My early birthday celebration with my immediate fam Saturday was great. My awesome mom made a Mexican-themed dinner that included this recipe for a vegan Mexican Layered Dip as a starter. It was delicious, everyone loved it. In addition, my mom prepared this recipe for a vegan Mexican Lasagna, which also was a hit... but I think that's mainly cuz my mom cooked up a bowl of ground beef for the omnis to top their lasagna with. :( I was saddened by this, especially since I've been reading The China Study with great interest. I don't want to dictate what others eat by any means... they can choose to eat whatever, just as I can. But, the information contained in The China Study is fascinating. I wish my fam could've went that one meal without animal products and just enjoyed the plant-based food. I'll have to blog more about The China Study once I finish the book.Despite the ground beef, I consider myself lucky that my fam truly is supportive of my vegetarian lifestyle. My sis and her hubby bought me both Veganomicon and Eat, Drink and Be Vegan for my birthday... and my folks got me an ice cream maker, among other things. :) I think my mom just wanted her machine back cuz I've been holding it hostage for months now! ;-p
My favorite part of the birthday meal was the cake! As I mentioned previously, I chose to make my own animal-free cake for the occasion. I should mention, not only was this the first vegan cake I've made... it's the first cake ever that I've made completely from scratch! And now that I've done it, I can't imagine ever making a pre-packaged mix out of a box again. I chose to make the chocolate cake with chocolate peanut butter frosting; both recipes can be found in The Joy of Vegan Baking. The cake itself turned out awesome... but I need some work on frosting-making, LOL. I broke the golden rule... a rule I know by heart, but in my haste, I ignored it and it cost me dearly. Always, always add additional liquid to a mix in small quantities because you can always add more, yet once there is too much liquid in the mix, it's not as easy to fix. At least not for me. And, while making the frosting, I added in too much additional liquid too soon and ended up with a very soft frosting, closer to a glaze. In the end, it all tasted the same... and it tasted DEVINE in my opinion! But, I affectionately dubbed my first cake from scratch "the ugly cake" because it didn't look as pretty as it would have had I made the frosting correctly.
I usually don't post my 'failures' here on the blog, but I'm going to post my "ugly cake" photo as a reminder to myself to slow down while cooking, or I'll have to pay the consequences, LOL. Besides, we're all human and each meal we cook doesn't come out looking perfect, so I vow to post more of my "ugly" food this coming year, as well as my ideas on how to improve them. :)
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