The day after Christmas, we drove out to Providence, RI, primarily for pizza. We gathered all the vegans we knew and busted through the doors demanding the spiciest, craziest, out-of-control vegan pizza they could make us.



We meandered the streets of Providence, perused many record stores, and scanned shelves of used book stores. We got back to the car, snow-covered and flush with vinyl and used books. We stopped in Pawtucket on our way out of town at Wildflour bakery, an all-vegan bakery and juice bar. I loved it so much I bought 4 things for myself. I shared a little. But not that much. This mexican hot chocolate cupcake was the first thing to catch my eye. I really love when you get a mexican hot chocolate-flavored thing and you can actually taste the chile. I HATE it when you want some spicy ass chocolate and you bite into it, and wait for the heat. And nothing comes. COME ON people, give me some heat. I would not have ordered mexican hot chocolate anything if I didn't want any heat. So anyways, this cupcake did not lack in heat. The heat was brought. Good job.


 Gigantic snickernoodle cookie, because of my obsession with snickerdoodle cookies.

 This plain chocolate brownie was for my BF. He's a simple man. He has simple tastes. Don't judge him.

 Extravaganza. I also got a green juice with apple, lemon, ginger, kale and spinach. I felt okay with eating 4 huge desserts because I drank this along their side.


Alex and I grabbed brunch at our favorite spot in Northampton, the Green Bean, on our last day in town. Alex picked his coffee mug wisely. I chose a Minnie Mouse one, but really should have gotten one with a message about threatening someone who is messing with you before you've had your coffee, or something to that effect.



I was thinking about leaving you with the recipe, but really, who is reading this that is not my mom? Mom, you're not going to make your own pasta dough. Plus, I kind of just threw all this together. And if you do want the recipe, comment and I'll post it. Or if you're savvy, you can wing it and it will be awesome.

With half of my sugar pumpkin, I made the Pumpkin Chimichuri Bowl from the "bowl" section of the book. It has buckwheat soba noodles, black beans and roasted pumpkin spears, smothered in a zippy chimichuri sauce.


And with the other half of my roasted sugar pumpkin, I made...

All cupcakes were eaten! They were well-received by the allergic crowd and I was super happy with them. Someone actually stole the groom cupcake! I asked him at the end of the night if he ate his cupcake and he said no, someone had taken it already! The nerve!


Oh yeah, and we had fun too. I danced so hard. I was sore for days. Worth it. <333

I drizzled them with maple syrup and sprinkled with turbinado sugar before the oven. Maybe next time I will do that after the oven.


Pumpkin Chip Scones:

1 cup pumpkin, from a can is fine
2 tablespoons almond milk
1/2 cup sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup coconut oil, cold
1/2 cup mini chips

*If you ever bake with coconut oil, you know that when it's cold, it's like rock hard, and hard to get exactly how much you need out of the jar. I like to measure it warm, pour it into small tupperware, then chill it until hard. Then dump it out and you have exactly how much you need.

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Sift together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
Cut the coconut oil into cubes or just small pieces. Add it to the flour mixture and stir in with your hands, breaking up the pieces of coconut oil even smaller, until you have pebbly sized lumps throughout your flour.
Mix together the pumpkin and almond milk, then add it to the flour along with the mini chips. Stir with your hands, only until the dough it holding together. You won't get all the flour mixed in, but that's okay. You aren't making batter, just dough.
Dump out the dough onto a clean counter and carefully press the dough into a disk-sized shape, about 1/2" thick. You can go thicker if you have enough dough, just the thicker, the fewer scones you will end up with. Slice into wedges, slices, circles, whatever shape scone you want to eat.
Using a spatula, carefully transfer the shaped scones to a lined baking tray. Bake for 18 minutes or until firm to the touch, not too firm, just not mushy anymore. Let cool 5 minutes before serving. Store remaining scones in a paper bag.

Since it's vegan mofo, and more people than my mom are reading my blog, I thought I should post a tip on how to prevent bad things from happening to your prized possessions in your fridge. We all must be suffering from this. The health food store is too full of exciting new and huge jars of coveted vegan happiness that we buy them, and we buy many. They get opened, used once, and they sit in our fridges for a long time until we need them, many weeks later, and find sad discolored growths and crusts and all sorts of un-fun organisms on the surface of our once-prized jars of vegan love. Those jars are expensive, and it's just sad to see that happen. So I want to share a tip to show everyone how I help prevent this from happening to large jars or containers of easily-attacked condiments or products left in my fridge just a little too long.


This method works well with things easily prone to bacteria, like organic applesauce, brown rice syrup and soy yogurt. Start by removing the lid from the jar or cup and wiping with a paper towel or clean cloth the inside of the lid, and the space above your applesauce and your lid. The bigger space, the more air and bacteria can affect your applesauce. If the space is too large, transfer the applesauce to a smaller container.


Tear a sheet of plastic wrap about 12" long. Lay it over the opening of your jar so that it's centered. Carefully push the plastic wrap to the surface of the applesauce so that the plastic wrap touches it and no air is accessible to the applesauce. Push the plastic wrap against the sides of the jar and allow the sides to overhang.