feeling better, eating too much. as usual.

I'm back, baby! I'm still coughing like a coal miner with black lung, but other than that, I've been feeling good and cooking plenty. This entry is going to be a recap of some of our recent eats.

First, my favorite falafel in the world, from Alibaba's in L5P. A big thanks to Kevin and Laura for getting me hooked on this place. If I were buried under a pile of Alibaba's tabouli, I could eat my way out without so much as a burp. This fueled my to-do list today:



The vegan samosas looked nice, but they were kind of "eh". I'll probably just stick the basics next time.



Now, you will notice that the foods I've been most excited about this past week have been of the higher-fat, lower health variety. I'm sorry about that, but really I have just been wanting some comfort food. You can relate, can't you?

With that, I give you Vegan Country Fried Steak!



Holy Moly. This is the first time I've veganized country fried steak, and it was all I hoped for and more. Oh, so much more. I will provide you with a recipe soon, if anyone is interested. We had the steak topped with cream gravy made from the "drippings" (mmm, drippings), and a side of smokey collard greens. That biscuit (recipe) is from Yellow Rose Recipes.

What to do with leftover biscuits the next morning? Heat 'em up and shove some Smart Bacon and Mozzarella Teese slices in the middle!



That Teese was warm, I just didn't melt it to the oozing point. So good.

Something exciting that I've been doing lately is some recipe testing for Terry Hope Romero's upcoming cookbook, Vegan Latina. I'm only one of a big handful of testers that are working on getting Terry's recipes tested, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. And getting a sneak preview of the awesome recipes has been pretty cool, too! I've made quite a few of the recipes, but unfortunately the bulk of them were made before we got the camera that actually works. But I finally have proof I made something! Look!



These are Llapingachos (Potato Pancakes) with Peanut Sauce. And here I thought I had fried a potato in every way possible. The peanut sauce is crazy too, with tomato and a light spice. I want to eat these every single day. We had these along side some tempeh triangles that I just threw together to have some extra protein. Oof.

With all this fried stuff, I feel the presence of the great goddess Paula.



Bye, ya'll.

March: in like a lion and out like sinusitis.

Lordy. I can't even begin to describe how overwhelmed I'm feeling right now. I've missed an unheard of four days from work this week, because I came down with Black Death , and I'm still fighting it. Well, it's more like "a really bad cold that turned into a sinus infection", but since I don't get sick very often, I tend to exaggerate a bit when I do. The timing is very bad, as we are in the process of moving the store to a new location by end of next week. I'm so behind on everything! Aaahh!

All the sickness has me behind on my eating, and certainly my cooking. I'll have you know that I haven't had any type of sweet- not a cookie, piece of candy, brownie, cake, or the like for days now. DAYS! What will become of me?!

I'm excited that when I am back to cooking and baking the good stuff, that the photos on here will be better, or at least in focus. We finally got a new camera! Yay! It's a Nikon D40, and I am thrilled. I haven't been able to give it a really proper test run yet, but I will. For now, I will leave you with a picture of my pretty Berry Bowl from Jeanette at Vessels & Wares. As you can see, it works great for grapes, too.



Alright, gotta go blow my nose (again) and stress about all the stuff I gotta do.

full of excuses and flour.

I am full of excuses. For one thing, our fridge has been broken for almost a week now. Some food was lost, but some we were able to salvage and stuff into a little fridge we have in the basement (luckily!). A repair person is expected to arrive tomorrow morning, and hopefully fix that problem. Needless to say, we haven't been cooking very much. But we did scrape up a nice meal on Sunday night, on the one and only snowy day Georgia will probably see this year.

Mmm, seitan and dumplings.



I took the base of this dish from volume 2 of Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, the Vegetable Stew with Herbed Dumplings recipe. This zine is no longer in print, but Herbivore still has some copies. Anyway, we didn't feel like braving the grocery store, since Georgians freak-the-fuck-out and buy tons of food when it snows. So I made a variation of this stew with seitan, potatoes, corn, and onions. It was good, but the dumplings made this really supreme. I mean, big globs of cooked bread floating around in stew? How could that be bad? If I had planned ahead for this dish, it certainly would have included some greens. But still, a nice, warm bowl of stuff for a cold night.

I've been trying not to bake very often either, as I am attempting to bring my weight down a bit. But I baked last night, after a long hiatus.



These are the Brownie Cookies from Cozy Inside, sandwiched with a vegan buttercream style filling. Ken and I liked these a lot, but I would probably add just a bit more cocoa to the cookies next time.

Okay! Now, I'm going to share with you some recent thrift finds that made me feel all happy inside.

China Cow!



Desserts Men Like, 1956



There are some grody recipes in that one. Despite the cheesecake and excited men on the cover.

This one has some better looking recipes in it, although too many of them call for ingredients such as "whole sponge cake" and "lady fingers". I didn't realize semi-homemade was so popular in 1941!