Tag: yogurt

Cacao powow

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After my tea yesterday, I bummed around a bit (ohhh, the luxury of this new and temporary lifestyle!) and then set myself up with a bit of dinsert: Carrot “Pudding” Cake.

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I finished the last of the original batch Tuesday and loved it so much that I instantly made two more. I keep surprising myself that this concoction tastes like actual carrot cake, except more moist, dense, and rich. I’ve really outdone myself here 🙂

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There were a few differences between this batch and the last due to changing ingredient availability. Most notably, I used a package of Peeled Apple-2-the-core in place of whatever fruit I used last time.

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In place of the strawberry cake icing that I no longer have, I used a mix of plain yogurt, molasses, cinnamon, and vanilla. To thicken it, I dissolved less than a tsp of unflavored gelatin in a tbsp of boiling water, mixed it into the icing, and let it chill for a bit in the fridge before spreading.

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On the side, I had a whole strawberry in dark chocolate from Oh! Nuts:

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Oh! my goodness. You can probably imagine how delicious this tasted. And with a real, live strawberry inside (the seeds, too!):

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(Those are knife marks and not teeth marks. My teeth are not that perfect.)IMG_9722

I went to the gym this morning and came home for some muffin-cauliflower oat bran. After heating it, I had it on top of 1/2 cup of yogurt with a tsp each of Astisana macademia cashew butter and cacao bliss:

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I also sprinkled coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg, and coriander on top.

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And I ate breakfast with a big mug of soymilky Numi Chocolate Puerh tea after “tempting fresh water to a boil” as per the instructions:

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The chocolate flavor in this tea was actually very understated. It was good, but it tasted like regular black tea to me with just a minor hint of subtle chocolateyness. Out of curiosity, though, I did lick the tea bag (shhhhh) since it actually has cacao nibs in it. That tasted like chocolate. Maybe I should break open the tea bag and dump the whole thing in next time. Hmmmmmm …

OK, time for some classssssss! Today, I get to turn in my final paper, yipEEEEEEE.

What do you get to do today?

Can it be true?

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Guess what!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s DONE.

At 11:02 this morning, I officially finished my LAST paper of the semester. It happened way sooner than expected, and I am thrilled. Now, for the next 2.5 weeks, I am completely free of school AND work (except for two more Thursdays of class and one half day retreat for work).

For breakfast while I worked this morning, I had half an apple sprinkled with cinnamon because I still had plenty of food in my belly from last night.

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When I finished, I had a celebration lunch of muffin-cauliflower oat bran. I made cauliflower oat bran yesterday morning (thanks to Heather for inspiration, once again!) and was a fan, so I decided to jazz it up today with some extras. I actually prepped the bran yesterday by immersion blending these ingredients:

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That’s one cup of steamed cauliflower, 1/2 cup raw oat bran, 1/4 cup unsweetened soymilk, and 1.5 cups of chopped frozen pumpkin muffins and bran muffins. These muffins did not make the strawberry birthday cake cut the other day because they were too seedy:

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In addition to the above ingredients, I also blended in 3/4 cup water, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. All of that sat in the fridge overnight.

IMG_9654For lunch today, I scooped out 1/2 cup of the cauliflower-muffin oat bran and heated it in the oven for 30 minutes while I addressed some long-neglected cleanliness issues in the kitchen. My stomach was still feeling confused from last night’s feast, so I decided simple would be better with the bran. All I was really wanted was a big, melty pile of nut butter, so I pulled out yet another gem from Artisana.

When the oat bran was ready to go, I served it to myself on a bed of 1/2 cup plain yogurt and topped it with that big tbsp of pecan butter, lots of cinnamon, and some strawberries:

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Hit the ol’ spot!

I’m off to take care of some other long-neglected necessaries. I have two weeks to get my life under control before it becomes unmanageable again!

What is long-neglected in your life?

Product moved

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First things first: the cakes were a success in class last night! I did not have to bring any home with me, so my plan to move all the sugar out of my freezer was effective. I just have two little chocolate cupcakes that wouldn’t fit in the tupperwares to cart up there, and that’s it. Phew, cake-overload disaster averted.

Also, in honor of my birthday yesterday, I went shoe shopping at Payless. This is irrelevant to food on the surface, but it’s actually connected because food is the only thing I have spent money on since starting grad school. Until yesterday, I hadn’t bought shoes in two years because I needed the money for groceries. Evidence:

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Yes, that is the sun shining through the hole in the sole of my shoe.

Here are my new friends:

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My feet are happy.

Back to food, I had an early egg salad dinner around 4:30 before heading up to class. To make the salad, I chopped one of my Eggland’s Best peeled hard-boiled eggs and mixed it with 1/3 cup plain yogurt, 1 tsp dijon mustard, paprika, dill, cayenne, and one cup chopped arugula. I topped it with 1/8 chopped avocado, coarse sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

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Dessert took place at class, of course 😛 My cakes were so good!

Piece #1:

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Piece #2:

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And a cupcake!

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It’s back to the grindstone for me today. I have one more paper left, and it’s not going to be a fun one! It’s due Thursday morning, so you know how I’ll be spending all of today and all of tomorrow … with a little fun break for an exciting event this evening 🙂

Will you be taking any fun breaks today?

