Last night, I made these for a party I am going to today. I was confident that vegan bread pudding would turn out okay, less confident that the cupcakes would work. Here is what I used:

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 lbs vegan bread, donuts, or croissants
4 cups chocolate hazelnut milk
1/4 cup bourbon
1 cup brown sugar
2 Tbs cocoa powder
1 Tbs cinnamon

Hazelnuts
1 7oz package chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp cinnamon

Sauce
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup bourbon
2 Tbs cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 F

For the nuts:
Whisk everything but the nuts in a small bowl.
Toss in the nuts and stir till well coated
Spread evenly on greased cookie sheet
Toast in over for ten minutes
Sprinkle with more sugar if needed.

For the sauce:
Mix sugar and corn syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly.
Add bourbon. Keep stirring.
Add cinnamon. Stir well until cinnamon is dissolved.
Let cool.

For the cupcakes:
Put foil cupcake liners in cupcake pan
Tear or cut bread into 1″ pieces. Put bread in a large bowl
Mix all other ingredients together in medium bowl.
Pour milk mixture over bread and stir well. Let soak five minutes.
Fill cupcake cups. Add a sprinkle of the toasted nuts to the top of each one.
Bake for 20 minutes.

This should make about 24 cupcakes. Serve warm with heated bourbon sauce poured on top.

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Sharon: On Thursday, I ate Caribbean beans and rice from a package and they were delicious and I realy enjoyed it. And I occasionally eat those for dinner when I get home late so that wasn’t anything unusual for me, but I was glad that I keep them in the house. Both Thursday and Friday, I was in interviews, so I ordered salads from a deli. It was a little hard, because all of their regular salads have meat or eggs or cheese on them, so I had to get them to make me a salad. So I ordred their regular spinach salad without bacon or egg. And with ceci beans. But when it came, it had kidney beans, because I don’t think they know what ceci beans are. Because the next day I ordered the same thing with chick peas and I got them. Both days I ate bananas– oh, no, actually. One day one of the other principals brought bagels from up the street, and I ate a plain bagel because I called the bagel place to find out and they said that they don’t use eggs or dairy in their plain bagels.

Friday night for dinner, I made fried zucchini with hummus and pita chips. And that was yummy. And I did the fried zucchini the way PC does the eggplant.

(PC is my friend, Paul Reilly, who is the executive chef of Encore in Denver, CO. Encore is a restaurant committed to using sustainable practices and local, green & organic products.)

That’s in half-flour, half cornstarch. It was really nice.

I thought the pizzas were good. I like to make unusual pizzas anyway. I do think both of those pizzas would have been beter with cheese on them. I thought they were both yummy.

I’m not likely to do it again for a week, but I would certainly do it on and off. I do think that it made me much more cognizant of what I put in my mouth. I used to be really careful about that stuff, and I’ve gotten away from it, so it was a really good reminder to me. I don’t normally eat food that has chemicals, but it did elevate my awareness.

Oh, and I lost weight, which I didn’t expect. It didn’t even occur to me, and when John said he expected to lose weight, I…

John:Yeah, but I got a swollen knee, that’s why I didn’t lose weight.

Sharon At the beginning of the week, I missed meat, and now I don’t miss it at all. I don’t even care about eating it. I do think that even though I don’t eat a lot of dairy, it’s a toss-up between cheese and eggs. But since I was hungry for an egg this morning…that was probably why!

Other than that I I just think that with all the focus there has been lately on things like trans fats, while I didn’t think that all of that was necessary, I do think that better labeling in restaurants and stuff is important. For anybody who wants to make any food choices should know what’s in their food and not have to be embarrassed or made to feel inconvenienced in order to find out what’s in their food.

I think [the idea that some companies are permitted to keep their "secret formulas" off the label is] just plain stupid. You should be able to keep the amount of the ingredient, but not the ingredients, secret. I personally don’t think that dyes should be allowed in any food products. That’s just part of my personal belief. There is nothing about dye that enhances the quality or taste of a food.

I think before someone does this, they should actually plan their meals for the week. I just went to the store and tried to find things that were vegan and that was stupid. You should get a cookbook or go online and plan the first three or four days and what you need. I think if you did it like that, you would be more successful.

My mom really liked both the tempeh and the vegan bacon we ate! She had never had either before and she thought the tempeh was really nice baked on the pizza because it got all crispy. She said that the vegan bacon didn’t really taste like bacon but had a nice flavor and nice crunch.

Here are some pictures from our vegan pizza feast on Saturday night.

Southwestern Pizza!

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My mother is already asleep, so I talked to my father about his vegan experiences this week. He said he continued to eat carrots and grapes while at work.

John:
I’m trying to think if there’s anything exotic I did.

I went to the store and bought Cheerios with sugar as a snack. Thursday, I had a diet soda at birthday party. I don’t recall eating anything. I was getting tired of it.

Friday, finished all the carrots and all the grapes. More cereal. had dinner but forget what it was already. We had zucchini strips and something else and hummus and chips, which was fine. It was good.

Breakfast I had orange juice and we went shopping. I got a diet Dr. Pepper. I tried to sneak pretzels at Kitchen Connection but they moved to a different outlet and then it’s all a blur.

Today I came to see my parents. As a gift for their last day on this assignment, I brought them a vegan cookbook, The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick Goudreau. We made variations on two pizzas in the book, a beet pizza and a southwestern pizza. We also bought some prepared frozen vegan egg rolls as an appetizer, but they were incredibly bland and I thought kind of inedible. As I told my mom, I felt like they were vegan food cooked by people who had never eaten vegan food. There were no seasonings in them at all. Or, at least, it tasted like there weren’t.

