Crepes Cake and Caramel....oh and Fish.

Once again my craving has been satisfied, along with the rest of the families.  Lol.  After baking the cake the other day that was eatien in less than 24 hours (actually like 2 hours) I made another which came out just as good and was eaten just a quickly.  Lol  I did as planned and did a 2 layer cake this time with the bottom layer frosted with homemade caramel, the cocoa glaze then a layer of berries.  It was then topped with the cocoa glaze and more berries.  It came out much better this time and I have to say I was pretty pleased with myself, although I wont go so far as to say I'm a baking connoisseur just yet.  Lol

Cooking Caramel

Bottom Layer

Finished Cake

The caramel recipe was really simple and took all of maybe 10 minutes.  The downside is that it wasn't as smooth as I wanted it to be due to the turbinado sugar.  I don't know a workaround for this yet but I'm going to definitely find one.  You could really taste the difference much once it was put on the cake, but I'm striving for perfection here people.  Lol

I think I mentioned the other day how badly I had been wanting crepes and I found a vegan recipe HERE.  The first one that I made ended up being a little too thick for me so I added a bit more soy milk (I should have measured it..UGH) and let it chill for an extra half hour and then they came out perfect.  Who knew!!!  I just topped them with a berry compote that I made that tasted similar to a strawberry syrup and it was extremely tasty.  I'm actually wanting more today, but I'll refrain.   Lol

Finished Crepe

Berry Compote w/Crepe YUM!!

I'm really looking forward to making these more often and of course I'll play around with the recipe, you know how I love to do that.  Lol

For dinner we ended up having Tilapia and a Porcini Mushroom Risotto.  I found the Risotto (Yes it came from a box!!!)  at Whole.Foods and was happy to find there were no animal products in it.  HOORAY! It was surprisingly tasty so I'm sure we'll be buying that more often.  I made a seasoned batter for the fish and  since we were out of Panko I ended up using these Quinoa Flakes that we had.  Hey...I work with what I got.  Lol  I don't really like frying and it's not something I do often AT ALL but I was in the mood for fried fish so I gave in and was happy with the results.  Delicous!!!

Fish frying with just a TINY bit of oil

Tilapia and Porcini Risotto

Well, now that I've made myself hungry....I'm going to go seek out some breakfast so that's a wrap!!  Enjoy the week all and I'll be back at you all later. 

Peace and Blessings!!!!!

Dinner and Dessert....

I really surprised myself this evening.  I made a fabulous dessert and dessert isn't even my forte.  I guess it's not THAT difficult if you follow a recipe, but for some reason I was always intimidated when it came to baking.  It took a few bad experiences for me to just say forget it and hang it up all together.  I'm starting to feel encouraged, especially after my husband just told me that I made the greatest dessert he's ever had and said "My tummy is doing a happy dance."  And then I just about fell out when he said he needed the Yo Gabba Gabba suit so he could dance around like Dj Lance so he could do the party in my tummy dance.  WOW!!!  Lol. 

I tried my hand at baking and used this recipe to make a chocolate cake and added a little bit of a spin to it.  I added some raspberries to the glaze and boiled it so the raspberry flavor could be absorbed in the cocoa.  I added caramel to the cake and then added fresh raspberries and blackberries.  So we had the cake with vegan vanilla ice cream and a tiny bit of mint and it was DELICIOUS!!!!.  I mean really.  The cake was pretty simple and very good.  I of course substituted the flour and the sugar for agave honey, but followed the recipe for the mix pretty much to the letter. 

I was a little disappointed because when I flipped my cake some of it stuck to the pan.  What I ended up doing was scraping out the cake the was stuck to the pan and  pressing it into a tiny dessert bowl, cutting up berries, adding some caramel and pressing another layer of cake on top and then adding chocolate sauce and ice cream.  This was a definite winner and the end product:

Cake on the bottom with caramel, strawberries and chocolate glaze

Top layer of cake with berries...

Topped with vegan vanilla ice cream and mint.  YUM!!

Funny that I would start with the dessert...Lol 

I had to satisfy my Tuna craving so we had Ahi Tuna again with a ginger and sesame sauce and my new favorite veggie asparagus.  I also had NEVER cooked polenta before and wanted some really bad so I decided to cook that.  It was actually pretty good but I felt it was a little to heavy for the fish and decided to cook a Coconut and cashew basmati rice.  It had a GREAT spiciness to it and it went really well with the tuna.  But I still wanted the polenta so I served both.  I know I know....don't even say it.  I know it was a bit much, but it was soooo good.  

I just roasted the asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Tasty!

Ready for the oven

Finished plating and fresh raspberry and blackberry lemonade

Closer pic.  It needs a garnish and something red...still great tasting though

And then the actual cake....The family crushed it.  There's like NOTHING left but crumbs. Lol.  They're all asking me to make another one tomorrow. 

Gotta work on my decorating Lol  Next time I'll strain out the berry seeds

SOOOOO GOOD!!!!! 

I think tomorrow I'll do the cake with caramel and chocolate between two layers and hope that they don't stick this time.  Oh yeah....My fast is over by the way.  It lasted all of 12 hours.  LOL.  My greed has definitely overpowered my discipline.  Oh well.  Better luck next time right.  Lol

So that's it for me people.  Hope you all are enjoying your weekend.  

Peace and Blessings till next time......

FOOD...Food..food.....

I remember now why we got rid of TV and Cable.  Up until about a month ago we haven't had cable in almost 2 years I think.  We decided to just watch movies and shows on netflix and stop spending so much of our day in front of the TV.  We decided that we'd get cable again for the summer and I'm thinking it was a mistake.

I'm hooked....

I have been once again obsessed by HGTV and my new love...The Food network.  Every time there's a commercial I'm flipping back and forth between the two channels.  Lol  I love Food network star and was thinking to myself, I'd LOVE to go on that show.  They need to do a vegan one so I don't have to worry about making meals with dairy or meat.  Lol  Probably not gonna happen.  People come up with the MOST creative meals and I find myself thinking "I'd like to try that... "  Some of it looks sooo good and the flavor combinations have my mouth watering.  I could literally sit here all day for days and watch these two channels.  Talk about addicting.

So I was watching Food network star and everyone was raving about one of the finalists, Mary Beth Albright's meat loaf recipe.  This was a  food that I LOVED and probably could have eatien weekly (or more) when I ate meat.  So I found the recipe and I'm going to give it a try and Veganize it.  Is Veganize a word?   Lol.  It's funny because it seems like whenever I'm trying to fast I end up wanting to try out different recipes.  I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea to fast and watch food network because I'm REALLY hungry.  Lol.  My husband is doing a raw food fast and says I'm torturing him by having him watch Giada at Home.  Lol.  He doesn't even like Mayo or raw fish but he's saying how good this sandwich looks that she's making.  Hilarious!!!  Day 1 may be a fail!!!  Lol Lets see if we make it.

Stay tuned for day 2.  Lol  Peace and Blessings.....