‘Tis the season, it seems, for super giveaways…
Win a complete set of Kristen Suzanne’s ebooks by heading over to Kristen’s blog and entering the giveaway. (Comments to this post are disabled as I am not the host of this giveaway and any comments made here will not enter you into the drawing.) Good luck!
Check out these super cute aprons by Aprons by Julie! Aren’t they awesome?! I love Etsy shops and buy from Etsy whenever possible, so I’m really happy that my favorite nutritional goddess Meghan is hosting a giveaway of one of these aprons. For your chance to win, head over to Meghan’s blog and tell her what your favorite kitchen gadget is. That’s it! There’s lots of ways to get extra entries too.
Here’s my favorite apron:
(Please note that I am not hosting this giveaway and thus will be disabling comments on this post to avoid any confusion. To enter, you MUST leave a comment at Meghan’s blog. Thanks!)
Two elephants enjoying their lives at the PAWS animal sanctuary. Photo from PAWS website.
I’ve ranted about the circus a little on this blog here and here. If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is Google the terms “Ringling Bros.” and “abuse” to see for yourself. I just learned that Ringling Bros. is coming to California at the end of this month and will be in my area in August. If any local peeps happen to find my blog, please seriously reconsider taking your family to the circus. Save yourself the money and visit an animal sanctuary instead. Or if that money is burning a hole in your pocket, consider donating the amount that your circus tickets would cost to an organization that rescues animals from the horrendous, horrible abuse that is the circus:
PAWS: Located in Galt (just south of Sacramento), Performing Animal Welfare Society or PAWS is dedicated to the protection of performing animals, to providing sanctuary to abused, abandoned and retired captive wildlife, to enforcing the best standards of care for all captive wildlife, to the preservation of wild species and their habitat and to promoting public education about captive wildlife issues.
We ran out of dishwasher detergent the other day and even though I went to the store, I forgot to buy some more. I hate when that happens! So, we had a bunch of dishes that needed to be run, no detergent and I wasn’t about to go back to the store just for dishwasher soap. After Googling some homemade recipes, most of which call for Borax, I decided that I could make my own. I think I’ve seen recipes that use Borax to kill ants and I don’t think it’s something I want to use on things that we eat off of. I’m sure it’s harmless, and probably better than what’s in regular dishwasher detergent (we generally stick to the eco-friendly brands), but still… if I’m going to be making it, why not try leaving it out?
I sort of invented my own recipe and so far, it’s been working great. I have no complaints– no residue is left on the dishes, they’re all super clean and they smell good too. I can’t say for sure that this will work for everyone considering the variety of dishwashers out there, some people have hard/soft water, some people may not rinse the dishes as thoroughly as we do, but it works for us. When a bottle of the eco-friendly stuff can cost as much as $6 or $7 for a small bottle (and the regular stuff has toxic chemicals in it), why not give it a try?!
Image from Treehugger.com
1 cup baking soda
1 cup hot water
1-2 TB natural soap (I used Dr. Bronner’s)
When your dishwasher detergent bottle is empty, combine the above ingredients and refill it! Shake to thoroughly combine. When it’s time to run your dishwasher, use 1-2 TB of the detergent in the “soap” container of the dishwasher and use 1 TB white vinegar in the “rinse” container.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed A.B. 1437, a bill backed by The Humane Society of the United States that requires that starting in 2015 all shell (whole) eggs sold in California must come from hens who were able to stand up, lie down, turn around, and fully extend their limbs without touching one another or the sides of an enclosure. In other words: California will become a cage-free state.
I have to admit to having mixed feelings about this. While many of my Facebook friends are so excited over this, I’m a little sad and I have to respectfully disagree with them. Of course, I don’t want to be labeled the crazy vegan on Facebook, so I’m going to post something here instead so that I can be the “crazy vegan” blogger. On one hand, I realize that people eat eggs and I would rather those eggs come from hens who are able to move freely and who live a somewhat “normal” life. On the other hand, laws like this and Prop. 2 which we recently passed here in CA only encourage consumption of these products. It takes away the guilt involved in purchasing and eating products from animals, thus promoting the idea of “happy meat/eggs/etc.” Instead of focusing on issues like this, I really wish HSUS would do more to encourage and promote a healthy vegan diet… which in effect would stop the consumption of eggs, dairy, meat.
