What's cookin', good lookin'!?

Already I've been neglecting my new blog and I apologize for that. Even though I'm sure I'm the only one actually reading it.

So, a couple weekends ago I still had a pile of zucchinis to cook up and this time I went for the chocolate zucchini cupcakes and a veggie tvp chili with lots of zukes! Both were a smash hit! As with most of my cupcakes, I LOVE putting a tasty surprise on the bottom or in the middle for extra sweet happiness. This time it was OREOS! My fave for the suprise base of any flavor cupcake. I highly recommend it. The chili was SO very easy! I just kept a basic veggie chili recipe on hand to glance at and winged it for the most part. Using up a bunch of zucchini, of course, and throwing in some textured vegetable protein (tvp) for that 'meaty' goodness and well... protein! I loved this chili! Chili is such a great recipe to make up as you go. With a few basic main techniques/ingredients, it's pretty much a free for all! We enjoyed this chili for several days with some of my fresh from the bread maker oat bread. YUM!

It was the long weekend last weekend and I had lots of alone time which I, of course, spent mostly in the kitchen baking and silk screening. Here's what I came up with in the baking department! On Saturday on my way home from the fabric store I stopped at a fresh fruit and veggie market in St. Boniface not far from our house. Or so I thought! Turns out it's pretty far when you're walking in 26 degree heat in the sun for thirty minutes weighed down with about 20 pound of fabric and another 15 pounds of fruit and veggies. AAAAAAAnyway, I loaded up on some beautiful Ontario peaches, local blueberries, raspberries and strawberries along with some yummy veggies. My first recipe was for vanilla cupcakes that were screaming for those fresh peaches and strawberries. Seriously, I could've sat down and eaten the whole dozen in one sitting. And to make them even more awesome, I whipped up a wee bit of icing with some icing sugar, vanilla extract, a bit of vanilla soy milk and some margarine, slathered it on and topped it off with some Skor bits. AAAAAAAWESOME! I was in heaven, let me tell you.
Next was a very new project for me. My good friend has a huge crapapple tree in her back yard and was sweet enough to share a grocery bag full of them with me. I had NO idea what I was gonna bake with them. After some googling I decided on Crabapple Spiced Jelly! It seemed straight forward enough, though time consuming. Lucky for me I had time! First I trimmed off the ends of each apple, then I boiled them in a huge pot with just enough water to cover them for about 30 minutes. After this I used my cheesecloth for the first time and let as much juice drain out as I could. Back in the pot the juice went! This is where it gets tricky. Well, at least for me it did. I didn't want to use gelatin and most recipes I found online said that crabapples have enough pectin in them naturally to have them jelly up on their own with a schwack of sugar. I try, where I can, to cut back on sugar in all my recipes but soon learned that in jelly making, cutting back will really effect the end result. As in, it won't jell. It got pretty syrupy eventually after boiling it several times. I ended up throwing in some pectin which helped a bit but needless to say, I've got three jars of delicious crapapple syrup! Perfect on pancakes, ice cream, fresh fruit or whatever! I really like it even though it didn't turn out how I planned. Definately a learning experience. Next time, I'll use the full sugar amount and the full box of pectin and I'm sure it'll turn out much more jellified!
Next were the cookies! I tried out a recipe from my How it all Vegan cookbook which I love! Cootie's Coconut Cookies was on the menu! They turned out huge and delicious, as expected! They were a huge hit at the kids' household. As does anything with chocolate chips. So, that sums up most of my kitchen adventures in the past couple weeks. This weekend I hope to bake up some vegan treats for my first ever Sew Dandee Clothing Swap at my store. I hope it goes well! If anything, they'll be well fed! Now, what to bake for them!?! Hmmmmmmmmmm......