Marinated Mushrooms, Hasselback Potatoes, and More Goodies!

Do you ever find that you purchase something at the supermarket without a real idea of what you want to do with it? This happens to me a lot. I am something of a shopaholic, and this weakness affects me not only when shopping for shoes and clothes, but for vegetables and grains, too. Recently, I picked up a few things that I had no real plan for: a bag of pretty potatoes and a bunch of lovely Portabella mushrooms. Luckily I bought quite a few of each, because soon after I found myself with some wonderful dinner guests: Gwen, my foodie BFF, her boyfriend Firat, and my future in-laws. 

Gwen, as always, brought a delicious vegan dish to share. She's not vegan, but she spoils me so with wonderful vegan dishes every time she cooks for me! She brought over a warm appetizer made with eggplant, tomatoes, and beautifully sliced cucumbers. It was wonderful!

Gwen's Dish: Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Cucumbers

For the potatoes, I turned to one of my favorite blogs for inspiration: Joy the Baker. Joy writes about all kinds of cooking (not just baking), and often features vegan recipes. On her site, I found a great recipe for Hasselback Potatoes. It's not vegan, but it was easily veganized: I replaced the butter with Earth Balance, and omitted the cheese from the pesto sauce. Mine weren't nearly as perfect as Joy's, but they were absolutely delicious!

Hasselback Potatoes: Not as pretty as Joy's, but yummy!

For the lovely Portabellas, I chose a recipe from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's The Vegan Table. Her Pan-Grilled Portabella Mushrooms with Herb-Infused Marinade recipe was just perfect. It was a little more labor-intensive that I expected (perhaps if I'd had a larger pan, I could have "pan-grilled" more mushrooms at once... wedding registry, here I come!), but it was worth the work! I loved the tangy and flavorful marinade with all its herbs and spices. 

Pan-Grilled Portabella Mushrooms: marinating

Pan-Grilled Portabella Mushrooms: finished!

To round out the meal, we enjoyed a wonderful homemade taboulleh, prepared by my future mother-in-law, as well as some roasted brussels sprouts. Check out our spread:

The spread: Taboulleh, brussels sprouts,
mushrooms, eggplant, and potatoes!

It came together beautifully, even though it wasn't meticulously planned out. Sometimes the best meals are those that are created on a whim, or are patched together from different people or places. Plus, almost everyone had their hand in something we ate, so everyone was included. Much fun!

A Little Bit Crazy!

Sorry for the long absence! Things have been positively crazy for me lately, and I don't even have the time for a proper post for you today. However, I will share a little bit of photo fun from last night's sugar cookie decorating extravaganza. 

A Rainbow of Frosting!

For those of you who have placed orders recently, thank you so much! It's my first real Holiday Rush. And quite a rush it is! I'll be baking every night this week, and all weekend too. Seriously cool. 

For more information on Augusta Vegan Bakery's holiday offerings, check out my Etsy site. Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season!

Cupcakes Upon Cupcakes!

Over the weekend, the fiancé and I attended a wonderful family party to celebrate his grandparents' 56th wedding anniversary and a housewarming for his cousins. To help celebrate, we decided to bring along some cupcakes. I made two dozen, as there would be a pretty big group. For the first dozen, I made the Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, as they've been so popular lately (plus, they're seasonally appropriate). For the second dozen I wanted to try something new. I had been thinking about making a cookies n' creme cupcake for a long time, and thought this would be a great opportunity. Then of course, I realized that there's a recipe for the same thing in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. So much for originality. I went for it anyway, and stole Isa and Terry's idea of cutting an Oreo in half as a garnish for the top. They turned out so yummy!

The box of all 24 cupcakes

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting and a candied pecan

 

Cookies N' Creme Cupcakes with crushed cookies in the batter & frosting

I got a few new oversized pastry tips at Surfas Kitchen Supply, and I'm really happy with how they worked out. It took me a little while to get the hang of it (you can see a few cuppies that are a little lopsided), but once I did I started getting great results. Also, I'm glad I made two dozen, because almost all of them were eaten! So all in all, grand cupcake success!

Halloween Party

Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Halloween weekend! I know that Halloween has passed, but I wanted to share with you some highlights from our party on Saturday night. The food was delicious (if I do say so myself), and the decór was a lot of fun. The fiancé and I worked our butts off all day Saturday, but it was worth it. I think everyone had a great time, and I know I did!

Halloween Luminary

Boo! Door Sign

We greeted our guests with some cute Halloween decorations outside: homemade luminaries along the walkway and a festive "Boo!" garland on the front door. For the luminaries, I drew halloween shapes on to white paper bags with a sharpie marker. Then, I filled the bottom with sand and placed a tea light candle inside. We had seven total luminaries, four on the walkway and three on the porch. For the "Boo!" sign, I bought glittery letters that were made for scrapbooking, and pasted them on to construction paper circles. I used a white grease pen (aka China Marker) to make the polka dots around the outside. Then I attached them to a string of black beads and attached the whole thing to the front door.

