The naan was the most nummiest

Especially with the Dark Shiner

Then, today while browsing through FoodGawker I saw Banana Fritters that had been linked from Salt and Tumeric. I needed to make them NOW. So I did. Though, I did “dessert” them up by adding some powdered sugar and chocolate sauce.

And look!! I am learning how to use the macro setting… sort of

This weekend Boo and I are off to Hawaii for a family wedding (no not ours). We’re staying a fancy resort so maybe we will be able to get fancy veg resort food. Though, if memory serves, vegetarian/vegan food is not easy to come by on Oahu. Let’s hope the hoighty and the toighty of the resort has better choices than I remember from Waikiki.

We do “no TV Wednesday” because we watch so much television. We DVR the performance show and watch it before the results show on Thursday. So a three hour So You Think You Can Dance extravaganza.

I digress. I made Chana Masala, Aloo Palak and Urud Dahl. I also will be cooking up the Garlic Naan when Boo gets home because it’s best right after frying.

Of course, all of these will be made without the coriander leaves (or as we know it here in the states - The Dread Herb - cilantro). I loveIndian food but they use so much of that, it’s hard to find an Indian restaurant that I like.

I will take pictures, but Indian food always comes out looking like unattractive mush when I take the pic so, I’m not sure I’ll post it. The naan I will post though. I have made this recipe before and it was to die for.

Now I am going to shower (working in the kitchen all day on a wam day is extremely sweat-inducing) and have a Shiner Bohemian Black Lager. Boo and I love Shiner Bock and when we saw their dark brew in Ralph’s, we just had to try it. We’ve bought this three times in a row I think. Usually we are more adventurous, but this is some yummy beer. Yeah, yeah, it’s a Texas beer. What-eeeeeevvvveerrr.

I had to take it with me but I am going to call today to make an alterations appt. The nice woman who has been my “consultant” at the shop told me that there was no problem. That there is plenty of fabric in there and it will be fine.

I looked inside the dress today and I think there may be enough. That and me starving myself for the next two months.

Don’t worry, I won’t actually do that. I can’t. Training for a marathon doesn’t allow not eating enough. I just have to be smarter. You would think that after training for these last 6 weeks or what have you that I would have lost something, but no. I do remember that the first marathon I trained for I actually gained a couple pounds, but it was all in the right places and muscle.

Enough of that.

I’m off to start making the paper for the base of our invites. I will be posting process pictures in the future.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, this drive was pretty good, traffic-wise. The accident I mentioned was nearer to the end of the drive - about an hour or so out from Milpitas. This was the best picture I could get without looking like some lame person taking pictures of someone’s misfortune:

The drive to the festival from Milpitas was re-donkulous. It took about an hour to get from the freeway off-ramp to the parking lot. Couldn’t have been more than a couple miles. This was the final stretch - the red arrow is where the parking lot entrance is:

We made it!

I could smell the garlic roasting from here

Garlic Olympics?

We shopped around for a big hat for me because the sun was awful and it was freakin HOT. After that and some water, it was time to eat.

Being vegetarian at one of these things is difficult, I can’t imagine we should even bother once we go vegan. Well, garlic fries should be ok. Anyway…

We decided this looked like a good place

And we got amazing tasting corn with garlic butter. It was so crazy tasty we were surprised. The garlic fries were good, though the best garlic fries are at Dodger Stadium.

There was the Fruit Smoooooothie ($3 refills!!)

Then I saw it. It was calling out to me…

I practically sprinted to the tent and got about a head’s worth of delicious goodness

I added some of the garlic ranch they had there after this picture and it made it just that little bit better. I almost suggested a second serving.

There was some garlic dude posing for pictures. I hope he was wearing something under that.

