Pot Pie Pot Pie Chicken Pot Pie!

I cooked a homemade vegan chicken pot pie, which consisted of freshly steamed asparagus, corn boiled and cut off of the cob, boiled potatoes, seitan, a vegan nutritional yeast gravy, fresh chives, and cracked salt and pepper. It was super yummy and the flaky crust made it even yummier. FYI to those who want to make a vegan pot pie - buy pepperidge farms puff pastry - it's really good and it's vegan! Between 1 and 10, I would rate this as a 7 on the difficulty scale. It's not so much hard as it is time consuming, especially if you're going to cook all of the vegetables yourself rather than use canned.

I also made a lemon cupcake with cream cheese frosting. I would upload a picture, but the one I have is the wrong type of file. Damn technology! I got the recipe from bake and destory, a chicago-based baking blog. I actually saw the writer by johnny sprockets one day, and i'm not going to lie, I was a tad bit star struck. If I'm going to live up to the bad ass baking reputation I want to gain, I think I'm going to have to get like 5 more cupcake tattoos and sew some more kick ass aprons. But don't you worry, aprons are on their way. I'm planning to amp up my sewing game and house wares are my specialty, so get prepared to read about it on my blog!

I got to go! I'm watching DC Cupcakes on TLC and some lady is chewing out a guy over moldy strawberries. We cupcake lovers are biiitches!

Bake a Bunch

Hello, stranger. It has been quite a while hasn't it? My life has been pretty crazy with trying to find employment and an apartment so I haven't been too focused on updating my blog. My life is kind of settling down...well not really because i'm going to be working all of the time and moving in a week or two...but at least I've made a life for myself in Chicago! I haven't ventured on too many cooking excursions, but I have made a few yummy fares for the 4th of July and a goodbye party for Heather and Jonathan.

These are some vanilla cupcakes with a mixed berry buttercream frosting. I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from Jennifer McCann's blog and I whipped up a buttercream frosting from 1/2 c. each of ebal and veggie shortening, a bunch of powdered sugar, a little bit of vanilla, and a bunch of mixed frozen berries...wow how much more vague can i get? Just mess around with the proportions until you get the right consistency. I couldn't find hand mixers and I was in a hurry to get these to the dinner I was having with Aaron's family, so I used a food processor. I wouldn't recommend this usually, but it is a nice alternative when you're in a hurry and hand mixers are absent. I made a make shift pastry bag from a ziploc bag and cut the end with zig zag scissors to try and get a swirly affect - I can't wait to buy real pastry bags!

Mini's - so cute!

The frosting recipe made enough for another batch of cupcakes I was going to bake for Evan's 4th of July party. This time around I thought I would make an agave nectar cupcake to kind of offset the sweetness of the frosting. I think I liked it more with the agave because it was a nice contrast to the frosting and had a more dense consistency, but Aaron thought the vanilla worked better because it was fluffier. Who the hell knows!

For Heather and Jon's going away dinner, Suzanne made a monster vegan lasagna, while I baked basil garlic breadsticks from Sara Lewis' "The Bread Book." Check this book out if you're interested in learning more about baking bread and if you find the bread lingo a little confusing to you. The book includes a variety of sweet breads, rustic breads, breakfast breads, etc. to choose from and its a lot cheaper compared to those $40.00 bibles on bread they sell at Barnes & Noble.

these pictures suck - sorry!

Let the War Begin.

Enough riff raff about plants, lets get down to the real nitty gritty - cupcakes! This blog ain't called a cupcake chronicle for nuthin'! So a ton of people have notified me of the so called "Cupcake Wars" on the Food Network and I just watched my first episode a few nights ago. Add this show to my True Blood addiction because i am obsessed. Evan and I have decided to embark on an incredible journey, which includes taking on the challenges of each Cupcake Wars episode by adding our own personal creativity and vegan spin. I will document this adventure extensively and this damn blog will actually start living up to its name.

Creme-filled Chocolate Orange Cupcake

Our first cupcake was not our own creation, but rather the recipe of 23-year-old chef Chloe Coscarelli. Above is a Creme-filled Chocolate Orange Cupcake - An orange chocolate cake with orange buttercream filling topped off with chocolate ganache. Warning - the cake batter turns out real thick, just add more almond milk and orange juice in even amounts until you achieve perfect cupcake batter consistency. Vegans, this will take you back to the days of eating those chocolate oranges, which were oh so good.

But as they say in Coscarelli's article - "When it comes to cupcakes, don't mess with a vegan."

Garfield Park Conservatory

Yesterday I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory because who wouldn't want to look at beautiful flowers and plants from around the world for free? It's one of the largest conservatories in the nation and they have works by Dale Chihuly - awesome Willy Wonka like orange and yellow discs in a small pond with coi fish. I'm also pretty sure that the conservatory copied my method of choosing plants with hellishly cute names.

Exhibit A - "Lollipop"

"Giant Sea Grape"

"Pony Tail Tree"

"Polka Dot Plant"

and a conservatory wouldn't be a conservatory without some "holiday cheer"

I strongly recommend visiting the Garfield Park Conservatory because they put a great amount of effort towards community outreach. If you don't care about community outreach like I do, maybe the labyrinth will appeal to you - how couldn't it?!

Green Thumbin' it UP

I grew up sitting in my backyard garden popping grape tomatoes in my mouth like nobody's business. I've never been too involved in gardening, but it's always been a part of my life since my mom has a real knack for it. I decided to learn more about gardening by beautifying our balcony with a series of random flowers. I got most of my plants from Fertile Gardens on Diversey, where I based a majority of my decision making on the name of the flower. I got plants with names, such as "ice cream" and "confetti," so pretty much anything that made a cute reference.

I also planted an herb garden with lemon basil, cilantro, dill, and peppermint. I'm really looking forward to putting fresh herbs in some cold salads :)

Summer Time Eats

I haven't been eating too regularly since I've moved to Chicago mostly because I haven't instituted a routine quite yet. I was sick of not eating enough good food and decided to cook up a storm of summer eats yesterday. I decided to use the ginormous bag of flour I bought the other day to make two loaves of basic white bread. I used a recipe out of "The Neal Yard Bakery Wholefood Cookbook," which has a really cute layout with a vintagey disposition. I thought that the bread would work perfectly with a mock chicken salad, which I made with frozen then thawed tofu, veganaise with grapeseed oil, honey dijon mustard, bread and butter pickles, red onion, dill, salt, and pepper. I also made some garlic hummus to eat with the chicken salad and bread. I thought I would finish the meal off with a berry mousse, which was made with frozen blueberries, fresh raspberries, sugar, silken tofu, and vanilla extract. After test running these recipes of mine, I've discovered that they are the perfect food for a picnic. I need to do one of those soon.

Pizza Party!

Evan and I made the most fabulous vegan pizza EVER. I made the crust from a recipe out of Vegan with a Vengeance, while Evan topped it with yummy tomato sauce, green peppers, onions, olives, baby portabellas, mozzarella and cheddar daiya cheese, and the best part - a mix of arugula and basil. HOLY MACROL.

before...

after!