Guava Love is quite an experience, let me tell you!

Many many thanks to the talented Guava for crocheting me this awesome kitty hat and sexy glovelets for PIF! Aren't they gorgeous? I need them because Andy keeps the house like a walk in freezer during the winter. Now I will be able to knit, snack, and draw up yurt plans while I watch TV or listen to books on tape.

I'm modeling them in a blueberry field near Mt. Si. Perhaps it was a bit hot that day for a hat, but sometimes it is so hot that one hat can't make a difference. I was there on a meetup for the Seattle Veg Activity and Adventure group on meetup.com.

(I got my hair chopped, around 8 inches. All this nasty 90 degree plus weather we've had forced me to do it.)

Mt. Si was our backdrop for the u-pick blueberries. It looks like I took a blurry pic, but I didn't. It looked like that in real life because of the heat.


As if blueberry picking in the heat wasn't enough, we went on a hike afterwards at Twin Falls State Park. The hike was along this river.

On the way back along the trail we took advantage of a swimming hole. The water was like ice, but somehow I made it in. Not everybody did.

This is me jumping off a rock. It took me forever to get past my fear because you had to run off the dry mossy part and push off from the rock where the moss ended. It really freaked me out because I thought I'd slip and crack my head. I don't want to share my precious vegan blood with a rock.

Once I was back in the frigid waters, I just didn't have the strength to swim upstream to this much easier jump. It was higher up, but better because you were jumping straight down. No running necessary. This is Andy in action. Not the yellow cat, the jumper.~~~~~

This is Tubs earlier this summer. He looks sort of crabby because I'm disturbing his nap.

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PS. Jenna, I will post on Sutra soon. You were right, it was fabulous!

Thrill 'o the Grill

Earlier this month, Andy & I took Thrill of the Grill, a vegan cooking class at PCC. It typically takes a lot of nagging to get Andy to take cooking classes, but not when it's taught by Dawnula Koukol. She really knows her stuff and she is really funny, a good combo in my book.


Chickpea and Potato Fritters with Cilantro Relish. Wow, these were great. Super crispy on the outside and potato deliciousness on the inside. The relish went perfectly with it.



Tempeh and Nectarine Skewers. Grilled fruit with tempeh, need I say more? The main ingredients of the marinade were vinegar, mustard, ginger, chipotle.

Stout Seitan Skewers. I loved these. Especially the mushrooms and pineapple because they are my faves.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Maple-hoisin Tempeh with Plum/Apricot dipping sauce. I love a good summer roll. They make such a refreshing snack. If you haven't made these before, they are easy and I'm sure you can find the recipe online. For me, the key herbs are cilantro, mint and basil.

The dipping sauce was very sweet/tart. I thought it went well w/ the roll, but I could also imagine it on vanilla soy ice cream, or maybe in a big glass :).

Dawnula, if you're reading this, I'm begging you to do a class on vegan breakfast / brunch foods, baked goods, appetizers or sandwiches.

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I hope Tubs is comfortable, because he doesn't look like it. Lately I've seen him doing strange contortions. Do you like my piles of clean laundry in the background?

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I'm soooo hungry right now. Too bad I couldn't eat jpg's for dinner.

Vcon & Vbrunch festivus

Over the past few months, I've made some delicious Isa/Terry recipes.

Veganomicon

bean balls. I'm probably the last person to try this recipe. They were really good, but a bit mushy. I think some breadcrumbs or something like that would fix that.
Apricot BBQ Sauce w/ Tofu. This is a delicious messy way to eat tofu. Not my first or last time making this sauce. It's not spicy at all, so add some if you like it that way.

The same sauce, but w/ seitan - which is even better than the tofu version.

Vegan Brunch

Vanilla pancakes. They aren't kidding, these have a ton of vanilla in them, but are oh so good. to the left is a super blueberry banana soy guava smoothie.

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. lots o' lemon in these. They weren't really fluffy muffins, but more dense. They didn't last long.

Pumpkin French Toast. This was the first time making this recipe and it was good. I put in lots less clove than called for and didn't soak the bread that long. Also, it wasn't a crusty husk like called for. Perfection. The second time, I followed the recipe exactly and it was too clovey and the batter (?) didn't soak evenly. So lesson is that I need to not follow recipes so closely :)

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Welcome to my closet of boxes. This was the one door that I thought I could safely open w/out cats being able to squeeze into. That was the case for the past 5+ years. Chippy decided that was long enough.

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PS. Hillside Quickies is opening a new restaurant, Plum. I can hardly wait.

4th & 5th of July activities

Last weekend was a busy one. On the 4th, I went to potluck #1, ate a bunch of delicious food, chatted w/ Tofu Mom about barbie. Our conversation on barbie is not finished, but hey it's barbie!

This pic was a bit of an afterthought, but you get the idea, picnic table full of vegan goodness. We brought drinks, cookies and rice krispie squares using Dandies marshmallows. They were good, though the krispies I used were a bit healthy tasting. Then I rushed home, made food for potluck #2, hung out w/ the doggies, then went to potluck #2. I made the black soybean sushi that's on the blue plate (contains tortillas, sushi spiced blackbean mix, cabbage, nori, cucumber, red pepper, carrot) using a recipe from Lorna Sass' The New Vegan Cookbook. The bowl on the plate contains a nut mix from trader joes that has lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, hot peppers, a bunch of nuts.


Damn! I just realized that I never got a piece of cornbread. This pic was taken early on. It was jam packed w/ food an hour later.
The condiment and baked beans table.

On the 5th, I went to the Seattle Beerfest. It was the last day of the fest, so a lot of the beers had sold out. No fears, I had done my homework and knew which were vegan. This is yours truly w/ sweaty hair pulled back. I tend to melt in the sun and it was a scortcher.

I'm not looking very lovingly at this beer because it fell in the kombucha style beer category. No, there isn't a Kombucha beer out there, but some certainly taste like it. The green thing in my mouth is a Skittle. They are now vegan in the US (just look under the ingredients for the words "gelatain free". Not all of them say it yet because most stores still have old stock).

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Kobie relaxing knowing that the perimeter is secure.
If he slacks off too much, then the deer will come out and party. Which is what they did in this photo when he was at the vet a while back. And those deer raise a ruckus when they crank up the tunes, guzzle beer, then have burping contests - or is that me?