I just entered Elf’s New Face of 2010 competition! They will pick four semi-finalists, with a fifth being chosen by the general populace. The winner gets to be the new face of Elf and gets some nifty prizes.

If you would like to vote for me, please do so here! You can vote daily up to December 31st!

My statement about why I want to be the new face of ELF:

As a vegan and lover of makeup it can be difficult to find makeup companies that I want to support by purchasing their products. It’s the exact opposite at e.l.f.! I can browse your site knowing that I will be able to buy something that is vegan and cruelty free. I have a unique and fresh faced look that I feel would greatly benefit e.l.f. cosmetics.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Gingerbread house building and baking is extremely easy. I always figured it would be too much of a pain in the butt to do. Nut-uh! This sucker comes together in less than an hour!

Recipe:

One batch gingerbread and one batch of the icing on there using two cups of powdered sugar

A ruler

Assorted candies  (look at the bulk section at your local health food store! We got vegan gummy bears, “m&m’s”, chocolate chips, heart licorice and crystallized ginger for uber cheap!)

Directions:

Roll out your gingerbread dough till it’s about 1/4 inch. Measure out four squares 3×4 inches, and two additional squares of the same basic size with a triangle on top (these will be the front and back of the house). You will have enough dough leftover for about four trees, and an addition. Or whatever you want to make….

Preheat overn to 350 F. Bake your cut out dough for eight minutes, letting it cool absolutely. While it’s cooling mix up your icing. Now the fun begins! Start piecing your house together, first the front and back with the walls, then the roof. If you are adding an addition, do so now.

The icing is really thick so when you go to put on your candies, I recommend using your finger instead of a knife to spread it on the candy or house.. It makes it more pliable.

Finally….don’t eat too much sugar. Learn from my mistake. Sugar is yummy until you get a sugar headache from eating too much of the damn stuff!

After I did my last post on garlic, a friend saw it and mentioned that she knew someone with a garlic cookie recipe. Her friend had used this recipe to win at a garlic festival. How rockin’ is that? I jumped on the chance to make it! These cookies are really delicious!

I know I’ve been slacking with the blogging lately. Starting December first, that’s all going to change (keep your fingers crossed!). I plan on doing 25 holiday posts  featuring veganized versions of holiday favorites and hopefully some unheard of holiday dishes from different cultures.  Squeeeeeeee!

Now go make some garlic cookies!

SPICY GARLIC BUTTER COOKIES WITH CASHEW GOAT CHEEZE: Makes 20-25 cookies   (modified from this recipe)

Cookies:
1 cup all-purpose flour (unbleached preferred)
½ tsp cayenne pepper (this makes it fairly spicy, feel free to tone it down to even 1/4 tsp)
¼ tsp baking powder
1 stick plus 3 tbsp Earth Balance, softened (I think you could cut this down a table spoon or two, the dough was almost too oily)
¾ cup sugar
5 cloves roasted garlic

Topping:
3 ounces cashew goat cheeze , softened
3 cloves roasted garlic
Agave
Hungarian paprika

Directions:

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne pepper in a small bowl.

Beat together Earth Balance and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the cloves of roasted garlic and beat for another minute or until cloves are incorporated. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture. Mix until just combined. Form dough into an 8″ to 10″ log (approximately 2″ diameter) and wrap it in plastic wrap. Chill dough until firm.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cut log into 1/8″ to ¼” slices and fill ungreased large baking sheet(s), arranging slices about 1″ apart (seriously, make sure you leave the one inch, these suckers spread like none other!).

Bake cookies until the edges are golden, approximately 12 minutes. When pulled from heat, immediately indent center of each cookie with the back of a spoon. Cool on the sheets then transfer to wire racks to completely cool.

Meanwhile, combine softened cashew goat cheeze and 3 cloves of roasted garlic in a small bowl, combining well.

Once cookies have cooled completely, add a good-sized dollop of garlic cashew  goat cheeze mixture in the center of each cookie, then spread it out a little bit over the cookie. I made the mistake of just leaving the dollop in the center. If you spread it out you get cookie and cheeze together (yum). Drizzle some agave over each, add a dash of Hungarian paprika and serve.

I received an email the other day from New Dawn MT Farm Sanctuary. There is going to be a potluck this coming Saturday, details below! If you are in town, come by!! Bring yourself, some food, and perhaps your dancing shoes? If you can, please RSVP here!

INVITATION:

Join us Saturday, November 14, 2009 for good eats! The Western Montana Veggie Society is hosting it’s first ever Thanksgiving potluck! There will be special guests, a feathered friend or two. This happening event is taking place at noon @ 102 McLeod Avenue (corner of Higgins Ave, Missoula in the beige-colored building that houses the Missoula UU Fellowship). Bring your favorite dish, or if you’re  not into cooking, cough up some money for the donation jar.

The Western Montana Vegetarian Society  events:
Open to all public to enjoy Plant-based foods.
The “2nd Saturday” once a month Veg*-potluck
At 12:00 noon is held year ‘round.

Bring your friends, bring your family, bring yourself. Spread the word!

I’ve been meaning to plant garlic since September. I keep forgetting or, in all honesty, am lazy as shit.  Today was going to be the day!! The lot we are renting used to have another trailer on it, but now is just a big open weedy area. We didn’t utilize it for this years garden for some reason, more than likely because the neighbors through their cat litter and brush onto it (who does that???!).

