Paninies and Cupcakes and Bike Rides, Oh My

Cheesy panini: the grilled cheese sammy's more sophisticated cousin

I make a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches (with homemade cheeze filling, not the store-bought stuff) because they're cheap, easy, and I always have the ingredients on hand. Fortunately, my husband never seems to tire of them. I recently mixed it up a little and made them into paninies with roasted red pepper and fresh basil, brushed with olive oil and grilled on the grill pan. The cheese was modified from the grilled cheeze recipe in Vegan Vittles. The result was the grilled, gooey perfection you see above.

In other grub-related news, my husband's office threw a party for the opening day of baseball season (complete with one of those hot dog rollers, no shit) and his boss asked me to bake something. I'm not really a sports fan, but I am a fan of baked goods and themed food, so I was happy to oblige. Hence these cupcakes, based on the fauxstesses from Vegan with a Vengeance:
Because of the white-on-black coloring, they actually looked more like footballs, but no one seemed to care.
That's that money shot, baby.

Some other things I've recently shoved into my pie hole:
Scrambled tofu with with chickpea gravy

Curried chickpea patties (a tester for Joanna) with peach mango salsa

Wait, don't leave! I'm not done with you yet, my little pretties. You may already know that Josh Hooten is riding his bike the 600 miles from Portland,OR to Orland,CA to raise money for Farm Sanctuary in May. His goal is to reach $10,000 and he's more than halfway there. You can lend your support to this worthiest of causes and awesomest of dudes by donating here. Any little bit helps, so there's no shame in donating five or ten bucks. However, if you wanted to sell a kidney or take out a second mortgage on your home in order to facilitate a mega-huge donation, I'm pretty sure that would skyrocket your status to Level 20 Vegan - even if you're not actually vegan. Read about Josh's preparation for the ride here: Bike Ride For Animals.

This is only a test.

I recently became a recipe tester for Isa and Terry's upcoming vegan cookie book. In addition, I've been testing recipes for Joanna's sequel to Yellow Rose Recipes (which if you don't have yet, um...why don't you? Go buy it already!) Food is my biggest obsession - making it, eating it, thinking about it - and being a recipe tester gives me a sense of purpose and productivity while allowing me to revel in food geekery. It's a good time.


Terry's roasted almond cookies with fluer de sel


Isa's whole wheat chocolate chip cookies


Joanna's raw cashew ricotta

Make sure you buy these books when they come out, ya heard?