The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (Featuring Ronnie James Dio)

Processing the Gifts of Summer

It was a big produce weekend that started with picking up our organic peaches Friday and waking up to pick some wonderful figs on Saturday morning.  The first thing I did was whip up a vanilla chia pudding and added some of the chopped ripe figs. My husband is enjoying it right now.  Aside from snacking on the lovelies all day, I dried many of them for future recipes and snacks.

Figs headed for the dehydrator.












I delivered Rachel's peaches to her out on Puget Island and took out a couple of my own boxes.  I grabbed a few random veggies to use for our meal. I love this time of year when I go shopping in my own garden. We spent a lovely day canning, visiting, and enjoying the day.  We picked up Kaylee on the way out and I brought her a bead making kit for something to keep her busy.  She doesn't stay in much there though.  She gets to feed and run with chickens and kitties.  It's a pretty free place for a kid. She and Allison sat together and created bracelets for everyone there.  We were all decorated at the end of the day.  Every one helped out with the peaches, picking up a knife and peeling and pitting throughout the day.  I manned the jars and the canners, keeping them going.  We processed four boxes, eighty pounds, and ended up with 33 pint and a half jars.  That should make for some good peach treats through the winter.  We always have a great time doing this too.  This time Allison joined in and made a fresh apple pie with the apples she and Rachel foraged on the Island.

Sunday at home and I have lots of produce coming out of the garden right now.  I have to get to work preserving it so it doesn't go to waste. Even though we're not able to give away as much as we'd like, we are still pulling out a good amount of groceries.  This morning I had two very large heads of cabbage I wanted to get into something.  I made a nice pot of Tuscan Cabbage & White bean soup.  I used some white onions, red onions, garlic, carrots, collards, and herbs from the garden.  I added a couple of the ripe heirloom tomatoes I picked up at the organic farm Friday, and used some low sodium vegetable broth.  I cooked up about a cup of white beans ahead of time, but you could use a drained and rinsed can of white beans.  I seasoned it very simply with fresh garlic, sea salt, ground black pepper, a sprig of thyme, and a spring of rosemary.  Here's a link to a pretty easy recipe for cabbage and bean soup.

The big red cabbage became sweet & sour cabbage just like my grandmother used to make.  I put three pints up, but I don't think they'll last long.  I really like it. I think of my grandma with every bite.  This is really good stuff. It's pretty easy to make.

 Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup vegan margarine, non hydrogenized
• 1 2-pound red cabbage, thinly sliced (about 12 cups)
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 2/3 cup balsamic vinegar

Method

Melt the vegan margarine in a large pot over medium heat. Add cabbage and sauté until slightly wilted, about 5 minutes. Add sugar, toss to coat evenly. Add vinegar. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover, simmer until cabbage is tender, stirring often, about 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serves 6-8.

The canning station is ready, I quickly put some cabbage soup and sweet & sour cabbage up for a quick meal sometime.

Somehow this weekend I also managed to squeeze in some almond and flax meal crackers with rosemary and garlic.  I made a pretty wonderful vegan capri cheese for them.  I've been playing with a few vegan cheese recipes.  I think I'll have some good ones coming up soon. I roasted up some beets & onions and it all made for a great Sunday dinner.

But that's not all, we still had a large zucchini and probably would like something sweet on hand this week.  I shredded it up and stored most of it for salads and meals this week.  But, not before I made a double batch some of what I call "Zucchini Muffin Top" cookies.  I made these gluten free too.

I should warn my calorie counting friends at work, I'm going to mess with their calorie count tomorrow. ***giggling***

It's a bit of work, but none of the fresh produce is wasted, we have some great handy meals for lunch and dinner this week, and we've stored some goodies for later.  I don't have to cook, if I don't want to, until at least Wednesday.  I'd say it was a successful weekend.

Summer Day with My Sweetie

We had the most awesome day Friday.  It started out very early for me.  I went to work at 5:30 a.m.  so I could take a half day off to go out to Sauve's Island to get our peaches this year.  I am fortunate to be able to do that sometimes. Scott's business was closed for the weekend and he had the time off. The temperature was supposed to get up to 100º or more.  We don't have days like that very often, glad to be able to take advantage of it. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy this summer day while it was here.  Lucky thing too, Saturday and Sunday were both cloudy days.  We slowly meandered our way to Sauve's Island stopping a few times to hike around and take some photos along the way.  It did get up to 105º at one point, but we didn't notice it so much as we found plenty of places to grab some shade.

When we got out to the Island the sun was at it's highest, we stopped to take some photos of some very impressive cabbage and took advantage of the sprinklers.

