Sunday, October 22, 2006

Day of (Un)Rest

I was a busy girl today! Kyle is feeling a little under the weather, as he is busy at work installing the ice for the curling rink. So I wanted to make him a yummy dinner to help lift his spirits. I cooked up 1/2 a recipe of Seitan from Vegan with a Vengeance, then used two of the three seitan chunks to make Jerk Seitan. I use red onions and red peppers instead of what the recipe calls for to add more colour. This was my second time making it, and I wish I had more time to marinate it (the recipe says to marinate the seitan for one hour, but the first time I made it I marinated it overnight - much better). Nonetheless, it was great! I served it over steamed brown rice, with some broccoli on the side. Kyle really liked the broccoli - all I did was sauté it with garlic-seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce, and sprinkled it with sesame seeds.


For Dessert #1, I pulled out some of my Peanut Butter Chip Ice Cream from yesterday. My mom and stepdad came over and taste-tested this earlier in the day, and were very complimentary! My mom isn't a fan of soy, and she said that she never would have guessed that that was a main ingredient!

I'm posting a new pic of the ice cream, since my aunt had logged onto this blog earlier in the day, and said it looked like dog sh*t. I had stuck it in the freezer overnight, and scooped it out today. I'm a bigger fan of it this way, rather than the soft serve, sh*t style :)


And now on to Dessert #2...earlier in the week, I finally received my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I am on the Post Punk Kitchen site rather frequently, and have been very jealous of everyone else making tons and tons of cupcakes - it was now finally my turn! I haven't eaten a boston cream donut for I don't know how long, so I knew that this was the first cupcake I would make! I got a little scared when I read that the filling required agar - I have not ever had any luck with that stuff. It either never dissolves, or it does absolutely nothing to thicken or glossen (I don't even really know what it's supposed to do). I followed Isa's instructions for when using flakes instead of powder, and it seemed to turn out A-OK. I was however getting a *little* worried, since there was only like 1/3 cup of soymilk in my pot with the agar, and after 10 minutes of cooking, there wasn't much liquid left. I stirred that thing the entire time, just like the recipe said, because I knew that if I stopped stirring for just one minute, it would likely burn and crust on the bottom of my pan.

When it came time to fill the cupcakes, I tried to think of something else to use instead of a pastry bag. I was expecting to use a Ziploc bag with the corner cut off, but I then remembered back to Xmas of 2001 or something, when I asked for and received a Tupperware 'decorating' tool. I have no idea why I wanted that back then, as I certainly didn't plan on decorating cakes or anything. But man, that tool was perfect for filling the cupcakes! It comes with a variety of tips, and you can stick on the lid and store the contents in the fridge. I had extra filling left over, so I'm going to make a second batch of cupcakes on Tuesday night.


After like 3 hours of slaving away at these cupcakes, I was SO pleased with the final results:



Needless to say, I didn't do my vacuuming :) There's always tomorrow...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmm! These were the first ones that I made, too -- for the same reasons! The very idea of a Boston Cream donut was wonderful. These really capture that flavor! (It helps that the chocolate glaze is one of the most amazing things I've ever taste!)