Vegan Walnut Brownies : First try

For Christmas I received The Perfect Brownie Pan so I thought it would be a great time to try a vegan brownie recipe I have. The Perfect Brownie pan allows you to make the brownies or any type of bar cookies without having to cut them afterward because it has a divider that you place top of the pan before you bake. Pretty clever.

Anyway, the brownies did not stick at all to the pan and taste great but once they cooled, they became a little dry. It's my fault really, I left them in the oven too long. After 30 minutes, it did not look like they were done so I left them in for another 5. Big mistake, I should have taken them out at 30. I also really need a new oven because the temperature is all over the place. Oh well, live and learn for next time. I think they will still be good heated up in the microwave and then with some non dairy ice cream on top.

Whole Foods Pizza with Daiya Cheese

My Daiya vegan cheese arrived today (it was on back order) and we headed over to Whole Foods for some pizza. We had them make the pizza with mushrooms, leeks and the Daiya cheese on a multigrain crust and it was awesome. The Whole Foods near us has a brick pizza oven and the pizza comes out so much better there than at home (where there is no brick oven sadly). The staff at Whole Foods is very accommodating when it comes to making a pizza with whatever you want. They had no problem making our pizza with "outside" cheese. Anyway, I can't wait for the Whole Foods near me to start carrying Daiya but until then I will definitely order some more off the internets.

I have not been a fan of other vegan cheeses but I have to say, Daiya is great. It melted perfectly, it tasted like cheese and since it is not made from soy, it didn't have a tofu-y after taste.

Punk Rock Girl!!!!

I was playing around on the interwebs and I found the video for Punk Rock Girl from The Dead Milkmen. Growing up in South Jersey, I was very familiar with Philly's own The Dead Milkmen. I loved (and still do) this song. The lyrics are ridiculous (they rhyme girl with Minnie Pearl) and they mention the store Zipperhead. Anyone who has ever been to South Street in Philadelphia knows Zipperhead, the alternative rock and punk clothing store. Before the internet, this was the place I had to go to get all my Smiths t-shirts ( back then I'd dance to anything by the Smiths). Now I live in North Jersey and I haven't been to Philly in years so I don't even know if Zipperhead still exists or if South Street has changed but when I was a young teen, it was the place to shop and hang out.

Sadly The Dead Milkmen lost a member and no longer do big tours, although according to their website, they still keep in touch with each other and play around Philly. I hope to make it to one of their shows someday.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a song that meant something to me growing up. I hope you enjoy it as this song will get stuck in your head and you will be humming it until you go insane....

Dinner tonight: Tempeh Reubens

Yum, vegan tempeh reubens. They came out nice and greasy like the original sandwich. Tempeh is a great vegetarian protein made from fermented soybeans and I picked some up from Trader Joe's at a great price. The sandwich was so easy to make. First I marinated the tempeh for an hour or so and then I pan fried it. I put the sandwich together with sauerkraut, some home made vegan "thousand island" dressing and some fancy rye bread from Balthazar Bakery that we picked up earlier today.

Shortscreen.com

If you are at all interested in shorting stocks, I highly recommend checking out and becoming a member of Shortscreen. I used it to short the stock KITD and made a 15% profit in less than a month. It was my first short position and my very first profit in the stock market!

ShortScreen offers tools and ideas for short sellers, including a screener that pulls up companies predicted to go bankrupt by their Altman Z-scores. Here is a link to a third party review of the site, Screening Stocks for Short Selling. Here is a link to a post dealing with some common questions about short selling and risk.

And Shortscreen's bear logo is pretty cool too.

New Template

I decided to go with a new template for my blog. I wanted something that looks like a desk. Maybe like a desk that Buster would use. Anyway, I wanted to spruce it up a bit because I thought the plain dark blue background was a little depressing.

Anyway I hope to post some more food pictures tonight. I am making tempeh reubens for dinner tonight and I am using the fancy bread we bought at Balthazar bakery today. Dave is requesting another batch of my tiramisu cupcakes tonight.

Tiramisu Cupcakes...and they're vegan too

I made tiramisu cupcakes tonight. I completely forgot to add the cornstarch so they are not as cake-like as I wanted them to be and I used sucanat instead of white sugar so they came out brown. Oh well, I thought it wasn't my best batch but Dave says they are really tasty and better than a certain non-vegan cupcake place in the mall!

Oh yeah, my vegan tiramisu cupcakes 1, other non-vegan tiramisu cupcakes, 0. Take that Senior Cupcake.