Robin Hood and the merry first day

Finally.

Here is Matt's costume from the renaissance fair last weekend. He has been eyeing a big long cloak on e-bay that he thinks he would like to add if he ever desires a more "royal" presentation, $180 (dori gulps). He discovered that there was a Tuesday night sword practice two months prior to the fair for any volunteers that wanted to come each weekend for various performances, if they did they were admitted free. He desires to try this next year and hopes to stay in the area where he is attending school now.

The first day of school is a favorite time to take pictures. Dave snapped one of me before I left last Monday. It seems like the living room door is the best place to snap pictures, any place else in our house causes light glares in the pictures due to the placement of our windows plus I like the greenery to be a part of the background. My first week went well, despite the unexpected I enjoyed it. Of course every teacher needs a bag with a packed lunch inside. Onto a little of the food we ate last week. ...

I tried Dreena's Coconut Creme Pie, page 193 in Everyday Vegan. I subbed stevia for sugar and the family enjoyed the pieces of pie that I didn't eat... :) This pie reminded me of a Mounds candy bar, so i sprinkled some toasted coconut on top of it and drizzled it with a little melted dark chocolate.

I also enjoyed a tofutti cream cheese and craisin sandwich that I took for lunch one day, different but good for a change. I had it packed with a romaine lettuce, roasted beet, and shredded carrot salad with a small container of balsamic vinaigrette.

PROSTITUTE'S STEW
From page 155 in Bryanna's Nonna's Italian Kitchen Cookbook. She says, "Don't ask - it's delicious anyways, sort of an Italian ratatouille with potatoes added. Can be served hot or cold. Maybe you still have fresh garden produce in your area that you can make it. Last week our gardening season ended with a hard frost, you'd never know considering the very nice weather we've been having yesterday and today. The picture is of the stew before being cooked in my crock pot. I served this with some fresh baked bread.... but I used Vivacious Vegan's idea and baked them in muffin tins.

I give you my variation of this recipe. Place all of the following into the crock pot.
1 lb eggplant cut into small cubes
1 large potato
1 carrot, cut into fingers
1 stick celery, diced
1 large zucchini, sliced and quartered
1 large green pepper, seeded and cut into squares
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 vegetable broth cube (I use Knorr Vegetarian Vegetable)
2 pounds fresh ripe tomatoes (

• I cleaned mine in the sink and took off the stem, then gave them a whirl in my blender. My family doesn't mind the skins on them when I do this)

a small handful of fresh rosemary and Italian parsley, chopped
1 tsp salt
a little fresh ground black pepper

Another last week lunch......
This LRM (Romaine lettuce, red pepper and sweet mustard) Wrap was delish along side of Dreena's Chickpea Mash Stew from Everyday Vegan page 84... the picture of the stew behind the wrap is to dark to see, but I liked it. Dave is not a chickpea fan, so he opened a jar of white chili that I pressure canned awhile ago instead. The soup is handy right now. I will be endeavoring to use my slow cooker more over the next several weeks so that dinner can be ready as soon as or shortly after I get home.

Last lunchbox idea from last week...
My favorite chili sin carne( I use TVP), a couple of "muffin" rolls , slices of cucumber and some fruit . The fruit was actually for morning break, I have a late lunch time, 12:28.

I wish you all a wonderful week. I am looking forward to homecoming week.... they have spirit days planned, I'm not sure that I will participate except maybe superhero day I could wear Melissa's shirt (no cape and no teensy red shorts). I do intend to buy the school's sweatshirt so I can show a little team pride.

Brown for my birthday

Happy Birthday to me on Sunday.

My family is full of summer babies and Melissa's will be coming up on the 28th. Speaking of Melissa, the little blonde rascal has discovered boys, not that she didn't notice them before but she has noticed that she likes to talk to a few and a few like to talk to her too. Our cell phone minutes were maxed out last month, so we had to pay a few $ extra which we have never done before - we have alot of minutes and alot of free time ... she has done alot of talking! (not just to boys)

To celebrate I purchased a case of Rice Dream Chocolate Marble Ice Cream (16 oz containers). I asked Matt to make me a Hot Fudge Ice Cream Pie from the last recipe in Dreena's, Everyday Vegan Cookbook. We didn't have a pie pan as deep as I desired, but an 8" square glass dish worked well. You see this pictured above with 4 candles representing the 4 birthdays we have to celebrate this month (me, Matt, Melissa, and my sister). We had a good time eating this pie together, but realized after having a sensible size peice we wanted MORE and justified eating the whole pie with the celebration excuse.

Matt enjoyed making this and he enjoyed eating it even more.

We staged this picture, but we still got a grand laugh out of it. Matt really enjoyed the pie. Matt really really enjoyed the pie. He alse really likes this wonderful soy free and vegan ice cream. I was surprised by how rich and creamy it is.

We are in the final days of summer. Matthew will be leaving Tuesday to start his computer technology and networking classes in a city 1 1/2 drive from us. He will stay with his grandpa during the week and come home Friday after class and then go back on Monday. His classes take place at a cooperative high school (not comprehensive) with his post secondary enrollment (an option legal here). He is actually considered a high school senior and will still be homeschooled chemistry, literature, as well as take guitar lessons and have a membership at the ymca (just a block away from his school). Planning his stay away from home is and will be a big adjustment for all of us.

Gifts in our family are often service oriented or we enjoy shopping together. At Christmas we shop together severasl times and we all budget a certain $$ amount per person, we purchase what we want but do not get it until the celebratory day. Birthdays are the same but with a smaller $$ amount. For me I usually like service gifts, esp the ice cream pie kind or the cherry almond muffins from VwaV that Melissa intends to make for me for Sunday breakfast.

Since sewing the shirt for TX121 I have caught a bug. The bug causes me to want to make more. I sewed a brown corduroy jumper (overall style) and am planning on making a matching purse to go with it for my birthday. I hung up the dress in our living room for Dave to see this afternoon thanking him for the lovely present. He loves it when I do things like this, it lets him off easy. I have lost sleep over this project simply because I am enjoying it so much. :)

The label on the inside of the jumper facing says "crafted with love". I found that cute little label at a sewing store last night when we also went out for supper at Saigon Cafe. I ordered a homestyle gluten. Loved it, it was served over thin noodles and had a good amount of veggies in it... so good. I also picked out a cute necklace and earrings to go with my newly created outfit.

Like I told you, brown for my birthday... hot fudge ice cream pie, long brown overall style jumper with a matching purse coming soon, jewelery with brown stones, and cherry almond muffins (brown enough).

Dori can sew.

I finished the shirt I mentioned last week. It is the final project of a class called TX 121, designed for FCS teaching certification seekers who need basic sewing skills to teach in secondary education classrooms.

See Dori sew.

Here is the olive green cotton camp shirt, style B with interfaced collar, cuffs complete with pleats and button hole closure, and my machine can sew button holes :D. You can see that the sewing details include matching thread color and really neat wooden buttons. It is adorned with two simple branches of rosemary in picture one just because they happened to be laying on the table when I wanted to take this picture.

Sew Dori sew.

Will I ever wear this... It is to big and has some crooked sewing, but maybe I will. I really like the color and the buttons. Perhaps it will go well as a light jacket over a turtleneck and skirt this fall.

My next plan is to make a skirt that uses a 2 hour "easy" pattern and no where near the skill that this one did. The skirt will probably be the one I would wear with this :).

Dori can cook to, but you'll have to wait for the next blog entry to see that.