NEW SITE NEW SITE!!!

good-good-things

Its finally here! Needs a little tinkering, links need to be added, but its up and running!

good-good-things.com

I will love you forever if you continue following me over on the new site so update all your google readers, bloglines, links, whatever ya got!

good-good-things.com


Oh and Ed! Please don't follow me.

Ed

Is anyone else's blog being bombarded with comments by Ed? He has hit me over 60 times already. He took a break this afternoon and is now back and in 10 minutes got me over 30 times. This is so obnoxious and annoying.

Is there anyway to block him? It doesn't seem so from my searching around. I know I'm switching and moving my site elsewhere but I'm still keeping this one up and around.


By the way...the new site is almost done!!!!!!! I'm so excited. I'm going to launch it in 1 or 2 days before it's even completely finished that's how excited I am about it. Its got birds and bunnies and pink stripes!

Daring Bakers: Tuiles

Raspberry Blackout Cake w. Chocolate Dipped Lemon Tuiles

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I was very excited to see that Tuiles were this months challenge. I've had many chances in the past to play around with them for work and school. In school I was in charge of making a cookie bowl to fill with delicious ice creams for our final Friday Night Dinner. For another dinner I was "lucky" to be chosen to make pumpkin puree tuiles shaped like cylinders that if I remember correctly were going to be holding a candle. The pumpkin tuiles were obnoxious to make but a great learning lesson.

For this challenge I made the Lemon Tuiles from the Millennium Cookbook. Originally I wanted to shape them into cannoli's and fill them with a light coconut and chocolate chip cream. Then I got asked to make a cake to celebrate our friends birthday. I though it would be great to make the filled "cannoli" tuiles smaller to put them as decoration on the cake. As you can see above that didn't happen. The batter for the Lemon Tuiles was too thick to shape how I wanted. After many tries and variations I gave up and made flat ones and semi rounded ones which I dipped in chocolate and stuck on the cake as decoration.

I was very very pleased with the overall effect that the chocolate dipped cookies gave to the cake. It is probably my favorite looking cake that I've ever made.

Dumplins'

Veggie and Tofu Dumplings

I LOVE to make my own dumplings. Problem is they are time consuming and when I'm home alone with Reno during dinner time I don't have time for time consuming meals. Peter went out the other night. Reno went to bed. I was watching House thinking about just eating some Rocky Road ice cream for dinner. I really wanted Chinese food. I remembered that I always keep bags of frozen dumplings in my freezer for such an occasion. The dumplings turned into a delicious appetizer for my ice cream main course.

Really though. Frozen dumplings are a perfect item to keep stocked in your freezer. They are great for: a quick lunch
an appetizer to an asian inspired meal or an ice cream main
course
a pot luck you are late for and haven't prepared anything for yet

Go buy yourselves a few bags. Or make your own and freeze em.

In other news.

The new site is still coming. My husband will be helping with a custom design for it. In the mean time I'll still be posting here as usual.

Happy New Year

Cookie Box Gifts

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone is happy and healthy. I've been MIA for a few weeks and have been missing my blog. The last few months were a bit rough for us. In a happy way thankfully. We had 3 weddings to go to. 2 of them were out of state and
required a few nights in a hotel plus travel and food expenses. Then 1 was the Saturday before Christmas, that was local thank goodness. Needless to say our bank account took a BIG HIT because of all of these wonderful and happy occasions. I informed our families earlier this fall that christmas will be presentless for everyone.

Instead of buying gifts I baked gifts. Luckily I pretty much have everything I would possible need at all times for baking up a few batches of different cookies. With a little excursion to The Christmas Tree Store (or is it Shoppe) to get pretty $2 foil boxes and VEGAN BUTTERSCOTCH CHIPS!!!!!!! I never cared for that store but now I love it. You have to love anyplace that you can find those chips.




Peanut Butter Bombs

My favorite cookie and I think everyone else's favorite as well. These were a lot of fun to make. I love rolling dough and flattening it with my hands. I also love getting chocolate all over them too. I'd be perfect for a job that makes handmade truffles.




