Camping, Pets, and Food (oh my)

We are back from our three day camping vacation. We "rough it" in the wilderness with nothing but our tents, air mattresses, propane cook stove, port-a-potty, battery operated DVD player, modern shower houses, firewood and mother nature. I did leave the laptop computer at home :). We drove approximately 2 hours to get to RATHBUN LAKE on Friday night and spent the evening setting up, starting the fire, and having a snack before watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2 DVD.

Saturday morning we woke up and it was raining ... most of the morning and again in the middle of the afternoon. We were not "water proofed" in our cozy eating area yet (we realized) and were in no mood to cook or eat breakfast outside so we took a 15 mile trip into town. I brought along a box of KASHI organic promise Autumn Wheat cereal and small asceptic (refrigeration not needed) box of soy milk with a pkg of raisins and ate inside with others at a not vegan friendly restaurant - the coffee was good. :) I did not expect to find much to eat in this area other than the local Hy-Store (a mid west chain grocery store) where I could get the soy milk, some smart dogs, etc in the organic refrigerated vegetable section. While there we decided to shop a couple of stores for "stuff" and purchased a Dora the Explorer cloth key holder type necklace to hold my room keys, a mini twist out pen to sign passes, and some lemon pepper. We were having a good time with the kids so we splurged on toys and a couple of stuffed monkeys that screeched like two girls in a tent having a grand time thinking about all sorts of scary things.

For lunch the rain had stopped long enough for DH and I to extend our canopy covering with a tarp over the picnic table so that we could have a dry place to sit if the rain continued. I ate guiltless gourmet corn chips with salsa, a vegan genisoy protein bar, and washed it down with some cold herbal "sun" tea before heading into another town the opposite direction 25 miles away. My son's girlfriend camped with us this weekend and on Saturday we had to make arrangements for my daughter to see her favorite beau for a few hours. While Melissa was off with her guy friend I went with my son and his girl friend to an antique store, watched Shrek 3 in this town's one screen Victorian style opera house, and checked out various restaurants looking for some vegan friendly options for supper. We found one that served pasta with a vegan garden veg mushroom pasta sauce, vegan Parmesan style cheese (on hand due to a request by other customers), a nice very veggie green salad with Newman's own balsamic vinaigrette, and a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie (crust made with Crisco which is vegan). I was pleased that they were familiar with my request (I'm not the only one in the rural part of a rural Midwestern state who eats "funny") and when I started asking questions the waitress knew what I was after and could tell me options.

When I asked for the ingredients to the pasta sauce, she replied with ,"Will the recipe work?" Awesome I said. I write it here for blog land to see also, I really enjoyed this meal! The recipe was a print off from cook.com recipe search. I left an excellent tip and they have no "trade secrets" going on here, just a simple desire to please a customer (SCORE!).

MEATLESS SPAGHETTI SAUCE
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup shredded carrots
28 oz can diced tomatoes, juice and all
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 jar garden veg style Ragu
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
Fry first 5 ingredients until golden. Add remaining ingredients and simmer an hour, serve over spaghetti. Add a second jar of Ragu to leftover sauce to make another meal.

At supper, I had a strange sensation that my kids were growing up when my daughters friend paid her bill, my son paid his and his girl friends bill and I paid my own ... wow I thought to myself is this what it feels like to watch my babes grow up?! Last night I was checking out their my space pages and I see my sons new name is "I love K***" and her new name became "I Love My Matt!" I also see my daughters young man friend is seeking out what he wants to be when he grows up so he can earn enough money to provide for a place to live one day for his future wife (hopefully my daughters name). After a moment of breathless silence, I realized I liked the thought of more in my family. I do like these extra kids around me ... my babes are growing into fine people. Part of me wants to resist and cling to the old and familiar and part of me yearns to see what's next.

Sunday was all that we hoped for! Sunshine, sights, boats, camping food, water. The swimming areas were closed due to high water, but the kids found a way to play anyways, although in the water they were obedient and did not swim (I didn't ask then to define the word swim though). My absolute favorite new food from this weekend. Dave sliced some red potatoes into 1/3 inch round slices, dipped them in olive oil, sprinkled with lemon pepper, and grilled them until cooked and had beautiful grill lines. I ate these with grilled cabbage (made in foil) mixed with some natures seasoning, a little ketchup, and a couple of ice cubes with a sliced up vegan Yves Italian sausage link as well as a little vegetarian baked beans. I also enjoyed that I had some DREENA COOKIES to snack on throughout the weekend along with gala apples.

