Friday, October 23, 2009

Vegan Battle turned into a War

So I've searched and read and asked questions and read and researched to read more about Vegan friendly foods and recipes.  Holy crap.  Anyone who chooses to eat this way amazes me to pieces.  I realize that some people have allergies and just can't eat a lot of things, that makes sense but to choose this lifestyle, kudos to you.

Battle one: No Sugar.  I realize there is vegan friendly sugars but I can't afford them because for whatever reason everything seems to cost about $5 a bag/box/sack/container.  So the 4 or 5 items I typically use to bake will now cost me $25 instead of $6.  Okay, I'm poor and have to pay bills, I don't have that kind of money.  Typically, we spend about $35 - $45 a week on ALL of our groceries.  I can't justify spending 1/2 of our grocery money on 5 items to make one thing.

Battle two: No Chocolate. $6.38 for a pound of vegan carob chips that taste like dirt with coffee.  Enough said.

Battle three: No Dairy. I found a dairy free cream cheese.  Don't ask, there is a lot of soybean in it and it looks like the medium gel I use to thicken my acrylics.  Kinda smells like it too.  I can't explain the film it leaves in your mouth.  If you know the episode of Friends where Monica has to make things with a prototype of a ingredient called Mocolate, then this is my Mocolate.  I used very little and a lot of every other thing I could and it still tasted really bad.

War Began about 4:50pm and ended about 5:55pm.  It was well fought on both sides.  Sometimes you just can't beat the bland and tasteless.  I added enough Pumpkin Pie Spice for 3 large pies.  I came at it from the East with about a 1/2 of cup of Karo syrup.  Then I called for reinforcements with some cocoa powder.  Nothing could break the barriers of that wall down and I just had to pull out the troops before they were all disposed of.  I know when to call it quits.  Was I mad?  HELL YES!  I lost a lot of good fighters but that was unforeseen and almost too dirty a fight to mess with.  I really had no idea what I was up against.

Vegan War Victorious... this time.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Cookie Cakes

So I found a group called 'Southern California Cake Club' and they have little workshops.  More social than formal which is pretty nice.  The one downside which isn't huge is that they are about an hour and 45 minutes away.  I do like driving and this isn't bad during the weekends but makes it kinda tough during a weeknight.  Last night we went there for a 'Cookie Cake' workshop.  No I don't know what this meant which is one of the reasons I really wanted to go.

Later, I saw that you make cakes out of cookies, so I thought you glued cookies onto actual cakes.  Nope, still wrong.  You actually take different size cookies and stack them on each other to resemble cakes with royal icing.  It was a lot of fun and really cute.  We got there kinda late and didn't get to make as many as everyone else but we still got 3 each which isn't too bad.  The funniest thing was there were still dozens and dozens of cookies but they were left on the counter... oops.  Anyway, we finished up about an hour and half later and got back on the road a lot earlier than planned so that was good.  We stopped at Coldstone for some ice cream and learned that we can't eat a whole one (of the small size even) and that we should share one as to not waste $9.  Oh well, it was a really fun night and I enjoyed myself.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Crap.  I can't do a countdown very well :(

TOMORROW is the Graveyard Event!  Not on Saturday... I do NOT have 2 more days.  It's go time, YO!!!
2 more days

So I got 1 cake done last night... oops.  I really do plan on making up some serious time tonight.  I can stay up a little later since I don't work tomorrow, so that really should help.  My list includes but is not limited to:

- 2 batches of rice crispy treats
- 1 cake
- 2 batches of cake balls
- 2 batches of mini pumpkins
- mix 3 batches of punch/add labels

We'll see how far we can get.  I'm looking forward to it.  At some point, I forgot about this, I need to run to my moms to use her mixer and make a batch of icing too.  

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Countdown... 3 more days.

So Friday is a super cool, super fun event.  It is based on a book called; The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  My friend Jenn is coordinating the entire thing and we get to haunt and dance and eat.  I'm making some foods/desserts and am very excited but with most things I do, I am beginning to get a little nervous.  I want there to be plenty of food and my time schedule is always in conflict.  I like to think I'm 2 people so I tend to overextend myself.  Let's take tonight for instance, I was set to make 2 of the cakes for the bases of the cake balls and pre cut all the pumpkins for the Mini pumpkin pies, along with prepping a few other things for tomorrow night.  Jenn asked if anyone wanted to come help setup and without thinking, I replied, yes.  It's really hard to bake cakes when you aren't at home.  These are the things I need to remember.  It's okay though, it will all come together.  Rinse.  Repeat.  It will all come together :)

Regardless of my bad multi-tasking capabilities, I'm sure everything will work out fine.  *crosses fingers*

Monday, October 12, 2009

Fun People = Negative Space

It's really weird.  I learned something very interesting and although I'm not sure how it works, I thought I should blog about it.  I've met some very nice, funny, good hearted people.  Sounds nice doesn't it?  Turns out they carry a huge amount of negativity within them and it loomed over the house.  It may have been the inner conflict of many of the occupants that created the overall cloud of doom and gloom but it definitely stemmed from a lack of thought with 6 people living in 1 house... when technically it was suppose to only be 5 but whatever, I digress.

I really like them.  I promise, which is why this blog may seem strange.  I won't divulge scenarios or discussions that occurred because I wasn't around and don't know what really happened, nor is it really my business to do so.

When we came home last night, the house felt 'lighter.'  This was prior to me knowing that 2 occupants were no longer occupying the house.  As I do wish them the best, I'm glad the bad energy really is gone.  Maybe I'll feel a little more able to move around the house now.  It may be a rough week or so till they are really out but it's all on the downhill now and that's a nice thought.

Lesson learned for this situation: Good people don't always make good roommates.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Turning 29 on the 29th!!!

Happy Birthday Lexi!  Lex turned 29 in September.  We had a yummy dinner and a Giant Cupcake Cake for her birthday.  We also went to Disney as part of her birthday and for Gay Days at Disney, it was awesome.  Her bestie boy Spin flew in and it was fantastic!  We had a really good time and had to cut it a little short because of Lex's new job but it's a small sacrifice and it just gives us more reasons to get together more often :)



 The Haunted Mansion has been visited by Jack Skellington (my all time favorite) and I could just ride this over and over.

 

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Oh the time has come, the walrus said...

These have been some wicked busy weeks.  Accerated cake class may not have been all it was cracked up to be at first mention.   As I do enjoy them, it was tough to have classes back to back like that.  I'm really looking forward to the lesiurely weekend class that is in November.  I also went to a workshop in Action, CA one Saturday afternoon to learn elegant cupcakes and some of the things you can do to make them really pretty.



Monday Night Football with the lesbians has also returned so I made some cupcakes with a nice 2 tone green to celebrate :)




We learned how to use and work with fondant in this last class.  She showed us different tools and mats to imprint in the fondant.  Techniques she uses to form fondant and such.  We made a single layer bridal cake on the 2nd night.




My super cool hair stylist asked me to make some cupcakes for her grandsons birthday.  They had a hot wheels/Nascar kinda theme to them.


Then our final night of fondant class we got to make a wedding cake.  I didn't get to spend near as much time as I would have liked but here's the base of it.  Of course it's Halloween inspired.

Here is the top.



Here is a close up of the bottom and the border.



Here is the whole cake.  I put Halloween M&M's in the pillars :)

 

Overall, I'm loving these classes and any technique or project I can get my hands on.  In a couple weeks, Lex and I are heading to a workshop on "How to turn cookies into cakes."  Yeah don't ask, I have no idea and that's what makes it so exciting.