Vegan Peanut Butter Cupcakes w/Chocolate Ganache

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

3/4 cup soy milk
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup natural chunky peanut butter
1/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tbs dark molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp ground flaxseed (I doubt leaving this out will make a huge difference)
1 cup plus 2 tbs all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Mix soy mik with vinegar in a measuring cup and set aside to curdle.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the peanut butter, oil, sugar, molasses, vanilla and ground flaxseeds until well combined. Add the soy milk mixture and mix until incorporated.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a separate bowl and mix.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined.
6. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for 23-26 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to cooling racks.


Chocolate Ganache

3 tbs soy creamer or soy milk
1/3 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips

1. Heat soy creamer or milk in small saucepan over medium heat until just about to simmer. Remove from heat.
2. Add chocolate chips and stir til chocolate is completely melted and completely incorporated.
3. Set aside and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
4. With a spatula, scoop into a prepared pastry/piping bag or plastic bag with the tip chopped off, or drizzle haphazardly with a fork.

Things I forgot (Thanks to Sera for pointing them out!) + slight obsession

Sera was kind enough to remind me of a few things I forgot in my last post, so I shall address all but one in this post, and the other one might get addressed later down the track. I'm still on overload with the last one cuz of who has been messaging me. Sera knows what I'm talking about.

So, Sera hosted a "Christmas Eve Eve" dinner, on, surprisingly enough, the 23rd December. I was invited (probably a good thing, considering I'm now blogging about it!), along with 2 of her friends whom I get along well with, Susan and Lyn. I went to Sera's early, to help her prepare, since I'm awesome like that. I can't remember everything we made, but I remember that dinner was a herb-crusted roast with roast veggies, and a black forest sundae for dessert, which were all absolutely nommy! The night was a success, and we all had fun! I'm really looking forward to next year's! There was a CEE dinner the year before, but the details escape me now, sorry Sera!

For the last three years in a row, Sera and I have seen at least one Adelaide Fringe act. In 2009, we saw Adam Hills, who was FANTASTIC! In 2010, we saw Adam Hills again (who was again awesome), and Ross Noble, who was brillant! This year, we were hoping to see both Adam and Ross again, but alas, neither were signed on for the Fringe. So, instead, we saw Jeff Green (he's fantastically hilarious!), Arj Barker (sooo funny and soo naughty at times!) and Wil Anderson (hysterical!). Before each event this year, we went to a cafe named Cocolat; which, as the name may suggest, serves mostly chocolate; and had an iced chocolate each. One time (I think before Wil Anderson), we also had chocolate frogs with it (Sera had white choc, I had milk choc). Talk about indulgent! The chocolate syrup that they use to make the iced chocolates is made from real chocolate, which in turn makes the iced chocolates the BEST I've ever had! We've decided that our Fringe tradition is now iced chocolates followed by a comedy act!

Well, that's a quick summary of the things I forgot (minus one), so yay!

On to the second part of this post.

I've developed somewhat of an obsession with Joey Jordison of Slipknot and Murderdolls over the past couple weeks. It's bizarre really! I'm not entirely sure what the attraction is, but I do know that I think the makeup/facepaint he wore for Soundwave had a bit to do with it...

I'm a weirdo, and loving it!

So...

...the last blog said it's been a long time. That was a blip in time compared to what it's been since then!

Firstly, thanks to Sera for reminding me that I *have* a blog! I'd kind of forgotten >.<

And now, onto what's been happening in the wonderful world of Jordi.

K, I left off just before the Lamb of God/Devildriver concert. I got the tickets, and went. Shadows Fall opened for them, they were freakin' brilliant! The lead singer has epic dreadlocks!
Next up, was Devildriver. They were awesome as usual. I believe that marked my 3rd time seeing them.
Lastly, was Lamb of God. They weren't so bad, but due to it being around 50 degrees celsius (122 F), Mum and I had to leave less than halfway through their set. A pity, but I didn't really fancy passing out there.

Erm, stuff happened after that, but I can't remember what. Christmas 2009, Soundwave 2010 (which was pretty good), my birthday (Sera made an awesome lunch for me cuz she's awesome like that!), Sera's birthday (went out for dinner then watched karaoke...and I actually got up and sang with Sera! "In The End" by Linkin Park" was what we performed.), and then, in November, I saw Metallica live! OH. MY. GOD!

Lamb of God opened up for them, so I finally got to see a full set of theirs. They were pretty damn good! But Metallica was FANTASTIC! This was their setlist. And here are my photos: Album 1, Album 2, Album 3, Album 4, Album 5 and Album 6.

