Learning Lessons

On Friday night, one of my best friends from high school and her boyfriend joined us for dinner at our home. We hadn't seen each other in almost five years, there was so much to catch up on!! Such an occasion called for a fancy dessert (and dinner, but I've already blogged about what I made in previous posts), the Caramel Machiatto Cheesecake from My Sweet Vegan.

Now you'll notice that there really isn't anything that looks like caramel on this cheesecake.... well, that's because I had a small disaster with the caramel sauce. Not sure if my arrowroot powder was bad, or it boiled too long, or if it was using light brown sugar instead of dark, my the sauce hardened like a rock in seconds. Boo hoo. So, in a pinch I used chocolate sauce from the fridge, so this is actually a chocolate machiatto cheesecake. I also learned a valuable lesson in the difference between regular and instant coffee (forgive me, I'm not a coffee-drinker), luckily just in time. This cheesecake was so creamy and smooth with a moderate coffee flavor. The chocolate cookie crust and the vanilla cream top layer complimented the cheesecake well. Oh, and another lesson ... although I painstakingly took the time to drizzle the chocolate on in an elaborate, fancy design, after putting it back in the fride, it ran all over the place! Next time I'll wait until just before serving to put on the finishing touches.

Needing to use some leftover tempeh (from tempeh nori rolls for appetizers) and celery (yikes! I never use celery, but it's in the chickpea tart I made for dinner), I decided to imitate a chicken salad I used to get from Whole Foods back in pre-vegan days.
The recipe is simple... I just steamed the tempeh for about 13 minutes, added nayonaise, fresh chopped dill, white pepper, chopped celery, red grapes, and walnuts (all in whatever amounts I deemed necessary). This was yummy by itself (as I had it for lunch today), but would probably be good in nestled between toasted whole wheat bread as well.

In other news... we had quite the warm weather here in Houston this weekend. I was tempted last night to turn on the AC. John and I went for a long walk along the bayou and I actually got a bit sunburned on my shoulders (since I had to dig out a tanktop to wear). Guess I should extend my resolution of sunscreen on the face daily to any exposed body part... lesson learned.