Vegan Thyme

Rose's Bagels

2012-01-23T11:44:00.000-06:00

The weather lately has been very January-middle-of-winterish. No sun. Spots of rain. Dark days. One day without sun in January in St. Louis is like a month of sunless days. Not that I thought it possible, but I think I'm actually getting "paler".

Bagels baking in oven equals instant "happy". This is why being a Yankee at heart has helped me persevere during winter. Dr. Thyme and I both harbor the same grudge against the winter backdrop. We run in the misery-loves-company circle. Though I must say, he being of Irish descent (full of the blarney) does make him much more of a "glass-is-half-full" sort of spirit against my own "the-hell-it-is" mindset. I am wired differently is all. Again, it's the northener in me. It's the indifference in me. He seems to take these days with a grain of salt and manages nicely through it all and I love him for that.

Meantime, I pour through recipes in my collection of cookbooks looking for even the slightest glimmer of hope for the next Great. Baking. Experience. For the therapy baking experience. After all, I have a new "baking center" in the kitchen. I need only place myself in front of the the shelf of flour jars to be inspired, right?

Enter: The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. One of my favorite baking books by far (though I would love it more if she were to release a Whole Grain Bread Bible). Being from the school of, "I like to read before I bake anything" works well with Rose's recipes. Strategy and timing are also important when tackling a four page recipe. Which then leads me hunting down the post-it notes so I can label each step of the dough making process to time everything just right so the next "mixing" or "shaping" process is not somehow missed. My fridge takes on this mad scientist look. Covered plastic containers of all shapes and sizes, different colored post-its on them, different noted dates and times crammed here and there. But. . . I like "processes".

For Rose's bagel process, you make a sponge first--a wet mixture of a pancake-batter-like consistency, topped with the dry dough mixture. Sprinkle the dry over the sponge, place in fridge overnight--the wet mixture will bubble through the dry--this is a good thing. She says to allow the sponge/dough to sit at room temperature for an hour before placing in fridge overnight, but because I usually end up making my dough the hour before my head hits the pillow in the evening, it is fine to just mix both, and place in the fridge right away. Next day, mix your sponge and dough together in the mixer. Time for second rise. I used her HALF recipe (five bagels vs. ten) because my KitchenAid blender will only handle five cups of flour--then place in fridge for one more night. (You don't need another night, I just prefer this to proceeding with the final rise on the second day. The dough, to me, tastes better on the third day.) So. . . third morning, I remove the dough from the fridge and begin the shaping, rising and boiling process. One other thing worth noting--Rose instructs to add ground pepper to the dough. Not a ton. And certainly not enough to cause the dough to take on a "peppery" flavor. I did a double take when I read this. But I completely trust her. And glad I did. The pepper adds this mysterious quality to the dough. I can't explain it. But just follow the instruction on this and don't skip it. Finally, the shaping and. . . hand-meeting-dough--which elicits a big smile and, at least for a moment, puts me in a happy place.

Rose's bagels are sublime. I've made Peter Reinhart's bagels. If my memory serves me, I would have to say, Rose's bagels, so far, are my personal favorite. They aren't dense. They bake up crisp and chewy--light and airy--if a bagel can be called "light and airy". They make for the best toast ever. They are just gorgeous. They are like nothing you'll ever find in a bakery. A perfect winter pick-me-up. (Especially now.) In the photo above, I went with Rose's suggestion to roll a piece of the dough out and fold the dough over on itself like so. Pinch the ends so they won't come apart when you boil the bagel. The other option for shaping the bagel instructs you to make a round ball of dough, then stick your finger through the middle. I prefer the roll-and-pinch method. It's a personal choice. (Though I found a few of my "pinched" bagels did come apart--it was an easy fix. Just re-pinch the ends before baking.)

Ready for boiling.

Bagels boiling in water with added molasses and baking soda give the bagel a beautiful amber color once they've finished baking.

I was happy while I involved myself with Rose's bagels in the middle of January. I highly recommend Rose's, The Bread Bible. It's worth every penny. Or check your local library for a copy. I searched for a link to her recipe if you felt inclinded to try your hand at bagel making (and I'd rather promote her book and recipe vs. just sharing a link or typing my own version out). After much searching, however, I did come across a rather good discussion thread at bread-bakers.com where a kind baker took the best of both worlds and shared his own bagel recipe: a Reinhart and Levy combination bagel recipe. You will need to halve the recipe listed in the thread (as I had to do with Rose's recipe--another reason to get the book, she offers the exact quantity bagel recipe to accomodate a five-cup stand mixer for making five bagels vs. ten). The discussion thread on bagel making is here. I found a lot of helpful tips here as well. Hope this inspires you to get bagel making. Here's to some sunny January days. . . soon!

Vegan Farro Soup with Crusty Ciabatta Bread (Strumming Pain And Tire Tracks on My Music)

2012-01-19T13:03:00.002-06:00

Wednesday night is guitar lesson night. Dinner needed to be something quick and something I could either cook the heck out of the hour before I leave the house and just "leave" warm on the stove until I get home after lessons or. . . it's vegan grilled cheese and a can of soup night again.

I have been neglectful of my kitchen lately because of all the topsy-turvy remodeling taking place. I can't stand chaos and thus, was unable to "work" in such conditions. Now that all seems to be in order (this after a serious purging from the pantry and fridge)--I am able to navigate the possibilities for dinner more easily. (I could spend several posts on the virtues of keeping your kitchen in an OCD sort of way--but I'll wait for another time.) During this purge, I unearthed quite a chache of beans, rice and other pantry staples that had somehow been residing in either another time dimension or happened to pop their little heads out for the new kitchen unveiling. Either way, that's how the farro came into the picture. During one of my shopping trips to Whole Foods, I must have stumbled upon "farro".

(Because it certainly didn't happen at one of my "local" grocery haunts, trust me.) I had an unopened bag of it sitting in the back of the fridge. I always keep rice in the fridge. Farro is actually in the wheat family--from what I understand. It is more popular in European regions (especially Italy) than it is here. Much like rice. In fact, I'll just call it rice. I happen to love both its texture and nutty taste. Note to self: use farro in more recipes.

I recalled a farro soup I had seen in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day cookbook that I had been dying to make. This is one cookbook for which there is always inspiration for creating something beautiful and delicious, with minimal ingredients and usually quickly. She allows room to make changes, to jump off wherever you'd like and make any recipe your own--that's another reason I love the cookbook. There are really only five main ingredients to my soup version and only a "few" spices. Mainly the spice called for was curry. I amped up the spice volume a bit in my version and the result was superb. Served with a crusty loaf of Jim Lahey's Ciabatta Bread, it was sublime.

Newly stored/labled farro rice for many more delightful dinner moments.

The C chord. And. . . hand cramps. I am diligent about my guitar practice. Every day, no matter when. If it's ten-thirty at night, so be it. I have to play the guitar. It makes me happy--this guitar.

Yesterday I felt out of sorts a bit. A little spacy. A little. And as the hour approached for me to leave for my lessons--I'd debated not going at all. When I feel a little off kilter, I tend to take that as a sign that my hormones are running full tilt and it may be best to lay low. I should have listened to myself. I fed the kids and let them all out--during which, I lost track of time and before I knew it, I saw the clock and thought, Dang it! I've got to go NOW! I arrived for my lesson all winded and disheveled. I was ushered into my "room" for practice and apologized profusely for my tardiness, THEN, pick in hand, realized I had completely forgotten my "stupid" lesson book. (And that's exactly what came rolling out of my mouth: I. Forgot. My. Stupid. Lesson. Book. What the heck is wrong with me!? Am I going to start crying? Right here? Right now? No. You will NOT cry! It's guitar lessons, not a doctor visit for crying out loud!) And where had I left said book? On the floor of the garage. I had run over it with my car as I left in a bit of a hurry.

Teacher was understanding and we arranged for an earlier afternoon practice time because, as I said to my tutor: I have a husband I need to feed. So. Here's hoping that new time slot alleviates the "drama" of trying to haul my butt out the door in a timely fashion.

I have moved from learning the first three strings and their cooresponding notes along the first three frets to the fourth string (D, E, F)--to last night's introduction to "chords". The strumming portion of playing the guitar. Well. Did I really expect to be plucking Yankee Doodle and Love Me Tender forever? (Love Me Tender is titled Aura Lee in my music book because, according to my guitar instructor, Elvis sort of hijacked the notes for his famous song and later paid a hefty price for doing so. Who knew?! I love music trivia like that. Plus I've been to Graceland.) My awe at the instrument continues to grow. So as I was instructed to jump from the C chord to the G7 chord and just "play along with me". . . then told, "you know this song, right" and some Credence Clearwater Revival began to take shape, my jaw dropped. Then we jammed to some Eagles. Yes. I said "jammed".

Part of my OCD kitchen re-do. Me like very much. This is why having a pressure cooker is essential in this house. Whole, dry beans-to-soup in 30 minutes.

Vegan Farro Soup

Adapted from "Super Natural Every Day" by Heidi Swanson

1 large yellow onion chopped

1 stalk celery chopped

4 garlic cloves minced

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced (you could use carrots instead if you'd like--one should do it)

2 bay leaves

1 cup farro (*you could use regular brown basmati rice, too)

1 cup dried brown lentils

1/2 tablespoon garam masala (*optional)

1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons curry

1/4 teaspoon ground tumeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 tablespoon dried oregano

salt and fresh ground pepper

juice of 1/2 lemon (and some zest for topping it off)

vegan sour cream

veggie boullion cube and 6 cups water OR 6 cups veggie stock (*I use unsalted vegan veggie cubes from Whole Foods--I love having these on hand and using in soups)

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add all the chopped veggies and saute for about ten minutes--until the onion begins to soften. Add the bay leaves, farro, lentils and spices and the veggie stock or veggie cube and water. Cover and allow to simmer over low heat for about an hour. Check on the soup at about 45 minutes. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Finally, zest half of a lemon. Then, cut lemon in half and add the juice from it to the soup. Serve soup topped with vegan sour cream, some extra virgin olive oil and shaved lemon zest over the top. Very yummy.

Vegan BBQ Chicken Pizza Five Minute Style (DIY: New Kitchen Cabinets with Optional Baking Station Included!)

2012-01-17T12:12:00.003-06:00

It started out as a trip to the home improvement store to have a "look-see" at the new interior paints for 2012. It turned into a seven day kitchen-cabinet-remodel-plus-living-room-bedroom-painting palooza. S-e-v-e-n days. Non-stop. During the home improvement festivities, cooking took a hiatus. Well sorta. We survived mainly on the remains of daily rations of pizza dough from this: Artisan Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. And now, having acquired all of the cookbooks in the Five Minutes a Day collection, I can honestly say, I LOVE this and consider it one the best. Not only did this book keep us fed and nourished during our remodel project, it also created some of the best pizza dough I've EVER had. (No disrespect to Peter Reinhart.)

I will tell you that the dough recipe I found I loved the most in the book calls for "oo" flour--which you will probably have to order online, or search really hard for where you live. Lucky for us, St. Louis is home to one of the top Italian food nirvanas (known as "The Hill") in the country and I was able to get my flour from one of the grocers there. I like to keep "oo" flour on hand for all things pasta and pizza. Don't be discouraged, the Pizza in Five book has enough options you probably have everything you need to whip up a batch of dough right now using AP flour. Spend even a few minutes on their site and I promise, all dinner problems will be solved. As for the vegan BBQ chicken pizza recipe--check out any BBQ sauce recipe for inspiration, then cook the sauce until it is nicely reduced and thick--almost like a paste, then begin the vegan pizza building! You'll need to get your hands on some vegan chicken substitute--which is not a problem given the vegan lifestyle is finally beginning to go mainstream, if only at a snail's pace. And truth be told, I am just spent after all the work we've done and it was about all I could do to get these pizza pictures taken to share with you all. Really. Super good pizza-eating here.

Action shot: the vegan Diaya cheese is a must. But notice how thin I rolled my crust. That is really important. And I like my pizza with a bit MORE on top vs. less. Pizza opinions are like noses: everyone's got one.

Here's my trusty little container of pizza dough I keep in the fridge. We were on our last legs with this one. But never fear, more was made!

Meet my small, humble kitchen. . . and its circa 1990 pale cabinet color. I've made "do" with it. You remember I just painted it last year in my favorite Martha Stewart color: sea glass. I still love the color of the walls in my kitchen. It's been said that with all homes, it takes about five-to-seven years for the home to begin to conform to the dream you always knew it could be. This fall will be our eighth year here. Our home was built around 1940s. Originally probably served as a hunting cabin, then farm, then grew into the house it is today. I fell in love with, not only this kitchen (it has vaulted ceilings with exposed wood beams going across)--giving a very cozy-cabin feel), but I fell in love with the land, too. Of course this house has given us more than we could ever give it back. I truly believe in the power of place. And this place has been a wonderful home (albeit a "bit" of a sweat equity nightmare the first three years, the likes of which I hope to NEVER have to re-live again)--we have grown to love it more every year. But these pale cabinets. . . they had to go. It was time.

So, as I was saying, it all started with a trip to the Home Depot. I turned the corner and sitting on the floor is this cute little one-stop-shop kitchen cabinet remodel kit by Rust-Oleum called, Cabinet Transformation. Complete with a how-to DVD. Well, if there's pictures AND a DVD, surely I could do this, right? Right. And we did. It worked like a charm. H-a-r-d-e-s-t week of my life, but sooo worth it. I turn into a bit of a cry baby after about two days of home improvement goings on. I'm not ashamed to say this either. As a result of the "impending" nervous break down, Dr. Thyme jumped in to save the day because I had also planned to re-paint the living room and bedroom this weekend. He kindly took over that task. God love him for that!

Here is Dr. Thyme--the most excellent painter-man I've ever met. He can tape walls like no one else I know. We transformed our home from the nineties and that old terra-cotta obsession (and it was a good obsession when I had it, but its time had come) to this beautiful rich, dark grey called "mined coal" with an accent color in a very subtle taupe called "jackal". So our home is now "Coal/Jackal!" It works and we love it to death.

Twenty-six doors. That's how many kitchen cabinets and drawers I had to personally remove and re-attach, and clean and re-clean, paint twice and deglaze and finally top-coat for a total of 186 paintings. (I had Dr. Thyme do the math for me because by day four, I was sort of a hot mess and was sobbing uncontrollably and at the spur of the moment.) Yes. This is a DIY project. No. It is not for the faint of heart.

Viola! New kitchen. I wanted to go darker. I used the color "espresso" for my doors. I love the result. It took me eight hours to re-attach each door, plus new knobs and handles. (Got those at Target--they had this knob/handle kit!) I heart Target.

And finally. As if I hadn't turned into enough of a head case, I suddenly decided that I needed to have a Baking Center in my kitchen. Cutting down on that dreaded five step walk back and forth to my pantry everytime the urge to bake strikes. (Which is, as we all know. . . nearly every day!) Viola! Baking Station accomplished. Don't you love it? I have everything I need right at my finger tips. I think Martha Stewart would be pleased. She might not like those messy wires showing. Oh, and yes, there are TWO coffee makers. And YES, I DO love my coffee.

So there you have it. Today I have plans for more organizing in the kitchen--placing all the dried beans in mason jars now that I have more room in the pantry for storing. Then a little work on my pots and pans area because if I have to remove the entire cabinet of pans to get to my favorite soup pot one more time, I'll scream. But we LOVE how everything turned out. Just love it. Hands still a bit swollen, but other than that, it's perfect.

Vegan Brunswick Stew Cobbler (A Rock Idol Flashback And Portlandia Obsession)

2012-01-10T11:27:00.007-06:00

Last night I was in the mood for pastry and barbecue. No, I'm not pregnant. After throwing open five cookbooks and covering every inch of my kitchen counters with marked recipe pages and variations on a theme of a "stew" and of a "cobbler"--I came up with this recipe for a very tasty best of the best for a bake-until-bubbly sort of casserole dish. Sometimes it's the journey. My cooking mojo is doing combat with this post-Christmas (I finally relented and took down my winter wonderland Christmas lights, but not without some angst over the lack of snow!)--and it's been a challenge lately to come up with crafty and clever meal ideas. It's rare for me to find inspiration in one cookbook anyhow. I need a collision of at least a half dozen books sometimes to figure out what might make for a singular yummy meal.

You probably already have everything you need to make this for dinner tonight. Just look in the freezer.

These are a vegan gal's best friend: Gardein Chicken patties. They are a must in this house. And I just discovered them at Target which shortens my grocery store drive to getting my hands on them by about two miles. Win-win!

Make pastry and top casserole of veggies with it and bake. Couldn't be easier. I love easy.

So I was reading the paper this morning and learned (to my shock and disbelief) that Pat Benatar turns 59 today. Say what?! I'll share a bit of history about one of my favorite rock idols. When I was in high school (year unknown), I just LOVED her. MTV had knocked American Bandstand out of contention with it's all-music-video-all-the-time format. First there was only Bandstand, then Soul Train later--and Saturdays were sacred from then on out. I remember the first time I saw the video, Hit Me with Your Best Shot and how blown away I was with this bad a** song and the bad a** artist singing. Short hair and all! Whoa. I immediately craved two things. A short haircut AND black eye liner. My mom went along for the short hair, the black eye liner would have to be something I eased into later. There are photos, but those will remain in the giant plastic storage box in the basement until I become famous. Meantime, Pat Benetar and all her sassy, brassy musicology from Love Is A Battlefield, We Belong and Heartbreaker all lead me and my girlfriends on this "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" attitude shift. It was powerful. Our generation's next iteration of finding ourselves was being defined through these songs and eventually the songs of other strong female types along the way (Ann and Nancy Wilson, Blondie, the Go-Go's). But for me it all started with Pat Benatar. Happy Birthday!

On a more current cultural bent--Satruday night Dr. Thyme and I immersed ourselves in a little Portlandia. Prior knowledge of said show was quite limited. But I had read a review of it and thought it worth a moment of our TV time. That moment turned our Saturday night into a full tilt evening of all things Portlandia. It is officially one of my favorite shows. Period. I laughed so hard, I nearly cried. Literally. Lorne Michaels (another influence from my youth for whom I have the deepest respect)--has his hand in the production. I believe my affection for this show harkens back to my over-the-top obsession with Saturday Night Live. I never missed a show. Ever. Portlandia's quirky, over-the-top-crazy-silliness is all an eighties girl could ever want. (Check out the "Put A Bird on It" segment--for the crafty-crazed, nothing will make you more humble about our insane ways than this skit. I promise. Still laughing.) Bonus for me: Kyle Machlachlan guest stars (I won't even start on Twin Peaks) and Steve Buscemi. This is how bad TV habits begin.

Vegan Brunswick Stew Cobbler

*Adapted from about five different recipes

For pastry:

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
5 tablespoons vegetable spread (cold)
1 1/2 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons ice water

Pulse all ingredients except ice water together in a food processor until the veggie spread and flour form little pea sized piece. About five or six pulses should do it. Slowly drizzle the ice cold water over the mixture and pulse one or two more times to just incorporate the water. The mixture will be quite crumbly. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter and dump the pastry onto this. Press the pastry together and form into a flat oval. Wrap and place in fridge for about 30 minutes to chill.

For the filling:

1 large red onion chopped into 1/2" chunks
2 celery stalks chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 green pepper chopped
1-2 tablespoons paprika (depending on how much you like--I like a lot for this dish)
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 tablespoon cumin
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup frozen lima beans
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 can diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons cooking sherry
1 teaspoon vegan worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 tablespoons molasses or brown sugar
4 tablespoons white vinegar
2 Gardein Chicken patties (cooked and cut into small pieces and set aside)

Preheat oven to 425. Set out a medium-sized casserole dish for baking--spray with non-stick cooking spray. Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat in a large saute pan. Add chopped veggies and bay leaf and saute until onions begin to soften and turn brown around the edges--about ten minutes. Next, add the cooking sherry to this to deglaze the pan a bit. Then add the seasonings, canned tomatoes, and all remaining ingredients including the Gardein. Allow mixture to simmer for about twenty minutes so the flavors meld together stirring every so often. Be sure to taste this. I had to adjust the sugar and vinegar a bit after my tomatoes were added. Just taste it to be sure you have that BBQ flavor going on. Pour ingredients into casserole dish. Take pastry dough from fridge and place between two pieces of plastic wrap and roll to about 1/4" thickness. Carefully cut the dough into strips about 1" wide and place across the casserole in a lattice pattern. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the pastry begins turning gold around the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool ten minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Vegan Whole Grain Blueberry Crumb Coffecake (Cowls And Guitars)

2012-01-05T16:41:00.002-06:00

This is a very "crumby" coffee cake: I love it to pieces! Literally. It's baked with tons of good-for-you whole grains and a yummy cinnamon-y, crunch-y topping that, as it sits, gets better by the day. I've had this for breakfast, lunch and dessert. For evening time, if you have a hankering for something sweet, but want to feel "healthy" about it, then this cake's for you! The added bonus are those antioxidant-rich blueberries. I'd probably add another cup of berries the next time I make this, but meantime, thought it totally worth sharing. If you wanted to make giant muffins out of this, or even regular-sized muffins, you could. But you'd need to adjust the baking time and keep an eye on them during baking. Either way--the flavor in this is outstanding.

I like to pre-cut my coffee cake into pieces, then store in the fridge for nibbling. I don't know why, but this cake truly tastes better served cooled vs. room temperature. Of course, if truth be told, I'd eat the topping alone, and save the "cake" part for another time. But that's the sugar addict in me talkin'.

Here I am in the sixty-five degree January day showing off my latest finished knit: the GAP-tastic Cowl. It's HUGE! Unraveled and hanging in it's finished circle, it drapes nearly to my waist and is 12" wide. So doubled up and around my neck, it feels like I'm wearing a giant llama. I loved knitting this--great TV knitting. Great knitting for the airplane trip I took a few weeks ago. I used Bernat Roving for my yarn in a deep olive green. I love the way the seed stitch pattern worked with this yarn. The recommended needle size was a 13/3 stitches to the inch. I went with a size 10 because I had four hanks of the yarn. It knitted up a wee bit tinier in the seed stitch design than from the original, but I don't think it took anything away from the texture or look of the cowl. Nearly a million other knitters on Ravelry have finished this cowl, so if you see one somewhere on someone, be sure to give a shout out, "Nice GAP-tastic cowl!"

On an entirely unrelated front is: the guitar. Well. I LOVE my new guitar. I really do. But I'm also petrified of it for some reason. I went to my second guitar lesson last night. Same spot in lesson-line, right before the eight year old kid. I had been practicing my string notes: E, F, G, B, C and D. I was sure I'd be able to walk into my lessons and with my eyes closed hammer out, "Ode to Joy" for my instructor. I'd practiced it: Every. Single. Day. (The true test of a husband's love: sitting in the same room while one tackles an entirely NEW musical instrument. It could be worse, I could have said, "I'd love to learn to play the slide trombone", kay?) What I played sounded like something akin to Old McDonald and Free Bird combined. Yes. It got so bad at one point, I thought I might pass out from the stress of playing in front of my teacher. I could feel my face flushing every single time I hit a wrong note. Which would be at least ninety percent of the time as I stumbled through this particular piece. Here I was, a grown woman with so much nervous stage freight, I had flashbacks of "play" tryouts from high school. I could barely look that man in the face! He kindly accepted my pre-payment for my class next week. So I haven't been banished from ever playing the guitar again. . .yet.

This will not defeat me.