Chocolate and Butterscotch Chip Cookies

Just your basic Chocolate Chip Cookie with Vegan Butterscotch Chips added. They came out nice and flat just how I like them. They would have been perfect if there were a little crispier as well. I'm not a fan of the "soft batched" variety. I want some crunch but my oven is whack so I feared leaving them in any longer.



Shortbread

If I had to make these again I would roll the dough in a mixture of sugar and colored sugar sprinkles just to make them extra pretty. I've always been a huge fan of Shortbread cookies so I don't know why it took so long for me to make them vegan. It's so simple. I also wanted to dip some of these in melted chocolate but ran out of time




Gifts

The gift boxes lined up and filled ready for a square of parchment on top and some tissue paper filling. The one delicious looking bar that I didn't write about yet is called a Caramelita. It isn't vegan. It's the only cookie that I'll make for others that isn't. Everything in it is except for the caramel sauce that it used. It is something that I've been trying to veganize for years now and just haven't found the right caramel yet. It's something I'm working on and can't wait to make fully vegan. It's a wonderful cookie that my family has been making since I was a really little girl. You should see the original magazine that we still have somewhere with the recipe. It's hysterically old.

Now for some resolutions: the first 2 won't matter really much to you but I plan on getting organized this year. You can imagine how hard that is having a toddler but I'm determined. When your 16 month old is having a bad night because of teething and you never put the tylenol back in the same spot and it's easier to just run to the 24 hour store at 2 a.m. you've got problems. The second one is nimbleness. It was said as kinda a joke but I think I'll follow through with it. I've become quite the klutz and I'd like to be more agile.

The 3rd one does matter to you...I want to close this blog and start another. I want to blog about more then just food. Things like the knitted items I make, everyday things that I like, etc..etc.. I realize that I can still do all of that on this blog but I feel it's time to move on I don't live in B36 anymore and don't have a connection to the name anymore. Unfortunately it is very hard for me to come up with a new name. It took me literally weeks to name both my cats. Thank goodness for Reno we had a few months to name her before she got here with other options if needed. All the names I've come up with so far are already taken. I will still be blogging here until the naming mess is sorted out and it's designed then it will all be moved over and I will probably still mostly blog about food cuz I'm obsessed with the stuff.

Thanks for listening to all of this.

Crispy Cat Candy Bars

Crispy Cat Candy Bars

I received a wonderful package in the mail a few weeks ago from Sofia at Christie Communications. It was a trio of Crispy Cat Chocolate Bars!! I couldn't wait to dive right in and eat them all but I took my time eating them and made sure that Peter was around to share them with me.

First up...Mint Coconut: this one is probably our favorite of the 3. It's had a nice light texture compared to the other 2. The mint is very overpowering against the coconut flavor which is my only complaint.

Second up...Toasted Almond: much denser then the Mint Coconut but almondy good. Really delicious. I liked the thicker consistency of this bar more then Peter did. The flavor was great considering I'm usually not a fan of almonds in baked goods/chocolates.

Third and final...Roasted Peanut: Unlike my usual dislike of almonds in sweets I LOVE peanuts in my sweets. Especially with chocolate. I can't get enough of the combo. I like it so much that I sometimes might break off a piece of a chocolate bar and dip it into the peanut butter jar. So I was super excited to try this bar as well. It is just like the Toasted Almond bar in denseness which is perfectly fine by me. I like a chocolate candy bar with some heft it turns out. The peanut flavor wasn't overpowering which was a nice change compared to most peanut chocolates. Just a nice treat.

Lucky for me I just started to notice that one of the Whole Foods by me has started carrying them so it looks like I will be buying these again for a special treat every once in awhile.

Well I'm off to get ready for a wedding so a big CONGRATS TO MY FRIENDS STEVE AND BECKY ON THEIR WEDDING DAY!!!!!

