I’ve been staying at my parents house for the past few days in order to go through some old stuff and get rid of a lot of it, and i’ve been taking full advantage of having a nice kitchen at my disposal :) my parents are the type that have everything all fancy and top of the line. its nuts (but awesome). Yesterday I made myself dinner (steamed squash/asparagus, rice, and fruit salad with strawberries, grapes, and cantelope), and then i tried my second attempt at vegan cupcakes. the first one was not so successful, they tasted like sweet bread (i tried vanilla ones). This time I tried Vegan Chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate buttercream, and they turned out so amazing.

Cake Recipe (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a bowl and set it aside to allow curdling (i just did this in the same mixing bowl, and waited a few minutes, to eliminate more dishes to wash). Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract to the soy milk mixture and beat until it’s foamy.

In a separate bowl (once again, i just did this in the same bowl and it was fine), sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients, beating until no large lumps remain.

Pour into lined cupcake pans, filling cups about 3/4 full. Bake 18-20 minutes and remove when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.

Buttercream Recipe
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine (I used half a stick… make sure it’s vegan!)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted)
2 & 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar (sifted)
3 tbs. soymilk
1 & 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cream together margarine and the shortening until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and beat until well combined. Add the powdered sugar… about 1/2 cup at a time, adding a splash of soy milk after each addition. Once that’s mixed, add the vanilla extract and beat at high speed about 3 minutes until fluffy.

*tip: try adding a TSP of peppermint extract to the buttercream for awesome chocolate peppermint cupcakes. Also, If you dont have any piping bags + tips to use (or you’re just cheap like me), you can pile the frosting into a ziplock bag (the normal sized ones), and cut one of the tips off… and voila!

the other day, I was hanging out with Chantal, and we went to Meredith Gardens, on Richmond. It was really nice to see a community garden, even if it could stand to be expanded a bit (which takes money, unfortunately)! I googled the garden and found this blog excerpt, “Unbeknownst to many, Houston ranks in the top ten for number of community gardens in North America. Because of the mild winters, gardners can grow almost year round. Once this area was going to serve as the foundation for the Montrose Library. A nearby church was donated to the city and this lot became a dumping ground until the Castle Court Civic Association turned it into a park and community garden. Only last year did the city recognize it as an offical park. ” (source). interesting!

so, today…i decided that i would finally try to teach myself how to knit. I already had needles, but my yarn is already packed up for moving in a few weeks… so i went to the craft store, and bought these cute yarns! :) I’ve learned a lot about terminology (continental, knit, purl, casting on, etc) that i didn’t know before. I started out trying to teach myself from the making stuff book, that i bought at half price books for $10. I got to casting on and was fine, but decided to watch some instructional videos to make sure i was doing it right. its so much easier to learn by watching someone. thanks, interwebz.

I’m pretty confident in that step, but I’m having some trouble starting to actually knit, after that. I found another video about the next step, and i think i just need some more practice. I havent even began to think about purling! ahh! It would also help to find someone who knows how to knit who could help me!! I’m sure with more time, I’ll get it. Then I can teach my mom, and I’m making victor learn, too, since he was being a smart ass earlier :) hehe.