In December, I went to the 'No Sleep Til' festival. It was an indoors one, which was strange compared to Soundwave, but it was pretty cool. I got to see a whole bunch of bands I wasn't too keen on, but got to see Katatonia (YAY!) and Megadeth, and discovered Dropkick Murphys and Me First And The Gimme Gimmes. Pretty damn good day overall!

Christmas 2010 was relatively uneventful, Grandma came down the night before, which was nice, and Mum cooked a turkey roll and a duck, which were both delish! On Christmas Day, Mum, Grandma and I went out for lunch to the Pancake Kitchen with Abe, which marked the first Christmas we've spent together in the 3 and a half (nearly) years we've been together. Yay! After lunch, we all went our separate ways.

On the 5th March, 2011, Soundwave was on in Adelaide, so of course, I went! It was effing BRILLIANT!

First band I saw was Sevendust. I was in the third row, or thereabouts. I hadn't listened to them in a long time, so when they started playing, I wasn't expecting to know half the songs, but I knew most of them, so that was awesome.

Next up, was Devildriver. My fourth time seeing them, so yay! I was right up front, against the barrier! They, as usual, were bloody fantastic! So much energy!

After Devildriver was Murderdolls. Again, I was right up against the barrier, so I got a fantastic view! They were absolutely FANTASTIC! I was pretty much jumping the whole time they were playing.

Next was Slayer. I was second row for them, until about 20 mins into their set, where Mum and I started getting badly crushed and groped. We had to literally fight our way out of the mosh pit, and after that, I wanted to go home.

I'm very glad we didn't, because the next band I wanted to see was Rob Zombie! He and his band were AWESOME! I wish they'd been able to play a longer set!

Lastly, was Iron Maiden. I was about 20,000 people back, and I'm not exaggerating! I didn't see their whole set as I was exhausted and hungry by this point, but what I did see was amazing! For a group of old guys, they were crazy-energetic!

Food for the day: A hotdog, which was disappointing as hell. Tons of water. 3 'Chips On A Stick' which were all BLOODY DELICIOUS! It's basically a whole potato, spiral-cut, impaled on a stick, deep-fried then rolled in seasoning of your choice. YUM!

My Soundwave albums: Murderdolls 1, Murderdolls 2, Sevendust 1, Sevendust 2, Sevendust 3, Devildriver 1, Devildriver 2, Devildriver 3, Rob Zombie 1, Rob Zombie 2 and a video of Murderdolls performing 'Dead In Hollywood'.

On a completely different note, I have great news! Sera is engaged! Her fiancé's name is Adam, and he's wonderful! He actually gets her, which is always a good start in a relationship. They're set to get married in September 2012, and I'm to be a bridesmaid, which should be interesting! I'm hoping she doesn't want me to walk up the aisle before her, I'll probably fall over or something stupid, haha. But I'm so excited for her!!!

Erm...well...that's all the news I can come up with for now, but perhaps I'll update again soon. Sera might remind me of something I missed =D

Ciao!

It really has been a long time...

The title says it all. I'm bloody slack!

So, for those who (for some reason) continue to read this, I shall have to remember what's happened since my birthday.

Well, I got my mp3 player after all and it's awesome! It's a Sony Walkman 16gb in black (of course!). Haven't even filled up half of it yet, but I'm only putting music on it that I listen to regularly. Still trying to figure out how to convert videos to the right format and ratio and such so I can watch them on it.

I went with Sera to see Eskimo Joe play live. It was the second time I'd seen them, the first time was in 1998 or 1999, the opened for The Living End, but it was Sera's first time seeing them. They were awesome! They played here on 13th August, which was Sera's 25th birthday, so that was an awesome celebration for her.

I saw Marilyn Manson live on October 7th which was Alex's birthday. Abe and I paid for part of his ticket, and I'd also given Abe his ticket for his birthday. Aren't I awesome? Hehe. OH MY GOD, Mazza ROCKED! I've been to a fair few concerts in my time, and I think he topped them all, except perhaps NIN. I'll definitely be going if he comes here again!

A few days later (the 11th, to be exact), I saw Megadeth for the second time. They were supposed to be doing a double-bill with Slayer, but the lead singer came down with laryngitis and they had to cancel. Megadeth were pretty awesome though, and Dave Mustaine's attitude has improved since I saw them in 2007. I may or may not see them again if they play here again.

On December 16th, Lamb of God and Devildriver are playing here. Second time in less than a year for both bands! I haven't got my ticket yet, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get it in about a week. Fingers crossed they haven't sold out yet!

So, the Soundwave lineup for 2010 has been announced. I'm definitely going! Gotta wait until next Tuesday to buy the tickets though. I just hope I don't have too many of the bands I wanna see clashing...

So, that's a pretty quick summary of what's happened since my birthday. I'm damn sure I've missed quite a few important things, but I'll just have to add them as I think of them!