Vegan Whole Grain Blueberry Crumb Coffeecake

*Adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

2 cups white whole wheat flour

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 tablespooons unsalted vegetable margerine

3/4 cup, plus 1 tablespoon Florida Crystals sugar

3 teaspoon Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons water

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon imitation butter extract *optional

2-2 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (do NOT thaw them out!)

For crumb topping:

3/4 cup Florida Crystals sugar

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup rolled oats

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly spray a 9" square baking pan with non-stick baking spray. (You could use a round pan if you don't have a square one.) Combine all the ingredients for the crumb topping in a medium mixing bowl. Using your fingers or a pastry blender, crumb together the margerine and flour and spices until medium-sized crumbs appear. You don't need to use a blender, your hands are fine for this task. Set aside.

For the cake batter: Whisk together in a medium bowl all the dry ingredients (flour, seasonings and salt) and set aside. Whisk your egg replacer together and set aside. Measure out the soy milk and add vanilla extract and butter extract (if using) and set it aside until you are ready to add it to the batter. In a large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the margerine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add your Ener-G egg replacer and blend well--until smooth. Scrape down the bowl as you do this. Next, add half the dry ingredients, and then the milk mixture. Give the mixture a good whirl with the blender--but only a quick shot--don't overmix the batter. You are done using the motor blender, the rest of the mixing will be done with a spoon. Add the remaining flour mixture and stir it with a spoon, folding the batter in on itself so that most of the batter is blended (a few dry areas are fine). Finally, fold in the frozen blueberries. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the pan. Slice into pieces and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Vegan Chocolate Loaf Cake (Zoo Year's Eve)

2012-01-01T16:01:00.002-06:00

This was the last thing we ate in 2011. I couldn't have been happier.

Hubby and I spent the last day of the year at the zoo. When we got home, we were ravenous, so he put together his man-chili (mostly beans and NO tomatoes) and I sat around thumbing through all my cookbooks looking for just the perfect food for ending this horrendous year. Uh. Chocolate was mandatory. I went all baking-bonkers and spent the next four hours in the kitchen creating a chocolate New Year's Eve for us to enjoy. This chocolate loaf cake exceeded all of my chocolate-loving expectations. I found it in my search in Nigella Lawson's cookbook, Feast: Food to Celebrate Life. A cookbook I've had on my shelf now for the past few years. That's why it's good to collect cookbooks. You just never know where your next inspiration will come from.

There's a new baby elephant at our zoo, and I just had to see her. (Him?) It was such a beautiful, sunny and unusually warmish afternoon yesterday--and at the spur of the moment I announced that I'd love to take a trip to the zoo. DH looked at me and asked, Seriously? Sure! Then he said, I thought the zoo "bothered" you. (It does.) But nothing will put a smile on your face quicker than baby animals. Apparently the rest of St. Louis felt the same way. We were amongst a HUGE crowd who also found this unusual weather an enticement for baby elephant viewing and various other outdoor pursuits on New Year's Eve. Well. . . I wasn't leaving Forest Park without trying to get in some ice skating. Fifteen minutes of circling the skating rink parking lot (and half that time waiting to navigate around other ice skating enthusiasts who must have JUST gotten their driver's licences YESTERDAY) and we called it a day and headed home. *BUT I did demand a re-do on the ice skating and DH promised he'd come and "watch".

This cake is so simple to make. No frosting necessary. Trust me. Nigella tells you to just put all the stuff for the cake in your mixing bowl and "blitz", then add the boiling water. The batter looks like a hot mess when you mix it up and it sort of had my KitchenAid doing a dance after this mass of dough collected on one side of the bowl. But once you add the boiling water--uh, NOT while the blade is turning--it all smooths out. (Just thought I'd mention that little tidbit or you'll have cake batter everywhere!) So. . . after carefully mixing in the boiling water, you can take a deep breath and know that everything will be alright. Trust Nigella. This cake will definitely go on the repeater rotation list. Definitely.

Here's the loaf cake straight from the oven and after I poured the syrup over it. You make your own chocolate syrup to pour over the cake. Pure heaven. Then, let the cake cool for about an hour. It's just amazing! As for vegan changes. You'll sub vegan sour cream for the regular she calls for, and use 3 teaspoons of Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 4 tablespoons of water, finally sub unsalted vegetable margerine for the the "butter" called for in her recipe.

So here are some shots of the new baby at the zoo. As is typical of animal watching--you arrive and hope the baby comes out. And she did. With about fifty other folks standing around oooh-ing and ahhh-ing, you can't help but have faith in humanity.

Just precious. Weighing in at like 240 lbs. at birth!

This is another not-quite-adult elephant at our zoo. I have no details to share. We didn't read the fine print. We just walked and looked.

Not Mr. Popper's.

I have cat allergies so we stayed back a bit from this one.

Okay. If I had a zoo, I'd totally want to add prairie dogs to the mix. Most. Adorable. Things. Ever!

So we were trying like crazy to get a shot of the two of us with baby elephant in the background. We were getting Dr. Thyme's goatee and then we'd get my glasses, and maybe a piece of the elephant in the background, then a fuzzy close up of an eyeball. We looked like total morons doing this in front of a small gathering of on-lookers trying to peer around us to see the dang baby! Until finally this VERY kind lady approached us and asked if we'd like her to take our photo! YES, PLEASE! Thank. God.

I love shadows. And for a brief moment we were the only two walking down this path at the zoo. I looked down and said, Look! It's perfect! Our shadows. And Dr. Thyme indulged me this moment. A lasting imprint of us both. To remember the last day of 2011.

Vegan Caramel Cake (Looking Back . . . )

2011-12-28T21:20:00.005-06:00

Nearly 2012. I am completely through with 2011. Through. I had decided I'd wanted to take a break from all that is and live "off grid" for a bit. And so I have. It's been pure and utter delight. I won't say that I didn't peek into the world of the internet here and there, but when I did stop by, it was brief and I quickly set about doing whatever it was my mind was consumed with two minutes before.

(Mostly knitting that HUGE man-sweater I promised husband for Christmas! And no, it is not "yet" in the wear stage, but almost so.) This is called the Raglan-Sleeved Henley from the book, Knits Men Want by Bruce Weinstein. I am knitting this in Lionsbrand Fisherman's wool. I really love the color and it will look smashing on DH. . . once it's finished! Close. So close.

Meantime, my kitchen was in full swing. One thing I made sure we had plenty of was pastry! Lots and lots of pastry. Last night as we were nearly ready for making way for dinner, I had a craving for a caramel cake. One of the many cakes on my Bucket List. I'd tried my hand at this cake a while back and it failed miserably almost setting husband into a diabetic fit. I quickly scrapped the remnants of the coma-inducer and thought I might give it a shot "later". And later became last night. If you've read The Help--you've heard of the cake. The Caramel Cake makes several appearances throughout the book. As it should. It is a truly glorious and decadent southern cake. This cake's not gonna win any beauty contests, okay? But one taste and you'll forgive it its very un-cake-like-ness and will want to devour the whole thing in one sitting. When I gave Dr. Thyme the taste-test piece last night, he shrugged at me asking, Where's the chocolate? I told him that not every cake on the planet that's worth eating contains chocolate, 'kay?! Try it! And he reached his hand up for the tiniest bite I'd ever seen a grown man take and nibbled. I said, Well? He said he LOVED the cake part. And that was all he'd give me. Fine. I added, More for me! *Vacation time with loved ones during lo-o-ng holiday breaks can test the nerves. We're in the home stretch now.

See what I mean, pretty ugly cake. But oh-so-good!

Aside from lots of sugar consumption, I've been away for part of this month. Went back "home". And lived to tell. I don't want to spend too much time on the visit I had up North, but will say that the person who coined "You can't go home" might have been on to something. Though you certainly CAN go home, it may not ever feel the way you remembered it feeling. Or looking. Or being. The cold, hard background of the steel mills along the Lake Michigan coast just east of Chicago still look like the industrial age pits of doom I remembered. The giant concrete buidings circa 1950s--institutions whose time and place were now ending--but for some strange reason had a neon scroll sign out front stating: "We Love You Michael Jackson". I kid you not. It was, after all, Gary, Indiana--the pop king's home. . . and mine. Then we rode along further. . . the wide open area of Lake Michigan to our left. I spent nearly every day of my childhood there--on that beach--and it still takes my breath away. The vast flat landscape of acre upon acre of pure pancake-like (sometimes farmed) geography is all the same, too. My first snow of this season took place one morning when I awoke before my sister. I thought that quite fitting. I sat with the biggest cup of hot coffee I could and just stared out the window of her apartment, reminiscing about my past. About the things that will forever link me to that place: my entire childhood and all that made me into what I am today sitting right outside the window. There were pieces of me everywhere.

Of course my sister and I enjoyed our time together tremendously. And I've made a vow to her to return more often. Her life is back. She's worked so very hard to get that life back, too. We celebrated her sobriety. We celebrated her independence. We cried. We looked at old photos. We shopped. (Therapy.) We then went over to the "step father's" house for dinner and I cooked. And then, more memories. After all, this was the man for whom much of my adult life has been spent trying to heal. I told myself: I am a grown woman. I am over all that. And yet. Here I was nearly fifty years old and there he was: The figure at the head of the table. . . housed and clothed us ALL. Thirty-five years in the mill. Member of the Teamsters. Hard-working. Middle class. Loves the Cubs, the Bears and. . . his TV. And boy you do NOT want to piss him off.

Old wounds must close. He is aging. I am aging. Our lives are running out of time. I stayed positive. I maintained my composure. I looked at my sister for support. She gave me reassuring glances, helping me in the kitchen. Me the big sis. Her the little sis. But this time, the roles sort of reversed, because it was me who needed the strength. And she was there for me the entire way through. By the time we left, I was shaking--nerves, fear? I said I'd probably wait another fifteen years before I did that again--had a "reunion". She said she appreciated it and it meant a lot to him, too. As I was leaving and standing toe-to-toe with him in the doorway, he began laughing. At me? Or about me? It was hard to tell. Even with heels on, he stands over me. (And I wore my black cowboy boots because they make me feel strong.) So I stared right back at him. An awkward moment to be sure. And then he said, You were the skinniest thing I'd ever seen. . . all bones, all legs and arms. . . Skinniest. I'd. Ever. Seen. Look. At. You. Now. And that was that--a bit of a hug, and we left. Life moves on. You can go home. But you better have your armor. Or cowboy boots. Whichever.

Husband gave me the most wonderful gift for Christmas. An acoustic guitar! My first lesson was tonight! I love music. I've been musical my whole life--much of it having to do with time I spend singing: In the car. . . windows rolled up. But I do adore the guitar. My class went swimmingly. I was taken aback by the way reading the music seemed to just "come back" for me. (Several years in choir.) Before I knew it, I had finished a line of notes and it was as if someone else had jumped in and played for me. Was that me? Did I just do that?! Dr. Thyme thinks this memory has to do with the way our brains are wired. (His scientist self says so.) Like riding a bike, if you will, he said. Then, lesson one over, I grabbed my instrument, headed out the door and in walks a kid no more than six years old wielding a guitar taller than he was, ready to resume lessons in the spot I had just left. (Electric guitar, of course.) I turned around to my instructor and said, IS that your next student? Yep. Sheesh. I was sweating and all tense, had serious finger cramps, but still proud. Step one. Lesson one. However, I may make a suggestion next time that a doorway leading OUT of the music classes be in the opposite direction from those awaiting their music lessons. (Like they do when you see your therapist: No two crazy people paths shall cross. In one way, out another.)

The other gift (that will take me into the 21st century) was the e-reader I received from hubby. Oh. God. I have fought this tooth and nail for years. I will still continue to fight the whole books-not-made-of-paper fight until the cows come home. I am a Gutenberg gal. What can I say? My current reading pleasure is Stephen King's 11/22/63. Husband gave it high marks and said he thought it one of King's best. I am a King fan to a point--I cannot read him unless pre-approved scare-o-meter has been given a once-over by DH. Because in all honesty, he's the one that will be stuck staying up all hours trying to convince me that there are no monsters in our house, on the roof, or in the bushes. He said scary factor is not an issue here. So far, I really love the book.

This caramel cake came by way of a long time baker and cookbook author: Marcy Goldman and her wonderful book, A Passion for Baking. I LOVE this book. If you are any kind of baker at all, this cookbook should be on your shelf. I've had this for several years and was flipping through it for cake inspiration when the title of this sweet old cake stopped me cold: Vintage Southern Tea Room Caramel Cake. I was a bit afraid to dive into the caramel cake again, but my gut said to go for it. So glad I did! A link to her recipe can be found here.

And as far as the vegan-izing, this went quite well, if I don't say so myself. In place of the 3 large eggs, I used 4 1/2 teaspoons of Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 6 tablespoons of water. In place of the 1 egg yolk, I used 1 teaspoon of canola oil. And of course the butter is replaced with unsalted vegetable margerine. The tricky part for me was knowing when to let the brown sugar icing just be. This is, after all, the hallmark of the caramel cake--it's the icing. I mean just Let. It. Be. Don't over cook it, don't over think it. (Because I'd already made that mistake once.) First time out, I had to re-heat my mixture and apply it promptly--like spackle. So I made up another batch and promtply poured the mixture over the spackle layer while it was still warm. Then: Step away from the cake! Cover and store at room temperature overnight. Don't worry about long term storage issues--it won't be around that long, trust me. But if you should HAVE to store some, place it in a container with a lid!

Vegan Lemon Almond Tea Cake with Lemon Glaze (And Snowflakes on The Side for Some Much Needed Crochet-for-Me Time)

2011-12-14T12:59:00.001-06:00

I had to take a break from cookie baking. Plus, it felt like I was being unfair to the cake. In keeping with the "only happy things" posting theme for December, I am sharing this amazingly delicious lemony slice of heaven with you. If you are stuck for a gift idea for special foodies in your life, might I strongly suggest you give this recipe a try. Seriously. I'm on my "almost" third piece this morning already. The addition of ground almonds to the batter took this bread to a new level in my opinion. There is this sweet, crunchy-almond-y, lemon-y pizazz you get when you bite into this. The browning of the crust occurred after I baked mine in an old metal loaf pan once belonging to my mother. Mmm. I will promptly be hitting the treadmill this afternoon.

I have a trip coming up here shortly. I'm heading back "home". Indiana. I have not been home in sixteen years. My last visit was for my mom's funeral. (I wouldn't really call that a visit as much as a mandatory march.) She wasn't from here either.

Not being from here is a challenge at times. Missouri can be a less-than-welcoming sort of place for transplants. In fact, it can be so burdensome, there's an entire website and local grassroots organization dedicated to just that: Helping newbies feel like they have a place here in this wonderful golden-arched city: St. Louis Transplants. Identity in this fair city is placed on one long-held belief that an answer to a single question determines your St. Louis-ness more than any other:

What high school did you go to?

You need thick skin is all I'm saying. Well. You do.

Enough of that for now. I said I'd keep to "happy" thoughts this month!

While tidying up the house before my trip, I have baked like a mad woman. Nearly to the brink of insanity. That's how it is with me every Christmas season. In November I shrug off the idea of even getting in the holiday spirit at all. Bah. It's actually the pagan in me that gets emotional over the changing seasons. And then the holiday itself sort of creeps into my bones and I, like the Grinch, begin to see and feel the meaning of Christmas. I don't imagine anyone will ever write this about me:

She just ADORED Christmas. . . it was her favorite time of year!

(Hardly.) Perhaps they might write this:

She'd go into December kicking and screaming, crying out, Oh The Humanity! Pulling yet another sweet concoction from her oven. Finally smiling at the stacked old tupperware containers filled with cookies galore of yesteryear, nursing a pretty good sugar coma, she'd declare: Oh how I adore my time in my kitchen!

So I thought I'd take one moment out of this insane time of year and bake something just because it sounded perfect to ME. Lemon Tea Cake. Yum. (I talked to my sister this morning and she has made it clear she, too, would love some lemon tea cake!) Well, I think Santa can handle that little request.

And then, some kitsch for the house. I've seen these crocheted snowflakes here and there on my cruises through Ravelry and in my too-many-to-count knitting and crochet magazines (that somehow always end up in my shopping cart), that this year I was convinced I needed, HAD to make some cute little snowflakes. These are precious. And really fun to make. Addictive a bit, I'd say. One of the patterns came from a favorite site of mine, from Lucy at Attic 24.

I don't know whether or not I'll string them together for garland or turn them into ornaments. Decisions. Decisions.

Today it's nearly sixty degrees outside! Windows and doors are open for some fresh air. Our boy loves sunning himself.

Give this tea cake/bread a try. I swear you'll love it! It comes together in a snap, too. I was selfish and only made one loaf. If you wanted to double the ingredients to make two loafs or three mini-loafs, you very much could. Just adjust the baking time.

Vegan Lemon Almond Tea Cake with Lemon Glaze

*Adapted from, The Perfect Cake by Susan G. Purdy

1/2 cup whole almonds

1 cup Florida Crystals sugar

1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine (stick)

3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 tablespoons water

zest and juice of one lemon

1/4 teaspoon lemon extract (*optional)

1/8 teaspoon almond extract (*optional)

6 tablespoons unsweetened soy or almond milk

For Lemon Glaze

1/2 cup powdered sugar

juice of half a lemon

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan with non-stick baking spray. Set aside. Zest and juice your lemon and place all in bowl and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a food processor, add the half cup of almonds and 2 tablespoons of the pre-measured cup of sugar and pulse together until small chunks form. You don't want a powder, but chunks. In the bowl of a large mixer, cream together the margerine and remaining sugar. Add your egg replacer, mix for another minute or so. Next, add the extracts and lemon juice and zest. Next, add a third of the flour mixture and half of the milk mixture. Mix just until incorporated--about ten seconds. Repeat with the remaining milk / flour mixture--ending with the flour. Batter will be on the thick side. A few dry clumps will be okay. Next, fold in the chopped almond/sugar mixture. Pour the batter into the loaf pan, using a spatula, smooth the top. Bake for 45-50 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out with a few crumbs on it). If you under bake this, your loaf will sink in the middle! So just keep an eye on it. You don't want to over bake it either. While the loaf bakes, whisk together the lemon juice with powdered sugar and set aside until the loaf is ready. After the loaf has baked, allow it to cool for about 15 minutes in the pan. With a fork, poke the top of the loaf three or four times. Next, spread the lemon glaze over the top. Allow loaf to cool completely. Store wrapped well in the fridge. Yum!

Vegan Linzer Cookie (This Vintage Holiday Baking Moment Is Brought to You by My Mother's Recipe Box)

2011-12-08T12:52:00.006-06:00

Well, we finally had snow. A dusting. But just enough of a dusting to ignite a bit of that holiday thing everyone else on god's green planet seems to have. I headed back to my favorite home store for Christmas lights, deciding this year, it's LED lights outside for us. (Especially since the makers of these lights got smart and realized NEON white is not really appealing to the average Christmas light home decorator, and that the warmer glow is much preferable.) Purchasing these new LEDs nearly required me to take out a small loan. I let out a gasp when I signed my receipt, but we'll still be able to put food on the table. Besides, as I explained to Dr. Thyme (after telling him of our new "holiday decoration investment")--they'll last 25,000 hours and use eighty percent less power! We'll just need to be sure to put in our will who is to inherit them when we're gone. Besides, I refuse to "celebrate" and be all festive while our local utility company is "laughing all the way. . . to the bank". I simply cannot live in the dark during the bleakest time of the year.

It's the little things.

Like Christmas lights.

And these amazing cookies.

The linzer cookie has a ton of iterations. You have your linzer pie, your linzer squares, your linzer layer bars. Linzer this and linzer that. You get my point. But once, long, long ago, I somehow came to own a linzer cookie recipe for which the origin of has completely left me. The black and white copied text has been in my cookie recipe collection for years. Years. And it's usually the first cookie I make for Christmas. (And eat myself!) The page is all stained and has a tear in one corner. There are illustrations for shaping, dusting them with powdered sugar and for filling with raspberry jam that has been lightly flavored with lemon zest, then ever-so-delicately placing in each cookie three slivered almonds. The cookie is to me the epitome of Christmas: a powdered sugar, jammy-filled, almond-y bite of yum. The recipe makes just enough cookies for two trays--twelve cookies per tray--fourteen if you roll the balls just to a bit over an inch in diameter. For some reason I have no patience for more than two trays of any one cookie recipe during any single baking session. I must move on and begin another cookie pronto.

I find something very soothing about making this cookie. It's a multi-step, very hands-on sort of cookie. But most of my favorite Christmas cookies all require a small cardio blitz and terrific hand/eye coordination.

The snow.

Then something else happened. I found myself flipping through my mother's recipe box for cookies she may have made during Christmas. I do this every year. Always there was the cut outs dusted in either red or green sugar or those addictive multi-colored dots. I loved her sugar cookies. I recall them being on the kitchen counter most often, along with her Mexican Wedding Cake cookies.

As I was shuffling through the index cards (the holiday recipes all stamped with a red Happy Santa Face)--I stopped cold when my eye wandered over the top of one card where she had written, "Chickie". What?!

Chickie would be my dear Aunt Chickie. The essence of class. She was my grandmother's sister-in-law. A widow, too. She influenced me greatly. And by greatly I mean she had this sense of properness and manner that has been unmatched by anyone else I've encountered in my life. She grew violets. Her apartment was covered in them. She always smelled like roses. She had the most beautiful white hair I had ever seen. And her skin was radiant. She almost glowed. She was always dressed to the nines. Always. She schooled me on how to care for my skin. Why I remember this one tidbit is still a mystery to me. But I can see my young self (seven, eight or nine?) sitting on her velvet chair in her living room and her explaining to me how very important it was for ladies to take care of their skin. She then proceeds to bring out her rose scented jar of cream and shows me how to keep my elbows, knees and hands wrinkle-free.

My grandmother (on the right) and Aunt Chick in pink.

Then that got me sifting through some other old photos and clippings. Mom was a scrapbooker before scrapbooking went mainstream. I so am NOT a scrapbooker. That gene must have skipped me. Anyway. . .

The Blizzard of '67. I was. . . well, I was young. This is from my hometown newspaper, The Gary Post-Tribune. (Now the cat's out of the bag!) I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, 'kay? About as Yankee as you can get. Steel mill town. Made famous in Music Man. Home of Micheal Jackson and the Jackson Five. A really rough place. But by all accounts has more to do with my sass than any other place I've lived. Boy they don't make typed headlines like that anymore.

Mom and grandma in Hawaii. With. . . "pool boy?" (You see, after grandma was widowed at a much-too-young age--she took it upon herself to travel the country and world! And I do mean the world! I still have her passports.) This was the trip in which my mother shared with us that Harry Belafonte had attempted to offer my mom a ride back to her hotel after spotting her on the streets of Hawaii. She never, ever got tired of telling us this story. She thought he was one of the best looking men of her time. You can see how she may have turned a few heads.

Okay, a shot of mom and grandma--not abroad, but in Florida. I love the dress my grandmother's sporting! And my mom. . . so young and vibrant!

Okay. I think grandma may have had regrets about going on a hike in her dress, lugging that camera around her neck and all. Okay, back to cookie time.

Action shot: Decorating Aunt Chickie's sugar cookies.

Note: Uh. Aunt Chickie's cookies were. . . different. Crisp. Very crisp. And buttery. But in a vegan way. Which may mean I need to cut back a bit on the margerine I used and up the flour. **UPDATE 12/10/2011: We have deemed these cookies outrageously delish after fully cooled! They are KEEPERS! If you scroll back up to my mom's hand-written recipe, sub the egg using Ener-G Egg Replacer (1 1/2 teaspoons mixed with 2 tablespoons water)--follow the rest of her directions as is. Preheat oven to 375 and bake for 7-8 minutes. Be sure to roll the dough fairly thin. They are very edible and would make a great gift. I can't stop eating them. That's four hours of baking right there! (Not counting the dough resting over night in the fridge.)

