Scraps and Snippets ~ Wildlife, P B J Oatmeal and Making Grape Jam When Life Gives You Grapes....

We had grapes we needed to do something with. If there is anything more frustrating than letting hard won or expensive, or the combo of the two items go to waste, well, I'm not sure what it would be. 

Last night I had to act or the above scenario would play out. So I plucked the grapes from their skeletons and prepared to make grape jam. 

Issue one. Not enough grapes to really justify getting the whole canning setup out and about. 

Issue two: I wanted Jam. Not Jelly. Jelly is strained and therefore you lose the chunky bits. So I had to deseed them. Is there an easy way to do this? Not sure. I should've googled it. Probably there is. But then again, I only had about three cups of whole grapes, how long could it take? A long time. Like an hour +. I had to squeeze of the outer layer of skin and then squeeze the inner jiggly part to remove the seeds. Sometimes one seed, sometimes three seeds. We took a break to do a walk in the middle of the project. It felt like hours.

Issue three: I had to look at several recipes to try to figure out what to do. In the end I just made a decision and went with it. There didn't seem to be a recipe that fit what I wanted to do. My end project plan was simply two small jars, for the fridge, to be eaten within a few weeks. So I went with the whole apple butter idea that seems to work for us. I dumped the grape bits, skins included, but not the seeds (this was about two cups total) and added half a cup of sugar into my little baby crockpot to cook down overnight. 

This morning when I woke up I did not smell heavenly grape aromas. There went my plans for peanut butter and grape jam on toast for breakfast.

Plan G: I'm leaving the lid off, hoping to cook it down further and thicken the stuff while I'm at work today. And I got creative for breakfast. I made oatmeal (a few scoops of old fashioned organic oats, 2 TBSP of chia seed) water to consistency I like, a blob of peanut butter and several spoonfuls of warm, liquidy grape jam. YUM. PB and J oatmeal. Yep. 

You might be wondering about the picture of the deer. These little guys were running away from me. I startled them while they were playing on the hill by my office. I have seen deer everywhere lately. Last night while on our walk we startled a mom and two teen deer. Last week we spied an adolescent deer hanging out in a driveway with half a dozen or so wild turkeys. Wished I had my camera for that one. Ha. Ha.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Baby Steps to Change, ala DVD...

Life/Food/Health Documentaries I love. 

All available through Netflix. (Instant Streaming, too)

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Forks Over Knives

Food Inc.

King Corn

Super Size Me

Why? Good question. Because each of them gives helpful information about why, what and how to make little changes. And they celebrate little choices that add up. Each of these films have moments of horrific reality that forced me to make a series of choices. Including an invitation for me to choose what I'd do with the information I'd been given.

Is every bit of information absolute truth? Do each of these films have an agenda? Those are details you'll have to wrestle with when and if you choose to see them. I'm not going to be an activist any time soon. I'm still trying to figure all this out and what the word "healthy" means to me. And, there are different definitions of that word. But. I can't not not share what I've discovered. Hence the changes and different look at Scrambled Dregs. Writing? Still important? Yes. Book reviews? Still important? Absolutely.There has been no change, necessarily, in my loves, likes and drives, but there has been a shift in my priorities and my time. 

If you are on the fence, curious, wondering or apprehensive about your food intake or choices, invest a few hours into looking into what these films have to say. If not, just keep dropping in every once in awhile, you'll never know what you might find here. I hardly ever do. :  )  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Farm Fresh Summer

Farm day, one of the last ones of the season, was beautiful. After five days of drizzle and gray, I needed me some sun. 

The blue sky was full of it -- a big, yellow sun. And to temper the heat from said sun, we had a breeze. Not gale force winds, but a breeze. 

 ^ and I harvested lettuces and Swiss Chard. And then we tackled the last of the corn. This corn was still suffering the effects of the hail and we had to husk it to make sure it was all good. Five bushels of corn may take two people an hour to husk. Oy.

Even though the season is winding down, our box was still full of produce. And the two hours in the sunshine and breeze were as good as the goodies. 

