1 great recipe + 1 great recipe = 1 REALLY Great Recipe

For about 3 + weeks I've had a hankering for some blueberry muffins. I pictured waking up to the beautiful aroma of sweet blueberries, walking downstairs to a warmed kitchen and John pulling freshly made muffins out of the oven. The tops were still steaming along with my cup of joe as I sat in the sunburst chair next to the window devouring the melted earth balance covered cake. Unfortunatley, this did not happen and I had to take matters into my own hands.

Venturing a block down to the Italian market, blueberries were nowhere to be seen. Oh woe was me. Wanting to get my bake on, I was too lazy to walk the extra 7-8 blocks to whole foods and settled for some raspberries, improvise.

When I came home and picked up an old favorite, Tanya barnard and Sarah Kramer's "How it all Vegan!" and flipped around, you wouldn't believe but they had, on the same page a recipe for blueberry banana muffins and raspberry cornmeal muffins. I decided to take a little of that and throw in a little of this to make a wonderful : Raspberry Banana Cornmeal muffin. Which are absolutely wonderful. I replaced the cup of joe with a nice cup of jasmine and my dream had just about come true...

The Recipe

-2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

-1 1/2 cup cornmeal

-2 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 cup liquid sweetner (agave nectar works, maple syrup...)

-1/2 cup oil

-1 cup rice/soy milk

-2 smashed nanners

-2 tbsp. ground flax seed

-1 cup raspberries

Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl, stir together flour and bp. Then add all the liquid ingredients + flax seed. Mix together until everything just comes together (lumps ok) and toss in the raspberries. Spoon into a muffin tin, oiled, cupped, or if you a new non-stick (oh-la-la) and back for about 35 mns. I got about 15 muffins out of this, but that included many finger dippings of the batter :) It's soooo good I think you'll find yourself doing the same. Right out of the oven with a butter sub and man, simply delicious.

And so we begin

This blog stuff is harder than I thought it would be. Maybe its my lack of technological knowledge and computer illiteracy, but I find myself wasting hours away with nothing but a black background and a good looking color scheme. So today was a little bumpy, some pictures are flipped the wrong way, but don't worry just ironing out the kinks :)

So, my goal today was to put something actually relating to food on here. Thanks to my wonderful Roomies - Rachael and Riley - I have two wonderful little additions - both recipes that come directly from their ingenious minds. Also, I threw in my latest creation : Vegan Raspberry Cheesecake, YUM! Lets get started....

Riley's Hot Hummus:

Riley started getting a bit sensitive towards his hummus making ability for John labled it as "bland". Yikes. Nobody wants to hear that about their food, ever. To blow John and all of our minds, he came up with a recipe that I swear is the best homemade hummus I've ever had. This recipe makes A LOT of hummus, but I don't think anyone will be complaining. Our house devoured it in one day, so ENJOY!

-3 cans of chickpeas

-1/3 cup olive oil -1 tbs. tahini

-5 cloves of garlic

-2 habenaro's -no seeds

-1 1/2 tbs. chili powder

-2 tsp. salt

-1 tsp. cumin

- juice from 2 lemons

All right, the trick to making smooth, delicious hummus is to cook the chickpeas before blending them with all of the other ingredients. To cook the chickpeas boil them for roughly 5 minutes. While they are cooking, go ahead and throw everything else in your food processor or blender, starting with the olive oil and working your way down the list. When the chick's are cooked go ahead and throw 'em in, blend, and BAM! You've got it.