In the 23 years we've lived in the pacific northwest, this is only the second time we've explored Sauve's Island.  There were some beautiful and creative farms.  I especially enjoyed the farm with all the old trucks turned into planters.  There was a blue one, a red one, a yellow one, and a white one.  There was other old farm equipment with gorgeous flowers everywhere you looked.

We found an organic farm, Bella Organic Farm and ordered our peaches before we arrived.  They had ten boxes of fresh picked peaches waiting for us.  That's 200 pounds, eighty for me, eighty for Rachel, and forty for Ruth. We'll can about half of them, freeze some, and dehydrate some.  I like peach cobbler in November. We picked up some other items in the farm store and explored the grounds.  They've got a HUGE corn maze.  The friendly woman at the store gave us tickets for their Blackberry Bluegrass and Country Harvest Festival on Labor Day weekend.  It looks like fun, we do like outdoor music festivals.  They've got a pretty impressive corn maze as well as a hay maze for the kid's.  We saw one of the employee's making many scarecrows and dressing them up for the big opening of the corn maze. I think it might be a good trip with Kaylee.

We ended the day out at Willow Grove delivering the two boxes of peaches Ruth & Mike wanted for their CSA shares this weekend.  We stopped at the beach to take in just a little bit more sunshine. 

And those peaches... were canned the very next day.

Seitan Stifado

The second recipe Barb sent for me to try last week was a Stifado.  Stifado dishes are stews, and they are easy to recognize: they include onions - a lot of onions. The most commonly used are whole small boiler or pearl onions, but larger onions can be used as well, and the quantity is often equal in weight to the main ingredient.

Stifado dishes can be made with meat, poultry, seafood, game, or another vegetable as the central ingredient, with onions, wine or vinegar, tomato, and a selection of spices (often including cinnamon) creating a flavorful base. Generally made on the stove-top, there are a few stifado variations that can be made in the oven. I started mine on the stove-top and simmered it on low in the crock-pot for three hours.

I don't remember having or making stifado before, but Barb loved it and sent me her mom's recipe so I thought I'd try it.  I had most of the ingredients, I think the only thing I had to purchase was the seitan and the wine.  I wanted to make it 'vegan style' and  wasn't sure what I would use for a meat substitute.  I had thought about super firm tofu, but then I saw seitan in stew meat size chunks in the cooler at the market.  The seitan worked out great.


It's a rich stew, I am usually a bit leery of Greek cuisine when we go out as I haven't liked some of the strong flavors. I enjoyed the gravy for this stew, but did think it might be a little strong for my husband's taste.  I was tasting it while cooking though and I think by itself it was a little strong. Combined with the roasted red potatoes, I was pleasantly surprised, it's a really nice dish.  I love the color and it made the house smell pretty wonderful while it was simmering too. I think I'll make this with a zucchini or summer squash and a nice vinegar instead of the wine when the vegetables are happening in the summer.

I didn't change this recipe much except to replace stew meat with seitan.  I roasted some red potatoes to pour it on and served it with a fresh green salad of:  chard, collards, kale, red bell pepper, kalamata olives, some roasted and steamed kaniwa seeds, splash of pumpkin seed oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper.  The greens for the salad were picked fresh from my garden. Not out of the ordinary except that it is February.  It's not usually dry enough to get out to the garden, but we have had some warm dry days, it's been very refreshing.

Gert's Stifado, Vegan Style 

1 lb seitan, cut into bite size chunks
Olive oil or your favorite cooking oil, I used hazelnut oil

3 cloves, crushed

3 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick, cut in half

1 teaspoon allspice

1 can tomato paste

1 1/2 cups red wine

3 pounds small onions, I just used 4 very large onions chopped large

In a heavy pan brown seitan over high heat in a couple tablespoons oil, add garlic, bay leaves, cinnamon, and allspice, stir well. Add tomato paste and wine with 1 cup water.  Set aside.

Saute the onions in olive oil until golden brown and then add to the sauce, cover and simmer on very low heat for 2 to 3 hours until seitan and onions are tender.

During the cooking process the sauce should cover the seitan and onions.  Add more water, if necessary.  Sauce should be thick when ready.

Gert's Moussaka, Vegan Style

While chatting with a my lifelong friend/sister, Barb, on Facebook the other day she mentioned a couple of her mom's family recipes, Moussaka and Stifano.  I think of Moussaka as a Greek lasagna, usually made with eggplant and ground meat, lamb or beef.  It has layers of potatoes, a tangy tomato meat sauce, cheese, and a generous amount of creamy béchamel sauce poured on top of the layers, and topped with cheese.

