Zucchini Bread

I picked up a couple of beautiful zucchini on my way home from the beach. I love zucchini in a variety of forms, but my favorite, hands down, is zucchini bread. When I saw the bins overflowing with zucchini, I knew what was on my to-do list for the week: make zucchini bread!

This recipe makes two loaves, so I either give away a loaf, or freeze half the batter. In light of being frugal while I'm unemployed this summer, I opted to freeze half the batter as muffins and save them for a later date when I might be broke. This recipe from Hell Yeah It's Vegan! is one I've used many times over, and the results are always perfect! 

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

It's happened.

My mom has crossed over into the dark, egg-and-dairy-less world of vegan baking. Muahahahahah!

Tonight she made these little babies. The cake recipe comes from food.com, but she opted to use a butter cream frosting. I can't speak to the making of the cupcakes, but I can tell you the end result was delicious. And we opted to leave some not frosted, just because they're also tasty without!

With my birthday coming up in just a little over a month, I'm going to request oodles of cupcakes so that she can maintain her vegan baking skills in preparation for The Big Day.

Paper Moon Diner

A couple of weekends ago, my best friend was in town visiting and we went to one of our favorite places for lunch: Paper Moon Diner! For me, Paper Moon Diner was love at first sight. Or taste, really, because they have the most amazingly delicious pita bread ever. Ever. And I've been told the omnivorous food is also the bomb.

On this particular trip, though, I got Amanda's Vegan Wrap, the newest vegan addition to their menu. It's marinated tofu wrapped up with a bunch of veggies (including mushrooms, which I always forget about until I bite into one and immediately think "EW"). Other than the mushrooms, this is one of my favorite tofu wraps.

They offer a few other vegan options, all of which I've tried and liked, and they have plenty of vegetarian options, too. The decor is truly unique (a cow in front of the restaurant? Baby dolls suspended from the ceiling?) and the staff is always friendly and attentive. Check it out if you're in the area!

Peach Cobbler

Ahh, summer. I love summer, and although I love each of the seasons for different reasons, I love summer a little bit more than the others. The list of reasons why summer supersedes its friends is long, but here are my top five reasons:

1) My birthday. Need I say more?
2) No school! (okay, no work... I still have classes)
3) Optimal beach weather!!
4) 4th of July
5) The produce!

After living the last few weeks as a zombie, I was especially looking forward to kicking off summer: I got to spend a few days at the beach with my dad and step-mom (and I managed to acquire a sweet sunburn down the backs of my legs), and on the way home, I stopped at a local produce stand to pick up some goodies. "Going to the beach" and "produce stand" are synonymous for me because it's literally a straight shot down one highway through over two hours of farm land to get to the beach, and there are countless produce stands along the way. Living in the city where quality produce stands are few and far between makes me super appreciative of how easy it is to buy good, local produce in the country.

One of my grabs was a bin of peaches because I wanted to make some peach cobbler. And I had a cobbler in the oven within 90 minutes of getting home from a near-week long vacation. That's how serious I was about this peach cobbler. The recipe comes from Novel Eats, a neat vegan blog I recently stumbled across.

Enjoy!

Coconut Tempeh Curry

I recently discovered Tofurkey's line marinated tempeh strips, and I can't lie: I got really excited. I bought a pack of Coconut Curry tempeh, and the back had a super quick and easy recipe on the back for a curry. It combines a lot of foods and flavors I like, and it turned out really well. If you come across these (this is the first time I've ever stumbled upon them in m 3+ years as a vegan), I'd say give them a try! They're yummy and great for nights when you're low on time/energy/sanity. And, if you're working and going to school full-time, like yours truly, that might be more often than you'd like.

Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I started grad school last week. As of tomorrow, I will be working full time and going to school full time. Insanity is sure to ensue, and because of that, posts will be short and sweet until the end of the school year! June 17th can't get here soon enough!

Tonight I made a batch of banana-wheat germ muffins from Veganomicon. I was just looking for a new way to use up overripe bananas, and when I saw this recipe, I thought it was perfect. And prior to making these little babies, I didn't realize that wheat germ has a decent amount of protein in it, despite being a grain. Win!

I made half a dozen to get me through the next couple of days (depending on how quickly I eat them up; obviously one didn't survive the period of post-baking, pre-picture). I froze the other half of the batter, so I'll have muffins ready to go next week, too!