O-L-D

34 Comments

How did this happen??? 27. Twenty-seven. twentyseven. It even looks old.

In order to make my birthday feel more like a celebration, I’ve spent the last couple of days rounding up all the things that really need to be moved along (i.e. all the frozen cake and cookie bits in my freezer) in the name of a baking experiment. Here’s the collection, separated into chocolate-based goods, fruit- and spice-based goods, and frostings.

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You might be wondering how I was able to chop all of those amazing goodies and have them sitting out on the table without nibbling on them as I worked. I wasn’t.

For the first project, I very loosely used this recipe for Strawberry Layer Cake from Cooking Light. Obviously, I didn’t quite follow the recipe, especially since I had four cups of the fruity baked goods (mostly blueberry muffins, pumpkin muffins, and lime sugar cookies) to incorporate!

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In addition to the extra baked goods, other changes to the cake involved 5 oz. whole wheat pastry flour in place of 10 oz. all-purpose, no sugar (there was plenty in all those cake pieces I was mixing in!) intead of 1.5 cups, 2 tbsp canola oil in place of 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup plain yogurt in place of 1 cup buttermilk, and the addition of the last 2 tbsp of homemade berry jam and 3/4 cup fruit salad. I immersion blended everything together and poured it into two sprayed 8-inch cake pans:

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I also baked a mini strawberry cake so I could taste test:

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It passed 😀

I almost followed the instructions for the icing. But instead of 1/3 cup cream cheese and 1/3 cup butter, I used 1/2 cup extra-strained homemade Greek yogurt. Instead of 3 cups powdered sugar, I used a red cup of jello that Myrna gave me at work last week. And instead of 2 tbsp Grand Marnier, I used 1 tbsp Amaretto. And for fun, I threw in a bunch of unsweetened shredded coconut, 1/4 block silken tofu, and some cinnamon. Taste test:

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Finished:

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For the second project, I (again, very loosely) used this recipe for Glazed Chocolate-Avocado Cupcakes from Vegetarian Times that I found via VeggieGirl. Once again, the recipe required some alterations as I had 3 cups of chocolate-baked goods to use!

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Changes involved using 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour in place of 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder in place of 3/4 cup, and no maple syrup (once again, the 3 cups of chocolate goodies had enough sugar!). I immersion-blended everything together and spooned the super super fudgy batter into 30 paper-lined mini-cupcake cups:

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Obviously, a taste test was in order for these, too.

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Successfully chocolatey and fudgy!

I followed the instructions for the glaze, except I used chocolate from various scraps I had around that were most definitely not vegan, including the rest of my Newman’s Own Organics Dark Chocolate Orange bar. Finished:

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Frosting these cakes became birthday breakfast #2 (birthday breakfast #1 was pumpkin pie flax-oat bran) after I got back from the gym this morning. You can rest assured that quite a significant portion of the frosting made its way into my mouth! One of the perks of being the birthday girl and the baker on the same day 😀

Thank goodness I have class tonight and can hopefully unload all of this decadence there!

Who is your favorite person to feed?

One down …

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I’m almost there! Just one more paper due Thursday, and I will be temporarily free. Plus, since I got tomorrow’s paper done already, I will be free to spend my birthday lazing around and feeling sorry for my elderly status before I have to go to class 😛

Today, however, is NOT my birthday (although one premature facebook “happy birthday” seems to have started a chain of people unintentionally wishing me happy birthday a day early). Today is Mother’s Day and my sister Allison’s birthday! Soooooo …

Here I am with my mama in December:

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Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you.

And here I am with my Allie, meeting our first niece, Ella, in 2005:

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Happy happy birthday, Allie! I love you, too 🙂

Unfortunately, I could not spend the day with either of these two ladies, as one is in Massachusetts, one is in San Francisco, and I am in New York! Instead, I spent the day writing a paper and fueling my way through the drudgery in the following manner. (Once again, this is an incomplete representation of all I ate, so don’t start to panic that I’ve stopped expanding or anything. Expansion is still
quite in progress. Excellent.)

IMG_9425Today’s overnight breakfast cookie actually involved the last 2/3 cup cooked couscous-lentil mix from dinner at Quercy. Because the couscous was already cookied and quite moist, I needed to add dry things! Into the cookie went a package of freeze-dried strawberries and bananas from Just Tomatoes (it was sooooo hard to keep from eating all of these straight out of the package — they were delicious and crunchy and perfect), 2 tbsp dry milk, and 1 tbsp homemade pineapple-coconut-ginger peanut butter. My plan worked, and the cookie had firmed up successfully by this morning.

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I frosted my cookie with a mix of plain yogurt and Artisana cacao bliss, and I topped it with fruit salad:

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Later, I had the rest of my spicy spicy Indian food mixed with lots of yogurt and arugula. I sopped up the sauce and yogurt left in the bowl with some pieces of cornbread liberated from the freezer:

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In the afternoon, I had some pumpkin pie flax pudding with a dollop of the two butters of the day:

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I also did some serious baking in honor of the three special occasions going on, but more details will be arriving tomorrow. Just know that I ate a lot of batter.

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“Dinner” at this point ended up being more pumpkin pie flax pudding with oat bran immersion-blended in, chopped strawberries, and the two famous butters once again:

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Are you celebrating special days this month?