Gert was one of my favorite mom's growing up.  She had a wide range of talents and great stories to tell of her life experiences.  We remained friends as I became an adult.  I'd come to visit Barb unannounced and if she was not home it wasn't a problem.  I was at home there and stayed anyway. Sometimes Gert & I would crack open a bottle of wine and talk through the night.  I was more at home at her house than my own parents' house. She lost the battle with stomach cancer some years ago and I do think about her from time to time and miss her. Gert was a lot of fun to be around.  She has lived all over the world and when she made an authentic ethnic dish, it was authentic.  I don't think she'd mind what I did with her family recipe. I also made a vegan version of her Stifano, a Greek beef stew, using stew meat size seitan pieces.  I'll be posting that later.  Simmering for three hours in the crock-pot, this dish made my house smell wonderful.

My version of Gert's Moussaka, vegan style.

2 Large eggplants, sliced 1/2" thick
1 14 oz. tube Gimme Lean ground beef style veggie protein - I think Soy curls would work well for this dish
3-4 small zucchini, sliced
1 1/2 pounds red potatoes
1 cup organic Panko breadcrumbs
Cooking oil such as Olive, I used hazelnut oil
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 ounces tomato sauce, I just blended my home canned tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped dried parsley
small sprig of fresh rosemary
fresh thyme leaves, about 1 teaspoon
1/2 cup red wine
about 1/2 - 3/4 cup Daiya mozzarella style vegan cheese
sea salt and ground pepper to taste

Béchamel Sauce:

1/2 cup, 1 stick, vegan margarine, I used Earth Balance organic
1/2 cup spelt flour
3 cups non dairy milk
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
pinch of nutmeg
sea salt & pepper to taste

Slice and cook the potatoes in a small amount of water for ten minutes or until just tender, al denté.  Set aside.

Peel and slice the eggplant and the zucchini and toss them with a little sea salt.  Then I put them in the dehydrator for an hour or so to let the moisture evaporate.  If you don't have a dehydrator, you can put the slices between paper towels and weight with another plate for an hour or more.

While the eggplant is drying, prepare the 'meat' sauce.  Dice or crumble the veggie protein which looks a lot like ground beef and brown it in a couple tablespoons of oil.  Then add the diced onions, garlic, sea salt, and pepper.  When the meat was brown and onions tender add the cinnamon, nutmeg, herbs, and tomato sauce.  Stir well, add the wine, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring a couple times.

The eggplant can be steamed, or sauteed with or without a breading.  I chose to dip them in some egg replacer and dredged in a little spelt flour.  Then I gently fried them in a little hot oil just until they were golden, not very long.  Then put them aside on a paper towel until I needed them.  I suppose when I have fresh picked eggplant from the garden I could just put the slices 'as is' without any prior cooking. But, since I used eggplant from the market which is probably not so fresh, it needed some tenderizing first.

Lightly oil a 9" x 13" pan and sprinkle the panko bread crumbs in the bottom.  Leave a small space around the edges of the pan so the bechamel sauce can ooze over the sides of the dish. Make the first layer with the sliced potatoes.  Top with a layer of eggplant slices, add the tomato 'meat' sauce, sprinkle with the shredded Daiya cheese.  Add the zucchini slices next.  Top with a layer of eggplant slices.

Preheat the oven to 350º and make the béchamel sauce.

Béchamel Sauce

Melt the vegan margarine.  Using a whisk, add the flour to the melted margarine whisking continuously to make a smooth rue.  Allow the mixture to cook for a minute but do not allow it to turn brown.  Add non dairy mild in a steady stream, whisking continuously.  Simmer over low heat until it thickens a bit but does not boil.  Remove from heat, and stir in turmeric, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Pour the béchamel sauce over the eggplant and be sure to allow sauce to fill the sides and corners of the pan.  Smooth the bechamel on top and sprinkle remaining cheese.  Bake in 350º oven for 45 minutes or until sauce is a nice golden brown color.  Allow to cool for 15 - 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Most of this dish can be made ahead of time, but it's best to make the béchamel sauce right before you intend to bake it.

Enjoy, I am going to go have some right now.

My Magic Boots ~ They Cause Smiling

Christmas is all put away, and I start out the new year slow and comfortable.  We spent a quiet warm New Year's weekend at home together. Most the cooking is done for the week and it's a peaceful day. My big plans are to make a salad, finish a crocheted hat, and maybe make it out to take some winter photos in the woods a bit.  My last Christmas ornament, my blog picture, needs to be changed, but I have one more holiday story to tell.

