Nice girls CAN get the corner office!

According to Mistake #27 of 'Nice girls don't get the corner office: Unconscious mistakes women make that sabotage their careers' (oh yes, what a fabulous gem to have found in someone's dusty corner), unless you are Betty Crocker you shouldn't feel people at work. It makes people think of you as their nurturing mother and they will never take you seriously enough to promote you. To this I say: 'WHATEVER!'. I say that nice girls CAN have the corner office, or whatever the equivalent is. I don't actually have any offices at my work, so I am not sure what I am after. But I say that we can bake for our workmates, and be taken seriously in our jobs while being worshipped for being baking goddesses and covertly spreading vegan love. Who's with me!

With this in mind, here is a very large post of some of the delightful little morsels I have taken in to work, which are always much loved and well received. Strap yourselves in!



Jam-Print Cookies from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. These cookies are really nice, they are made with barley and oat flour and crushed walnuts, which give them a fabulous crunchy texture with that faint afterglow of eating something a bit healthy! The recipe said it made 11-13 cookies (I find this amusing) but for me it made 18 what I consider to be regular sized cookies.


Chocolate Rice Crispy Squares from How It All Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. Oh. My. God. These are so good! They are way better than any of those horrid rice crackles you used to have as kids. These have peanut butter in them! Please make them and try them! This recipe fills a 9x13 inch pan and is meant to make 6 large and 12 small squares. To that I fall around on the ground and laugh hysterically. Maybe if you were an insane sugar fiend. I tend to cut these up into either 30 squares or 60 bite sized pieces.


Maple Walnut Brownies from How It All Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. These were nice but a little bit on the dry side. Brownies should be smooshy! I replaced the walnuts with pecans, because I much prefer them.


Simple Oatmeal Cookies from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. Sorry for the blurry picture. These cookies were good in that they weren't super sweet, but a bit meh overall. I had to bake them for a bit extra but they were still quite soft.



Wolffie's Snickerdoodles from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. Squeee! Another very happy result. It was the first time ever eating or making snickerdoodles, and can I say that I am sorry I have waited so long. Cookie + cinnamon sugar = gold! The recipe calls for far too much cinnamon sugar than is needed to coat the cookies, but I kept the extra for sprinkling on banana and PB on toast. Double nom.


Stephanie's White Diamond Cookies from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. My first time using vegan white chocolate. Not that horrid Sweet William crud, but I used some rice milk stuff. And can I say, I didn't like white chocolate when I wasn't vegan and I don't like the vegan stuff any better. Why would you make something without coco powder? It shouldn't be allowed to call itself chocolate. OK,rant over. You can see that these cookies kind of were soft and droopy. Even with extra baking time. White chocolate aside, they were tasty - chocolate and PB always is. But while the people at work enjoyed them, I wished they would have kept their shape!


Banana Walnut Bars from The Garden of Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. Another super NOM recipe. These were a huge hit with everyone at work and vanished before lunchtime! Cinnamon sugar baked into the top is what makes these extra five star yummy!


Maureen's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Garden of Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. I used the last of my stash of Tropical Source chocolate chips on these. And they are lovely. The recipe has the option of using either soft tofu or banana, I suggest using the banana to add an extra layer of lovely flavour. Also, it claimed to make 10-14 cookies, I got 30. Do American's like their cookies and the like REALLY big?


Anne's Molasses Cookies from The Garden of Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. These were nice, though quite cakey in texture. I love molasses, and apparently so do the kids at work. Its not just for the ponies.


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. These were really nice oaty cookies, just what you want with a glass of milk. Very comforting.


Cranberry-Walnut Oatmeal Cookies from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. Tasty little morsels, though I often find the dried cranberries we can get here to be a bit too sweet for me. Oh yeah, and I of course made them with pecans!


Mom's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - Only Better from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. These cookies are excellent. Five stars!


Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. These cookies are absolutely fabulous. I have made them so many times, and they are easy to make and work perfectly every single time.


Glazed Orange Scones from Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I made these for an afternoon tea party with my friends, which was held at work while I was on call and the left overs were left for the girls the next day. The icing is quite sweet and makes twice as much as you need, be careful adding the orange juice because it gets runny fast. Also, though dough was too sticky for me to roll into rounds and slice, so I jut plopped it down. They were yummy!


Macadamia Blondies with Caramel-Maple Topping from Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. These are seriously yummy, but with the price of macadamias are definitely an every now and then treat - it uses 2 1/4 cups. They are gooey and delicious, and were raved about by the fussiest person at work (to be fair, it is her issue not mine that she doesn't like any fruit or vegetables or nuts or anything not meat and starch, but still it was great to make something she could enjoy as well!).


