Birthday cake, squash, and more

Here is that birthday cake I made for my sister's 20th birthday. It was supposed to be a spice cake, but I omitted all the spices because she and her boyfriend have very plain tastes. :( It tasted so good and I could just imagine it with all the allspice, cinnamon, etc. Oh well, it will give me an excuse to make it again.


I found a recipe in a little pamphlet about going vegan that I found stuffed somewhere, and I modified it to pieces. I'll share with you what I did.

Cake:
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
(1 teaspoon allspice)
(1 teaspoon cinnamon)
(1/2 teaspoon ground cloves)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup applesauce (substituted for oil)
3/4 cup vanilla soymilk
1/4 cup water

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until thoroughly blended. Bake in prepared 8-inch cake pan for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Frosting:
1/4 cup soy margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons soymilk
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Melt margarine over low heat, add brown sugar and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the soymilk and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Gradually whisk in the powdered sugar. Spread on the cooled cake.

It was delicious. I even sent some home for my parents and they enjoyed it too. It's very moist and a little on the dense side, so I think you could get away with adding less oil/applesauce.

I had so much fun with my sister over the weekend! I really miss living with her and hanging out with her--she lives four hours from me now, and we only see each other a few times a year. In fact, I realized this weekend how much I miss my whole family. I have not been down to visit my parents since last Christmas (we had a little rift and weren't speaking for a while, and now we're still not on the best of terms). Bob and I decided to spend Thanksgiving up here this year, either with his family or just by ourselves. It will be the first Thanksgiving I've spent without my family, and it makes me really sad to think about it.

Anyway... This is a delicious and comforting lentil soup that I made last night for dinner. It was cold and rainy here last night (and still is today, in fact), so it felt so nice to curl up with a hot bowl of soup and a slice of homemade crusty bread. Very simple:

Bring to a boil:
1.5 pounds of brown lentils
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
Oregano
Salt
Cayenne pepper
Bblack pepper
Worcestershire sauce
Liquid smoke

Cook for about 30-40 minutes, and then take it off the heat and squeeze in a bit of lemon juice and let it sit for a few minutes. There are plenty of leftovers--I had another bowl for lunch today.

When Earth Fare's organic winter squash is on sale for 0.99 per pound for a few days only, what do you do? You buy two butternut squash, two spaghetti squash, two acorn squash, and a sugar pumpkin! And then you make spaghetti.

If you've never seen a spaghetti squash before, look at this:


Once the squash has been roasted (about 45 minutes at 375 degrees), you can take a fork and pull the flesh into these beautiful strands. It tastes really nice just plain, but tonight Bob made a beautiful red sauce to serve with it.



The stuff on top is a "parmesan" that I saw a recipe for online. It was really simple:

Process together until crumbly:
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt

It doesn't taste much like parmesan really, but it's a whole lot cheaper than any vegan parmesan crumbles you can buy and really worked on top of the spaghetti.

One last thing: So many of you have blogged about it, that I had to do it too! So I ordered my copy of Nava Atlas' new veganized cookbook! I told myself no cookbooks until Christmas, but this was too good to pass up--two books for $13.50! I ordered them last Monday, and they arrived today! This time, really--no more cookbooks until at least Christmas! I'm so excited about trying out these wonderful soup recipes, but it will have to wait until after Thursday, after my exam.

I'm going to disappear again until Friday. But I hope you all have a good week--see you soon.