Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

It's been a week and I feel about a MILLION times better. I still get random people on the streets and at school asking what happened to my face but at least there's practically no pain left. The only thing still tender is my nose. I'm hoping that will be gone as soon as my black eyes heal up.

Now that the face update has finished onto the treat I made for myself. There's something about not being at 100% that made me want a salty/sweet comforting dessert. Most of this week's meals were uneventful and pretty healthy/healing eating (brown rice, tempeh... oatmeal).

After a week of healing, a treat is required. My treat?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups with a Pretzel Crust

My recipe is inspired by Have Cake will Travel. These are fantastic because anyone can make them. The require practically NO COOKING (besides melting some chocolate) but yield a drool worthy dessert.

Teddy

Takin' it Easy

Well hello hello do I have news for you. PHEW!

I've been doing practically NO cooking (actually NO-thing) this weekend. Why?
I had a bit of a "mishap" on Friday night. I refrain from saying full out accident because that conjures images of crunched cars, ambulances, police reports and such.

What exactly happened? I'm going to tell this story without naming names or getting anyone in trouble. Here we go, while hanging out with some friends on Friday night someone got the genius idea to lift me up and spin me around. After a few spins around, this person lost their balance, fell and dropped me. I happened to land directly on my face. OUCH... The days since have been filled with rest, ice packs, movie watching and little movement. Cara has brought me a bunch of food and neosporin.

I'm feeling MUCH better today but not to 100% yet. Work is letting me remote in from home for a few days and I very much appreciate that.

This is how I look today:

Much better if you'd seen me the day after.

I've started cooking again today but not taking pics. Now that I'm cooking again any suggestions for healing foods?

I had millet, aduki and squash today that was very satisfying. Plus I've had a strong urge to bake cookies because it's therapeutic to me. Baking will ALWAYS = love haha

Hope everyone had a good weekend, be seeing you soon.

Teddy

We Fuse

All this business is providing me the opportunity to eat out a heck of a lot more than I normally do. Last night I had a 30 minute window to feed myself between work and school. I didn't have time to prepare lunch AND dinner in the morning and I took this as a sign from God that i should probably try a new place to eat near my work.

Enter a twitter world full of suggestions and one simple choice We Fuse.
2 blocks from my work and the menu has a veggie option with miso soup and tea for 10 bucks. Not bad.

The miso soup was extra salty and full of wakame (which I love)

Roasted Tofu- I'm not sure how this was "roasted". It seemed like it was not pressed then just sat in marinade for a while and was steamed to warm it. Not bad but actually roasted would be good.

Veggie dumplings- standard you could by them at your local megalo mart.

Roasted Tomato with goat cheese- the best part of the bento plate but the only non-vegan part of the dish.

Rice- what can I say? It's RICE.

Asparagus- drowned in soy sauce and served cold (like it just came from the fridge)


The service was nice but this is hardly what I expected. Maybe the next time I got into a place for Japanese food and hear Spanish music playing I should walk out haha.
On a scale of 1-100 (1 meaning i vomited afterwards) I give We Fuse a 65. It passes, but just barely. I'll take Koriente over this any day (same price better food). Plus, I am still happy to have tried something new.

Teddy

Uchi Food Blogger Tasting

What luck I must have. That is me with Tyson Cole. Yea the head chef of Uchi and the Iron Chef amazing extraordinaire. Phew- be still my swiftly beating culinary heart. *sigh*

Move past the sweaty palms to completely freaking out about being in one of the best restaurants in the country- for free. What an impostor I was. Pff food expert? Sure, I like to eat/cook/create general mischief in the kitchen but with the fortunes of the gods I was invited by Addie Broyles (thank you, thank you!) of Relish Austin to join in on an Austin food blogger meet up/food tasting. It goes without saying that every bite of this tasting was bliss and being able to mingle and meet twitter friends like @tastytouring, @Alexandratx and @apronadventures was a treat in and of itself. Sipping on sake and great conversation is always good happenings.

Uchi is a highly praised restaurant for a reason: it has unconventional but delectable Japanese cuisine. Each dish is carefully crafted and the flavors are layered in a way that only a master chef could produce.

With the new location opening in North Austin in the near future, I hope that my N. Austin readers will treat themselves to a tasting of their own.

Anyone have anything to celebrate coming up? I think I need to plan another outing to this place soon.

Teddy

Vegan Valentines Bake Sale

Our school held it's annual vegan bake sale this Saturday and I able to catch some snap-shot of the action/food porn (that's what we all want anyway right?)