We got 2 large garlic braids, I use it a lot in my cooking, garlic mustard and some pickled garlic. Then we got a fruit smoothie refill and a funnel cake and walked to the car. Once we go there we tried to eat the cake in the air-conditioned car, but that was a little messy. So we stood outside the car and ate it. And got powdered sugar everywhere. What is it with eating these things with forks? That never works. After a stiff wind blew a puff of sugar on me, I gave up trying to be delicate about it and dug in

We went back to the hotel and showered then wandered around the area where our hotel was. We had some wine with dinner and a beer before bed and slept hard.

On the drive home, we stopped at Casa de Fruta.

I love that place. We had some breakfast foods (though it was around 1pm) though I did get quite a frown from the waitress when I told her I didn’t want any bacon with my “combo”. She told me I could sub sausage I said, “No, no meat at all, thanks. I’m vegetarian.” Sometimes if you don’t specify the veg part they will bring it out on the plate and expect you to eat around it or end up just taking it off, cause yeah, I want flesh juices on my potatoes. *hurl* She looked at me like I just insulted her and her entire lineage. She never brought my toast either.

My Boo outside Casa de Restaurant

After we ate we visited their Casa de Sweets, wandered by the Casa de Choo-choo and the fruit & veggie stand, as well as the gift shop. We bought a bunch of taffy and fruit and stuff.

Then we did the long drive home. It was a good weekend.

Fried

Garlic

We’re staying in the same hotel we did last year and we can’t wait for dinner tomorrow night and noodles with gluten and black bean sauce at the veggie chinese place around the way. If we can find parking. It took around 20 min to find a spot last year.

Vinny relaxing on his favorite scratching thingy:

He had seemed to be eating less and would squeak at me in the morning until I gave him wet food. This is not a normal occurrence. Wet food is a sometimes treat in this house, so this was odd. Especially since after he ate (Jack got some too), he was fine.

It was difficult, but I tried to look at his teeth (he is not very cooperative) and it seemed there was a demarkation. So I made an appt and Boo and I took him in Friday.

Poor baby did ok, but he does indeed have a tooth or so that needs to come out. They did blood work that day and called Sunday with the results. Everything was fine except a slightly elevated kidney enzyme. I freaked. I lost a cat a long time ago to kidney failure and my brain shorted and “Slightly elevated enzyme” meant “Vinny is going to die like Peabody did.”

The Dr. expained it was most likely just slight dehydration and that they usually test it against urinalysis, but they didn’t have a urine sample. So when he goes in on Friday (the 11th), before they do the teeth, they will do kidney enzymes and urinalysis. Then if all is well, they will take out the poor kitty toof.

The rest of the day was spent at Boo’s parents’ house celebrating his sister’s birthday. It was on the 1st but her boyfriend planned something special for her so we celebrated on the 4th. Yummy Smart Dogs and Not-wings along with some cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.

Saturday Boo and I continued our marathon training in the morning and then went to fellow Raveler subliminalrabbit’s yard sale and scored some pretty yarn and a bookshelfy thing.

We saw WALL•E Sunday after doing some shopping. It was wonderful. We both enjoyed it so much.

Then we had to go to the running store to get me some new running shorts. The pair I was wearing had been with me through two marathons and decided to just stop holding up at some point on Saturday. I couldn’t find the same ones in the store but I found a suitable substitute. I did find the new version of the ones I love (I bought them in 2006) so I will be getting a couple pairs of these soon. They are a little longer and the key pocket has moved - both are good things for me.

Today will be spent doing some cooking I think. We got a new produce box today and I always love diving into that.

We’re settling into the new place, slowly though. We don’t have a lot of storage furniture like shelving and such so there aren’t a lot of places to put things. The last place had so many built-in bookshelves and things that we didn’t need any. Now we have no built-ins. We have a fireplace so there’s the mantle. Currently it is holding all of the knick-knacks and such that I have so far unpacked. It is full.

We do like this new place, though it is more difficult to keep cool than the last one (no central air here). The landlord just told us how to turn on the attic fan, so that shoudl help some. She also told us we could put a window unit in the bedroom. We will probably need to do that seeing as it’s only June and it’s pretty hot. It’s only going to get worse from here.