Now lets talk about Soup. Winter isn't quite over, and last week at Acme they had a sale on 5 lbs. bags of potatos: buy one get one free. Along with our dumpster leeks, Rachael made an excellent animal friendly Potato Leek soup. Whip up some biscuits, and be prepared for addiction. Rachael's Potato Leek Soup: In a large soup pot saute 6 leeks (chopped) and 1 red onion (chopped) with about 2 tbs. olive oil. When they get soft add 2 quarts of veggie broth (more on homemade veggie broth to come) and 8 chopped potatos. Boil with bay leaves for 1 hour. Season to taste with celery salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. When it gets to a mushy consistency, scoop into a blender in batches (remember to remove the bay leaves). Once its all blended put back the pot and add one quart of unsweetened soy milk. Cook until warm, and garnish a bowl with a sprig of fresh thyme and hot sauce (our all time favorite is Franks). All right and now what you've all been waiting for.. Dessert, but not just any dessert, a beautifully crafted and scrumpsious Cheesecake!! Anabell Georgia's Vegan Raspberry Cheesecake On Friday the 13th it was Riley's 25th birthday. When I asked him what cake he would like me to bake for him he requested cheesecake. I had no intention to make it vegan, because well it was Riley's birthday and Riley not being vegan wouldn't be very fair. As John and I went to the Italian Market to shop for the birthday dinner and dessert, I told him what I needed to purchase for the cheesecake. He then quite simply asked, "can you do this thing vegan?", and I replied, "yeah, I think I can". And that's the story of why Riley got a vegan cheesecake for his unvegan birthday. Thankfully to the birthday gods it actually turned out wonderfully, and Riley's birthday was happy.

The Recipe: (makes two small cakes, not owning a spring form pan I used the already made grahm cracker crusts that you can get for like $1.25...I know, one day I will make my own crust, but not without my spring form pan which currently lives in AK).

-2: 8 ounce packages of Tofutti plain creamcheese

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1 12 0z. package silken tofu

- 1 tsp. vanilla

-1 tbsp. lemon juice

That's it for the actual cake. Now lets move onto the Raspberry Puree. I used a puree recipe from some raspberry oat bars I used to make. I got the recipe off of vegcooking.com . This is a great simple puree recipe that you could really throw in any dessertish type dish to jazz it up.

Raspberry Puree

-3/4 cup Raspberries, pureed in food processor/blender

-Combine with 3/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp. lemon juice

-Whisk well - bring to a boil over med. heat, boil for 3 minutes and remove from heat. Whisk for 5 minutes and cool.

After the puree is cooled, just poor your cake batter into the already made can't get any easier crusts and swirl in the puree! Bake at 400 for 45-1 hr - look for golden edges. It might look gelantinous still, but stick it in the fridge for a good 4-5 hours before you plan on eating it. Remember the longer it sits, the better it will taste.

Wow, and that's that for the first post of yummy goodness. This has taken me waaaay to long, hopefully things will smoothen out. But in the meantime, eat, eat, eat!!

Imagine this...

A simple, delicious meal of veggies, spices, rice, and a food processor. Sounds too easy doesn't it?? That's what I thought... I decided to start this blog for a number of reasons. 1) Since of late my boyfriend converted to veganism (I’ve been on and off the wagon for the past 3 years) and once this happened we started to make very very yummy meals, those of which were sooo good it was and is a crime to keep them to myself. My roomies, bless their hearts, also started catering meals to serve both John and I, and let me tell you, they can cook! 2) I am poor. Who’s not these days? ( if you aren’t, then enjoy it!! Don’t listen to my bargain hints, go the expensive route and live it up.) However, if you are poor, like me, this blog is designed to give you great vegan meals that not only give you more bang for your buck, but more taste for you buds. 3) I’ve got time on my hands (which may be contributing to my poorness) but non the less, I wanted to fill up my days with a type of a job, so I thought, well hell, I can type, ramble like you wouldn’t believe, take great pictures of the food I make….maybe I was born to be a blogger and have now just found my inner calling….or maybe I’m just bored and love having an excuse to bake 5 different things a day…..this we’ll never know. 4) I also need a reason to get out of the house…these days I'm limited on what you would call the "going out fund" (Ray's $3.00 specials... Thank You) . This gives me a reason to walk up to the free wi-fi café and sip on a $1.50 cup of joe for 2 hours. 5)I’ve always secretly wanted to be a food critique. So yes, when I do manage to go out, I will tell you all about it with possible illustrations and definite photos. And that my friends is why you are here today, enjoying the fascinating and extravagant meals of my current and yester days. These are for the vegan in me, the vegan in you, and the vegan in who? As Alex the poodle would say, “Bon Appetite!”