Holiday Pre-order Begins!

It’s that time again, and we couldn’t be more excited! We’re ready to take your Thanksgiving pie and meal orders. Give us a call! 503.477.5916

Christmas pre-orders and holiday hours

Here is pre-order info for Christmas week! It’s a trimmed down version of Thanksgiving, mostly because I have lots of employees on vacation at Christmas and we can’t handle as much. They deserve to go home and be showered with presents for all of their hard work this year!

Pre-order by Tuesday Dec. 21st, Pickup Dec. 22, 23, and 24.

Combo deal – Seitan Roast, pumpkin pie and dinner rolls $21

Pumpkin pie $10

Seitan Roast $8

Dinner Rolls $5

And that’s it folks! We’ll have lots of other stuff available in the bakery of course, drop by anytime! Between 8am-6pm anyway.

We also always have a week of short hours after Christmas, because again, this is when everyone tries to squeeze in vacations and family time, plus it’s always super slow. Here are the holiday hours/closures:

Dec 22nd and 23rd – regular hours

Dec 24th – 8am – 2pm

Dec 25th CLOSED

Dec 26th 9am – 2pm

Dec 27 – 31st 9am – 3pm

Jan 1st – 10am – 4pm

Oh, and also! January marks the Mini-Mall’s 3 year anniversary, and 6 years for the bakery (damn!!). It sounds like a big anniversary party is being planned, so pay attention! We’ll announce more soon.

Vegan mofo FAIL

I’m a big enough person to admit it, I FAILED miserably at blogging every day. I will also admit that I was seriously kidding myself with pretending I was going to be able to blog through Thanksgiving week. The upside to that is, it means we were REALLY busy! I don’t think we could have squeezed in many more orders for Thanksgiving stuff than we got, and we had a lot of fun putting it all together this year. I have such a wonderful and amazing group of employees right now, I get that weird heart swelling feeling in my chest when I think about how hard they work and what a great job they do and how much I love them all. Spending an insanely busy 13 hour day in the kitchen with them was by far my favorite part of the holiday!

We couldn’t have made it happen without Katie M.’s amazing ability to bake anything and everything, Katie B.’s willingness to take on any task, no matter what, and to get it right on the first try, and Erica’s tenacity and lack of fear at starting a new job during the craziest week of the year (seriously, she kicked ass). Ben and John came in for their wholesale shift and spent the whole day making pumpkin pies and cheesecakes instead without a single complaint, and John smiled the whole time and Ben entertained all of us with silly questions.

The real stars of the show ended up being my front end staff – Riley, Bobby and Jeff. If there is one thing I will change for next year, it’s adding an extra person up there – they worked all day with barely any breaks and kept smiles on their faces through all of it. Anyone who works customer service knows, when it’s REALLY busy and you don’t get even a second between customers to stop and breathe, it takes a whole lot of energy to keep smiling and stay upbeat. Those three made it happen, all day. Poor Bobby was wrecked after non-stop sandwich making, and Jeff stayed 3 extra hours, just to help and make sure people got breaks.

Ms. Katie Marggraf managed to take a few pictures during all of the craziness, so here is a photo rundown of our Thanksgiving.

vat of pumpkin pie filling, and feet

oh snap! (ginger snap)

gluten free soy free not delicious free

that's actually a thumbprint in the middle

(This next photo was taken by Josh Hooten, and I will ask his permission to use it later today, I swear.)

what? no pumpkin pie?

We may be busy with Thanksgiving, but our regular work doesn’t stop! Did you know people get born around holidays?  I have a little sad spot in my heart for those people born close to Christmas who just get one birthday/Christmas gift.

i bet lexi was stoked

we love Alena and her mom Bea

we love Otis and his mom Jess too

don't get it, but still funny

I’ve been dying to post this photo, and I know Katie B. is gonna come in here on her day off and kill me for it, but how can you resist this face?!

um, i think you need to shave

Hope everyone had a great Holiday, and for everyone that ordered from us, a huge THANK YOU for helping us to save the lives of some turkeys this year. They can’t say it, but I know they appreciate it! Because I speak gobble.

As a bonus, here is a picture of my Thanksgiving meal, cooked by Michelle Herbivore and Kile California (Kile, I just named you that) which was every bit as delicious as it looks. (Photo by Josh Hooten)

it's okay, i'm eating for two

Thanksgiving Pre-order Info

Here it is! I can’t wait to eat delicious vegan Thanksgiving food!!

