I Love Testing!!

I cannot stress enough how much I looooove being a recipe tester!! With Terry's Vegan Latina/Viva Vegan! finished testing, I am so glad there was Queen V's Vegan Bakesale cookbook testing to take its place! I am also still working on testing recipes for Bianca's (of the awesome Vegan Crunk blog) southern cookbook, Cookin' Crunk. Both are tons of fun, and have been providing me with dinners and desserts to keep me....and my guests....happy!

Last night I made recipes from Cookin' Crunk testing for dinner: BBQ Tempeh and Carrot Sandwich with Poppyseed Coleslaw. It was delicious! To give the "pulled pork" texture, there are carrots mixed in with the bbq sauce and tempeh mixture....genius!! I love slaw on sandwiches, to add that messy, crunchy, cool, tasty element to something warm and spicy. Yum!!! The sauce was the Memphis BBQ Sauce, also from Bianca's test recipes...very sweet and tangy, which is simply awesome!!!!Dessert was a Vegan Bakesale test recipe: Espresso-Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake, drizzled with Chocolate Ganache. Ooooooh my goooosh was this good!!! A great balance of cakey-ness and crumbliness in the cake portion, perfect Coffee Struesel Topping (!!) and double perfect chocolate-y goodness poured all over the top. And it was not too sweet at all, which can sometimes happen in a lesser coffee cake. This was, of course, enjoyed with some fair trade, locally-roasted Broadway Cafe Coffee! Yay for good dessert and good coffee!Another test recipe from Vegan Bakesale I made this week was the Spelt Jam Thumbprint Cookies. The dough has jam baked into it and is made with spelt flour, so it has a very distinct flavor that is almost healthy tasting...and it's good! Then, there's the double whammy of jam (jammy? no, too much.) in the thumbprint. These tasted a bit like the Girl Scout Cookies that had raspberry jelly in them, but better of course! :)