The bar, nicknamed "Lethal Libations"

The mantle with gourds, pumpkins, and spiderwebs

Creepy pictures in the photo frames

"Bloody" Candles

Inside the house, we decorated with colorful fabrics, gourds, spiderwebs, and red roses. Using images from the Graphics Fairy, I replaced all of our photos with spooky vintage drawings and etchings. I also made "bloody" candles and placed them throughout the house. I didn't have any taper candle holders, so I used old wine bottles instead. I think they added a more gothic feel to the table and mantle. To make the candles look "bloody," I lit a red candle and let the wax drip on to the white ones. Super simple!

And now for the FOOD! Which is going to make this post pass for a Vegan MoFo post, right? Right.

Maniacal Stuffed Mushrooms

Sinister Sandwiches

Autumn Latkes with Horseradish "Sour Cream"

Savory Pumpkin Puffs

For appetizers and finger food, we made a nice variety of dishes from some of my favorite cookbooks. The first, the "Maniacal Stuffed Mushrooms," are better known as the Panko Stuffed Mushrooms from Veganomicon. Next were mini "egg" salad sandwiches, from the Tassajara Cookbook. The Autumn Latkes with Horseradish Sour Cream also came from Veganomicon, and were an unexpected surprise. I hadn't made them before, but they went over really well. Also, the beets in them made them reddish and spooky looking! Finally, I veganized a Martha Stewart recipe for Savory Pumpkin Puffs by using vegan puff pastry, Earth Balance, and Daiya cheese. I also added more paprika to the "butter"spread on top to make them a little more orange. They were delicious, and looked adorable!

Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Cookies

Halloween Cupcakes

A clearer shot of the cupcakes

For dessert, we had my Spiced Pumpkin Pecan Cookies, as well as vanilla and chocolate Halloween-themed cupcakes. Both were a big hit! To display the cupcakes, I put together a festive two-tiered cake stand using some dishes and black fabric. It was a little dark, so I also threw in a picture of the cupcakes right after we frosted them. I think they're quite adorable. 

I think the party was a huge success. Almost everyone dressed up, and they looked great. We had a Raggedy Ann and Andy, Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Leela from Futurama, a homemade superhero, an adorable black cat, a nerd, and Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Fiancé squeezed himself into a child-size purple crayon costume, which was hilarious. I capitalized on my ridiculous new braces and went as a nerd child. The food was devoured, and so was the wine. That, to me, is the sign of a very good party. Success! 

What did you do for Halloween this year?

Engagement Photoshoot!

My apologies in advance for the fact that this post is rather unrelated to the topic of vegan baking, but I would be remiss if I did not share our wonderful engagement photos with you! We worked with the lovely Teale Landstedt of Teale Photography, who did a wonderful job photographing us and editing the pictures. We also had the help of Krystel of Couture Events with the styling, and she did a wonderful job as always. You can check out both their blogs for more images, here and here.  I am so happy with how they turned out, and I hope you like them too.

There are many more where that came from! Be sure to visit Teale's blog to see the whole set. Let me know what you think!

More Cupcakes!

Well, our engagement photo shoot went off without a hitch! If you read my post about upcoming projects, you know that I had a lot to do to prepare! One of the settings for the shoot was a picnic, and naturally we wanted to have some pretty baked goods as props. So, a few days before, I prepared two types of cupcakes to use. We wound up only using one (the chocolate), but I think they both turned out pretty. In the hulaballoo of it all, though, I didn't manage to snap pictures of the prettiest ones. I did take shots of some of the leftovers, though, so those'll have to do for now.

Cupcake Friends!

The first type of cupcake was a double chocolate buttercream with chocolate shavings on top. This flavor is based off a cake I enjoyed a little too often back in my pre-vegan days; Alcove Cafe's See's Chocolate Candy Cake. It was (and probably still is to non-vegans) ridiculously rich and delicious. Basically, it's a rich chocolate cake with pieces of See's chocolate in it, covered with rich buttercream frosting, and topped with melted chocolate and chocolate shavings. Sounds decadent, right? When I first went vegan, one of my first missions was to veganize this cake. It went very well. You can read all about that at my old blog, here. It only seemed natural to make this a cupcake, since I'm pretty sure I based the recipe off a cupcake recipe in the first place. I love it when things are cyclic. And so, the double chocolate buttercream cupcake was born! The double chocolate comes from the chocolate chips inside the cake, if you were wondering.

Double-Chocolate Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting

The second cupcake was a vanilla agave cupcake. I love the flavor of agave, it sort of reminds me of what the lovechild of maple syrup and honey would taste like. It's so warm and sweet! It blended really nicely with the vanilla flavors, too. This cake was moist and flavorful! For frosting, I did a repeat of the buttercream, as the recipe makes SO MUCH frosting. I think that next time, though, I might try a glaze of some sort, or something a little less sweet. The two tasted good together, but I think that a better pairing might remain to be seen.