And once the hens stop laying eggs (maybe after a year or two), she is slaughtered. Really, I don’t think her being able to freely stretch her wings while living a life of imprisonment all to be slaughtered anyway is really much consolation.
In the summertime, I usually plant at least a tomato plant. This year, I’ve been so obsessed with the idea of making my own pickles that I planted 3 pickling cucumber plants in addition to my tomato and melon plants. I also planted a bunch of herbs that are growing like crazy. My problem is that I’m really short on space and there aren’t a lot of spots around my house that get full sun for a good part of the day. On top of that, we have had the craziest summer and the weather has been extremely mild. No hot sun means no harvest.
But today when I went out, I saw that my very first cucumber is nearly ready to be picked! And I have one tomato that is on the verge of ripeness. Eeek! Here’s some photos:
Mint, basil and lemon balm.
Tomato.
Pickling cucumber.
Melon. This one is called Minnesota Midget, which looks kinda like a cantaloupe.
You’ll notice that my garden is entirely planted in large pots. I used tomato cages to keep them growing up instead of out. Just goes to show you that you can grow your own fruits and veggies even with very limited space. Even if you just had a small balcony, I bet you could pull off a new plants. The plants themselves are cheap and, aside from watering them every day or two, they require very little effort on my part. I’m so excited about my pickles. I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.
I don’t know what inspired this meal, but I have an idea it may have had something to do with this post about a turkey and cheddar biscuit. I follow lots of bento blogs and while pretty much none of them ever make anything vegan, they can inspire food creativity and some things can easily be veganized. I must have had the idea of a turkey and cheddar biscuit in my head all day because by the time dinner rolled around, it was all I could think about. I had a pack of smoked tofurky in the fridge, but no vegan cheddar style cheese. In the freezer, though, I had some Daiya mozzarella and I thought– tofurky pizza! Pizza, on a biscuit? It sounds like a recipe the Duggars may have invented, I know. If you’ve ever watched their show, you know that they come up with some pretty… uhhmm… creative?… culinary delights.
The idea didn’t sound so bad, so I took myself to Google to find a vegan (or veganizable) rolled biscuit recipe, since I typically only make drop biscuits when I make them from scratch. I’m not sure of any brands of store bought biscuits that are vegan, although I’m sure some exist even if they are just “accidentally vegan.” Beware of funky ingredients like hydrogenated oils and stuff, if you are as turned off by them as I am. If you can’t find any and don’t want to make your own, I bet you could attempt this pizza idea (or even the turkey/cheddar thing) with crescent rolls.
Anyway, I settled on this recipe and I used Earth Balance shortening for the fat. I have no preference for shortening over margarine in recipes like these, but the shortening is a wee bit cheaper and a little less versatile than the marg. I thought I’d save my marg for another day. So I made the biscuit dough, rolled out to about 1/2″ thickness, used a glass to cut them out, then rolled the biscuits to about 1/4″ thickness. I topped each with some jarred marinara that I had leftover from our pasta dish the other night– I had cooked up some red lentils and pureed them into the sauce, which was really tasty! Anyway, then I sliced up some tofurky and put the Daiya on top of that. When working with vegan cheese, I find it best to put it on top of everything since vegan cheese doesn’t melt the same way dairy cheese does. And if you’re topping your pizzas with veggies, the water from the veggies will really keep your cheese from melting and may even make it too watery. That’s just been my experience.