Well. Here's the best Christmas cookie ever in my opinion: for the almond lover in all of us!

Vegan Linzer Cookies

*Makes about two dozen cookies, give or take

*Bake these on a "flat "cookie sheet--no parchment paper is needed. If you don't have a cookie sheet without a rim, just flip your regular cookie baking sheet over. The heat will bake the cookies more evenly.

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup ground almonds or almond flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup unsalted vegetable margerine

3/4 cup Florida Crystals sugar

3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

Filling:

1/3 cup raspberry jam

zest of half a lemon

*powdered sugar for dusting

**sliced almonds for the top

Preheat oven to 300. Sift the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together in a bowl. In a mixing bowl, add the margerine and sugar. Mix well until creamy. Add the egg replacer to this and mix well. Next, add the extracts. Slowly add about a third of the dry mixture to the sugar mixture. Only mix a wee bit--just until the first addition of flour is incorporated. A bit of flour clump is okay. Proceed to add the remainder of the flour mixture to the bowl, only slightly mixing until all the flour has been incorporated. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a ball. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least thirty minutes to firm it up. (Overnight is better.) Shape the dough into 1 1/2" balls and place evenly spaced out on cookie sheet. About twelve cookies per sheet. Poke a hole with the end of a spoon handle or your finger in the middle of the cookies. Bake for 22-25 minutes, just until the bottoms of the cookies begin to turn a bit golden. Meanwhile, make your raspberry filling. Remove the cookies from oven and allow to cool completely on the cookie tray. After the cookies have cooled, place on parchment paper or any other flat surface and dust the cookies with powdered sugar. Drop about a half teaspoon of raspberry jam into the center of each cookie and then place three sliced almonds atop each center. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week. Be careful with layering the cookies on top of each other--the jammy-y part will be messy otherwise.

Vegan Wacky Cake (Or. . . Chocolate Get-Me-through-The-Holidays Cake!)

2011-12-01T10:33:00.001-06:00

I've decided that December is going to be Happy Foods Month--only posting about foods that truly make me happy. Chocolate is the first order of business. Oh, and there will be cookies, don't worry.

We've had this cake on the counter now for three nights. We have a little ritual called, Eight o'clock Happy Time whereby the last food of the day consists of something that makes us both very happy. Some nights it's a small bowl of vegan ice cream. Dr. Thyme preferring a mint/chocolate combo and for me cherry/vanilla or chocoate, just depends. (This "routine" perhaps has lead to a more blissful marriage. Just a theory.)

This cake is a chocolate lover's delight and it's so easy to make, you'll laugh when you see the recipe. It makes a small cake. Eight inch square or round pan. And frosting it is completely optional. Though why would you NOT? All told from mixing to table takes about an hour. You mix, bake, cool, eat. Super moist! No layers to mess with. Very easy clean-up.

The Wacky Cake was vegan before vegan even knew it was vegan. No eggs. No dairy. No problem. And even betterer, no bowls! (Well, one bowl for sifting together the dry stuff.) It also goes by the name Crazy Mixed-up Cake and Three-Hole Cake. Legend has it that the recipe first appeared in a collection of recipes put out by Time Magazine in 1949. (Thank you America's Test Kitchen for that bit of trivia.) So it's a vintage cake. You know how I love vintage. As is usual, I found that if I increased the chocolate a wee bit, i.e., adding more cocoa to the mix and some chocolate chips to the batter--the cake is made even more chocolate-y!

Yesterday I made the mistake of thinking I was ready for Christmas. Meh. I have absolutely zero decorations up. And, as of right now, I have no plans for sending cards this year. I have a trip planned for mid-December and that's about all I'm looking forward to right now. Spending time with my sister. Well and there's this "other" family moment consisting of my seeing my step father for the first time in nearly sixteen years. But we'll save that telling for later (and perhaps a therapy session).

So I ran a few errands and ended up in Home Depot to pick up some bird food. This was the conversation going on in my head:

If you just walk amongst the holiday displays, it may put you in the Christmas spirit.

What can it hurt?

Look at the Martha Stewart Ornaments. Pretty!

Imagine the house in Martha Stewart holiday design--better yet, what if I could get Martha Stewart to come to my house and decorate. . . !

Traipse through the fake trees and inflatable yard decorations and all that pine-scented candle stuff! Go ahead, grab that white spray-painted group of sticks for $7.98 and bring them home, you KNOW that'll make the house feel all Christmas-y! Just. Do. It.

And then I turned around with my pathetic cart filled with food for those less fortunate (our birds) and stood in line with the woman checker who I typically chat up with in the springtime during my many manic "planting-fever" trips. She and I were the only people at the garden end of the store--where all the ginormous holiday stuff resides. We were surrounded by it. I thought, My god, if there were some cataclysmic event and the store should collapse on us--we'd be buried under trees, blow-up Santa's and wreaths. . . it'd be a cruel North Pole shocker.

She looked in the cart and said, Feeding the birds? I said, Yep. Then added, I'm just not "feeling" it this year. She looked at me and said, Me either. We could have started our own support group by the time I left. Our own twelve-step:

Christmas Disliker's Anonymous.

We had both had it.

Whatever it is about December, it hasn't yet crept into my soul. I try. Today may require a trip to a little Christmas antique store that I love. If not today, then soon. And truthfully, if the feeling never arrives, I know that life will go on and that come December 26th, this will all feel like a really bad dream and the next order of business will be to plan for my vegetable garden and more knitting and sewing. Life does go on.

Vegan Wacky Cake

*Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book

makes one 8" cake

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup Florida Crystals Sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vinegar (white or apple cider will work)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup water

1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray your 8" square or round cake pan. In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Carefully pour the dry ingredients into the cake pan and level off with a spatula. Now, make three holes in the flour mixture. In one hole, add the vinegar, in another add the vanilla extract and for the third hole, add the oil. Finally, pour the cup of water over all of this. Carefully stir everything together with a fork. Don't over mix! Just get into the corners and make sure the dry flour is incorporated into the batter. A few dry clumps are perfectly fine. Add the chocolate chips and stir in with a spoon. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven, allow cake to cool in pan. Frost with vegan buttercream frosting! Store in an airtight container at room temperture.

Tart Cherry Pie for Our Vegan Thanksgiving (Retail Confidential And Why I'm Thankful)

2011-11-24T09:47:00.002-06:00

Our Thanksgiving is a quiet one. We like it that way. We've both suffered through enough horrors of "Thanking with Others" to last us a lifetime. I grew up with quiet holidays. Dr. Thyme grew up with chaotic holidays. When we first met and I had the pleasure of being introduced to his clan, I was mostly in shock and as a result, it induced a case of agoraphobia that has lingered with me to this day. I don't totally blame his family for this, I could just as easily lay blame with the many years I'd spent in retail.

Yesterday I baked all day. I made two pies: a pumpkin (for Dr. Thyme) and a tart cherry (for me).

I plan to eat every last morsel of the tart cherry pie and maybe have a nibble of his pumpkin pie. I hate to admit it, but I'm not a fan of the pumpkin pie. I can take it or leave it. But I had some baby pumpkins left over from my lame attempt at table decorations. I used fresh-roasted pumpkin for the pie.

My tart cherry pie turned out superb! I was thrilled. As is usual, I baked it in my all-time favorite pie crust from Baking with Julia's cookbook, the Leslie Mackie pie crust. Do yourself a favor and just make this pie crust. You will never need another pie crust recipe again for as long as you live. It's my go-to-never-fails-me flakiest pie crust ever! For the filling, I used two and a half cans of Oregon brand tart cherries. The recipe for making a tart cherry pie is so simple, it's ridiculous! I consulted Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie And Pastry Bible for a bit of guidance and extra inspiration. While I didn't use her pie crust recipe, I still stand by her as the Pastry Queen. She is my baking idol and she rocks the pie. Here's the recipe for the cherry pie filling:

1. Get your 9" pie pan out.

2. Preheat oven to 425.

3. Make sure the pie dough is cold, cold, cold. Roll it out to fit the bottom of the pie pan. Trim the edges. Place pie pan with pie dough in it back into the fridge.

4. Drain the cherries (reserving the juice)--measure out 3 1/2 cups of cherries.

5. Toss with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of corn starch, 1/4 teaspoon almond extract and 3/4 cup of sugar. Add about 1 cup of the reserved cherry juice. Toss well and allow to marinate together for about 20 minutes.

6. Pour the cherry mixture into the pie shell.

7. Roll out the remainder of the pie crust with a ravioli cutter into strips about 1" wide. Lay across the pie as if you were making a basket. Easy. Just look online for tutorials on basketweaving if you need "help" in that area.

8. Bake pie for 45 minutes on the lowest level in your oven.

9. Remove pie and allow to cool completely before serving. Store in the fridge and enjoy for the next few days! It's even better-er the next day and makes for a perfect breakfast!

This fevered pitch surrounding Black Friday this year is, well . . . it's just ridiculous.

I worked retail for fifteen years. Fifteen. Christmas. Seasons. I remember back in the day when opening the store at eight in the morning was sacrilege! I've seen first hand what crazy looks like on Black Friday. There are those in the "biz" who will scoff and say: But people NEED to shop. . .it helps the economy. My question is: Whose economy?

There are greater worries in this world than in what order you'll be "in line" for the midnight opening of Target. Seriously. If you think for one minute the ivory tower retail "executives" will have to arrive at work at eleven thirty this evening to work a ten hour day beginning at midnight--you'd be dead wrong. If you lament "But the prices are sooo good, how can I NOT shop now?" Well that is entirely up to you to make that decision. What I'd ask you to consider is this: If the retailers felt so unabashedly generous and grateful for YOUR hard-earned cash, why are they not making offers too-good-to-be-true during regular business hours? That's all I'm asking. Stop the insanity.

Well. I suppose I can hop off my horse now and get to the heart of what today is all about. My thankful list. It's a short one, but quite powerful in its design. I am most grateful for: a loving husband, my sister, our canines (the three we have left. . . god love every single last one of them) our home and. . . my health.

I am fast approaching the half century mark. Dr. Thyme and I have been vegan now for four years. It's changed us both for the better. It's changed me in more ways than I can count. My health-o-meter is five stars. I can still run a 5k in under 30 minutes. I can walk five miles. I can hike 3 miles of heavy hills. . . with a backpack. I can bike twenty miles--maybe more, but I haven't tested this. I can garden an entire day (I've tested this!). I can run--not three errands, but five or six in one day and not feel like I've just finished a marathon. *Because running errands to me really does feel like an Olympic feat sometimes. My blood pressure is perfect. My physical being overall is--to the best of my knowledge. . . well, it's darn near perfect.

My vegan life has helped make all this possible. People constantly ask, What do you do on Thanksgiving!? Really? . . .

It's ONE day out of possibly the next twenty Thanksgiving one-day moments I have left. What do you mean, What do I do about Thanksgiving?

We cook! We give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

M.F.K. Fisher's Ginger Hottendots (Grateful for The Love of A Good Book And of Baking)

2011-11-21T10:34:00.002-06:00

If there is one thing that heals, it's baking. I cannot tell you the number of times I've worked through grief via my kitchen. It must be in the hundreds. It's a gravitational force that beckons me forth: Here. Come in here. Preheat. Mix. Bake. Taste. There. It's all much better now.

The shift in the house from one less member is going to take some time to "deal with". I deal better with it if I am kept busy. I sat in the corner of my kitchen yesterday afternoon (god it was an awful day outside--cold, dark, rainy--very Novemberish) my feet propped up under me on my favorite kitchen stool, next to the bookshelf of baking cookbooks, pouring over the "cookie" sections. Because we needed some cookies. Because it is cookie-baking season and because I know that the instant that oven preheats and the aroma of cinnamon and ginger begin co-mingling with the everyday smells of us living here--it will override everything else. The mind will focus on other matters evoking pleasure: cookies.

Dr. Thyme's favorite cookie is ginger cookies. He asks me to bake them for him constantly. Every time I bake some, I experiment a little with recipes. (Which drives him a little nuts. He'll ask, Are these the ones? And I am always like, Yes! When point of fact, I change them up a bit every time.) So while I am more of a chocolate chipper/peanut butter cookie kind of gal, it is always the same for him: ginger. Though the tug of wanting to just throw together my go-to favorite chocolate chippers was strong, I thought it might be nice to do for him this time. After all, he was dealing with the loss, too. And I will eat the ginger cookies just as well as I might have eaten the other. And we did just that. Toasty warm next to the fireplace at nine last night after the kitchen had closed, I got up to make us tea, then put four cookies on a plate for him and two for me. And we sat there enjoying our last bites for the day. The cookies, another new recipe, were amazingly delish. So gingery. So perfect for a small bite right before bed. Perfect ending to a very long, dark day.

Yesterday, I will admit, I spent much of the first half of the day in bed reading a lovely book by Joan Didion called, Blue Nights. This is a book about grief and tragedy. But grief on a much grander scale, that of losing a daughter. The book is a meditation of sorts on the milestones of her daughter's life, reminders of her and of Joan Didion trying to find meaning in those reminders, the history of her daughter growing up, and the relationship between mother and daughter. It is a profound piece of work. Reading this, I felt as if the book itself was a letter written to me on how this unimaginable loss has affected her in all manner of getting on, of living, of trying to work this out among all the left behind detritus--the book is very hard to put down. (She is also the author of: The Year of Magical Thinking--a book on the loss of her husband, which I was not able to finish, but only read the excerpt from in the New Yorker when the book first came out. I have this on my shelf. I am going to read this next--a total immersion in "moving on" if you will.)

The recipe for these cookies was found in one of my cookbooks that I bought on a whim a while back when Border's was closing and I noticed they only had one copy of it on their shelves: Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax. It had won the James Beard Award and an IACP. Well, then it needed to come home with me. But funny thing is, I had not even cracked the book open till this week. I must have found the book too cumbersome. It is 600 pages long and contains only a few photos scattered here and there. For some reason, here it was and there I was--in need of some baking therapy.

I have a tremendous love for M.F.K Fisher. Her collections of writings take up a spot on my nightstand and I read her on and off whenever I want to be inspired. She was brilliant. And. . . so is this cookie of hers. Richard Sax, on a side bar in his cookbook writes that M.F.K. Fisher sent him this recipe along with a note saying she liked to bake these cookies "Not only because they're tasty, but because they contain about three times the normal amount of ginger and so serve as a cure-all for digestive disorders. Very good served at the end of a cocktail party." Well, I'd have to add, very good at the end of a very long, tiring and emotional day spent in bed also. The ginger in these is just enough to heal any heart or stomach ache one might have. Given that I have both right now, they were perfect. They bake up in a snap. I will caution you that the recipe makes a TON of cookies. But they are going fast here. Feel free to freeze some for later. That whole ginger-cinnamony smell will fill up the house as they bake. I played with the recipe a bit and decided to add nutmeg to the mix and upped the cinnamon she called for. And a surprising addition of balsamic vinegar! She said you might use apple cider vinegar as well. But I used the balsamic and loved the result. With regard to vegan changes, I used the Ener-G Egg Replacer in these. I find that with cookies--it is the best egg substitute. These are keepers for sure.

Vegan M.F.K. Fisher's Ginger Hottendots

*Adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax

3 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (measured in the scoop and scrape method--don't pack the flour down!)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used fresh ground nutmeg)

1 1/2 sticks unsalted vegetable margerine (3/4 cup)

2 cups of Florida Crystals Sugar (I used a little less than this amount, about 1 3/4 cup)

3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 5 tablespoons water (2 eggs)

1/2 cup molasses

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line two cookies sheets with parchment paper. Whisk the dry ingredients together: flour, baking soda and spices. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the margerine and sugar and beat until creamy and light. Stir in the egg replacer, molasses and vinegar. Next, remove bowl from mixer and with a spoon, stir in the dry ingredients. Do not over mix. Just feel the dough with your hands and if it stays together when you pick up a pinch full, then you are ready to shape the cookies into small balls and place on cookie sheet. (No bigger than 1/2" round). Bake for ten minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes on cookie sheet. Remove to cooling rack to allow to cool fully. Store in airtight container or freeze some for later.

Godspeed Mystique (A wayward soul if ever there was one.)

2011-11-19T11:00:00.001-06:00

And now we are three. Yesterday was a gut wrenching day for our family. No matter how much preparing you do: visits with the vet, medications to halt physical symptoms--you are never, ever really ready. The crying and heaving and wondering if this or that might have made life "better"--it doesn't ease any of the pain. All you can do is let the grief wash over you and carry you further and further away from the moment when the last breath is taken. And we were there. Holding her. Well, Dr. Thyme did the holding, I was hunched over, my head in my lap, sobbing out loud. The pain is still sharp. Crying again now.

Mystique was a beagle mix we found on my birthday fifteen years ago.

Dr. Thyme and I were on a date. We were at a winery listening to a band, noshing on bread and cheese samples. It was a beautiful night. Then here comes this adorable little ball of a beagle mix, up on her hind legs, begging for food right at our feet. We both looked around. Where's her owner, we asked each other. No one in the crowd seemed to be "missing" her. She had made the rounds with other patrons because a few other folks were holding out chunks of bread to feed her--asking her to do a trick (stupid drunks). And she did do "tricks". She sat, rolled over and sat back up--with very little prompting. I remember wandering over to one of the owner's/managers of the place asking where she came from, who'd she belong to? "Dunno. She's been here about a year--just wanders in and out . . . no one seems to know." Oh Christ, I thought. You have got to be kidding me. No one's claimed her!? It was getting late. We needed to get on the road (sober), we had a bit of a drive ahead of us. Dr. Thyme and I were smitten with her. I was a little leary of temperment issues. I had never picked up a stray off the streets. (And I won't ever again.) Yes, she seemed sweet as pie, but we had four other dogs at home. How were we going to manage this? He just scooped her up and we walked to the car. On the way home, she sat on my lap. Tail wagging the whole time. Then she got car sick and I was covered in cheese and bread. Ew. Plus, she was, of course, covered in fleas. And had worms. Obviously she'd be visiting the vet first thing the next morning. And that was how Mystique came into our lives. (We named her after the band that was playing that night--but shortened her to "Stinky" later in life because she became quite the stinker the older she got.)

She hated picture taking. We were constantly trying. We were able to capture a few precious moments. Dr. Thyme better at it than me.

And then one evening we learned something about our girl that changed our world forever. She had formed a "pack" with her best friend in our group of dogs--a lab mix. (Our family had grown a bit since she'd been integrated.) She seemed to fit in, but, sort of bossy. Not much for hugging and snuggling. I attributed this to the fact that she may have just not been around many people who showed her affection. She seemed happier around her tribe of canines than her tribe of humans. And for the rest of her fifteen years with us, she had a safe and secure environment shared with the one dog she'd bonded with. (*There is much more to this story of course, the story of their "pack" behavior and consequences of such, but it is still too painful for me to write about. I'll just tell you that Dr. Thyme and I decided that the right thing to do was to allow them both to exist with us as an entity of their own--separated from the other dogs, but still very much loved and cared for.) It has not been easy--these last fifteen years. And no, I never fully bonded with her. Dr. Thyme, with his big heart, saw her as a special dog for whom the world had dealt a bad hand. She was, therefore, a daddy's girl. And her companion--well, she was mommy's girl.

As for her best friend, she has moved on with nary a wimper. Dare I say a sense of relief, perhaps? It's as if she were the only dog all along. She is a bundle of lab-breed happiness and eternal juvenile behavior: stuck in the terrible twos forever. Tail wags non-stop, always willing to please, a tad on the hyper-drive mode. She can be a handful sometimes. But secretly, I think she knows darn well how lucky she was to have found a home with us. (She had been returned to the rescue group she came from twice before landing with our family. Which really should have told me something before my hormones kicked in and I felt I had to be mother to all things great and small during my most maternal-feeling years.)

See you on the other side, Stinky. We love you!

Wordless Wednesday: November Roses

2011-11-16T14:08:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe. . .

best roses of the year. . .

blooming now.

Listening to: Sheryl Crow, Grace Potter And The Nocturnals, Michael Buble, and The Bangles.

(I. Heart. Pandora.)

Vegan Almond Blondies (Norwegian Tosca Cake. . . Times Three)

2011-11-14T12:20:00.004-06:00

Tosca cake: Norwegian in origin. Almond and caramel layered yellow cake. Something to do with Puccini's opera. Very popular among the Swede set. Also known as the Swedish Visiting Cake (from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan). According to Dorie and her source, as the name implies, it is a cake for "visitors" because you can literally begin baking it when your guest(s) show up in your driveway and have a snack for them hot from the oven about forty-five minutes later. Easy peasy.

I had never heard of a Tosca cake before--which is the original name of this Visitor's Cake. I stumbled upon the whole Tosca Cake thing while shopping at JoAnn's (yes, that JoAnn's). Ever since Border's closed I try to get my book fix wherever and whenever I can. As I was perusing their book section--BTW, the most unorganized mess I've ever seen--when the Nordic Bakery Cookbook by Miisa Mink sort of leapt out at me. It had a pretty cover, what can I say? Plus, I had a coupon for 50% off. Well, you can guess the rest: in the cart it went. There was only ONE copy, what choice did I have? I was quite taken with all the recipes in the book--plus the people at Vogue magazine had endorsed it. Which kind of confused me for a hot minute because, well, wouldn't that confuse you--a Vogue quote on the back of a cookbook? I guess folks in fashion love a good bakery as much as the next person.

Anyhow, the part of the cookbook I loved the most was the section on cakes. So, I got to baking this particular cake right away: the Tosca cake. It was going to be a cinch--I had everything on hand. All except for the eggs, of course. But have no fear, I am adept at making vegan changes to accommodate our vegan life. Not so fast, said the cake maker! After not one, but two failed attempts amid much kitchen havoc and a sink full of dishes, I had two cakes in front of me that were, well, not fit for eating. I refused to be out done by a cake recipe for god's sake! One more time, I thought. Just one more time. The pretty Nordic bakery book would have to sit this third round out, however. I was going to the expert: Dorie Greenspan. The two failed custard-y dense pieces of foam rubber that emerged from my oven earlier mocking me the whole time.

I tend to get a bit testy in the kitchen when things don't go my way. I begin to take it personally. I read the Zodiac for insight. Is it a three or two star day for me? Should I even be in the kitchen? Are my planets aligned? How about numerology. What do the numbers add up to for today's date? Is it a good number or bad? These are the things I have running through my head whenever there is doubt, a crisis or an overall sense of "I've had it" emerges. My next step was to do what we all do: I Googled. And. . . I read more than any person should on the iterations of this Swede cake. Many of the photos of the finished cake out there, but nothing came close to my two initial final products in look or design. I looked at mine. I looked at theirs. On my third attempt now. Fingers crossed. So, okay, it came nowhere near looking anything like a cake, but neither had my other two attempts. It was more like an almond-y brownie and then this last bit of lemon flavor finishing it off. Chewy. Toffee-ish and crunchy. Yum. (And I love the lemon part which was a Dorie addition. Well played, Dorie.) A happy ending to a very unhappy afternoon in my kitchen. I would like to formally re-name this cake the Swedish Frustration Cake. Stay tuned for more Nordic baking adventures!

