Scraps and Snippets ~ Farmish Thoughts...

This will automatically post while I'm at the farm today. How fun is that? 


Okay. Fun might be overkill. I do love the autopost feature of Blogger, though. 


There is a rumor that it will hit the mid-70's today. And if the weather today is anything like yesterday, it's going to be fabulous. 

Did I mention we found a tomato worm while we cleaned up the garden? Remember the tomato worm? The horned devil of the bug/insect kingdom? The farmer had a ritual dance to make them go away. And to dispatch with one is horrendous and hideous, and may necessitate counseling. This sucker, the one we found, had fortunately already crossed over and it was as long as my pinky finger, and as thick around, too. UGH! Shudder. I'm thinking the farmer dance might just be a natural girlie reaction to a wicked ugly critter vs. a chant to make them go away. 


Tomorrow won't be a Vegan or food post at all. Just so you know. Today was going to be the same, but I'll be at the farm. Farm = food and veggies. And I've found out that today is World Vegan Day. The US has a total of four events to celebrate. But worldwide, whew, apparently there are lots of Vegans out there. It's a whole alternate reality for sure. Here's a comprehensive website if you are interested.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Buh-Bye Vegan MoFo, Hello Isa...

I feel like I should post something profound today. It is the last day of my first Vegan MoFo.

A year ago I couldn't even fathom going Vegan. Nine months ago I was dreading it. Seriously.

But I decided I could give up dairy for a month. One measly month. And now. Here I am, just finishing seven almost perfectly clean months of Vegan eating.

I'm sure this won't be my last Vegan Month of Food.

I feel like I should have a radical recipe to celebrate with. There is a dill potato soup in the crockpot ala Vegan with a Vengeance. But I can't give you her recipe. And the weekend saw us cleaning out the fridge and using up some things that needed to be eaten. Most of them were tasty. Like the Asian slaw soup which was a serendipitous creation that will probably never be repeated because the salad was so so and the recipe was tossed. I was happy that I could use up some non-Vegan items for a potluck, too.

I do have a few Vegan things to celebrate.

One. See my left-sided sidebar? The cool Featured Recipes thing. My recipes will all be posted there and you can click on it and see a whole page of recipes. Right now there are nine. But as I get time to convert, I'll be doing that.

Two. I found out that Isa Chandra Moskowitz (Vegan with a Vengeance) is coming to my neck of the woods next Saturday. How cool is that? Very!

Three. Even though it was 26 degrees this morning, the sun is shining and we are pushing 60. That has nothing to do with Vegan, but the dogs are currently lounging in the sun as it splashes across the entryway floor, and that kind of makes me happy. (Mostly cuz they aren't up in my bizness while I'm trying to type, and because they are cute.) 

And yesterday was so nice we winterized the garden. My raspberry bushes are out of control. I think that means we are going to have a great harvest next year. Or they are alien mutants and are going to entomb us on Halloween night.

If you don't hear from me again, you can assume that the alien raspberries attacked. If you know Isa tell her not to be concerned. I will not be a creepy fan. I'll try not to be a creepy fan. I'm really normal. Tell her that. All of you who really know me are NOT allowed to comment unless it's nice. Not kidding.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Apple Soup and Pepper Yum....

Bizarrely good soup.


Xta emailed me a recipe that she thought sounded like me but pretty much said sounded overall nasty. Ha. Ha. Well, I now know how she feels about me!


Kidding. Of course Xta loves me.


I liked the recipe. But it needed major tweaking. So here is my version.

Harvest Candied/Curried Apple Stew

1 TBSP Coconut Oil

1 Large small dice onion

1 Clove (Large or two medium) minced garlic

4 Large or 5 medium stalks of celery, small dice

2 Apples small dice

4 Cups vegetable juice

2 Cups apple cider or juice

1 TBSP curry powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Sea Salt and pepper to taste.

Melt Coconut oil, saute celery, garlic, onion. When tender and caramelized add the vegetable broth, the apple juice, the apples, curry powder and cinnamon. Simmer for about an hour. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Not too sweet, not too spicy. Refreshing in an oddly delicious way. And easy. Win. Win. Win.


I also made stuffed peppers out of some leftover tidbits. I had about a 1/4 cup of Daiya cheese. Some peppers fresh from the farm, and a mish mash hash of leftover Seitan, garlic, onion and potatoes.

Stuffed Green Peppers

1/2 onion small dice

1 clove garlic minced

2 to 3 baked potatoes small dice

1 cup seitan diced into cubes

2 TBSP Earth Balance

1 cup of cooked lentils

1 cup of brown or black or red rice

6-8 Bell Peppers, cut in half and seeds removed

Melt Earth Balance, toss in the garlic and onions and saute until translucent. Toss in potatoes and brown until some of the potatoes get crispy, finally toss in seitan. Add lentils and rice. Scoop mixture evenly into the pepper halves. Sprinkle Daiya cheese. Bake until pepper is tender, (about 35-40 minutes in a 350 oven).

Scraps and Snippets ~ A Little Hair of the Cat er Kernel That Bit You?

I follow a few blogs. Most of them are Vegan focused because, clearly, that is my learning curve right now.

One is Peas and Thank You. I love Mama Pea's spicy posts.

She didn't disappoint the other day. I haven't made the recipe and don't know when I'll get around to it. But this caramel popcorn post reminded me of a hilarious, though a little icky, story a friend told me.

My friend has a favorite family recipe for caramel corn. A lot of folks pop the corn in a paper bag, my friend uses paper bags to actually caramel the corn. I'm not sure of the procedure but she told the following story.