Chewy-Chocolate-Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. These are great little cookies, and the hold up really well making them ideal for cookie swaps, presents and road trips. Plus, what's not to love about chocolate and raspberry?


Pistachio-Rose Water Cookies from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. These are amazing! The people at work loved them because of their different yet highly addictive taste. You re meant to roll the cookies, flatten them and press the top into chopped pistachios but I found that my dough wasn't stiff enough for this. I mixed the pistachios into the dough instead. Fabulous stuff.

And so ends the current list. I have been baking up a storm of late so I have even more photos on my camera waiting to be uploaded, but if I kept on waiting until I had everything uploaded I would never make this post! And yes, the kids at work will be getting a new batch of cookies tomorrow! Baking for other people is fun, so to the book I say 'Nya', I am a vegan baking goddess and proud of it. You should be proud to be one too! (Plus, people totally love you... hee).

But where is the food?

*Gasp* A food free blog? Perhaps the bigger surprise is a blog post at all! Yes, I have been quite a bad blogger indeed. It's not intentional, it just kind of happened. There's a new roster at work and I've started a new gym program (so far, so good). Oh yeah, and I am kind of planning a trip to England! Yes, four and a half weeks until I get on a plane for a long haul trip to the old UK. It's pretty exciting, we are doing a mad road trip around England and Scottland. But what else is exciting about the trip? I shall be there just in time to go the the Brighton Vegan Fayre! What excellent timing, and completely not planned. Adding to the vegan joy, apparently I shall be meeting up with a Rabbit, a Tree Hugger and an Alien called Sal. And the fooooood!

I've also been piling up the extra-curricular work. I am working on two papers for work and I am also about to embark on a part time research masters... you know, just for fun! Hee hee. All this work means that I need to find lots of things to do while procrastinating. So I have also begun Project Procrastination 2009. This involves me compiling all the awesome recipes from people's blogs onto my computer so I have the bestest vegan recipe archive when ever I need it and without needing to be connected to the internet. Of course, it means I end up reading everyone's blog from the very beginning as well, because people are interesting! So I have a lot of work ahead with that... oh yeah, and my actual work of course. Tee hee.

Anyway, these are the things that have been occupying my mind and my blogging time. But not my kitchen time, oh no. I have loads and loads of photos of food I have made and bought to share. I just have to share it!

Oh yeah, and I was being a LYING LIAR WHO LIES when I said there was no food in this post.



What is this? It is the BEST tea bread in the WORLD. It goes by the name of Cranberry-Orange-Nut Bread and hails from the great Veganomicon. SO. GOOD.



Here it is all cut up and tempting me. It is fabulous. The flavours... the smell. I wish I could make it into a perfume, it is just perfection.

In other words, I really rather liked it!

Now, I am off to catch up on the bazillion new blog posts that are waiting for me!

A blogging break was had...

So hi, apparently time flies when you are doing things that really were not so important and time consuming as to mean you haven't blogged for nearly three weeks! I'm not quite sure when I fell off the blog-wagon. I suspect it is because my parents went away for two weeks (yes, I am a sad gen-Y who lives at home... but there are circumstances... really... no, really) and I had the house pretty much to myself and was just really enjoying the solitude and quality time hanging out with the cats.

I have taken loads and loads of photos in the past three weeks, so need to spend some time thinking about how I want to blog them all. I have a couple of blog posts that shall post today!

But first, to make up for my unexpected slackness, I offer a Fudgy Wudgy Blueberry Brownie (from Veganomicon)...



So fudgy and wudgy! They really were very soft and moist... especially when left onthe kitchen bench at work on a hot summer day... they practically became gooey awesomeness.

Baking for Christmas.

Yesterday I woke up, felt in a bit of a funk, and then pulled myself out of it with a mammoth baking extravaganza. It. Was. Awesome! So much fun, and so very zen. Here are the goodies...



In all its cooling on the table glory. Tee hee! Let's see what they made?



Here are some truffles. Sorry about the horrific photo, I had about three seconds to take it. Anyway, the ones with coconut on the outside are Rum Truffles (with raisins) from The Vegan Cookbook (my very first vegan cookbook ever so many years ago). The ones that are just covered in cocoa are a variation I made up - Cointreau Truffles (with chopped dates). They are both very yummy. And very high in alcohol!



