Gothic Granola

My gifts to others were a gift to myself this year for Solstice/Chanukkah/Christmas. I turned my writing time into beading time for the last two weeks in December. Focusing on beading let my mind wander and work out plot issues with my writings and meditate on other matters.  

This is probably a sentiment that will alienate me from abolitionist vegans at large. But here it is.

...For when you have cranberries, but sauce seems like too much of a project and pie or bars or muffins are really too much of a project. Juice is also a project. But you have to eat breakfast, right? Why not make a smoothie?

TC had surgery last week and has been drinking all the smoothies. While I haven't made this one for him yet, here is the pineapple-loaded smoothie I plan to make for him.     Why pineapple? Pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme shown to reduce inflammation. Since post-surgery care involves keeping swelling and inflammation to a minimum, this smoothie is a good way to get some natural inflammation-reducing bromelain in your system. Feel free to add a scoop of protein powder if smoothies are all your "patient" will eat.

Donuts gone batty! While I was waiting for Yosemite to install this week, I found these Jam-Filled Coconut Donuts on the Whole Foods Market website. Only WFM would say "jam" not "jelly" donuts, right? The original recipe is neither vegan nor gluten-free, but I made it so.

Laurie Sadowski has done it again. Canadian vegan and gluten-free cookbook author delivers excellent recipes, so I'm just adding a new filling option and an instructions tweak for high & dry altitude.  

I learned a trick this week, and I'm going to extrapolate several explanations for why it works.[1] Then I came up with a tea drink, and a way to make my date-based chocolate syrup.

National Cookie Day is 4 December, which also happens to be an important date in the novel I've been writing since 2006. If you know me in person, you know that I like vampires: old-school, bloodsucking, remorseless, Dracula, Carmilla, The Vampire Lestat type of vampires. None of this Twilight wishy-washy stuff, a little Charlaine Harris (haven't read much of her work, but from what I hear...). Some Hemlock Grove as well, though that book (and excellent Netflix series) is about werewolves, which are cool, too. Back to the point. We need food for the brain as much as we do food for the body. Creativity for me (writing, beading, recipe R&D) feeds me, too. And I like vampires.