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in the ongoing battle between simplicity and complexity, simplicity won out yesterday in my kitchen...

5.27.2010


lemon & bing cherry (vegan, gluten-free) cupcakes vs. fruit smoothie.
i think you can guess which concoction was the winner.
so i'll just tell you.
the smoothie won, with flying colors.
the cupcakes were fantastic until i baked them,
and made the "frosting"...


smoothie ingredients:
pear nectar, almond milk (homemade!), blueberries, strawberries.
simple. easy. delicious.




the cupcakes. from this complicated cookbook.
now, i must say that everything i've ever made that is vegan

has been absolutely delicious...if not better than the non-vegan versions.
so i was quite disappointed.
however, i didn't quite follow directions either...
the recipe calls for
garbanzo-fava bean flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, arrowroot, and xantham gum
among other unusual ingredients.
my co-op had none of the above flours...
so i decided i would just use regular white wheat flour
(thinking my cupcakes would still be vegan, but it was okay they weren't gluten-free).
i thought that white flour would really make them delicious.
nope.


i zested and juiced,
sliced and pitted all afternoon.


the batter was absolutely amazing!!!
but, alas, the baked version was rubbery...
thinking of using them for a power-bar of sorts.
they're edible.
just not for dessert.

i had big plans to make an asparagus pesto dish for dinner...
but after this little failure i decided for simplicity:
i went to the store and bought pesto that was made in san francisco,
sliced up some yummy tomatoes from the farmer's market,
on top of spinach spaghetti
and sprinkled it all with pine nuts.
simple and perfect.

hooray for simplicity!


5 comments:

Tiffany Kadani said...

Well, at least you came out of the project with beautiful photography. No one has to know that they tasted like rubbery power bars. Your children will just think, Mom was a great baker.

Nedda Ebo said...

That looks delicious! Sometimes simplicity is best.

Mustart x

stephanie said...

Um, homemade almond milk? If you have a recipe/process would you share?? I would LOVE to make my own almond milk. :)

Dee said...

I recently purchased the same cookbook and had the same troubles with what I tried: the lemon poppy seed bread & banana bread. I made each 3 times, all failures!!! :( It was disappointing. But Chad actually tried the banana bread and it was the most delicious I've ever had. So I don't know! But now I'm afraid to attempt the other recipes. So sad!

Veganomicon, on the other hand, has been miraculous to my life!!! Not a recipe has failed yet, all delicious!

Dee said...

oh, and just absolutely gorgeous pictures!!!