Linzer Cookies on Christmas Eve

Making Linzer cookies! Happy Christmas eve everyone :) Stay safe and warm wherever you are

At the lounge at Haneda Airport

Waiting for my flight to Seoul.. from 11pm to 5:30 am
So we are staying at the airport I only have three more hours to go!

Vegan Lemon Pound Cake & Recipe

Yesterday I attempted to make a vegan lemon pound cake. It tastes ok but nothing special. I reduced the sugar content a bit and use coconut oil instead but I think the coconut oil gave the cake a weird taste.

I am not sure how I feel about this one.

But I'm sure if you followed the recipe, the cake is really yummy.

Easy Vegan Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 large lemon (juice and rind)
• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 6 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. vinegar (Yep, vinegar, but I promise you, you won’t taste it.)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• Water

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Put flour, sugar and baking soda into a mixing bowl. Mix them together fairly well.
Then grate all your lemon rind into a measuring cup. (I find this is lots easier using a large liquid measure. I just lay the grater over the liquid measure and the rind falls in.)
Then, take your already sorely abused lemon, cut it in half and squeeze the juice from both halves into your measuring cup.
Next add water to your rind and lemon juice until you have filled one cup.
Pour your lemon juice mixture into your bowl of dry ingredients.
Add oil.
Add vanilla.
Add vinegar.
Mix well.
Mixture will foam.
Pour into an ungreased 8 inch cake pan. Bake 25 minutes, or until cake bounces back a bit when you touch its center.
Ice with your favorite vanilla frosting.

Rainbows come out after the Rainstorm

always :)

Choco Green Smoothie

Green smoothie recipe. good for lunch or as a snack :)

• 1 cup soy chocolate milk
• 1/2 cup soy yogurt
• 1 small red apple
• 2 medium bananas
• 2 tablespoons pea protein
• 1 tablespoon super green powder
• 2 handfuls of spinach topped with a tablespoon of ground golden flax seed

Tuna/Crab Cakes

I found a can of crab meat in my pantry, and next to it were several cans of tuna... 

So I decided to make tuna and crab cakes!

They actually turned out fantastic. The only thing I'd work on is getting them to hold up better. But who knew tuna and crab could work together?  Sadly I dropped the rest of the cakes while putting them in Tupperware... Other than that mishap, I would call this a success :)

Healthy

This was me trying to create my rendition of some salads at the whole food's cold bar (which I'm slightly obsessed with).

 Carrot and lentil salad

Quinoa salad

Yum.

Quinoa salad with roasted corn and black beans

This was my dinner:

Quinoa

Black beans

Roasted Corn

Cilantro 

pinch of salt

yummy 

Jelly vs Jam vs Preserves

I have a giant container of lemons so I wanted to make lemon preserves or marmalade and then I wondered.. 

what is the difference between types of canned fruits?

Here is what I discovered:

jelly: the fruit comes in the form of fruit juice.
jam: the fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp or crushed fruit (and is less stiff than jelly as a result).

preserves: the fruit comes in the form of chunks in a syrup or a jam.

Aloha

The other half of Say and Risa's blog here.  Hello! :)

- Risa

Copernicanism

The notion that the more we learn about the universe the less important we become

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos, is because things are being loved, and people are being used

The only thing you can’t recycle is wasted time

When ending a day you should never say “I could have”, “I should have”, or “I would have”. At the end of the day you should always say “I did”.

Misery is almost always the result of thinking

Each of Us Is Ordinary, Yet One of a Kind

SAMUEL BARONDES

Director of the Center for Neurobiology & Psychiatry at the University of California–San Francisco; author, Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality

Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality

Each of us is ordinary, yet one of a kind.Each of us is standard issue, conceived by the union of two germ cells, nurtured in a womb, and equipped with a developmental program that guides our further maturation and eventual decline.

Each of us is also unique, the possessor of a particular selection of gene variants from the collective human genome and immersed in a particular family, culture, era,and peer group. With inborn tools for adaptation to the circumstances of our personal world, we keep building our own ways of being and the sense of who we are.

Boxing

I go to boxing class at my gym Mondays and Thursdays. I stay pretty loyal to my instructors but the Monday one is new.. Today, the entire class they literally worked with the same 5 students. It was kind of frustrating when they favor veteran students.
I recommend boxing on Thursdays @ 23rd st definitely :)

Easiest Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe

Doesn't this look so yummy? I love anything with chocolate so any recipe that includes that ingredient in som form is good for me :)


Ingredients
3 cups flour (pick your kind)
2 cups sugar (pick your kind)
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Thoroughly mix dry ingredients first (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt).

3. Mix in wet ingredients (water, vegetable oil, vinegar, and vanilla).  Continue mixing until you obtain an even batter (no lumps).

4. Pour into a cake pan and bake for approximately 40 minutes.


photo credit 

Vanilla Mint Flan recipe

Doesn't this sound so yummy? 

1 1/2 cups cashews, soaked 1-2 hrs

1/2 cup young coconut meat

1/2 TB vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup agave

1/4cup coconut oil

1/4 tsp peppermint oil

shredded coconut

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Pour in to ramekins and refridgerate overnight. Top with shredded coconut and serve.  

Soy Milk Latte

I used my Ninja Blender to froth the milk! yummy