I have made it my entire life without making a cake, nor really wanting to.  Don't get me wrong, I like to eat cake but I don't have a lot of patience in the kitchen.  I am also a vegan and sometimes the recipes for cakes just look so darn tedious.

A few months ago I found a beautiful "Super Epic Rainbow Cake" online when looking over food photography sites.  My daughter casually snuck a peek over my shoulder and exclaimed, "Oh my!  I want a cake just like that for my birthday..." and it became obvious that my time had come. 

So, late last Saturday I armed myself with a married friend's best kitchen equipment and got over seperating the egg whites and dealing with so MANY sticks of butter and baked a six-layer rainbow cake with lemon swiss meringue buttercream filling (via blogger Kaitlin Flannery of Whisk Kid's recipe) with great success.  I am happy to report that people oohed and aahed when the cake was cut to reveal the rainbow inside, no one gagged when they actually consumed the cake and that we only had one piece left by the end of the party.  My only disappointment was that the cake was gobbled up so fast that I wasn't even able to take a photo until the last piece. 

photo courtesy of julia simon

I ran across Julia Simon's blog, no face plate, last week while perusing one of my favorite food blogs, the kitchn, and found some really great vegan and vegetarian recipes.  Julia works as a personal chef in Charlotte doing gluten-free, vegetarian meal planning and prep and she is also working on a cookbook.  She is a vegetarian about eight months out of the year (due to her love of artisanal cheese) and chooses a vegan diet to cleanse the other four months out of the year.  Check out this super creative burrito sushi recipe Julia came up with.  Wow!

images courtesy of thekitchn.com

These vegan cupcakes from the kitchn are definitely going on my list for recipes to explore.  Yum!

A friend recently pointed me to this lovely Canadian food blog, butterfly food, and I asked permission from Ashley Colbourne, the lady behind the beautiful photos and blog, for permission to include her roasted beets recipe.  If you have not seen it, the blog is definitely worth a spin.

Check out this hummus vegetable pizza recipe from one of my favorite design blogs, poppytalk.  The recipe can easily be made vegan by leaving out the ricotta cheese.

The vegan chocolate mousse with a fresh berry compote and topped with a whipped coconut cream at Beyu Caffe in Durham is so rich and tasty.  It makes my old fave, the vegan mousse at Whole Foods, seem a bit bland.  Greg Cox reviewed the restaurant which does include several menu items for vegetarians and vegans.  See Greg's review here.

There are some really lovely recipes on one of my favorite design blogs, design sponge.  Check out this Fennel and Orange Salad.  It can be made vegan by leaving out the parmesan.

I thought I'd share a look behind-the-scenes at the healthy eating photo shoot that ran with today's story and recipes.  Andrea and I have to laugh when people approach us with the misconception that writing and shooting food is "glamorous."  Often, we are at one of our houses with Andrea working away on dishes and me moving around furniture and unwrapping borrowed dishes while we both fight off a gaggle of dogs just waiting for a moment of weakness on our part.  On this particular shoot, we were at my house and I had already shooed my 90-pound dog to the back yard.  This, of course, opened a window for my 7-pound mutt, Franny, to leap up on a kitchen chair between my feet and literally try to snatch a pancake from the plate I was shooting.  I caught her just before she dug into my styled dish but it was a close one.

Oh my, could a vegan girl's dream come true?  There are few things I crave since becoming vegan 14 years ago but mochi is one of them.  Now, Trader Joe's makes a coconut milk-based mochi in three flavors: chocolate, mango and coconut and they are excellent right down to the texture!

For a full list of all the vegan items sold at Trader Joe's visit their products page and click on the V for a PDF.

I usually don't think about eggnog too often considering that I've been a vegan for years.  However, this holiday season I have been hearing a lot of people raving about eggnog so when I ran across this vegan recipe on Post Punk Kitchen I thought I would share it.  Maybe a little late...or just in time for a New Year's party!