On the Horizon...

I should be writing an English paper right now, but I'm so freaking amped about VeganMoFo that I can't think about anything else.  This year marks the 5th installment, and I am so super happy to be a part of it again.

Last year, I didn't have a theme.  Lucky for me, though, I kept a document from the end of 2010 MoFo with any crazy ideas I had.  This year, I opened up my document of ideas and realized I had pretty much nothing!  Aaaah!  So, I spent the last week or so getting my ideas down, plotting out the days, and figuring out just how crazy next month will be.

This year, I decided to do a different theme for everyday of the week.  It's kinda crazy having so many themes, but I think it will work out just fine.  Without further adieu (and in order of October days)...

Saturdays-Food memories.  I will be taking foods from my past and veganizing them.  They all come with neat little stories and represent a big part of where I came from.

this food memory will be revamped fo' sho

Sundays-The Best Thing I Never Ate.  At first, this was just a potpurri category.  However, I realized I had a ton of recipes I wanted to veganize from the Food Network.  This will be fun!

Mondays-Dinner and a Movie.  Most of them will involve Mandy Moore, but I have a special horror movie marathon planned for Halloween.  Complete with a cake!  And hell to the no.  It will not be haunted gingerbread.  Brrr.

Tuesdays-International foods.  I stumbled upon half of these and the other half were chosen randomly by country.  I love taking risks on cuisines I've never tried before.  That's how I came to discover I love Ethiopian and Indian food.  Not to mention Georgian and Belgian!

Wednesdays-Rainbows.  Yes.  I will be making foods and drink inspired by the many colors of the rainbow.  I'm super proud of this because only one of the days involves me using food coloring...technically.

Thursdays-MoFo revisited.  One thing that always gets me is that I rarely have the time to go back and try MoFo recipes again.  So, this year, I'm tweaking some recipes.  For sure, I'm going back to those gingerbread pop tarts.  I'm also redoing some recipes from my very first VeganMoFo.  Should be fun.

these will be tweaked to a new level of awesome

Fridays-Video.  The videos I started last year will be back!  I hope they're better than ever.  So very excited to do this again.

Feel free to use any of these ideas...and check out the idea thread on The PPK.  Also, don't forget to sign up!  I'm so excited!  Anybody else know what they're doing?

The Muenster at the End of This Blog

Wow.  I can't even begin to tell you how unfortunate the last 18 hours have been.  So, I'm trying to get some MoFo stuff taken care of before it starts.  That way I don't have to rush to do everything the day of.  So last night I was baking a cake for a friend's birthday.  Before I even began, my oven started smoking because something had spilled and was burning at the bottom.  I'm still convinced Era might have done it because I don't remember spilling anything.  Haha.

The first attempt at baking, I put the cakes in the oven and realized I had forgotten the sugar.  So I threw everything out.  Then I went to put the cakes in and one of my mini tester pans FLEW out of my hands and landed upside down in the oven.  So I finally made, frosted and decorated the cake.  Then I realized I misread the recipe and used baking powder instead of baking soda.  Good news is that I couldn't tell when I ate the tester.  I hope it's the same for the big one.  Then, and this is truly priceless, I ran out of sugar just when I was about to bake all the gingerbread and cakes for my haunted gingerbread!

I need a nap...or three.  I don't think I've been sleeping enough and it's all catching up to me right now.  Some good did come out of this craziness, though.  Last night I had a hankering for a sammich.  Only problem is that all I had was my 99 cent Yves turkey slices.  No bread, no cheese, no problem!  I baked the Beer Bread from 500 Vegan Recipes and made the Muenster Cheese from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  I am thoroughly in love with so many of the recipes in that book.  Plus the block cheezes are really easy to personalize.  I even forgot to add the tahini (yet another indication I should stay out of the kitchen) and it still tastes great.

muenster, beer bread, more muenster, sandwich

Instead of using regular paprika, I went for smoked which only added to the awesome.  If I take a long enough nap today, I think I'm going to make two more block cheezes just because.

