Triple threat treats!

For my brother/sis/nephew's birthday celebration, I fought my mother for the right to make the cake. I don't think she had faith in my creation of party-worth cakes, nor the belief that people couldn't taste the difference - sans dairy. That cheesed me off to no-end, so I set out to prove her wrong, so very wrong.

I made 2 - the first a 2-layer raspberry blackout cake. I definitely need to work on my cake-typography skills!

The second was to honour my brother's favourite pairing (chocolate + PB), in pie form. I made a chocolate fudge cookie crust and topped it with toasted almonds.

Veganomicon, why do you fail me so?

My housemates are well aware of my penchant for procrastinating when we have mountains of work to do. Generally it comes in the form of an urgent necessity to bake. During the last project of last year, my Vegan Travel Survival kit, I was desperate to make some lemon squares. I used the recipe from Veganomicon (my least fave cookbook), and played with agar-agar flakes for the first time. They are pretty irritating and peculiar. The lemon bars tasted great, but didn't sit well.

Tantalizing TACO Saladita

I have found the most perfect salad recipe ever. It's addictive and uber filling.
TACO SALAD! I must have been out of beans for this version, generally the winning combo is:
• Lettuce
• Grilled peppers
• Avocado
• Adzuki (or black) beans
• Tomatoes
• Crushed tortilla/corn chips
• Red onion
• Cucumber
• Blob of salsa

Soba + seaweed

Last year for my birthday, I had a potluck dinner with my housemates and some friends from Uni. I made this soba noodle salad from one of the numerous cookbooks I raided from my old work (Muskoka Natural Foods). Great recipe! I had never used Arame before, but the flavour was so mild you couldn't taste any gross seaweediness.

i-Scream

I was missing the coconut cookie dough ice cream that I used to get from the health food shop back home, so I decided to try make my own. It was successful apart from not being quite sweet enough. I will have to give it another go!

I believe the ingredients were simply coconut milk, vanilla, maple syrup (or agave?), blended, then frozen. Thawed and blended again adding chocolate chips, pecans and perhaps some dessicated coconut. Then refreeze.