Pizza Pizza

Buffalo Pizza

I was surprised to learn just now that I never posted about these pizza's. The dough and the Buffalo Pizza are both tester recipes for Joanna's upcoming cookbook. The crust was fun to make. It has simple instructions and it was something that I could do during the day while Reno was ransacking our home without any troubles at all. Its a very nice and smooth dough to work with as well. Cooked, the crust is thin, crispy and tasty.

If you couldn't tell by the amount of buffalo sauced posts I've made I'm obsessed with the stuff. So when Joanna posted a recipe on her testing site for Buffalo Pizza I was super excited. I was also super excited after I made the pizza and ate it. It was good. Very good. I would have though my favorite part would have been the Buffalo Sauce but it was actually the red onions. I <3 red onions. I <3 them with anything buffalo..especially my Buffalo Tofu Salad.



Potato-Pepper Pizza

The dough recipe makes 4 pizzas. Besides the Buffalo Pizza I also made my own creation. Tomato sauce, peppers, thinly sliced fingerling potatoes, onions <3, garlic, herbs. Delicious.

Sweet Avenue Bakeshop

Sweet Avenue Bakeshop Cupcakes

I am very lucky. I have a vegan cupcakery not too far from where I live. I don't frequent them often simply because I like to make my own cupcakes. That said, a few weeks ago I decided to stop by the Sweet Avenue Bakeshop in Rutherford, New Jersey since I was in the area visiting my Italian in law relatives and I was also in the mood for cupcakes and didn't want to make them.



Raspberry Swirl

My sister was coming over that night so I asked her what flavor she would like and this is what she picked. It was the prettiest of the bunch but then again I'm a sucker for anything pink. I didn't get a chance to taste this flavor but I will buy it again the next time I pay a visit. It just looks too good not to try it.




Sexy Sadie

I bought two of these because they are my favorite and Peter wanted one too! It is a delicious red velvet cake with a super yummy cream cheese frosting. I could eat only this cupcake for the rest of my life and be a very happy and heavy girl.



Jet Black

Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, chocolate sprinkles. It's a chocolate lovers dream.



Snowball

These come with either chocolate or vanilla cake with coconut icing and shredded coconut on top. I chose chocolate. I wish I chose vanilla. Simply because Peter and I split the Jet Black and Snowball the next night for dessert and it would have been nice to have a vanilla cake just for variety.

If you ever find yourself in North New Jersey you must stop by this adorable shop.

2 for u.

Red Bean, Butternut and Millet Veggie Burger

You are getting 2 for 1 today in B36 Kitchen-land.

The other night I was actually in the mood to cook something from scratch and decided that the burger above would be our dinner. I'm chopping up and cooking some butternut on the stove top. Chopping onions and garlic. Boiling the millet. Adding spices. Then I go to the closet to get the can of Red Kidney Beans. First I must say that I had just gone food shopping earlier in the day and while walking down the bean aisle I asked myself if I should pick up some cans of beans. I said to myself "no, you have plenty of beans at home" then continued to walk on past the beans. Now back to looking in the closet. I look toward my bean shelf and .........no beans......zero......none......no beans. I search and search the rest of the closet. Maybe I didn't put the beans on the bean shelf the last time I bought them. No beans...zero....none....no beans. Sigh. Peter comes home and I tell him about the no bean situation and he offers to go to the store and buy some. I tell him not to bother I'll just get some beans the next day and we will eat them for lunch, which is what we did, except it was he who picked up the beans.

So instead of veggie burgers for dinner we had..



Parsley-Pinenut Pesto

Pesto! Ah delicious pesto. Thank goodness during my shopping trip I picked up 2 bunches of parsley. I have no idea why I bought those 2 bunches. Maybe it was the universe telling me that I wasn't going to be able to make what I wanted to make for dinner that night.