Monday we packed up in a light rain and had to set up at home again for everything to dry out. Although DH said that it is less work without the kids, I agree, we had a great time together and it was worth the work. Matt is home for the summer now, sis's school is out and today was my last day also - meowza summer is really here now. DD and I were able to stop at the farmer's market today and my favorite vendor had wonderful flowers just as I hoped. She picked this bouquet which has a beautiful fox glove in it.

MORE NEWS ...
While we were camping I must have been feeling those mothering hormones rise again because we saw a dog that looked a lot like our old previous faithful named PUP at the marina. We all could not resist scratching his sides and telling him what a beautiful dog he was. Later in the day the marina manager found us and said we had been reported loving up a puppy. She wanted us to know that the puppy was a stray that someone dumped last week, she had been caring for it a few days hoping someone would come by and claim it, but as skinny as he was .... he's definitely a stray. Well, longer story short the poor stray puppy is now RICKY and joins our other loved one LUCY at home with us now. Ricky is maybe 4 months old and goes in for neutering this coming Wednesday. We are filled up now with two dogs and two cats now. Fortunately we live on an acreage and can handle this. Ricky's story is having a happy ending .... many stray's and breeder "dumps" do not.

I encourage everyone to check out their local animal rescue shelter, many great "best friends" are waiting to give you much love.

Oriental Buffet and Cranberries

Snowball says, "HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

She has been enjoying laying in every possible position around our home to attract my attention. Whenever I look at her it is as if she is trying to say, "Wow - me and this food are a perfect match!" or "If you think you need this box, you'll have to pet me to get to it." I have picked up ribbon several times that she has stretched across the floor. Unfortunately, I have previously picked up a few broken ornaments, she has yet to understand that the shiny glass ones break.

SATURDAY NIGHT my sister came back from New York. We had an oriental meal at my house for "Christmas" since she had to be away working when the rest of the world was celebrating otherwise. I indulged myself in the kitchen (which I really did enjoy) to make the following feast. It was supposed to be a potluck, but only candy or snacky type foods were offered. Even though my family is the only animal free people there, no one else seemed to care that meat was not the main course or any part of it for that matter. No one complained. The salad rolls and miso soup brought the most compliments! We truly had a vegan buffet ...

Here's what I served ...
My camera lens got steamed on, so it's a little blurry. Oriental Pasta Salad, vegan coconut macaroons with a dollop of chocolate frosting and an almond slice sticking out of it, dates, burnt french peanuts, vegetarian sushi rolls sprinkled with sesame seeds (click the link to an awesome veg sushi demo), homemade "sushi" pickles (from this summer's cucumber harvest), a crock full of miso soup (click on the link for the recipe, scroll to the end of the post), a bowl of sliced oranges (not pictured), ginger soda (occasionally this is nice for a treat), tamari sauce, rice vinegar and seasoned rice vinegar ....

Thai basil salad rolls and peanut dipping sauce with extra salad because I noticed this meal was lacking in veggies (unusual for an oriental meal usually full of stir fries). I have made these before using mangoes (link above). This time I used pear and sprinkled on 1/2 tsp dried basil since I had no fresh.

To the right is a close up of the macaroons. I got the idea from Fiber at 28 cooks, but exchanged the condensed sweet milk and egg whites for 4 ounces lite mori-nu silken tofu, 1/4 tsp KAL stevia extract powder, and 1/2 Tbsp Energ-g egg replacer with 1/4 cup water.

The noodle salad is one of my favorites. This one is made with multi-grain spiral noodles. I had a class make this recipe not long ago, click the link if you would like to see the picture of it.... it was with rye noodles which made the salad a little darker in color. I like the "lighter-ness" of the multi-grained noodles. This recipe is in Bryanna Fiber for life cookbook. It is also alot like the recipe for BRYANNA’S ASPARAGUS-NOODLE SALAD WITH SESAME scroll down for original recipe that is listed on her free archives. Here is the dressing recipe that I put on a 16 oz box of noodles, 1 lb broccoli (steamed) with 1 cup purple onion, 1/2 C red pepper diced, and 12 oz firm regular tofu marinaded and baked for flavor after being cut into small wedges:

DRESSING:

7 T. soy sauce

1/4 c. toasted sesame oil

3 and 1/2 T. dark unbleached sugar

3 T. balsamic vinegar

3 T. water

1 T. grated fresh ginger

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chili garlic paste

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

After making the brown rice sushi rolls I turned the leftover ingredients into a salad and added some currants. Here is a combination of the sushi pickles, leftover pickle juice (alot like seasoned rice vinegar), carrots, red pepper, pear diced, salt and pepper to taste along with a few seaweed pieces (the broken pieces of the sushi rolls I made). I don't have a previous link about these pickles, but I did find my canned onion curry relish which would also make a good rice salad flavoring too, check it out if you like.

