Portrait of a Family by a Young Artist

I cannot say enough about the amazing photographer who took our family photos a few weeks ago. Her name is Erin and she works under the name Freya Photography. Her style is warm and beautiful and out of the ordinary. She is based out of the Portland, ME area (Damariscotta to be exact). Check out her website and some of the amazing photos she took during our shoot. She's definitely thinking outside of the traditional family portrait box.

The Colonel can keep his chicken

Remember chicken nuggets?

Remember how crispy and tender they tasted before you found out they were made of the amalgamation of various smashed up parts from various smashed up chickens? If only I could capture that youthful ignorance for just one moment...

Ha! Forget that! I'm moving on, Colonel Sanders! This week, in an attempt to use the bushel of collard greens my roommate harvested from our community garden plot, I stumbled upon the recipe for my fried chicken rebirth. Thank you, Stephanie, over at Wasabimon blog! Her recipe was perfectly adapted from Laurie Colwin's recipe in Gourmet. The only changes I made were to use almond milk, a 4-part flour mix of chickpea, brown rice, sorghum, and corn starch, and no sesame oil. I do not love the taste of chickpea flour so I mixed it up. Next time I would experiment with more spices, and maybe try the sesame oil. I ended up using her collard green recipe too (sans carrots and with homemade chicken broth instead of veggie). And instead of the typical KFC mash potato side, I cooked up some whole grain quinoa with pesto. So tastey! I have been dreaming of this meal ever since.

Growing on Garden St

May

June

May

June

May

Cupcakes Make the Party

Ah, the beautiful marriage of blueberries and lemon! This week my siblings and I threw a very belated birthday party for my brother's girlfriend. When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she replied, "Anything, but chocolate." No chocolate! Gasp! So I hit the cookbooks looking for a party-worthy, non-chocolate birthday cake, and since I now have the stand on which to set them,  I decided it must be in cupcake form. In the past week or so, I have been lustily gazing at the recipes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. So many cupcakes to choose from! This book is amazing! I finally decided on the Blueberry Lemon Creme Cupcakes simply because my house still has so many bags of frozen blueberries from last summer. And although the Vegan Girls have a gluten-free yellow cake recipe, I ended up using a cake recipe (not vegan) from the book Gluten-Free Baking Classics. I added a dollop of lemon curd (recipe also from Gluten-Free Baking Classics) at the center and covered it with the vegan blueberry compote and vegan lemon buttercream icing. The cupcakes were a success and the birthday girl was very pleased.

And don't those cupcakes look so handsome on their little pedestal?

Who says you have to live without?

Yes, that is cheesecake. And yes, it has whipped cream on it. And guess what!?! It is totally gluten and dairy free [insert angel choir and glorious beam of light]! I never thought this day would come, but the good people at Living Without have made my non-dairy cheesecake dreams come true. I made the chocolate version sans ganache. It can be made vegan, but I put the egg in there. The only complaint I have is that their gluten-free brownie crust was a little excessive; I would prefer a little less crust and a little more crunch. I'd cut the recipe in half or I might go with a cookie crust next time. And there will be a next time!

Now all I need is a beautiful cake stand on which to rest my glorious cake... The cake gods have heard my cries again! Today I was just selected as the lucky winner of the Dahlhaus Cupcake Stand Give-a-way! I can no longer claim to be one of those people who never wins raffles. I am so excited to get this beautiful little stand from this talented ceramic artist. What a great day! I think I'll celebrate with a delicious slice of cheesecake.