No bacon, please.

I had lunch at Iron Hen a earlier this month. Can I officially love portobella mushrooms? I think I will. Uh-oh, look at that "very good deviled egg." Vegan? No. Well, I ate it and I ate Chris' and that salad was filled with mozzarella cheese. I felt guilty. Oh well. I also am sad that Iron Hen isn't what I want it to be--more vegetarian- and vegan-friendly. I got the feeling it'd be just from the local-ish, fresh vibe about it but I know that there's such thing as local-ish, fresh cheese, bacon, eggs, and on and on.

My only hope is that Iron Hen's hash browns aren't prepared with bacon/meat or on the same griddle as bacon/meat. I assume it is but I am either going to (1) still eat it because damn those hash browns taste good or (2) just drop by for the fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Hope there's no bacon in that.

Wiki "mimosa"

Yum. A version of my "mimosa" cupcake. I am so glad that I have found options to my VCTOTW buttercream. I love the buttercream for what it is, but since I've tried the book's chocolate mousse and finally experimented with my own icings and glaze, I've gotten more excited about trying new flavors.

But, that doesn't mean that I should have made a strawberry cake this past weekend and eaten it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

But, oh did it taste good...

Trying to do it all.

Look at the photo; look at the cute little cups. Focus on the cup on the right.

I want that.

That is the Pineapple Basil sorbet at the Whole Foods in Winston-Salem. I was skeptical at first while scanning the vegan selections amongst the gelato...glad that there was sorbet available, too, but...pineapple basil?

Yes, the flavor was odd but also, well, exciting. It was weird because I never tasted those two flavors together before and it was aaaaaah refreshing. Memorieeeees...

So, why don't I get some more? (Sighing) You know, you'd think that someone who is so intent on making the "right" food choices (begin eco-friendly, body-friendly, and all) would also care enough for the Earth to not drive over 40 minutes to Winston-Salem from Greensboro for some sorbet.

Every Whole Foods is at least 40 minutes away! The Biz Journal says the Triad wants a Trader Joe's. People seem to want a Whole Foods in Greensboro. I still love Earth Fare as my local "healthy supermarket." I really only have brand loyalty to Food Lion's own Nature's Place plain soymilk. I'm volunteering for Earth Day in Center City Park. I drive a compact car. I recycle but secretly believe that the powers that be dump all of my intent into the landfill. I volunteer with GCM's Edible School Yard. I want to be able to do it all and then George Carlin gives me this.

At the moment, I'm not really trying to "save the trees, save the bees"...all I want is some sorbet!

Just for a moment.

Is the Scrabble dictionary the ultimate reference? Hmmm...

Last Thursday I participated in the Reading Connections Scrabble Challenge at O. Henry Hotel and it was a fun time! Before that night I had no real memory of ever playing Scrabble which surprised me because you'd think that with my obsession with language, I'd be a certified Scrabble-nerd. I must say, after skimming the event rules, I got quite confused since all that ran through my head at the beginning of the first round were all the short words I could use from every language I half-way learned...

I was an individual player and played the same person for the two rounds, begging her to challenge my use of "ER" because I wanted one of the Winston-Salem Scrabble Club people walking around and selling advice to whip out some Scrabble Dictionary knowledge. Plus, they were wearing funny hats, so it was fun to see that up close.

Those Scrabble Club people giving advice put some pressure on me and my opponent since we didn't bring enough money to buy advice. That's how the winner got so may points! If I had the $10 per piece of advice and someone told me that I could lay down some tiles for 50, 60 or even 100 points, I's be all over it.

Is that cheating? Noooo, all proceeds from purchased advice would go to Reading Connections so it's all good!

I didn't win any of the fab-fab-fabulous raffle prize packs during the event, but I had mucho fun anyways.

Maybe I should buy a Scrabble board? I mean, damn, no one ever wants to play Sorry! with me...

Learn more about Reading Connections.

Not so random fact.

I've had a good time living in Greensboro for the past 7 years (especially those since I graduated from undergrad). Greensboro is on my map.

Brainstorming: Easter cupcakes 2

I am sort of sick of dealing with powdered sugar and sticky, sticky vegetable shortening, so I was looking for an alternative to the VCTOTW buttercream frostings that I usually made.

I mean, it was exciting at first that I found that I could make (1) frosting in the first place and (2) vegan frosting at that, but I was a bit scared about how much powdered sugar and cocoa storms I was inhaling. And, it was cumbersome.

The VCTOTW chocolate mousse has been amazing as a topping so far and it is so easy to make! It tastes especially good after the cupcake topped with the mousse sits in the fridge for about half a day, in my experience.

Well, I wanted to try something new and since I had plenty or marmalade on hand, I wanted to see if I could incorporate that into a topping (that wasn't just the cupcake topped with marmalade!). I was inspired by this simple recipe and tried it out first with my orange champagne marmalade. That experiment resulted in a creamy looking glaze that had similar ingredients to but tasted different than what I whipped up for this Easter.



I used the powdered sugar and marmalade, but this time I used strawberry marmalade (and added a bit of coconut milk). I was doing figurative back flips when I saw how red/pink the mix was turning out to be! It's not really a substitute for the "all-natural" food colorings I have been looking for (BTW), but it was an awesome way to have a colorful glaze!



The decorations are the same as what I used in the cupcakes in my last post.

BTW: Homemade food coloring for colorful spring cakes!

Brainstorming: Easter cupcakes

Last week I went all out and experimented with my VCTOTW cupcake recipes.

I created what I refer to as chocolate mimosa cupcakes which consist of the VCTOTW golden cupcake recipe with McKay's orange champagne marmalade added into the batter and the VCTOTW chocolate mousse on top.



For Easter, I replicated the recipe and added some decorations that I picked up at Earth Fare: vegetarian jelly beans, cocoa dusted almonds, and Annie's Bunny Grahams (in Honey). Damn. Those Bunny Grahams just un-veganized the recipe. Wonder about the jelly beans, too. If they were vegan, it'd probably say that instead on "vegetarian". Oh, well! Almost doesn't count, but these tasted good! Finally, I have faith in the Golden Cupcake recipe!