Okay, that’s it – I’m officially retiring the whole “I just moved to a new city and started a new job and therefore have no time to blog!!1!111!” excuse. I mean, I’ve been here for a good two and a half months, for crying out loud!  Now that I’m all settled into my new life, I’ve been doing lots more baking and cooking than I was at first. So I hereby promise to post more regularly from this point forward.

…and now let me show you a few photos with minimal text. What? I’ve had a busy weekend, by which I mean I went ice skating for the first time in some fifteen years in a misguided attempt to replicate all the fantastic feats of athleticism seen in the Olympics. Yeah… fail. I ain’t no Apolo Anton Ohno. Anyway, these are some photos that’ve been hibernating in my iPhoto for a while now, so I’m going to show them a little bit o’ love. Totally less than they deserve, but c’est la vie.

Peanutty, eggplanty goodness.

A while back, I bought an eggplant and wanted to do something exciting and new with it. As any self-respecting vegan would do, I headed over to the PPK in search of inspiration. Inspiration came in the form of an intriguing recipe for Spicy Peanut Eggplant and Shallot Stew, a combination of ingredients too bizarre to pass up. Despite the fact that I had no shallots, peanut oil, roasted diced tomatoes, fresh ginger, chilis, green beans, or cilantro, the recipe was very forgiving – I replaced the green beans with peas and improvised for the other missing ingredient, and the results were surprisingly tasty. I still have a serving of this in the freezer, waiting to be brought to work for a yummy lunch one day soon. Two thumbs up!

Samosas... and beyond!

There’s a lot going on here. Let me draw your attention to the foreground – those are some damn tasty Potato-Edamame Samosas from VWaV. I whipped up those beauties for a Super Bowl party a co-worker held, and they were well-received by everyone except her two-year-old, who took one bite and immediately spat it into his hand before dumping the soggy samosa-bit onto a plate. I learned that he later developed a fondness for the samosas and actually enjoyed them – score! Anyway, this is a really excellent recipe. The samosa filling has a great blend of flavors, and I had so much of it left over that I ate it straight-up, as you can see in the photo. This huge dinner featured samosa filling, actual samosas, baby carrots, and roasted cauliflower with so-called Indian Barbecue Sauce. Nom to the zillionth power!

Check out those exposed apple bits! Shocking!

Last but not least, check out this amazing Apple Pie-Crumb Cake Muffin, also from VWaV. I don’t think you can tell from the photo, but this is one giant muffin – for Christmas I got one of those tins that makes 6 big ol’ muffins, and this was my first time using it. Oh my gosh, guys – these muffins are absolutely spectacular. They’re moist and amazingly flavorful, even though I used plain ol’ apple juice instead of apple cider. I also replaced some of the oil with applesauce to cut down a bit on the fat content. And even though I used some seriously old and mealy apples in these guys, they were seriously delicious.

Aaand that concludes my sad little return to srs blogging. Coming soon: a post filled with the fruits of rampant consumerism. Ooer.