Our first sale of the day.

Preparing the vegan petite fours that we decided to call "love bites" in honor of Valentines Day.

Carrot Pecan Love Muffins with a Silky Cashew Cream Frosting

Choco-coconut Bliss Love Bites

Mint French Kissed Love Bites

Chocolate Raspberry Crush Bites

Spank Me O Pita

This is the one I made! But I secretly wanted to work on the love bites. It's good for me to get away from sweets though.

As you can see, I've been pretty busy. I took all day Sunday to do NOTHING. Somehow I ended up getting a hair cut and cleaning though. I can only do nothing for so many hours.

Hope you Valentines Day was as delish as mine :)

Teddy

Gluten Free Pineapple Pie

In class last night one of our goals was that everyone make their own pie crust to take home. Then we could do some sort of pie or quiche during the week. I was feeling a little "why put off till tomorrow what i can do today?" so I stayed up till about midnight baking a pineapple pie.

Did I have a recipe? No. I just really liked how Pineapple Pie sounded. Doesn't it have a nice ring to it? I added no sweetener to this. It's just fresh pineapple boiled in apple juice and coconut milk with some agar agar to thicken it up and set.

What's your favorite pie? I think I need to make another so I can experiment with this gluten free crust more.

Teddy

No Bake "Cookies"

I have a mission: no bake vegan desserts. First up my sweet polenta "cookies". I cooked polenta in an apple cider and added some agave to sweeten it up a little more. Then I spread the mixture as thin as possible to set in the fridge. I'll admit, it's more gel-like than cookie like but I'm thinking of ways to fix that-any suggestions??

I cut the polenta into tiny hearts and filled them with my vegan nutella. About 2 of these made a nice dessert.

The next no bake dessert is going to be couscous cake I think. I've heard raving reviews about other people trying it. Looks like it's my turn to experiment. ;)

What do you think?

Teddy

Vegan Nutella

Nope I'm not dead!

I hear some people were concerned about that ;). It's become a busy time of year with school. We're having a bake sale and aphrodisiacs class soon and there's much planning and prep to be done.

More info can be found here: http://naturalepicurean.blogspot.com/

Plus I'm working on our school's blog and twitter now. Add us- we're a fantastic Vegan Macrobiotic school:
Twitter- Neschool

My twitter friends know that I've been semi obsessing about making Vegan Nutella this past week. That's mostly because world Nutella day was last week- Feb 5th 2009! I discovered Nutella while on a graduation trip to Europe when I was 18. How did I go 18 years without knowing about this chocolate hazelnut spread? It was the ideal match for toast and crepes while I was vacationing all those years ago.


Just as I learned it was world Nutella day, I knew it was about time for me to try out a homemade vegan version of this sinfully delicious treat. I used this recipe and while I very much enjoy the result, I must admit that this produces a chocolate hazelnut butter. After sitting the fridge overnight the dessert sets up and becomes more Nutella-like but I have the feeling I can do better. My solution involves more chocolate and less nuts. I've yet to test it out though.

Definitely give the recipe a try but don't expect the exact consistency of Nutella.

Up next, I use this Nutella in some no-bake treats!

Super Bowl Treats

Super Bowl Sunday seems long ago already doesn't it?!
No matter if you're happy with the outcome or not I hope everyone experienced fantastic snacks/game food. I think my guests appreciated my dishes, which was my biggest concern of the evening.


Twice baked sweet potatoes with maple syrup and toasted pecans.
These are made exactly like twice baked potatoes. Place potato in tinfoil in a 350 degree oven for about an hour(until soft), let them cool for about 10-15 mins, then cut the potatoes in half and scoop out the insides. You can flavor the insides however you see fit. These have a little maple syrup, margarine and are topped with pecans. Refill the empty skins and place back into your 350 degree oven for about 15-20 mins.



in half and roast them face down for about 15-25 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Let them cool until you can handle them. Place in a food processor with salt, cracked pepper, 2 chopped Homemade roasted tomatillo salsa. This recipe is the essence of simplicity. Cut your tomatillosjalapenos, 1/2 an onion. 1-3 cloves of garlic and tons of cilantro and process until smooth.


My second version of twice baked sweet potatoes are a sweet potato curry flavor. My flavorings were sauteed onions, garam masala (you can use any curry you'd like) and a slash of coconut milk. I processed the filling in a food processor until smooth but it really isn't needed.

Did anyone make any exciting non-traditional foods?

I had chips and bean dips as well but no pictures of those!
Teddy