easter

Easter is way too early/sneaky this year which precluded me from doing any glitter-based Martha Stewart craft projects. But these pussywillows in my grandpa's back field are almost ripe. Despite the concerns.

Oscar thinks that if he sits at the table like a person, someone will serve him a plate of food. He acts confused and dismayed when it does not happen.

I am obsessed with veganizing placek. (Placek is a Polish sweet bread, like a yeasted coffee cake, which normally has a pound of butter and eight eggs in it.) After making a couple gummy bricks, I finally made an edible one, except I burnt it and had to cut the bottom off. Also it does not taste unhealthy enough. Also the crumbs all fell off the top. I think I am two placeks away from making a perfect vegan placek but I am really sick of placek now, so.

When I got home there was a starling in my apartment. It is bad luck! Or else it means there will be an Important Message.

More Easter Pictures

drear.

I have really had enough of the weather but at least fog is interesting. Now it is back to snowing. I am completely tired of snow.

Oscar = never tired of snow.

¡enchiladas!

Potato Kale Enchiladas with Roasted Chile Sauce. Mine are not as pretty as the recipe photo ones. I think because I put them together the night before I baked them so they comingled overnight and it was hard to get them out of the pan looking pretty. It is not really a weeknight recipe. It tastes much fancier than anything I normally make.

Black beans like so, except from a can.

this is the best idea I have ever had.

A couple weeks ago I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and then I froze most of them instead of baking them. Now I have constant access to warm melty cookies. Of course, it is potentially not brilliant to heat up the whole oven to bake two cookies and potentially not brilliant to eat two cookies every night at 11pm. But still.

I slightly modified the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I think this cures them of the creepy translucency they come down with on day two. Of course if you do it my way they will not survive more than ten minutes out of the oven anyway. I will post the recipe since the VWaV version is already on the internets in five frillion places. I made them partly whole wheat and you can kind of tell, but I like that because it makes me feel better about eating them every day late at night.

1 cup Earth Balance buttery sticks, at room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp ground flax seeds whisked with 3 Tbsp water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (check ingredients for vegan-worthy chips)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Cream together the margarine and sugar until fluffy.
Add the molasses, vanilla, and flax glop. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. The dough will make you concerned with its unnatural stiffness. Form the dough into cookie-like discs. They will not be spreading out much at all so flatten them a little. Place onto ungreased cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet in freezer until solid then dump into ziploc bag for storage. Put straight from freezer to oven to bake (remove from ziploc). If you bake them in a hot oven (400ish) the outside browns while the inside is still gushy. GENIUS!

rainbow pox

I finally got a 1M tip but I am not so good at it. I thought adding some nonpareils (why NONpareils? Where are the pareils?) would draw attention away from the subpar piping but now they look like they have come down with a disease. Oh well.

in-like-a-lion cake

March is only somewhat coming in like a lion. It's sort of a wimpy lion. Definitely not a lamb though, so I went with the lion cake even though I felt more like making a lamb cake.

It's banana cake with chocolate mousse and sliced bananas inside, then covered in ganache. All the recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - the cake is the banana split cupcakes, 1.5x, baked in a jelly roll pan and cut into squares. I could have done a nicer job on the ganache but my theme lately is "impatience."

dreary & not dreary

Cross-country skiing at Sprague Brook. Egregiously, this is the only time I have gone all winter. Good thing it is not a problem to wait until March.

Maybe this should be a secret surprise, but I am not so good at maintaining motivation on long-term secret projects. In fact I never finish knitting anything other than hats and dog sweaters, but this time I will...

It is SO freaky how the yarn sucks the dye out of the kool aid. Drinking kool aid really cannot be good for your insides.

Orange, lemonade, and tropical fruit punch or something like that. Boiling kool aid is not my air freshener of choice. It is maybe not AS bright as it looks in the photo, but it is pretty bright.