I'm gonna try to sleep now. Wish me luck!

- beckoned

Wow...the weird things you find when you Google your own email address...

I just found my old blog. One that hasn't been updated since 2005! I'd totally forgotten I had it. So I had a read and OH MY FUCKING GOD I was such a whinger! It's actually quite funny to read what was going on in my life at that time, which wasn't much. I'd also forgotten about the whole Clayton saga (if you don't know about it, ask me)! Just goes to show the weird things you find on Google.

It was my birthday on Tuesday. I'm now 23! Feels much like 22, lol. So far, I've gotten money from Granddad, hand cream and money from Kathy and Keith (the money from both was spent on a Dutch phrase book and a calico Borders bag), 'Sense and Sensibility' (the 1995 movie with Alan Rickman) from Sera, a bottle of Baileys from Isabel and Jerry, various things from Wynona that she made herself, chocolates and a book from Gran and a coffee maker, grinder and Pyrex jug from Mum. She says that when she's got some extra money, she'll be buying me an mp3 player too, but I'll have to be patient. I can wait! Hehe. Abe's gonna get me something eventually, but it's all good - I haven't given him a birthday present yet and his was in March! Lol. Yup, I'm slack =D

Anyway, will update later, I'm tired and kinda dumb at the moment.

Tata!

Right. Now I'm fucking pissed off

So, I got a lovely new computer a few weeks ago. Turns out, the video card is screwed up and I can't play games or movies for an extended length of time without it freezing up on me and requiring a hard restart. I'm pissed off about that.

To top it off, it's only utilising 3gb of ram. I have 4 installed. Those bastards at Microsoft didn't design their fucking piece of shit operating system to handle 4gb of ram, so I'm stuck paying for a computer that doesn't even have the fucking capabilities that it's supposed to have! NOT FUCKING HAPPY PEOPLE!

Obviously, I'm fucking furious. I'm sick of being jerked around. My last laptop burnt my fucking leg, didn't work properly half the time and was generally annoying. This one is MUCH worse. It doesn't burn my leg, but I've had NOTHING BUT FUCKING PROBLEMS with it since I got it. And I'm locked into at least a 1 year contract. So I'm stuck with it. FUCKING BASTARDS!

Not making much sense, but if you don't like it, fuck off.

Updating...just for the hell of it

So, I don't have much of a life, therefore, I haven't got much of a blog. Oh well, I figure that those who are crazy enough to keep coming back to this page probably know me and know that my life consists of a few things: bumming around at home, surfing the net, chatting online or cooking; spending time at Abe's place; hanging out with Sera or Denelle; or a combination of the three. See, not much!

I wonder if perhaps I should get out more. I know some people seem to think that I should get a job, but I think they also want me dead, so that makes sense. I would, however, like to go out one night. I've suggested a few different things, but no one seems to want to do any of it...

I'd really like to find a local pub that's quiet enough to have a conversation but isn't totally dead, and that's friendly to people with goth leanings. Also, I want to have a girls night out. Finding a place that Sera, Denelle and I agree on is an issue, and finding a night when we're not busy and we've all got money is another. Suggestions are welcome!

Andrew says this blog needs sass, jazz and pizazz. I say it needs pizza...or is that just me? I'm not entirely sure how to give it any of those things, but hey, I can try!

Speaking of Andrew, I'm very thankful for my friends, though some of them drive me insane sometimes. The friends I have are trustworthy and caring. They are there for me when I need them, but don't expect anything more than just that from me. They're all incredibly different but yet similar in the fact that they like me, though I do wonder why sometimes. If anyone could shed some light on why people like me, that would be appreciated!

I rambled. Enough now.

Adieu!

- beckoned

It's been a while...

The title says it all. I'm slack, I know!

Jeez, I haven't updated since December! I didn't realise that it had been that long! Crazy stuff! Let's see, what's happened since then...

Well, Christmas Day wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Apart from it taking three hours to get to Murray Bridge, it was actually quite fun! Lunch was decent, my family didn't argue (surprisingly!), and all-in-all, it was quite a pleasant occasion. Dinner was also fun, we went to Mum's best friend's house.

So that was Christmas in a paragraph, minus my presents.

Since then, nothing major has happened, EXCEPT YESTERDAY!

OH. MY. GOD.

I went to Soundwave yesterday. I got to see 36 Crazyfists for the third time, and was not remotely impressed with Brock Lindow's attitude on stage. One of the first things out of his mouth was something like "I've got a fucking hangover from hell!" Now, who really wants to see a band play while hung over? At least don't advertise it! Then he said "wow, the women in Australia are HOT!" and told everyone in the crowd his hotel and room number and invited the women up to his room. Sleazy much?

