Fabric Shopping!

I went a little crazy, I'll admit it.  I bought WAY too much stuff.  88$ worth to be exact.  I about died at the checkout, its easy to shop at Fabric Depot and just keep grabbing things (with most of it on sale!)  I picked up three patterns, I figure all three will be used a lot, many of you know my obsession with leggings...well now I can make them myself!  I have had a recent brash of crouch-falling-out incidents with American Apparel leggings, which really bums me out as they are pretty pricey.  I also bought a couple t-shirt patterns and fabric to make my first shirt! The fabric was purple and 50% off...I couldn't pass it up!

I made my first mistake, I bought too much cloth...for some reason I thought the  jersey I had picked out for my skirt was going to be used for my leggings as well (I had already decided before getting them cut that I wasn't going to do that..) Somewhere I lost my mind, but my boyfriend has requested a jersey scarf so I WILL put the extra fabric to good use!

My goodies:

New Sewing Machine!

I grew up with my Mom sewing and crafting alot. All of our Halloween costumes were made at home, and even school projects were aided by the sewing machine. Upon a recent visit to the bins I acquired an older Singer, a real buet, but I was a little lost on how to get her up and running. I put off my numerous sewing projects until my boyfriend mentioned needing several pants hemmed. We pooled our money and decided to buy a new Singer. I scoured the internet for reviews and we decided on going to Target for the Singer Esteem II. Now to get my projects started!

This is her setup with the cool "Singer Starter Kit".

German Tofu Steaks!

Food Fight has started carrying a new brand of meat that comes from "Tofu Land" in Germany. Lol! I decided to try them out and bought a box of the "breaded" type. My boyfriend requested a healthy dinner, and I wanted to use what I had in the fridge so this is what I came up with. I marinated the patties in a mixture of spices, mustard and Italian dressing, and then pan fried them. For the veggies I finely cut; red potatoes, leftover bok choy,spinach, cherry tomatoes, onions and green peppers. I started out sauteeing the mixture until soft and then threw it into the broiler (this works best in a cast iron skillet.) I made a "sauce" to go on top out of white beans, mustard, cashews, garlic and nutritional yeast in the blender. I added the sauce and mixed the placed the veggies back into the broiler with a can of red beans. Once done, I constructed this...

Chris' Birthday!

So today is Chris' birthday so I decided to make him a cake, I used the Chocolate Raspberry cake recipe from Vegan with Vengeance The cake is pretty simple, with the main ingredients cocoa and raspberry preserves. Food Fight Grocery only had 16oz jars of Raspberry preserves while the recipe called for 14oz, in the end this saved my behind! Reading instructions is usually a strong suit of mine, unless of course I am rushing...I missed the part where I was only supposed to add a cup of preserves not all 14oz! In the end, it worked out by making the cake sweet and VERY moist, I used the extra 2oz as a layer and made my own chocolate icing from a simple recipe on the back of the sugar box.  I made the cute cake "plate" by cutting a piece of cardboard and wrapping it in vinyl drawer covering I found at Goodwill!

Cooking Date #2 - "Shrimp Alfredo"

I love the fake frozen shrimps from Food Fight Grocery! A lot of my friends can't stomach them, but I use them a lot in stir frys, other asian dishes and eve BBQ them. When trying to concoct a dish that would surprise and delight my meaty companion, I thought a vegan cheese sauce would do it; coupling that with the knowledge that pizza and pasta are his favorites I decided to try my hand at a vegan shrimp Alfredo. I first set out to make the cheese sauce, I decided upon a raw cashew base (my favorite!), and worked loosely off of VeganYumYum's "Hurry Up Alfredo" I added sauteed onions, garlic and some other spices to the puree. I think I was more surprised than my boyfriend at how amazing this tasted (and how closely it reminded me of my mother's!)

Cooking Date

I recently met a very nice fellow, and invited him over so I could cook for him. He chopped, and I sauteed! :) The Menu: Gardein Chicken cutlets marinated in Italian dressing, topped with sauteed brown mushrooms and onions. Twice baked potatoes with Daiya, and garlic asparagus.  He is not vegan, so I wanted to show how awesome vegan food can be, if done right!