Thanksgiving Day and Day After

Thanksgiving Day After Meal

Our Thanksgiving's alternate each year between mine and Peter's family. Regardless of where they are I like to make us a Thanksgiving meal "my way" afterwards which excludes all meat, dairy and eggs. This year was know different. We dined on Balsamic-Rosemary Roasted Root Vegetables (a Thanksgiving staple for me), Green Beans Almondine, Corn of the Cob, and Seitan Cutlets smothered in Golden Gravy. The Golden Gravy is a tester recipe for Joanna's next Yellow Rose Cookbook. It was my second time this week making it already it's that good.



Balsamic-Rosemary Roasted Root Vegetables

I <3 this recipe so very much. It's based on a recipe from an issue of Bon Appetit that my mom received a few years ago and we have been making every year since. I don't follow the recipe anymore but it's the same basic idea. Roast whatever root vegetables you want with whole cloves of garlic and rosemary (fresh is best) then add the vinaigrette to it when it's done. I now just dump some balsamic vinegar, lemon zest and lemon juice into a cup without measuring and dump it over the veggies. I leave out the oil because the veggies were roasted in enough oil already that they don't need anymore added to it.

This year I roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Acorn Squash, Parsnips and Rutabaga along with some garlic cloves. Usually there are Brussels Sprouts and Beets in there but I didn't feel like going through the trouble since I had lots of other food to make for the real holiday.

This was the second time I bought this dish to my in-laws and it always gets rave reviews and everyone asking for the recipe.




Caramel Cupcakes with Caramel Buttercream

My Daring Bakers Challenge turned into what I was bringing to the dessert table on Thanksgiving. Read about this particular dessert in the post below.




The Dessert Table

The only thing vegan there were my cupcakes.

Daring Bakers

Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting

Phew! I took like a 1/2 month break without even realizing it! What's really been happening is that instead of blogging at night I've been knitting a purple and green blanket for myself. It's taking along time.

But I make my grand return with my Daring Bakers challenge! I was really upset that I had to miss last months pizza one due to my little Reno getting real sick at the end of the month so I was super happy to make this one.

It is a Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon. I had to make my own caramel syrup for this one! It was so fun, scary and dangerous. I luckily came out of that process unscathed with the help of oven mitts and a pink plastic cutting board to protect me from the bubbling hotness that is homemade caramel syrup.

The cake itself was really straight forward and easy. I just subbed soy milk for the milk, Earth Balance for the butter and some egg replacer for the eggs. I would have like to have used some soy yogurt instead of the egg replacer but I have a box of the stuff that needed using up. The cake came out sweet, slightly dense and had a very old fashioned taste to it.

I was really looking forward to making this into an actual 9 inch round cake but when I realized that I would be bringing this for dessert on Thanksgiving I figured cupcakes were the way to go just so know one would have to mess around with cutting up a cake.

All in all this was a great success and a recipe I will be keeping for a very long time.



Host for this months challenges were:

Dorlores of Culinary Curiosity
Alex of Blondie and Brownie
Jenny of Foray into Food
Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go

4 ingredients.

Refried Black Bean Taco

I wasn't sure whether to call this a taco or a quesadilla. I went with taco. Since we ate it like a taco and not a quesadilla. I've been trying to think of new things to feed Reno so I bought a can of Amy's Refried Black Beans and some soft whole wheat tortilla with the hopes that if I heated up the beans and spread it on a tortilla and rolled it up she would eat it. Well she did. She liked it a lot. Thing is though she can't consume a whole can of refried black beans so I made a version of her dinner for us with some brown rice and diced fresh tomato. It was really good. I mean really good. So good that I might keep a few cans of that stuff around for days when I don't feel like thinking about food and what to make.

We aren't big canned food eaters at all but I'll make an exception here. The only canned items we ever buy are beans (we buy dried also), tomatoes, chipotles and the occasional artichoke hearts. I really believe in making foods from scratch but with a child you have to make exceptions here and there because sometimes you have no time at all for a scratch meal. Especially when she is yelling "mammamamammamammamamammama" or "ninininininininininininininniiiii" which usually means "I"M HUNGRY" or she just hangs from the tray that is attached to her highchair and screams like the monkey that she is.

