Domestipithecus

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

Well, Happy Ape really. My mother-in-law got me an awesome gift (she got my name in the name draw)!

How cool is that? I have a littler one on my sidebar now. Heee…

Have a safe and happy holiday season!

I am so crazy excited. Vegan Essentials just notified me that the Angel Food kits are in and I ordered some! YAY for vegan meringue!!!!!!

My favoritest cookies I used to make were meringue surprise cookies. Meringue with chocolate chips “hidden” inside. Oh good gravy I cannot wait to make these vegan-wise

*dances*

Well, I am back from a pretty dern horrible week. Last Monday I received a call telling me a family member had died in a horrible car crash. He was only 21. He was the most adorable child and seemed to be growing into a pretty awesome guy. It was a difficult couple of days, watching his mother have to deal with the loss of her child and watching my grandmother get just a bit more sad and angry as she continues to watch people she loves die.

His sisters and friends got up and spoke. I think that was the hardest part of all. Watching these young people in so much pain. It was heartbreaking when his mom went up to comfort one of his closest firends, who looked like he wasn’t going to make it through the pain. It brings tears to my eyes just writing about it now.

This is how I will always remember Joshua Robert. The smiling, beautiful, little boy.

This is the young man he was at the time of his death. The young man I never really got to know, living so far away, but someone who was loved very much by all who knew him.

I flew back east on Tuesday to be there for the Wed. afternoon calling hours. The funeral was Thursday and I came back (just barely) on Friday.

The ‘just barely’ is because of the ice storm they had that brought down trees, power lines and telephone lines. We lost power on Thursday evening and my sister just got it back today, and she is one of the lucky ones. Everyone around her is still without.

All in all, it was a miserable trip.

That said, we got our Vegan Essentials shipment while I was gone, so yummy vegan stuffs to come.

I have some pics that I haven’t uploaded, but will hopefully get to this weekend. Just wanted to post a glance at Boo’s Xmas stocking.

This is done with the two handed technique I learned at The Philosopher’s Wool website. I hope it gets better with blocking. Yeah yeah, it’s wool… I never claimed to be a full blown vegan yet. Babysteps ok?)

When Boo and I would get back from our long runs while marathon training, I would cook up a tofu scramble to help feed our depleted bodies. It worked quite well except for the getting home from running anywhere from 10 to 18 miles and having to freaking chop veggies and cook.

One day I decided to get tortillas and make the scramble and assemble breakfast burritos the night before so we could just nuke them. They were fine like that.

Then, when I was having my mother, sister and cousin in the house the morning of the wedding (my family stayed here, his family stayed at his parents’ house) I made them up a week ahead of time and froze them.  That worked even better.

Now, I make a double batch when we are running out (about 3 or 4 left) and put them in the freezer so we always have a quick breakfast (or even a lunch or dinner if we feel like it). This is based on the tofu scramble in How it All Vegan.

I take two blocks of extra firm tofu, not silken, and wrap and press before even starting the fauxsage mix.

For the inside, I make a fauxsage (scroll down to see). I used to chop it up into small bits, but since we got a KitchenAid grinding attachment as a wedding gift, I am able to grind the thing up. This works so much better as it distributes wonderfully throughout the mixture. Much better than the chopped pieces.

This time I made an apple-sage sausage. Basically I used the pumpkin-sage recipe linked above, but used apple sauce instead of pumpkin puree and I upped the sage a little.

Once the sausage was done baking, I put it on a rack to cool and started preparing the veggies. This will vary depending on what we get in our box scheme and what I have already prepared, but frozen.

This time
1 large yellow onion - chopped small but no need for full on dicing
1 large green pepper - this was frozen this time so was already chopped
3 medium red potatoes - diced
4-5 cloves of garlic - crushed (though Boo and I love garlic so I usually throw in even more)
3 small vine tomatoes - chopped
Approx 1Tbsp curry

After I finish the veggies, I grind up the sausage - about two-thirds of it. It should be cool enough by this time. I save the other third for other things like country sausage gravy or pizza topping.

I lightly spray a large (I use this one) pan and put the potatoes in. Once they seem near done, I take them out and set aside.

