This year I was inspired to make homemade chocolates to give as gifts — inspired by a handful of bloggers featuring just such homemade treats, but inspired the most by Hell Yeah It’s Vegan!’s Chocolate Coconut Cups. Click over and check out those yummy looking pictures!

I started by improvising a double boiler. I brought about two inches of water to a boil in a pot, and placed a metal bowl over the top. (The trick is to trap all the steam without letting the top bowl touch the water.) I filled it up with a 9 ounce bag of semi-sweet vegan chocolate chips.

This melted up pretty quickly and smelled delicious.

I prepared my mini muffin pan with mini cupcake papers.

I spread a bit of chocolate around the bottom of each with a spoon and then popped the tray into the fridge for ten minutes while I used Hell Yeah It’s Vegan’s recipe for the coconut mixture.

On top of each chocolate base, I placed a ball of the coconut mixture. Then I covered each in plenty more chocolate and popped the tray back into the fridge.

The result: tiny little vegan Mounds! Some looked sort of messy, but I tried one and can vouch for the yumminess factor of all.

I filled up a pretty jar…

And wrapped it up! Voila. I don’t know about you, but I would absolutely love to get a gift like this.

I’ll be making more chocolates over the next week and trying out more recipes. I’m pretty darn happy with how these turned out though! Next up… something with peanut butter…

It wasn’t too long ago that I fell in love with the recipe for Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. When I first had a go at these cookies, I halved the recipe, thinking I’d never need that many cookies — and they were gone within an hour! This time I followed the recipe exactly, with one exception — I added red and green sprinkles, since I gave them out as holiday gifts at the office. I snuck a few myself, as well…

Seriously, if you haven’t made them yet — you’ve got to! The teachers at work were raving over them, and a few asked to take some home “for their families”…

After my cookie baking, I decided to go for scones again. Without Fionnuala’s influence, my scones sort of fell flat though… literally. Instead of rising, they spread out. Fine by me, because they still taste amazing, but they’re definitely not as pretty. They’re also huge.

I used this recipe for Brown Sugar Scones from Vegan Visitor. I made one change — I added a heaping pinch of cinnamon. It just seemed like a good idea, and it was. I also didn’t sprinkle them with extra brown sugar before they went in the oven because… I was out. Oh well. They are fab, and I have already consumed a couple, topped with cinnamon raisin peanut butter. Yum.

I’m definitely going to keep trying my hand at scones until I’ve perfected them. These have been a hit, but I really want to try Haiku Tofu’s Pumpkin Cinnamon Scones soon — just need to get me some pumpkin!

As promised, I have plenty of pictures of the baking extravaganza I was so lucky to share with my good friend Fionnuala of Basil Exposition. Fionnuala is an old hand with a pastry crust and has really inspired me to bake more. Cupcakes are one thing, but these mince pies and scones felt like real desserts.

One of Fionnuala’s several jars of mince. The idea of mince sort of grossed me out at first. This is definitely one Christmas tradition with which I have not grown up, and I can’t normally take too much dried fruit at once. It’s a texture thing. But this was actually rather pleasant-tasting. Must be the booze.

Fionnuala’s beautifully constructed ball of pie crust. She whipped this up while I was still waiting for my tea to cool. We decided to let it chill in the fridge for a bit and get to work on the scones.

In the meantime, she also gave me a sneak peak at her Christmas pudding. Another tradition of which I know nothing, and, truthfully, I don’t think I’m ready to go this far. A little bit of dried fruit at a time. Baby steps.

I actually helped form these scones. I was a little perplexed as to what scones actually are, and I was delighted to discover that they’re basically our biscuits (while their word biscuit actually means cookie), only sweet. The dough was pretty delish. And we just used soymilk and vegan butter, so the replacements were a cinch. I think this surprised Fionnuala a bit — but vegan living is really not that difficult.

While the scones were baking, we formed the mince pies. She shaped the shells and I filled them with the sticky fruit mixture. The stars are her touch!

Then while the mince pies were baking, we sat down to scones and tea!

They were perfectly complemented by her family friend’s homemade raspberry jam. My very first scone! Delish.

Pretty soon we had a kitchen full of baked goods.

I think these little guys turned out quite well.

Two for me and two for my lovely friend. I was so glad to be able to share her home and baking talents for a morning. And I think I actually am acquiring a taste for mince pies. Perhaps I will even try making my own. The scones did win me over though — I’m going to try to come up with some uniquely American variations. Peanut butter scones… Mmmm…

Still one of my favorite restaurants in the world, Cornucopia was my go-to choice for eating out when I lived in Dublin. It’s amazingly cheap compared to other restaurants in the city, and I’m not exaggerating when I say the food is some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Needless to say, I tried to get my fill of this wonderful place during my eight day stay. Some days I went for lunch and dinner. And dessert. Not ashamed.

If my memory serves me, this particular bowl of soup was some sort of butterbean and roasted garlic concoction and was heavenly.

Spelt bread.

My travel reading/dinner companion. I highly recommend the book and the food.

The “two salad” option is only 4.50 (euros) and is more than filling enough for dinner. This was tabbouleh and a barley-pumpkin-pea-spinach salad that was super yummy.

I did do things aside from eat last week… I spent a lot of time at Trinity. Having missed out on the typical undergrad experience at NYU, I have an affinity for quaint college campuses, buildings congregating around unbelievably green squares.

