Rob is not a vegan, but our friend Nolan is and he was coming along for b-day celebrations.  And besides, if you can get away with making delicious vegan cupcakes and your non vegan friends devour them being none the wiser, why not   They can save the planet and animal lives without even knowing it!  I’m such a saint.

Peanut butter and mint icing.  Variety is key.  The vegan chocolate cupcake part is from a recipe I found here but only the cake part.  I made the icing from this recipe:

1/2 cup margarine (make sure that there is no whey in the ingredients)

5 cups icing sugar

splash of vanilla soy milk

Mix the margarine with an electric egg beaters until it gets smooth and creamy.  Add the icing sugar a few tablespoons at a time.  This is going to take a while, maybe up to 15 minutes to make the buttercream.  Adding it a little bit at a time is the best way to get it as smooth, creamy and delicious.  It also makes it easier to pipe this way.  After everything is all mixed up, throw in a splash of the soy milk to make it a bit smoother, if you add too much, just throw in a couple tablespoons of icing sugar and blend.

After all was mixed, I just split the concoction in half and added 1.5 tablespoons of peanut butter to one and a couple drops of peppermint extract and green food colouring to the other.  Pipe on to cooled cupcakes and voila!

Everyone seemed to thoroughly  enjoy them.  Happy Birthday Rob, we love you very, very much.

Anyways….

T-14 days until we leave for Sunny San Juan!  T-15 days until we leave on a Carnival Cruise Ship for the Carribean!  As I sit here, neglecting the clock taunting me to get ready for Pams Bachelorette, I feel compelled to let you know what I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks.  It’s been a bit busy at work, and my serger pooped out on me (bah!).  Something to do with the timing, the bottom looper isn’t catching my left needle in time.  It hurts my heart.

With the machine being in the shop it’s given me a perfect opportunity to catch up on my knitting.  Can you guys guess what this is?  It should be finished in about a week…

Well I can give you one hint, it’s a raglan top down…very simple…my first spring knit.  After this garmet is complete I can’t WAIT to try out a pattern from the wonderful Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel.  There are so many delicious and pretty pieces that you can wear to the office, out to eat with your bon bon, anything.  Quite delicious.

Here is your weekly gauge shot…*dont judge the acrylic yarn!  It’s all I can afford right now!*

On another note, the bachelorette party tonight, Pam decided to get some white shirts from old Navy and we got to paint our own to wear!  What fun, well for me, because I’m kind of the artsy fartsy type.  We had a great time…and were eerily silent during our painting which is rare for the 4 of us.  I managed to get a great shot of Pam and my shirts.  I didn’t get permission from the other girls to post theirs, thus I will refrain.

Until next time

My great gal pal Pam is getting married on April 27 in St Thomas USVI (WOOHOO!).  We’re all going on a carnival cruise, and the hubby and I are both in the bridal party.  That being said, my mom and I (very politely) were tasked with making the brides maid dresses.  If I do say so myself, those are coming along QUITE nicely.  Look forward to a post about them later, very picture whorish

Anyways, I digress.  As wonderful as wrapping paper and gift bags may be, not much bang for your buck.  You could spend $8 on some decent wrapping paper from Hallmark and lets be serious – an excited bride to be is not going to be politely peeling the tape off to save the paper.  I speak from experience, you wanna tear that stuff off so fast to see what goodies are inside your beautifully wrapped package.  Is it Corningware?  A Blender??  TEA TOWELS!?  The suspense is killing.  This is the perfect excuse to make a “bag for your bride”.  Not only is this useful, but one less thing to go out and purchase for the tropical wedding/vacation.

No pattern here my friends, just two simple squares sewn together with handles and a liner.  For the stripe I sewed on a long strip of the liner fabric.  Place it with the wrong side up and stitch down one side.  Flip it over and press about 1/8 inch of the other side over, and stitch on top of the stripe on both sides.  Tada!  If there are large requests for a longer tutorial, maybe one will preceed at a later date.

I think Pam was pretty happy with the result.  My friend Court was a doll and ironed on the interfacing for me for the outside pieces and a light interfacing for the straps.  Beautiful!

Fabric Land had these iron on transfers in the sale bin, I had to grab a few of these darling gold chandelier ones, I couldn’t resist!  It really turned out great.  Although, we did a test one first Court and I, it was a good idea.  We tried to peel it off too soon and ended up with a gold mess on our test swatch.  Wait until they cool until you peel them off!!

Pam models her new bag.  You’re a great girl and I’m happy!  She’ll make a beautiful bride won’t she?  Enjoy

About 2 months ago I made some cornbread muffins for the house, as I was feeling in a baking mood but for something savory. After not looking far, I found the most delicious (and easy) recipe courtesy of Deb at smittenkitchen.com (in fact most of my ideas come from this gal, she’s planned my dinners for the past 3 years). Anyways, after making a batch of these delicious inside-softy-outside-crispy savory treats, they were too few to keep for more than a few days. So I made more next week, and more the week after. There is another half eaten batch on the counter. And there will be more next week.

These are easy to fudge a bit. I added a bit more corn kernels into the batch than the recipe called for, because do love muffins with lots of “chunks” in them, as gross as it sounds. Cranberries, blueberries, apples, raisins, dates, walnuts, coconut shavings, whatever. The more the better. Although they can be left out of the recipe, just note that it will reduce the volume of your batter and you may need to adjust filling the muffin cups accordingly. I also cheated (gasp) and used splenda instead of sugar after the first couple batches, because we were fast growing “muffin tops” and anything to cut back but still enjoy was a welcome change.

Dorie Greenspan’s Corniest Corn Muffins
Baking from My Home to Yours

Yield: 12 regular-sized muffins or 48 miniature ones

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin (Ashla addition, optional)
1/2 teaspoon chipolte chili powder (Ashla addition, optional)
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil (I used olive oil since it was handy)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup corn kernels (add up to 1/3 cup more if you’d like) – fresh, frozen or canned (in which case they should be drained and patted dry)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg, if you’re using it. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, melted butter, oil, egg and yolk together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the corn kernels. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (12 minutes for minis), or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Alright friends, enjoy.