Why, that's just ththsouper!

Okay, people. I uploaded these pictures quite a while ago, saved them to draft, and now I have only my feeble memory to rely on for summoning up descriptions of what may have been going into my mouthhole at the time. The first two are easy. I had this fantastic idea that I would bake up little slices of vegan heaven (or whole pies, as is the case), and take them around to local coffeeshops, where the owners would surely realize they had been missing out not only on sensation, but on a whole clientele market, and would commission my baking expertise on a weekly basis. What actually happened was I spent a lot of money and time on baking and delivering, some lucky people got some good free eats, and the plan flopped like an eggless souffle. I did, however, have one tiny success. A neighbor bought a beautiful apple/almond torte from me to take to a party, which I somehow forgot to get a snapshot of.

Below is the extremely decadent and rich dark chocolate mousse/raspberry torte...

...and here is a chocolate covered espresso almond torte.

I'm not sure what this is, but it sure looks good! Rice noodle spicy tofu stirfry, I believe.

Probably with some sort of ginger sauce.

This I remember: I went through a soup phase for two weeks; every night

was a different soup or chowder concoction. Below we have seitan dumpling soup.

This is my first dumpling soup ever, and it was as rich and comforting as I imagine its origins meant it to be on a cold winter night.

a bowl of the yummy bone-warming elixir.

here is a couscous/almond/currant salad over red leaf lettuce with a citrus-y

vinaigrette, using fresh juice from tangerines and lemons.

I believe this to be a thai peanut-noodle dish with lightly sauteed kale, carrots, peppers, and ribbons of raw daikon. (topped with a squeeze of lime and a sprig of mint)

of course there had to be a pho night during the soup marathon (pronounced "fuh", my friends).

here are all the garnishes for diners to greedily pick and choose from:

peanuts, carrots, mint, basil, lime, jalapenos, serranos, green onions,

mung bean sprouts, and cilantro

putting it all together, we start with the noodles.

add some color and texture: thai marinated tofu, shrooms, bok choy, and green onions.

Add your sauce (sadly I don't remember everything I threw into the sauce, but if you want to make your own pho, I suggest starting with an authentic pho sauce recipe, omit the beef broth, and throw in some of your own flavors to bring back the depth and "hardiness" of the broth. It tends to be very intricate...a lot of ingredients!). Serve with garnishes and enjoy!

My neighbor was sick with some sort of cold/flu conglomeration, so I made her a beans and greens "get well" soup. She reported that her sinuses cleared almost immediately, and she was feeling good again within a couple of days. The broth was very strong in fresh ginger, cayenne, and garlic, and I tossed in a medley of kale, swiss chard, carrot and beet matchsticks, onion, kidney and black turtle beans.

This is an African "peanut egglant" soup....I mostly followed the recipe from Veganomicon (same fabulous authors from Vegan with a Vengance).

OMG I want some right now!

This is a miso/chickpea/macaroni soup, also inspired by a recipe in the aforementioned Veganomicon.

Whilst I am certain there were more soups in the marathon, this seems to be all of the pictures I retained. That's ok, there are bound to be some super soupy days ahead! Besides, I think I've found some other images in my repertoire that I may have to entice your greedy little devouring eyes with. But I will save that for a separate post (possibly another one today).........that way I can feel all caught up and gooshy inside, and who knows.......one day, just maybe, purrrrrrrrrrhaps, I will do this right and start giving out recipes! That was the purpose of this blog all along, right? Well, alas, though I may have failed at everything else in my tiny little life, at least I am a PRO at crastination!!!

honk honk!