Dr. Thyme and I went for a lovely walk/bike ride yesterday along the Mississippi River. It is unseasonably warm here in mid-November. All the leaves have pretty much lost their luster and their will to live. We're cursing them more than admiring them as they keep collecting outside our door and on the back of our dogs' legs. It was windy as heck yesterday. Nearly knocked me off my bike. Did knock this one poor soul off his, but I think he was fairly "new" to the whole biking thing. God love him. No, I did not laugh "out loud"--that would have been rude--but only to myself as I passed. Then two deer jumped out from the woods in front of my path--that's when I would have been laughed at. Something to the effect of "Jesus H Christ!" flew from my lips. My scream probably scared them off a bit. The whole scene was right out of some Jack London book minus the wolves. Nothing good can come from eighty degree days in November. Nothing. But seeing the deer was really cool. When we got home, I munched on a piece of this blondie/brownie/cake. Worth every minute of trial and error.

Non-frustation Vegan Almond Blondie view. Attempt number three.

Blech view. Attempt number two.

Vegan Almond Blondies

*Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup almond flour (or ground up almonds)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup Florida Crystals sugar

zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup unsalted vegetable margerine (melted and cooled to room temperature)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons water

1/4 cup thinly sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray an 8" cake pan with non-stick spray. In a medium bowl, add the sugar and lemon zest and whisk really well. Next, add the extracts, lemon juice and water. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the flour ingredients to the sugar ingredients, mixing well with a spoon. Finally, fold in the melted margerine. Pour into cake pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. The batter will bubble a bit while baking. No worry. Just be sure to bake it until the top begins to turn brown. The cake slices better once it's fully cooled. But I couldn't wait and had to slice it warm. Yum! I stored it sliced into pieces and in an airtight container in the fridge. It's terrific heated about ten seconds in the microwave and served over vanilla ice cream!

White Bean And "Lotsa" Garlic Sage Soup with Swiss Chard (From My November Garden. . . Now Reading "Rin Tin Tin" by Susan Orlean And Realizing Again Why I Love Dogs So Dang Much)

2011-11-08T11:34:00.002-06:00

This soup originally began as a simple white bean and garlic/sage soup. It evolved as I cooked. I added carrots, fresh and canned tomatoes, then some garden finds. It was delicious. It was just what I needed to finish my day. I was recovering from a morning of stress. I wanted something simple. Our boy's eating had stalled again. Nothing since Friday night. Oh, a kibble here and there--and maybe a few treats. Here we go again, I thought. I called the vet yesterday and asked for insight into the "what now" question. Does he need antibiotics again, or another round of steroids. They said steroids--at least this would stimulate his appetite. So off I went for yet another visit to the vet. My fourth in a month. Sigh.

We not only have one "senior" dog--there are two others. One of which is being treated for bladder issues. Took her to the vet last weekend. Some day I might share the story of how we came to have two separate groups of kiddos in our lives. But for now let's just say, it's been a life long lesson--nearly thirteen years in this living arrangement--long enough that when we were house hunting, our new/old home had to pass the "separate but equal" test in terms of living space requirements for our dogs: Group A and Group B. Seriously. Oh the stories I could tell. Fast forward to today, here we are a home with several senior dogs and several "senior" dog medical issues. It's life lesson time for us for sure. We celebrate every day like a birthday around here. Hey! You woke up AND you're breathing: Hooray!. . . it's sort of like that.

Last week I stopped in the library for a cookbook and saw the new book by Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin. (She wrote The Orchid Thief--a book I did not read, but did see the movie. Loved the movie.) Anyhow, when I learned she was writing a book about Rin Tin Tin, I told myself I had to read this. Had. To. This dog is an historical icon. I had not a clue as to what or how this dog came to be an American hero. Just always thought he'd been made into a TV dog. And honestly, the only canine TV icon I had much exposure to was Lassie. Until I could no longer bear to watch.

I am a huge baby when it comes to reading about dogs, lives of dogs or anything having to do with dogs in general. You'd think the opposite might be true. I can't watch any movies with dogs either. Not Benji. Not Beethoven. Not even Lady And The Tramp. None of them. Just unable to keep it together. . . no matter how "uplifting" the ending may be. I think my emotional weakness in this area could be linked to the movie Sounder or the book, Where the Red Fern Grows. Or from the time I came home from school and my mother met me at the door to tell me our two dogs--my very FIRST dogs, the dogs I loved with ALL my heart had been "taken to a farm". I never, EVER, ever forgave her for this. Whether it was her doing or my step father's--I NEVER got over that. Needless to say, I can barely keep it together during dog food commercials either. It's all really too much.

Susan Orlean's telling of this story is incredible. It's the whole man/dog thing told over the backdrop of one of the most gruesome times in all of history. I find it a miracle anyone ever came home from that war, let alone a dog. Did you know that during WWI, the Airedale was the British Army's official dog and that there was a call to the public to donate their Airedales to the cause. Can you imagine? Or that the Red Cross had mercy dogs wandering the battlefields carrying medical supplies so wounded soldiers could administer treatment on sight? I love this book.

After a full day of rain, I ventured out to the veggie patch and found the largest, most beautiful clump of swiss chard I'd seen all year. Most of the summer, the chard I'd planted was growing under the shadow of my tomato plants. (Which might explain why I didn't really pay much attention to it--the tomato plants are forever stealing the show in my veggie patch.)

Cooking in the fall becomes a less intense ritual. I could eat mashed potatoes and soup and pizza all fall and winter. And bread. Lots of bread. I have a drawer full of dried beans--I can easily whip up a soup in minutes. (Why yes! With my pressure cooker, of course! Go get yourself a pressure cooker already!) Anyhow. So last night as I pressure cooked my cannellini beans with about a dozen whole sage leaves and seven or eight whole cloves of garlic--the aroma was incredible, I headed out to my chard, scissors in hand. I just took a handful back into the house with me. This was the base for my soup: beans, garlic, chard, sage. The rest sort of comes together as I feel. Added onions, celery, tomatoes. Lots of olive oil, fresh lemon juice. The soup's basically a good old minestrone, if you will. But with a ton of fall veggies.

I heart my sage plants. Givers of many, many years of bountiful sage harvest. Fresh sage finds its way into nearly everything I cook this time of year. I just love it.

See how lovely. These plants did not even remotely look this lovely during those 120 degree days. They are perfect now. They'll keep producing long after the first frost, too.

Then, a surprise. What I thought was a collard plant turned out to be cauliflower! Look at that lovely specimen. I was thrilled to bring this inside and store it. I thought I'd wait and make a soup out of it later.

When I was putting my head of cauliflower in the fridge, I noticed I had another store bought one in the way back. I pulled it out to compare. It's obvious which one looks better, isn't it?

Vegan Donut Muffins with Vanilla Glaze Icing

2011-11-03T08:52:00.004-05:00

I made these muffins on a whim last Sunday morning. I usually try to gussy up one breakfast on the weekends. To say I am not much of a morning person is a bit of an understatement. I try really hard to be. Anyway, earlier in the week, I was browsing through one of my favorite baking sites of all time, King Arthur, and there was something that caught my eye: the word "donut". Since St. Louis opened it's own Dunkin Donuts, I have had this insatiable donut craving. (As far as I know there are no vegan options there. . . yet. Look out the minute there are!) Just last month, I purchased one of those mini-donut makers. That was fun for a hot minute and it did provide some much needed donut relief. But I get bored easily. So new donut maker is packed lovingly away until the next urge strikes. Then this recipe came along. Dunut Muffins. Wow. Brilliant. I think I finally have an answer to the donut-at-home. Better yet, I've slightly improved their recipe with my additions of flax and some white whole wheat flour. I had the last donut yesterday afternoon as my "snack". Still delish!

I had a bit of a computer "scare" this week as well. While eating lunch with Dr. Thyme Sunday, I thought what I heard was a leaf blower. I sort of kept glancing out the window. Do you hear that? But the leaf blower sound would ebb and flow. Hmm. I got up to put the dishes in the sink, walked past my laptop and suddenly realized that the leaf blower I'd heard was actually my laptop! I had a black screen with some white letters. Oh-oh. Nothing good can come of this, I thought. And panicked, I showed husband/tech support. He was like, Oh-oh, too. Double oh-no from me. He once built his own computer. Built. His. Own. Computer. I figured he'd know exactly how to fix my "problem". Then this comes out of his mouth. Uh, I don't think I've ever actually seen or heard a hard drive crash! Thus ensued much hand-wringing and sighs. We shut it all down. Plans were in motion for replacement hand-me-down computer arrangements to be made. (*Because as the wife of a geek, I will tell you honestly, I will never be the one to own the "first" or newest of anything, that honor falls to Dr. Thyme--so hand-me-downs it is.) Sigh. Later that night--trying to picture life laptop-less, I re-started it once more. Viola. It booted right up. Husband was baffled. I think I know what might be the problem, I said. He looked a bit puzzled by this. And humored. I said, All it needs is a good vacuuming. What? Oh really? And I said again: all it needs is it's little fan thingy on the bottom vacuumed. So out comes the Hoover and I take the hose to the fan thingy and what do you know, it worked! No more black screen! No more leaf blower sounds. I won't go running out to the Apple Store tomorrow for a job, but still. Even I was impressed with myself. By the way, neither one of us is convinced this is a long-term fix. As just last night that awful leaf blower sound returned.

I'm sitting here this morning trying to calm down our baby Pyrenees. It's raining outside. Rain causes her great distress. The barking that accompanies her "distress" is frowned upon because someone is still sleeping! So with one hand I pet and reassure, with the other, I type. Last night I flipped on the news for the briefest of moments. I try not to watch or listen to too much of the ramblings of the media. I find I am calmer if I allow current events into my life on my terms. The weather is getting ready to change, so mostly I'd tuned in for that update. The dry spell we've had has taken it's toll. So much so, one of our state parks was blackened by an awful forest fire yesterday. So as it rains and I try to calm our baby girl, I am grateful for the respite of clouds and a little damp weather.

This muffin recipe is a cinch to make. One of the notes the King Arthur team recommends is for the muffin tins to be filled more than half way. So I thought I'd show you a picture of my tins before baking. I took a different approach to their recipe and made a glaze for the donuts. You could very easily make it a chocolate ganache glaze. Or you could make them a jam-filled donut muffin. Or you could read several reader reviews of this recipe and find there's even a pumpkin version. Either way you go, you will LOVE these darn things.

Vegan Donut Muffins with Vanilla Glaze

*Adapted from King Arthur Flour

**Makes a dozen muffins

1/4 cup unsalted vegetable margerine

1/4 cup vegetable oil or applesauce (I used half and half)

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup Florida Crystals sugar

2 teaspoons ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tablespoons warm water

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoons baking soda

fresh ground nutmeg (I used whole nutmeg and added about a half teaspoon. If not using fresh, add 1 1/2 teaspoons)

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup white whole wheat flour

1 cup unsweetened almond milk

Preheat oven to 425. Lightly spray muffin tins with non-stick spray. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the margerine, oil and sugars until smooth. (It might be a bit lumpy--that's okay.) Add the flaxseed mixture and baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, allspice, salt and vanilla extract. Next add about a third of the flour to this, then a third of the milk and repeat this step again ending with the flour. Mix well for about 30 seconds after the final addition. Fill cupcake tins with batter. Bake for 15-17 minutes until the tops of the muffins are golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about five minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack set on top of a cookie tray. Next, prepare your icing or sugar and cinnamon topping.

Toppings

Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Melt 2 tablespoons of margerine. Brush the tops of the muffins (while they are still warm) with the margerine. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Combine about 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons of soy creamer until the mixture is smooth. Pour over the muffins. I added some chocolate sprinkles!

Vegan Apple Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting (Crochet Hooks And Sanity Control)

2011-10-27T12:21:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but the whole chocolate candy thing has sort of taken over my life. I'm even having visions of Payday candy bars in the middle of the day. . . then Snickers, then Three Muskateer. It's maddening! So, to keep the chocolate wolves at bay, I'd decided I needed to take immediate action to assuage the cravings. Enter cake. The un-chocolate kind. *But that doesn't mean I won't be heading out to Target this afternoon for a candy grab!

I've wanted to bake an apple cake for years. Years. I'd come across plenty of recipes. Most calling for a bundt pan, then a dusting of powdered sugar on top. I'm really not the "powdered sugar" type. My preference has always been toward the frosted cake, and for cake I can whip up fairly quickly when the mood strikes. (And when does it NOT strike?) Plus, a cake that holds up well for over a week in the fridge. My favorite before bedtime food has always been cake. After I'd made two chocolate cakes in a row this past month owing to the stress of life, it was time for something different. Enter this amazingly delish apple cake. Think of a combo of carrot cake with spice cake minus the carrots, and double the spice. This apple cake is super moist and holds up beautifully in the fridge for seconds and thirds! It contains one of my all-time favorites: candied ginger. I eat candied ginger by the piece throughout the year. I'm a nervous person by nature and require a calming ritual of some kind on most days. Nothing eases my tummy and rests my soul better than a piece of ginger and a cup of hot tea. Or a slice of cake. Either works. BTW, I buy my candied ginger in the bulk section of our local international foods store. So much cheaper that way.

Well, the fall colors seemed to have burst through over night. Truthfully, the trees haven't really been letting their leaves go--not like they've done in the past by this time. I love the back yard. These are some of my favorite colors of all time. In the morning I sit with my cup of coffee and take it all in.

Every night this past week, I've been adding a row or two to this lapghan. It makes me happy. I just keep adding a row, then spreading it across my lap, then adding a row. The colors in this are also some of my favorite. I've been leaning toward the hook vs. the needles a lot lately. I think the repitition and sort of mindless work you can get away with when working up a piece like this quiets my mind. November is closing in and I can hardly believe it. I begin to get edgy and have roller coaster emotions this time of year. I have to really be careful: excercise, get plenty of rest, sit directly in the sun (when it's out), keep my mind occupied and hands busy. It all helps.

I got an email alert yesterday about holiday airfare deals. I rarely look at these. But this year is different. So I checked on the flight costs to Chicago to visit my sister. Booked the flight this morning. Very excited. This will be my first visit to see her. She's visited me. But only because we both felt it was easier that way given my proclivity for staying put. She is thrilled and we are both now counting down the days. Not that we're getting all caught up in the holiday hoo-haa. But we are! Life is short. You must embrace "moments".

Oh and the celebrations continue. After changing our boy's meds during the second trip (and almost his last) to the vet, the change in him has been miraculous! Dr. Thyme and I are giddy beyond words. His appetite has returned. His scrappy tendencies, the growling if you "bother" him in the evenings too much--we are just smitten with our second lease on life the meds he's on has given us. We hug him constantly and tell him how happy we are to have him in our life. Long and short of it is--he's one spoiled little guy right now. Not that our canine kiddos aren't already in the spoiled camp.

Vegan Apple Cake with Caramel Frosting

*Adapted from King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion

**makes one 9 x 13" cake

1 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup Florida Crystals sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or use fresh nutmeg)

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 cup unsalted vegetable margerine cut into small pieces (1 stick at room temperature)

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce mixed with 1/4 cup water

1/4 cup minced crytallized ginger (really need this for the extra flavor!)

3 large apples, cored and cut into 1/4" pieces (you don't have to peel them)

1/2 cup pecans, diced

1/2 cup raisins (either golden or regular)

2 teaspoons ground flax seed mixed with 6 tablespoons warm water

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly spray a 9 x 13" cake pan. In a large bowl whisk together the flours, sugar, baking soda and dried spice. In the bowl of a mixer, add the butter and apples, ginger, nuts and raisins and flax seed mixture and mix on low speed for about a minute. This will appear to be nothing more than a clump of a mess. That's okay, just hang on a second. Now, add the flour to this mixture in thirds along with the applesauce/water mix. The mixture will begin to come together, but still appear lumpy. After the last addition of the flour, mix one more time for about 30 seconds. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and smooth the top. Bake for about 45 minutes. The cake will just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan--but not too much. Insert a toothpick in the middle to test for doneness. It's a dense cake, thus the longer baking time. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Caramel Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted vegetable margerine

1 cup brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons soy milk (or more, depending on the consistency you'd like)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 or more cups powdered sugar (depending upon the consistency you'd like)

1/3 cup chopped pecans (*optional--for sprinkling over the top)

In the bowl of a mixer, add the margerine and brown sugar and mix until smooth. Next, add the salt, extract and soy milk, blend well. Next, begin to add the powdered sugar to the mixture one half cup at a time. Mix well after each addition. Continue to add the powdered sugar and mixing until the frosting is at the consistency you'd like. I like a fairly fluffy, but thick kind. Frost the cake, sprinkle with chopped pecans and store in a covered container in the fridge!

Vegan Curried Cabbage And Potato Soup (Oh, The Stares You'll Get!)

2011-10-23T10:51:00.003-05:00

I was faced with the challenge of cooking for one again last week. I usually opt for something potato-ish. And fast. I don't want to linger in the kitchen for too long because I have some Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to catch up on. As a woman, a housewife (though not of the Beverly Hills ilk), I can attest to one absolute truth in that show: women and pack mentality. It gives me shivers. I have scars to prove it. So BH girlfriends: I can TOTALLY relate! Back to my soup. This came together in a flash. I have cabbages growing like there's no tomorrow in my garden. The cabbage is a staple in our home. Apparently it wants to become a staple in my garden as well. And if you'd like to be let in on one of the best kept weight-loss secrets while watching RHBH, well, here it is: cabbage. Add some potato, yummy Indian spices and you have yourself a delightful, light and super healthy dinner: Beverly Hills style.

Yesterday morning I headed out to Home Depot. I knew there were sales to be had. I could smell it in the air. And sure enough--discounts galore. I picked out some mums to add a pop of color here and there throughout the yard before the inevitable happens and freezing temps are the norm. I love the mum!

Here's a gardening tip for you: Leave them be! Just plant them in the ground, add some compost and mulch around them really well. . . then leave them alone. Let their little heads die back to a brown parchment of prickly twigs throughout the winter, don't clear them out. The stems of the mum heads are what feed the plant for next year. Mind you, they need all of spring and summer to grow into gorgeous plants in fall. You may even want to mark the area where you've planted them. I've accidentally raked over prior year's mums only to discover in June tiny shoots of a mum-once-gone growing little clusters of leaves in the spring. Once the plant begins to send up stems with flower heads on them in June/July, go ahead and give them a good pinch back to encourage a more bushy growth habit in fall. They are the easiest plants in the world in my opinion.

I planted these mums seven years ago. I pinch them back every summer. Given the heat and hellish-like conditions this year, I was worried. I literally ignored most of my garden from June on, truth be told. But like little gifts from the gardening gods--here they are. . . year number six.

And then there are the collards. I mean these things don't stop. Ever.

So now. . . planning for next year. As you can see, I've left the marigolds, basil and zinnias--how those collards go there, I have no idea. The marigolds act as natural nematode repellents. Or so I've read. I've allowed them to flourish here. I will keep them in place until the frost kills them. I plan to mulch the entire garden again for this fall/winter. I will lay another layer of newspaper over all of the veggie patch, then a layer of mulch over that. I will periodically add veggie clippings from the kitchen to this area to nourish the soil so come spring, we are ready to grow! I hope to also have my map of crop rotation made for spring so I can easily assess what seeds go where come planting time. I am also planning to begin my own tomato seedlings indoors again this winter.

Black-eyed Susans. On sale, half price! Newly planted for more color next summer.

Well. And then there I was in the check-out line asking to speak to the store manager at Home Depot. I ordered fifteen bags of mulch. (Which is nothing.) I had two carts in the check out line--mulch, plus half-priced hostas and other plant deals. They had discounted the bushes and trees in the parking lot to fifty percent off. Clearly no one had really "looked" at the inventory. Some of the bushes had brown patch. The trees and bushes are going to go to the compost heap for that price. I felt a seventy-five percent discount seemed more realistic. So I asked for the manager. Long story short--no deal. . . yet. But soon, she said. Store manager (a woman! --I sort of was like, whoa girl power) took my phone number and will call once the bushes and trees get deeper discounts. (But I'm afraid by then, my fall "recluse" self may have taken up residence.)

I was quite the "wacky woman" scene first thing on a gorgeous fall Saturday morning, to be sure. After summoning the store manager, suddenly I'm surrounded by helpers--two of them--to help me get my "goods" to my car! Then there was the commentary taking place along with stares: You've got a lot of work ahead of you. Well, duh. Who else is going to do this? I mean honestly? Have we grown into such a lazy society that the site of a mere fifteen bags of mulch enlists such commentary as "boy that's gonna be a lot of work". Please. (Sadly it was slow in the garden section.) Grant it, I may need two ibuprofen every couple of hours for the next two weeks--AND help getting out of my chair, but it is totally worth the extra bit of fall gardening work effort.

Dr. Thyme came out to assist with "acorn removal". This has got to be one of the worst years EVER for acorns. I had had it--trying to navigate the silly round nuts while walking the dogs. I begged for help. And he did oblige and pitch in. Even if he'd just gotten off a red eye flight from LA the night before! He's such a dear. Four wheelbarrows full later, we had this to show for it. All of that pile: acorns (well and our first few piles of oak leaves). Half the trees around here still have green foliage. It's going to be a long fall.

Vegan Curried Cabbage And Potato Soup

*Adapted from Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson

1 head cabbage, cored and chopped

1 onion chopped

3 russet potatoes cut into 1" chunks (you can leave the skins on)

4 cloves garlic

1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons curry powder

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon dried dill

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

dash of hot sauce

4-5 cups veggie broth

salt and pepper to taste

chopped scallions for garnish

vegan sour cream (*optional--but really good!)

In a soup pot, add a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic and saute until onion becomes soft. Next, add the potato, then cabbage and a cup of the broth. Keep an eye on the soup and allow it to simmer covered for the next fifteen minutes or so, stirring every now and then until the cabbage begins to wilt. Add more veggie broth as the veggies cook down. Add the seasonings and remaining broth and simmer soup covered for about a half hour--until the potatoes are fork tender. Remove lid and allow soup to cook for an additional fifteen minutes or so over low heat. Remove from heat. Add a dash of salt and pepper to taste. Serve in bowls with a swirl of extra virgin olive oil and your choice of toppings. I like green onions and sour cream!

One More Week (Stay Calm: Knit One, Double Crochet, Too)

2011-10-17T11:45:00.003-05:00

Well. He's still with us. And that is all that really matters right now. There we were last week, all three of us: Dr. Thyme, me and our vet, blanket spread on the all-too-familiar floor. Me hunched over him, holding his head in my lap. She says, I want to check him out one more time. I'm biting my tongue and nodding. She walks over to him, bent over to be on his level. He gets up. She follows him over to the other side of the room, then this happens: He growls at her. We all go silent. She said, Alright. I need to examine him a little more closely. She escorted our boy down the hall. A few minutes later, in she walks with him in tow. His tail is wagging. We all compose ourselves again. Dr. Thyme and I look at each other. She said, I'll tell you one thing, he's a fighter and that whole growling at me thing. . . I'm pretty sure he's not ready to go anywhere just yet.

Never mind that for the previous week I'd had to hand feed him every single morsel of food his body would tolerate. Never mind that he began to list to one side--his weight had dropped so much, he'd begun to lose the ability to hold himself up. Agghhh! I felt like I was going to need to be checked in somewhere. . .but then we get the growl! So she gives him the heavy meds: steroids, antibiotics (because we now suspect he may be fighting a liver infection--the cuplrit is the liver still--that is not in question) and also an anti-nausea pill. Three pills a day. Within 48 hours, he was One. Hungry. Dog--devouring his entire bowl of real dog food. I won't elaborate here on what I'd resorted to cooking for him--but let's just say it was, um, not vegan.

