…and a new one just begun.

Published
by
Katie
on January 2, 2009
in animals, family, life, music, personal, pictures and tv
. 4 Comments

Reflection post ala last year.

Um.  It was a long year?

Okay, maybe not so much reflecting. Brian came home at the beginning of November and he’s had to work very little so i’ve been spending a lot of time with him.  Obviously.  I went to see Joan Jett and Huey Lewis in August, that was pretty amazing.  Bonny got her eye removed in July.  I went to the only wedding where i’m ever going to get a vegan meal (but that’s okay, because I don’t anticipate going to a lot of weddings).  Other than that everything is pretty much a blur.  Oh, except my dog summer.  I had two foster dogs for a few months, so I had four dogs and three cats up in this piece.  I tried keeping them outside as much as I could, but it was mostly too hot, plus I got lazy, plus they were digging holes under the fence and one time Bonny got out with them and I nearly shat myself.  So most of my summer involved me waking up at six am to let dogs out, then taking a blanket to the couch, while they jumped all over me for awhile, and then falling back asleep with all four dogs on me if I laid right.

I miss them lots and it hurts to look at pictures of them.

Pushing Daisies got cancelled, causing my faith in humanity to shrivel up and die a little more.  If Fox can keep Dollhouse on the air for a little bit, it might come back.

I did not drink soda for the entire year.  I also got my hair matched to my roots and didn’t dye it any funky colors for the whole year so I wouldn’t have to bleach it annd chop it off.  I drank a Dr. Pepper on New Years Eve, which was delicious.  I woke up today feeling horrible.  My next soda will be another Dr. Pepper in 364 days.  I’m going to get my hair lightened soon.  I was born blonde and I will die blonde, dammit.

And then I bought a lot of music.  A LOT.  I got a zune and stopped buying cds because I already have a crazy dvd collection, and digital music is almost half the price of a tangible cd.  Also, Amazon MP3 has daily deals and weekly specials where you gets albums for five bucks and under.  It’s a sick addiction, I actually have a folder of bookmarked albums to buy because if I bought all of the ones I wanted we would be eating buttered noodles and wonder bread for dinner.  I’d have to send Bonny out front to sell lemonade (it’s really just her peeing in a cup, shhhh).

It took me forever to make that little music collage!  I also made you a mixtape of individual songs that I listened to a lot this year.  You should listen to it and admire the amazing artwork that I made with google images and photoshop.

In conclusion, 2008 was a year of nothing much except music.  2009 will hopefully be more interesting and deployment free.

Iron Chef: Day of the Dead.

Published
by
Katie
on November 1, 2008
in iron chef
. 12 Comments

If you weren’t aware, the first two days of Novemeber are when a lot of people celebrate the Day of the Dead.  It’s just a day to take time to remember those who have left us, really you can read the wikipedia page if you want to know all about it.  Anyway, one of the ways of celebrating is by making a dish that your deceased loved one enjoyed!  So that’s the challenge.  Make or veganize a favorite dish of someone you’ve lost.

Now, if you’re like me and can’t think of anything, you can always use someone famous, like Elvis with his fried peanut butter banana sandwiches.  Fun fact:  I have been to a birthday party for Elvis.  Even though I think his music pretty well sucks.  Hey, free food.

My great-grandmother made angel food cake, and we all know that ain’t happening without egg whites so i’m going to have to go the famous person route.  Or I could just make oatmeal and sniff coffee because that’s what my grandma’s house smelled like in the mornings.

I don’t want to discourage people from participating due to lack of time, so everyone has until whenever I feel like blogging on Monday.  Good luck!

Allez Végétalien Cuisine!

VeganMoFo: Iron Chef Stuffed.

Published
by
Katie
on October 29, 2008
in pictures, recipes and veganmofo
. 11 Comments

I was hoping that more entries would trickle in, but either everyone hated my idea or was busy or something.  I think stuffing stuff into other stuff is pretty fun though, so thpppt.

Jenn stuffed a ton of stuff into potatoes.

Megan and I are on the same wavelength apparently, she also did a stuffed seitan with gravy.

International Iron Chef!  Pamela brings us stuffed freeze-dried tofu, something I didn’t even know existed.

Dynah did double duty with manicotti and stuffed chocolate covered bananas.

Bex kept it real and made a ‘what i’ve got’ almond apple bread stuffing.

My favorite Megan made her favorite Andria’s favorite stuffing.

I actually forgot about doing the challenge until the middle of Sunday.  And I didn’t want to go to the store.  So I also decided to use what I had.  In two hours I made the seitan, stuffing, and gravy.  Very rarely do I say i’m proud of something I just made up, but I am really down with this meal.  I kind of made it up as I went along but here is what I did from memory:

Seitan with Apple Onion Cranberry Stuffing and Maple Gravy

Make your favorite seitan recipe, you can follow Joanna’s instructions for making cutlets, but a little thicker so you can slice them without worry of putting a hole in one side.

Stuffing:

2 T vegetable oil

1/2 large onion, diced

1 red apple, peeled and diced

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 c dried bread crumbs (mine were seasoned so I didn’t add any extra)

salt and pepper to taste

a pinch of cinammon

~1/3 cup of the gravy

Heat the oil over medium low, add the onions and let them get mostly soft.  Add the apple and continue to cook for about ten minutes, stirring every now and then.  Add the cranberries, salt and pepper, and cinnamon and let it cook for about two more minutes.  Mix in the bread crumbs and remove from the heat.

Preheat your oven to 350 at this point.

Maple Gravy:

A couple of tablespoons of margarine

Flour

almond milk

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup maple syrup

I didn’t even close to measure this, but gravy is pretty easy.  Melt the margarine in a sauce pan, and add enough flour to make a roux.  I’m too impatient to wait for it to get dark, so just whisk it around for a minute, then start adding almond milk a little bit at a time, fully whisking the liquid into the roux before adding more.  The whole point of this is to avoid getting lumps.  After you get it to a gravy-like consistency, add the salt, pepper, and maple syrup.

Add enough gravy to the stuffing to act like a glue, you shouldn’t really be able to see it in there.

To assemble, slice the seitan almost all the way in half, like it’s a hot dog bun.  I put about 1/4 cup in four cutlets and ended up with leftover stuffing, so i’d say this serves six.  Or you could just eat the extra like I did.

Now, I pour the gravy on top before baking but it didn’t look very nice and didn’t seem to do anything for it so at this point i’d say spray a little cooking spray or rob a little oil on the tops of the seitan to keep it from getting dry and gross.

Bake for about 15 minutes, really we’re just warming stuff up.

Cover with gravy and eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

Here’s an okay shot before going into the oven.

And here is a really icky looking shot before going into my mouth.  I miss summer sunlight.

I know that MoFo is officially over on Friday, but check back for a very special Iron Chef challenge for next weekend!  We might keep this up on a monthly basis because people seem to enjoy the general idea.