wow…long time no post

So by now most people must think that I dropped off the face of the earth. Not quite…just really trying to finish up the dissertation this year, applying on jobs, all of that fun stuff. Oh, and then throw in triathlon training into the mix. It doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of spare time.

I have been cooking though…I just haven’t been photographing my food and blogging it. For shame. Anyway, I would like to get back into that. So to start things off with a bang, here are some Valentine goodies I made for a local animal shelter that is having a bake sale.

First up, I made these sandwich cookies. I subbed no-sugar added strawberry jam for the raspberry jam originally called for, and used Earth Balance in place of the butter. This dough was pretty rough to work with when rolling out…It would either be too warm (and stick) or too cold (and crack when rolled out). The happy medium was pretty difficult to obtain. I think next time I will just use my standard sugar cookie recipe.

I was a bit worried, as the dough didn’t taste very good (always have to have a nibble at the dough!), but the finished product was actually quite tasty.

Here they are packaged up for the bake sale:

I also made heart sugar cookies, using NoWhey’s recipe. This is my go-to recipe…not too sweet and the perfect combination of crunchy and chewy.

I also made vanilla cupcakes with pink icing. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture before I packaged them up.

I wasn’t sure how to package cupcakes without ruining the icing. A quick Google search gave me an answer: buy plastic cocktail glasses (pretty cheap) to put the cupcake in and then wrap with cellophane. Genius!

Christmas Cookies!

A local cat shelter makes up trays of Christmas goodies to give to a few vet clinics around town that help them out throughout the year. This year they asked if I would be willing to donate some goodies. Since I had my brand new copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar in my hot little hands I jumped at the chance.

First up, the Lazy Samoas. I’ve never had a Samoa before, but I really liked these. I’m not even a huge coconut fan and I thought they were pretty good. My dough was a little dry though which made making the hole in the middle a tad problematic. I ended up just making a tiny indent in some of them, not the finger-sized hole that the recipe recommends.

I also made the Nutty Wedding Cookies. These are really good if you are looking for a cookie that is not sweet. I think my Grandma would like them for that very reason so I set aside a few to freeze for her tin of baking I make her every year. Like the recipe says, they are messy though. It’s difficult to eat them without getting powdered sugar everywhere.

I also made the Chocolate Dipped Macaroons. Would you believe I’ve never had a proper macaroon cookie before? I liked these a lot…they reminded me of those Ruffle cookies my Mom used to buy. I tried to find a picture of the cookies but my Google skillz apparently aren’t working today. Anyhoo, once again, these are not very sweet. Which led me to set aside some for my Grandma.

I also made some fudge. I made that recipe last year and I love how simple it is…no candy thermometer needed. It’s quite rich, but that’s the way good fudge should be.