As we headed out to the car, our boy tugged husband so hard he nearly went face first into the back seat. It left us both stunned. We climbed in the front, meds in hand. We both looked at him, then at each other, and out of Dr. Thyme's mouth comes this: I'm. . . not. . . dead. . . yet!. . . with this cooky/crazy British accent! For those unfamiliar, this is straight from that Monty Python movie. My husband has this uncanny ability to remember entire lines of dialogue from certain obscure films. Obscure to me, anyway. (I've since been enlightened to the hilarity of Monty, though I still don't get some of it.) And that I'm NOT dead yet line sort of broke the mood and took us both from heavy-hearted and at wits end, to laughing so hard, we had tears streaming down our faces. Whew.

A few days later, our boy ate his first full bowl of food in several weeks. A major victory. I'd decided (and Dr. Thyme agreed)--I needed to get out of the house. So I went yarn shopping. More on that in a sec. When I came home all of my other yarn from a basket I keep next to my chair was tipped over, spread across the living room floor--like a little mini-tornado had hit! A puppy moment. . . all over again! Of course that made me laugh. No scolding. Just treats and a walk. Finally. He's back. At least for a bit longer. We'll take whatever we can. We absolutely are deserving of a break. We have no idea how long this next "spell" will last. All we know is that, the miracle of medicine is granting us a few more precious days, maybe even months with our very beloved, adorable, scrappy boy. (But he better stay out of mommy's yarn.)

Now one other piece of news we learned last week. Dr. Thyme will not need that major eye surgery we had been dreading. This had also been hanging over our heads. He was given the news last Friday. We are both quite relieved. He loves his "new" eyes.

Meantime, I've been obsessed over a couple of things.

Vegan chocolate cake. (I have more than one recipe in this blog, please help yourself.) Having this cake in the fridge is mandatory right now. We've gone through an entire cake already. This is our second.

I LOVE this blanket. Love it. My crochet yen is big right now. I think the change is good. Plus with all the stress, it's nice to have something quick to work up in the evenings while hubby and I watch TV. (We have been glued to the set as the home town baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals have been playing for a chance to go to the World Series and guess what. . . they did it last night! What a game!) Anywho. . . with all the needle work, my hands have begun to hurt a bit--I'm trying to stick to knitting more during the day--then switching to crocheting in the evenings. This throw will be for the living room. I love watching the colors grow as I work it up. I was inspired to work on this after seeing Lucy's on Attic 24. I love her blog. Not only is she is uber-talented in the crochet department--her tutorials help tremendously. I certainly need to drop her a line because she also inspired me to make my hexagon throw. (Though not totally finished, I had done enough hexagons for it to at least take up residence over the back of one of the chairs. I love looking at it.)

I bought one of these "ergonimically" correct crochet hooks last week. And truth be told, I feel a difference. Less stress on the hands. I work faster with it, too.

Then, during my trip last week to one of my LYSs, I picked up this yarn to make the Hitchhiker scarf. Forty-two points. Get it? Aren't those colors amazing. I love working on this, too. One of the women in the store was working on this. I fell in love with it right then and there and just had to start my own.

And here's the "coat". Sort of a love/hate relationship with this. I hope to finish it in the coming week. I am quite certain that when I get to the buttons: There will be tears.

Vegan Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread: Healthy, But without That Healthy "Taste" (And Seeing Pink. . . Cotton Yarn)

2011-10-09T10:52:00.002-05:00

I had no business turning my oven on yesterday afternoon. It had reached nearly eighty-five degrees outside. I refused to turn on the air conditioner and close the house up. I had all the windows open. There was a lovely breeze crossing through all the rooms in our house. It has been gorgeous here. Every hour or so, I'll succumb to a hot flash and have to run outside, stand on the porch and wait for it to pass fanning my face the whole time. My calendar says fall. The trees say fall. My body says, Alright already. . . enough with the summertime weather, bring on fall!

We took our girl for a walk yesterday afternoon. Want to get her in shape for our cool weather hikes. The Pyrenees breed is not a fan of "hot" weather. But we have this one park close to where we live that is mostly shaded. Plus, Dr.Thyme needed some nature time, he's been stuck in meetings all week. So when we take our baby Pyr out, folks just gravitate toward her. She is just such a lovely dog. But maybe I'm partial. Plus with her brother getting all the attention lately with us hand feeding him and all, we thought she needed some time away. So we come upon another couple walking. Man stops and says, Would that be a Great Pyrenees by chance? I say, Why yes, but she also has Kuvasz mixed in, etc. He gushes over her. We smile proudly at our good girl and walk on. Then Dr. Thyme, out of nowhere says: God. Some people. I'm like, What? That was really nice. Then he goes: Uh, she's NOT a Great Pry "by chance", she's a Great Pyr "by design". . . it's by DESIGN, not chance! Sometimes I feel like I'm living the Big Bang Theory television show and I've somehow managed to marry a "Sheldon". Seriously.

I feel something is amiss. The official date for our first freeze averages out to be around October 15th based on weather data. I find it hard to believe we'll come crashing down to the freezing mark any time soon given this mini-fall-heatwave we're experiencing. We've had the firewood delivered and stacked for over two weeks now and only once has it been cool enough for a fire. And I've been craving pumpkin. The kind you carve and the kind you eat. I've also had an insatiable chocolate craving. Dr. Thyme and I went grocery shopping yesterday (we call it a "date" because we really do consider a trip to the store together an outing) and I stopped in front of the candy section. I stared longingly at the selections. But I knew exactly what I was looking for: Mr. Goodbar. (Okay, I could go into a thousand directions here, I know.) Anyway, I said to Dr. Thyme, I want peanuts and I want chocolate. He looked at the selection then said, Okay, how about peanut M&Ms. Umm. No, that's too much. I turned over the bag to inspect the calories and noticed that the "serving size" I'd normally consume in one pass would equal the calories I'd consume in one lunch! Clearly an accident waiting to happen. The only other option was for that bag of "mixed" wrapped treats. You know the one I'm talking about. It seemed hopeless to purchase another bag and be left with all the chocolate that I really would rather not eat. (The plain milk chocolate for instance. Ew.) So we left without any candy. I think a trip to Target may be in order today. When chocolate calls, I must abide.

I went about my pumpkin baking when we returned from the store. Almost instantly, the house was filled with the aroma of fall. And I have to say, for a bread that I was hoping to "health-up" a bit, but still end up with an uber-moist, decadent loaf--I am quite pleased with myself on this one. I was a little skittish about passing up my usual pumpkin bread recipe--one that calls for a full cup of canola oil!--in lieu of adapting a recipe that came from a baking book titled: Light And Easy Baking. I'll simply say: So glad I gave this recipe a try. So. Glad. Before I go on with the recipe, I'll stop of to talk about my second favorite topic: knitting.

I had to set aside knitting with woolies this week. I simply cannot stand to touch wool if it's over eighty. Lucky for me I snagged some terrific cotton yarn in one of my favorite colors in the clearance bin at the LYS this past summer. This yarn feels like a soft pillow all bunched up. I decided I needed to have it against my skin as a scarf. No rocket science to this pattern. Your basic k2/p2 on size ten or so needles, holding two strands of the yarn together throughout. It is scrumptious and I can hardly wait for the first cool day to break it out and wear it on my next trip for Mr. Goodbars!

Vegan Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from Light & Easy Baking by Beatrice Ojakangas

*makes 2 9 x 5" loaves

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

3 cups sugar (you could adjust for taste here and use less sugar)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or whole nutmeg on the zester)

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

3/4 cup unsalted vegetable margerine (1 1/2 sticks), melted

3 teaspoons ground flaxseed whisked with 1/3 cup of water

1 can of pumpkin puree

1/2 cup vegan sour cream

1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk (or coconut or almond milk will work)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray the bread pans with non-stick baking spray. Whisk together the flours, sugar, salt, baking soda and seasonings in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl add the melted margerine, flaxseed mixture, pumpkin, sour cream and milk and whisk well to combine. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in thirds and mix with a large spoon, just until the all dry parts have moistened. Don't overmix! Divide the batter evenly in the baking pans. Give them a little tap on the counter before you set them in the oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the middle of the bread is baked through (insert a knife in the center of the bread to test for doneness--if it comes out clean or with a few crumbs, remove it from the oven--you don't want to over bake or underbake this bread, just keep an eye on it toward the end of baking). Allow the bread to cool in the pans for about ten minutes. After ten minutes, turn the bread out onto a rack to finish cooling. Once the bread is cooled, wrap tightly and store one in the freezer and one in the fridge. Enjoy!

Green Tomato Salsa (Canning Is NOT For The Faint of Heart Nor For Those Prone to Carpal Tunnel)

2011-10-05T10:39:00.003-05:00

Let's say you're at home and decide to take on a couple of "projects" you thought you HAD to finish before husband returns from his business trip. Let's say hubby left you with twenty pounds of green tomatoes he'd strongly suggested might make a wonderful salsa. Godforbid should you disappoint. Godforbid even more that you should NOT take on such a seemingly easy-peesy project. But let's say because you are suffering daily bouts of hormonal upheaval so daunting, you decide to cram as much as you can into the course of your fourteen hour wake cycle to keep the wolves "at bay", you end up conquering not only THE WORLD, but everything in your home with lightening speed--amazing yourself at the surrealness of the female body heading into it's second stage of life: this amped-up hot flashing engine you drive is nothing short of a miracle. (Why aren't more Almost Fifty women willing to speak of this?!) To top it off, you have enough energy at the end of the night to begin yet another knitting project.

So yesterday I decided I needed to turn over the mattress (king size) and flip it around . . . because Martha said so--to vacuum up all that "detritus" we humans and canines leave behind as we go on about life. But then that lead to me moving every other single piece of furniture in the entire house for a massive vacuum campaign. But before I finished the flipping/vacuuming, I thought I'd go for my three mile walk. On the way home, saw my neighbors outside and thought I'd stop and chit-chat. They brought out the lawn chair. I thought that was too sweet. So I sat a bit. An hour later, I was back home, facing the bedroom that looked like a tornado had hit. (I think the whole reason I had to leave the house for a walk was because I couldn't believe I had just flipped that mattress. Sometimes I overwhelm myself.) But I had another unfinished project awaiting me: dicing the last eight or so pounds of green tomatoes for a second batch of green tomato salsa left over from the previous evening's canning-palooza. My hands hurt so much, I could barely grip my toothbrush. Lugging my mug of coffee around felt like I was dragging a boulder. I kid you not. The thought of cutting those damn tomatoes first thing in the morning put me in such a state, I was tempted to toss every last one of them I had left into the compost heap. But the Catholic in me wore me down, and I decided I best wait for my hands to heal to finish the "Waste Not, Want Not" project my husband had left me.

The Green Tomato Salsa project was a success. I had no idea what I'd be left with as I added this and that to my huge canner pot. I had diced ten pounds of green tomatoes, plus five onions, three red peppers, eight cloves of garlic, and six jalapeno peppers. The mixture boiled down to a thicker consistency because I prefer my salsa that way: thicker. I had a baked potato for dinner and topped it with the salsa. It was super delish. I was pleasantly surprised. The salsa was amazing! So yummy I think I may only can green tomatoes from here on out. Just enough heat, yummy cumin flavor, a bit of cilantro and lime juice in the mix--I couldn't have been more pleased.

So, I combined two recipes for this salsa. First, I found an excellent link here. And used my Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving as another reference. I highly recommend to anyone interested in canning to get a copy of this book. I was confident enough in my canning experience to know the other recipe I had found would work well, too. And it did.

This weekend is apple butter time. More canning for me. However, I WILL enlist some assistance! Dr. Thyme and I hope to get a hike in, but I also hope to go to an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch. (Again with the "menopause" talking. But these are not unrealistic goals and hubby did say he'd love to get out for a hike this weekend.) I'll pack some salsa and chips to take along with us. Well, now I'm off for my morning walk. No mattress turning for today. Thank god.

Twenty Pounds of Green Tomatoes Later. . .

2011-10-03T10:28:00.003-05:00

All of the sudden, my garden had turned into this massive clump of overgrown tomato plants invaded with green balls of unripened fruit. The very same plants I'd started from tiny seed back in February. Here it was October and the plants still looked amazing (although I've lamented our tomato-less season on more than one occasion). I'd not canned a single jar of salsa. And, I refused to buy tomatoes to do so. If I couldn't grow my own, then forget it. I guess we'll just go through winter without salsa.

On and off this weekend, I'd hear rumblings that went something like this: There's green tomatoes out there . . . you can eat those, you know . . . my grandmother would can them . . . she hated waste. Mr.Waste Not, Want Not thought it prudent to "harvest" said fruit and promptly headed out to the I-give-up part of the yard and became obsessed about the last vestiges of what I deemed a fairly useless remainder of the summer bounty. Well. Guess who's going to be canning this week.

Meantime, I had more important things to do this weekend, like caulking up every single wind tunnel gap in our home in preparation for winter. I was like a caulking gun junkie. I had a mission and my mission was to hermetically seal our home. (Perhaps the sticker shock from our recent electric bill from summer had something to do with my episode.) After the third trip to Home Depot this weekend, I'd pretty much decided I had a "problem" and asked Dr. Thyme to dispose of any remnants of the caulking tubes or caulking guns for fear I'd render our home uninhabitable by closing off all airways (except of course our doors--which I really couldn't caulk because we'd not be able to leave the house now would we).

Meantime, in walks my husband with this ginormous tub of green tomatoes and picked peppers. He's like, My god there must be twenty pounds of tomatoes here! These are great fried, you know, like you fry onion rings. . . heating them helps break down the bitter taste, etc. (Once a scientist, always a scientist.)

After the green tomato deluge, I'd thought it'd be best to just yank the remaining plants from the ground and donate them to the compost heap. (Godforbid should I have more green tomatoes.) Plus, I couldn't take looking at the mess another minute. All I've got left in the garden are my herbs, some collard greens, little cabbages, broccoli, zinnias, marigolds and enough brussel sprouts to feed a small army of minature people stuffed cabbage for the rest of their life.

Oh. And acorns. A zillion acorns. We in the neighborhood are astounded with this year's onslought. I've never seen so many acorns. I've nearly killed myself twice rolling across these things.

And when I planted the seedlings for these cruciferous minis, I had no idea what to expect come fall. I'm no fan of the brussel sprout. But Dr. Thyme convinced me I could become a fan.

The cruciferous patch. Probably my most favorite part of the garden by a long shot. This little square patch of edibles literally demanded nearly zero attention this summer. My kind of gardening!

After discussing the options for the green tomatoes, we've decided that I should can them. After a bit of research, I found a great little recipe for salsa verde. I'll keep you posted.

Vegan Challah (Pecan Sticky-Bunned for That Old: When At First You Don't Succeed Baking Lesson!)

2011-09-30T08:08:00.001-05:00

I wanted to bake fresh rolls to have with dinner last Saturday night. And because the planner in me has taken a vacation, I had about three hours to do so. Enter the bread machine. So, I flipped open one of my favorite cookbooks for all things dough, and found a challah recipe: Saffron and Olive Oil from The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook by Beth Hensperger. Being a relative newbie to the world of challah, this sounded amazing. I was planning a pasta dish and saffron is one of my very favorite Crocus sativus. And typical of me, I began prepping for my bread machine recipe without giving any thought to reading the recipe all the way through. I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of where this is headed.

(Well, that's how I knit, too. I just begin. When I come to a part of the pattern I don't "get", well that's why god made yarn shops.) So, anyway, I proceeded with the first part of the instruction on this saffron bread which was to mix the saffron with warm water and allow it to set for about ten minutes or so. Okay. Done. Then I went to reach for my flour, etc. Then the blonde moment happened. I look directly below the first two ingredients of which I'd carefully prepared to find the next ingredient needed was: 1/3 cup Two Week Biga! Really? Two WEEKS? Who the heck has two weeks or for that matter even plans that far ahead for anything bread? I was now officially made angry by one of my fave go-to cookbooks. Even more perturbed by the fact that I'd perhaps just wasted some perfectly good saffron . . . at a million dollars an ounce!

Then I got to thinking a little bit harder on the matter (harder than I'd actually wanted to think at the time). This water/saffron mixture was a lovely golden-orangish hue--sort of like the yellowish hue of egg yolk. Surely I have a recipe somewhere that I could sub this water/saffron mix for a portion of liquid in a recipe calling for quite a bit of egg. Why not just go with another bread/dough recipe, counting on the yellow-ish tint to add an egg-y hue to a vegan bread translation. So, I decided to turn to my next fave bread diva go-to cookbook for help on the matter: The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. She, too, had a recipe for challah. I'm going for it, I thought. In Rose's introduction to her challah recipe, she begins with, "In all my years I was growing up, I cannot remember a Friday night without a loaf of challah sitting the the table and the long serrated bread knife by its side." That was beautiful. Just beautiful. I am well aware of the challah tradition in Jewish homes. I am not, however, Jewish. Well, not that we know (mom was adopted). So for us growing up in our home, I'd probably have said something like this if this were my introduction to challah, "In all my years growing up, I cannot remember a day I EVER had ANY homemade bread sitting at the table. Ever!"

Alas, we were not to have bread for dinner Saturday evening. But, this time I read the directions Rose details all the way through. (And she is brilliant with her direction whether you're a novice or experienced baker.) However, given the time table I was looking at for the dough preparation, the next thought I had was on the sweet order: cinnamon pecan sticky rolls for breakfast on Sunday. A touch of saffron never hurt anyone, right?! I mean a dough is a dough, right?

And that's how I ended up with this pecan sticky bun challah. To make this challah dough, you will need a starter. Rose's Traditional Challah recipe can be found here. She calls for starter to add to the challah dough. The starter is quite easy to make and all you'll need is a bit of time and counter space to store the bowl while the resting and fermenting takes place. As for the "sticky bun" part, that's easy. A bit of brown sugar and pecans in the bottom of the pan. Then, roll the dough out, sprinkled with a mix of cinnamon and sugar, add some raisins if you feel like it, cut into rolls, place in pan. Bake! (There are several recipes on the internet for both pecan sticky buns and starters.) My starter recipe is a bit different from the one Rose called for in the Bread Bible. I had some vegan adjustments to make. I did end up using my saffron and water mixture.

I loved the color of the bread once baked, may even be one of my most favorite doughs of all so far. It's quite a stiff dough. That had me worried. There was hand wringing along the way, trust me. But after I had mixed the starter and dough ingredients then allowed it to sit at room temperature for several hours, I could see the transformation of the dough taking place. As for the egg issue--and challah dough does call for some egg--you'll apply the Kelly principle of egg-y problem solving in vegan baking: measure out the Ener-G Egg Replacer mixture--the dry mix calls for 1 1/2 teaspoons per egg, to be mixed with water. In all of Rose's recipes, she gives a weight measurement for the eggs minus the shells. This is my saving grace for baking without eggs! I measure out my powder, then add enough water to equal the weight measurement given for the entire egg amount. *I also end up adding about a half teaspoon of canola oil--I've just found it makes for a better result, adding this bit of fat to the mix. I have found no other egg substitute I am happy with in my vegan baking other than the Ener-G brand. None. And I rely wholeheartedly on Rose's expertise in all things weight when it comes to eggs.

Another adventure in the kitchen with Kelly! Thanks to Rose for helping me dig myself out of a near depressive state over some saffron and water. Lesson learned. I will not proceed with anything bread-ish until I have read through the directions completely! Meantime, the other half of the dough is in the freezer for the next time I feel like whipping up pecan sticky buns. (Which would be every single morning of my life were it not for this Almost Fifty metabolism!)

Pillow-y soft dough. Really amazing and super tasty!

I'm up early this morning because the hormone battle won. I love this time of day, so I'm not too upset over it. Our boy wouldn't touch his food. He's laying by my feet as I type. When I glanced up and saw the sun coming up over the hill through my kitchen window, I had to step outside and capture this beautiful morning to share. Here's hoping for a lovely day.

Vegan Chicken And Dumpling Casserole (Ultimate Comfort Food for What The Doc Said)

2011-09-28T10:26:00.006-05:00

I've had a comfort food craving lately. So baked casseroles are de rigueur. I picked up this amazing book deal at Walmart Monday: Cook's Country Best Lost Suppers cookbook for seven bucks! Whoa. This is just what the doctor would order for me (if I had the stamina to see one, that is). I haven't been "book" shopping since Borders announced it's closing. I'm still too bitter to drag myself to a Barnes & Noble. Not yet. I really needed to literally "stumble" upon a book find like this. (There were only two on the shelf--just waiting for me!) The cookbook has been a dinner respite here for the past two nights. Going on three if you count this evening because I already have my mind set on another famous meal from this "Lost Treasure" collection. Sure, the cookbook's full of meat eater stuff, but as a veteran vegan, I can easily manage most, if not all the book's offerings as a vegan translation. And the very first recipe in the book beckoned me to do just that. The chicken and dumplings had my name all over it. I could not have been more pleased. It was the perfect salve for broken hearts. Dr. Thyme and I kept oohing and ahhing over this scrumptious dish of yum. The bisquits (or dumplings) are the key to this whole meal. Hubby proclaiming the dumplings "the best" and requested them in some future breakfast ensemble. Sometimes I think the cooking gods look out for me. Especially in my great despair at the unfairness of the it all. The world. Life. Everything.

Last Friday it became clear that our boy was not improving. I was in a state. I called our vet and made an appointement, barely able to speak other than answering the all-too-familiar question: What seems to be the matter? I stammered, He won't eat. And that was about all I could get out. The next morning was the first appointment available. When we arrived, the receptionist and I weighed him--I knew he'd lost weight because his leash and collar had had to be adjusted. She looked at me, I looked at her, then we went into "the room" where not one, but three of our kids in just the past two years had taken their last breath. It was about all I could do to not run out of the room screaming. To say my nerves have taken a beating would be an extreme understatement. I've not been sleeping well either. No wonder.

So he and I waited. Then, they took him in to another room for a look-see. I'd rather not have the exam done in my presence because I am too much of a wreck and dogs naturally respond to our emotions. About ten minutes later, our doc came in (she is a saint). She said, Well, you know that for a dog his age, he looks good, but. . . he's lost a bit of weight and the lack of appetite points to something more than I can discern on a physical exam alone. Plus, Kelly--he's at least 85 in human years. Yes, I know. (Or older. He was another rescue from the bowels-of-hell city shelter). But knowing the year we've had thus far, she tried to remain as optimistic as possible. She knew I was nowhere near ready for the "options" talk. So she drew blood and sent it off for analysis. She called me yesterday with the news. He has liver disease--possibly cancer within the liver itself. Hard to tell, but I do have some tried and true treatments we could try, she added. Well. Okay. And then I felt my body heave and sort of collapse on itself. Pen in hand I wrote down everything she said. She also said, given his age and all, there is a good chance these options will greatly improve his appetite and, make him a bit more comfortable and have less of an upset stomach during this, the last leg of his very long life. She said it could extend his time with us anywhere from a few months, to up to a year. A year?! I was thrilled! One more year would be heaven--just heaven. But really, I'd take another lifetime all over again. I would.

