Domestipithecus

…in Southern California.

Last night looked like this here:

It hailed and it stuck around for a while on the ground. It’s supposed to get down to 40 degrees tonight and is currently just below 60 degrees. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a big baby, but that’s freakin COLD for this area.

In other news, the coconut milk ice creams were yummy. Mr. Pithecus liked the coconut flavor one the best and I liked the chocolate peanut butter swirl. You can taste the coconut in the background, but it was fine because I think it went well.

Mr. Pithecus and I went to a Thai place with his dad on Tuesday. They are not a veg place, but they are very accommodating (just ask for no fish sauce or eggs in anything) . We had the yellow curry (the BEST yellow curry I have ever had), drunken noodles, fried rice and oh so yummy sticky rice with mango. Well, I dislike mango, but the coconut cream and sticky rice is SOOOO good.
Curry and fried rice (sorry we had already started in when I remembered to take pictures):

That’s the drunken noodles in the background - here they are in their own shot:

Yum-MAY!

Also finished knitting a little bunny for a little boy’s 1st birthday. Benny’s Bunny:

Fuzzy bunny butt:

I’ll be back later this week to post things from my sister-in-law’s engagement party. I forgot to bring my camera with me, but I took pictures of all the stuff I made.

So, I finally got around to trying acai juice. It smells like olives and tastes like… olivey chocolate blueberry. I tried to drink it with my nose blocked, to try and minimize the olive thing, but it’s in my head now so it will always taste olivey. It’s not horrible, but I probably won’t be drinking it again.

Let’s hope the Purely Decadent coconut milk ice creams I got to try are more on the positive side.

Mr. Pithecus is currently two time zones away for work stuff. I have a feeling I won’t be eating as well as when he is home. Though i do have a lot to make for my sister-in-law’s (vegan) engagement party. Mini quiches from FatFree Vegan Kitchen (though I may put crusts on them for presentation purposes), pineapple upside-down mini cake thingies and toasted coconut marshmallows (from the Angel Food mix).

I got some veggie tamales from Whole Foods for dinner and the oven is heated, but part of me would rather have the veggie baked beans with Smart Dogs cut into them. Talk about comfort junk food. Yep. Not gonna eat very well at all

Ok, I’m going yo heat up the tamales. I’ll do the beans tomorrow. Or not.

I have finally gotten around to trying the Meringue Cookie Mix from Angel Foods. I ordered it through VeganEssentials, an awesome site for vegan products.

The process was very simple. Some of packet a, some water, some of packet b, some ultrafine sugar. That’s it.

I added some vanilla and cocoa at the end of my mixing. All-in all they have the same melty in my mouth feeling meringues had. The batter was a little sticky and heavy, unlike regular meringues, but that could have been my doing. I only made one batch so I have more times to try.

As I get more and more frustrated with the ass lights in my kitchen and the eh-ness of my camera, I want to post less photos. I mean, how can a yellowed-out low light or washed out flash picture make anyone go, “Oh wow that looks DELISH!” So minimal pix on this one.

Set up (yes the sugar is regular sugar and probably not vegan, but it is in the house and I have to use it up. If you want your own vegan extra- or ultrafine sugar just take your regular vegan sugar and pulse it in a food processor or similar for a bit)

I didn’t mix the cocoa all the way in so it made some swirlies

And the nifty hollow inside thing that I loved so much about meringues

Next time I am going to give my old Meringue Surprise cookies. Basically folding chocolate chips into meringue with a bit of vinegar. The surprise is that from the outside, you can’t tell there are chocolate chips in there.

I also have the same company’s marshmallow mix. I will probably get tho that in the next week or so… Actually, my sister-in-law’s engagement party is the 17th so I will probably make some sort of coconut marshmallow thingy. It’s a hawaiian theme (he proposed there) and all vegan.

So we have two cousins of Boo’s that are going to have children this year. A third child for one and a second child for the other. I don’t know who is due first, but neither should give birth until I am done with the baby things.