In other news…

Boo and I are still training for the Pasadena marathon. The released the course and I have to say I am disappointed. It’s rather… crappy I think. Too many “run down this street for a mile and then turn around and come back” sections. I hate that during training never mind the actual marathon. Eh, it’s not THAT big of a deal. I’m just being whiny.

We have a catering tasting thingy-do this Saturday. We’ll also do a tentative set up for the reception site so we can put in an order for the tables, chairs and such.

We have a cake tasting July 19 with this place. Sounds soooo nummy. Hello pumpkin chocolate chip with maple cream cheez frosting! All her cakes are vegan and organic so yay!

We plan on asking a good friend of ours, D, to be our officiant. He’s a really great guy who we like a lot and he’s very articulate and witty. Boo and I are very excited to ask him as is K, his girlfriend, and our other good friend. We ran it by her first so as to not put him in an awkward position if it was something he wouldn’t really just not want to deal with, and she thinks he would be honored. That made Boo and I feel honored that she thinks he would be honored so there’s all sorts of squishy good feelings going around. So we’re getting together the weekend of July 13th so we can ask in person. We can’t wait!

I think that’s all the updating for now. I don’t feel like cooking tonight though so we will be ordering from Egg Roll Express. It’s OMG delicious chinese food with amazingly yummy vegetarian “meat” dishes like sweet and sour pork and kung pao chicken. We obviously haven’t had any of their meat dishes, but their fried rice is the best I have ever had.

I don’t think I’ll have to do much work convincing Boo.

Really though, I am looking forward to it. I do miss running, so this will push me into being a little more disciplined about it. Or to actually DO it.

I remember how surprised I was that I loved doing it so much. I think the training in a large group helped me to stick with it. Though the first time there was a bit more obligation as I did it for charity (APLA). This time around I am doing it for me. Boo is doing it as well. We are both looking forward to it.

This will be our third marathon, but this one is like starting from scratch as we haven’t really run since last March’s Los Angeles marathon. I am heavier than I was when I signed up for the first one in 2006. Boo says he is as well, but I am not sure I believe him

What’s good about running long distances? Eating for running long distances.

We had a lovely vegan BBQ with plenty of snacks and nummy desserts.

Setting up:

Backyard (the dark spots were hastily filled holes - we think the previous tenants had a dog or something):

Mmmmm beer:

The BBQ setup:

Table set up in the Wii room - yes we had a Wii room for the party (veggie platter with “ranch” dressing; avocado, sprout, white bean hummus rolls - some with loaf):

Hot stuff (Not-wings - both buffalo and not, veatballs and fixins for the metric ton or so of veggie burgers we had):

The bar:

The dessert table (Vegan Magic Cookie Bars, Fudge Drop Cookies (made and brought by my sister) and Banana Split Cupcakes - made by Boo’s mom - I think from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World):

And my favorite and proudest part of the whole party:

This is a snack platter made up of Cheddar Cheez, Jalapeno Cheez and Onion, Horseradish and Dill Cheez all from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (well the jalapeno is just the cheddar with finely chopped jalapenos) and vegan pepperoni (veggeroni) from one of my favorite blogs, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

The party was great. So many people tried things that I know they would have never otherwise even thought about, and most were pleasantly surprised. We only had a few people who didn’t bother to try anything but the desserts and only one person who complained. We had given all our guests fair warning that all would be vegan and to inform us of any soy or wheat allergies (as most of the stuff was going to contain some of that). We also grilled up some portabello mushrooms for a handful of people.

Boo and I are baby-stepping to the vegan diet so we have decided to have a vegan wedding. We figure by then we will be mostly vegan - the exception being when we read ingredients and don’t recognize the animal ingredient. So we wanted people to not be afraid of the wedding and had the engagement party be vegan as well.

It was a great time and it was wonderful to have all those people we care about in one place. No I have to actually put the thank you notes in the mail. They are right there, just waiting… bah.