Gothic Granola

Today's quote: "The ghosts you chase you never catch." --John Malkovich Source In looking for an image suited for this quote (or one of those pin-able quote images"), I found a metal song by the same name . Go watch it and support an emerging band with your views.

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 am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say to me bounces off and sticks to you. How. I. Wish. Resilience...

Clearing the table in one fell swoop often makes a mess.

Seasonal Switch Cliché: when faced with a challenge, go with your strengths. Thinking: when faced with the unknown, what’s in your toolbox?

Post III of III in Simple Gifts series Missing. What’s missing? What does it mean to miss something? What am I missing? What are you missing? What do I miss right now? I saw this article on missing someone was “recommended for me” when I was reading an article about yoga on Mind Body Green.  What my cookies say about me, I tell ya.

Soup is a tradition for Solstice (OK, so, fine--a tradition of two years).   The wife of one of my spiritual mothers makes a delicious vegan bean soup for their Solstice party.   It’s fortification for the late-night labyrinth walking and firepit gathering. I brought the soup described below to new friends’ house and one of them suggested I bring it to their Solstice party.  It’s a bright, sturdy soup to celebrate the return of the light.

Maximus, the male of my aunt and uncle’s pair of cats, likes to hang out with me when I meditate in the morning.  When I switched from exercising on the ground floor to the top floor of the house (gotta follow the WiFi, man), he became confused and meowed loudly at me.  Max caught on soon enough and knows to find me upstairs.

Nostalgia...comes in many flavours.  Nostalgia also features ellipses, and sometimes tissues, and, for the VGF among us, carbs. While tackling the rolls my grandmother makes for Thanksgiving to make them vegan and gluten-free will probably never yield a perfectly white piece of bread, I can make a bread that’s pretty darn close to the rolls served at the now-defunct chain restaurant Steak and Ale .  (By the way, you should donate to Wikipedia.  It’s worth your while to support the free sharing of knowledge.)  The molasses and buckwheat flour colour these rolls a pumpernickel brown, while I’m sure it was caramel colour and a heck of a lot more sweetener that gave the Steak and Ale bread its dark sweetness.

Not until a friend of mine informed me last year that I probably couldn’t judge the taste of non-dairy milk compared to regular milk did I really think about that issue.   The longer you stay off dairy, the less appetizing it really is.   Did these need cheeze?   Not really.   I had Daiya pepperjack in the freezer, though, so I used it.   I’m glad it freezes well since it’s $6 a bag at Whole Foods or Wegmans; needless to say, I don’t buy it often.

Part III of III on vegan and gluten-free beer If it doesn’t have tomatoes, is it still chilli?  According to this needs-citations-article , chilli (yep, I’m using the UK spelling for a New World dish) involves tomatoes.

With one baked sweet potato, I made sweet potato pie for a party on Sunday.  I made the pie a day in advance because the filling is unbaked. I made this pie for a potluck birthday party given in honour of the Buddhist nun who leads the meditation group I attend near school.  She’s originally from West Virginia, so I baked the pie in my purple Fiestaware pie plate (Fiestaware’s still  made in America, folks ).  When I brought her a slice, she said “This is pretty good!”

Greetings, Earthlings— If there’s anything I’ve learned at school, it’s that finals are only as good as your playlist(s).  My first of five playlists for finals was “Bloody Mary” by Lady Gaga, “No Reflection” and “You’re so Vain” (feat. Johnny Depp) by Marilyn Manson, “Mutter” and “Sonne” by Rammstein, and “Without a Face” by Rage Against the Machine.  My final finals playlist just kept growing as I worked later and later.  About 20:00 on Friday, I realised it would take me until the next day to finish my paper (which, incidentally, wasn’t due until a week later), so I figured I’d have fun with staying up past midnight in order to do schoolwork for the first and last time in my undergraduate education.  At strategic intervals, I carb-loaded, eating cereal and muffins-that-taste-like-doughnuts. 

In advance of my Cinco De Mayo taco consumption, I made macadamia nut sour cream.

Brack brack brack.  I’ve made this once every year for the past two years.  This year, I made Irish tea brack to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and I made it gluten-free.

Chococat says, "All this pumpkin cheezecake for me?!"

For the first time in a long time (OK, maybe four years), I had a holiday weekend where I could come back to work and say, ZOMG, I had an awesome holiday weekend! if anyone cared to ask.  Usually when you say you had a better-than-average one, people don’t want to listen (or they don't have time).

Long time, no blog.  My supper today was an updated or healthified version of a dish floating around in my family, called Hot Dogs, Peppers, Potatoes, and Onions.  The original’s basically all of those ingredients, sautéed and steamed and served with catsup.  I’m not a fan of two taste sensations—salty and oily—and my modifications do away with the oil and extra salt, instead replacing those with spice.  The curry powder I recently purchased is spicy, and of course, you are free to spice or not spice to your palate’s preference.  Sweet potatoes are a good source of vitamin A (tell me that’s common knowledge, eh?).