Happy February!

Growing up in New England, February was often the dreariest month. By then, we were sick of snow, sick of the cold, and ready for spring! These days, in Virginia, I can't say we've had enough snow yet, but I am certainly getting a hankering for a new season! There are changes abound in my little family, but like Urban Vegan, I am still cooking and baking up a storm. Here's what I was up to last week....
We had a baby shower for a good friend at work, and I volunteered to make the cake. Well, I ended up making a chocolate cake (recipe from Sinfully Vegan) with vanilla frosting and then FOUR DOZEN cupcakes! There was plenty to go around, but I sure was ready to yack at the smell of confectioners sugar by the end of the week! It took me two nights to bake and frost them all. (That's a baby's bib on the cake, by the way).





Here are the Pistachio-Rosewater cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (VCTOTW) that I have been meaning to make for quite some time. I was easily able to get the pure rosewater at my local grocery store. They cater to a wide variety of clients! I did use regular vanilla frosting, though, as I wanted to make them pink and do some baby girl-type decorations.






By far the favorite sweets were the Lemon-Macadamia cupcakes, though. They are a bit strong with the lemon flavor, but still amazing. Recipe also from VCTOTW. I've made these before.









Of course, I had to have plain vanilla cupcakes, to satisfy those less-adventurous eaters in the crowd. These are topped with cute (but expensive!) candy pacifiers. Not a single cupcake or slice of cake was left.... After this week of sweets, it's no wonder I turned to something tangy and salty for dinner this weekend....








Here are Cold Udon Noodles with Peanut Seitan (or something like that) from Vegan with a Vengeance. This would have been perfect, had the seitan not crumbled a bit (and burned) in our new cast iron pan. Although we both thought this was very yummy, I think we would have enjoyed it more had it been summertime! The flavors and textures were great, the sauce was perfect, and we buckwheat soba noodles we used instead of the udon were perfect. But still, this would be a better dish in warmer weather.



This was a great dish to use up the seitan I had made a month or so ago and put in the freezer. I froze it in the cooking liquid, in one pound portions. I actually used my mother's old scale to measure this out, which is really a very old postal scale! But, like most things made "back then" it is still very accurate. Here is a shot of the meal after I mixed it up a bit, so you can see the yummy whole grain noodles. It also contains bean sprouts, red pepper strips, cucumber strips, lime wedges and beautiful black sesame seeds. I love eating with chopsticks! Now, I am feeling almost normal again. The sugar has almost worked its way through my system....