Scraps and Snippets ~ Vegan What? Did You Just Insult Me?

October brings pumpkins.

Falling leaves.

Delicious smells, shorter days, and slippers.

(Awkward story. I had to run to the grocery store last night and waited til the after work crowds cleared out. At one point, while a block away from my house, I noticed my feet felt weird. I was wearing spa flip-flops. Terrycloth with nubbies and no tread and in a color that would grab notice even if my frequent wipeouts on the slick floor did not.) What to do? Did you notice I said the floors are slick and my slippers have no tread? Yes. I went home and changed into proper footwear.)


And October brings a first for me. It is Vegan Month of Food. Which was started as kind of a tribute to the NaNoWriMo. (National Write a Novel in a Month - month). But it's about Vegan and writing about Vegan. 

And we know I have the capacity to do that. 

Since I've participated in NaNoWriMo twice I felt participating in Vegan MoFo is a no-brainer.


I will be focusing on Vegan, which won't change things much at all. : ). October will bring a Vegan birthday cake. An overnight cold camping trip. A visit with friends from two different states who may or may not want to learn more about Vegan food and will get lots of opportunities to taste some of our trials and errors. I have four Vegan cookbooks I need to review. And. Well, there's always the farm. Kombucha, a chance to borrow a friend's Excalibur for a week. Well. Let's just say I shouldn't run out of Vegan content in October. 

Happy October. Happy Vegan MoFo. Let the fun begin.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Daily Bread, and Chocolate and Farm Thoughts

Insanity comes in many forms. 

One of those might be writing a blog post at a wee late hour when I should be chasing sheep. But. I gotta make hay while the sun shines. Or the moon shines. Or...


I digress. 

Speaking of sheep and moons. The farm day was actually kind of a sad one. Oh. The weather was amazing. The kind where you roll down the car windows and suck all the scents into your nostrils with gusto. Where the wind blows through your hair so you arrive at your destination looking a little like Harpo Marx (or a clown should you need help with that visual.) (Actually. That might be just me this happens to.)


So after a perfect drive in weather that was perfect, I arrived to a pack that was full of glorious veggie bounty and quick to boot. Why was it sad? Because it was officially the last day.


Because of the hail, the farmers are going to keep it going. But, our official duties have come to an end. But the invitation was extended for us to come same time, same place as often as we want to. And I think we have to, the farm has gotten under my skin, and completely so, like the dirt works it way into my fingernails (and toenails.)


Tonight ^, Mrs. Toad-Boy and I took an Artisan Bread making Class at the local college. We each took bags of freshly baked bread home. Ahhh. The car smelled heavenly. Not sure how they taste. ^ and I were not even tempted to taste as we were full from gorging on a new recipe my sweet tooth required me to make today. I'm giving you the link. (Scroll down for the version I made.)

Think before you freak. This stuff is delicious. Now I know. Some of what I make and call delish isn't something you are going to be making any time soon. Or even become tempted to try. But. If you have a sweet tooth but want something slightly better for you than most of the crud out there....well, you could do far worse.

(What I did different. I made the batch of chocolate chip (about halfway down the page, highlighted and clickable). I added a total of 2 TBSP almond milk, 3 TBSP of oats, and blended very well. I also added half of the chocolate chips and blended those, too. Then I took half the batter and put them in half a bowl and sprinkled the rest of the choc chips on top. To the mixture in the food processor, I added 1 TBSP of cocoa powder. Then blended it up and spooned it into the bowl next to the choc. chip version. It thickened up decently. Especially the chocolate one. Oh my it's good. )

Scraps and Snippets ~ Garden Garlic Soup

Here's a quick recipe I need to slide in while I actually have Internet. My connection is unstable. Why? I suppose it's because it's MY connection. As my internet waxes and wanes like the moon but with way less predictability, I'm going to take a chance at posting rather than put that energy into throwing my computer, Frisbee style, across the room. 

This is tasty and hearty. And has already been made twice. To raves. Methinks it's a keeper. It really needs only garlic, onion, water, potatoes, corn and salt/pepper. Of course everything we used we got from the Farmer, including the basic recipe.

Garden Garlic Soup

Melt 1 TBSP or so of Earth Balance in large pan. (A Dutch Oven works the best)

Add an entire minced garlic bulb (the whole thing, with all the little cloves, but not the papery stuff around the cloves, those you should put in a bag in the freezer and use when you make your own veggie stock like I plan to do.)

1 Onion, minced

Heat/saute until the onions are translucent. If they get browned that's great. 

Add 1 LB Organic Potatoes, chopped. Peel only if they need peeling. (I'm guessing about 6 biggish potatoes, and a dozen or so small ones.)

Sweet Corn, scraped from about 6 ears. (I used it raw because the starch from the uncooked corn made the soup thicker.)