We also had week two of our raw food class. I learned some sweet knife techniques and cuts. I learned that I do NOT hold a knife correctly, that I do NOT own a quality knife, and that I definitely do NOT hold the food I'm slicing and dicing correctly. If you've ever seen a chef chopping you've seen the weird way they hold the item they are chopping. The CLAW technique saves fingers, fingernails, friendships and lives. I'll be honest. I've sliced fingernail bits into items I've chopped. (They are clean, really, because I've generally had my hands in water for hours before this happens. And fiber. Lots of fiber. This is my attempt at trying to keep the loss of friendship to a minimum. ) The claw technique makes sure that your knuckles are a guard and buffer for the the safe flat part of the knife. If you keep everything behind the knuckles, you won't slice and dice things you'd rather not slice and dice. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ VEGAN "CHEF BUTTAH" BROWNIES

This is a picture of 3 Flax eggs. I.E. 3 TBSP ground flax seed and 9 TBSP water.

Applesauce, sugar and fat blend.

• If you have followed my various attempts at making THE brownie...one that is not horribly life suckingly bad for you and yet, still delicious, you know I've had some moderate success. Not total, not complete brownie Nirvana that caused me to scream SCORE!!! so loud that you could hear me wherever you happen to be. 

My quest has been to replace the go-to brownie from the bad days of eating. The measuring stick is tough to compete with....this particular brownie has been my recipe for when I needed to make THE ultimate smack-down taste sensation. It's been tweaked over the twenty years I've used it. Not much though, just a bit. The original recipe called for butter, eggs, melted bittersweet chocolate, vanilla and resulted in a crusty brownie so gooey in the middle, so chocolatey, so delicious in all it's buttery chocolate goodness that no one even CARED how awful it was for the circulatory system. 

 

This weekend required a little flexibility in the Vegan eating routine, and I've noticed that the more I eat less than clean, the more I want to eat less than clean. I do pay for it. I feel like a slug... UGH when I eat dairy. But there are just times I make that choice. 

So Monday hit hard. And the craving for Chef Buttah Brownies resurrected and started following me around like an annoying zombie. 

Then it occurred to me to take a look at THE recipe and see if I could Veganize it. 

And by golly. I think it worked. Rob says it's a keeper.

He said he couldn't tell they'd been tweaked or messed with. And, well, they weren't the full of BUTTAH brownies I remember from the past, but they are close. Close enough that I may consider this quest closed and I almost feel like screaming "SCORE!!!!!!!"

VEGAN "CHEF BUTTAH" BROWNIES

Lightly grease 8 x 8 pan.

3/4 Cup cocoa

1/2 Cup applesauce

1/2 Cup plus 1 TBSP water

3 TBSP ground flax seed

3/4 Cup Vegan fat source. (I used 1/2 cup coconut oil and 1/4 Earth Balance, if you don't like the faint taste of coconut you might want to reverse that ratio or use all Earth Balance.)

2 tsp vanilla

1 and 1/2 Cup Vegan sugar (yeah. And that's reduced...maybe could be tweaked a bit more.)

1 Cup Flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour).

Optional 1 Cup chopped nuts or you could add chocolate chips and go for the complete and total chocolate overkill.

In small container mix water and flax seed. Set aside. In bigger bowl mix Earth Balance/Coconut oil and sugar together until creamed together. Add vanilla and applesauce. Mix well. Add the Flax mixture and cocoa. Mix well. Stir in flour.

Scrape mixture into greased 8 x 8 pan. Bake at 350 for approx 30-35 minutes. These will be gooey, but they will continue to set up after you take them out of the oven. (You can double the recipe and bake it in a 9 x 13 but will need to bake it for about an hour or so.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Weekend Frivolity and Harvest Cinnamon Rolls

Not gorgeous, but yummy.

Full day on Saturday. 

