Ghetto Home Fabulous: Vegan Baking Edition

Have you guys tried making macarons? Everyone says they're the dessert of the decade, but I feel like they would have fit in better in the eighties - puffy and brightly colored, you know?

Anywho, I'm supposed to be moved out of my old apartment by Friday at noon, which is really funny because I still have heaps and heaps of my junk over there. Unfortunately, one of my favorite things to do when I have important deadlines is to ignore them and instead go bake snobby, labor-intensive cookie-things. I joined forces with vegan Grag for this one, forming Team Ve-Greezy. Providing moral support were Matt, Moko, and Luigi the Cat.

The usual macaron recipe calls for almond flour, white and powdered sugar, egg whites, and flavoring, and involves a million tiny steps. Team Ve-Greezy had some trouble with this, being cheap, lazy, and vegan - no one has a good vegan macaron recipe! NO ONE! Come on, internet! So we improvised the ghetto-home-fabulous way and made our own recipe, based on this one.

5 T ground flax seed
1/3 c water
2 bananas
3/4 c (ground) almonds
1 c powdered sugar
1/2 c cocoa powder
3-4 T oil

Mix flax seed with water. Whisk vigorously for...a while. I don't know. Ten minutes? Grag did this part. Add mashed bananas. NOTE: If you want to, skip flax and bananas and add any egg replacer equal to four eggs. Combine cocoa and oil and add to mixture. Finely grind almonds. This will take a long time and the noise of the food processor will drive everyone in the house crazy. Add almonds and sifted powdered sugar to mixture. Let sit for 30 minutes (who knows if this makes a difference). Pipe/spoon circles of batter onto parchment paper. Bake for 12 minutes at 325 F. For filling, we mixed a stick of earth balance with 1 t vanilla, 1.5 c powdered sugar, and food coloring.

photo by Grag

Obviously, these look nothing like macarons. I'm guessing that they also taste nothing like macarons (I've never had one before). The venture was not an entire failure, though, as they were still pretty delicious. Plus, look at these whoopie pies down here. See the resemblance? Who needs those fancy macarons, anyway?

Black and White and Black and White

Tildar does not approve of these cupcakes.

But I do. You should make some then eat a few and go jogging, after which you will squat down to catch your breath and rip a hole in the crotch of your leggings. It happened to someone I know.

Ghetto Home Fabulous: Lucy Cats and Crunchy Pointy Things

Lately I've been all researchin' mah heritage and such. I'm mostly descended from Germans (technically those pesky "Germans from Russia") but my Grandma Bettie was Swedish[-American] and I like to rub that fact in people's faces a lot for some reason. Like, "Oh hey, your Grandma grew prize-winning rutabaga? Well, mine was descended from vikings. Booya."

Anywho, during mah researchin', I found this bangorang recipe for Scandinavian "Lussekatter" which, in my Swedish-Breezy dictionary means "Lucy Cats" - something having to do with Satan, I guess. Apparently he hates the color yellow because it's all bright and happy, and Lussekatters are chock full of saffron, a.k.a. the King of Spices. I trekked off to Grocery Mart to get myself a little package of the stuff and I was much dismayed to find that it was MORE EXPENSIVE THAN CRACK COCAINE. So the Lussekatters will have to wait until I have Christmas money to "blow"(I made a funny!) on spices that cost $14.62 for less than an ounce. Ugh. Until then, all you rich people can look at the recipe here and have your servants make some for you, and all you poor people can look at this photo and drool:

Alas, poor people - do not cry. I have a recipe for you, too, which may or may not be as tasty as Lucy Cats, but at least it is extremely cheap and easy to make. The main ingredient is a classy little something I like to call "Crunchy Potatoes in a Can", made by those same charming people who crank out "Crunchy Onions in a Can". All you need is equal amounts of butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, crunchy potato sticks, and salted nuts. Melt the chocolate, mix everything together, and plop it out in clumps on a sheet of wax paper. I think these are usually called "Haystacks", but I prefer the monniker "Pointy Melty Cookies". I plan on making a bunch of and hording them in the freezer for my post-New Year's Resolution sugar binges. Mm mm mmm. Healthy goodness!

When I Die I Will Become the Patron Saint of Baked Goods and Treadmills

If I have not already said, banana muffins are some of my favorite things to bake. Last night I ate an amount of banana muffins that I do not feel comfortable disclosing. Today I am buying a gym membership.

***

A couple of years ago Fish and I were baking muffins and we ran out of eggs. When we went next door to borrow some from a friend, his Arabic exchange student roommate answered the door.

"Can we borrow an egg?" I asked, trying not to do that thing where you talk to ESL people like they're deaf. Haani just smiled.
"An egg?" I said again, stupidly making an "O" with my fingers, like that was international sign language for "egg", baha! We eventually barged into their kitchen and took one out of the refrigerator ourselves.
"Can we have one?" Haani smiled and nodded.

Later, I returned to offer my thanks. "Do you want one?" I held out the pile of warm muffins. Haani took the plate from me and started to shut the door. "No!!!!" I shrieked, snatching them back. "Just one or two!"

I hope that he went home and told his friends that American women are pushy and manic, but excellent bakers. Haha!

***

Fish is now the unofficial Banana Muffin Ambassador to Russia. She tells me that banana bread/muffins are a rare thing over yonder. Good luck, Fish, as you spread the gospel of this caloric treat across foreign lands - I will continue the campaign on the domestic front until your return :D

High Pumpkin Pie In the....Sky-y-y-y

This picture has nothing to do with this post, but I don't caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare

Last night, Wiki and I hung out with Daawuud and Keert. It was just like the olden days, when we used to goof off in Arabic class. And man oh man, how I loved that class. We were trying to learn to speak Arabic from a New Zealander who wore Armani pants and consistently mispronounced everyone's names. Also, we joked about the chemistry between him and one of our classmates....and now they have been spotted canoodling outside of university on several occasions - kinda freakay!

Anyway, replace University of Nebraska-Lincoln with Village Inn, and Professor Armani with a drugged-out-Zac-Efron-look-alike waiter, and you basically have last night. There was much pie, and much much laughter(for some reason the topic of feral children strapped to potty seats really tickled me). This morning I decided to wake up at 6:20(ha!) and go run off the pie(ha!), but instead I used the extra time to figure out which bus to ride to work so I don't have to walk there, thus eliminating virtually all exercise from my life. Someone call Richard Simmons and schedule an intervention.

That's All

Oh Lordy! I hope my hat came in the mail today! And my Norway zine!

Today I had what may have been a combination of the best and worst lunch ever:
+ cheddar jack cheese stick
+ yoplait kid's low sugar extra creamy Dora the Explorer yogurt(discovered while babysitting last summer - delicioso!)
+ 35 cent fudge round(because I was going to go home for soup but then got lazy/hungry) - fudge rounds are amazingly filling/not nutritious. i'm expecting to go into a diabetic coma any minute now. . .