Elephant Smoothie Bowl + Homemade Salted Magic Shell

Hello, friends.

This is a smoothie bowl. 

You probably already know that.

But you're about to see a lot of pictures of it, anyway.

 I used to live on peanut butter banana smoothies. Sometimes I would have them for two or three meals, which illicited some concern from my parents, as any seemingly liquid diet probably should. But, seeing as it has plenty of carbs from bananas and fat and protein from peanut butter, I maintain it's basically a perfect meal, especially when you throw in some spinach. And, it tastes like dessert. I'm not even joking, it's like ice cream.

Trail Mix Cookies

    Today is all about procrastination. It is cold. The hot water pipes in my house, in their typical spirit of perverse defiance and tenacity in the face of opposition, have frozen despite being left trickling overnight. I was looking forward to a visit from some family members which was cancelled due to illness (one of the less-known hazards of going to church: tell your friends). I had taken the day off in anticipation of spending it with my visitors. Logically, I should use the day to catch up on school work.

    That’s silly talk.    

                      

Salted Caramel Mocha Frappe: Pt I

Around the time the other half and I were jaunting around the Boston area for my aunt’s wedding, Starbucks did their thing and released their usual fall flavors: pumpkin spice and salted caramel mocha. Many factors, such as its revolting, distinctly un-vegan ingredients and the fact that the barista/snob in me generally hates the sort of individuals who come in frothing at the mouth over the flavor, abbreviating it to PSL as if pumpkin spice latte crosses some obscure threshold of tolerance is just too much of a mouthful to actually say, rabidly snapping celebratory iPhone pics of their decidedly run-of-the-mill beverages fated to be over-sentimentally hashtagged and posted and reposted to the point of exhaustion, have made me refuse to order the ever-popular pumpkin spice. This is pure pigheaded- and meanspiritedness, because I actually love it.

    My one choice when abroad, therefore, was to suck down as many salted caramel mochas as possible before returning home. This left me with such a spoilt, salted caramel lust that I actually drove to a Starbucks after leaving my job—again, at a coffee shop—to get one of said drinks. It was pathetic, and I was in my uniform still and the Starbucks and I kept exchanging knowing but confused looks. So I staged an intervention. For myself. 

And yes, I know I'm just the salty cousin of all those pumpkin spice hags.

Chocolate Pie [vegan]

This Thursday, I'm thirsty for chocolate. Pie, to be specific.

That's code for "this isn't a drink recipe."

Cake is the accepted standard American birthday dessert of choice. But, as food blogging is increasingly drawing to my attention, I was a petulant, picky child. First I vehemently disliked frosting, then, in a vividly-remembered episode of cake-eating at my paternal grandparents’ house, I discovered that frosting is actually delicious and gave up cake eating in favor of its less healthy topping. Or maybe it was the other way around and I abandoned frosting-eating for cake, all I’m really sure of is that frosted cake in its entirety is something I have long viewed askance.

Cookie Crumble Frappe [vegan]

 

Oh, hello there, you gorgeous drinkable confection. Let me introduce you to my friends, Oreo cookies.

   Well, almost Oreo cookies. The cookies, like the drink, are really a one-off of someone else's brilliance (aren't we all), brilliance in this case being Starbucks' Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino.

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins [vegan]

   There has been an uncharacteristic dearth of chocolate recipes around here lately. Time to remedy that.

  

Canola Oil Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies [vegan]

    Even after cutting out dairy, baking didn’t become really tricky until the first time I ran out of coconut oil.

   I prefer to use coconut oil in most cases, and did so often even before I stopped eating dairy. But I always had butter to fall back on in emergencies, and the first time I found myself with no coconut oil and no prospect of getting any in the near future I felt rather hurt—one of the bigger perks of being an adult is never being denied access to cookies, and being robbed of this right felt like a betrayal by the universe in general.

Double Chocolate Almond Truffles [vegan]

   I tend to cover things I love in chocolate, whether accidentally or on purpose.

  

 These truffles are no exception. If anything, it’s rather surprising that it took me this long to do so. For lack of a better term, we’re going to call them truffles, even though they clearly are not truffles at all, because, you know, vegan. I think they’re better, but more than one person has described my eating habits as “weird”, so that’s probably just one of my many eccentricities talking. 

     They were originally inspired by my love of Larabars, which was constantly at war with my desire not to literally eat myself out of house and home. (Almost two dollars for a bar? Please. I’m not made of money). So, I started making my own. Granted, my flavor repertoire is limited, mostly because I’m kind of lazy, but it holds me over in between legitimate Larabar splurges.

Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes {vegan}

Oh sweet, sweet, Saturday mornings.

As hard as I try not to, I can’t help beginning the countdown to Saturday sometime around Tuesday afternoon. Saturday is like the more regularly occurring, adult version of Christmas. It isn't literally related to  morning time; Saturday morning is whenever you physically awake, which, depending on what activities occurred Friday night, might not be in the morning at all. Saturday morning can be 1 p.m. or six at night. It really doesn’t matter, it’s the weekend. This is why I only work Monday to Friday: the whole world is lazier on a Saturday, and there is no judgment for sloth and general indolence. Everyone is doing it.

Mocha Frappe

   It’s a cold, rainy Easter Sunday in our little Southern city here on the East Coast. Last year, we were spending Easter in Minnesota, and it was ever colder and more miserable. I think I thought then that moving closer to the ocean would solve all my problems, including weather-related ones. Well, it hasn't, though it has made most of them milder. 

    So what is one to do when you’re trapped indoors (and have been all weekend), and the afternoon needs a little sprucing up? My answer is usually the same: coffee.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cups

So. Easter is upon us once again.

To some, Easter is about time with family, religion, or vacation. To me, it is about candy. I've tried to really think about the origins of Easter as a holiday and get into the spirit of the thing, but let's face it: the American mode of celebrating Easter is one big Pavlovian debauch. Though there has been no candy-laden basket waiting me on Easter morning since I have began that adventure that we call "adulthood", I still wake up salivating. 

   For things like this. I was never a jelly bean girl. Chocolate was where it was at. As a child I used jelly beans, and candies of their ilk, to trade for everyone else's chocolates—or I just stole them. (Mine was a glorious childhood). A favored guest in my Easter basket, a classic that my mother and I would do battle for, was Reese’s peanut butter eggs.

Chocolate Coconut Leche Cake

   Do you know what’s delicious? Chocolate. Do you know what else is delicious? Cake. Also good: coconut. Know what isn't delicious? Diabetes. 

    With that in mind, I recently set out to create a cake that united these lovely flavors and was both decadent enough to make me stop eating it after slice one and healthy enough to....be healthy. So the Chocolate Coconut Leche Cake was born.