 We had a bridal shower at 7:00 p.m. ^ (^ is going to be the new unpronounceable symbol for the daughter who used to be known as 24.) (Do you think that's as amusing as I do? If not, that's okay. I'll laugh enough for all of us.) ^ made a zucchini chocolate bundt cake that turned into a keeper. (But that's not all she made this weekend.) I made a few items, too. The most memorable was the Vegan Phillie Sandwiches. Yum. Sizzle. There was an issue. I sliced up all the peppers we had on hand, one of them turned out to be hot. Not sure of the actual pepper, but it was S-P-I-C-Y. My hands HURT, as in burned, for most of the evening and even first thing in the morning. 

But ^ didn't have any food fail issues. These Harvest Cinnamon Rolls were amazing. We will continue to tweak them because the pumpkin flavor could be a touch more. Recipe details below.

We also went to the farmer's market for the first time this year. We haven't gone because of our terrific CSA box. I met an organic farmer who's into sprouting and microgreens. I asked if they ever welcomed volunteers who wanted to learn the skills. She lit up and answered affirmatively. Yes!

^'s boss had told her about an organization in Omaha that serves gourmet style organic food and takes donations. Since we were near, we headed over for lunch. 

Table Grace Cafe truly does operate on donation only. And it does serve gourmet food. Yum. I was so hungry I didn't take any pictures. Oops. But we'll go back.

Sunday brought a "Walk A Mile in Their Shoes" event at the Open Door Mission. Toad-Boy mentioned that he and a few of his students would be taking part so Rob and ^ and I joined him. We walked a mile, in drizzle, to the mission, slurped soup, took a tour, and our entry fee paid for ten meals for hungry folks and a T-shirt for walkers. There was another terrific walk for a good cause last weekend but we couldn't pull that one off. If building an orphanage in Africa is a hot button for you, you can check them out here.

My souvenir hat from Montana that everyone says looks goofy on me. Thought I'd also do the ship figurehead pose to make it even more goofy.

We escaped the ultimate flooding that we all feared. But there is plenty of evidence of the water level. A ditch pond.

Drizzly walk.

Harvest Cinnamon Rolls

Inspired by: Novel Eats

1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

3 TBSP Vegan Sugar

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup almond milk, warmed

Vegan Egg Replacer 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds whisked together with 3 tablespoons hot water (set aside and gel)

2 TBSP Vegan Butter (E Balance)

1 TBSP applesauce

2 ¾ cups unbleached flour

½ teaspoon salt

FILLING: 

½ cup brown sugar, packed

½ tablespoon ground cinnamon (Idea: maybe reduce this and add some other ground spices like nutmeg, ginger and allspice)

3 tablespoons vegan butter, softened

Glaze:

• 1/2 container tofutti cream cheese
• 1 cup vegan powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Mix yeast, sugar, and heated almond milk in a large mixing bowl and let stand until foamy. Add egg replacer, pumpkin, melted vegan butter, applesauce, flour, and salt.

Mix well and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough should be firm and smooth, not sticky. Keep flour handy to add if dough is too sticky, just add a little at a time.

Set the dough aside in a covered bowl and let double in size. (left overnight to rise)

After the dough has doubled, turn it out onto a floured work surface, cover, and let rest for 10 more minutes.

As the dough is resting, mix the cinnamon with the brown sugar.

After the dough has rested, roll it out into a rectanglish shape (can't do a dough rectangle in our house).

Spread dough with vegan butter, then sprinkle each dough evenly with your sugar mixture. You can add other items to your filling like nuts or raisins.

Roll the dough into a log, so it the roll is longer and thinner, like horizontal profile verses landscape.  Then cut the rolls so that you have even slices.

Place rolls in a lightly greased baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375, and make your glaze.

Bake rolls in your preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes and check to make sure they are done – if not, bake another five minutes and check again.

I apologize for the font issues. Annoying.




   

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Rob the Builder ~ He Can Do It.

I've got to share some special "art" with you. 

Disclaimer: You know that I laugh at inappropriate times. Like in church and the world's saddest movie -- and when someone suffers a non life-threatening injury.  So. This is my confession, my shame and flippin' hilarious.

