Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is full of great food, great people, and a great opportunity to remember all of the things we are grateful for in our lives.  I'm going to take that time to do that and spend some quality time with my family in CT right now!

Many hugs!

There maybe a rerouting soon, just fyi.  More details to come!

Ouch!

I had the pleasure of eating three of those cookies yesterday (oops!), and then having a soy latte with the most delicious fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookie.  Crispy edges and gooey chocolate chips.  Still hot! Wow.  Truly a great time on my tongue.  And with the bitterness of the coffee and the slight sweetness of the soy milk, it was heaven.  The fact that I was enjoying it with Miguel made it all 10x better.  Argo Tea is where we were.  A great little spot.  So many choices of teas and coffees.  I really liked their latte.  It was milder than Starbucks and very smooth.  They even foamed their soy milk well!  This would be my new coffee spot for sure if it was nearer to the things in my life (work, and yoga).

But then I woke up today.  I can only call it a sugar hangover, or something.  I went about my day as usual.  Oatmeal for breaky and a slice of Whole Foods Vegan pizza for lunch (I didn't plan well today.  Usually I pack a lunch).  But then, my stomach decided to rebel against me.  It was pain and nausea.  This happy combination felt exactly like a few days ago.  That other day was also the day after eating a lot more refined sugar than I am used to.  This lead me to my theory that it is the sugar.  It is just a theory.  Of course I soon had even more theories.  Perhaps I have an ulcer and the high sugar simply exacerbated it?  So many things.  Was it the baking soda?  I noticed that when I eat things with baking soda, my throat gets a bit tighter, not to a significant degree, but to a noticeable one.  And so my mind went and my computer went on and the google doctor thing happened, and I have no conclusions.  I'm gonna try to avoid sugar though.

The end.

Black & White Cookies

Are those vegan Black & White Cookies?  Why yes they are, indeed!  I have been wanting a black and white cookie since I went vegan and have, in fact never satisfied that craving.  It's been 3 years, and today was the day.  It was very practical actually.  My housemate just had his birthday with no celebratory dessert.  He is lactose intolerant and allergic to nuts.  Vegan baking is my pleasure, so Happy Birthday Mattias, and thanks for letting me taste test the first cookie, maybe first 2 cookies....

The other great thing?  I used flour from a local sustainable source, ordering from our new favorite place Edible Alchemy as well as vegan, unbleached turbinado sugar that I blasted in my Vitamix for a finer texture, no eggs, no dairy, and you could never tell.

I based it on this recipe, but made some alterations including using a butter cream instead of just sugar and water for icing, which I think took this goody to the next level of goodness..  Below is what I did:

Vegan Black & White Cookies

1 cup soy milk (adjust based on how wet your dough is.  I ended up adding a 1/4 cup)
Juice of 1/2 lime or 2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup canola oil or other mild cooking oil
1 1/4 cups vegan sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda3/4 teaspoon sea salt


Icing
4 cups powdered sugar, or 2 cups regular if you're like me and didn't have any powdered sugar
Cocoa Powder, I used Dark Cocoa Powder, but you can also use melted vegan chocolate chips
1/2 cup - 1 cup Earth Balance or other buttery spread
Vanilla Extract, of fresh vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix the soy milk and lime/lemon juice in a bowl by themselves and let sit for a couple of minutes until they start to curdle.  Once you're satisfied with the curdled state of your soy milk, add the rest of your wet ingredients and whisk together. In a separate large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients together and mix together. Poor your wet ingredients into the dry ingredient and mix until thoroughly combined.

Give the cookies enough space, the recipe says about 3″ from each other on the lightly greased cookie sheet or on Silpat, which I used, or parchment paper. I just used 2 large spoons to spoon them onto the cookie sheet, which resulted in not perfectly circular cookie.  I'm okay with that, but if you're not then you might want to fill a pastry bag with a round tip and make a pretty circle onto the cookie sheet.  

Bake the cookies at 350 for 15-18 minutes (depends on your oven).  Once slightly browning on the bottom, remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet so they can be separated better from the cookie sheet and placed lovingly on a cooling rack.  I take out a rack from the oven and use it as a cooling rack because I don't have a real one.  Once cooled, flip them over so you can ice the flat side.

When you want to ice, get your buttery spread to room temp and mix thoroughly with half the sugar, about a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or scrape a 1/4 of vanilla pod.  I just used a fork to get it as evenly mixed as possible.  Using a pastry spatula, or a knife, spread half the flat side of the cookie with this deliciousness.

You can also do the same for the chocolate icing, just mixing in cocoa powder to taste, or melted chocolate chips.  I was silly, and made my chocolate icing first with just hot water, sugar, vanilla, and cocoa powder.  It still turned out pretty good, but I think the butter cream version would have been awesome.

Time and Goals

So I've been thinking about a few things:

• The blog and it needing a direction and focus
• Happiness because who isn't :D
• Time management and its link to happiness
• All you wonderful people out there

1. The Blog

I actually really enjoy writing my blog and I really enjoy reading blogs.  They have added so many resources to my life and pleasant reading.  I would love to do that for people and to have some sort of purpose to my writing besides ramblings.  I have an idea, but I'd like to expand on it first and then make it definitive.  I love food things, but don't know that I want to commit to writing a food blog.  I'd love to be writing a travel blog, title of the blog give any hints?  But, I don't travel often enough, I feel, to have the vision I see.  I need a clear vision, that is all.  It will come!

2. Happiness

It is awesome and who doesn't want it to be a bigger aspect of their life?  I love it.  Transitioning to a new living situation can make me forget the little things that make me happy and how I discovered they do, liiiike simplicity for example, and relaxation time.

3. Time & Happiness

See above for introduction to this one.  I have been working and running around like a crazy Type-A-over-booker.  Being in a state of work, school, or transportation for 70-80 hours a week=Lia in broken down body and state of anxiety=3 days unable to do anything except coddle herself and sleep.  Yay!  So, I've taken steps to reduce that stuff and the stress I was putting myself through. More on that later.  It was a nice punch in the nose of reality and a reminder of what I promised myself I would hold dear, my happiness.  I won't sacrifice it for unnecessary stresses.  I made that decision before coming out here, months before coming out here, and I am realigning myself with it.

4. You People

I'm pretty sure not many of the you I am referring to are actually reading this, but my point is that I love the communities of bloggers out there, and I love being a small part of it.  I want to become a bigger part.  I want to expand on connections I had and have.  Love it!

So there you have it.  My thoughts of the past couple of weeks (ha! yay consistency!).  Let's see where the wind blows this all.