This has been a blessed Christmas having our son home.  I haven't felt like participating in the whole season's traditions and spirit with a whole heart for three years.  It still took awhile for me to pull it out this year, but I got there.  I had a lot of help from some colorful boots I purchased recently. Not out of the ordinary for me, I like art, bright colors, and I like hand made, but pretty wild for some.  My jackets, hats, and scarves are always bright and cheery, especially around the holidays. I put on these warm colorful boots and went around doing my business.  I noticed very quickly that my day changes when I wear these boots. These wild boots make people smile.  I mean smile out loud.  I've had people walk across the room and ask where to get these boots and want to talk about the Mola prints.

I've found that Quilters know these fabrics.  Many women stop me and ask if my shoes are Molas.  Pretty fun, "Yes, they are."  I'm calling them my magic boots.  I cannot go out with these boots on and NOT smile throughout the day.  I have left the house in a normal mood and come home just about laughing while thinking about all the fun I just had going to the post office or grocery store.

The best day was two days before Christmas.  In the process of making sure there were gifts mailed on time, cookies made, and all the things I wanted done for the holidays, I had forgotten to plan our own Christmas dinner.  This meant I had to go to the grocery store two days before Christmas, Yikes!  I had a long list of errands this day and set out to get it all done.  I wasn't thrilled about so much to do on an afternoon 'off work.' I had already heard stressful horror stories about angry people in the local market.

When I got there the parking lot was completely full. So many people were circling, it was like rush hour in a big city. It was hard to stop and scope out an area.  I found a place pretty close after circling only about ten minutes and went inside to find it bumper to bumper shopping carts.  I am lucky that the whole food ingredients I use for cooking are considered the 'health food' section and that's right near the produce, I'm not going to be long.

You could feel the stress in the air. I could tell if I stopped the cart in the isle for any length of time someone might offer some cross words.  As I was shopping a very old gentlemen came up to me and hugged me and told me how much he loved my boots.  Soon after I had another inquiry about my colorful shoes from a lady who said she walked across the room to check them out. Her seven year old daughter was very giggly over them.  They introduced themselves and we exchanged Christmas hugs.  How awesome was that?!? This followed suit throughout my day.  Each place I stopped someone asked about the boots and admired the colors, the animals, and many asked to feel them.  I was laughing out loud by the time I got home. I loved this feeling, I was laughing for a change and feeling that Christmas fun and love in my heart.

I'm not a fashion queen, I consider myself a modest dresser and thrifty shopper.  I'll cruise the discount and thrift stores for deals. I live in jeans most the time, but I love adding lots and lots of color and fun shoes. I love art and I do love wearing art.  I will spend a little more to wear someone's original art. I do like to be comfortable and colorful, very colorful. 

In an effort to live a more vegan life, I've decided not to purchase leather items.  My purses are made from recycled material and so are some of my shoes now.  Last year I came across a website for some really colorful shoes while reading a Veg News.  Kuna Prints has a fun variety of handmade, colorful shoes. I couldn't resist, I purchased a pair of their moccasins right away.   I love art and I love hand made, these are made from hand made Mola fabrics. I saw the fabrics on The Amazing Race when they went to Panama this last season.  I watched for the fabrics on the locals.  I saw them, mostly as those tiny, tight wrap around shorts or sarong things worn by the local native men. Made me wonder wear my Molas had been before I had them. Oh my! They are made with recycled materials. **giggling**
 
I've had some fun wearing these shoes, but not half as much as when I wear their boots.  People have stopped, asked where to get them and even taken photos, but I make a new friend EVERY time I where the boots. They are magic, they cause Smiling. Some are laughing at the wild clothes I wear, I do border circus clown sometimes, I know it, but either way, they are smiling.

Santa saw fit to put another pair under the tree this year.  These showed their magic the first day.  My husband broke his arm a month ago and I'm sitting and crocheting while waiting in the doctor's office during his check up, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked where I got my boots.  I handed her one of the business cards I found in the package and she said, with a big smile:  "I'm getting some today!"

I noticed lots of magic this season.  We bought our son a nice used bicycle for Christmas.  Not too expensive, but nicer than the one of mine he's been using for his only transportation.  It was stolen while he was working three days later.  Two days after that someone brought a men's ten speed to work for him that they hadn't been using.  We grabbed the same bow and re-created Christmas.  Life is good.

Happy New Year!

This is just a story about my experience, no one paid me to write about these shoes. 