Shells and Chreese

Shells and Chreese

You either love or hate this boxed mac and cheese from Roads End Organics. I happen to LOVE it. Its my favorite thing to eat on a rainy afternoon when I want to sit around and do nothing. A lot of people like to doctor theirs up by adding garlic powder and such. I just like a bit extra milk, recently oat milk, and earth balance. Plus lots of black pepper. In my opinion it doesn't need anything else.

I've only ever had the Cheddar Style Shells and Chreese so I can't say much on their other products but I'll get around to trying them one of these days.

Reno also loves this stuff. When I ate it the other day after I gave her her lunch she was climbing all over me for it. I gave her a taste and that was the end. I had to give her many many tastes after that. So now I have to share my Shells and Chreese with her.

Beer Brats.

Beer Brats w. Peppers and Onions and a side of steamed Green Beans

Another tester recipe from Joanna at Yellow Rose Recipes. This one actually has the recipe on her website for all to see. So if you like what you see here then go HERE for the recipe.

I've never made any of the steamed sausage style recipes that are floating around on the Internet. Now I wish I had made them sooner. It is super easy. Its quicker then my baking method that I love to death. My favorite part is that you don't need to re-wrap them after they are done because they are all ready wrapped in foil and can just be thrown into the fridge to use later.

I decided to use it as one would when making Sausage w. Peppers and Onions. Slowly cooked onions, yellow and red peppers caramelizing with some garlic and thyme in a healthy amount of extra virgin olive oil. Stuffed inside a whole wheat ciabbata and served with simply steamed string beans. It was perfect. The sweetness of the caramelized onions and peppers was driving me crazy. I could have just eating a whole bowl of that stuff. The brats were a perfect consistency and delicious. I will be making this again very very soon as well as all the other steamed seitan recipes floating around.


IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!! If you decide to make this recipe PLEASE allow your beer to become stale. You can't skip that part of the recipe or it will make for some weird brats or so I've heard from other testers.

Stale beer = perfect brats!

Dip Dip Dip Dip.....

Spinach Artichoke Dip

I am soooooooooooooooooo happy that Joanna is back and letting us test more recipe for her. I've been in a bit of a cooking rut lately and was just saying to Peter that I need new things to make. I knew Joanna was going to be posting new stuff soon and low and behold I checked the very next day and there were all the new recipes. Horray!

This one caught my eye IMMEDIATELY! I knew I had to make it right away. I've always loved Spinach and Artichoke dip but have never made it myself, vegan or non-vegan. It was always easier to just order it at a restaurant for an appetizer or maaaaaybe for my main meal.



I have nothing bad at all to say about this recipe. It took no time at all to make. Maybe 10 minutes to put together and then another 10 in the oven. It also took no time to eat. I ate a very unhealthy portion of it for my lunch with some homemade tortilla chips from Whole Foods that I'm obsessed with. This dip will definitely be making a few appearance at the holidays this year.

When Joanna's book comes out sometime next year make sure you make this recipe ASAP!

Food Fight!

A mess of goodies from Food Fight Grocery

It's about time I get back to blogging. Reno is finally all better from her ear infection one week and then a stomach virus this past week. I missed the end of VeganMoFo and I wasn't able to partake in this months Daring Bakers because of Reno's sickness. I can't wait to go food shopping and cook real meals again.

For now I will share with you my haul from Food Fight Grocery. I received a gift certificate from my Aunts, Constance and Anne, last christmas and had yet to use it. I finally got to business and ordered some items that I just haven't been able to locate locally yet here in NJ.

I got:

Soy Curls, I can't wait to try these
MimicCreme, It's soy free!
Soyatoo Soy Whip, Its in the fridge waiting for a pie or sundae or..
Primal Strips Mesquite Lime, these I can find locally but not all the time.
White Chocolate Chips, I was never a fan of white chocolate but I liked them in
Macadamia White Chocolate Chip cookies and I've been craving those.
Crispy Cat Chocolate
Boom Choco Boom Chocolate
Hemp Seeds, I love them in salads

As I try each of these products I'll let you all know my feelings on them...



