Cookbook challenge, week 3, day 1 - Vegan Brunch

OK, I was really kinda crap with last week's cookbook challenge. I'll try to be better with this week. That said, this week is Vegan Brunch, and there are so many recipes I want to try, I've decided to just do a few this week and then use this book as my VeganMoFo project.

We had one of Mike's friends over, so I made the Coffee Chip Muffins:


They both really liked them, though I wasn't all that keen. The coffee flavour was pretty subtle, and I was hoping for a lot more. I also thought they were a bit too chewy and not quite as fluffy as I would've liked. Still, all but two of them are gone (and those only survive because I put them away before Mike could eat them - they're going with him for his lunch tomorrow). I'm beginning to wonder if I'm so tired because I'm crashing from the caffeine. Anyway, I don't know if I'll make these again. Maybe if I'm having a coffee fan over. And I might double the coffee if I do.

Here's where my post gets sad. I wasn't feeling making dinner, but then I looked at the recipe for the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes and realised I had all the ingredients, and they don't take that long. So I got out my tempeh...and it smelled of fish that's about to go off. It was pretty disgusting. I don't know why it was like that. I didn't even realise tempeh could smell like that, especially since it still looked fine (though it's really hard to tell when tempeh's gone off just by looking). I really wish I'd bought the other package of it when I was at Real Foods.

So, I decided instead to make omelets with burnt broccoli, since we'd bought broccoli at the Farmers' Market yesterday. But when I cut up the broccoli, I kept finding bugs. If it had only been one or two, I would've been OK. But there were several, and I couldn't be sure that I'd gotten them all. I actually felt ill thinking about the possibility that I might end up eating a bug, so we decided that it was better to waste the money than for me to throw up my dinner. We ended up having cheeze omelets, which were still delicious.

Oh, and we finally managed to get to the Farmers' Market when the Engine Shed was there, so we got the delicious Gypsy Cream cookies they sell. These are oatmeal cookies with a coffee buttercream sandwiched between them. Nom! I really need to make these myself. Two packages of two sammich cookies each cost us £3. I'm sure I could make them for cheaper.