Any other veggie that tempts you. I chopped up some carrots. Thought about adding green stuff but decided not to, but probably will next time. 

Pour enough water into the pan to cover the veggies. Heat on low for an hour or so. (Or stick it in the oven on low, or in a crock pot for a few hours. Add salt and pepper to your family's liking (or your own). Makes about six decent sized bowls of soup.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Funky Monkey Pancakes in Honor of National Pancake Day

Farm day report tomorrow.


It has been preempted by National Pancake Day.


Did you know there was such a thing? And yesterday was it.


We feasted on Scrambled Tofu


and

Funky Monkey Pancakes.

1 Smashed ripe banana

1 1/2 TBSP baking powder

2 TBSP vegan sugar

2 TBSP nut butter

2 Cups non-dairy milk

1 Cup unbleached all purpose or whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 Cup oatmeal

Vegan Choc Chips...about 1/2 Cup

Smash banana with baking powder, it will get foamy, mix well, add sugar, nut butter. When well mixed add non-dairy milk. Stir in flour and oatmeal.

Heat griddle, spray with or melt non-dairy fat on surface. When ready pour 1/4 cup circles of batter onto griddle. When the the surface is full of air bubbles, flip over. Add a chocolate chip face, or polka dots. Eat. Makes about 16 pancakes.

These are not overly sweet and taste quite a bit like banana bread. To get a stronger peanut butter flavor, I'm going to add another TBSP of peanut butter next time and see if that does it. They are tasty as they are, but, of course, I'm going to tweak em.

Scraps and Snippets ~ What I Learned In Raw Food Class

Spices and herbs fall into different categories between the sweet and bitter spectrum of tastebud land. Our dishes need a proper blend of sour, salt, sweet and bitter to taste good. The perfect bullseye of taste falls within the mix and blends.

I knew the tastebud pleasure flood goal. But I had an imperfect education in proper spice/herb leanings. Spearmint is sweet but peppermint can go sweet or bitter. Fresh basil is sweet but the dried version will add bitter notes. Cinnamon leans sweet or bitter which explains why cinnamon is called for in so many savory recipes as well as the classic cinnamon roll. : ) Acid can also decrease the need for salt. If a dish tastes flatish, instead of another few shakes of salt an acid might work better.

I also learned that heating herbs too much kills the flavor, and that spices need the heat to bring out flavor. And that spices are two to three times more flavor packed than herbs. So. I need to avoid spices in dishes that don't get cooked and add herbs to my cooked dishes at the last few minutes. Really? That explains a few fails.

All but three of my spices are seriously outdated. Fresh is three to six months. I literally have three that young. The rest are gray haired and using walkers. So. I will be working on parting with my ancient spice. Oooh. Remember the Spice Girls? Wouldn't it have been fun to have an Ancient Spice in the band? Ha. Ha.

We also tried sprouted and soaked grains in banana date soaked oat groat oatmeal, and sprouted quinoa and wheatberry salads. Pretty tasty stuff. The class had chatting time and our classmates want to meet Mother and give kefir and Kombucha a taste. We'll pack a small jar of Kombucha and a small jar with a baby mother to class next week.

Ooooh. That will be fun. I'll try to remember to snap pictures of first encounters with Mother. Heeheehee.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Of Apple, Cinnamon, Pumpkin and Super Sweetly Cheap Cookbooks...

 I have stacks of books at my house. A result of a long term compulsion to buy books that are bargains. Some of them are cookbooks, some novels, and some are about figuring out life. I occasionally want to clear out some of the ones I've read, used and don't plan to keep using. The space I net is a bonus. Feeling green is another bonus.


We have a Half-Price Books in our metro area. And Half-Price Books buys books, and sells books at sometimes super bargain prices. I have quite the good time there. Especially when I find a book I've been wanting real bad.  


We were in the neighborhood the other day and I sold some cookbooks that were ones that didn't work for our new way of eating.

I ended up turning those few books into a SCORE. We found a cookbook we'd been eyeballing on Amazon. For six bucks cheaper. Win. Win. Win. Turn in six books, take home one keeper? Priceless.


^ (The unpronounceable symbol for the daughter who used to be known as 24 because her birthday is right around the corner and I have to change her name every year anyhoo.) made pumpkin muffins and cupcakes. Both are keepers. This cookbook will NOT be going back to Half-Price Books. I'll do a review of it soonish. I found some recipes that I'm super excited to try, too. 

The pancakes are ones I made from Peas and Thank You. Not ready to review it fully yet. But if you have an inkling, I'm telling you her Apple Cinnamon pancakes (yes, the pictured ones) are pretty much worth the purchase price if you are a pancake fan. We've been buying a Vegan pancake mix and will NOT be doing that anymore. Five from scratch batches will likely pay for the cookbook. I also found more pages to fold over of recipes I want to try. I can tell you Peas and Thank You is a keeper.

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.