For baby #2 I will be making Trellis from Knitty. I am making it out of the same yarn (had it left over) as I made the Alphabet Blanket for their #1 baby. I thought that would be a cute touch. I am also going to design a hat to go with it. Probably something basic with the twists from Trellis. It is going along pretty quickly, though when my confidence in how simple it really is goes up, so do my mistakes. I am almost done with the right/buttonhole side, but I have to rip back a bit because I screwed up somewhere and can’t figure it out.

Progress so far:
Back:

Left Front:

Detail:

I intend on making the same things for the baby #3 from the other cousin, but in a different color.

And going in backwards order from the entry title, I baked some cookies. Happy Vegan Cookies from VegWeb. Boo brought these into work today. We had a few last night as well. They are so good. I love the touch of cinnamon in the batter. I will be making another batch soon and freezing the dough in individual cookie balls. I like to be able to pull a couple of balls out of the freezer and pop them in the oven for a quick cookie or two. Also keeps Boo and I from eating too many at once.

I was using up some chocolate chips that aren’t vegan with the vegan recipe. Boo and I, starting in the new year, are slowly getting rid of everything not vegan (though we had already mostly been doing that). In dribs and drabs we are using up/gifting/giving away non-vegan stuff (like the chips). We don’t want to waste anything by just tossing it.

This made for some densely chipped cookies. More chip than cookie, but hey, nummy. And as of now, Boo has informed me that they are all gone, so I don’t think anyone complained.

Cookies:

So for dinner last night, I made my mother-in-law’s turkey/chicken “meat.” I made a double batch and formed half of it into a log for baking and slicing for sandwiches, and the other half into nuggets. Fried the nuggets up in oil (yeah, not too healthy but mmmMMM good) and made a ranch dip for them.

Frying up:

I had also spent the day simmering a Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup. I had a boatload of tomatoes from the box scheme and needed to use them before I had to throw them out.

We sprinkled in some Tabasco sauce to give it a kick. Also note that Boo and I love, love, love garlic, hence the two whole heads.

Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup
1 large onion, chopped
2 small carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 heads garlic, roasted (I roasted these ahead of time)
8-10 smallish tomatoes, cut in quarters, skins on.
1-2 tsp salt
(all herb additions are approx as I was throwing some in, tasting, and altering from there)
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp “italian seasoning mix” I used Ralph’s brand
A sprinkle or three of red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
oil for frying

1. In the bottom of a soup pan, add oil and onions. Cook until translucent (though if you want a slightly different flavor you can go until carmelized)
2. Add celery, carrots and salt. Cook for a few minutes.
3. Add parsley, bay leaves and seasoning. Mix around and let cook a few minutes more.
4. Add tomatoes and fill with water to cover. You can use veggie broth here. I used water so it wouldn’t be too salty and the onion/carrot/celery mixture would sort of make it’ own veggie “broth.”
5. On high heat, wait for it to boil then turn the heat down and simmer for um… well I let it simmer for about an hour.
6. Remove bay leaves, throw in roasted garlic and use an immersion blender (or you can do it in a real blender too, it’s just messier) to puree the stuff.

You can serve from here but since I hadn’t made the nuggets yet and I like my soup a little thicker, I let it simmer for quite a while. Lowest heat. It thickened a bit and was a near perfect consistency. This made enough for Boo and I to both have a bowl with dinner, sent a bowl into work and froze 3 Earth Balance containers full.

Mmmm soup:

Boo went out to drop a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, so on his way home I asked him to pick up a baguette for the soup. I like to eat my soups with a bread “spoon.”

This is our dinner spread:

Oh the ranch… easy peasy
Few blobs of Vegenaise, couple shakes of garlic powder, onion powder and dried parsley. Add water to make more liquidy… and there you go.

Whew, that was a long one.

We’re off to Thousand Oaks (ugh) for the annual New Year’s Day gathering. It’s usually at Boo’s parent’s house, but they are having the floors done so it’s at another relative’s home.

I made my traditional New Year’s Day baklava (agave instead of honey). The pictures are crappy (my kitchen has the worst light ever and I need a new camera) and I don’t have time before I go to fix em up in Photoshop, but here they are:

mmmm nutty sweetish goodness