Some extra info:

Pumpkin pie serves 8.

Peach Cobbler serves 8.

Dinner rolls come in packs of 1 dozen.(If you don’t pick yours up on time I will immediately eat them, these are my absolute favorite)

Seitan Roast serves 6-8.

The Combo deal is meant to serve 6-8 people, kind of depending on how much other food you make to go with it.

The recipes that come with the combo will be in a little zine format, and will be a compilation of favorite side dishes from lots of people here at the mini-mall. Like Michelle Herbivore’s Brussel Sprouts with Maple glazed nuts, or Jeff Sweetpea’s Three Corn Casserole. Thanks to my friend and loyal customer Paul for suggesting we include recipes for side dishes!

We are also limiting our regular special order option from Nov 20th – 26th, so if you need a cake or cupcakes please call as early as you can, so we can walk you though what we will be able to accommodate at that time.

Our hours on Nov 24th will be 8am-6pm and Nov 25th 8am-12pm (noon).

The most important list you’ll ever read

Our holiday items are as follows:

Pumpkin Pie (wheat free) $10

Shoofly Pie $10

Dinner rolls (dozen) $6

Pumpkin Cheesecake (serves 12) $35

Floral Centerpieces $35/$50

Wrapped Bouquets $20

Plus you can order all of our regular cakes and cupcakes too! I’m gonna talk to Katie tomorrow about a Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie option as well.

So, call us whenever you’re ready at 503.477.5916 and pre-order your treats, and scratch it off of your list.

Pickup is Wednesday Nov. 25th from 7am-8pm, or on Thanksgiving (Thurs. Nov. 26th) from 9am to 12pm. We’ll probably be the only place open in the ‘hood, so come by for a coffee!

"we're suffocating in this bag!"

Holiday Kick off!

Yay scarf weather and holidays! I know a bunch of you are total scrooges, but I love the holidays. So many awesome things to bake and cook and who doesn’t love presents?!

We are taking pre-orders for holidays items now, I will post a thorough line-up tomorrow. We are doing some new things this year, including selling holiday centerpieces (made with organic apples and cranberries, amongst other things) that you can order and pick up with your pies and dinner rolls.

In the cafe we’ve been bringing back some old favorites, like rugelach, pumpkin pie and cheesecake, pumpkin bread, and holiday themed sugar cookies. We’ve been adding new stuff as well – like Katie’s amazing pumpkin sticky buns, pumpkin pecan nothin’ muffins, and the other day I took a stab at a chocolate hazelnut yule log…

rolled it myself

My first attempt at sponge cake was not a total failure! Check back tomorrow for more holiday details and an announcement about some classes here next week.

Summer means pie

just out of the oven, a strawberry rhubarb pie.

hello new pie dish!

I’m pretty happy with the crust, but the pie is still a bit watery, although we were anxious to try  it and it was still pretty hot. And I may have added way more strawberries than I was supposed to.

Bloggin’ from the bakery window.

My internet at home is this wireless satellite internet dohickey that doesn’t work when it is raining, or cloudy, or a tree is in the way, and I feel it is irresponsible to sell this service in Portland. I haven’t been able to upload photos or blog because of it.

Side note, I was just wondering if I spelled dohickey correctly, or if it even had an actual spelling, and the dictionary online says this:

dohickey – 1 definition – a whatchamacallit or a thingamajig.

What an amazing and helpful definition! Anyway, after getting breakfast at Junior’s Cafe (I had the omar and a peach mimosa) I hauled my tipsy self and my computer over to the bakery to use our internet, and catch up on blogging. Now I’m sitting in the front window staring out at the persistent rain. It’s busy in here though, and I feel really happy that our regular customers continue to support us, and that we get new customers every day. It has been a hard year for many businesses, and I feel really lucky that we made it through this past fall (it was scary!) and that business has continued to pick up since January. At our staff meeting last night we came up with a plan to thank all of our regulars who have stuck with us, I’ll be posting that soon.

it must be early, the case is full.

We are also working on a bunch of new summer items, to go alongside our old favorites, which will include more fresh morning pastries and …….Pie! Lots of pie, with fresh berries and flaky crust. Coming soon.

-lisa