I actually have to confess on the brown rice, it came from a jar. When I operate the 23 quart pressure canner to can a batch of stuff I like to make sure I have a maximum # of jars in there since it takes more than two hours. To fill up jars I can pints of brown rice, it turns out sticky and unappealing to serve alone, but when broken up it can make a base for other ingredients and that is what I did with this salad. It was a nice "change of pace" kind of meal.

The "sushi pickles" (pictured above) a pickle that uses cucumbers, onions, carrots, and slices of fresh ginger root. They are nice to eat alone or to include along side of homemade dished like this. The recipe came from SUMMER IN A JAR by Andrea Chesman. I love the variety and the fact that the recipes are written to prepare the canned goods by the quart or pint. They really do remind me of the little pick ginger slices at a sushi bar.

MORE ON CRANBERRIES . . .
I did some canning. Cranberries are around in abundance right now for a little while longer - I bought 12 bags not long ago. I froze some whole for smoothies, this chutney recipe and jellies can also be made with the frozen berries. Although my tradition is cranberry relish for which I make, freeze, and thaw already prepared the chutney is a recipe that I have been meaning to try for some time and finally got around to it this year. Other than tasting some that would not fit into a jar (despite the little bit of cayenne pepper, it is not spicy at all), I cannot say that this has rated at the tradition level yet, but I will be looking into ways to use it soon. I made 12 pints, gave 7 and have 5 pints left... suggestions welcome.

CRANBERRY CHUTNEY (6 pints)
I originally photocopied this recipe from a book I checked out from the library called HOMEMADE, sorry but that is all I wrote about it. I changed the recipe to make it sugar free (stevia sweet) and added the lemon juice to offset the stevia flavor.
Chop in the following in a food processor to the size a little larger than rice:
1 large green apple
6 cups cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1 C red onion
1/2 C celery
1 1 /2 Tbsp minced garlic
..... (recipe said 2 1/2 cups light brown sugar) .......
I used 2 tsp KAL stevia extract powder and 1 cup applesauce with 2 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup dry red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Combine in a medium sauce pan, bring to a boil over medium heat, turn heat down and simmer for 30 minutes or until mixture is thick and flavors are blended. Remove from heat and pack into sterilized jars and process for 15 minutes.

• USES for chutney in general (not vegan but can give some good ideas)

• Sweet and sour cranberry recipe from an oriental site

ABOUT WINE
Check out this interesting site!
DRINK SOME WINE

Baking Extravaganza #1

Yay! Blogger pictures are back. :)

Hi world, I am Lucy and the new one at the home of the bakehouse people. Dori is busy baking and I decided to tell you all she is up to so I can earn more goodies .... I love to eat the goodies, she makes sure I get no chocolate though.

For this order, the first items baked were Dreena's carrot pineapple "tops", only ours were made in muffin cups. They are tastey, not to sweet. For a festive occasion we may try to drizzle them with a yummy frosting. The other muffins pictured are VWAV apple pie- crumble top muffins. I discovered that there may be a mistake with the quantity of oil listed in the crumble top recipe... it says 3 Tbsp, when I used this amount the crumble top mix was soupy. I reduced it to 3 tsp and it made great crumble top.

Next I made Bryanna's Tender Banana bread with carob chips, 8 small loaves, a few mini muffins and a large loaf bread. Sitting beside these are VWAV best ever pumpkin muffins. I sprinkled them with leftover crumble top and they look pretty as a picture, I like the heavy spice flavoring.

Then with oranges I tried Bryanna's vegan Coconut Orange Muffins. These might be in the Fiber for Life cookbook. Beside these are a orange poppy seed muffins that has been stuck in my recipe box some time ago. They are fat free, to make up for a lack of visual appeal I decided to drizzle these with an almond flavored powdered sugar frosting.

Muffins made:
Vegan with a Vengeance - Best Ever Pumpkin Muffins, Apple Pie - Crumble Cake

Bryanna Clark Grogan: Fiber for Life Cookbook -
Orange Coconut Muffins, Fat Free Orange Poppy Seed Muffins - free recipes archives, Tender fat free banana bread - Almost No Fat Cookbook

Dreena: Vive Le Vegan - Carrot Raisin Muffin Tops

I was very impressed with the pumpkin muffins and the orange coconut muffins.





Hey now looks what's coming out of the oven...
cookies!