Earlier this week, I went through and wrote down my calendar for MoFo.  Most of the days are filled out.  Here are some hints on what I'm doing for the first week:

Monday-All about Halloween.

Tuesday-Video about my favorite hangover cure.

Wednesday-I'm making something for the first time and it's gonna be crunchy.

Thursday-Shopping for bargains.

Friday-Dinner and a movie!  Seriously excited about this one.

Saturday-Taking a little trip to Belgium.

Sunday-Making snacks.

So excited!  I can't believe everything goes down on Monday!  Well, I have a ton of blogs to catch up with and need to take a nap or two.  Hope everybody has a great weekend!

Vida Vegan Con and Mo' MoFo

If you haven't already heard about Vida Vegan Con, you must get in the know!  It's the first ever vegan blogger conference, and it's going to be held in Portland next August.  I've been super frickin stoked about this ever since I heard about it several weeks ago.  Not only am I excited that I'll get to meet some of my PPKrushes, the thought of a vegan blogging conference fills my nerdy heart with such joy.  On top of that, I received an invitation to be a speaker!  Seriously...I scared Era with all the SQUEEing.

Now, registration is supposed to start soon.  There will be a ton of stuff going on during the conference.  Speakers, demos, workshops, panels, food, and so much more.  I'm crossing my fingers that Portland throws one of their awesome vegan proms for this!  I've been saying I'd straight school some fools with my robot for years now.  Haha.  So if you are interested in going, check out the website.  Plus, there is also a scholarship opportunity.  Winning a scholarship would award you FREE registration!  Check out all the details here.  Also, be sure to add the banner to your blog because vegan word of mouth (or blog) is where it's at!

Now to switch gears a little bit, I have MoFo on the mind lately.  Throughout the year, if I thought of something that seemed interesting for a theme I wrote it down.  My list is becoming super huge, and I probably won't get to some of what's on it.  As per usual, I am not having a monthly theme.  I've broken it down into several themes and will probably not even know what I'm doing until the week before I do it.

So far these are my ideas:

Bowls-Never really encountered these before California.  It's a meal involving a starch, vegetables, protein, and a sauce or two.  Thinking about doing different ones because bowls are just freaking awesome.

Playing with Food-This involves weird, involved, often hysterical food related projects.  Examples include: haunted gingerbread houses, veganizing omni monstrosities, and baking weird things inside of a cake.  Oh, and Ladies Brunch Hot Dog Rollups:

the ghost of MoFo past

E.A.T. World-River's blog challenge that involves making cuisine from around the world.  I'm finding it hard to narrow down the countries.  This will be seriously fun!

Holidays-It's that time of year, and there are so many traditions I'd like to celebrate.  And nothing brings a celebration together like food!

Dinner and a Movie-I've only got one movie picked so far (Serenity), but I am really looking forward to doing this again.

Cooking the Books-Always taking my cookbook collection for granted, I figure this is a great way to make recipes I have never made before.

Those are the major ones.  Other ideas include: cocktails, raw food on a budget, fair food (deep fried beer anyone?), and a cheesecake party.  Okay, a cheesecake party isn't really a theme.  However, I have officially become obsessed with finding the best vegan pumpkin cheesecake and decided a tasting is absolutely essential!  Why isn't it November yet?

Tomorrow, I'm doing a second Thanksgiving trial.  Look for details on that later this week.  For now, I'm gonna sip some iced tea, listen to Amy Winehouse, and get a few more MoFo details worked out.  More to come soon...

Is It Fall Yet?

Well, it's the end of September and we are still in the triple digits over here.  And to add to the super happy fun times, my air conditioner isn't working!  Great.  So, I can't cook anything if it doesn't take longer than two minutes.  I've been sorta busy as well.  I started taking classes and began writing again.  So that's been truly fun.  I needed to focus on something because being away from home with no friends was weighing on me.

