Vintage Adventures

Howdy! I'm a crafty gal living in the Golden State of California; all about vintage clothes, swing dancing, knitting, cooking, books
and adventures!

Monday, October 12, 2009

{Coffee: black juice of life}

Everyone knows that Scandinavians love coffee.
My family comes from Norway
Therefore, we drink coffee.
A lot of it.
I've been drinking it since I was twelve and it didn't stunt my growth.. I'm 5' 10".
Anyways..
Trader Joe's has it some good coffee!
 
Their bay blend ($5.99 for 12 oz) is dark, dark and dark.
Very reminiscent if the coffees I would order at cafes, growing up in the bay area of California (San Francisco).
It is a blend of Mexican high grown and Colombian excelso beans roasted extra dark.It's like coffee to the tenth power!
 
I've been hooked on the Scandinavian blend ($6.99 for 13 oz) since I discovered it last winter.
This one is a combination of medium and dark roasted beans.
The dark beans hail from Colombia and Peru, while the medium beans hail from the Dominican Republic
 
Last winter I also came across gingerbread coffee!
There is actually real ginger and spices mixed in with the beans.
Once brewed, cloves and ginger mingle with the coffee-aroma.
Very Christmas-y.
 
I've always wanted to visit New Orleans.
I find the architecture, history, culture, cuisine and cemeteries very interesting!
So when I spotted this Cafe Du Monde chicory coffee ($5.20 for 15 oz) at 99 Ranch Asian Market, I just had to buy it.
I would have preferred that the beans were whole.. I love grinding my own coffee beans.
But they weren't and tasted great anyways!
Spicy coffee.
 




This is where my coffee lives.. inherited from my Mom..

Sunday, October 11, 2009

{Birthday bleach}

Hooray! Today is my birthday and I'm 22!
It's kind of odd..
When i was little I never thought that I would live to be 20.
It just seemed so far away.
But now i am beyond that
and fine
 

I baked my birthday cake
Still need to ice it though.Got the recipe from wholefoods.com
vegan maple-almond cake.

I baked two circular cakes because I needed enough cake to carve into the shape of an owl.
I tasted a scrap of cake and..
I loved it!
It wasn't tooth-shatteringly sweet.
The recipe doesn't even call for sugar.. maple syrup is the sweetener.



Saturday, October 10, 2009

{Whole foods wonders}

Trip to whole foods was a success!All of these recipes can be found on wholefoods.com!
I purchased the ingredients to make:
-mushroom ceviche
-chocolate pumpkin truffles
-vegan tiramisu
-savory wild rice forestiere
-maple pecan birthday cake
 
Along with a pumpkin spice latte (to die for), vegan gumdrops, my favorite dorset cereal (berries and cherries), pumpkin butter and a few other things.
It was great to talk to the employees there.. when I used to live in Hillcrest I went there so often I got to know all of the employees.

Made mushroom ceviche for dinner.
The real reason I wanted to make ceviche is because of the character on Chowder.
I really like ceviche's leotard and voice and how he's hopelessly in love with Panini.

The actual food ceviche is a citrus-marinated seafood dish hailing from Peru.
In the non-vegan version, the meat was marinated in a citrus-based mixture and allowed to marinate for 3 hours.
The long marinating time allowed the meat to absorb the citrus, pickling it.
In the recipe that I made, the dryness of the mushrooms worked perfectly to absorb the juice.
The zucchini was crisp and the chives were fragrant.
The only thing that went wrong was that I didn't have any lemon juice so I used the juice of half a lime.
Arranged the ceviche in a dish, ate it with chips and listened to awesome 80's music while sewing Viking garb.

I still watch arthur so I bought this to make and eat during the program.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

{Day 1}

3 days until my birthday, which means 20 until halloween.

tomorrow i get to visit my old second home.. whole foods!
i have 5 new recipes to try, including birthday cake
plus veganizing more recipes from the scandinavian cookbook that my grandma gave me
potatoes and lingonberries = good stuff