Coco Verde Vegan

Happy Match Day to all the 4th year med students! We were honored to serve this pistachio cake for an extra special match 💕🌱
Our pistachio cake is made with fresh housemate pistachio milk and topped with crushed pistachios. I originally created this recipe in honor of my parents, who love pistachios, and it’s been a hit!

Our baby girl turns 4 today! 🥳
Here’s a quick look at the cakes that I’ve made for her over the past 4 years! This year was a pink cake with skittles inside by request, for her third birthday a mermaid cake, her second birthday was a number 2 chocolate cake, and her first was a pink vanilla smash cake!

Today’s experiment: vegan mofongo😍
Ivannoe cooked this up using some tempeh that we had and it was just an amazing smokey flavor! For those that don’t know, mofongo is a plantain based dish (plantains are really the MVP and so versatile!) made with green plantains that are fried, mashed and seasoned with garlic, salt, and pepper.
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El experimento de hoy 😍 Ivannoe nos hizo mofongo usando tempeh (un producto vegano para sustituir carne hecho de soya fermentada). Quedo delicioso 🤤 el tempeh tenía un sabor ahumado que me pareció a tocineta!

I forgot to take a pic before I started eating and once I took a bite I immediately knew I wanted to share 😂 Brown rice, massaged kale salad with carrot ginger dressing, and the true star: Korean BBQ tofu. Freezing and unfreezing tofu is one of my fave hacks for tofu prep but this time I wanted to experiment and see if it was worth it to drain, marinate, and then freeze and thaw tofu and YES IT IS. The flavor is deliciously infused into the the tofu and the texture is just great! We used a Korean BBQ marinade that we found at H-Mart, pressed the tofu, pour the marinade over the tofu in an airtight container, and froze/thawed the tofu in the fridge twice. *Trust me* it was worth the wait! Try it with your favorite marinade when you have some time and thank me later 😏💞

Plant based taco salad 😍🌱
Made with the walnut, portobello, cauliflower grounds inspired by from yesterday along with tomatoes, avocado, toasted corn tortillas, cilantro lime dressing, and a cashew cheese sauce made with cashews, hot water, garlic, nutritional yeast, lemon and salt and pepper. Soooo good and perfect for today’s lunch 😍
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Ensalada de taco a base de plantas 😍🌱
Usamos la “carne” molida de ayer de nueces, coliflor, y hongo y le añadimos aguacate, tomate, y tortillas de maíz tostadas y picadas. También le echamos un aderezo de cilantro y limón y una salsa de ‘queso’ hecho de cajuil, limon, levadura nutricional, sal pimienta, y ajo licuado. Súper rico y quedo perfecto para la comida de hoy!

A little how it started how it’s going bread making edition 😍
Like many others, I decided to try my hand at sourdough in the beginning of March as the pandemic as setting in. I love to learn new skills and bread making definitely puts so many things to the test. Bread making is really a conversation between the baker, ingredients, and environment. Different water temperatures, flour brands, or weather can completely change a loaf. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed when I saw that first loaf but with some time, practice, and changes in technique I’ve been able to make loaves that I’m really proud of. Thank you sourdough for teaching me patience and showing me love!

Happy to report that I successfully defended my dissertation yesterday and am officially Dr. Cecilia Flores-Rodríguez 🥰
For those of you that are new I’ve been pursuing a PhD in Social Policy focused on health equity for the last few years. I’m excited to share more (if you all are interested of course!) but for now I’ll share my acknowledgments as well as the two quotes I used to open and end my dissertation.
To celebrate this huge milestone, I’ve been in pajamas all day eating my first vegan cheesecake 😆 recipe was inspired by though I switch the crust for a homemade graham cracker crust
and a cherry topping. Delicious!! I’ll definitely be remaking this holiday season 😍

Vegan Birria Tacos ✨
Celebrating Ivannoe’s 37th birthday! We have been dying to try these tacos since it seems like everyone is eating them and of course had to make them vegan! I used a combination of non-vegan recipes that I found online since I couldn’t find a vegan recipe and the only ingredient that I had to switch was the jackfruit! Overall pretty easy to pull together it just took some time to develop the flavors. Lots of amazing herbs and spices 😍 everything is homemade (cheeze sauce, stock, seasoning) with the exception of the tortilla! Hoping to share the step by step of how we did it soon, if you try it on your own first my biggest tip is to season and roast the jackfruit separately so that it retains its texture and doesn’t get soggy 🥰