The pizzas we made had the following toppings (there will be pics tomorrow):

Beets
Turnips
Potatoes
Arugula tapenade
Tempeh

Pinto beans
Vegan soy bacon strips
Vegan cashew “sour cream” (which I made from scratch based on a recipe in the book)
Avocado
Homemade salsa
Dried chipotle

So that was dinner. Yum! Now back to our regularly scheduled comments from my father.

John: Dinner tonight was pretty good. The pizza was dry. I’m getting tired of– there are certain things I like in my diet that I’m not getting. Butter, cheese, and milk being some of them.

(He is not really, but he said that that way he can eat the vegan ice cream I bought him tomorrow)

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When I called, they were eating dinner, which was Vegan pulled pork from “It’s All Good,” a company that makes ready-made vegan products. I have had their beef skewers and thought they were delicious.

Sharon: This wouldn’t be my favorite meal. Daddy likes it more than I do. I don’t like the texture. It’s kind of rubbery.

John: Pork is rubbery!

Sharon: I’m counting down. I’ve kind of had enough. It was fine. But I’m basically eating the same things every day. I would be more adventurous, but I don’t have time to be more adventurous.

John My food today was similar to my food yesterday, but I’m saving the world and doing greater things for everybody so I feel good.

Mary (a family friend) asked us to go to dinner tomorrow and have birthday cake for their son tomorrow night and I said, “we are so screwed.” I explained to her that I was vegan for the week. I told her that I would come over, but I just wouldn’t eat any cake, and she said, “but we’re getting Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, are you sure you don’t want any?” And I told her I couldn’t eat it.

I think it’s good. I think it’s delicious. It’s got pulled pork sauce, so it’s nice and tangy. I think your mother is turning religious, she says this is like Lent.

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To start out, my mom sent me a beautiful photo of her dinner from last night:

Orecchiette with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli rabe, and ceci beans

My dad sent me an email again today!

John: OK- so on the third day it seems like any other diet I have been on. However, i can’t just eat anything, I have to comply or my superpowers will be stripped away by animal gods.

I am looking forward to mounds of popcorn for dinner- Remember that book? Not even close to how much I will be eating!

The comment about “that book” is a reference to a book I used to love when I was a little kid, Popcorn, by Frank Asch. It was about this little bear who accidentally popped so much popcorn that it filled up his whole house!

I talked to my mom when she got home from work. She ate rice cakes, fruits, and veggies for lunch, and was going to eat her leftover pasta for dinner. This is what she had to say about her day:

Sharon: Eating sucks. So I had to go to a meeting this afternoon and they served food at the meeting. So, and everything had either cheese or meat. So, you know, that’s– that becomes interesting because then you realize how difficult it is for people in public social settings. I told the people I was with at the meeting, I said, I became vegan for a week. They all laughed at me, said what are you, crazy, vegetarian’s one thing, but vegan’s impossible.

I asked her if she had considered taking anything and removing the cheese or meat, and she said it just didn’t seem worth it. She said this is harder than she thought it would be.

My dad does not seem to think it is as hard, but he also has a different perspective on it.

John: Today was pretty much as expected. Looking forward to popcorn feast, with lemonade it will be divine. Tomorrow morning I work out again. I will be Mr. Trim, Slim, and my body will have nothing bad in it.

Some guy in Florida opened a pizza parlor. This guy went to Gold’s Gym and wanted to offer free pizza to all the customers. The people at Gold’s Gym said, you’re welcome to try to give them free pizza, but no one’s going to eat free pizza if they’re trying to lose weight. So this guy ate only pizza for a month. He lost weight, his cholesterol went down, and his heart rate was better.

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He emailed me at about 8 am.

John:Day 1 was relatively simple (on the plane) and even though we went out, I pre-planned exactly what I would order.

Oh, I am now forced to read labels- Good News- the $1 bag of pretzels from Shaw’s are have zero animal products so they can easily fill a belly without violating my contract.

I got another email around 11:30.

John: It was 11:30 before I felt a hunger pang. For a historical perspective, Most of my eating takes place between 11:00 am and 6:00 pm. In the evening I would generally prefer no dinner (on workdays) and popcorn or peanuts for a snack around 8:30.

I imagine that around 5 I will either treat myself to baby carrots OR green grapes. As a super special treat I may freeze the grapes and pretend to be eating ice cream!

And how did my mom do? Well, she had a close call, which was the first thing she told me when I got on the phone with her this evening!

Sharon: This morning when my secretary came in, she brought me coffee, and she brought me a box of munchkins. So I took one without thinking about it, and then I realized I didn’t know what was in them.

I went to a vegan site that listed what is in Dunkin Donuts. Raised donuts are vegan. Cake donuts have egg yolks and powdered milk in them. You just don’t realize how many things…And the differences, too, between the fact that some are fine and some aren’t, and you don’t ever know. That kind of stuff should be labeled. They’re so worried about trans fats, if they’re going to legislate that, why not legislate all ingredients be published all the time?

We talked a little while longer. For lunch, my mom had peanut butter on rice cakes, plums, and tomatoes, and she was about to make dinner: fresh tomatoes from the garden, pasta, and ceci beans.

She says that she thinks she would get bored if this were her diet all the time– she wouldn’t want to have to turn down new and exciting foods if they were offered to her, and she thinks she’d be missing out on a lot, but she said, “the cool part of it is, it does make you think about what you’re eating all the time.” My mom has been checking all her food labels and yesterday, on the plane, discovered that Mott’s tomato juice, though completely vegan, has 890 grams of sodium in it! Which is kind of horrible.

My dad, on the other hand, said that he wouldn’t be heartbroken if, for example, a doctor told him that this had to be his diet for the rest of his life. He didn’t eat the carrots or grapes he mentioned in the earlier quote, but he had crunchy style peanut butter and ripe tomatoes for dinner. He said he’s looking forward to eating the carrots!

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