Her dad (who looks a little bit like Parks and Rec's Ron Swanson sans the bodacious mustache) and sister were at home with her and it was one of those nights. Not much to nibble on in the house. A few good back to back television programs on, and the air had a tinge of brisk in it. One of the three of them decided that popcorn sounded fabulous. And as we all know how that goes, three heads together pretty soon popped out the idea of caramel corn. (If the original idea is good, pour a decadent sauce on it or drench it in chocolate to make it AMAZING!)

My friend hopped up to get the job done. She decided to make a double batch for efficiency's sake and pulled out the ingredients and paper bags.

Later, after the caramel corn cooled and hardened they polished off one of the bags. But one was not enough. (As is often true of sugar drenched or chocolate drowned goodies.) Her dad began noshing on the second bag. He stood up and turned on the light. He held up a handful of caramel corn. "This is hairy."

My friend looked at him with a Huh face and said, "Huh?" "Hairy?"

The annoyed cat, aka Feral Will, has nothing to do with the story. However, it's a creepy picture of a hairy critter and I'm sure he'd be thrilled to coat anyone's caramel corn with some of his fur.

He held out his hand. "Look."

And she did. And his popcorn was covered with hair.

After a little freak out dance by the entire, now completely grossed out, party. They began trying to figure out a) how the heck they got hairy caramel corn. b) If the bag they scarfed had been covered in it too.

Here's what happened. My friend's mom had been cleaning out some closets at a relative's home. One who was going into a skilled care facility and hadn't moved in years. My friend's mom packed loads of things in containers and bags and a few found their way into my friend's house. Turns out that the elderly relative had been a hair dresser way back in the 60's. One of her grocery bags, which had probably been used to hold swept-up hair still lurked in her kitchen closet. And my friend's mom was thorough enough to use every little container she could find, even the last bag in the kitchen closet. Being the green gal that my friend's mom is, she decided the bag could be used yet again. It ended up in her kitchen closet. Where her daughter could grab it and use it for caramel corn er Caramel-and-50-Year-Old-Hair-Bits-Corn.

(Need an idea for a creepy Halloween trick? There you go.)

This probably can't be considered a Vegan Month of Food worthy post. After all, I just tell a story. And the caramel corn that is featured in the story was traditional with dairy. But, I did link to Mama Pea who is a "Go, go, Vegan!"  cheerleader. And I think there is a moral to this story. It is safer to recycle paper bags that have not been used to haul meat and dairy products. aka VEGAN bags. Bonus Moral: Never, never, never, reuse a paper bag for caramel corn that has been played in by a rambunctious cat.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Farm? For Reals...

I revisited the farm yesterday. We hadn't been for three weeks. Three long weeks.

Why? Two birthdays and a few visitors from out of town squeezed our plans. And the CSA was only supposed to go through the last week in September. But because of the hail storm and the damage that intense twenty minutes caused, the farmers planted more greens, turnips, radishes, kept pulling tomatoes out of the high tunnel, eggplants from the bushes that survived, and hoped for a late frost.

This is our haul. Twelve additional boxes looked just like ours, (but had tomatoes, too) and a dozen more were half full of loot. The sink full of lettuce is what 169 ounces of lettuce looks like. That's a whole lotta lettuce. And believe it or not, the farmer had a fight to the death with some pests who were chewing her kohlrabi right before we got there. Sounded ugly. Glad I wasn't there as a witness. Apparently those critters are hardy, Iowa-stock, too.

I missed the farm. And I get to go back for a few more weeks. Crazy that we'll be getting fresh produce into November. Crazy good.

Scraps and Snippets ~ A Little Late, But Not For Next Year...

Do you ever have those V8 moments, but not about V8?

The ones where you say. "Duh!!!! I coulda/shoulda been paying attention."

Apparently yesterday was national Food Day. October 24, 2011. What a great thing to blog about during Vegan Month of Food (aka MoFo). Yeah. Well, would have been, and, still going to.

Here's what I found out, accidentally, while reading someone else's timely post about Food Day, after the fact.

There were Food Day events in my area. (I remember driving by a sign that mentioned the farmer's market special event on Sunday, the 23rd. Of course I was excited. The sign was colorful and I love farmer's markets. But then I apparently got distracted and never revisited the initial happy, happy, joy, joy moment. Another bit of interesting trivia. One of my state's Senators is a chairperson. Whodathunk.

The Food Day goal is simple. "Food Day seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life—parents, teachers, and students; health professionals, community organizers, and local officials; chefs, school lunch providers, and eaters of all stripes—to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way."

Uhhh. I can support that. So next year, I will. I signed up for their emails so I can have a bit of a heads up. Clearly I need all the shiny, colorful reminders I can get.

Check em out, and Eat Well Guide, too.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Weekend Over ~ Sigh...

This past weekend was full of fun and food. Vegan food, of course. Our meat-eating friends visited from up north. They left with full tummies and a few recipes. Most of the recipes they adored were desserts. (Surprise there.) I know it's a good visit when my Martha Stewart friend, Michelle, wants to make a recipe I've served. And I'm pretty excited that all of them were Vegan recipes. (Did I mention that they pretty much love meat and dairy?)

& outdid herself in the dessert department. She made Peanut Butter cups from The Kind Diet, a pumpkin "cheese"cake (which also works great for a guilt free breakfast the next morning), and pumpkin muffins and sparkling ginger snaps from Vegan with a Vengeance.

I didn't take many pictures of food since we were busy having fun. We checked out some local history. Did a whole lot of shopping. They like the prices at our thrift stores and are fans of a few stores we have that they don't. We even went to the library and church. And for long dog walks with our two big girls and their teeny, tiny Arthur.