Hi friends! It’s been a while since I’ve done a checking in post, so it’s about time. It seemed like it was just June and I was just getting into the swing of the whole summer thing. Now, we are looking at the end of summer coming up (Noooo!!) and fall quickly approaching. We are having kind of an ‘oh crap’ moment and knocking wedding to-dos off the list left and right, so I’m feeling pretty arm flexing muscle emoji over here. Now, let’s get to the things that I’ve been loving and cooking lately!
– I’m still finding my dinner groove with using up all the summer produce, but vegetable fritters seem to be a perfect way to use up the loads of zucchini I picked up from the farmer’s market. These were an absolute hit for dinner and I couldn’t stop eating them right out of the pan!
– Breakfast! I tend to get into ruts when it comes to breakfast foods. A few weeks ago and it was all toast, all the time, and during the winter I hit the hash browns pretty hard. Current obsession: seedy maple granola from my girl Sara at Cake Over Steak. I added in dried cherries and coconut after it was all baked, so I used it as a clean out the pantry kind of thing. Add almond milk and enjoy!
– Iced tea! I have all these gorgeous peaches and can’t use them up fast enough, so I modified this Thug Kitchen recipe, added peaches and voila! Iced drinks for dayz.
– Less of a recipe and more of a ‘something I can’t live without’: frozen brown rice. For some odd reason, I have an issue cooking rice properly, so finding frozen brown rice was an absolute lifesaver. It also makes it much easier for me to just throw together dinner and have rice ready in a few minutes. I might add soy sauce and sriracha and eat as a snack from time to time, is that weird?
– One of the best parts of wedding planning? CAKE. I went back and forth about what we wanted to do, but finally we decided on getting red velvet cake from an amazing local cafe and bakery in our neighborhood, which also happens to make delicious vegan and gluten free cakes. If anything is important, you know it’s the cake.
– The next big project on my baking to-d0 list is puff pastry or crossaints. After reading this tip about partially freezing olive oil, I think I’ve found the secret to making them work for vegans. Keep your fingers crossed!
– On one last note, vegan paneer? Swoon. Gena knows her vegan cooking inside and out!
What are your plans for the weekend? I’m going to a baseball game and hopefully trying out a cupcake recipe involving raspberry cream cheese frosting. Yes! Soak up the sun and just live that summer life.
Cadry's Kitchen says
David always does frozen olive oil for his pie crust using the recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky. I could see that working well for your puff pastry or croissants! Good luck!
The Frosted Vegan says
I can’t wait to try it, I hope it’s successful! 🙂
Heidi Kokborg says
These foods look SO good! They make me a little hungry 🙂 I am now craving that pink cupcake!
The Frosted Vegan says
It was so so good!
Sara @ Cake Over Steak says
Thanks for the link love, Abby! Glad to hear you’re enjoying the granola. It’s definitely perfect for cleaning out the pantry, and it’s just SO DARN EASY. I love it. Enjoy that wedding cake process!!! Our anniversary is in a week which means we get to take the top part out of my parent’s freezer and eat more cake ! YAAAAYYYYYYYY 😀 I’m way too excited about it. As for cooking rice: I’ve kind of mastered it lately and I feel like a boss. I had mastered white rice but then we switched to brown rice and I was worried that I would have to figure it out again, but I’ve been following this method from Food52 (http://food52.com/blog/9997-how-to-cook-perfect-brown-rice) and it has worked for me every. single. time. It also scales up beautifully. You have to set aside a good 40-60 minutes for making it (which kinda blows), but if you plan ahead you could make a double or triple batch on the weekend and then freeze part of it, keep some in the fridge, etc. But then again you can’t beat the convenience of frozen rice! But I just figured I should share. 😉 xoxo
The Frosted Vegan says
Ohh I can’t wait for cake..round two! Ours is so good I’m actually not sure that it will make it that far 🙂 Thank you for the brown rice cooking tip, that is golden! I just don’t know why rice is such a pain, it should be easy, right?! xoxo
Phi @ The Sweetphi Blog says
Man does time fly! That’s so exciting that you guys picked a cake – that’s always such a hard task, because, well, cake!!! Our anniversary is coming up (sept 1) and you just totally reminded me that I need to get/make some kind of cake for the occasion! Happy rest of summer.
The Frosted Vegan says
Happy summer Phi! I miss you, dinner soon? 🙂