Last night I went to a halloween party. I decided to bring some cupcakes, so I’d have something to eat, just in case. I made 2 dozen, half chocolate, half vanilla.

I deputized my houseguest Tom to spread on the orange icing.

Afterwards, I drizzled ganache onto the cupcakes. I had intended to paint ghosts on them, but my piping tip wasn’t fine enough.

Tom sampled the finished results, and gave it his seal of approval!

Sometimes they’re just what I need.

Fall baked goods season has officially launched. Fire up your ovens!

I picked up a copy of Veganomicon while at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival on Saturday (signed by her Isaness!), and cooked my first meal with it tonight. Sauteed spinach and tomatoes, chickpea-quinoa pilaf, and baked marinated asian tofu.

Everything was incredible, and it was surprisingly smooth.I’ve got pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes baking in the oven right now. Once they are done, I’ll get some rest and frost them in the morning.

A little 4″ inch cake I baked as a gift.

Not dead! I’ve been a delightful combination of too sick to cook, and too busy to do much adventuresome eating.

I wrote a bit before on my weight, which is relevant today as I had an official weigh-in and body fat test. Today at noon I measured 136.5 pounds (what I expected) and 9% bodyfat (quite a bit lower than I had imagined). What this means is that in the past few months I’ve put on a lot of muscle and removed the fat, which leaves me lean, if not mean.

While 9% is fine, I don’t really want to get much leaner. My trainer is great, and is completely on board with me being a vegan. We talked about ways to make sure I can gain a bit more mass, which involves a lot of protein and fats, and of course lots of quality calories! Something I hadn’t considered was having a significant amount of protein before bed. She’s going to do some research in the next few days and see if there are any other ways I can tweak my diet to make sure I don’t waste away. It’s an ongoing process.