Isa's Gingerbread Men, though they are sadly nekkid and undecorated. I was going to make some royal icing to make them pretty today, but my intentions were thwarted. Boo hiss. While they may be nekkid, they are still yummy though.



From the second I saw them, I had to have them! They are Strawberry Santa Hats from Wing It Vegan. They are so adorable! I made the coconut cake from the recipe on the blog, and it is so very easy and tasty. I used the Buttercream recipe from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. And they taste great - I love the freshness of the strawberry with the coconut and the buttercream. But... if you think that they are cute...



REINDEER CUPCAKES! Oh, they are so adorable. Again, I got the inspiration from Wing It Vegan. So cute I could *die*. I used the basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and I iced them with Chocolate Ganache (also from VCTOTW) rather than buttercream. The nose is a halved fresh cherry and the eyes are spots of buttercream with chocolate chips as pupils. The antlers are pretzels. They have no mouths, because everything I tried just looked kind of strange. So they are silent.



And here is a (slightly blurry) close up, just to revel in the CUTE! Tee hee.

This morning I woke up full of plans for more baking, including dressing my gingerbread men. Alas, I woke up with the headache that Nurofen would not budge. Which seems to be evolving into the slight feeling of ookiness that may come before a flu. Hmmm... not for Christmas!

Oh well, the stollen, mince pies and shortbread will have to wait until next year. Or, more likely, until June when I make winter solstice Yule festivities.

An afternoon of baking.

I've been in a bit of a baking funk of late. But today I got back into the kitchen and cranked up the trusty double oven. The music was Kylie Minogue, her latest two albums - X and Body Language. Loud and repeated. I am going to the Kylie concert in Sydney on Sunday night, so I am training myself back up in all the Kylie ways. But on to the baking!



Hello Blondie! Macadamia Blondies With Caramel Maple Topping from Vegan With A Vengeance, to be precise. Given that this recipe used three and a half bags of macadamia nuts, and macadamias are somewhat on the pricey side of things, I have been slowly amassing a super secret macadamia stash over the past couple of months. When you spread out the cost it is not that scary. And given that I have had them all for the last couple of weeks now, it is practically like using them for free. If you follow my logic there.

The caramel maple topping didn't quite go thick and caramely as the book suggested it should Instead it sort of soaked into the blondie base and left a nice sweet glaze over the nuts on top.

It was really, really yummy. They are gooey and rich and sweet and awesome.



And here are some Banana Wheat Germ Muffins from Veganomicon. I had wanted to make these a few days go, however there seemed to be a wheat germ shortage in south east Queensland that foiled my plans. Until today! Which is good, because my bananas were so black and soft that they didn't have much time left.

They are sweet and tasty and make me feel very healthy.

So nice to be back into the baking. I am sure the kids at work will be grateful when I take them to work tomorrow to share!

Cooking with LJ Part 1- Tragedy to Triumph

I have a lovely friend. Her name is LJ, or Lil' Jen. Not to be confused with Jen, or Big Jen. BJ is currently across the seas at the moment living the life in London. So LJ and I must fill the time of her absence by amusing ourselves so we don't sit around missing her. Which we do!

On Monday LJ and I got together to make cupcakes. LJ claims she does not cook. It is effort to cook. Plus her fiance cooks and there are a zillion great places to eat out, so really there is no need. But she confessed a desire to bake for her fiance. And so that is what we did! Interesting results... Come with us, gentle reader, on the story of our Monday....



This is LJ with her special pan she bought. It is a red silicon heart-shaped pan. Very cute! The recipe we chose was Peanut Butter Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I had hoped they would be firm enough to hold up to not having cupcake liners, as we couldn't find anything heart shaped in that department. Hmmmm...



Carefully reading and preparing the ingredients.



And beating together the liquid ingredients. Mwahahahaha! Take that liquid ingredients.



And, finally, placing the batter into the treasured red heart pan. What happened next.... was... ummm... well, a bit sad really!



Sad Peanut Butter Cupcakes! Not only were they not strong enough to hold themselves together without the liner, but for some reason the silicon pans refused to let go of them. The ones pictured here are from a regular round silicon pan. Sad, smooshed cupcakes. *sniffles*

So, the moral of the story is don't try cupcakes without a liner. If you want something heart shaped, try muffins instead!