Such a brave boy. When we lived in the city, our once lovely neighborhood began to rapidly change. We were in denial about this until I woke one morning to let the dogs out and feed them, when only two of the "many" returned. Stunned, I squinted into the dark corners and saw it--a hole in the corner of the fenced-in yard. I was horrified! I screamed. Just sat on the back porch and screamed. The police were called. The privacy fence had been kicked in and our garage was ravaged--the car windows shattered. I didn't give a damn about the cars. I wanted my kids--put all the forces you can on this I pleaded with the officer! And all sort of expletives were flying from my mouth. I was a woman on the brink. About two hours later still standing on my post on the back steps, yelling out the names of the still missing, miracle of miracle, guess who comes trotting up the block, right back home to the exhaustive delight of mommy? Our boy. I collapsed. I nearly fell over the back fence railing. My throat raw from screaming. He could not have been any more unphased. He was like, "Hey, I think you forgot something. . . I'm hungry!" Such a smarty pants. So brave. (*The rest of the crew were eventually returned home, but not until fifteen years of my life were shaved off from the stress of it all.)

So his sissy is being an absolute saint right now. Even if he drops his first mouthful of whatever it is he gets a yen for, she politely waits to see if mommy picks it up and tries again. She even tries to get him to play with her. He can be crabby. He might indulge with a tail wag, but that's about it for now.

Vegan Chicken And Dumpling Casserole

*Adapted from Cook's Country Best Lost Suppers

Makes a 9 x 13 casserole

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, minced

2 celery ribs sliced thin

3 carrots halved and cut into little half moons

2 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" cubes

3 Gardein Chicken Breasts (or your preferred vegan chicken substitute)

3 tablespoons vegetable margerine

1 cube veggie broth mixed with 3-4 cups of water (or use 4 cups veggie stock)

2 bay leaves

1 1/2 cups frozen peas

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 teaspoons dried parsley

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 baking dish. Set aside. In a large saute pan, add the oil and all the chopped veggies, bay leaves and cook until the onions begin to brown a bit around the edges. Add the vegetable margerine to this. You'll want a bit of browning to happen. Some of the onion may stick to the pan, that's fine because you'll be adding liquid and once you do, you can scrape up those bits of brown and it adds really good flavor to the veggie sauce. Now, crumble the veggie cube into the pan with about a cup of the water. If using pre-made broth, just add a cup of that now. Allow this to simmer uncovered for about ten minutes. Add the remaining water/broth. Allow to simmer an additional 20 minutes or so--until the potatoes just begin to soften. Meantime, while the veggies cook, saute the vegan chicken substitute you are using. After the veggies have simmered and the potatoes begin to soften, use a fork to mash a few of the potatoes up. (This is a brilliant way to add thickness to the sauce!) Next, add the frozen peas and remove from heat. *If you think your sauce is a little to thick, it's okay to add more water a quarter cup at a time. You don't want soup, but you don't want gravy either because the dish will thicken more when you bake it. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool for about five minutes. Pour mixture into the baking dish. Now make the dumplings.

Vegan Dumplings

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur if you have it)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk (at room temperature)

1/4 cup vegan sour cream

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil (for brushing on the biscuits before baking)

In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. Carefully stir in the wet ingredients with a spoon. Don't overmix--just get all the dry pieces incorporated. Drop by 1/4 cup amounts mounds of the dough on top of the veggies in the baking dish. Brush the tops of the biscuits with the olive oil. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool about ten minutes before serving.

Vegan Roasted Butternut Squash And Garlic Soup with Pistachio Crumbles (Now Sewing "The Jacket" and Now Reading "The Help")

2011-09-23T16:30:00.001-05:00

I know it's fall "officially" but I really didn't begin to feel fall until last night as the aroma of roasted butternut squash and a whole head of garlic began to fill the house. Now. It's. Fall. I bought a really good looking squash (not too big, not too small. . . just medium-ish) when they started to look like they might withstand a few weeks or longer on my kitchen counter. In this case, "longer" is the operative word--said squash was purchased about a month ago. I don't know why, but I find having a squash on hand during the months of September through March sort of an imperative. This little guy shared a spot in a bowl with some apples. I thought they made a nice arrangement. A "fall bounty" aesthetic. So now after having successfully enjoyed the heck out of this soup, I wonder if I've accidentally discovered a way to increase the shelf life of the butternut by pairing it with apples? Yes, these are the things I contemplate. Food shelf life.

I can tell you that I'd have loved to have eaten the whole squash by myself. I got all excited after I pulled it from the oven and flipped it over. All that caramel-ly goodness. So tempting! But it wasn't the biggest squash in the world, and I did have to feed two people last night, so I fought off the temptation.

There's a few steps to making this soup. But the reward in the end is completely worth it. Completely. It heats up beautifully the next day as a leftover. All I had to do was add a teeny bit of water. I used red lentils in my soup. You could use yellow lentils or green peas. (Though I kind of think the red lentils or yellow ones are the way to go. But your call.)

This weekend I'm going to try really hard to finish this:

I loved the collar and the mid-length cut. So chabby chic for my fall fashion wardrobe. I can wear this with anything and not be too awfully hot. (Because let me tell you, this little "furnace" I've turned into is a real picnic!) I picked a camel color in fleece. Camel is one of my favorite colors (after black and grey). It's a classic color. Plus, it was on sale at a ridiculously affordable price, I couldn't NOT try to make something. I see buttons being a really fun part of this coat/jacket.

Then I bought this book because I made an Amy Butler purse for my sister and she loved it! I didn't take a picture of it! Dang it. I so enjoyed Amy's design instructions and felt like such a sewing diva, I had to have her book! Lots of possibilities here. Lots.

And finally from the sewing room--I bought this pattern out of sheer fun and out of the possibility that I might, just might be able to whip up a vintage dress for myself for this holiday. You may remember I have a whole Mad Men fascination going on. Well, maybe some would call it an obsession. Nevertheles. The patterns were on sale: ninety-nine cents. Please!

*I hear Doris Day singing Que Sera Sera when I look at this pattern. I think I may have really dated myself with that remark.

I am spending my evenings split between two things. One is knitting that Holden Shawlette I told you about. Still on the easy part--the knitting and purling of the main triangle. Lace part to come shortly. And this may require some knitting 911 from the LYS. Fingers are crossed. The other knitting thing is finishing the "man-sweater" for Dr. Thyme. Hopefully in time for Christmas. We shall see. I have no idea what in the world I was thinking when I decided I'd knit this HUGE project. I just promised him "a sweater" is all.

Sister and I are both reading the book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. We both agreed we'd rather read the book, then later decide on whether or not we'd try the movie. Not that we read the same books all the time. It just so happened she brought it with her when she visited. I became intrigued--her opinion matters. So after she left, I got a copy for myself. I'll be honest and tell you that I resisted reading this book for several reasons. Mainly, because I didn't have faith in the dialogue. With all the hoopla over her being a white woman writing in the black vernacular--I'll just say this: Zora Neale Hurston still holds the dearest spot in my literary heart. I think you can judge for yourself whether a book warrants your time. Books are like food--a very personal matter. This book has some cringe-inducing moments throughout. It is, after all, the sixties. A very divided and ugly time. A good book should do that though--cause some cringe.

Here's the recipe. Finally! I loved this soup. I loved it even more this afternoon for lunch. The chopped pistachios are obviously optional, but they add such an immense texture quality to the soup, it would be a pity to not at least try something else--maybe croutons.

Vegan Roasted Butternut Squash And Garlic Soup with Pistachio Crumbles

*Inspired by Anna Thomas' "Love Soup"

1 cup red or yellow lentils

1 medium butternut squash roasted

1 head of garlic (the whole head, roasted with the squash)

1 medium onion chopped

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 celery stalk diced

2" knob of fresh ginger minced

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

fresh ground pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin seed

1 teaspoon whole cumin seed (toasted)

1 teaspoon tumeric

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried sage

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

juice of half a lemon

1/4 cup chopped pistachios

some really good extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray. Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds. Place face down on the foil lined baking sheet. Next, take your full bulb of garlic and trim the top of it off a bit. Wrap the bulb in aluminum foil--drizzle a bit of olive oil over it first--about a teaspoon. Place on the same baking sheet. Bake squash and garlic for about 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool before removing the pulp. While the squash is baking, prepare the lentils. Measure out the lentils and rinse well and place them in a soup pot with 4 cups of water, a teaspoon of sea salt and the bay leaf. Cook lentils over medium heat for about 20 minutes. No need to cover them. Meantime, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan, add the remaining chopped vegetables. Cook until the onions begin to soften. Add all of the seasonings to your cooked vegetables. Toss well to combine. Then, pour all the vegetables into the soup pot with the lentils. When the squash has cooled, scoop out the pulp and add this to the soup. You can either use an immersion blender to make a smoother soup or serve it up all chunky. I liked it all chunky vs. smooth. Right before serving, add the juice of half a lemon to the soup pot. Add more salt or pepper to taste. Then ladle the soup in to bowls and top with a drizzle of olive oil and chopped up pistachios. Yum! This soup makes a great left over the next day--just add a bit more water when you warm it up.

Vegan Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting (For The Fall Equinox . . . Or for The Heck of It)

2011-09-21T12:34:00.001-05:00

It's a gorgeous day here in the holler! I nod thankfully toward the sun and my calendar in anticipation of the fall equinox this Friday. I may hit the local "pagan people" store and pick up some sage for a house cleansing. (And then will probably walk out with ten other pagan-like things I don't need: unicorns, crystal necklace, a meditation CD--which is a complete waste of money no matter how good the music sounds in the background at the store. I know not how to meditate. Never have. Dr. Thyme tried teaching me and I laughed so hard he threw his hands up in the air and walked away. The closest I come to "meditation" is nodding off to sleep with a book open on my lap right before bed.) Anyway. . . with sage smudge tools at hand, I'll walk through the house in the geographic order called for by our Native American brethren to cleanse and bestow upon our abode the blessings of health, good tidings, warmth and a white Christmas. (I don't think that's too much to ask from sage.) Yesterday our first cord of firewood was delivered. We've already christened the fireplace and had our first fire. So cozy. The temps are sneaky this time of year though. One day you hit eighty, the next, it's sixty. Sweater and wool slippers to tank top and shorts with flip flops. Welcome to the Midwest.

There was a special occasion recently that called for some vegan baking. I was considering all of the "best" cake recipes I had in my repetoire before settling on one of my all-time-never-fails-me favorites: coconut cake. The last time I made one of these I think I made the three-tier version. Every time I bake a vegan coconut cake, something new pops into mind in terms of how I might ratchet up the coconutty-ness of the flavor and I go with it, fingers crossed the whole way through. Cobbling together a few tips from two veteran baking idols: Ina Garten and Rose Levy Beranbaum, I was able to complete this amazingly delish celebratory homage to coconut cake.

It's a gorgeous cake. It reminds me of snow and snow globes all at the same time.

What I loved most about baking this cake, aside from the fact that the batter was delectable--the cake itself rose to perfect little baked-up layers and it made me happier than you could possibly know. (Because I've been there too many times with cake messes in vegan translations, trust me.) Plus, I am a batter hog of the worst kind--sometimes nearly wanting to just consume the pre-cake mass and altogether skipping my original baking intentions. It's horrible, I know--this cake produced that kind of batter: spoon-lickin' good!

This cake stores best in the fridge. That way you can snack on it for a week or so. I think it gets better with time.

Vegan Coconut Cake

*Adapted from Ina Garten

Makes two 9-inch cakes

3 sticks unsalted vegetable margerine (cut into cubes and set out at room temp. for 30 minutes)

2 cups sugar

5 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replace mixed with 1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup of water (or the egg replacer of your choice equivalent to 5 eggs)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract (*this is mandatory--it really makes the cake that much better!)
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (use the scoop and sweep method to measure the flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
zest of half a lemon

Preheat oven to 350. Line two 9" cake pans with parchment paper, then spray with non-stick baking spray. In a large mixing bowl (the stand mixer works best)--add the room temperature margerine and sugar and beat on medium speed for about five minutes until the mixture is very light and very fluffy. Next prepare the dry ingredients in a separate bowl--the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk well to combine. Set aside. Next, mix together the egg replacer powder with the water. Now, add this to the sugar mixture and beat on medium speed for another two minutes. Add the extracts to this and mix well. Now you add the milk and flour mixture in the following manner: first add a third of the flour and then a third of the milk to the sugar/egg mixture. Mix well after each addition--about fifteen seconds of mixing--then add another third of the flour mixture, another third of the milk and repeat this step until the flour and milk are all used. Remove the beaters from the bowl and fold in the shredded coconut and lemon zest to the batter with a spoon. Don't overmix it! Next, spread the batter in the cake pans and flatten with a spatula to make sure the batter is even on top. Bake for 45 minutes. The edges of the cake should be golden brown in color and just beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven and allow the cakes to cool in the pans for about 30 minutes. Carefully remove the cakes from the pans and allow to cool completely on cooling racks.

Vegan Coconut Buttercream Frosting

5 tablespoons vegetable spread
5 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine
1/4 cup vegan cream cheese
3 cups of powdered sugar--or more if needed
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract (*this is a key flavor enhancer!)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut (for sprinkling over the cake after it's frosted)

Cream together the first three ingredients then begin adding the powdered sugar one half cup at a time. Continue adding the sugar until the desired consistency of your frosting is reached. Add the extracts and lemon and zest. Mix well. If you see that you need more powdered sugar, add only about a quarter cup at a time.

Vegan Chocolate Biscotti And Vegan Donuts (The Breakfast Weekend!)

2011-09-18T14:07:00.006-05:00

I've been on a bit of a breakfast crusade lately. With the onset of shorter days and darker mornings, my craving for the morning sweet-but-satisfying has intensified. These chocolate biscotti were a must. My first ever "try" at making homemade biscotti. So easy. Just use a light hand when mixing the dough. Shape into a log or two logs, bake for the first round about twenty minutes. Remove and allow the log(s) to cool. Then slice, and bake for the second round. It's the second baking shot that really gives this Italian cookie its "crunch" and earns it top honors in our house for dunking-ness durability. We proclaimed it a winner during our Breakfast-Palooza!

I made two versions of biscotti this week. I really wanted one for the afternoon pick-me-up (the chocolate one) and another for breakfast that packed a powerful punch in terms of nuts and fiber. The two finalists for Best Breakfast in Bed eats were: vegan biscotti takes first prize--both kinds. I made the chocolate and then the super-nutty-uber-healthy biscotti compliments of Alice Medrich's wonderful cookbook: Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies. The biscotti recipes were irresistible and a breeze to make--both of them! Who knew? For the record the last time we had biscotti in this house was after purchasing a small yurt-sized plastic tub of it from one of those giant warehouse places. I thought we'd never finish it. That was nine years ago! Nine.

The second breakfast-palooza prize goes to Babycakes vegan donuts. I made some just this morning from my newfangled donut maker put out by the Babycakes company, purchased yesterday at Kohl's with my ten dollar cash coupon at the sale price of 24.99, with coupon: 14.99. Totally worth it. Totally.

I tend to like my mornings better than any other time of day. My dream day: every few hours could be split up into segments of seven a.m. til ten a.m.--then repeat this entire time slot over again two more times until dinner prep time rolls around. My world would be perfect. I don't know why--but for some reason I turn into this puddle of a hot mess by 3:30 every afternoon. A HOT mess. I can't focus. Short of collapsing in bed, I try to stay as alert as possible. I may be in the middle of one thing . . .then when this "magic time" comes around, find myself completely into TEN other things within a short span of forty-five minutes. WHAT exactly is going on here? Am I the only one with this problem. Come around four thirty--all is back to normal and by then, I am thinking about dinner--and ability to focus resumes. It's simply maddening. Maybe I could send this to the writers of Dr. Who. Someone could surely use this as a plot device to poke further into plausible explanations as to why my three-thirty-itis train wreck happens and the role time travel may have on this daily dysfunction. (There was a point in my life when I had NO idea who Dr. Who was. Thanks to Dr. Thyme, that is no longer the case.)

So, mornings hum along fairly close to this order depending upon my mood: Feed kids, coffee, get hubby off to work, coffee, breakfast, coffee, paper, snuggle with the kiddos, coffee, stare outside at the trees, NYT crossword puzzle, and word scrambles. For some reason beyond my comprehension, I am a whiz with the word scramble--I don't even need a pencil. Why this? Why not neuroscience? It's probably no surprise to you fans of NPR Sunday that I love, LOVE Will Shortz and the Weekend Puzzle Challenge. (Except this morning's challenge wore on my nerves a bit. I felt sorry for the guy on the phone. It was a messy, awkward challenge.) Anyhow, my seemingly useless piece of word scramble talent leads me to only one conclusion: I missed my calling. Had I been born a wee bit earlier I may have been part of a talent pool of amazing word scrambler solvers (in high demand during WWII). My dream job: Secret mission to find the word scrambles in newspapers and old novels helping to make the world a better place: one unscrambled word at a time. So cool.

This is Alice's Superwoman Breakfast Biscotti. It's chock full of nuts, oats, wheat flour--in other words, great fiber content, and amazing super-power bringer.

This morning it poured. Our resident hummingbird is still here. All but a few are left. I worry about them not making it to points south before it gets much colder. Meanwhile, Dr. Thyme and I sat the breakfast tray between us in bed and enjoyed the season's first cup of pumpkin spiced coffee and homemade vegan donuts (for day two of breakfast-palooza) while reading the Sunday paper and watching it rain. A perfect morning. (Yesterday was biscotti morning.) I'm relieved as I watch the rain. Last week we had a bit of a home repair problem. And said home repair problem happened while Dr. Thyme was out of town. Of course it did. Why would the world have allowed him to be home for urgent matters of shelter. Thankfully, problem solved. (I won't go into how long it took me to be "coached" onto the roof to show me first hand what and where said "problem" had originated. Let's just say that "Fear of Heights" thing I have still very much exists--but I made it "up" there.)

This morning: vegan donuts from my little donut maker. Heaven. Take that you non-existent vegan donut drive-thru! I will say that owing to the fact we had consumed all of the other varieties of donuts I'd made this morning: coconut covered and powdered sugar covered not pictured--this was all I had left to shoot. (Take my word for it--these donuts were amazing!)

The little donut machine that could: vegan donuts. Yum. I used my torn out copy of a recipe for vegan donuts from Vegetarian Times. A link for the reicpe is here.

And for a biscotti recipe. Well, I am a huge, huge fan of my Alice Medrich cookbook. Biscotti recipes are all pretty straightforward. Combining the dough takes minutes, you shape it, bake it for the first twenty or so minutes, then, allow the loaf to cool, then slice and re-bake for an additional fifteen minutes or so. Allow to cool. Store. Then enjoy the biscotti for weeks to come. So easy. Here is my adaptation of Alice Medrich's chocolate biscotti. (For a nutty biscotti recipe--what can I say, there are like a million links to them online, but I defer to Alice Medrich for all things biscotti if you are nut inclined. And highly recommend her cookbook!) Below is my adaptation of her Choclolate Biscotti with Less Fat recipe. The vegan changes are obvious, but I also added white whole wheat flour for an extra protein/fiber boost. Enjoy!

Vegan Chocolate Biscotti

*Adapted from Alice Medrich

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup white whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur Flour)

1/3 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons instant dried coffee (I used caffeine-free instant dried coffee grounds)

3 eggs (4 1/2 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 1/4 cup water)

1 teaspoon canola oil

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup extra chocolate chips (to fold into the batter at the end)

Preheat oven to 300. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In a food processor, add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and coffee crystals and pulse to combine. About six pulses. Next, in a medium mixing bowl, combine the Egg Replacer with water, oil, then add the sugar and vanilla extract to this. Mix well. Next, add the flour mixture to this sugar mixture. Gently mix the dough. The dough will be wet and heavy with a few lumps. That is okay. Just be careful to NOT overwork the dough. Gently lift the dough up out of the bowl and turn it out onto the parchment lined cookie sheet. Divide the dough in half and shape into two long, somewhat roundish logs. About ten inches long and three inches wide. Don't bother flattening the logs out--they will flatten as they bake and take on the domed look of biscotti. On lowest rack in the oven, bake biscotti logs for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about fifteen minutes. Slice logs into 1/2 inch pieces with a serrated knife. Separate the pieces a bit so the air circulates around them during the next round of baking. Bake for a second time for 20 minutes. (A bit longer if you love a super crunchy biscotti.) Remove from oven. Allow to cool completely before storing. Can be stored in airtight container for several weeks. Great for dipping!

Vegan Mushroom Lasagna in Velvety Bechamel Sauce (Learning to Knit Lace Again: A Black Shawl State of Mind)

2011-09-13T10:22:00.001-05:00

This is one of the many nights I hadn't a clue as to what we'd be having for dinner--with about an hour to spare before Dr. Thyme came home, I was sort of in a pinch. I was in no mood to run to the store either. To be honest I was having one of my "shut-in" periods: times when being amongst the masses of other three o'clock grocery store scavangers sounded about as appealing as having my eyelashes removed one at a time by a trained monkey. No thanks. I had a limited amount of energy in my reserves and figured, whatever it was I made for dinner would most certainly have to last at least two nights. I was in a non-cooking frame of mind. It happens. I'm Almost Fifty. Hormonal. What can I say.

There are a couple of things I keep on hand because I think they nearly always lend themselves to the artful creation of last minute cooking. These things are: mushrooms, onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes, vegan cheese and lasagna sheets. Think of the possibilities. Well, I usually always have flour and yeast on hand as well. I could have gone with pizza (a sure fire Hooray from Dr. Thyme--he could live on pizza and vegan hot dogs alone). But again, it was a wee bit late in the day for me to be whipping up any dough--as easy as it is to do so, I just wasn't feeling it. So lasagna it was. And it proved worthy enough to land a spot in the "I can't for the life of me think of a thing I want to cook for dinner" rotation.

I'm happy as hell we're heading into fall. My knitting has picked up nicely. I have about four new knitting magazines sitting next to my bed. I read them like I read cookbooks. Absorbing creative ideas, but not really ready to dive head first into any single project until I see it pop up in Ravely.com with at least a minimum of a hundred projects attempted. I figure I am like most knitters: Let someone else make the mistakes and post about their trials and triumphs making my task that much easier when I settle on a project. I know. That is a horrible way to decide, but it works for me. I lurk. Then I knit. This is how I stumbled upon this lovely little shawl: The Holden Shawlette. I like anything abbreviated. I've seen (lurked) at many a shawl that looked like a gigantic doily landed on someone's back. That just isn't my taste. And truthfully, I don't know where or when I'd even attempt wearing a shawl that looked like a doily. We don't dine out. There aren't enough funerals and weddings to warrant it. We don't go to movie theatres. (Fear of germs thing. Long story.) So I'm mostly at home. Perhaps I'll wear this to the mailbox. Or sit with it around my shoulders by the fire in the winter. (Oh. My. God! Am I beginning to sound Almost Sixty?! Next thing I need to have pop out of my mouth is: "Me and my twelve cats!") So, maybe I'll just wrap this super cool shawlette around my neck and run to the store at three in the afternoon when it gets a bit more chilly. There. That's much better.

I try not to be compulsive in my knitting projects. I have several UFOs--like every knitter in the world has. My only goal is to not, gawdforbid, "die" and leave my loved ones to hash out who or what it was I was intending to knit. I've made it clear to Dr. Thyme: My yarn. . . my "projects" should be taken straight down to my LYS asap. Don't even think about tossing them or you will be haunted. . . for life--me with big knitting needles floating through the house in a knit one, purl one frenzy.

