Massive Amounts of Food Fails

I was beyond excited to start the new year and new blog off with some bangin recipes and beautious pictures of said recipes... aaand I guess you can see that since it is January THIRD, it just didn't work out that way.

Recipe 1:
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream (sounds good huh?)
Verdict:
Yummy cupcakes, absolute failure for the frosting.  I was so excited to make a Cupcake Wars (looks-wise at least) worthy frosting so I booked it to Bed Bath & Beyond and picked up a cupcake decorating kit.  I used ALL my frosting sugar, tried way too many recipes, and kept ending up with a disgusting soupy buttercream that leaked right out of my new fun frosting tools (yum).  They still came with us to our New Years Eve party, and I am lucky enough to have friends that pretended they weren't horrific looking...
Heres the recipe for the chocolate cupcake, I tried a few recipes and these were definitely the best!
By the way - I'm still on the lookout for a good vegan frosting - keep me in mind if you know one!!

Recipe 2: 
Baked Spinach Dip
Verdict:
Honestly not terrible, but this was not included because I refused to post any pictures of this experience.   My kitchen was beyond a mess, there were spinach & bowls literally everywhere and I'm too shallow to let any of you see me like that ;)
Here's the recipe that I found on this great blog: Happy Healthy Life

• Bag of frozen organic spinach - thawed 
• 3-4 cloves of garlic 
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1 TBSP apple cider vinegar 
• 1 cup cashews - soaked in water for about a half hour
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley 
• 3 TBSP nutritional yeast (sounds gross - but it is SO freaking good, gives the cheese flavor!)
• 2 TBSP Vegenaise spread (I definitely put more like 3 or 4 TBSP in)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper 
• Sprinkle of Daiya Mozz Cheese (best fake cheese I have tried

It is pretty easy from here, once the spinach is thawed that the cashews have been soaked you can throw everything in a food processor, blend until smooth, put it in an oven safe dish and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  I would put some more Daiya on top and broil for a few before serving.  We served it with tortilla chips but I bet pita bread, veggies, or whole wheat bread would be great too!  It got a pretty good review from the friends that were open to it!  (Thanks Brian & Kristine!)

So now my kitchen was such a disaster from all my food failures and messes (mostly stemming from getting the right cupcake and being royally effed by my frosting...) and I just wanted to not cook for a while.  After a good spin sesh I was hungry and realized that I had pretty much no options but to cook for my self (thanks, LI, for having so many vegan friendly restaurants) so I decided to try a tofu scramble.  

Of course at the end I was faced with quite a mess, but dear GOD was it worth it!  I tried one bite and my heart almost exploded.  I don't know if I was so impressed because I've messed up so many vegan recipes or if it was really that good, but I think you should make it and be the judge!  

So here it is, the recipe that brought me back to PLB (again)

Tofu Scramble

Ingredients

• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1 block organic tofu (you don't want to mess around with conventional soybeans)
• 2 TBSP safflower oil
• 1 tsp garlic powder 
• 1 TBSP tamari (or soy sauce) 
• 2 TBSP nutritional yeast 
• sprinkle of Daiya cheese
• Salsa

Directions 

• First thing you want to do is drain the liquid out of the tofu and get ready to press it.  Here are the steps I take:
• After it is drained I take an absorbent dish towel and lightly squeeze any liquid I can out
• Then I lay the tofu on a cutting board, cut in in half to make 2 cube like blocks and cut each in half so I should have 4 rectangular blocks 
• I wrap the blocks in paper towels or kitchen towels, put them on a cutting board, and put heavy books on top 
• Then subtly let your husband know that a tofu press would come in SO handy one day ;)

Snug as a bug

I knew those high school yearbooks would come in handy one day ;)

• While you are pressing your tofu its a good time to chop the onion & pepper into similar bite size pieces
• Once your tofu is nice and dry, take a fork (or get down and dirty with bare hands) and crumble the tofu 

JEEZE I need new cutting boards, sorry!

• Saute chopped onions, peppers and tofu in oil for about 5 minutes or until it gets some nice color on it

Spotted: the drippy frosted cupcakes!

• Add the rest of the ingredients and saute for another 5 minutes 
• Serve in a wrap, over a piece of toast, or all by itself with a sprinkle of Daiya and your favorite salsa!

My new favorite breakfast!

So hopefully I have redeemed myself after some non-blogworthy recipes!  Happy New Year everyone!

Peas & Love,
L