Vanilla Agave Cupcake

All in all, I'm very pleased with how these turned out! The flavors were great, and everyone seemed to love them. With a few more trials, I'll be ready to add these and the pumpkin cupcakes to the Etsy shop! I just need to figure out how to ship that frosting...

Fall is Here!

...and with it comes a busy schedule! As September sneaks its way into October, I'm finding my schedule packed and there aren't enough hours in the day to complete the things I want to do! Since I've been fumbling around the kitchen lately (and by fumbling I mean not doing my best work... at all, ever), I thought I'd take the time to talk about the things that are keeping me busy this fall.

There are pumpkins at the market! That means it's officially fall.

The Bakery

1. I absolutely love fall. With it comes some great new flavors that you can't find any other time of the year! So I'm working with pumpkin, maple, pecans, and spices to create some tasty goodies that reflect the season. So far, I've had a very hard time with pumpkin (hence the fumbling), but I'm getting there. Every failure is a learning experience, after all! What are your favorite fall flavors? Any requests?

2. As you probably have heard, one of the best things you can do for your health (and your figure) is cut down on your sugar intake. Additionally, a lot of people are worried about gluten these days, and I think we probably all have someone in our lives dealing with Celiac Disease. So I'm currently working on coming up with some sugar- and gluten-free options! Right now I'm still in the research phase for gluten-free recipes, and I'm a little farther along with sugar. I'm already using maple syrup in some recipes (though there isn't a big difference health-wise with maple, at least you know where it comes from and that it hasn't been made with bone char), and now I'm learning to work with agave nectar. If you have any insights on sugar substitutes or gluten-free flours, please send them my way!

3. Finally, I'm working on brainstorming ideas for expanding the bakery. Currently, I work full time, but am able to commit nights and weekends to baking. However, I'm still only getting a few sales a month; a figure I'd like to improve. So I'm coming up with ideas for reaching a broader audience and getting my name out there. Also, I have a secret dream of selling my baked goods at a farmer's market. So that's something to think about.

Our Wedding

Yep! The feller and I are getting married! And we're having a vegan wedding. It's going to be awesome. We are pretty far along considering the wedding is a year away, thanks to our amazing wedding coordinator, Krystel Tien of Couture Events. Here are some things that we're working on now!

1. Obviously, since I have a blog about my own bakery, I love food. So it's very important to me that the food at our wedding is not only vegan, but outrageously delicious. Right now, we're looking into catering companies that will be able to make some wildly scrumptious vegan food. My hope is that it won't even occur to our guests that the food is completely vegan, because they're thinking about how completely wonderful it is!

2. For decor, we are going with a vintage-eclectic theme with lots of do-it-yourself details! So we thought why not start early on our DIY projects? We are collecting all sorts of pretty things to eventually transform into our decor. SO much fun.

3. When the feller and I went back to my hometown for a wedding in August, I went dress shopping with my mom at an adorable shop near our house. Magically, I found several dresses that I loved, and they were all in our price range! After some thought, I chose "the one," so now I've got to put the order in. And no, I can't say which one it is. That would ruin the surprise!

Our Engagement Photoshoot

Ok, so maybe this should go under "wedding," but I'm so excited about it that it's going to get its own category! We are working with the lovely Teale Landstedt of Teale Photography for our wedding photography, as well as our engagement session. Since we're not an "in-the-box" couple, it seemed appropriate for us to do something a little different for our engagement photos. So, we decided on a full-out vintage style shoot. I'm so excited!

1. In order to look like we're in another time, we're going to need some pretty amazing vintage clothes. I'm currently working on putting together our outfits, as well as accessories and props.

2. We have some inspiration photos gathered already, but we can always use more! I'd love to have a nice collage put together of images that we like, so we don't get stuck or feel uninspired on the day.

3. Krystel had the awesome suggestion of using some vegan cupcakes or cookies as part of the shoot, too! So I'm going to have a lot of fun making some beautiful decorated cupcakes.

Burp's Christmas

If you were thinking that I don't have enough on my plate already, then get ready: I'm also producing a movie! This is a project that I've been working on for over a year now with some friends of mine from college. It's going to be a wonderful animated Christmas film titled Burp's Christmas. It's something we're all working on in our spare time, as we all have day jobs. Here's where we're at right now:

1. Currently we're in the stage that we call "Getting Our Face On." To put it simply, we're getting all of our stuff together and making everything look pretty so we can go out and raise some money! One of the final products of this stage will be a polished-looking packet full of information on the story, us, and the process we're using to make the film.

2. On my to-do list for this month is to write another blog entry. Kat, our associate producer, and I are writing a series of entries about producing specifically, and what we do. My next post will be about the differences between producing for animation and live action.

3. Mike, our director and screenwriter, probably has the most of all of us to do right now. He's in the process of creating original art for us to use both in the making of the film, and in the fundraising process. You can check out some of what he's working on at our blog.

I do have a lot on my plate, but that's the way I like it. So, if you don't see me post for longer periods of time than usual, you'll at least know what I'm doing. What is keeping you busy this fall?

Enjoy the weather, and buy yourself a pumpkin at the market! I sure did.