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And here are some pictures to leave you with for the evening. This will be the last iPhone 3G picture you see here.
cheddar, fontina & gorgonzola mac & cheese with quinoa noodles
9.20.2011
Pastry School
And here are some pictures to leave you with for the evening. This will be the last iPhone 3G picture you see here.
9.13.2011
My First Delivery
The other day I got my 50th Facebook "like" for BakedLove. Setting and accomplishing small steps like this of a huge goal provides me the fuel to keep charging away at baking and blogging (and so does all the positive feedback I've been getting from people online!)
I promised the 50th person on Facebook a baked good of their choice and my old friend, Kara, was the winner. Kara lives about 40 miles away, and as a San Francisco resident, I get around on foot. Keeping this promise could have turned out to be a huge hassle since a baked good delivery is time-sensitive and fragile. Any mail system would not do- TaskRabbit to the Rescue!
TaskRabbit gets you in touch with friendly, reliable people who can help you get just about anything you need done, and put some free time back into your life. (Full disclosure: I work for TaskRabbit, but even if I didn't I would still think the service rocks.)
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Having time to bake on a work night is difficult enough, without having to worry about which mailing service to use, actually getting myself there and packing the cookies for overnight delivery. So, the night before I baked Kara's peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies, I posted a Task for someone to pick up the cookies from me at work and deliver to Kara- Stress-free!
With TaskRabbit I was able keep my promise to myself to bake, blog and do more with my time! I can't emphasize enough how easy TaskRabbit's service is to deliver on my promise of baked goods. And who can put a price on having fresh baked goods delivered by a friendly person?
9.06.2011
Raw Peanut Butter Power Cookies
More raw power cookies! The 'power' is for all the good-for-you stuff that goes in them. Raw cookies are also appealing because they are just so easy to make on a work night, then you have a healthy snack throughout the week. And, if you work at a San Francisco Bay Area tech start-up, chances are your co-workers will be foodies and not be scarred to try something labeled, 'vegan', or 'gluten-free', or 'healthy' and 'cookie' in the same sentence.
1 C almond flour
1/4 C ground flax seed
1/4 C unsweetened shredded coconut (first, toast it lightly in the oven to bring out more flavor)
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla paste
White chocolate chips to top (premium quality- crappy white chocolate chips may contain hydrogenated and sometimes animal fat, always check the label...)
Mix it all together and shape into cookies.
Raw Vegan Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies
2/3 C natural peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
1 C almond flour
1/4 C ground flax seed
1/4 C unsweetened shredded coconut (first, toast it lightly in the oven to bring out more flavor)
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla paste
White chocolate chips to top (premium quality- crappy white chocolate chips may contain hydrogenated and sometimes animal fat, always check the label...)
Mix it all together and shape into cookies.
8.27.2011
5 Minute Raw Power Cookies
We just made cookies in under 5 minutes!... Notice how I said 'made' not baked. They are Raw. Vegan. Gluten free. Almond butter cookies. The first time around I got the measurements wrong, so we made them again and our version was definitely tastier. Sometimes mistakes are serendipitous. Here's the original recipe and here's ours:
1/2 C ground flax seeds
1/4 C shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 tbsp agave nectar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup (almost raw)
1 tbsp coconut oil
Mix everything together in a medium bowl. Roll into balls and enjoy.
Add cocoa nibs on top for extra sweetness. The additions are endless: chocolate chips, extra coconut, oats, honey, protein powder, or substitute another kind of butter, like peanut butter or cashew butter.
Raw Vegan Gluten Free Almond Butter Cookies
2/3 C almond butter (I used almond/hazelnut butter)
1 C almond flour1/2 C ground flax seeds
1/4 C shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 tbsp agave nectar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup (almost raw)
1 tbsp coconut oil
Mix everything together in a medium bowl. Roll into balls and enjoy.
Add cocoa nibs on top for extra sweetness. The additions are endless: chocolate chips, extra coconut, oats, honey, protein powder, or substitute another kind of butter, like peanut butter or cashew butter.
8.22.2011
Foodie Weekend Part 1
It was a serious foodie weekend with Saturday being La Cocina's 3rd annual San Francisco Street Food Festival and Sunday being SF Food War's Salsa-licous salsa competition. There was definitely no baking going on just a lot of eating. Here's how Saturday went down:
We pre-purchased a $50 passport, which I would recommend it if you're planning to try a lot of different foods. It gets you one free drink, a souvenir passport that lists every vendor, and a "secret snack," which was a random bite of quesadilla courtesy of Mission tortillas, an event sponsor.
Me and my better half arrived at about 10:30am, 30 minutes before the event started and had a chance to walk up and down before the place became packed (with 50,000 people!) Right at 11am the place was filled but the crowd was generally mild, smiling and sedated from all of the delicious food in their bellies. We lasted about 3.5 hours there and here's what we tried:
Azalina's, based out of San Francisco, sold at various SF markets
- Malaysian fried peanut taco (small bite): The only vegan item we saw and pretty darn good. A fried flour tortilla with a peanut, tofu filling.