These baked for about 10 minutes and turned out really good. I’m still craving the turkey/cheddar biscuits, so I may have to make those next week when I can get myself to the store to score some Daiya cheddar. Emma helped me make these and had fun playing with the leftover dough (hey, it’s way better than playdoh! Does anyone else gag at the smell of playdoh?). And, she ended up eating 3 of these pizzas– the recipe yielded 8 biscuits, 4 of which were tofurky and 4 of which were plain cheese. Even with making biscuits from scratch, this was ready to be eaten in about 20 minutes. Can’t beat that!
(And sorry for the crappy photo. I broke our camera and am now relying on my iPhone. It was my fault and I take full responsibility for the broken camera. It fell out of the unzipped camera case as I was carrying it and the screen cracked. Just my luck!)
Well, my kiddo finally went to bed on time tonight and I had the opportunity to sit down and watch The Cove. Finally! It’s been on my mind for a while to see it, so my husband Netflix-ed it for me… weeks ago. I’m happy to scratch it off my list.
For those who have not heard about it, The Cove is a documentary about the dolphin slaughter that takes place in Taiji, Japan every year from September through March. Some of the “better quality” dolphin are caught and sold to aquariums, swim-with-a-dolphin type exhibits and the like, but most are slaughtered for their meat. The film goes into detail about how they are caught (essentially they are herded into “the cove” and then it is netted off), the laws and such surrounding whale and dolphin slaughter and how it’s been able to continue despite virtually the rest of the world being opposed to it, and it presents crazy scientific data on how contaminated the dolphin meat actually is. Remember, the higher up the food chain you eat, the more tainted the food is. Basically, this documentary is like Whale Wars for dolphins in that it exposes an industry that most of us have no idea even existed. I happen to love Whale Wars and I did enjoy watching this film as well.
It’s seriously a great film, not too bloody and definitely worth seeing. At the very least, it’s an important topic to be informed about as it not only presents the serious issue of dolphin slaughter, but also puts into perspective the toll that humans are taking on the ocean. Even if you have serious problems watching animals being injured or killed, I think it’s definitely something you can get through without a major emotional meltdown. Take it from me… Santa brought me the Disney film Bambi when I was about 5 years old. I watched it that Christmas morning and have never seen it since. Traumatized for life! (And on a side note, Emma has been asking if she can see it and I’ve been gently trying to explain to her that Bambi’s mom dies and that it might be too sad, but yet she keeps asking. Maybe it’s a good one to watch so that she will really understand why we don’t eat animals? I dunno. I can sense that it’s a whole can-o-worms that I don’t really want to deal with right now.)
From watching this film, I have come to the realization that I can never visit places that house wild-caught animals. I had never really thought about it before, but now I know that I will never, ever visit places like Sea World or take part in swimming with any kind of marine mammal where I have to pay money to participate in such an activity. Now, how are animals at zoos acquired? Can anyone shed light on that for me? I always though zoos were pretty okay, but now I’m questioning that assumption.
And because I can’t leave well enough alone, I can’t help but wonder just how many people involved in the making of this film are vegetarian and/or vegan. Anyone know? I know that the crew of Whale Wars eats a vegan diet while at sea, which makes me curious about the makers of The Cove. How crazy would that look if you’re involved in a documentary opposed to the slaughter of one animal for food while you continue to eat others? It would make no sense. Likewise, how could anyone oppose the slaughter of dolphin for food while supporting the slaughter of cows, chickens, or pigs? It’s an interesting point to consider because the message of The Cove is much bigger than just dolphin slaughter.
An article that I linked to above has one of the best quotes:
The fishermen, who consider dolphins just big fish, like tuna, are bewildered that anyone would find this cruel, dubbing the weekend protestors ‘extremists.’ “If you walked into an American slaughterhouse for cows it wouldn’t look very pretty either,” says one, who identifies himself only as Kawasaki. “The killing is done in the open here so it looks worse than it is.” Most are descended from families that have been killing and eating the contents of the sea around Taiji for generations and reject arguments that dolphins are ‘special.’ Says Kawasaki: “They’re food, like dogs for the Chinese and Koreans.”