But, what to do with this mess? LJ was taking hers home to try nestling them in ice cream so you couldn't see the malformed bottoms. As for mine, I knew I wanted to do something with chocolate. So I made the Chocolate Fudge Sauce from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. I took the smooshed cupcakes and smooshed them into my cute cupcake ramekins. I didn't have any soy icecream in the house (sad) so I topped each with a Sweet And Sara Vegan Marshmallow. Then I poured warm fudgey sauce all over it and sprinkled with chopped peanuts. Behold:



Oh. So. Good. So rich and sugary sweet, so only something to be eaten in moderation. But... wowzer! So, from tragedy to triumph! Hurrah!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Fest!

Ah yes, more chocolate chip cookies. They really are that ultimate go to cookie of awesome, are they not? Anyway, hot on the heels of last weeks Isa's Chocolate Chip Cookies, I decided to try another recipe I'd been reading about on blogs. I was reading what the lovely Becks had to say over at I am not a rabbit, and her delicious experiences with Dreena Burton's Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies. And seeing as I had an entire eight hours off from work during the day on Saturday (oh, luck me!) I thought a batch of chocolate chip cookies was just the ticket.



And here they are! Once again, the dough was not super thick. But as the recipe didn't mention anywhere that it shouldn't be, I didn't worry too much. I baked the cookies for 11 minutes as requested, and they were indeed a golden colour when I removed them. They were also very soft when I took them out. This tends to happen, then I tend to pop them back in for short amounts of time and hope I don't accidentally over do it leading to the crispy cookies syndrome. Not that crispy cookies aren't great in their own right, but sometimes you want chewy. This time I decided to go with the recipe, and so took them out. They remained very soft and melt in your mouth evenwhen cooled. And were definitely handle with care cookies. I prefer my chocolate chip cookies a bit crisp on the outside but chewy on the inside, so next time I will definitely bake for a few minutes more.

But yummy! The Sunday crew at work also really enjoyed them today as well.

Everyone's doing it. Isa's cookies that is.

A while ago, Isa over at the Post Punk Kitchen posted her new chocolate chip cookie recipe of awesome. It became a world wide cookie making crazy. So, not one to shy away from peer pressure under the right circumstances, I gave them a crack. And YUM!

I found that my dough was not as firm as Isa's recipe implied it should be. It was actually quite runny still. I have this issue a lot. I am not sure why. Maybe because I use lite soy milk? Maybe because I used arrowroot instead of tapioca? Who knows! As such, it took me a bit longer than the 8 minutes to bake them, but only a bit longer. I might try and add a bit more flour next time to stiffen the dough up a bit.

They are delicious. Chewy on the outside and soft of the inside and scrumptious all over. And considering they take 15 minutes to make, one bowl to wash up and they bake in a snap, there really is no reason not to make them. Right. Now. Go on!

And on a completely random note, I am thinking that Van Helsing might be one of the worst movies *ever* made. So why not turn off the TV and make cookies instead? See how I totally tied that in to the main theme of the post? See?

VeganMoFo: Cooking for Cancer

No posts for a week! What a poor showing for VeganMoFo. Hopefully I can make up for it today with a bounty of exciting photos! Today I hosted a Girls Night In (though it was more of an Afternoon In) as a fundraised for the Cancer Council, and invited a bunch of the girls from work around to partake. So naturally I have spent the preceeding 36 hours more or less cooking non-stop, except for some much needed sleep last night! I wish I had a picture of the entire spread on the table, but I did get separate pictures of each dish.

Holy Moly Hummus from How It All Vegan



I *love* this hummus, it is one of the best recipes I've made. With sauteed garlic and bucketloads of tahini, it has an amazing flavour. Best the day after making, the flavours grow together overnight.

Black Forest Cake from Now Vegan



A bit of a potential disaster, but it all turned out OK, if not very pretty looking. Firstly, ignore the instruction that says to add soy milk, which is not in the list of ingredients. Secondly, I needed to cook this about half an hour longer than it said. Alas, when I took it out after the initial 40 minutes the centre was all wobbly and so promptly sank down. This made the cutting in half after cooling interesting, as I ended up with a donut for the top half. Also, the cake did not want to stay together when moving from the cooling rack to the serving plate. I salvaged it by pressing it back together with my hands, as it was very moist. I then used the marinated cherries to fill the hole in the centre. The chocolate cream icing I ended up accidentally freezing trying to speed chill it, then had to zap it, then accidentally froze it again, but I finally got it fairly sorted. Had to finger paint it on around the sides of the cake though. Despite the drama and the fact it looks no where near as neat as the one in the picture, it was a big success taste wise. This particular one has a very strong coffee taste. Also doesn't have a creamy layer in the middle, just chocolate and the cherries.

