Food for Your Face: Dry Winter Skin Edition

Faced with another avocado that went bad (I don't know why but lately I keep forgetting that we have avocado until it's too late) I hit up Google to see if there was another use for old avocados. Lo and behold, face and hair masks came up in more than one search result.

It has been a particularly rough winter - coldest in my lifetime for sure - which has been wreaking havoc on my face, hands, and other skin that gets exposed to the bitter wind chills. (Seriously, Minnesota has experienced 53 days at or below zero degrees F. Fifty-three. Yikes.)

I did a little more research with Google to see what else I can do to help my poor face. I wound up doing a sugar scrub - just sugar and a little water - to exfoliate first. Then I cracked open one of the avocados and spread a bunch of it on my face. I let it sit and absorb into my skin for 10 minutes or so, then gently wiped my face clean with a warm washcloth. I ended with spreading coconut oil all over my face as well. I've been using coconut oil as a hand/cuticle moisturizer for a while now and love it, and have used it on my face as well.

Result: fantastic! My face is soft and supple, not dry and irritated. I am totally going to continue to use up the avocado on my face!

I always wanted to use more food products as face cleansers, and look forward to making different masks I found online.

Bonus! Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache [Vegan Mofo]

Another post for Day 6 of Vegan Month of Food! And it's dessert again!

These were freaking delicious...because they are cupcakes, duh! Basically from VCTOW, with some help from this recipe on the PPK.

One more photo:

Veganomicon Cafe-Style Lemon Bars [Vegan Mofo]

Welcome to Day 6 of Vegan MoFo!

These were really interesting and nerve-wracking to make. It was the first time I worked with agar agar. These were really delicious, and the recipe comes from the excellent Veganomicon cookbook.

They turned out great & held together really well. They were gobbled down by Mr. Coconut as well as co-workers.

Here's the whole pan:

Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies & Soft Cookie Cannonballs [Vegan Mofo]

It's the last day of Vegan Month of Food
!!!! It's been a blast doing this and I am already excited for next year, haha. I have also been thinking of different themes or putting more thought into next year's event. I'll have more on my reflections and recapping what I did this month tomorrow. Today, let's talk cookies.

Ah, cookies. I LOVE cookies. All types, you can't really go wrong. In my house, there is a great cookie debate. I like a crispy cookie to dunk into milk and then devour. I could easily put away a sleeve of Oreos. Lots of people prefer chewy, soft cookies, but I only like those if they are fresh from the oven. Mr. Coconut, on the other hand, prefers chewy, tender cookies that melt in your mouth, no milk necessary.

Did you know? Target's Market Pantry brand chocolate chip cookies are accidentally vegan. Both the crispy and chewy varieties. They taste like Chips Ahoy! I've actually found quite a few generic brands of cookies that are accidentally vegan.

No store bought cookie can top the wonderfulness of homemade, though. This is mainly because I love eating cookie dough, though.

I had a craving for cookies and happened to have all the necessary ingredients on hand, so I made THIS recipe for chocolate chip cookies from The PPK. The only thing I changed was using cornstarch instead of tapioca flour. It worked great. I used
Ghirardelli chocolate chips - the semi-sweet variety.


I must say that the dough felt a bit oily, and maybe next time I make these I'll try cutting back on the fat and subbing in flax seeds or something. I baked these for a little longer than I should have so they were quite crispy. I loved them

Since I have a small cookie sheet and could only bake 8 at a time, I pulled out my donut hole maker and went to work on delicious cookie "cannonballs". I had to cook these for much longer than the machine wanted to, about 2-3 "rounds" to get my desired texture. The cannonballs turned out great and the best of both worlds: firm, almost crisp outside with a chewy, tender inside.

I then took whatever remaining dough was left and made 3 smallish cookies and baked them in the toaster oven just to see what would happen. The cookies were still great! These were a little chewier than the oven-baked ones, mainly because I baked them a shorter amount of time.

A close up of a cannonball:



And a close up of a cookie:

Accidentally Vegan: Keebler Jumbo Fudge Sticks

I found these in my day to day perusing of junk food as being accidentally vegan. These are the peanut butter flavor, as opposed to the original vanilla flavor. I much prefer the PB flavor. To be clear, the mini fudge sticks are not vegan, but the jumbo ones are. Weird, I know.

Not healthy in the least, but a nice sugar bomb.

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls!

Wow. I spent all day today making cinnamon rolls. I used a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum. Wow, it was a LOT of butter, almost too much, but that was the point. After studying a lot of different recipes on the internet, I decided that this one was a good place to start. It seemed the most like a butter-egg-dairy style recipe you might find from a bakery.

I learned a lot of lessons from this experiment that will help me with future baking, in particular with cinnamon or other rolls. I am excited to try to make a healthier version of these while still having similar taste.

In short, these were AMAZINGLY delicious. They are also AMAZINGLY high in calories, just like the ones made with animal products. They clock in at around 650 calories without any icing/frosting. Very indulgent.