A Vegan Crunk tester, and activists vs. mall cops!

Oh man, is it a sweet deal to be a recipe tester! The pickin's are pretty slim for cajun and southern foods, let alone vegan-style, here in Portland. So it was quite a treat to have tempeh gumbo for dinner last night! Nice job, Bianca!

Tempeh Gumbo and whole wheat french bread

Newsflash!

Remember a few months ago when the Radical Cheerleaders for Animal Rights were cheering about puppy mills in front of Scamp's in Lloyd Center? And as they were leaving a fellow activist was thrown to the ground and arrested? Well, Lloyd Center has dropped it's charges against Matt Rossell and lifted his 4 year ban from the premises in exchange for his promise not to sue. But there's an even bigger victory! Scamp's has closed all of it's doors! Check out this write-up in the Oregonian http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/animal_rights_protester_makes.html

A Sunday morning decadent breakfast

A few weeks ago, we were at Jesse's parents' house for dinner. I made sure to bring my vegan additions for dinner, but totally forgot to ask what was for dessert (we never really eat dessert at home), so I missed out on strawberry shortcake. Actually, I had a giant bowl of strawberries, so I was fine with it. But what really surprised me was that they made shortcakes, and that they looked like scones rather than the spongy, store-bought shortcakes I remember from my childhood. I was intrigued and decided I had to make my own! I got strawberries at the farmers market yesterday, so today was the day!

I've made scones once, and while I liked them a lot, I perused my other cookbooks this morning hoping to find a simpler recipe. Isa Moskowitz to the rescue! The basic scone recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance only required staple ingredients that I always have (the Joy of Vegan Baking recipe uses soy butter, which I usually don't have around) and only took 20 minutes from start to finish! My plan was to top my strawberry shortcake with icecream, but I used the last of my coffee creamer for the scones and put the icecream in my coffee instead. Yum yum!

Shout out to Jess for the (soy) icecream in coffee idea!

Cute little scones just out of the oven

This is what happens when I clean off the coffee table

Cookie using all of her willpower not to attack Zoey's tail

I hope you all had a fun and delicious weekend! xoxo Chelsea