Gorgeous Guacamole from How It All Vegan



Truly gorgeous, tasty and super quick and easy to make. Very strong on the lime juice. Perfect for corn chips.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes from The Joy Of Vegan Baking



With Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting, of course. These are great! The frosting stays quite runny though. But winning combination.

Sesame Asparagus Sushi from Vegan Planet



Hurrah for home made sushi! It is so much fun to make. I was a bit pressed for time so I cheated and used my mum's rice maker, which made the rice a bit gluggy. But otherwise it was great. The recipe says to use one thin asparagus spear per roll, but definitely increase it to two or even three for extra flavour.

Wild Mushroom Pate from Vegan Planet



Made in honour of my mushroom-freak friend who attended. Who doesn't love mushrooms anyway? Shiitake, porcini, cremini and button mushrooms. Very yummy and quite easy to make. And it has a very nice texture as well.

Strawberry Shortcakes from Vegan With A Vengeance



These are magnificent! The scones are spot on, light and delicious tasting. The macadamia cream is outstanding. And the strawberry sauce is ridiculously easy to make. These were the first things to go, people loved them! I served them disassembled for people to make up themselves so they didn't go soggy. Cut a scone in half, then put some cream and sauce on each one. Delightful! I wish I had a photo of a made up one, because they were super cute.

Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade from Veganomicon



I had some walnut oil I needed to use, so this blend of basil, walnuts and maple syrup seemed the thing to make. It is quite sweet, as the name would suggest, but it is really nice. Quite different.

OK, this isn't something I made. But it is a chocolate raspberry slice from The Forest that one of my friends brought me. I haven't actually had it yet because my belly is too full from the other stuff!

VeganMoFo: Baking Rulz.

A while ago on the PPK forums, there was a poll something along the lines of are you a cook or a baker. It's kind of tough, because they are both awesome. Some people chose cook because that is what they did more often. I immediately knew I had to tick the baker box. Don't get me wrong, I love and adore and worship cooking. I have to cook every day to make my dinner and my lunch, and it is always something I enjoy a lot. But deep down, I just love the baking.

I am musing on this today because lately I have gone through periods of not baking. I always will cook, because, you know, a girl's got to eat dinner. But lately I have had some sort of anti-baking mojo placed on me. If anyone knows anything about anyone who has cursed me with this terrible ailment, please bonk them over the head with a large pumpkin! My work colleagues would also make this request, because I am the bake and bring girl. And when I am out of the kitchen, they are out of tasty vegan baked goods to snack on. But today, I baked! Hurrah! This is what I made:



They are the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan With A Vengeance. And they are very tasty!

So why baking over cooking? I find something magical about baking. Firstly, it is taken these raw, unappetising ingredients (I personally have never craved a cup of flour or 1/2 cup of canola oil... but if that's what floats your boat...) and then you mix them all together and out comes something completely different. It's like kitchen magic! Or, you know, the laws of chemistry... but whatever.

Also, there is something lovely about baking a big batch of cookies or a cake or some cupcakes... it is something special, not part of your usual daily meals. Unless of course it is, but that is a whole different issue then! Bringing a cake or cookies to work or to a party is a lovely way to brighten up someone elses day. Plus your own, as you can snack on them too!

I'm tired, and I'm not sure I've quite put into words why I love the baking so much. But I hope I've managed to give you the essence of what I am trying to say. Here are some pictures of some other baking I have done:



Chocolate Cake from the Joy Of Vegan Baking. This recipe is really quick and easy. But the Chocolate Frosting recipe makes enough to ice about three cakes! I actually made this cake because I had made a massive batch of 24 cupcakes and I still had icing left over!



Chocolate Cheesecake from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. This was my first attempt at making a soy cream cheese based cheesecake, and only my second cheesecake attempt overall (the first one I made was a tofu based chocolate and rum cheesecake from The Vegan Cookbook. It was awesome, but I only had OP rum available. Ummm.... strong! You could get drunk just by smelling it LOL). I ended up having to bake it about twice as long as the recipe said. It may be because I used Kinglands Cream Cheese instead of Toffuti, and they may have different consistencies and properties. It was tasty though!



Vanilla Pound Cake from Veganomicon. This cake was great. A basic cake, but so delicious and sweet. Is great with fresh fruit and extra yoghurt. Or ice cream. Or lightly toasted with some Nuttelex. Or on its own.



Ginger Macadamia Coconut Carrot Cake from Vegan With A Vengeance. I made this for my mum's birthday last year, and it is amazing. I love a good carrot cake, but this really took it to the next level!