So I decided I'd give lace knitting another shot. I've done lace before. I made four placemats for the kitchen table several years ago--this was right after I'd learn the art of Yarn Over (YO). This was a milestone moment for me. As was the art of knitting in the round and top down knitting. (To date my two most favorite sought after designs.) I learned a long time ago, I greatly dislike having to seam anything. I had a few half finished sweaters as a result of this disdain. I ended up with a drawer full of one armed swearters which eventually had to be frogged and the yarn kept for another moment in time. So far, I love knitting this shawlette. I'm using Silky Wool yarn. I just love working with this yarn. Love. It.

Yummy. Even better-er the next night.

Vegan Mushroom Lasagna in Velvety Bechamel Sauce

*Inspired by Ina Garten

For Lasagna Layers

1 package mushroom chopped

1/2 onion diced

8 garlic cloves minced

1 package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

1/3 cup sundried tomatoes packed in oil minced

1/2 cup vegan mozzarella cheese

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 package lasagna noodles (no-boil kind)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium sized saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion, mushrooms, garlic. Cook for 15 minutes or so--until the onions and mushrooms have just started to brown around the edges. Next, add the chopped spinach, sundried tomatoes and seasonings. (You can certainly add more basil or any other dried herb you'd like.) Set aside to cool.

For Bechamel Sauce

4 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine

3 cups unsweetened almond milk

3-4 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Melt the margerine over low heat in a medium saucepan. Add the flour one tablespoon at a time, whisking well while doing so. The mixture will become paste-like, but should be smooth. Turn the heat up to medium and slowly add the milk to this in 1/2 cup increments, again, whisking the whole time--until all the milk has been added. The mixture should be very smooth, a bit thick. Next, add the nutmeg to this along with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Remove the mixture from heat and begin assembling your lasagna. First, spread a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of a glass 9 x 13 baking dish. Next, add a layer of lasagna sheets over this, then a layer of the veggie mixture and half the vegan mozzarella cheese. Repeat the layers again. The final layer should be a drizzle of bechamel sauce topped with a bit of the vegan cheese. Bake uncovered in a 375 oven for about 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about ten minutes before slicing. This makes for a wonderful leftover!

Precious Sister Time (This Is Us Making Up for Lost Time And Visiting Our Mother's Ghost)

2011-09-10T10:43:00.004-05:00

I could have titled this post, "What I did on my summer vacation". Because really, the best moments of the summer were squeezed together in the shrinking daylight hours of this past week with my sister. That old adage time flies when you're having fun--it certainly does. Trust me. Before we knew it, I was taking her to the airport for her flight home. We have so much lost time to make up--every moment we have together is truly precious. We call it: Making new memories. We have years lost. Dr. Thyme is patient and kind while she is here. Giving us the "girl space" we need. Also, jumping in to be Photo Studio Man (because he really does take some of the best pictures we have in our collection--especially now that his eyes are fixed).

My sister is the last remaining person on the planet who shares my DNA. That in itself makes for a powerful bond. I know that neither of us could have predicted our lives would take the turns they'd taken. That the things she remembers of the past are some of the same things I'd forget. Like our trip "home". We headed down south to the place where we both went to high school. After our mom died, neither of us ever really wanted to see "the house" again. I spent less time there than she had. I had to depend on my sister for directions to our house. Can you believe that?! If that doesn't tell you something about the effect of the past, I don't know what does.

Upon arriving, I said I'd had it with letting this place, this "shell"--have power over me. I said I wanted to drive by. Sort of like that Miranda Lambert song, "The House That Built Me"--but without the knocking on the door asking to come in part. My sister was brazen enough to reach into her purse as we stood in the middle of the street staring at its decrepit state, stating she thought she still had the key to get in!--to which I looked on in horror and said, No way! I'm here to face this place and proclaim it has NO control over me--NOT to be arrested for breaking and entering the damn thing, 'kay?! Which got me the, Well it WAS your idea to come here--look. Truly a sister moment. And then we just sat and stared at it. At the whole block. The trees. The yard our mother meticulously worshipped. The same yard my sister was charged with maintaining. (I had "flown the coop" by then.) A yard that now looks like it hadn't had a moment of tending to in the past thirteen years. Our mother would have died. It had changed so much. I didn't even remember it being the color it was now painted. It was this sad white with black trim, with peeling paint in different spots. Not a car drove past. Not a person stepped outside. It was as if this moment had been set aside--without distractions, a time for us and only us--to contemplate. To think. To remember. And then. . . to get in the car and forget.

We went to visit her best friend. She's been fighting cancer. It's been a grueling year. But you would hardly know it--she is an inspiration. She's back to teaching full time! Life. Another friend of my sister's joined us. We had dinner. (I have no friends from high school that I would even remotely want to call upon--well there's one person, but she lives many states away. High school was a bitter pill for me.) We headed home after a nice dinner and good conversation.

So along with shopping and eating (and boy did I cook and boy did we eat!)--we took a few day trips and had fun seeing the sights in St. Louis.

We visited one of my favorite parks: Lone Elk. We donned our hiking gear and set out for a pretty good hike. I packed up some vegan picnic grub and we headed out for points unknown.

Along the way, we came around a corner and I happened to glance down a hill. I stopped and sat really still--trying to make out what I thought I saw. My sister was about twenty paces ahead of me. I said, "Hey"--in a yell-whisper. "Look!" Sitting just below us, blending in almost entirely with the backdrop of the woods and the greenery was this gorgeous deer. A buck. We had not run into a soul on the hike. So to say I was a bit spooked and thrilled by this encounter would be an understatement. There he was, literally unphased by our presence. Chewing. Looking around. Just like we were. But a little less terrified, I'm sure. I tip-toed up to the closest point I could to get a picture--without putting either of us in the site line of a charging deer with antlers. We just stared in awe. We have deer in our back yard. This was not the same thing.

Our mother had this HUGE thing for birds. Exotic birds. Her best friend was into exotic birds also. But then her best friend went to prison for something unrelated to the birds. Mom wrote to her often. Her friend died last year. My sister sent the obit to me. Birds will always play an important role in our lives. But neither of us has one at home. We had to stop at the bird sanctuary. Sissy loved the birds! We got some one-on-one time with the volunteers working there that day. By then, school was back in session and we nearly had the place to ourselves. We couldn't have picked a better day.

This photo really struck me. This eagle was very animated--more so than I'd seen on previous visits. And then there were moments of absolute silence. We were both taken with her. After getting home I saw this shot I'd gotten of her, and after thinking about the anniversary of 9/11 this week, I think this photo captures more than just an eagle on a perch.

We visited the Japanese Festival the the Botanical Gardens. My sister had never been. It'd been years since I last attended this festival. It was packed! I told her this visit counted as my "Do something that scares you every day" moment. She agreed. When we finally got to the park--after a mile walk from the car--we really were glad we'd tested our limits.

My sister took this shot of us in front of some of the biggest ferns either one of us had ever laid our eyes on. I love this photo.

Ice sculpture. Awesome.

Pretty.

So amongst the crowds of people, this particular picture stands out. Only because the dragonflies were everywhere. Then I glanced down and snapped as fast as I could. Very cool.

Glass sculpture with sun. Another favorite shot of the day.

My sister took this picutre. I thought it was gorgeous.

I walked over to look closer at these purple shields. They are the hugest I'd ever seen. Clearly the Botanical Garden believes in "feeding" their plants. Sissy snapped this shot of me.

Dr. Thyme and the kids and me. They are both camera shy.

Sissy and me. Until next time.

Not Ready to Say Good-bye. . . Again

2011-08-31T10:37:00.001-05:00

I have been here before. The longer naps during the day. The slightly less-than-normal appetitie. (No diving head-first into the bowl!). The changing of food to increase interest in the least little bit of kibbles. The on the floor with bits of food in my palm, making "Yum" sounds and pretending to eat it myself. Once we get started, then the full cleaning of the plate eventually happens. And I sigh a big sigh of relief. It's gradual, this change. But once the pendulum swings, you prepare.

It's too soon. Yes. He's a "senior" dog. How senior is anyone's guess. Maybe thirteen-fourteen? Maybe older. That is the pain of rescue. That is the joy of rescue. The whole second chance thing. The unknown becoming the known. He's here in these photos in two poses. One ear is always flipped up. One is always flipped down. Don't know why. It just always has.

Since I've been here before, I know the signs. It's not like Maggie was--he shows no signs of distress. Everything else is running as usual. It's just that it's all sort of slowed down. Dr. Thyme says: Hey when you get old, food doesn't taste as good--just let him eat at his own pace. And I do. I wait. I offer small changes to the menu designed to make the whole experience of eating a feast of some kind. Something special. Every time. We have our "breakfast of champions" moment on the floor now. (Wasn't I just here in May?) And dinner sometimes, too. His sister looks on with a knowing stare. She's been here before, too. She knows. She is very patient. Eventually, he eats all his breakfast, or dinner. Gets the You Are Such A Good Boy! pats and outside we go. He's so smart.

He won my heart over big time. . . years ago. Years. Such a ham. I'd walk the few dogs I could when I had the stomach to handle the place where they house strays. I didn't last long there. But long enough to know that humanity has some serious cleaning up to do with regard to its "disposable" society attitude toward canines. Don't get me started.

He'd lean against his cage. He'd give me the big ole' sad eyes. I'd leash him up. Walk outside. Stand there looking at the building and feel the big knot in my stomach telling me how wrong this is. How very wrong. We'd hang outside for a bit. He'd lean against my leg. Then give a roll over on the belly for extra effect. This was his "socializing" time. He seemed quite social. A little scrappy. But they are all a little scrappy after being "taken in".

It'd nearly killed me. But I'd say, You'll get a home--I promise! And then leave, checking with the in-take staff to make sure they NOT do a thing to him. To promise, promise they'd keep him as long as they could. My house was full--I couldn't take another. Just couldn't. Then, one day, I came in. I was called over to the "One in Charge of All Things Lethal" and told: Your friend's time is up. . . Do you have a foster plan? Oh god. And I said, Yes, I do. And in the car we went. Home. And that's where he's been ever since. Home.

We'd never had a boy dog before. He broke the boy barrier. He is our Good Boy. What he is is a mix of the best. Some Pry mixed with maybe some Spaniel and possibly some Border Collie. Who knows!

He never leaves my side. The minute I move--he moves. Unless Dr. Thyme is home and then, he sort of settles in with that. The Ultimate Protector is home. Now he can take a break.

He and his sissy are best buds now. This didn't come easy after Maggie left. She sort of was the ring leader, if you will. Kept watch over the youngins'.

After saying good-bye to Maggie Mae, I began a search. Three was where the pack needed to be. Three. Now with the two, the dynamic had changed. The whole house had changed. Every week. Sometimes twice a week: I look for her. I look for a new sister for them both--to set right again: The Three Amigos. It's sort of become an obsession. I know the face I want to see. I know the patches of carmel on the top of the head I miss. I know the gaze, the size--I just know. This watching and reading the posts on Pyrs needing homes has become a regular pastime. Maybe to prove to myself there will never be another Maggie Mae. I even watch for puppies. Especially puppies. I'd love at least a full fifteen years this time around--to go into my Almost Seventy! years with me. (Life expectancy can vary for Pyrs--for people, too!) Would love to have a bigger part to play in their life, to take one very young--to show them a full, loving life right from the start.

I just haven't seen The One yet. Maybe never will. And now, I'm fearful that bringing another in would be unfair to him. So I just read these posts for now. Send out positive prayers for each and every one, then look at my kids and tell them: You DO know how much mommy loves you, don't you? You Do know how lucky you are, don't you?

I've had to grow old along with him. My childbearing years were spent on dogs. (And have no regrets whatsoever over doing so!) He was one of them. One of lots of them.

And I've moved beyond the need to "participate" in any group(s) affiliated with rescues and what have you. I don't have the same tolerance for the "political" goings on and. . . the egos. I applaud most of the groups out there for their efforts in finding homes for these kiddos. At Almost Fifty, your view of the world changes. Priorities do, too. My personal beliefs are well, more personal. No proving anything to anyone. I simply know that whatever the circumstance in our lives, we will never live without our best friends. I cannot imagine a world without them--without more than one of them. Ever.

So we are here again.

Vegan Apple Crostata (On Reading "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand And . . . Knitting Until The Cows Come Home)

2011-08-29T10:51:00.001-05:00

I subscribe to a "few" monthly magazines. Our post office likes to deliver (dump) them in the mailbox all at once. It overwhelms me when this happens. I have a suspended animation moment and place them on a book shelf in the living room where they are "stored" until I can decipher the order with which I will read them. Food magazines are usually first, then garden, then knitting (unless it's snowing outside, then the order is changed to: knitting, food, garden).

To me, this time of year for cooking is the In Between time. It's very challenging. My enthusiasm for the tomato has peaked, as has my love of the salad. There is always room, however, for a new dessert. Good thing I paid attention to this month's Bon Appetit. (Which truthfully, BA is a far, far cry from the lovely Gourmet magazine. Sigh. I miss Gourmet.) And for the veggie heads out there, I won't even comment on the content of our choices in food magazines. Lacking comes to mind.

Restaurant requests is one of my favorite parts in BA. Someone requested the recipe for the Apple Crostata served in Cape Elizabeth, Maine at a restaurant called Sea Glass. Sea Glass! I LOVE that color (that's the very color I painted my kitchen!)--it must be fate! This crostata leapt at me. It's not quite apple season yet. But to me, the apple never goes out of season. (My favorite are the Fuji. Dr. Thyme loves Honeycrisps.) So on a slightly warm afternoon, I decided I needed to make an apple dessert and went to work making this. According to Dr. T., was by far one of his most favorite sort-of-but-not-quite apple pie desserts EVER. I tend to agree. I mean, for me, I'd even go so far as to say I may never bake another pie in a pie pan again. The crust on this thing was perfect--flaky, non-mushy, delightfully balanced between sweet and salty--like eating the apples baked on the best shortbread cookie ever! A link to the recipe can be found here. Trust me, you will love it! (*I used two Granny Smith apples and three Fujis for mine.)

On the knitting front (winter is rapidly approaching!--but I never really turn off the knitting--it just slows to a trickle during summer)--I am in the midst of trying to finish this sweater: Amiga. I am going to modify this with a longer, bell-shaped sleeve because I figured by the time I finish knitting this, cool weather will be upon us and I will want to wear it then. I am also going to modify the picked up stiches around the collar and front and make them have a "ruffly" edge. I love the color! It will be sunshine-y and just what I need once the dark, gloomy days of fall arrive (and that monster called Seasonal Affective Disorder descends--but we'll not go there now). Making the sleeves longer and a bit wider is taking me some extra time. Well, it's taking me a lot of extra time. I have stockinette fatigue. The saving grace of working in the round on the same damn thing for HOURS is that I can practically do it in my sleep. So as we catch up on TV and whatnot--my hands are busy working the sleeve action on this. I suddenly (and only for the briefest of moments) wished I were like four feet tall. But then the moment passes and I am grateful I'm tall again and get back to the sleeves-for-the-longest-arms-ever-sweater!

And finally, on my nightstand is Laura Hillenbrand's book, Unbroken. I requested it from my library. You might have noticed this book on the bestseller lists for a while now. And rightly so. She wrote Seabiscuit. I loved, loved, loved that book. And subsequently purchased the photographed coffee table book for my collection. Unbroken is a novel of our time even though it is a novel of a time most of us never witnessed, only read or heard about--whether from a WWII veteran or Tom Brokaw (I'm referring to his Greatest Generation project). I believe you must have some idea of where we come from to understand where we are going. Maybe that comes from having very little history of my own to trace back to (long story, but I have many unanswered questions in my past). I believe in the power of people and their stories. Laura is one of the best storytellers of my generation. I am learning things about that war that were never mentioned in my history classes. The book is fascinating and hard to put down.

Last night Dr. Thyme and I watched George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview on National Geographic Channel. (Speaking of history.) This interview moved me to my core. I got teary-eyed. I had chills. Again, everyone's story matters. We sat still, in silence and watched, uninterrupted, the ex-president give one of the most candid interviews to date--a moment-by-moment replay of that Tuesday afternoon in September: where he was, what he thought, how the gravity of the moment affected him and discussing the decisions he made thereafter. A most powerful and painful interview. But one that should not be missed if for no other reason in that it is a moment from our time that will forever impact the future of where we go.

Cherry Plum Preserves on Homemade English Muffins (Canning Project No. 1)

2011-08-25T10:47:00.003-05:00

I began canning about ten years ago. Literally "jumped" into it. My first canning exploit took me down the apple butter road. Fun but really, really messy. And truth be told, I was scared silly over the possibility of poisoning my husband with botulism. It was an intense first experiment. But all turned out well.

I remember my grandmother making homemade grape jelly from her OWN grape vines in her tiny backyard. Jelly making in a skirt and pearls no less! (Grandmother was very proper. She ran with the country club types.) After she'd spend all day canning, she'd sit down with a good book and a martini--still in full regalia of dress. I couldn't resist standing right next to her while she canned, waiting anxiously for a spoon taste of the grape concoction. She'd have all these tiny jars lined up against the wall, steam filling the kitchen, then carefully ladle the hot syrup into each jar, then topping them with a layer of wax. Whenever you'd open a fresh jar of jelly, the underside of the wax had this irresistable coating of the grape jelly stuck to it. I loved that part and always ask to have the wax lid whenever a new jar was opened.

I've got two grape plants in my yard. To say they've not performed well for me would be an understatement. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that I am really not into plants needing too much "babying". My roses have finally figured this out: You're on your own--either you live, or you don't! They've actually shaped up quite nicely as a result of my hands-off approach. I remember during my Master Gardener training class we had this Rose Expert give a presentation. She seemed, oh, I don't know. . . a little Over. The. Top. with the rose business. But one thing I took away from the class was this: You can mow those roses right down to the ground and they'll come right back up--no question. Well now, that's my kind of plant. And true to her word, my roses get pruned right down to the ground evey March, and without question, they come right back up. But regarding my grapes. It's a no-go this year. But I'm patient. Maybe next year.

Meantime, I have a lovely cookbook called: Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours by Sarabeth Levine. Such a beautiful book. One reason I HAD to have this particular cookbook was for the chapter she devotes to making preserves or Spreadable Fruits. In fact it was the art of making preserves (actually it was orange marmalade) with her own grandmother that launched her career in the baking business. I just could not resist owning this book. Another thing I love is that her preserves do not depend upon the use of pectin. I'd rather work without adding pectin to my preserves. As Sara points out, most fruits have enough natural pectin to form a nice preserve or jam.

I was in a bit of a panic last week when I realized August was nearly over! I had not canned one single thing. And even worse, every single tomato I'd harvested from my garden so far had found its way into our dinner. . . or snack. . . or lunch. Usually I've canned salsa three ways by now!

The possibilities are endless when it comes to canning fruits. However, it is not an easy business when you consider the trouble you could encounter were you not to process according to specific measurements outlined in given recipes. I settled on Sarabeth's recipe for Cherry-Plum Preserves. Five ingredients! But followed the directions she gives to a "T"! I was so pleased with the outcome, I am on to making my second batch this morning. (We are eating an average of a half pint per day!) Sarabeth explains how her preserves are more on the "runny" side because she prefers her spreads to seep into as many cracks and crevices in the bread as possible. I could not agree with her more!

Absolutely essential: homemade English Muffins. I made my favorite recipe--Rose Levy Beranbaum's English Muffins from her cookbook: The Bread Bible. The best, best muffins ever!

Vegan Almond Cake with Real Raspberry Buttercream Frosting (When A Hike in The Woods Turns Into: No Sleep for You!)

2011-08-20T11:41:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning to loud thunder, bright flashes of lightening, and lots of rain (that and a couple of dogs having their usual 'panting-drooling-storm-anxiety' moments). These weather changes in August can only mean one thing: September is just around the corner. And I'm more than ready for cool, crisp mornings that require a pink terry robe and fuzzy slippers to retrieve the paper. Alas, we are still seeing daytime temps in the nineties. Blech. Our electric bill from July arrived yesterday, too. To say I nearly fainted from both the heat of the day AND our bill would be an understatement. You'd think there'd be a dispensation for record summer heat the likes of which have not been felt in fifty years. You'd think.

After last weekend's fun! hike, Dr. Thyme and I discovered, that although the nature-bonding moments were lovely and brought us back into the fold of what we both love: a hike--it also brought us back into a week of regret because we are COVERED in chigger bites! Cov-ered! After doing a bit of research on the matter of the Missouri chigger, come to find out--they are part of the spider family! Ew. And. . . they are this really nasty long-legged juvenile nuisance who gets its kicks dining on our flesh! Double Ew. The only thing that seems to work to repel them is sulfur. Sounds fun! Let's go hiking and smell like rotten eggs while we're at it. I'm sure we'd repel more than chiggers. The other option is to NOT hike again until temps reach into the low forties in the evenings. (My kind of weather!) Apparently they don't "like" the cold. Neither one of us has had a decent night's sleep since Sunday. We've gone through nearly an entire bottle of clear nail polish trying to suffocate the little bastards and the red welts they've left behind. Silly us! In our euphoria of having just ONE weekend in this godforsaken state this summer whereby we'd enjoy a little R&R and mother nature time, we have now figured out why we were only one of FIVE cars in the entire place! Canada keeps looking better and better. So do any northern tier states where daytime "high" temps are in the seventies (while the rest of us bake in 120s). I'm keeping lists and graph charts. This Northern girl is just about OVER the south. Seriously. (Okay, I still love southern food stuffs, but I can take that all with me when we check out.)

So I wanted cake. The cake keeper was empty and that's never a good thing when I'm low on sleep. And for once, chocolate was not an option. And I didn't want anything too labor intensive either. Single layer would be fine. Enter this almond cake. A perfect ending to several evenings this week. We both proclaimed this a simply wonderful cake. Sublime actually. A two-piecer for Dr. Thyme. The aroma of the cake baking was even better. Almond and vanilla extract. Come on. I'd wear that as a fragrance if I could. But then I'd probably be really hungry all the time.

And of course, I turned to my cake idol: Rose Levy Beranbaum and The Cake Bible for inspiration. And, as usual my vegan adaptation of her almond cake was spot on. She suggested a "real raspberry" buttercream frosting. And I agree one hundred percent. Lucky for me I had picked up one of those when-in-the-heck-will-I-ever-need-a-small-truckload-of-raspberries from Costco that I'd stored in the freezer. Exactly the amount needed to whip up a lovely raspberry sauce adorning the cake.

The cake bakes up perfectly in a 9" round cake pan--even had the perfect rise to it--not all sunken in the middle. Loved it!

And now for the best part. I followed Rose's suggestion and took my raspberries, drained them over a bowl, then took the juice from them, boiled it down to a syrup, then poured this into the Vitamixer with the whole raspberries creating this lovely, delicious, amazing raspberry sauce. I then incorporated a bit of the sauce into the buttercream mixture to give it that added berry punch. Perfection. This cake lasted only three nights in this house.

Vegan Almond Cake with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

*Adapted from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

1 2/3 cups sifted cake flour (I used King Arthur's: 5.75 ounces)

1/3 cup almond flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

1 cup Florida Crystals Sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine

2/3 cup vegan sour cream (I used Tofutti)

1 teaspoon almond exract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs (3 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 5-6 tablespoons water--enough to equal 3.5 ounces)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray a 9" cake pan and line the bottom of it with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, mix together the egg mixture (which should weight 3.5 ounces: water & Egg Replacer powder) and 1/4 of the sour cream mixture and extracts and set aside. Place the dry ingredients in the bowl of a heavy duty mixer and mix on low speed for about a minute to incorporate the dry ingredients. Add the room temperature butter and remainder sour cream to this. Mix on medium speed for about two minutes--until all the dry crumbs are moistened. Gradually add the egg/extract mixture to the flour mixture--do this in three additions--and mix well after each addition. Give it one final mixing of a minute at the end for good measure. Pour the batter into the cake pan and spread the batter evenly. Bake for 35 minutes. Check cake for doneness with a toothpick inserted in the middle and if it comes out clean, it's ready. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool in pan for ten minutes. Then, carefully turn the cake out onto the cake keeper. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting--use the recipe below or here's a link to my "usual" frosting recipe. Follow the same directions, only this time, add a bit of raspberry sauce to the mixture.

