Sunday, September 13, 2009

Long Day

You know when you have one of those days where you wake up with one thing to do but before you know it you've done 20 things and your day is done?  Had one of those days yesterday.  Started out with a trip to Viejas.  On my way there I passed a number of signs about the farm stand across the freeway.  On my way home I stopped just to see what they had.  I thought I might get some avocados but probably nothing else.  Boy was I wrong.















Avocados, a mango, strawberries, red peppers, green beans, roma tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes and oranges for under $20!

I was really excited about this place.  Some of the produce was imported but most of it came from neighboring farms.  I believe it was all organic as well.  They also had some fresh made banana bread and other dried goods.

There were also a lot of things I didn't get: melons, plums, peaches, nectarines, potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, some bargain baskets of produce, grapes, garlic and lots of others!

Getting all of this along with what I had leftover from last weeks run to the farmer's market meant I didn't need to go to the market this morning.  I really liked this place and wouldn't mind going back except that it is about a 20-25? minute drive from my house where the farmer's market is probably about 15 minutes.  Something to consider.

After leaving this fruit stand I was going to stop at Sprouts in El Cajon since it was on my way home and get some powdered sugar, canned pumpkin and chocolate chips for some baking projects I had planned.  Of course it couldn't be as simple as just going in and getting the 3 things I needed.  First I had to think of a few more things that I should stock up on since I was at the store anyway, then it turned out they didn't have canned pumpkin.  So a trip to Henry's soon followed. 

Before I left the house that morning I had been googling how to make strawberry lemonade and came across a couple of sites with strawberry lemon cupcakes.  I had thought this was an awesome way to use the rest of the strawberry's that I had.  When I left the house that was the one thing I wanted to do for the day and hence the need for the powdered sugar.  I had hoped to make them early in the day to share with a few people but after 3 stops for groceries that idea went completely out the window.

At Henry's I got an onion, a jalapeno, 2 serrano peppers and cilantro to use with the roma tomatoes to make salsa.

 
Usually I make salsa in my food processor but this time I wanted to make it chunkier and so I chopped ALL of this by hand.  Took forever but  it is a lot of salsa and should last a while!

 In the middle of making the salsa my boyfriend came out to the kitchen and informed me that we were out of hummus.  I put a hold on the salsa and got to makin hummus. 
I also started roasted the 2 red peppers and some garlic to make some roasted red pepper hummus.
 
 Once the salsa was finished and the produce was put away I got to making the cupcakes.  I used a recipe from the Vegan Joy of Baking for Vanilla Cupcakes and then added a little lemon zest to them.  The recipe said it would make 10-12 cupcakes so I greased up 12 and filled them up.  As I did I thought they seemed awfully full but figured that was how they were supposed to be.  They were supposed to bake for 20-30 minutes but I decided to check after about 5 and I am so glad I did.  They had started rising and spreading over the whole muffin pans.  I quickly greased another 6 muffin pan and scooped some from each into the new ones.  They had already started to firm up a little!  Disastre!  In the end there was cupcake batter all over the top of the pans and it was quite a mess.  They ended up baking 30 minutes and turned out mostly ok.  While they cooled I mixed up some Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance and made the red pepper hummus.
  After the cupcakes were cool I removed them from the muffin pans which was not so easy since there was so much burnt on mess.  I then had to wash the pans so I could use them to bake the muffins I had already mixed up.  While they dried I finally sat down to eat some hummus and pita bread.  At this point I was starving!  All I had eaten was this breakfast and a quarter of a granola bar I brought with me to Viejas.  And I had set out to make one thing: cupcakes!
After refueling a little I put the muffins in the oven and got to work frosting my cupcakes.  The recipe I had glanced at online said to poke holes in the cupcakes and then create a syrup of lemon juice and powdered sugar to pour over the top.  The frosting was made from a little earth balance, powdered sugar, strawberries and a little water.  They didn't turn out nearly as I'd pictured them, but they were beautiful and delicious none the less.  Now I just need to take them to share.

Today I did a couple of noteworthy things but I will leave that for another post.  Thanks for reading!
 
Also, I'm not so sure if I wanna keep this adsense thing going.  The add that keeps showing up on my blog is Pillsburry and that is not a product I support...I might have to drop it.  Don't know that I even need it anyway. 


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