Happy Holidays ~ Home Made

The last gift is wrapped, all the cookies are done, plated, and on their way to friends and family.  I just got word the kids in California got their Christmas from grandma, I can stop worrying about that. I have a four day weekend coming up, and I'm ready.  I think we'll spend Christmas morning watching the sunrise from a nice hilltop playing with our camera. I think we may have done that last year.  That's one of the benefits of keeping pictures in this blog and Facebook, I can look back and find out what we did last year.

This year most all the presents I gave are hand made by myself, a local artist, or thrift store items headed for a new life.  I made some U-Bake Cookies and Lentil soup mix in jars, a great idea I got from Care2 make a difference.  Marty, who I am thrilled is home this year, helped me bake cookies so he could gift some to his friends.  He made the oatmeal cookies, which was a great way to spend some time with him.  I also got some practice instructing instead of doing the baking. I kind of like being on that side of the recipe.  That was fun.  We tie dyed the cardamon sugar cookies too.  I started with one just to see how it would work and then the fun was on.  I called my husband into the kitchen and told him to try it, we had a great time tie dying our cookies and using different techniques to get the patterns flowing.

 Vegan Cookies for Christmas

Cardamon Sugar Cookies with Meyer Lemon Glaze
Raw Almond Butter Cookies
Almond Crescents
Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Carrot Ginger Oat Cookies
Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip with Buckwheat Flour
Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Dried Asian Pears with Cinnamon and Nutmeg

Holiday Crafts at Grandma's House

We squeezed in a little holiday fun together too this weekend.

Winter Crafts ~ Warm Hats

One of the big reasons I haven't been to the PC to catch up on the blog is because I've picked up a crochet hook.  The garden work is over for the season and I usually pick up some crafts to work over the winter.  Sometimes it's yarn, sometimes glass, or sometimes the scrap books.  I was clearing off some piles in the house recently and ran across a page with four hat patterns I've saved to crochet sometime.  I grabbed some cotton yarn and started crocheting.  I like this pattern, got hooked right away.  (hooked, hee hee)  It took awhile to get it right on the top, but I knew I wasn't getting it right away.  Instead of ripping out my work, I just repeated the same stitches which created a pattern of their own. I fell in love with the little hats and been gifting them right away as it's getting cold here and a warm gift is always welcome. I bought a stash of cotton and hemp yarn hoping to turn it all into cute hats to help keep my friends warm this winter.

Kaylee Does Farm to Table

Kaylee came over to play yesterday.  I recently downloaded an electronic cookbook for kids, Monkey Mike's Raw Food Kitchen, an Un-Cookbook for kids.  I printed out one for her house and one to plat with at our house.  It's a cute little cookbook with activities and games. It's good for a nice reading practice book too. I found a couple cute and easy recipes we could try together: Dracula's Carrot Salad with Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing and Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus.  She told me on the way to my house she had asked for gluten free treats at the school Holiday party and the librarian told her she bring some hummus.  Kaylee said she was excited about that because she had never tried hummus.  So, we made some together.  She liked it.  Even though there aren't many spices in it, she did say it was a little too spicy by itself.  Mixed with some crunch celery, carrots, and cucumber, she liked it just fine.  I warmed some pumpkin polenta and 13 bean stew I made in the morning and served it with our salad and hummus.  I was pleased she ate a two servings of the salad and hummus.  She liked the stew and pumpkin polenta, but enjoyed the salad more.  Fine with me, the salad, raw veggies, and hummus make for a complete meal.

One of the best parts of the day was when I reviewed the ingredients and realized I had all except some fresh beets.  I do still have some beets growing out in the garden so we had a little "Farm to Table" exercise.  Out to the garden we went to gather some beets.  There were some more treats out there too.  We came home with some chard, a small red cabbage, and a nice big fennel too.

 She's still a bit too small to use a chef's knife, but not too small to use a food processor.  Kaylee read all the ingredients and instructions aloud to me.  I explained what I was doing and what tools I was using when paring and pealing the vegetables.  She ran the processor and helped toss the salad arrange it all for dinner. 

 

The Dracula salad is a version of a beet and carrot salad I already make regularly in the summer.  I like this recipe, the addition of almonds and raisins makes for a variety of textures.

Dracula's Carrot Salad

1 beet
3 carrots
2 green onions
12 almonds
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves

Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing

Juice of 1 orange
2 tablespoons macadamia nut oil, (we used hazelnut oil)
2 teaspoons almond butter
Teensy pinch Celtic sea salt

Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus

1 ½ cups almonds soaked in 1 ½ cups filtered water for four hours or more
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup water
Big pinch Celtic sea salt