1/4 cup vegetable margerine

1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-to-2 tablespoons soy creamer
2-to-3 cups powdered sugar

Mix all together adding about 1-2 tablespoons of raspberry sauce for more intense raspberry flavor. Blend well. Save the rest of the sauce and top the cake with a drizzle of it when serving! Yum!

Vegan Butter Bean, Roasted Red Pepper And Basil Soup (Charlie Brown's Hike)

2011-08-16T14:44:00.002-05:00

This soup could also be called: Everything At The Farmer's Market Soup or In Kelly's Back Yard Soup. But that would be doing the soup an injustice because the real hero in this dish are the butter beans, aka "lima" beans. Which, by all accounts was a risky soup for me to serve given the "ew" from Dr. Thyme regarding the lovely lima. I've tried to sneak this bean in dishes before. "Are those lima beans. . . you aren't putting those in there, are you?!" Gawdforbid! My response is close to what my mother used to say (but never quite exactly because I'd need to have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth for that)--I simply say: Well, this is what the cook wanted!

Soup in front of us both last night, then the Yum from him, then from me, "Uh, just an fyi, those are LIMA beans in there." And there really is no need for me to say much else. The soup still received high marks and Dr. Thyme completely loved it! Score one for the sneaky mom cooking strategy.

The weather this weekend was superb. I mean as darn near perfect as you could ask for here in misery. . .I mean Missouri. I'm still pretty hostile about the lost weekends we suffered through with our one hundred degree days. I won't forgive mother nature on this one. It affected our quality of life, probably even shaved several years from my personal longevity. So I remain a bit peeved with her is all. HOWEVER, finally we get a glorious day and I just could not bear staying home another moment. So out we went.

Picture taking for us when we hike is mandatory. It is also mandatory to include photos of people, i.e., the two of us (even if one of us--me--has hat head!) in the grand scheme of whatever flora and fauna we are tackling. I mean I cannot even begin to tell you the number of photos I have absolutely NO interest in because, well, because they lacked US! I am like, where was this. . . how many photos can you take of that side of the river for crying out loud! So we came upon this HUGE oak tree and I am like, Whoa, that has GOT to be the largest oak I've ever seen! So we stood in front of it, trying our best to capture its gigantic-ness. A little aside: I am no longer taking photos of us because the pictures always show a bit too many of those "Almost Fifty Life Lines!"--so said camera operation goes to Dr. Thyme who has a longer arm than me and can pretty well take a decent photo given this added "distance" his arm allows. As you can see, we still have a bit of work to do to get the shot better than this one. But you get the idea. That tree behind us was spectacular. We just sat and stared at it. Then, after reviewing picture Dr. Thyme says, My god, my head is the size of a pumpkin! I laughed so hard I nearly needed urgent help with the bladder. But looking at the photo together we deemed it: Charlie Brown Takes A Hike. Sort of after the whole Charlie Brown head thing and the Great Pumpkin episode . . . maybe you had to be there.

We stopped in at the Visitor's Center at Babler State Park (just in case you wondered which park this was--and yes, it is a gorgeous park when it's not 120 degrees outside) and bought hubby this nifty little hiking stick. He loved it. Even better: his vision is so much improved than it was the last time we'd attempted a hike (and he kept hitting rocks and nearly falling)--this go around--he was stunned with the clarity he had with his eyes and no falling! He loves to talk about "The new eyes!" Bless his punkin' head heart.

I cannot get enough of bridges. Any bridge. I am like, Wait! We need a picture!

And then there was this little "thing". He speculated aliens. I had no clue. But here it was just sitting there right, smack dab in the middle of the trail. Dr. Thyme forbade me from touching OR moving said "object". (He's very much into science fiction and rolls with that crowd and thus, I was NOT to touch said potential alien life form). It's very cute, his sci-fi adoration.

This soup came together in a jif. All you need is. . . a Pressure Cooker! I swear by my pressure cooker.

(It bears repeating.) One hour out til husband gets home and I didn't break a sweat or cuss or anything--just pulled out old PC and viola--the beans were ready for adding to the broth in twenty minutes. Easy. So easy.

Vegan Butter Bean, Roasted Red Pepper And Basil Soup

*Adapted from Love Soup by Anna Thomas

1 cup dried lima beans, rinsed (*or 1 can of large lima beans)

1/2 onion chopped

8 cloves garlic minced

1 large red pepper (raosted over an open flame or you could use jarred roasted red peppers)

3-to-4 large fresh tomatoes chopped

1/2 cup fresh basil

1 zucchini diced

2 cups fresh spinach

2 teaspoons dried oregano

pinch of thyme

2 cups veggie broth or water (*plus additional water if needed)

1 veggie broth cube

juice of half a lemon

sea salt

fresh ground pepper

olive oil

In a pressure cooker, prepare the lima beans. (You could use canned, I suppose.) Take red pepper and carefully roast. Either in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or over an open flame, turning constantly with tongs until the skin is charred. This should take you about five minutes. Carefully remove pepper from flame and set aside to cool. After a minute of cooling, place red pepper in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow pepper to sweat, then remove pepper, place on cutting board and remove seeds and stem, then lay flat sides of pepper on cutting board and remove blackened skin. Then chop the pepper up, set aside. Prep all other veggies and set aside. Heat about two tablespoons of olive oil in soup pot, then add onions. Let the onions cook for a good twenty minutes over low-to-medium heat--you want them to just begin to caramelize. Then, after that cooking time, add all the remaining ingredients, give it a good stir and cover and allow to simmer for 25 minutes over low heat. Remove lid and allow soup to cook an additional 40 minutes or so to let the flavors really come together. If the soup seems too thick, add a bit more water. Take a half a lemon right before serving and add the juice to the soup. Serve soup with a drizzle of flavored olive oil and side of crusty bread! Yum!

Vegan Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (Dispatches from The Sewing Room And The Year-long Quilt: Finally!)

2011-08-10T12:16:00.002-05:00

I'm dining solo this week so that called for baking a pineapple upside down cake. The quintessential cake. There had to be some major cake brilliance going on when this cake was conceived. Will I eat the entire cake myself? Yes. Probably. But not in one sitting for goodness sakes!

This cake must remain on the reserve list owing to hubby's intolerance of the pineapple. Something about an allergy was mentioned. I try to be respectful. It's not like he breaks out into hives at the very sight of the fruit, but he does keep his distance. Clearly some serious genetic foul-up occurred. That'd be like me having an allergy to chocolate. I'd demand a do-over.

Isn't she lovely! A year or so ago, I enrolled in a quilt class. We cut some strips of fabric and made something out of them that now sits in my living room and covers my legs every single night (when I'm not on fire, that is). I so loved making that quilt, that I quickly made another and now am in the process of nearly finishing this one, my third. But let me say, this one has been a labor of love. I like to take the shortest way out when it comes to making anything. Yes, frustration, on occassion, has resulted (and the need for a nap, perhaps a xanax as well). But this quilt-as-you-go project beckoned me when I first heard of the technique for making quilts. The first few "quilt tops" I made were, in my opinion, a bit "tedious". So I was not all for the multi-step process of making the quilt top, THEN, geting the middle part and THEN back fabric, THEN tacking it on, THEN re-sewing the whole thing and there you have it! So I found this adorable sewing site where a sewer had fashioned together a quilt-as-you-go tutorial. I LOVED it! I knew immediately this would be the method I'd incorporate for constructing the next quilt. I built a quilt wall or working wall whereby all of my put-together squares were hanging. I loved looking at them. Didn't always love sewing them, because truthfully, each square took me about two hours (give or take, depending upon what they had on the Food Network).

I have selected to use a dark brown print fabric as my backing and as an accent strip. I am now in the process of sewing or "quilting" the entire thing over once more (see the light cream thread) with my sewing machine. Note: This is a task for those who can stand to cram a queen-sized piece of fabric into the space of a napkin holder! I am only able to work on this in half hour increments or I become . . . unpleasant to be around. I am very pleased with how this has turned out. Very.

My next project I am working on is a surprise and for someone special. But since a new JoAnn Fabric store opened way-too-close to where I live, I am now completely fabric-addicted! It took me two hours to pick this trio out for my new project. I am sure the folks in the Hidden Camera So We Can Watch Our Customers room were delighted to see me finally head over to the register.

The beginnings of the next quilt project. This time, I took a class called, "Stack-n-Whack" last month. I wanted something that sounded quick! Well, nothing in quilting is that fast--it just isn't. No matter what you see on the cover of glossy, screaming-for-you-to-make quilting magazines. The whole industry preys on the female desire to conquer, I swear. Just step away from that magazine and head on over to your local quilt store and get the real skinny on quilting. I digress. This is my next project. Don't think I'll be finished with this one for maybe another year--but just in case you were interested. The process used in making a quilt like this is pretty brilliant. It is more of a matchy-matchy quilt than what I'd normally like. I expect to deviate at some point. But not sure where yet.

Back to cake. This vegan pineapple upside-down cake IS delish! It has all the makings of what a good old, like-grandma-used-to-make cake had. (Grandma made these a lot because she always had those yummy cherries in the red food coloring for her evening cocktails!) Yum! You need two cans of those pineapple rings. Or, better yet, if your knife skills are good enough and you can cut a perfect circle shaped pineapple up like these, use a fresh one. Just be sure to drain the rings on paper towels or your cake will be a hot mess.

Vegan Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

*Adapted from Betty Crocker

**Makes one 9" square cake

1/4 cup unsalted vegetable margerine

2/3 cup brown sugar (or a bit less if you'd like)

2 cans of pineapple rings, or a fresh pineapple cut likewise

jar of maraschino cherries (stems off)

1 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup Florida Crystals sugar

1/3 cup vegetable shortening (5 tablespoons)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk or other nut milk (at room temperature)

1 1/2 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 2 tablepsoons of water (equiv. of 1 egg)

Preheat oven to 350. If using canned pineapple, drain these now. Dry out about ten cherries as well. Set these aside. (If you decide to use fresh pineapple, that's fine, just be sure to drain it well.) Take the margerine and place it in a 9" square (or round would work, too) pan. Place the pan with the margerine in the oven for about 3-5minutes--till the margerine has melted. Remove pan from oven. Take the brown sugar and sprinkle it over the melted margerine. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and salt. Take the drained pineapples and cherries and arrange them over the melted margerine in the cake pan. Place the cherries in any space that is open. Or not. Your call. (I love them and could not imagine an upside-side down cake without them. What's the point?!) In another bowl, cream together the vegetable margerine and sugar until it is light and fluffy--about two minutes. Next, add the egg replacer to this, then the vanilla extract. Blend about 30 seconds. Next, add half a cup of the milk and blend for a few seconds to incorporate. Add a third of the flour mixture, blend until incorporated and repeat this step until the last bit of flour has been added. Mix together on medium speed for another two minutes. Pour batter over the pineapple and cherries. Spread it out evenly. Bake for 45-50 minutes. You want the edges of the cake to bake up a bit brown (because that will help caramelize the sugar on the bottom). A little over done with this cake is better than a little under done. Remove cake from oven. Allow to cool only a minute or so. Very carefully and with oven mits, turn the cake out onto a serving plate. Allow to cool completely before serving. I kept my cake on the counter in my cake keeper over night. This cake is best eaten within a day of making.

Tomato Salad . . . "Infused" (On Reading "A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother")

2011-08-08T14:22:00.002-05:00

I walked ten feet out my kitchen door, traipsed through the veggie patch and whipped up this tomato salad for dinner. Better living through vegetable gardening. Tomatoes made an appearance in every meal we had this weekend. Right from my very own Victory Garden. I made breakfast hash--topped with tomatoes. I made veggie pizza--topped with tomatoes. Temperatures FINALLY dipped below 95 (only reached 90!)-- so I broke out the pizza stone--topped the pizza with tomatoes. Then last night made a tomato/eggplant risotto in my best friend: the pressure cooker. One can never have enough tomatoes. I have a bit of pride over this year's harvest. After all, I grew these little punkin' pies from itty-bitty seeds beginning in March! That seems like a lifetime ago.

Every week I harvest a bouquet of basil, set it on my kitchen counter and inhale as deeply as I can and commit the aroma to memory. My favorite herb by far. I have a bumper crop of this stuff this year. When Wal Mart began to set out their Bonnie Plants, I'd run in for some trivial reason, and always, my first stop was the Home and Garden section. In the cart went yet another basil plant. I'm embarrassed to say how many plants I actually ended up with. That's not counting the number of seed starting basil plants either! I'll freeze quite a bit of it because nothing makes Kelly happier than whipping up an all-day soup or an all-day sauce with handfuls of frozen basil I'd saved from summer. It instantly cures whatever blues may have come my way.

My favorite tasting tomatoes this year seem to be the heirloom variety brandywine. That's the big pink tomato in the picture. It has the sweetest, most intense tomtato-ey flavor of them all. The only problem is that I haven't been inundated with them yet. I'll maybe have one or two come into full fruit per plant. I even went so far as to try cross-pollinating the flower buds. I go out and give the stems a good shake or two and blow on them in hopes of encouraging the plants to set fruit.

It's very hard to ignore what's taking place in the world . . . in our country right now. I don't think I'd be alone in saying so, but I am a bit worried. This worry may just be my age creeping in. After all, my idea of what warranted concern when I was Almost Forty were completely lost, dare I say "trivial" compared to what I feel I should panic over at Almost Fifty. I don't recall events in the past affecting me like this current state of affairs has. While I am not about becoming a political talking head in this blog--the art of being a vegan blog, to some, may very well put me in a political camp of sorts. Which is sort of sad, really.

This afternoon, I turned on NPR, hoping to catch Fresh Air. Instead, they were getting ready to announce the president. He was about to give another "talk". I sat down and listened to the speech. Unlike most folks, as I listened, I thought about his mother. This weekend, I picked up a book from the library, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother by Janny Scott. I'd heard the author speak on one of the talk shows on NPR when the book first came out. It intrigued me.

My political generation was mostly formed by another mother and her husband and son. We heard a lot about that family and it seemed there were no secrets, everything seemed an open book. There was a dynasty quality to the whole experience I thought.

But then this president arrived. Out of nowhere almost. And here we are today. I look again at the cover of this book: a poignant photograph of a mother and her son. Barack and his mother. I would have loved to have met the mother of our president: Stanley Ann Dunham. Yes it is a man's name--her father wanted a boy--direct quote from the book and you'll learn the back story to this. Whatever preconceived notions you have about our president, let me assure you, reading about his mother, and her story will, if nothing else, provide you with an insider's look into the very private life of a woman who never got to see the end result. I'm not looking for answers in reading this book. I just hope to understand.

That's really all I wanted to do today--tell you about the tomatoes and this fab salad. And. . . tell you about the book I'm reading.

Tomato Salad

3 medium-sized tomatoes, cut into quarter sized pieces

1 half red onion diced

2 garlic cloves minced

10 basil leaves sliced thin

1 stalk of fresh oregano

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Place the sliced tomatoes, garlic, onion and herbs in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the vinegars with the olive oil until well blended. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the tomatoes and toss well together. Allow the salad to set out at room temperature for at least a half hour. (The aroma from this will FILL the kitchen, I promise!) Serve as a side. Save any leftovers in the fridge--it's even better the next morning for breakfast!

Vegan Yellow Sheet Cake with Gobs of Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (Adieu, July. . . Hello Tomatoes!)

2011-07-31T11:44:00.111-05:00

Yesterday was the anniversary of our mom's passing. It's been fourteen years. My sister and I sort of "dread" it--and probably will as long as we live. And we probably should be over it by now, but seems every year, as hard as I try to "get through just another day" it all comes back to me and I find I must busy my hands and mind to manage my way through the bitter twenty-four hour melancholy. I don't mean to say I sit in a corner and eat cake till the sun sets (well, yes, I sort of do. . . sit in a corner and eat cake until the sun sets). Sister and I spend time on the phone--letting each other know we are both here for each other. Share some memory. Think about what-ifs and all. It really grounds you--this loss. I can't explain why. It's as if having had our "mom" loss way too early in life for any daughter to experience, we've also been granted a very special gift. Last night as my sister and I were checking in with each other (we do that--check in to make sure we're "Okay" on this day)--my sister reminded me once again that with all our mother's faults and all the pent up "issues" we've both carried on through our lives as a result of our mom being "our mom" we still have each other and that, to us, is one of her greatest achievements ever: giving us each a sister.

As with all my cakes, this one ranks as special as it was a cake of my childhood--one that seemed to have a constant presence on our kitchen counter. Mom was no Paula Deen, but when she had a yen for cake, the whole house had a yen for cake. Mom, to THIS day, I love you for that!

So, again, the kitchen served as my prozac. I entered the domain around eleven yesterday morning and did not leave it until seven that evening. (Serving dinner included.) In addition to my all-day, slow cooker marinara sauce that I made from twenty of my roma tomatoes that suddenly ripened on the vine overnight, I wanted a single layer cake, one that could rest in the fridge for the remainder of this week, one that didn't require carefully stacking levels and triple checking for accuracy in proper frosting distribution--it just needed to be: yellow with chocolate frosting. Problem with this was that egg yolk is what gives your traditional yellow cake its vibrant yellow color. This was a nice challenge, a good distraction. Thus began my research. Five cookbooks later and tons of post-it notes scattered here and there: My yellow sheet cake was a success! Nothing could have made me happier. Well, maybe if I'd been able to share a piece with my mom (and my sister). I'm sure our mom had a hand in it somehow. And by the way, I know I've posted another yellow layer cake on my blog before, but seriously, can one ever have enough cake recipes.

It finally rained yesterday. A big, loud, messy rain. Cooled off a teensy bit. Only an inch or so fell according to my garden rain gauge. But rain, nonetheless. Of course shortly after we had the wonderful addition of humidity so high you could stick your head out the window and come back in a hot mess. We needed the rain though. I have all but given up on watering. I think it's futile in this kind of heat. I am a huge proponent of planting a "native" garden for just that purpose: Because there is NEVER a cool, moderate, perfect summer in Missouri. In fact, July in Missouri is synonymous with hell in my book. No one says, "If you're bad you'll go to hell . . . and there's lots of snow and evergreens!" No. Heat equals hell. And while I'm at it, let me share that if you live in a climate where it's been seventy all summer and the eighties maybe one or two days thus far: I have no use for such nonesense, 'kay?!

So after this horrible month, and all of the horrible things we've endured in our household this July, it's a not-so-fond farewell and a few prayers that the remainder of this year be all butterflies and bunnies: a beautiful, crisp, colorful fall, and snow on Christmas Eve, dammit! Is that too much to ask? I think not.

Right after the rain yesterday, I headed out with my camera. My favorite tomatoes by far: the yellow pears. They are coming in like mad right now. Only a few of them make it inside.

Yet more roma tomatoes that didn't even get picked for the sauce.

My big tomatoes are just now beginning to ripen. This is a Big Boy tomato. Not quite ready for prime time.

Every spring, I strategically plant sunflower seeds all around my yard. About now is when I get to see where it is I actually planted them! I always forget. Then suddenly, up shoots this stalk and the slow process of forming a flower unfolds. I love sunflowers. This year I went with a shorter variety because I hate to see the plants destroyed by little varmints climbing up to get the seeds, breaking the stalk in the meantime. So upsetting.

This yellow cake recipe is a breeze to make. You just need to do one strange thing and that is--add a pinch of tumeric to the batter to give the cake a bit of a yellow-ish tint. I am a fan of the tumeric. I never notice a "taste" because of it. I suppose you could use just a tad of yellow food coloring, but why? I think I read about the cheater effects of tumeric from Isa and her Post Punk Kitchen self. So thanks to her for inspiring me on this matter of achieving somewhat of a yellow cake in an eggless world. One other thing: if you don't have a kitchen scale--you can get them at Target for around twenty bucks--nothing fancy, but very helpful--I'd strongly urge you to make the investment.

I turned to two cookbooks in adapting this cake. First, The Amercia's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. Love this cookbook. Love it. Second, and most important is The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. And it bears repeating, Love this one, too! Rose's cake book helped me in the area of what volume measurement I needed to compensate for when I used the Ene-G Egg Replacer. For instance, when you mix the egg replacer your total weight--water and powder combined, comes to about 2 ounces. The non-vegan recipe calls for four large eggs total. I know that four large eggs will yield much more than a few ounces on my scale. So, according to Rose and her recipes, four eggs measure (without the shell) out to approximately 7 ounces. So, I end up mixing the egg replacer per directions, but adding a teaspoon of vegetable oil to the mixture (because the yolk has more fat in it than, say, an egg-whites-only requirement), then enough water to bring my total volume of egg replacer to seven ounces. It's not complicated, but you will need a scale to achieve such worthwhile results in vegan baking my way. I guess I could go all other kinds of egg-replacer routes, but the Ener-G stuff suits me just fine. This cake is superb and better after storing in the fridge.

Vegan Yellow Sheet Cake with Gobs of Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

*Aapted from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book with help from Rose Levy Beranbaum, too!

**Makes one 9 x 13 cake

2 1/2 cups cake flour (11 ounces--you should sift the flour!)

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt (regular table salt)

1/8 teaspoon ground tumeric (*optional--gives the cake a yellow hue)

1 cup unsalted vegetable margerine (or two sticks, room temperature)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cup Florida Crystals sugar (12 1/4 ounces)

4 eggs (6 teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, plus enough water to equal 7 ounces)

1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk (room temperature)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray baking pan with non-stick spray. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl--flour, baking powder, salt and tumeric (if using). Set aside. Next, in the bowl of a stand mixer, add the margerine and sugar and mix until light and fluffy--I set my timer for five minutes and let the mixer run. Next, add your egg replacer to this mixture, then vanilla extract. Mix a few more seconds. On low speed, add half of the almond milk (you could use soy milk here, too--but the unsweetened kind only), followed by a third of the dry/flour mixture. Mix in the remainder of the milk and another third of the flour. (You will see a very "separated" looking batter.) Add the last third of the flour mixture and mix for just another thirty seconds or so. Again, the batter will be separated looking and a bit runny. I added about a tablespoon more of cake flour--just to ease my mind about the whole "look" of the batter, but took it on faith that I had a good batter here. Pour the batter into the cake pan, smooth the top out evenly and give it a tap or two on the counter before placing in the oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes--until the cake is beginning to turn brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow the cake to cool completely. Frost with your choice of vegan chocolate buttercream frosting! Store covered in the fridge--I really think this cake tasted best the next day or after a few hours in the fridge.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

*To frost a 9 x 13 sheet cake

6 tablespoons unsalted vegetable margerine

6 tablespoons vegetable shortening

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2-to-3 cups powdered sugar

1-to-2 teaspoons soy creamer

Add the margerine and shortening to the bowl of a standing mixer. Beat until creamy. Next, add the cocoa powder a little at a time, or you'll have it everywhere! Mix until well blended. Next, add the vanilla extract and soy creamer and mix for about thirty seconds. Finally, add the powdered sugar in small amounts until you get the desired frosting consistency you'd like!