Gothic Granola

The old woman nodded as she listened to the soft, bubbling words [of the spirit of the well].  Then she went back to the cottage, her eyes bright with resolve, her step firm with courage. She took water from the sieve and sprinkled it over the doorstep.  When she got inside she saw a cake, dark reddish brown and unappetizing to look at, on the table.  'They didn't even wait for me to come back with the water,' she said to herself.  'They were greedy as well as wicked.  But thanks to the spirit of the well I know what is in that cake.' Geoffry Palmer and Noel Lloyd, "The Horned Witches," Nine Witch Tales, ed. Abby Kedabra (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1998), 13. There were a few magical things about this cake I baked for my birthday: I still had the book from which the above quote is excerpted and the cake actually  worked this time.  

Mmm, this dessert made me realise how much I miss bread pudding-type desserts! I haven't made any "pain perdu" situations in a while because I have rarely had leftover baked goods, if TC has had any say. Father-in-law gave me two small bottles of Limoncello and said to make something. TC presented it to me as an Iron Chef Challenge. Evaluating what we had on hand, I quickly made a batch of vanilla cupcakes and set some cashews to soaking. Lemon Tiramisu it would be!

I actually don't have a sermon screed today, which probably means one is brewing. I finished Beachbody INSANITY for the second time this morning. Like a customer at WFM said last year, it's harder the second time around. Indeed. This time, though, I didn't go as extreme, and I don't think the absence of INSANITY will make me go, well, insane. I plan to finish September with Blogilates  and yoga. October I will do the Blogilates October workout calendar, and since I'm used to doing an hour workouts, I'll do all the videos each day. November I may do P90X all the way through since I exercise outside and I may have to move indoors, for which P90X is perfect.  

Avast! Happy International Talk like a Pirate Day!  Throwback Thursday, circa 2007, when I began celebrating ITLAPD by wearing my pirate shirt to school. I raise a mug of tea, stolen off a British schooner, to ye.

“Don’t hang out down there.” I heard or “heard” it in a yoga practice. Either the instructor said it or that little voice to which it would behoove me to pay more attention said it in my head. Don’t hang out for longer than necessary in a position. Otherwise we risk injury and our energy becomes stagnant.

Part I of a three-part series about cheese, cheeze, cream cheeze, and cheeze curds. Greetings, Earthlings. It’s been done before: vegans rhapsodising about cheese, missing the taste, texture, ineffability of cultured dairy.  Let’s not do what other people have done before, not reinvent the wheel, as a lot of people say.

Post title reflects the time of the year or educational cycle; actual contents differ.

After a long search for a vegan pizzelle recipe last year, and a pile of fail at de-glutenizing them this spring, I present to you a recipe that passes muster.