Rob teaches construction technology and occasionally he comes home with some great stories. The other day he brought home a picture. 

My favorite, oops, "Rob didn't see that one coming" moment happened two years ago. But it didn't have any art, so I'm going to tell this one. 

After days of studying safety with tools, it was time to work (read play) with tools. Finally. The kids were excited and maybe a little nervous. Rob had done a good job painting word pictures of "tools can hurt you" scenarios.

The lab consisted of kids, two by four boards and nail guns with nails. The group worked together so Rob could give tips and offer help. One gun was a bit sluggish, the other, well, calling it hair trigger might be appropriate. Each student got to nail with each gun. The speedier gun was the one assigned to the next student in the lineup so Rob got into position. "I'm going to hold this board here, you shoot it into place here." Simple, no problem. Until the kid accidentally bumped the trigger and produced an extra shot. Where did the shot go? Into Rob's thumb and then into the board. Rob's done a few different variations of this before, it's old news to him. It missed all vital stuff and he said it didn't really hurt. However. The reality of the teacher nailed to the board caused a little bit of mass panic. Rob calmly explained that he was fine. No. An ambulance didn't need to be called. All was well. He just needed a little help removing his thumb from the board. A hammer was asked for an produced and prying commenced. When that didn't work, the nail was pounded out the way it came in. All good til it twisted. Rob calmly took over the full procedure, pulled the nail, slid his thumb off the nail and went to the first aid kit. 

All in a day's work.

He then noticed that the poor operator of the nail gun looked a little green. He got him safely seated before nature took it's course.

The next day the artwork appeared on a kid's desk. When asked why he'd drawn the incident. The artist said it needed to be commemorated.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Vegan Mexican Seven Layer Dip & Jalepeno Poppers

 Vegan Mexican Seven Layer Dip

Minus a layer or two. Wink. Wink.

One can of TJ's black bean refried beans.  (Or homemade version from dried. Rinse, soak and cook Black Beans, then reheat them smashing them and seasoning them with garlic powder, a little salt and olive oil.)

A few TBSPs of Tofutti's Sour Supreme

Salsa Verde (green salsa)

Romaine or other leaf lettuce chopped (several leaves)

Chopped tomatoes

Chopped black olives

Finely chopped onion

Finely chopped yellow, red and/or green pepper. 

Trader Joe's (or equivalent) low salt organic tortilla chips for dipping. (TJ's salt free organic ones are super tasty...no sodium)

I'm not going to give you amounts. You'll have to layer it on to taste. If you don't like onions, olives, etc. leave em off, or go crazy adding even more of one item. Put the black beans in the bottom of a flat bowl/casserole/dish. An 8 x 8 or so. Spread it out. Dollop several blobs of Sour Supreme on the beans and "frost" the beans. The next layer will be the Salsa Verde, do the same thing with dollops and spread over cream. Then top with the chopped lettuce. Next the chopped tomatoes. Ditto onions and black olives. Last will be the colorful peppers. There is enough flavor that you won't miss the cheese. You can warm the beans before adding the other ingredients. But it's really good cold. Serve it with tortilla chips.

The Poppers recipe is HERE.

Notes on the changes we made: 

Bread crumbs were Panko bread crumbs. Highly recommended.

The cheese was Daiya Pepper Jack.

We used Almond Milk

Our eggs were flax eggs. 1 TBSP ground flax seed plus 3 TBSP water for each egg, the recipe calls for 2.

So here is the ingredient list we used. Go to the link for the instructions. Gotta give credit for the recipe.

12 fresh jalapeno peppers
6 oz.   softened Tofutii Better Than Cream Cheese
1 ½ c.  shredded Daiya Pepper Jack cheese (or cheddar)
2-TBSP ground flax seed. PLUS 6 TBSP water (mix & set aside)
2 Tb   unsweetened almond milk
1 c.     panko breadcrumbs
½ c.    flour