Exactly right. Just because it’s not culturally accepted around the world as a food source, does that mean it’s wrong? There’s the saying: “if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” If everyone could visibly see exactly how “food” gets from the field/CAFO to their plates, I have an that vegans wouldn’t be the minority.
I came across this and thought I’d share for those who enjoy Turtle Mountain products as much as I do. Save your UPC codes from the package and mail it in. For every one that gets mailed in, Turtle Mountain will donate $1 to Farm Sanctuary up to $5,000.
This meal wasn’t super gourmet, but definitely much more so than anything I’ve prepared in the last couple of months. I was in Sacramento over the weekend and got a huge haul of organic fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market there. Since I haven’t been to the regular grocery store, that’s pretty much what we had on hand. I used what I had to whip up these stuffed portobello mushroom caps, which I served alongside a mixed green salad with blueberries and cherry tomatoes and a few slices of white peach. And then for dessert, I used some frozen bananas to make an “ode to Elvis” ice cream. I think we had our 5 servings of fruits and veggies just in this one meal! 
I’m sure there are far worse things to O.D. on.
Since this stuffing would work really well with any vegetable mix, I’ll just describe how I made it. Feel free to sub whatever it is you’ve got on hand. I did use a bag of organic instant stuffing mix that I’ve had in my pantry since Thanksgiving, but I imagine you could use your own favorite homemade stuffing recipe as a substitute, or even something like Stove Top would work. I have no idea whether or not Stove Top is vegan and/or healthy (I imagine it’s neither), which is why I’m saying to try something like it. I know that mine was vegan and was relatively healthy, as in it didn’t have anything in it besides bread and spices. Anyway, cook your stuffing according to package directions or follow your own homemade recipe.
While the stuffing is cooking, saute the veggies. I diced up some onion, carrots, the mushroom stems and 2 small zucchini– one yellow and one green. Be sure to add in the remnants of whatever veggie you are stuffing– for example, if you will be stuffing an eggplant, add the part of the eggplant that you scooped out to make room for the stuffing. I also added in a clove of minced garlic to the veggies. Saute in a wee bit of olive oil until just beginning to get tender. Add about 1/2 cup raisins or dried fruit of your choosing (cherries, cranberries, apricots would all be good) and about 1/2 cup white wine. At this point, I also threw in a bay leaf. Turn up the heat and allow the wine to reduce so that there is no liquid left. Seas0n with salt and pepper. Once the wine has completely cooked off, combine with an equal amount of the cooked stuffing so that your final stuffing mixture is about half stuffing and half sauteed vegetables. Stuff into your vegetable of choice.
If you are using portobellos, you’ll want to scrape the gills off with a spoon before stuffing. I also rubbed mine on both sides with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Once stuffed, place into a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn on the broiler and broil for about 2 minutes or until the top of the stuffing is crunchy and golden.
These turned out really, really good… and I have to mention that I detest mushrooms. I could eat these every day and not get tired of them.
And now, let’s talk dessert! When I returned home from Sac, I found that all of my bananas had spots on them. Even one spot on a banana indicates it’s too ripe for me (I prefer mine slightly green and starchy), so I peeled and sliced them and put them in the freezer. When they were frozen, I put them into my food processor (sorry, but you will need a food processor for this… a blender isn’t going to work) and processed them until smooth like ice cream. It’ll take a little while to get them super smooth and you may even find that you need to let them defrost a bit. Once smooth, add about 2 TB peanut butter– I used 5 bananas to give you an idea of the banana to peanut butter ratio– and a drizzle of agave. Either eat right away or place back in the freezer to solidify. Actually, you may even want to make dessert before dinner so that it can be freezing while you make and eat dinner. I topped mine with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, but I think a handful of vegan chocolate chips would have been yummier. Any kind of nut butter will work here, so use your favorite or leave it out if you want plain banana. I’ve made this type of “ice cream” with all kinds of different fruits, so play around with it.