- Penang curry bomb buns: two curry shredded chicken sandwiches on deep fried rolls (big plate). This is the only place where we got the small and big bite plates, they both had a spicy pickle topping and a creamy sauce. This was the last thing we tried and our favorite. Friend and flavorful!
The Peached Tortilla, Austin TX, Food Truck
- Pad Thai taco (small plate): a chicken taco with peanut sauce, bean sprouts on a thick flour tortilla.
Nettie's Crab Shack, San Francisco, Restaurant
- Dungenous crab devilled egg (small plate): A perfectly hard boiled egg with plenty of creamy crab filling. Our breakfast appetizer.
Flour + Water, San Francisco, Restaurant
- Fried peppers and corn (small bite): a let-down, I think there big bite plate, a Porchetta sandwich was meant to be the star. It is still supposed to be an amazing restaurant that I'm dieing to go to.
Zella's Soulful Kitchen, based out of Oakland, Caterer, also sold at Whole Foods in Noe Valley
- Jacked Up Hush Puppies (small bite): just regular ol' hush puppies but they were good. The big bite, a shrimp po' boy sandwich, looked awesome.
Embrace Sweets, Los Angeles, sold at LA Farmer's Markets
- Caramelized banana Nutella brownie: very fudgy.
- Chocolate chip cookie: soft and nice flavor, but I think it was made with shortening.
We purposely avoided two of our favorite food trucks/carts: Curry Up Now out of San Francisco, because we ate it twice the week before, and Big Ass Sandwiches out of Portland, because we ate it twice during our weekend trip to Portland last month. We had to give other places a fighting chance.
I highly recommend taking a good look at which vendors you don't want to miss before you arrive. There where so many more we wanted to try but couldn't get to. Both events benefited various worthy Bay Area nonprofits.
We pre-purchased a $50 passport, which I would recommend it if you're planning to try a lot of different foods. It gets you one free drink, a souvenir passport that lists every vendor, and a "secret snack," which was a random bite of quesadilla courtesy of Mission tortillas, an event sponsor.
Me and my better half arrived at about 10:30am, 30 minutes before the event started and had a chance to walk up and down before the place became packed (with 50,000 people!) Right at 11am the place was filled but the crowd was generally mild, smiling and sedated from all of the delicious food in their bellies. We lasted about 3.5 hours there and here's what we tried:
Azalina's, based out of San Francisco, sold at various SF markets
- Malaysian fried peanut taco (small bite): The only vegan item we saw and pretty darn good. A fried flour tortilla with a peanut, tofu filling.
- Penang curry bomb buns: two curry shredded chicken sandwiches on deep fried rolls (big plate). This is the only place where we got the small and big bite plates, they both had a spicy pickle topping and a creamy sauce. This was the last thing we tried and our favorite. Friend and flavorful!
The Peached Tortilla, Austin TX, Food Truck
- Pad Thai taco (small plate): a chicken taco with peanut sauce, bean sprouts on a thick flour tortilla.
Nettie's Crab Shack, San Francisco, Restaurant
- Dungenous crab devilled egg (small plate): A perfectly hard boiled egg with plenty of creamy crab filling. Our breakfast appetizer.
Flour + Water, San Francisco, Restaurant
- Fried peppers and corn (small bite): a let-down, I think there big bite plate, a Porchetta sandwich was meant to be the star. It is still supposed to be an amazing restaurant that I'm dieing to go to.
Zella's Soulful Kitchen, based out of Oakland, Caterer, also sold at Whole Foods in Noe Valley
- Jacked Up Hush Puppies (small bite): just regular ol' hush puppies but they were good. The big bite, a shrimp po' boy sandwich, looked awesome.
Embrace Sweets, Los Angeles, sold at LA Farmer's Markets
- Caramelized banana Nutella brownie: very fudgy.
- Chocolate chip cookie: soft and nice flavor, but I think it was made with shortening.
We purposely avoided two of our favorite food trucks/carts: Curry Up Now out of San Francisco, because we ate it twice the week before, and Big Ass Sandwiches out of Portland, because we ate it twice during our weekend trip to Portland last month. We had to give other places a fighting chance.
I highly recommend taking a good look at which vendors you don't want to miss before you arrive. There where so many more we wanted to try but couldn't get to. Both events benefited various worthy Bay Area nonprofits.
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| 11:30 am |
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| crates, zip ties and plywood bar tables |
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| Seoul Sausage guys. Fear the beard! |
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| Jello art |
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| The Peached Tortilla truck |
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| Pad Thai taco |
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| Look at that grip! (trip to Portland) |
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| Big Ass Vegetarian sandwich |
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