I had scored some big bulbs from the garden when I picked up my last poundage. All together, we planted about 90 cloves of garlic. I hope they all come up next year, we’ll be sitting pretty if they do!

All the cloves

Keith doing a little prepping before we get to work

A very lonely looking garlic clove…

Once it got too cold out, we came inside and made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Donuts!!!!!!!!!!! I was bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement as we headed over to Mighty-O. Seriously, even now I am bouncing up and down just thinking about those donuts. Migthy-O is an awesome little place. We got there just as they were putting the tags on the donuts out. Despite it being only 7:30 in the morning, I got 3 donuts. Lotsa sugar, let me tell ya. The first day I got french toast, sprinkles and pumpkin cream filled donuts. I stood at the counter gazing for at least five minutes because it was so hard to choose! I wanted one of each! I even got laughed at by the lady at the counter because I was so excited…little kid in a candy shop much?

As we sat around the table, donuts quickly got broken in half and passed around. Man, the french toast donut rocked my world. Mighty. -O also serves hot drinks and juice. I thought the price was so comparable to prices you would find in a Missoula bakery, even with the tax added in.

This is the only picture I got because I was too busy shoving my mouth full.

The last day we were in Seattle, we headed back to Mighty-O donuts. I got a six pack of donuts for Keith, and 3 (again!) for myself. It’s a good thing I don’t live in Seattle because I would gain so much weight in no time from eating there everyday. I also snagged Keith an awesome t-shirt, which I will put a picture up of soon.

On the way back home, I thought to myself and Kat, “You know, I sure did get Keith a lot of stuff. He doesn’t like sweets. He won’t notice one donuts missing….” Righhhhhhhhhht. Kat and I split five donuts on that eight hours trip. I saved Keith one donut, the French Toast donut. Haha…oops?

In honor of World Vegan Day, I thought I’d share some of my favorite pictures of my furbabies.

Baby tries to escape the confines of the garden. Even though he’s the youngest of the bunch at 1.5 years old, he’s the alpha male. He’s also the biggest mama’s boy in the world.

Socks likes to dig in the dirt. He also likes to whine for attention. Even when he gets attention he whines. He’s also onery and chases the timid cats around.

Ah…sweet Summer belly. Summer considers herself the mama of the group. She bathes the others (seriously, they don’t bathe themselves anymore!). She’s a husky female who likes to eat. Occasionally, the Baby will slap her when she’s eating to get her to stop. It’s so funny.

We also have two other cats, Toes and Maya. They are really timid and shy and getting a picture of them is very hard to do! I will have to try and get some so I can post those cuties!

Emma here. Yes, yesterday was the last day of veganmofo, but I am going to push on because I still have four more posts to go. I was too lazy to put them up yesterday. Epic fail!

This jambalaya may not taste like the real thing. I really don’t know, I’ve never had real jambalaya. This recipe is cheap, easy and oh, so tasty. Keith even gave it a ten out of ten, and he never does that. This is the second time I’ve made this, the first time I made it with fresh tomatoes, this time with stewed tomatoes. Both are delicious! It doesn’t take too many fresh tomatoes to make this.

RECIPE:

28 oz Stewed Tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes, cut up small<—– super tasty!)

3/4 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp salt

Pinch Cayenne

1/2 tsp hot sauce

1 tsp  chili powder

Pinch onion powder

1/4 cup roasted Anaheim Peppers

3/4 cup wild rice

Earth Balance

Instructions:

Cook the wild rice until done. Once the wild rice has cooked, put the butter, spices, onions and garlic in a skillet. Cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes, roasted peppers, hot sauce and rice. Cook for 20 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Serve warm with bread and nutritional yeast.

What’s a girl to do in a big city? Eat ethnic food, of course! If you’ve read any of my blog posts regarding ethnic food in Missoula, you’ll know there’s no such thing. When my friend mentioned eating at Tastes of India, it was a resounding YES!

Tastes of India is also located near the University district off of Roosevelt Way . They have a parking lot, so you don’t have to find street parking. It was really busy when we arrived, and my friend that met us there had to wait twenty minutes from the times she got there till we showed up. About ten minutes later we were seated. They were really apologetic about the wait and we received free appetizers. Three words: Stuffed Grapes Leaves. YUM. Kat and I shared a dish like the cool kids we are. No, really, we ARE cool. We had a potato and cauliflower curry dish.

It was dark in the restaurant, so none of the photos we took came out too good.

The food was absolutely delicious, and such a reasonable price! Kat and I scarfed through our dish so fast it was unreal. I also got half a order of stuffed grape leaves. Damn, those things are good. If you are in the area, I definitely recommend checking Tastes of India out!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm Pizza. While Kat, Erin and I were walking down 15th St. to Sidecar, we saw Pizza Pi next door. I knew what I was having for lunch!

Here ensues the photo and video collection of Pizza Pi:

Outside Sidecar For Pigs Peace looking over at Pizza Pi

Our Field Roast Pizza. Tasty! I just wish they had melted the Teese more..but it had such great      flavor!

Italian Sausage Sandwich, it so good, especially the white sauce underneath!

Tasty Breadsticks with Marinara

My crappy video!