I made the following so far:
Dreena Everyday Vegan: Carob Coconut Pecan Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Dreen Vive Le Vegan: Peanut Better Cookies, Double Chocolate Almond Explosion Cookies, Maple Nut Cookies

Vegan with a Vengeance: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

This picture is of the carob coconut pecan cookies in small medium and large size. That also means 1 tablespoonful, 2 tablespoonful, and three tablespoonful dough sizes. At first I didn't care for the crispy little cookies I was getting, but then I realized that I have a recipe yield difference. I made the cookie recipe five times bigger so it took me a bit to figure out how big the ideal recipe cookie was supposed to be. I discovered with most of the vive le vegan cookie a large spoonful measures to approximately the size of a 3 Tablespoon scoop, however the oatmeal raisin really does require a Tablespoon full. I have 7 gigantic ones that are tastey, and chewy, but they took longer to bake ... my family loves these mistakes. My five times larger recipe of these cookies yielded 105 cookies, Dreena's recipe yield would have calcuated to 110... I was pretty close (unless someone here snuck five cookies worth of dough... a likely happening).

Because I made so many little crispy carob coconut pecan cookies that I won't use in my order I make cookie gift sticks, 8 cookies in a 4 x 14 bags with a label. Tying the end with a festive ribbon will make a nice quick gift for the neighbors and a few friends, sometimes I will add a copy of the recipe (giving full credit to the source) - depends who I am giving it to and whether they would like that information.

Of the cookies, the maple nut ones are beautiful, but not as sweet as my customers would probably prefer and the same with the peanut better ones. I will frost the maple with a maple spiked powder sugar drizzle, the peanut better ones I will probably place them in the order as is, but will make a note on my recipe to make them a little sweeter next time ... I'd use a dash of stevia to accomplish that though.

My favorite Dreena cookie would be the Double Chocolate Almond Explosion cookie (oh yum yum!) ranked slightly higher than the pumpkin cookies in VWAV which I used craisins in inctead of raisins. I am not done baking yet, but can already feel the holiday spread.... soon I'll be blogging about my exercise routine instead of cooking (eek!).

Grieving

PUP
1997-2006

Today I took Pup into the veterinary because there were some odd things happening to her. A few months ago she had a large tumor removed from a gland on her tummy. The vet felt she was healthy and could live several more years. After the surgery the dr. called and told us the tumor was cancerous. It has came back with a venegance and now has spread throughout her system, there is nothing else that can be done. This is her last weekend with us. If she survives this weekend we will have her put down on Monday so she will not suffer. This is a sad weekend for us, but if we had to go through being loved by a dog for almost ten years again and then losing her... we would. She has been a great dog and we loved her very much too.

Pear Upside Down Cake

A gal at church brought me a bag of pears from her tree. They were little and I knew would ripen / go soft very fast, so I tried to put them to a use right away. I made this pear cake, which I think the pear and ginger combination is wonderful. It is a gingerbread over my own creation of pear pie filling. The recipe evolved from three different cookbooks, butI know if you saw any of the original recipe(s) you would not know that I used the idea of it in my cake.

I prefer my "desserts" to be of meal quality because if I make it I want to eat it and moderation is not something I want to think alot about... I want to enjoy it and I want want to live a very long time so that I can enjoy it many, many times. My standards are: must not be full of sugar or syrups, if oil then a little of a good oil, fiberous yet easy to eat. I can always make a tofu smoothie or drink soymilk to go with any grain and fruit meal to make it high in protein, or have protein at another meal. In this recipe I use spelt. The gingerbread recipe that follows can be used as a muffins or cake to.

DORI SPELT GINGERBREAD
WET MIX:
3/4 C of your favorite wet sweetener (I use sorghum)
3/4 C plus 2 Tbsp soymilk
1/2 C applesauce
2 Tbsp light virgin olive or organic canola oil
1/2 tsp KAL stevia (see my side bar for link to info)

DRY MIX:
2 cups spelt flour
1/4 cup flax meal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp rumford baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp apple pie spice (or good quality cinnamon)
1/2 tsp ginger powder (or try a couple teaspoons minced fresh for a nice flavor boost)

Combine wet and dry separately. Stir wet into dry until just mixed. Pour over pear pie filling in an 9x12 cake pan, bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

PEAR "PIE" FILLING
6 cups diced pears
1/4 tsp KAL stevia
1/4 cup applesauce
2 1/2 Tbsp quick cooking tapioca
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Combine and place in the bottom of a 9x12 cake pan.

THE LUNCHBOX GETS THE LEFTOVERS ->
This is a few seitan strips, veggie broth flavored brown rice with a little red pepper, avjar (balkan salsa of roasted red pepper and eggplant) and the feature dish - pear upside down cake.

BIG MEOW-MIE NEWS . . . .
The babies have their eyes open, check them out.
Kittens with eyes open