I managed to charm my way into a week-long reader’s ticket to the library. Ahh, college days…

Toward the end of my trip, I spent a lovely morning at my good friend Fionnuala’s house, where we made vegan scones and mince pies. (Well, she’s the baker in this story. She did most of the work and I got to play along!) But the treats we made deserve a post all their own, so I’ll keep you in suspense for a bit. Til then!

P.s. If you’re interested, you can take a look at Cornucopia’s fabulous cookbook, which is for sale on Amazon. I reviewed it here, and I can attest that it has been a source of endless inspiration — definitely a worthy purchase if you’re looking for an awesome gift…

Well, I did what I came back here to do! I am now officially in possession of my MA degree. My lovely friend Fionnuala came along to the ceremony to support me — and snap pictures!

In addition to making the move from graduand to graduate, I’ve also been eating some excellent food. Saturday night, I had the pleasure of dining with a group of some of favorite people in the world at a fantastic Lebanese restaurant, The Cedar Tree.

The close-up pictures of the food didn’t turn out so well thanks to atmospheric lighting, but I’ll have you know that my plate is full of delicious hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, and falafel. And pita, of course.

And you can’t have Lebanese without good red wine! Dublin might be known for its Guinness, but I’ve been trying to be classy and sticking with wine since I landed. That might have to change before the end of the week, though… I’ll keep you posted.

Grafton Street full of lights and holiday shoppers…

I love how festive it is. I never thought to document this when I was living here, but now I feel inclined to be a tourist and snap pictures of everything.

More to come soon…

I’ve been down for the count this week because of a nasty upper respiratory infection (thanks, swine flu!), so I haven’t been in the mood to cook (or eat) much. If there is one thing I really hate, it’s losing my appetite. I’ve been living off multi-grain Cheerios and So Delicious ice cream for days, and trying to fit in greens, protein, and orange juice when the thought didn’t make me nauseous. I’m feeling like I might be on the up-swing, though, which is very good thing because I leave for Dublin tonight!

So this is just to say, I’m bringing my camera with me and promise to be a very good blogger while I’m abroad. Stay tuned….

I eventually decided to frost my holiday cakes and serve them up for Thanksgiving dessert. I made the frosting out of Earth Balance, Tofutti cream cheese, and powdered sugar, and I sprinkled each with cocoa and cinnamon. Yum…

Before Thanksgiving dinner, we took some family photos. And by family photos, I means my sister and I took pictures of each other with our puppies. Barbara and me…

Jordan and Jackson…

Sometime between the photo shoot and dinner my sister and I decided to take candid shots of every butt in our family. I might have had a little too much wine for someone just recovering from swine flu. Whoops. Then we set the table. Note the dessert buffet.

Vegan options included a nice pretty salad.

And vegan stuffing with apples, walnuts, raisins, and dates. There wasn’t really a way to make this picture look pretty, but it sure tasted good. Stuffing is sort of always hideous looking, am I right?

I made a ‘lasagna’ dish to pass that ended up being a hit. I layered spaghetti squash, tomato basil sauce (I used an organic store-bought one), and my cheesy cashew-spinach spread (only this time I added lemon juice and didn’t soak the cashews). Three layers of each, and baked in the oven on 350 for about half an hour. Perfecto! I am for sure making this again.

My plate… Salad, half a sweet potato, a bit of stuffing, and plenty of lasagna.

And of course I had cake for dessert. All in all, a lovely, silly Thanksgiving dinner with my lovely, silly family. I’m thankful for many things, first and foremost that my baby sister is home for the holidays. Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving…

I have to say a huge thank you to my friend Joe for these awesome holiday-themed silicone mini baking dishes. What an inspired gift. And yesterday I had the perfect opportunity to use them when I was halfway through mixing the ingredients for a bundt cake and realized that I’d lost my bundt pan. Plan B: holiday cakes.

The pumpkin is my favorite because there are little ridges in the dish that give the cake that authentic pumpkin feel…

How cute are these?

I will definitely be busting out the tree and heart molds again over the next couple of months, but today I’m celebrating every fall/winter holiday.

I haven’t yet been inspired as to how to frost these, so suggestions are welcome. I’m not a fan of sugary frostings or icings myself, and I might just leave them as is and serve them with non-dairy ice cream. We’ll see!

Oh, and how does the cake taste? Fabulous, of course, because I got the recipe from FatFree Vegan Kitchen! It’s super moist and spongey, and I definitely recommend it.

I always mess up cookies. It’s true. I have a reputation. If I bring cookies to a get together, word usually spreads fast, and heaven help the poor soul who didn’t hear the whispers in time and actually tries to eat one of my fiber-full treats. 

That’s the thing: I can’t stop myself from trying to make cookies healthy. I tell myself that I’ll use wheat flour instead of regular, add plenty of flax, switch out the oil or butter for applesauce, cut the sugar by a third, and maybe throw in some protein powder or crushed bran flakes for good measure — and these things are going to be fantastic!

Cookies don’t work that way, apparently. You can’t healthy up cookies if you want to have a crowd pleaser. I happily eat my dense fiber cookies every time I make them, but I’m the only one. And I’m sort of sick of eating cookies by myself.

So to whom else would I turn but Isa and Terry? This recipe for Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles is from their book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but they’ve generously posted it on the ppk so that we can all have a taste of the book’s goodness — and then buy it! It’s for sure on my list, because this recipe turned out gloriously. (And you’ll all be proud — I followed it to a T. No substitutions here!)

These cookies did not last, and they are incredibly easy to make, so arm yourself with some cayenne and go for it.