Scratch.

Scratch.

For the last month or so, I've been on a baking kick, which very recently morphed into a make-things-from-scratch kick. It's partly financially driven, but mostly just Against Packaging And Random Ingredients driven.

Tuesday night, I made some tortillas, which were much easier to make than I imagined. I used this recipe here. Go on, read the whole blog too.

Last night, I made my own rice milk, using the Garden of Vegan recipe. Rice milk generally calls for cooked rice, which if you're me, is a giant pain in the ass. So I used the manna from heaven that is Trader Joes Frozen Rice (microwaves in 3 minutes!). This means that it's really not that much cheaper than buying a carton. It turned out delicious, and I couldn't stop myself from eating the mushy rice leftover after straining. I think in the future, I'll make it without maple syrup or vanilla (just rice and water) first, strain out the ricemeal stuff, and feed that to Oliver (update on my lovely 20 lb vegan 5 month old soon). Then, of course, I'll add the maple syrup to the milk for mama.

But move over rice milk. Tonight, I made almond milk. Way easier! Way cheaper! I'm going to post the recipe I used, because I changed all the quantities and an entire ingredient completely.

Almond Milk
1 cup raw almonds (you'll grind them up into meal)
4 cups water, pref. filtered
2 tablespoons + maple syrup

step 1: blend almonds into an even meal
step 2: add water and maple syrup. blend some more.
step 3: pour through a mesh strainer or whatever else you might use to strain. Don't spill 25% of it like I did.
step 4: keep in fridge. but be sure to drink a small glass of fresh, warm, frothy almond milk goodness first.

Now that I have these delicious milks to choose from, I'm going to make some more cupcakes or muffins. Maybe even scones! The possibilities! Hold me back! WTF has happened to me!

His Cutlass is too Glittery!

His Cutlass is too Glittery!

Today, at the North Park Farmer's Market, we saw the Best. Children's. Book. Ever. It's one of the Usborne Touchy Feely "That's Not My _____!" Books, and I love them most because they really don't waste any time. The story starts on the cover, with the first example of what's not my ____.

I present to you: That's Not My Pirate!



There's even a she-pirate with a too-silky shirt. And I hate it when my eye patches are too bumpy.

Ollie cried when we were reading it because Erik and I were laughing so hard. I'll probably still buy it, because I'm that kind of mother.

Ollie and F. Scott Alike.

Me and F. Scott Alike.

We love, as in make-babies-with-it-love, Caffe Forte. Caffe Forte is in North Park on University and Hermann (3139 University Ave, San Diego 92104. 92104, baby!). Ollie and I go there quite often. Mainly because they don't charge extra for soy, and give you $1 off if you bring in your special Caffe Forte mug. $1 off! Ultimately, this makes my soy vanilla latte about half the cost of the same drink everywhere else. Also, they have vegan baked goods. Vegan! Baked! Goods! And they also sell t-shirts that say "If I wasn't dead, I'd be at Caffe Forte --F. Scott Fitzgerald."

Let's review:

Free soy! They once ran an ad in The Reader with a soy bean breaking his hands free from chains, saying "Free soy!"

Today we had a vegan strawberry muffin and a little vegan chocolate bundt cake. Chocolate! They're also always sugar-free, if you roll like that.

Today I might have been called their best customer. While some people would instantly be embarassed about the amount of time/dollars they seem to be spending there, I was beamingly proud.

They love Ollie.

The workers have excellent iPod playlists.

Sometimes you just have to trust F. Scott.

Even though it will mean less of a chance I'll get the sweet corner bench seat, I'm going to make it my business to inform the vegan community of this hidden mecca. I'm not sure how to do that. Ramble off a bunch of keywords? vegan pastries coffee shop muffins hot vegan sex cafe soymilk. That might work.

Ollie and dad at Caffe Forte, notably not in the corner seat, but charming nonetheless.


Come on out to Caffe Forte, y'all. Just don't steal my seat.

Cupcake.

Cupcake


Doesn't it look like the chocolate ribbons are all soft and melty? That's because they are. Our house is currently heated to precisely the chocolate melting point.

This week, I baked something almost every night, despite the heat and veganness. A while back, Jackie gave me the Best Titled Cookbook Ever, "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World," and I finally got around to breaking it in. Note: they have a blog!

We kind of have a remarkable pantry, considering I really don't cook or bake anything elaborate all that often. Dude, let me tell you. It is so nice to have a stocked pantry, and to look through recipes for something you like, not for something you have.

That said, we didn't have corn starch, so I couldn't make the golden cupcakes from the book. Chocolate it was! We also didn't have powdered sugar, so I made some vegan cream cheese frosting using maple sugar instead. Holy god, they are the best things I've ever baked. Ever. Including the blissfully ignorant days of eggs and butter. I have three left, remarkably, so hurry on over and get one.

The next night I made chocolate-orange-hazelnut cookies (too cakey and floppy, but still cookies, and that's all that matters) from either "Garden of Vegan" or "How it all Vegan," and some gingerbread from the same cookbook (ack! do not use blackstrap molasses!). Then the next night I made applesauce muffins, but used some random Harry and David pear butter we had open in the fridge. Those are perfect.

Which brings me to last night. Ah, last night. I made Chai Latte cupcakes from the cupcake dictatorship book. MAKE THESE NOW. The book suggests putting powdered sugar on top with a little cinnamon and cocoa, but I opted for a cinnamon icing instead, piped thinly on top. Mmmm. As I was licking the icing-piper bag thing clean, a drop of icing landed on my bare foot. I wiped if off with my finger and licked it, if that tells you how good that icing is.

The most important part of this story is that I cleaned the kitchen myself every time. Normally, with baking, crafts, decorating, home improvement, or actually anything vaguely resembling a project, I get bored with it just in time for clean-up, and the scraps, mess, and resultant tornado of supplies and mid-project snack plates lie dormant for days, hopefully until someone else gets too annoyed with the mess and deals with it himself. Maybe it's because I needed my mixing bowls and measuring spoons for the next night's continuation of the baking fiasco, or maybe I'm actually turning over a new leaf.

Who knows. I also put about 5 cookie's worth of batter in the fridge, waiting to make them "later." I'd put money on the fact that Erik will find it weeks from now on one of his trash-day-fridge-purges. (If you don't have a husband who does this, get one!). But I think since I've cleaned up the dishes every night, I definitely deserve a cupcake right now.

I spent forever trying to come up with a segue for posting this picture, but I gave up and am just going to unabashedly whore out my child.