Get in our kitchen, learn cool stuff

You know you want to learn how to make a seitan roast and decorate a kick ass cake for Thanksgiving! Sign up for these amazingly fun classes that I will be teaching at the bakery, through Portland Community College (PCC).

Vegan Holiday Baking Series click this link, then scroll down a bit.

I found it a bit difficult to understand the classes and how it all works on the PCC website, but I’m also not the best at computers. I’m giving you all the info here just in case, but you should sign up through the PCC page. You can take the entire series, or just one of the classes.

Vegan Holiday Baking Series

Sweetpea Baking Company owner, Lisa Higgins, invites you into their top notch kitchen to share secrets for yummy, (I would have said delicious, or extremely pleasing to your palate) professional looking Holiday treats! Celebrate the Holidays (why do they keep capitalizing holiday?) vegan style without animal products and wow your guests with creations from your home kitchen. Includes bonus tips and suggestions for allergy-free (gluten free, soy free, nut free!) cooking. This series should not be missed! (that’s right!)

Ice Box Cookies: Easy Treats!

Wednesday October 14th 6:00-8:00 pm

Get a jumpstart on holiday baking this year, with simple recipes that can be baked-as-needed for great gifts and holiday treats! Step-by-step instructions includes tips for successful vegan baking.

Modern Cake Decorating

Wednesday October 21st 6:00-8:00 pm

Give your cakes a new look! Learn the latest and greatest creative techniques to decorate holiday layer cakes and cupcakes like a professional. Includes pastry bag basics, working with ganache and writing with icing – no animal products!

Perfect Pie Secrets

Wednesday October 28th 6:00-8:00 pm

Your friends and family will be amazed by your perfect pies! Learn the secrets of a flaky crust, how to build a lattice top, and the basics of holiday pumpkin pie. This class will be very hands-on!

Savory Seitan

Wednesday November 4th 6:00-8:00 pm

Unveil the mystery behind homemade Seitan! Class covers new ways to make and cook Seitan, including pepperoni style, chick’n fried, and a holiday roast. It’s easier than you think!

I am most excited about the cake decorating class – it is my favorite thing to teach and I have been wanting to do a class for a long time. Each class will be very hands on (wear clothes that can get dirty!) and you will take recipes and treats home with you.

Sign up! Sign up a friend! Come hang out with me. I’ll even take your picture standing in our giant oven.

Bike Commute Challenge: We will crush you!

So I lied and said my next post would be about my PCC baking classes. I’ll get to that eventually, but this is more important. Those of you that don’t live in Portland may not know that Portland is a great city to bike in. The streets are bike friendly, there is a bike shop on every corner and lots of great events and biking support groups. The Bicycle Trasportation Alliance (BTA) does this event every year called the bike commute challenge, where businesses keep track of how many employees bike to work and how far they ride and the event fosters a friendly competition between local businesses. Since we all bike to work anyway, Ben suggested we join the event this year, and so we did. This is our bike rack right now.

i rode my toilet to work today

And this is only some of the bikes! We ran out of room and so the rest are parked outside. Get on your bike and ride to work! Its a great way to wake up in the morning. If you’re in Portland, we’re gonna help you out. For the entire month of September we will give you 50 cent coffee from 7am to 9am if you are biking to work. And please, please wear your helmet! We want you to be safe, so you can get cheap coffee every day.

-Lisa

Metal Regatta

You may have noticed that we were closed on Monday. We have been working very hard, and it was time for our annual employee day, wherein we leave the bakery (gasp!) and do something fun. Not like work isn’t fun, but maybe just something more adventurous. Last year we played laser tag, rode go karts, and played skee-ball, and compiled our tickets to win the red flashing light that you can see sitting at the top of our stairs. Its not plugged in, because the cord won’t reach the outlet.

This year, we went whale watching. And as our luck would have it, we did not see any whales. But the boat ride was awesome, and the scenery was spectacular. There is nothing like the Oregon Coast. Except maybe the California coast, but whatever.

thugs on a tug

Turns out, we wear a lot of black. And we got new matching black Sweetpea hoodies that day too. So we rolled into tiny little Depoe Bay looking like an epic metal band, or possibly a group of goth teenagers. The wind was high and the water was choppy, which makes whale visibility low. Eric and Kim saw a whales back for a moment, and Aaron and I might have seen a tail. Maybe. Mostly we just made “I’m on a boat” jokes, and worked on our whale calls.

choppy water, or a game of nautical twister

We managed one group photo, taken with Katie’s camera by Dick, the captain of our boat, the Endeavor. Laugh at that as you will. Bunch of Hoodlums.

metal regatta

After that we went to Spirit Mountain Casino and ate the picnic lunch we brought (oddly enough, no vegan food at the casino) and fed money into slot machines for an hour. Jeff won $190, so if you need new shoes or something, come ask him, he’s rich.

Now we’re back to work, and already talking about the upcoming Holidays… we’re on top of it this year! And, I’m teaching holiday classes at the bakery through PCC in October, my next post will have the details.

-Lisa