Ralphie, summarizing my day.

I’m playing it lazy today with this survey from Whoa Wren. Maybe some day I’ll graduate to starting my very own meme. Until then…

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?

Silk Pumpkin Spice; it’s the only soy milk I’ll drink straight (all else I only use in baking/cooking).

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?

Green tea cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Beyond that, who knows.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?

Garlic salt.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?

Not counting the occasional accident with meals I frequently make (e.g., overcooking pasta into a gooey much): Lemon cookies.

5. Favorite pickled item?

Pickles!

6. How do you organize your recipes?

Online: delicious.

ITRW: all my cookbooks occupy one shelf in the pantry.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?

All of the above. See also: dogs.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?

Pizza, pasta and Ronald’s donuts.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?

Grinding taters for potato pancakes…in the family’s hand-me-down, so-retro-it’s-antique meat grinder! (I know, right.)

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?

Just about anything from Turtle Mountain’s Purely Decadent line, but especially Blueberry Cheesecake, Key Lime Pie, Cherry Nirvana and Cookie Dough. (Bah, now I’m starting to sound like a Yoplait commercial, aren’t I?)

(More below the fold…)

Yesterday we celebrated Kaylee (11) and Jayne’s (5) birthdays, as well as the three-year anniversary of their adoption. Whereas Ralphie and Peedee were owner surrenders with known DOBs, all of the girls are ex-strays, so we’ve really no idea how old they are. Instead of pulling birthdays out of thin air, we celebrate Kaylee, Jayne and O-Ren’s birthdays on the days of their adoption. This means the girls are cheated out of a second “special day” every year – which is why I try to make their celebrations extra-special!

I really, really wanted to make Kaylee and Jayne a birthday cake – ganache, anyone? – but alas, I haven’t been able to find vegan carob chips or carob powder locally, so no luck there. My backup plan worked out beautifully though: I made a batch of mini-muffins using Molly’s Apple Cinnamon Muffin recipe, and topped them off with a “frosting” of blended silken tofu and peanut butter.

Here are the muffins, sans frosting:

and frosted:

The ridiculously cute embroidered placemats in the background, by the way, were a gift from my aunt (last x-mas, perhaps? I forget.). She made one for each of our six nonhuman animal kids; the front of each features a species-appropriate pattern, and the animal’s name is on the back. Naturally, the dogs’ mats are shaped like bones, whereas Ozzy gets the sole fish. I think she thinks I didn’t like the gift because I don’t actually use them as placemats for the animals’ food – but I love them so much that there’s no freaking way I’d risk staining them! (So if you’re reading, Aunt Cindy, there ya go!)

Anyway, back to those muffins. Mostly I followed Molly’s lead, with the following modifications:

- I substituted vanilla soy milk for the water; and

- I didn’t have any flax or hemp seeds, so I used a flax/nut/seed combo from Matilda’s Kitchen Flax & Company.

My initial impulse was to frost the muffins with peanut butter, but I decided to blend the pb with a brick of silken tofu in order to water down the fat content a bit. The recipe is pretty simple:

(More below the fold…)