In fantastical news, Vegan Month of Food (VeganMofo) begins on Thursday and I thought about what I'm gonna do.  Once again, I'm going to break my themes up by calendar week because it's easier that way.

Days 1-3 (Week 1): These will be freebies.  I honestly don't know what I'm going to do exactly.  The palate challenge will probably be one of these days and I still have to organize the other two.  Isa had this Epicurious game which seems pretty fun.  That will also probably be one of my days.

Week 2: Health Week.  I'm going to be doing photo mosaics of the food I ate that day and what exercises I did.  This is mostly to kick my butt into gear again.  Plus, I didn't have a health week last year, and my stomach did not like me by the end of the month.

Week 3: Budget Week.  I pride myself on my thriftiness, but I've never put it to the test.  I'm gonna try to make really delicious meals for super cheap.  We'll see how it goes.

Week 4: Holidays/Fall Meals.  I really wanted to do some seasonal stuff, so this will be the week.  I can't wait.  I think fall food is my favorite, followed closely by spring.

Week 5: Food Memories.  I can't wait for this week.  I love reliving those memories.  Plus, Halloween is such a great way to end this thing.

So these are my themes.  I also plan to do Movie Mondays (pairing movies and meals) and Food Network Fridays (veganizing FN meals) every week.  So I have to go get organized on this.  See you on Thursday!

Palate Challenge Ideas

I don't know why, but I just got majorly excited about MoFo next month.  I've been thinking about how I want to do it this year because I work best when seriously organized.  One thing I really want to do is a palate challenge.  I'm thinking about making a list of foods and having my husband set up 20 different samples from that list.  Without knowing what is on the table, I'll take the challenge.

Whenever I watch these food challenge shows, I find it highly amusing how people often don't know what they are eating when blindfolded.  I usually make fun of them because it seems like such an easy thing.  Yet, I have never tested myself.  And I long for a vegan palate challenge like Eddie Izzard longs for a bungalow!  Muahahahahaha.

So who is with me?  Vegans across the blogosphere...you should tell ever'body and their mom that a vegan palate challenge is where it's at.  Spread the word and make the palate challenge this year's refrigerator/freezer meme.  Seriously.  I am really looking forward to this.

Now for the real question: what sorta things should be sampled?  I want to get a list going and I would love any help.

Vegan Mofo, mothatruckas!

Vegan Mofo is on my brain. I'm a listy kind of person. Seriously obsessed and derive much joy from making lists. I once had an Angel marathon so I could make a list of my favorite episodes and lines. I'm sure this means something. OCD much?

I've been thinking hard about Vegan Mofo. It's the week after next and my first time participating. I've decided to divide my time by calendar weeks. There are five in October. Each week will have a theme. This makes it much easier for me and very organized. Because it's Vegan Mofo, I will be stepping down from about 99% raw to 70-75%.

Here's what I have. I'm pretty sure this is my final list of weekly themes:
1. PUMPKIN: I'm going to do this during the first calendar week. Four days of sweet and savory pumpkin filled recipes.

2. FOOD MEMORIES: Stories and recipes that remind me of my youth. It will involve a lot of veganizing. This will definitely be the last week because I have to end food memories with a tribute to Halloween.

3. VEGANIZING THE WORLD: This was one of my favorite ideas from the PPK thread. I'm going to take dishes that are never thought of as vegan and make them. I have my eye set on finally making vegan haggis (which I never in my life thought I would type, let alone eat) and the jackfruit carnitas. I have a few more regional ideas and a desire to take on Food Network because they're herbivorists!

4. FORGOTTEN COOKBOOKS: I haven't been able to do this at the PPK because of the raw journey. I always buy cookbooks and only use the same recipes.

5. MISC: I couldn't decide what else to do and there were several ideas floating around that I liked. So I'll dedicate one week to spontaneity. I know for sure I want to do the dinner and a movie theme.

So I'm completely stoked about this. October can't get here soon enough.

I have a handful of pics to post later today.

holler.