What I eat, apparently

As I rule, I tend to think of ‘delicious vegan baked goods’ as an oxymoron. But only in the ‘vegan’ attached to ‘delicious baked goods’ sense. I have had food that is both delicious and vegan. I have had more experiences then I could ever count where I’ve had ‘delicious’ plus ‘baked goods’. In any case, vegan baked goods, are far as I am concerned, are generally like eating spruced up cardboard. The vegans who eat them are so strung out on vitamins that they truly believe that their baked goods could actually be called ‘delicious’. Or, when they say they are delicious, they are in fact really saying ‘delicious as compared to cardboard’, but are leaving the last bit out for the benefit of those of us that enjoy the juices from cow bosoms and such.

There is an exception to all of this, however. Emily’s cookies (or some similar female name beginning with a vowel), sold at Ellwood Thompson’s (a local health food store). It’s not necessarily that they’re delicious for cookies, but more that they’re delicious for granola bars. Crammed full of oats and nuts and bits of chocolate (vegan chocolate, apparently, but I couldn’t tell the difference) and tons of delicious.

Then I attempted trying to make them, based on a recipe I found that seemed to share the same ingredients.

The almost-vegan granola bar-ish cookies were a strong showing in mediocrity. I say ‘almost vegan’ as I totally used regular milk instead of soy milk. Just like I totally used semi-sweet chocolate chips, which probably contain dairy. And I totally buttered the pan with butter, rather then oil. Hmm, come to think of it, I buttered the pan with pseudo-butter, some margarine knock-off, so I might still be good there! In any case, the ’strong showing in mediocrity’ has been stated due to the fact that they’re slightly palatable, but only if there’s nothing better around. Too many peanuts (shoulda used walnuts-d’oh!), a little too burnt, and just not nearly enough flavor.

However, I have a better success story (but, err, not involving vegan food). These babies were awesome:

Did you know that you can make cookies from cake mix? Just leave out the water, and use one less egg then usual! Incredible! Oh, and I dumped in chocolate chips. So soft and squishy! I have fantasized so long for easy access to the softest of chocolate chip cookies. Too often have I been plagued by the cruelty, the sheer mediocrity of hard chocolate chip cookies. And now, the secret to the softness has been revealed. And it tastes much like cake.

I heart chocolate chip cookies. Actually, I think this sentiment is universal. And look, they even love each other (they’re cuddling!):

You know what’s really good? Chocolate chip cookies with a bunch of crap in them. Like, several types of chocolate plus peanut butter plus nuts plus m&ms. Absolutely delightful.

So I finally started a separate blog for food-related stuffs. I think about food entirely too much, and enjoy taking a whack at making it. This blog will revolve primarily around what I’ve made recently, and I’ll be trying to post at least every 2 days. Or whenever I eat something that intrigues me. We’ll see how it goes.

And, as a brief aside: the camera I’m working with isn’t exactly professional grade or anything. Not to say that it sucks, but it’s not gonna be spitting out many magazine-quality shots here. As a brief aside #2, my photography skills aren’t exactly professional grade, either.

In any case, I made these snacktacular cookies the other day:

They look better then they taste. Stupid recipe was supposed to be able to go through a cookie gun, but the dough was waay too hard. The pink, btw, is only for show, no strawberry flavor here.

So I was using these reject advent calendar chocolates from Christmas. At least they look snazzy from close up:

By batch 2, however, said advent chocolates were squishing up in my hand, so I squished them around with a knife and added sprinkles for bonus festiveness:

I’m not gonna bother posting the recipe, as these just taste entirely too much like cheap chocolate and crisco.