More adventures feeding Omnivores

Tonight my dinner guest was my fabulous German friend, Sunny. I met her at the gym I work at and loved that she's always wearing yellow! Matching your clothes to your name=winning. Sunny is a music therapist and was in charge of the tunes while I supplied the culinary magic. Sometimes Germans have amazing taste (hello electronic music) and sometimes questionable taste (David Hasselhoff anyone?). This was displayed beautifully by the Macarena and Chicken Dance sandwiched in between other amazing music that didn't make your ears bleed :D. Germans also have a reputation for a serious love afair with meat, so I was a bit nervous about the response to vegan food. For our culinary delight, we had Chickpea and Spinich curry from Vegan with a vengance.

I realize this doesn't look that awesome. Lighting was poor and curry is hard to make look pretty.

 For the second round, I made avocado chocolate mousse on fresh local strawberries.

Here's a little secret-if you dessert looks like turds, shredded coconut hides a multitude of sins.

I picked these bitches myself (in a mini skirt no less) so was extra proud of them! Dessert and dinner were enthusiastically recieved! Woo hoo. Winning over German Omnivores-check mark!

Sunny may never talk to me again. We laughed at this picture for two hours and I promised not to post it on the internet. I lied.

It's mother pumpkin muffin time!

Yay, fall! All the cliched fall things are here, and after 4 years in Texas everything is new and exciting again. Changing leaves! Meals from a crock pot! Pumpkin in a can! No wait, pumpkin in a can isn't very exciting. Until now! *cue high temp Euro pop music and imagine me dancing* I am going to impart to you what is promised to be "The best pumpkin muffin" recipe, and so far the hype has legit. I got this book from "Vegan with a Vengeance", which in my humble opinion is the very first book you should add to your vegan cookbook collection. This recipe is at least marginally healthy, and if you swap the white flour for whole wheat, half the sugar and use apple sauce instead of oil- you can eat it for breakfast guilt free. Or just make it as is and eat 4 for breakfast because you deserve it :)

The Best Pumpkin Muffins

From Vegan with a Vengeance

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 TBS baking powder

1/4 TSP salt

1 TSP ground cinnamon

1/2 TSP ground nutmeg

1/2 TSP ground ginger

1/4 TSP ground allspice

1/8 TSP ground cloves

1 cup pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup soy milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 TBS molasses

Preheat oven to 400f. Lightly grease or line a twelve muffin (or mini muffin but reduce cooking time accordingly) tin. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, soy milk, oil and molasses. Pour the wet and dry together and mix. Fold in a cup of chopped walnut/fresh or dried cranberries/combo/or not. Fill cups and bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick or knife in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy!