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?