Then the onions and peppers go in. Cook them for a little bit, you don’t want them all the way done or they will get crazy mushy. Once they seem cooked but still firm, add the crushed garlic. Stir that around for a couple minutes.

Add ground sausage. Cook for a couple minutes.

Add potatoes back in. Cook for a couple minutes.

Take the tofu and crumble it in. Cook for a couple minutes and then sprinkle in curry. I usually just add this from the container so the measurement is a guesstimate. I sprinkle some on, mix and if it looks like it needs more, add some.

Once the curry has been thoroughly mixed with all the ingredients, add in the tomatoes (juice and all). Mix it up and then let it cook a bit. I put the cover on to keep in the moisture, but it’s not necessary.

After that is all done I set the mixture aside and cook the tortillas. I just buy flour ones at the store. I cook them briefly over my gas flame on the stove, just enough to soften and brown in spots. Then I roll. Boo taught me how to do this well - he worked at Del Taco when he was younger.
Place a good amount on the tortilla (ignore the bit of filling I dropped on the counter)

Fold it in half and with a little pressure slide the top towards you, compacting the filling

Fold the sides in slightly diagonally so that the open part is a little slimmer than the bulk of the burrito

Et voila! A nice looking, tightly packed burrito.

I stack ‘em while I make ‘em

Then spread them out to cool before putting into freezer bags to await being eaten!

To cook after freezing
Wrap loosely in a paper towel on a microwave safe plate. Nuke for 1 1/2 minutes. Flip. Nuke for 1 1/2 minutes.

MMMM good eatin’.

Because Thanksvegan isn’t Thanksvegan without it. I lurve Tofurkey. My first and second vegetarian Thanksgivings I disliked it. Now I can’t think of the day without it. Weird eh?

The day was nice, but my sister-in-law had to go to the ER because her stupid contact abraded her ENTIRE cornea. The poor thing was in pain the whole day. They told her it should feel better today, but she has to go to en eye doctor person to get it looked at. She’ll be fine, but it just sucks.

Boo told her that at least it’s happening now and not the day before the wedding. I don’t think that was very comforting, but he was trying.

Anyway, without further ado, I present the Tofurkey Day goodies.

I baked Tofurkey. One for the meal and one for Boo and I to slice up for sandwiches for the weekend. I roasted them with one red potato, one sweet potato, about 8 cloves of garlic and one yellow onion. I tossed the veggies with a spray or three of oil, sage and thyme.

I made the basting recipe on the box, so no fancy stuff there.

Then there was the Sweet Potato “Buttermilk” biscuits. They were so good. Flaky and tasty. I used this recipe on Chow, but made “Buttermilk” instead of milk (soy, of course). One Tbsp. of vinegar and then fill to one cup. The recipe comments said something about them not rising much, so I figured the extra acidity would be perfect (as the commenter suggested). I got crazy flaky delicious biscuits. I did grate frozen Earth Balance buttery sticks and then refridgerated the dough for a couple hours before rolling, cutting and baking.

Before baking

After baking

Look how high and flaky!

I also made Easy as Pumpkin Pie ice cream pie. I got a chocolate cookie crust (yes I was lazy and bought pre-made) and drizzled some chocolate on top. Heaven. So amazingly good I almost didn’t want to bring it because we wanted it all to ourselves.

This was the spread at my mother-in-law’s with a good shot of her homemade “turkey” (includes the Tofurkey and biscuits)

Clockwise from the top left: rolls, Tofurkey, green bean casserole, mom’s “turkey”, baked sweet potatoes, biscuits, soysage dressing and in the middle, mashed potatoes. Cranberry stuff from the can and agave-cinnamon earth balance are on the periphery.

The gravy

A typical plate of food

And of course, there was wine. Frey wine

For dessert, my sister-in-law made an apple pie and a pumpkin pie. I only had the apple. It was awesome - and I don’t particularly like baked apple stuff. I heard from everyone else the pumpkin pie was great as well.

The pies and mom’s sampler plate The white on the ice cream pie is defrost stuff

Gratuitous puppy shot

That’s Maggie, Boo’s parent’s dog.

I hope everyone had a good day full of friends and family, and of course, a boatload of food.

Have a cruelty free and delicious day!!