Outgoing: Banana Bread.

This morning I'm shipping out some fresh whole wheat banana bread to a customer, and I couldn't resist snapping a photo. It's so cute, all boxed up, taking up the entire outbox! That blue letter barely fits.

Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

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!

Shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day

March is upon us, and with it, St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate, I decided to make some treats that would put me in the spirit, and also maybe make me feel a little bit more Irish. Honestly, my lineage is sort of foggy in some ways, and for all I know I might be Irish. Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, right?

Mint & Chocolate Shamrock Cookies

I started off with a basic veganized Spritz cookie recipe, because I wanted to try out my new cookie press. I added green food coloring and peppermint extract to the batter, and used the shape that looked most like a four-leaf clover. To add to the deliciousness, I turned them in to sandwich cookies by melting chocolate and using it as a filling. To finish it off, I added a bit of edible green sparkles for shine! 

Stack o' Shamrocks

 

Close-up of the shine!

The cookies tasted like a minty version Peppridge Farm Milano Cookie, and they were really fun to make! Do you like to make any food to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? I myself, am also hoping to make some Irish Soda Bread, cabbage, and potatoes. Yum!

Pizza Fusion in Hollywood

I have to say, one of the best perks about living in a big city like L.A. is all the amazing vegan options that are available. Luckily, though, there are restaurants with vegan options popping up all over the country! One such establishment I've recently visited is Pizza Fusion in Hollywood. Pizza Fusion has locations all over the country, offering a wide variety of vegan and gluten-free options. They even have a vegan and gluten-free dessert! As an extra bonus, Pizza Fusion is an environmentally conscious company that uses eco-friendly business practices and features an entirely organic menu.

The Fiancé and I visited Pizza Fusion a few weeks ago, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Here are some of the yummies we devoured.

Organic and vegan Hefeweisen

I started off with a nice cold beer, and it was hard to choose which one to order. They offer a big selection of organic and vegan beers and wines, and everything is labeled clearly so there's no confusion. 

Fusion Salad with Goddess Dressing

Next, to balance the heavy pizza we were planning to devour, we enjoyed the Fusion Salad with Goddess Dressing. I expected it to be Annie's Goddess Dressing, which I'm very fond of, but Pizza Fusion has their own recipe. It's absolutely delicious! This salad may have been my favorite part.

Large Very Vegan Pizza with Gluten-Free Crust and Daiya Cheese

As our entrée, Fiancé and I shared a large Very Vegan Pizza. We went with the gluten-free crust option, which was nice and crisp, and chose our very favorite vegan cheese: Daiya. The Very Vegan comes with two of my favorite toppings: mushrooms and garlic. Delicious!

Fresh Homemade Brownie with Coconut Ice Cream

Finally, since we were feeling a little bit decadent, we decided to order dessert. The obvious choice was the vegan and gluten-free brownie, with a side of coconut ice cream. Not only did it look beautiful, but it was rich and had a great consistency. It was the perfect end to our meal!

I really enjoyed our visit to Pizza Fusion, and I'm sure we'll be back again soon. They also offer local delivery in their eco-friendly hybrid vehicles! Check out their website to learn more about Pizza Fusion, and to see if there's a restaurant near you.

P.S. Apologies for the iPhone photos, sometimes I get stuck without my camera! I'll do better next time. 

My First Advertisement

This July, Augusta Vegan Bakery will turn two years old! To prepare for this milestone, I have a long list of goals and ideas I'm hoping will help the business continue to grow and flourish. One goal of mine is to spread the word about the bakery. It doesn't matter how delicious or wonderful your product is if no one knows about it! I thought a great place to start would be advertising through blogs that have a similar focus and ethical standing to my company.

My first ad!

Recently, I came across a new blog that fit my criteria perfectly: Rose Pedals Vegan Weddings. Not only am I thrilled by this blog as a vegan bride-to-be, but as a business owner, too. Rose Pedals features all kinds of wonderful and inspiring content for those planning a vegan wedding. So far, I've been impressed by the blog's content, and I'm looking forward to reading more in the future. It seemed like the perfect fit for my first ad, so I went for it! Fiancé and I used one of my newer photos to make the banner ad. We wanted something simple and pretty, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. The ad went live yesterday! Below is how the ad looks on Rose Pedals.

A screen grab from Rose Pedals. You can see my ad on the right!

I'm excited to see what happens now. Maybe there won't be much of a change at all, but it can't hurt to try, and I've got to start somewhere. My fingers are crossed! In the meantime, definitely do check out Rose Pedals Vegan Weddings. There's a bunch of great articles up already, and I'm sure they'll keep coming!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely Valentine's Day today. I'm feeling pretty festive myself, and am looking forward to having a quiet dinner with the fiancé this evening. In case you need a little Valentine's inspiration, here is a little something sweet to help you out: homemade chocolate truffles!

I made these little yummies last year for Valentine's Day, and they were positively decadent! They're easy and fun to make, too. You can find the recipe on my old blog, here.

What sort of deliciousness do you have planned this Valentine's Day?

Hearts for Valentine's Day

You may have noticed that one of my favorite colors is pink. My blog is pink, my KitchenAid Mixer is pink, and most of my cooking utensils are pink! Obviously, it was about time for me to make some pink cookies. Lucky for me, I was approached to make some Valentine's Day cookies by a buyer on Etsy. She had ordered my Holiday Sugar Cookies, and thought it might be nice to have some for Valentine's Day, too. I wholeheartedly agree! Here are the cuties I created for her. 

As adorable as fully decorated cookies can be, they are a challenge to ship. When I make them, I allow them to dry fully first (usually overnight). Then, I package them very carefully. After some trial and error, I found that the best method for avoiding breakage and smudging is to wrap them individually in waxed paper. It's a bit more waste, unfortunately, but it ensures that the cookies arrive safely and intact. Obviously, I can never know exactly how they'll arrive to my customer; sometimes items arrive with a bit of damage if the postal carrier happens to throw the box around more than usual. Luckily, though, nine times out of ten the yummies arrive safely and in perfect condition!

Decorated sugar cookies are by far the most delicate thing available from my shop, so I wanted to try out some new methods that might make shipping and handling a little simpler. Though I never made them growing up, I have been aware that sugar cookies are also often made with thinner icings that harden completely when they dry. So I did some research, and decided to give the icing from this recipe a go. Unfortunately, I didn't have any corn syrup on hand, so I had to substitute with the closest thing I had: agave syrup. Things did not turn out as pretty as the picture.

Icing bubbles and crackles

As you can see, when the icing dried, lots of impurities started showing up, and it sort of looked like it had a bad case of freezer burn. Not pretty!

On the plus side, it was really easy to adjust the color with this icing, and I think I created a pretty nice ombré effect with the different shades of pink. Another plus is that they dried nice and solid, so stacking them was a breeze. Also not to be ignored was the taste. They really were delicious with this icing recipe! I think I'll give this a go again soon (St. Patrick's Day shamrocks?), and this time using corn syrup, and making extra sure everything is completely blended. Perhaps those adjustments will yield more attractive results.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!