Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes. I haven’t eaten one yet because I have some sort of funk. Probably the flu that’s been going around the restaurant for nearly two weeks. Why me? Why now?

Anyway, these are from the same Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook and are actually vegan as I had all of the vegan ingredients on hand this time…only because a friend from work had to bake an organic dessert for a grad school class assignment a couple of weeks ago and chose to make the Coconut Lime Cupcakes I made last month. She’d had one then and loved them so much that she wanted to make them herself. So she bought some of the ingredients and left them here for me to use in exchange for the use of my kitchen, supplies and expertise.

They’re lemony cupcakes with lemony buttercream frosting and a blueberry compote. I used frozen organic wild blueberries from Trader Joe’s since blueberries aren’t exactly in season right now…yes, I can find them at the grocery store but they’re not little wild ones nor are they cheap. Unrelated side note: the Tropicana lemons I used for these did not contain seeds. This made my very happy since I didn’t have to scoop them out or use the mesh strainer. Also, due to all these cupcakes, my new Microplane grater is getting a lot of use. What would I have done without it?

The pictures for these cupcakes aren’t the best ones I’ve taken…mostly because I was in a hurry. The sun was getting ready to duck behind the trees and I didn’t know when I’d be home for a daylight picture in the next couple of days (little did I know that the flu would strike after dinner and that I’d spend today at home instead of working both lunch and dinner bartending!). So…I didn’t set up the tripod and most of the pictures I took were fuzzy and/or dark…at least I got a few good ones.

Pesto Pasta Salad. As mentioned on Flickr, this is the ONLY thing for which I condone the existence of Miracle Whip. Pasta salad and pasta salad only. I stand firm on that. It almost embarasses me to buy it at the grocery store and I only buy the smallest jar they sell.

Anyway, this is long since gone. It’s not quite as good as the Pesto Chicken Salad but it’s still okay.

I’ve recently decided that I really like roasted red peppers. This week, I used a jar of them in this pasta salad, in the quiche-like Mushroom Pie and in a mango salsa I made last night to eat with shrimp tacos. Buying a jar of them was sadly far cheaper than it would have been to buy the equivalent amount of red peppers fresh. I’d gladly roast them myself if they didn’t cost $2 each.

I’ve finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and moved on to The Omnivore’s Dilemna. I probably shouldn’t be reading all these food books in the dead of winter when I can’t do too much to change my purchasing and eating habits. If it were May and the Farmer’s Market were open, I could do lots. I need to force myself to the Farmer’s Market once it is open to buy fresh produce every week.

As a result of these books, the biggest thing I’ve learned is this: corn is evil. Not corn in its pure form. That’s fine. I’m talking corn as food for every animal we eat whether they should be eating it or not and corn as corn syrup and a million other things in our daily food. Yuck.

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