Chocolate Attacks; Maims 20

It has been a weird week.  The boy was on a business (er, science) trip and I was left to fend for myself.  After a ton of adoptions at the holiday event, the shelter has been shuffling kittehs around, and my favorite community room got a couple new cats.  Every time I go volunteer there, I wish wish wish I was making enough money to be able to foster.  SOON.  Someday.

Anyway, the food.  I made black and white shortbread.  Half chocolate, half normal ol' shortbread, it is the lazy lady's version of those pretty checkerboard shortbreads you sometimes see.  

It began with Earth Balance buttery sticks.  I'm not sure why, but buttery sticks never seem to work as well for me as the Earth Balance tubs.  I combined the buttery stuff with some vegetable shortening, but even then the shortbread wasn't as "short" and non-spreading as I would have liked.  I've never had a problem with the tub form of Earth Balance though. 

Shortenin' shortenin'

Tons of powdered sugar.

Slicing the chilled dough.

I packaged a bunch of these to send to relatives and some as a thank you to my boss for a letter of recommendation.  

Then, there were bananas.  I bought some "red band" bananas from the grocery - a huge bunch for 50 cents just because they were a little spotty.  I had planned on making the same old banana muffins I usually make, but the boy had the excellent idea of making them chocolate.  And not just chocolate chip, but goddamned chocolatey.  The result was definitely not a healthy breakfast item, but it was fluffy and delicious.

I packed him a few to take on his trip to the East Coast, from which he'll be arriving in just a few hours.  It's so boring to cook just for myself, and I've resorted to eating mostly oatmeal and leftovers while I bake Christmas gifts and potluck dishes.

The muffin platform is a diverse and forgiving medium; to construct this one, I added 1/3 cup of cocoa powder to my regular banana muffin recipe and a cup or so of chocolate chips.  These muffins (to be honest, they were more like cupcakes) were very moist even though they were low in oil and fat.  Bananas.  They're professionals at keeping baked goods moist and fluffeh.

Vegan MoFo: Cookbooks and DIY Christmas Gifts

Good morning!  Let's talk about cookbooks!

My cookbook collection is by no means an exhaustive library of cookbookery, but I definitely use these books a lot, if only to flip through for ideas and awesome photos!

I don't use the Peta's Vegan College Cookbook much, mostly because I find that the recipes rely heavily on pre-packaged and processed ingredients that are generally way out of my budget.  My first cookbook was the Veganomicon and my latest is Nonna's Italian Kitchen - both awesome books.  I find that Vegan with a Vengeance is my go-to book when cooking for omnivores...chocolate chip cookies and pizza dough, anyone?  Eventually it would be nice to get a more general cookbook that discusses techniques more than recipes, a Betty Crocker/Joy of Cooking book or some other encyclopedic volume.

Meanwhile, I've compiled my own little mini cookbook for the holidays that I'll be handing out to family and friends.  I don't have a lot of money at the moment, but I thought it'd be nice to give out something other than candy and baked goods.

I'm hoping to print this on card stock.  I was too lazy to illustrate, so I grabbed some 200-year-old random engravings and photoshopped them to be vaguely holidayish.

Jaunty pirates can be festive too...

Anyway, hope I'm not coming off as too much of a cheapskate, but when you are literally just breaking even each month, it can be pretty stressful to have to think about gifts... even when gift giving is so much fun.  Sigh.