Next, I saw Lacuna Coil for the second time. They were BRILLIANT! Cristina Scabbia is possibly one of the most gorgeous women in the world, and one of the best singers! As they did the first time I saw them, they blew my mind!

Then it was time for DevilDriver, who I'd seen once prior to yesterday. They were fantastic! I gained a huge amount of respect for Dez Fafara when someone was injured in the mosh pit. He stopped the band playing, told the audience to give the injured person some space, yelled at a few audience members for not letting the medics through and flatly refused to start playing again until the person who was injured was safely out of the way. Okay, maybe that was just the proper thing to do, but still, there are many bands out there who wouldn't do that! Even missing about 10 minutes of their set was worth it, as with last time, the guys put on a wicked show!

And finally, the band I paid the $210 for (one ticket was $135, and Sera and I went halves in a second one for Mum), Nine Inch Nails. I don't have words to describe what it was like seeing them! It was INCREDIBLE! It was possibly THE best time of my life and if not, it makes the top five. I thought I was going to explode when Trent Reznor walked onstage - to me, it was like seeing God himself.


I took a billion photos (not really, just under 200), they're all in my Facebook albums NIN 1, NIN 2, NIN 3 and NIN 4. Damn that sixty photo per album limit!

So, needless to say, I'm absolutely ecstatic that I finally got to see Nine Inch Nails live, but at the same time am also saddened that it's over. Hopefully they will come out to Australia (hopefully even Adelaide) some time soon!

Other than that, not much has happened at all. I now have a Twitter account (beckoned is my username, feel free to twitter at me), but I'm not sure how often I'll use it. Thankfully it's available on my mobile phone, so I -may- update more often than I expect to, haha.

Wow...two blogs in one night...

It's been a while since I last posted (apart from the one from a few minutes ago!) so I figured I would make another entry since I don't seem to be falling asleep yet.

As some might have figured from the previous paragraph, my "insomnia" is still in full swing. A mate of mine suggested that perhaps it's something called Delayed Phase Sleep Syndrome, which quite frankly, sounds like what I have. For those too lazy to click the link, it's basically a disorder where one sleeps the usual 8 to 10 hours, just not at night, regardless of the previous days' activities. For example, I will often stay awake until 5am, get up at 12 noon the same day, go to an appointment or go shopping, come home at around 4pm, go to bed, but still not fall asleep until around 5am the next morning. It's irritating as hell as it means I'm cranky when I get up early (any time before noon is early). I have a doctor's appointment on the 29th, so hopefully he'll have suggestions as to what to do...

The other week, I was reading my friend Dani's blog on MySpace. She mentioned that she was hanging out to see a movie named Twilight and that it was about vampires. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I found the trailer on YouTube and watched it. It looked pretty awesome. Then, I read the comments. Someone mentioned that it was based on a series of books by an author named Stephenie Meyer. I figured that as I need new things to read, I'd see if they were available for download anywhere. They were. I downloaded them and started reading the first of the series, Twilight. I, figuratively speaking, couldn't put it down! This series is possibly one of the most intriguing, thrilling, thought-provoking story I have ever read. It may not be for some, but it is definitely for me! Unfortunately, there are only four books in the series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) and there's part of another book (Midnight Sun), which is Twilight but from a different characters point of view.

I'm not going to go into detail about the books, but be warned, there are serious spoilers on the links posted.

Christmas is a week away! Yay! As mentioned in an earlier post, we had a bit of a drama regarding what we were doing for lunch on the day. After around $20 of phone calls and quite a few tears, Mum and I are now travelling to Murray Bridge for lunch at a pub. Hopefully it's nice as it's going to take us six hours to get there and back, not including eating time. For dinner, we're going to Kathy's house (one of Mum's best friends). That should be great, she usually goes a little overboard with the food, plus, I actually like her family!

All in all, Christmas day is going to be HECTIC! Thankfully, on Boxing Day, I'll be going to Abe's house to spend a few days there. I'm already looking forward to it! And for New Year's Eve, I'll be there (possibly still there, lol), as it's his Dad's birthday too. Should be fun!

I probably won't post again until after Christmas (unless something major happens, or I just get bored, lol), so Merry Christmas all, and if I don't post before then, Happy New Year!

Bye!

- beckoned

Homesick...

I miss Alaska. A lot. If I could, I'd buy a plane ticket and visit for a while, but I can't afford it. I'm afraid that if I did manage that, though, I wouldn't come back, and leaving Abe would break my heart. I don't know what to do...

It's bizarre to me that I miss a place that was only my home for 2 and a half years more than I ever missed the place I was born, grew up in and so on. Only Mum really understands what it's like.

I'm at a loss as to what to do...