeks I have toyed around with some of the recipes, the first being the only dessert recipe in the book. It figures the cupcake queen would make dessert first, right? The recipe was for a raw banana pie, and it was more than delicious! The pie was rich and the slices a little heavy, which is great because I did not go back for seconds and my waistline thanked me later. The pie is made with bananas, pear, ginger, sunflower seeds, hemp protein powder and more yummy ingredients I happen to always have on hand. I will definitely make this again, and soon!

The next recipe I tried out was for a cucumber pesto salad with a tomato basil dressing, Need I say more? This salad had me craving greens all week. The dressing was to live for and the flavors of everything were so complex (mind you the recipes are fairly simple) that one's palate could point out every ingredient, as if one were tasting wine. The subtle notes of the agave, the bold flavor of heirloom tomatoes and the fresh taste of basil made store bought dressings less than little to be desired.

If you haven't noticed yet, I have a crush on this book, and I suggest to anyone who likes their veggies to pick this baby up! I have now made the pizzas and veggie burgers in Thrive and I have even done the lemon-lime sport drink or my last bike riding adventure, and I cannot wait to try more.


Spicy Black-Eyed Pea Quinoa Pizza

The whole reason I have started typing this post was because last night, I met Brendan Brazier: Ironman triathlete, Vegan and all around nice guy. He gave a lecture for his latest book "Thrive Fitness, the Vegan Based Training Program for Maximum Strength, Health and Fitness." He gave a very interesting and informative lecture. It is now that I see, chances are, my body is producing the "stress hormone" (as noted in his book) Cortisol. The Cortisol in your body attributes to lack of sleep, weight gain and many other very unattractive things. I notice that I can sleep eight hours and still be groggy all day, that even when eating healthy I have not lost the weight I feel like I should be losing. My sister says, "You are skinny, you don't need to lose weight," but sister, my body is not performing optimally. (:


that's me on the left

After having witnessed Brendan in real life, listened to his personal stories, an seen the outcome I am more than interested in his diet, (mostly raw foods) his Vega supplement powder, energy drinks and bars. Sigh, I think I am in love, with Vega that is! I am drinking the Vanilla Chai Vega supplement (surprisingly not bad) as I type this. I won it in a drawing at the lecture last night. Gooooo me! I have bid farewell to my morning cup o' joe and now am starting my days off on a happier and most definitely healthier path.



Thanks Brendan!
www.BrendanBrazier.com