Happy Birthday to my Baby!

Today my little guy is a year old! It's amazing it's already been a year since this!

In honor of his birthday we had a little party and I tried out some new recipes. I thought I would share them with you as a little birthday treat. Our friends and party goers have many different dietary needs, so I cooked accordingly. We had pizza made in the bread machine, which was super awesome. Then we had cupcakes. I made Vanilla Cupcakes from Martha Stewart with Billy's Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. I only wish I hadn't mixed them as much as the recipe said because they came out a little dense.

Then I made orange cupcakes from the Vanilla Cupcake recipe by adding orange zest, substituting orange flavoring for vanilla flavoring, and substituting 1/2 c of milk and 1/4 c of orange juice for the 3/4 c of milk . For the frosting I made half the recipe and substituted orange flavoring for vanilla flavoring and orange juice for the milk. They came out tasting like orange cream soda, which was very tasty!

I made vegan chocolate cupcakes from this recipe, which is based on a depression era recipe that didn't use eggs to save on money. I substituted the cocoa and sugar for 3/4 c of Penzey's hot chocolate mix (also works with their mint chocolate mix) and 3/4 c of sugar. Then I used this recipe for the frosting. I substituted safflower oil for the vegan butter. I got a bar of 100% cacao for the chocolate part. Because of my diet I can't eat chocolate, but my husband and our guests said they were very delicious. Though probably shouldn't be eaten too late at night because of all of the chocolate!

We have also joined the Hood River Organic CSA, so I will be sharing more recipes with you as we try out new vegetables. I already have a couple of new favorites, which I'll make sure to share with you soon.

I will be at the Abernethy Spring Fiber Sale this Saturday in Oregon City from 10am - 4pm. Make sure to stop by and check out the booth!