Little Gym, Red Robin, and German Chocolate Cake

The title says it all. Great day today. My vegan friend and her son invited my little gooblet and me to join them at The Little Gym today. We all had such a great time, although I think gooblet would probably enjoy a little tougher class...she's a pretty intense kid. She surprised me by being able to do some of the stuff I thought for sure she couldn't on the first try, and also by being afraid of somersaults. Poor kid's never liked that "upside-down" feeling.

After their class, we had lunch at Red Robin. Overpriced burgers, but still REALLY good. Actually might've been worth it! We had a great lunch (gooblet actually ate about 4 bites of her spaghetti, even during "boycott lunch" week), and brough home a great big barbecue burger for big goober. And we managed to keep it vegan! It wasn't as hard as I thought! Yay!

When we got home we just chilled out for a while with big goober. Gooblet had a balloon from Red Robin, and she told big goober all about her sad imaginary friend. "My pretend friend is crying, because she's so sad. She's sad because her balloon floated up and away, into the treetops. She tried to hold it, but she's just too pretend." Crack me up. How many kids do you know who *acknowledge* that their imaginary friends are imaginary? We took and nap, and when we woke up gooblet and I made this excellent vegan german chocolate cake. It was really great. Oh, and for dinner we had Magical Loaf, scalloped potatoes, and green beans. I'll be adjusting all of these recipes, so I won't post them until I get them right. But in the meantime, I'd like to send you to the Magical Loaf Studio on the Vegan Lunchbox website. It's very clever! Here goes: http://www.veganlunchbox.com/loaf_studio.html

Oh, and here's that cake recipe.

Vegan German Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
  
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 tablespoons cocoa
  
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 2 tablespoon vinegar
  
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 2 cup cold water
  

Directions

Mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Stir until smooth. Bake two greased, floured pans at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Makes two layers of a two-layer 9-inch or 8-inch round cake, or one small sheet cake. When cool, frost it.

Icing

1 cup plain soymilk
1/3 cup nonhydrogenated vegan margarine
3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water until smooth
2 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

In a medium saucepan, mix the soymilk, margarine, sugars, and vanilla together. Add the cornstarch mixture and cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and thickens. Cook for one minute after it boils. Remove from heat and stir in coconut and pecans.