Things handmade

I have so much to write about but my head is bursting with all of it. I think I'm going to tame it down and just give some more pics of what I've been up to with brief captions. I decided to make all of my Christmas gifts by hand this year and so my month of November will be a very busy one.

Starting with this wonderful bag I made from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. The Pleated Beauty Bag. I whipped this up in a couple of hours and I just LOVE it! Too bad I'm giving it away.

I must admit I did make one for myself but it's my diaper bag for now. I will make a more toned down one just for myself at a later date. Don't mind the fluff, Ayla's blanket was resting on it today before I took the pic and I was too lazy to pick it all off. =)

I've a whole list of things that I'm making for everyone from that book including some knitting that I must get started on pronto if I'm ever going to finish! I still have yet to complete my scarf but I just bought yarn to make mittens to go along with it since I was shown how to knit with 4 needles! My coworker and I are going yarn shopping next weekend hopefully to buy some more stuff for my gifts. I can't wait.

My next update will include some softies! I'm making the Olive doll by Hillary from Wee Wonderfuls for my nieces for Christmas. I've had my eye on that doll for a long time. I wanted to make it for Ayla and I will but first things first. I decided not to make Archie because they're twins and would probably fight over who has Olive and who has Archie. I don't want to cause any problems so two Olives it is. I'll also be attempting to make them the two quilts using the Lap Quilt pattern from Bend-the-Rules Sewing, we'll see how that works out. Fabricland got a lot of business from me this weekend with all the fabrics and notions I ended up buying for all of this. But so far so good so I'm not complaining!

On to food! I've still been cooking up many things and my cookbook also arrived in the mail! It's a nice thick hardcover book that I can't wait to dive into. I've only made one thing from it so far. I like to read my cookbooks cover to cover before I make anything in them. Yes I know... But I get so into the little stories behind each recipe and it makes me feel like I know the author or authors just a little bit better.

So I went to a Home & Gift party on friday at my coworker's house and I brought these chocolate cupcakes. They were a real hit and the frosting is made with tofu. Recipe for the frosting came from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I used the Fauxstess recipe again from VwaV for the cupcakes, subbing applesauce instead of oil.

I also made the Sunny Blueberry Corn Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. They're so yummy! I'm trying to tone down on eating all these great desserts so I only have them for breakfast. I also realized that my baking powder is losing it's effectiveness on seeing how little these rose so I bought some more today. Hopefully I'll have fuller muffins next time.

I tried the Black bean, Quinoa and Mushroom Stuffed Peppers from VwaV. I couldn't put mushrooms in there so I just upped the quinoa. It was the best stuffed peppers I've ever had! Not that I've eaten many stuffed peppers. I thought I wouldn't like it because I'm not too fond of bell peppers but it was great. I had it with steamed jasmine rice.

I also made a variation of a recipe from Veganomicon, the Spicy Marinated Tempeh except I used tofu and the Spicy Cajun Fries from VwaV except I used sweet potatoes. With a side of steamed green peas. I thought it turned out really well. I must confess I'm getting addicted to those little peas I've had them with many meals this week.

Since I'm on a chocolate binge I've decided to also make truffles this year to include with some of my gifts. But I'll most likely only be making those once I get to Montreal so maybe there won't be any pics.

Thanksgiving and posting delays

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and it reminded me that this time last year I was writing my last post on Vegan Engineer. Unfortunately, I didn't have the same spread I prepared last year. Not only do I not have the time to get so elaborate but Alex was working and so I would have just been preparing it for me. But I wasn't without a fully home cooked meal yesterday. I've been looking thru my many cookbooks and I pulled out Vegan with a Vengeance to get some ideas for dinner. As some of you may know I fell completely off the vegan bandwagon when I got pregnant and would occasionally be found eating eating dairy or fish (and can I just say how the guilt overtook me every single time). But now that I don't have any more raging hormones, all day sickness or constant food cravings I'm getting back on my high horse. So last night I wanted to make something fast and easy and stumbled upon the Asparagus and Potato soup in VwaV. I had all the ingredients on hand so it was a perfect fit. Except as I started making it I thought to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful if there was some broccoli in this. Then I thought maybe I'll add some grated carrots for color and then since I hadn't eaten lunch I thought maybe I'll add some silken tofu for that extra punch. So when it was all said and done I had my own little soup going on. It tasted amazing! I still pureed 3/4 of it at the end so it was very creamy just the way I wanted it. After all that I decided I needed something bread like to go with the soup and wouldn't know you Isa had a wonderful biscuit recipe ready to go in that wonderful cookbook of hers! And they turned out so yummy! They were kind of flaky and very buttery tasting. So good! For dessert I decided to make the Carob Chip Muffins from Vive le Vegan! again. Except I didn't have any carob chips so I subbed in some chocolate chips. Oh I just love this recipe. I can't get enough of the little crunch the shredded coconut gives. As you can see I still had a great dinner last night that I could not complain about at all.

Speaking of all this food, I've decided I want to try to make as many recipes from my cookbooks as possible. I would have to say that's my other great addiction. Buying cookbooks. I'll have to make a post about all the ones I do have just in case anyone is interested in trying them out. So far I haven't been disappointed in any of them. I need to make a wish list on Chapters to keep track of all the ones I want to get. Every time I go to buy one I know I'm forgetting one I want even more.

I would like to add here that I started this post this afternoon at around lunch time. It is now past 9pm! Yes people, I didn't get a moment of peace to myself all day. So I'm going to just wrap up this post so I can go and finally relax. Maybe I'll have something more interesting to say tomorrow after a good night's rest!