Chocolates

So far I've only tried these two different chocolate bars.

Boom Choco Boom dairy free rice milk bar: meh. Peter seemed to like it a lot but I was just so so on it. I was never a milk choclate fan to begin with and though it would be fun to try a vegan milk chocolate. I would not order this again or buy it in a store if I saw it.

Crispy Cat Mint Coconut: Now this is a different story from the chocolate above. YUM YUM YUM!!!! I hated that I had to share with Peter the only bar I ordered. The chocolate was great as was the mint coconut flavor. I'm now interested in trying out the other flavors this company offers.

VeganMoFo: Tacos

Seitan Tacos w. Sweet Plantains and Seasoned Black Beans

Before Reno got an ear infection last week (and now a stomach virus this week!) I made us a taco dinner. My very first post ever on this blog was about tacos. These were different then those and equally as good and easy. As I get lazier and lazier with every passing week I used a packet of organic taco seasoning that I get at whole foods for the seitan. It's good so I see no reason to do something else otherwise. The seitan was the easy part. Dice and saute then follow the directions on the package. Top them off with some mesclun greens and a mashed up avocado and you've got yourselves a fine main entree.

For the sides I fried up 1 sweet plantain. I had purchased 2 but only 1 was ripe enough to be sweet. I'm actually still waiting for the other one to sweeten up. I also made seasoned black beans. It was nice having it alone as a side dish instead of a main meal with some rice. I'm going to try to do that more often because it made the meal extra satisfying and comforty.

I should be back to posting more regularly now that I'm back from my friends wedding in Ohio and even though Ms. Reno is still sick. They just might be short and make no sense at all but it's still a post. :)

VeganMoFo: a break.

Reno (almost 14 months!)


My sweet sweet Reno isn't feeling very sweet. She's feverish and has an ear infection and is on some sorta meds. This is her first real sickness and it's horrible. At least she wants to cuddle which she never wants to do.

I'll be back in a few days when she is feeling better.

VeganMoFo: Peters Dinner

Linguine w. Zucchini, Yellow Peppers, Red Onions, Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic, Pine Nuts

Sometimes Peter will think up a meal. This was one of them. He was bothering me for a few days about how he wanted pasta with zucchini and maybe yellow peppers in oil w. garlic. He kept asking and asking so I finally made it. I would have made it sooner but the specific ingredients that he wanted in this pasta dinner were not on hand.

My favorite thing about this dish is how the zucchini, peppers and onions are cut in long thin slivers which mimic the shape of the pasta. I also love the pop of flavor the cherry tomatoes give when they explode in your mouth!

The taste was pretty good too. After I took a bite Peter asked what I thought about it and the only word that came to mind was "Healthy". Which to me means that it is good but it also kinda lacks, just a bit, in the flavor and comfort department. Don't get me wrong. There was great flavor in it from the veggies but we have been eating so many richly spiced foods recently that this was kinda a shock to my taste buds. I hate to say it but some freshly shaved Parmesan would have been amazing on this.

I'm off to South Jersey for the weekend. We have a trip to Atlantic City planned, not to gamble, but to go to the clothing outlets to buy Reno the rest of her winter clothes. I'm hoping to get some for me as well.

See ya!

VeganMoFo: Favorite Dessert part 1

Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies



I like cookies.
I like em a lot.
I like to eat them for breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, afternoon snack, midnight snack and dessert.
I like them crispy.
I like to put ice cream in the middle of two cookies and eat them as a sandwich.
I like to eat raw cookie dough.
I like to eat raw frozen cookie dough.
I like to put raw frozen cookie dough into ice cream.
I like to hide a cookie in a cupcake.
I like taking pictures of cookies.
I like looking at other peoples pictures of cookies.
I like to share cookies with people that I like.
I like to bring cookies to parties, potlucks, or just to the park.

I do not like to eat cookies in bed.