Happy Two Years xDadx !

Today is my dad's two year anniversary of being clean and sober. Yay xdadx !! Two years ago today was both one of the worst (by far) and best (maybe) days of my life. Worst because myself and my family finally had to deal with the fact that my father had been an emotionally abusive alcoholic and drug addict for most of my life, and that my family and my life as I knew it was teetering on the brink of collapse. If you would have asked me two years ago today, or really at in any point in my semi-adult life before this day, what my family would have looked like when I was twenty three I would have easily answered divorced, collapsed and with maybe a 50% chance that my father would have been in my life and alive.



However, it also ended up being one of the best days of my life. My dad spent the summer in rehab and I spent the summer at the bar (not adviseable!). In the two years since my dad went to rehab life has not been heaven, but nor has it been the hell that it was before. Each day is full of trials, but my family is slowly being to piece itself back to the 'together' that never really existed before. My dad and I are finally beginning to build a relationship based on love and respect for eachother rather than on tempers and tears. Occasionally, those old feelings of anger and resentment towards my father resurface, but I feel like over these two years I have gained the tools to work through these feelings, rather than just pushing them away and having them pushed away by others. For example, sometimes I resent the fact that he gained his sobriety so late in my "childhood" and feel like why could he not have done this when I was younger, when I really needed him. But, I have to remind myself that I can't change that, so its not really worth getting upset over. Also, if I ever have children, at least I know my children will have the best grandfather ever. Things are good for the most part. So, happy two years xdadx !



His friends at his Alcoholic Anonymous home group are having a little party for him tomorrow night, so I decided to make him a yummy vegan cake in celebration and thanks ! After much deliberation, I decided on a triple layer, decadent chocolate-banana marble cake with a peanut butter butter cream frostly and a chocolate ganache drizzle !

1. Bascially, I took the VCTOW Basic Chocolate Cupcake and Banana Cupcake recipes and doubled them both.

2. One completed, take the Basic Chocolate mix and remove one cup of batter. Pour remaining batter into a greased 9x16 pan. Take the Banana mix and remove one cup as well. Pour the remaining batter into another greased 9x16 pan.

3. Take the one cup of chocolate batter removed, and pour in vertical stripes into the banana mix. Slice a knife horizontally through the batter, at a 90 degree angle to the chocolate batter stripes. This creates a marbling effect. Repeat with the remaining banana batter and chocolate mix.

4. Bake as per VCTOW and ice with some Peanut Butter Buttercream.

5. Yumm !



Now, that its one am, and I have to be up at six, maybe I should go wash my hair and clothes for FOOOTBALLL tomorrow ! Yeah, football, I said it ! And American football at that !

Hello Again !

So, I became incredibly discouraged with blogging over the holidays and decided to give up. It felt weird just talking to myself. But I'm bored and back.
A few weeks ago I bought about three cups of hazelnuts with the intention of making the hazelnut cupcakes from VCTOW. Today, as I was cleaning out my designated "weird vegan stuff" cupboard in my parents kitchen I stumbled upon those long forgotten hazelnuts and decided that they must be put to use, immediatly ! I had no Mori-Nu or cupcake liners (shame!), so hazelnut cupcakes were clearly out the question. I couldn't think of anything else creative and quick to do with hazelnuts, so I decided on making a vegan version of Nutella. While in Europe this summer I was really, really dissapointed that Nutella wasn't vegan, as it was often the only condiment served with breakfast. I'm pretty sure there's a recipe for vegan Nutella in the 'Nom, but I lent my copy to one of my fathers friends a few weeks back. So, I decided just to make a recipe up!

Ingredients

2 cups of hazelnuts
1 cup of powdered (icing sugar)
1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
1 tsp of vanilla
some veggie oil


1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking pan and toast for about 15 minutes, or until the skins are allllmost black.

2. Once the hazelnuts are roasted, place in a clean kitchen towel (or youy mother brand new bathroom towels, as seen here), and rub, rub, rub until almost all of the skins are removed.



3. Place hazelnuts in a food processor, preferably one younger than yourself, and pulse ! At first the nuts will turn into a fine grind, but don't stop here ! Eventually the friction between the baldes and the nuts will make all of the yummy oils come out and it will become paste like.



4. Add icing sugar, vanilla and melted chips into your processor. Drizzle oil into the processor until the mixture becomes a peanut-buttery consistency. Yummm !





I can't wait to spread this on some crepes this weekend !! Mmmm !!

After making the hazelnut paste, I became aware of how similar to nut butters it was and how easy it would be to make homemade nut butters. Look for some yummy cashew butter soon !?