officially winter

Okay, so we've been playing at winter here for a while--some cold, some flurries, our winter coats and hats and gloves. But, it finally hit for real. The roads are bad, and intermittently scary, there's real snow (I think I had about 5" at my house by yesterday afternoon). I even got to leave work early yesterday! What does all this mean to you? It just means that I'm planning on using it as an excuse for not blogging for a few days. That, and my uterus has been playing games (not fun games) with me for nearly a week now. I am a cranky, bloated, tender, crampy, uterachey, crompy monster. But, that said, I'm real glad to be back to bloggin'!

First of all, the vegan-flavor cupcakes for Kramer's birthday celebration. I ended up making a sort of "almond joy" type of cupcake. I made the coconut cupcake recipe from this blog. As for the frosting, I made a chocolate-almond flavor, and I just kinda winged it like she suggests. I used powdered sugar, Earth Balance, a little hemp milk, some cocoa, some vanilla and almond extracts, and just kept beating it and tasting it until I was happy with it. Then I topped them with the toasted coconut and slivered almonds. They were yum--and cute! Here's a close-up, and one of Kramer blowing out her candles.


"blow like you've never blown before"


Also, Taste of India was pretty tasty, but I don't know if there's a place that can unseat Udipi from the top seat in my heart for Indian fare in the 'Burgh.

Saturday Barbara (PYT) made a little light dinner and hung out and played Skip-bo with me while I complained about my uterache. Obviously, I am a big bowl o' fun around this time of the month!

Couscous with garlic and veggies:


The next morning we made a big breakfast, and it was magically delicious! Sunday Brunch is my favorite meal of the week. She made her famous tofu scramble and some veggie sausages and coffee. I made some roasted dill potatoes, peanut butter-n-jelly french toast (from a recipe that came from a kid's cook book that my brother and I had when we were little), and some fresh-squeezed oj. So tasty and perfect for a chilly morning.


Sunday afternoon we went to a Baby Party. It was for her niece Violet's first birthday. However, I mistakenly thought that it meant [Dress Like a] Baby Party, and showed up in a diaper and bonnet. Boy, was that embarrassing for the first meeting with her extended family!

[Just kiddin', folks. It was a really cute baby party with delicious cake, and hilarious baby antics.]

In other news, my sandwich addiction this week is egg salad with fake bacon. I had an "Egg Salad BLT" at Hoi Polloi last week, and had been thinking about it since. Also, E-dawg and I had been talking about subbing all or most of the mayo in egg salad for greek yogurt, and then Heidi posted another egg salad recipe a few days ago. So, I gave that a whirl. I used 4 eggs, 1 T. mayo, 2 T. fage 0% greek yogurt as the base. But, it just was a little too tangy, and not enough mayo-y for my liking, so I'll likely switch back, or at least flip-flop the mayo to yogurt ratio. So, to off-set the tanginess I added some minced sweet gherkin, some parsley and salt and pepper. It was good, but not perfect. Adding the fake bacon helps, though.


Night before last I threw together a pasta dish with broccoli and a bastardized alfredo-type sauce. I didn't use a recipe, just threw some stuff together--a little half and half, a little marsala, a little parmesan, a little freshly grated nutmeg, a little garlic and onion, a little butter, some salt and pepper. It turned out pretty good!


Tonight I'm doing some shopping for tomorrow's valentine's dinner with Barbara (aka PYT). I'm going to try the recipe that's on the cover of the new Vegetarian Times magazine for a vegetable wellington. Sounds deelish!

the city looks like it's been sprinkled with powdered sugar

I like this kind of snow. Everything looks lacy and beautiful, but it's not painfully frigid, and the roads aren't bad. I approve. Let it be so. This weekend is supposed to get uber-cold, but I have lots of chillaxin' planned with my gal, so let it snow, y'all!

I actually had a comfort-related close call this morning. I woke up to a chilly apartment, and discovered that while the furnace was kicking on, no air was blowing out. This is what qualifies officially as A Bummer. Luckily, it wasn't too terribly cold, and I was able to get my landlord on the phone at the cracka. I just called my upstairs neighbor, and it's fixed! The heat is on!

And, now I can't get this song out of my head:


Other contributing factors to me feeling like the heat is somewhere on the horizon is that I just scheduled my annual girls' beach trip with my peeps! We've been doing this for years, and it's my favorite week of the year! Unfortunately, I'll have to leave a couple days early, but I'll still get in some great time with my beach babies! Woot!

Here's a few of us:


Tonight is Kramer's b-day shindig. I made some tasty vegan-flavored treats, but I can't tell you about them until Monday 'cause I want them to be surprisy.

Have a fab weekend, my peeps! TGIF!

p.s. this has nothing to do with anything else today, but it's amazing. Check it!

crankful

Crankful is how you feel when you're full of crank. Uh, I mean crankiness, not, like, methamphetamines.

Today the downfall of being a non-driver hit hardcore. Since I live in an out-of-the-way neighborhood there's only one bus that services it, and it only comes every so often. So, you gotta count on it. But, this morning, due to the cruddy weather and snowy roads it was late. Which meant that I stood outside in the bitter cold for about twenty minutes waiting for it. And, it also meant that I missed my second bus, and subsequently had to wait another half-hour in the cold for the next round. And then, I was on the bus forever this morning because traffic was moving so slowly. GRRR! Not the way to start a day.

So, in search of ways to elevate my mood I bused into Squill today at lunch to hit the library (a book I'd requested and wanted to read for a while, Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen by Julie Powell, was in), Dozen (it's raspberry zinger day) and rustle up some lunch. I'd made a similar lunchtime journey yesterday, and had a truly disappointing lunch at Uncle Sam's, so I was determined to Get Something Good today. I often go to Bangkok Balcony for lunch, so I thought I'd check out their sister restaurant, Silk Elephant, today. But, much to my surprise and disappointment, they actually have the same exact lunch menu! Is that wise? Having two restaurants within a couple blocks of one another (neither of whom is doing a brisk lunch business) with the same menu? I vote no. But anyhow, I ordered my usual, but then found out the only difference between the two eateries (at lunch, anyway), is that a level 5 spiciness at Bangkok Balcony is not the same as a level 5 spiciness at Silk Elephant. I'd put SE's closer to a 7 or 8. Ouch! (why does Silk Elephant have a website, but Bangkok Balcony doesn't? weird).

Harumph.

Also, I forgot my camera card today with my photos from last night's cookin'. Ah well. Tomorrow is a another day.