It was Eva’s birthday on Saturday and she celebrated with a potluck. Her chosen theme was “Celebrity favorites”. Or, less confusingly, the favorite food of celebrities.

I decided to go with Barbara Streisand’s favorite, which is apparently, chocolate blackout cake. It’s worth noting that there are only two references on the entire internets that link Barbara Streisand to blackout cake. One being the page where we found the original, non-vegan recipe, and another page that mentions that Rosie O’Donnell once sent her a “genuine” Ebingers Blackout Cake. The word “genuine” is in quotes because there is some debate as to whether the Ebingers brand baked goods that resurfaced in the early ’90s were the real thing, or not. The original Ebingers went bust in the ’70s.

Anyway, enough about the validity of my choice. It clearly doesn’t matter since Eva decided to push the definition of the actual word celebrity. She made Garfield’s lasagne. Does that count? At least no one is contesting that lasagne isn’t Garfield’s favorite food.

The point is, that I made blackout cake from Vegan With A Vegeance and it turned out to be totally awesome. The cake was super moist and had really nice structure! The raspberry goes really well with the chocolate and the ganache frosting is super velvety but not too sweet (which is my common gripe with frosting). If you don’t have the book you can find the recipe online, but I suggest you buy it anyway because it’s awesome.

First of all, there are many types of pancakes out there but this post only concerns american pancakes. No crepe pans, or scotch pancake griddles around here.

I’ve been using the pancake recipe from the Joy of Cooking for some time now. The recipe is veganized by replacing the non vegan ingredients with their vegan counterparts. Besides the obvious, eggs are replaced with Ener-G egg replacer. I’ve been fairly happy with the results but it could definitely be better.

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So sometimes I get home from work and can’t bring myself even to figure out what to make for dinner, let alone make it. Other times I spend from 6-10pm cooking, eating and cleaning up the mess. Last Thursday was one of the latter occasions. I decided to make some kind of Dim Sum. I ended up adapting this recipe to make char siu bao. I didn’t have all of the ingredients and it was kind of a spur of the moment decision so I made the following substitutions:

• I used firm tofu instead of pork, to make it vegan, duh! i was gonna use frozen but i remembered when i no longer had time to thaw it. I cubed it before marinating and fried it for longer than the recipe said. I also added green onions into the filling.
• It was hard to tell what consistency the dough was meant to end up as I hand mixed it. I ended up using about 1/2cup +2Tbs water in the dough instead of 3/4cup. It worked fine.
• Sunflower instead of sesame oil
• Cranberry juice instead of pomegranate
• Agave instead of molasses
• 1Tbsp white wine + 1Tbsp mirin instead of sake

Here are the results:

This was really awesome and totally marks the start of fall cooking.

Last night I made yorkshire puddings and for some reason they came out really bad. They just seemed to take forever to cook and were still not really cooked enough in the middle after over 20 minutes (the recipe said 10-12mins). So i had to make something good to make up for it.

Tonight’s dinner went something like this: Half the squash and remove inside (saving seeds for roasting). Roast at 350 degrees with 1/2c water in the pan for 1/2hr. Meanwhile dice 2 apples and mix with 3T brown sugar, some roasted pinenuts and some grated nutmeg. Take out the squash and sprinle with salt, pile on apple mixture and drizzle a little olive oil on top. Put back in the oven for 30 mins. The rice was plain cooked rice mixed with 4 cloves garlic and a diced tomato that i sauteed in olive oil for a while with salt, pepper, oregano and parsely. Totally good and totally seasonal!

so due to moving house and not having an internet connection for 2 months, it’s been a while since my last post. here’s a quick lowdown on what’s happened.

1. Eva and I moved to the Bay Area.

2. Eva got a job the day after we moved up here. TCB!

3. We went on a 5 day road trip upto the redwoods in real NorCal. Went hiking, did a jaunt on our cyclocross bikes and got scared by a herd of elk and made tasty food on a fire.

4. I found out that it’s possible to get groceries by bike, even when you live in the ‘burbs, but it’s easier with a crate than in a bag.

5. I earned my chip as a vegan baker by making croissantes. They were as amazing as they sound. (and look:)

6. Did my first cyclocross race of the season, the dfl #2 race. I was heckled by other competitors and i lost my chain for the first time since running a single ring with a jump stop. There was someone playing punk 45s on a portable turntable in amognst all the dirt. Brian Welton (visiting from philly) predicted the records were all 1st pressings of first releases. Dont give a shit!

eva and i made dinner together tonight. it was barbeque tofu, kale, chard, biscuits and miso gravy. it was good. the kale and chard were growing in the garden 1/2 an hour before we ate them.

ryan was in town from portland for the weekend. we went on a ride today and it was fun, despite the flats. the first one ryan got on the climb up to golden hill park. as we were changing it i noticed the spare tube that had been sat in my bag for the last 6 months had suffered an abrasion from being there so long. it didn’t look like a hole so we risked it. of course it didn’t hold. at this point i had a patch kit but no more co2 or a presta adapter to use at a gas station. we walked over to thomas bikes, got his fixed and as i pumped up my tires a little to avoid any pinch flats on the way home i noticed my front tire was at 20psi. then ryan saw a goathead sticking out of it. awesome. at least i noticed it in the shop and not half way back though. so we were $20 down.

i’m not used to having other people work on my bike and i felt bad beedily watching the mechanic fix my flat. i pointed out that the tire wasn’t seated right when he started to inflate the tube. and then i asked for my old tube back too so i can patch it. i’m a horrible, picky customer. the rest of the ride was uneventful thankfully. we came home and ate cookies and talked about portland and san francisco.

ps please note that in the 24hrs previous to the getting the flats, i commented not once, but twice how i hadn’t had a flat for a year. take heed.