Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Trust Me..

Come on you know you want to pet me. I won't bite this time, I promise. The light always glints off my fangs. Really. I'm a nice kitty. (I fell for it. He bit me. Sigh. Color me gullible, again.)

Scraps and Snippets ~ Chickpea Burgers and Chocolate Oatmeal Cake ~ Oh Yeah.

I've got a cake recipe (pictured is the muffin/cupcake version with a bite out of it.) And a link for you to a chickpea burger that is pretty tasty.

It's down-right very tasty on day two.

Link: http://edibleperspective.com/2012/01/apple-sage-chickpea-burgers/

CHANGES I MADE:*** I didn't have sunflower seeds so I used pine nuts, used two cloves of garlic instead of measuring, a small granny smith ditto the measuring thing, and I didn't add the TBSP of oil.

The first night they held their shape and tasted nice but were a bit soft.

Night, two, after sitting in the fridge all day and being reheated, they had the stronger texture of a burger, not tough, but good texture. The flavors married overnight, too. Next time I'll try the sunflower seeds and make a double batch. I'll serve one batch a night after I make them, and freeze the other batch for a quick, hearty meal.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cake (Vegan)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups boiling water

1 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup packed brown sugar.

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup coconut oil

2 flax eggs (2 TBSP ground flax seed or chia plus 6 TBSP water - stir and set aside for 5 or so minutes til it gels.)

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Mix water and oatmeal in mixing bowl, and let sit 10 minutes.

Add sugars, butter or margarine, and eggs/flax egg or egg substitute. Mix well.

Add flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt. Blend.

Pour into greased and floured 9 x 13. Top with chocolate chips and chopped nuts.

Bake in a preheated 350 degrees for 30 min

Also will make 20ish muffins. Grease the tins or use cupcake holders. Fill 2/3 full. Bake for approx 20-24 minutes at 350.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Weird Begets Weird...

So. I just went on a walk with snow grazers.

Never heard of a snow grazer?

Well, it's like your run-of-the-mill grazing type animal. Instead of grass eating, though, it eats snow.

Oh, and it's not exactly like a normal grazing animal of the bovine or equine category. No it is a dog. Or dogs. Yes. They scooped up mouthful after mouthful of snow, to eat.

And speaking of weird, and since I'm on a time crunch I'll just share a little more weirdness with you.

My BFF writing friend and I have a little game we play. A long, long time ago she got a rejection letter and it made her sad. Super sad. So being the great friend that I am I wrote her a little scene involving a hero with long flowing hair and crazy muscles who rushed in to save the day.

Pretty much, at this point, I've written a book. However, it is lame and gaggy in the worst way. But, just because it's fun to write some really goofy things, I'm going to share her favorite lines from the last two scenes I sent her.

To set up the scenes. Michelle is careening off to a large city to harm her rotten agent. Fabio is looking for her, knowing she was on the edge but not knowing where she is.

Michelle's favorite lines:

A sport car nearly clipped him in the thigh, would have if he hadn’t done some fancy footwork.

He had a mission and he would take prisoners if need be.

The greeter, a smiley broad-faced guy veering on the brink of collecting Social Security did his job.

Fabio felt every muscle ripple into a tightly coiled throttle machine.

Remember the mission. Security guards would only slow it down.

Oh, she could do drive. She had filing drawers full of drive.

She had enough drive to crush him and his little car.

slick as toast sliding under a door.

Trying to hide in the anonymity of rush hour.

Revenge, best served any temperature.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Oops. And Back to the Drawing Board

I'm on a quest. 

There is a contest for dairy free and gluten free cookies. I've made three attempts of late. Fortunately, each attempt gets better. Whew. 

My ultimate goal is to win the category that has NO allergy producing foods. No nuts, no dairy, no gluten, no soy. 

 

For your viewing pleasure. The attempts. I love that they look like cookies. And they feel pretty darn cookie-like. But the taste ratios are the buggar factor. I think the next batch will be "the Ones!" 

And. The soup that will not be shared. 

I made Pesto. (Spinach leaves. LOTS of garlic, a little olive oil, a hand ful of nuts) for chickpea cutlets the other evening. Good. But I had more pesto than cutlet. So I added veggie broth and white beans and called it good. NOT SO MUCH. Bland would be a complimentary critique. Mine would be harsher. So. I froze the fail and put the quart of soup aside for a base. I'll make it good next time, but it's going to take some added ingredients for sure.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Weekend Festivities

My Grandma turned 94 so family came up to celebrate.

We had some soups on Saturday. I did a "Beef" barley that was pretty tasty. 

Rough Estimate "Beef" Barley Soup

Dump 32 ozs or so veggie broth in a crock pot

2 Cups chopped seitan

1 chopped onion

4 stalks of celery small dice

2 handfuls of barley.

Low for 6-8 hours, high for 3-4.

I also made my Cranberry Orange cookies to rave reviews.

My cousin's family spent the night. He and his wife have raised refreshingly delightful kids. The kids are 6th thru 9th grade so they are at "that" age and dang, they were all respectful, conversational and pleasant. We introduced them to Bananagrams. (That's another state we have infected with our Bananagram word-of-mouth marketing. Let's see, Missouri, New Mexico, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas...oh, yeah, and Germany. I should maybe get a commission.)

The kids adored the dogs, and the dogs ADORED them.

One of the most hysterical things I discovered about my cousin? He shares some mannerisms with Chris from Parks and Recreation. I happen to love that quirky little show, and Chris is one of my favorites. My cousin even said "Literally." If you are a fan of the show you should be smiling right now. If you haven't seen the show, you probably should.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Oriental Lettuce Cups ~ Vegan

I hope you don't mind a recycled picture. : ) We ate these so fast I couldn't get one shot. More than one omnivore at the table said. "I'd be Vegan if I could eat this every day."

These taste a lot like P F Changs lettuce cups. Better, in my opinion, because I have control over my ingredients.

Oriental Lettuce Cups

2 Cups of "Hamburger Crumbles"
3 stalks of celery fine dice.
1/2 small dice onion
1 clove garlic minced
2 teaspoons of sesame seeds
1 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP sesame oil
4 TBSP soy sauce


Saute onion, garlic and celery in sesame oil until tender. Add "hamburger" crumbles, sesame seeds, garlic powder and soy sauce. Mix well. Scoop a few tablespoons into lettuce "shells." (2 or more Romaine leaves laid in a X if they aren't cuppy enough on their own. Or you could put the "shells" in silicone cupcake holders and press down til they form more of a cuplike shape. The weight of the filling does help with this.)

Scraps and Snippets ~ Crafty Wafty Part 1

X-ta sent me a nice email reminding me to post about the crafts & and I made for Christmas gifts. Actually, the email wasn't really all that nice. It basically called me rotten for holding out and not sharing what I said I'd share, blah, blah, blah.

So happens I can't share mine yet because there is one person on my list who reads this blog and has not become the recipient of her gift.

However, to clear my name and reputation, and because she made cute stuff, I'll post &'s craft gifts now.

The little orange owl...a toilet paper tube, crunched in on itself so it has owl ears, covered in burlap and modge podged to keep the fray away ended up darn cute. She drew feathers and faces with a Sharpie.

The glass jar. A repurposed canning jar (including a used lid which was spray painted, drilled and glued)becomes a super cute soap dispenser.

Finally, she made colorful/FUN aprons. A tea towel turned lengthwise...whatever decor she felt like. Scraps of fabric, a pocket, ribbons, a coordinating fabric, a smaller towel... The waistband is seam binding or ribbon.