Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Weekend Lessons Learned...

This weekend I learned a few lessons.

Sad, Scalloped Thumb Buddy...

A) When you have one of those really, really sweet mandoline slicers. The ones that have the protective guard to hold your fruits and veggies and come with warnings to use them....yeah. That neat little razor sharp gadget. Even if you need to slice a bunch of potatoes and onions for dinner and have very little time to throw dinner together because you have to go to a jewelry party at which you are the demonstrator...DO NOT slice potatoes and onions or anything else without the guard. Unless, that is, you want to slice an unexpected non-veggie, such as your thumb. 

I've taken on the burden of pain to bring you this Public Service Announcement (PSA) about mandoline safety. Ms. Thumb is indeed sad. She bled on my pink sweater, payback, passive aggressive little twerp. Ms thumb will survive. Next time she might not be so lucky. So let's just say she learned a lesson, and indeed, what doesn't kill you, will make you stronger, proven. We will never, never, never misuse my mandoline again. Repeat after me. What I just said.

Lesson B) Bunnies are tricky and sneaky. Of course we know that based on the sheer number of bunnies who live with us. However, the little surprise bunny, Fanny, is proving to be very advanced in her trickiness, last night, while I was distracted she jumped out of the cage. I grabbed her right away, but it was a surprise. Rotten little thing.  

Lesson C) Recipe creating, tweaking, retweaking and fails are getting fun. I feel like I kind of have a basic understanding, finally, of Vegan cooking and baking. I've found some go-to recipes and am beginning to really enjoy layering, messing with, adding and subtracting to create new. 

almond bisYummy

I've decided to do a project for Vegan Month of Food (Vegan Mofo) for October this year. I'll be sharing a bunch of recipes then. But I'm trying, tweaking and creating them now, so we can test them out. Last weekend I scored two wins. And Friday and Saturday I messed with three more (two need a few tweaks but are nearly there, one, needs some rethinking). Sunday evening was another experiment that included a recipe for almond biscotti that was stellar. Fortunately, I made enough of a batch that it could be sampled instead of all earmarked for the other recipe. This little beauty in the picture was slated for scarfing. And scarfed it was.  And since this is just one component of a dessert that should be off the charts, I think I can go ahead and share the recipe soon. So come back tomorrow for the recipe. Toad-boy, a kind of a biscotti snob, crunched through one and called it the best biscotti he's ever eaten.

Hope you had a good weekend.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Day Job Smile...

In my day job I take chest x-rays. And I bill people. So. Let's just say most folks don't really look forward to seeing me. 

However, I do have some great fun on occasion and have managed to entice a few fans. 

One of my favorite patients begins laughing the second she sees me and doesn't stop til she leaves my room. Can you guess why she's one of my favorites? Seriously, I feel like a I should give her an autograph, she thinks I'm THAT funny. She even said as much. Well, paraphrased this is what she said, "My co-worked called me and I told him I was going to the doctor's office. He said, UGH!, but I said, No, it's not that bad, this is the easy day. And the x-ray girl is hilarious."  Then she cracked up. Her x-rays are sometimes challenging, too, since she has to hold her breathe and stay very still for a few seconds during my annual stand-up routine. I have to get all professional and down to business, and yet, she laughs even then. 

Another guy came in a few days later. We chatted. Then he said, "You know, I had that note you wrote me for a really long time." Uhhhh. I wrote him a note??? Odd. And I said as much. He reminded me that a few years ago I commented on how neat and tidy he was because he folded up his shirt when he removed it for his chest x-ray. He then apparently made a comment that his wife would be amused by my observation regarding his tidiness. So I offered to write him a note that said, indeed, that he was witnessed being neat and tidy.  So I did, and he posted it prominently and referred to it for self-esteem or gloating purposes til he lost is or spilled something on it in his normally sloven routine.

The scary thing is this. I just am sometimes crazy and do weird things for my own amusement. And then I forget about them and move on and forget that someone else was there, and maybe took notes (even ones written by me.) If I am hilarious some mornings, I wonder if it's connected to the amount of coffee I've consumed or the lack of sleep I've gotten the night before.

And upon thinking through the implications of this, I'd rather be known as the crazy, curly-haired, x-ray freak than a crabby, no-nonsense health worker who doesn't like her job. 

Yeah. 

I'll take crazy. People laugh with happy crazy people. With or at, it's still laughing.  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Fresh, Farm Art...

Nothing crazy happened at the farm. No creepie-crawlie, shuddery encounters. 

The vegetables were picked and ready to pack. The day was beautiful, almost autumn-like. And after weeks of heat, heat, heat, so welcome. The hundred degree dry wave has taken a toll on the veggies. The tomatoes are beginning to rebound from the heat and will probably continue as there are lots of sets and plenty of time for ripening. With the cooler temperatures there should be some decent picks left. The lettuces will be appearing again, soon. The potatoes are a different story. After some research, the farmer has decided that the uppermost potatoes were nearly cooked in the ground so they were quick to rot. They pulled out a decent yield. Just decent, though, and barely equivalent to what they planted. Then, over the following days potatoes began to turn. The yield shrunk to nominal. But. There hasn't been hail like last year.

The pack was quick and full of delicious items like eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, kale and basil.

Picmonkey helped me turn the pictures of the fabulous piles of eggplant into art. Something about the well-used plastic table and the harsh daylight shining on the eggplant, though beautiful, was a little bit stark. 

And, yes, I'm enjoying Picmonkey experimentation. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Photo Tweak-a-Bit

picmonkey tweaking

picmonkey playtime

picpicpicmonkey

tweak via picmonkey

Original

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Slippery Bunnies

Not bunny biting, bunny panic.

We've discovered something new about bunnies this past week. Apparently, they have more magic going for them than merely being pulled out of magicians' hats. 

You see. Our bunnies are gifted magicians on their own. They don't need no stinking guy in a cape with a stupid wand. 

They do their own stunts. 

These tricks happen during yard time. 

& has built quite the system or moveable animal containment pieces that allow her to graze the bunnies daily. They love this time. And are able to be broken up into safe units (i.e. ones who don't make more babies). The have access to grass and weeds and can run and relax as they so desire. But, like I said, we've discovered a few snafus.

Cases in point: Darcy playing the old slipperoo. The base of his wire playpen has bigger holes than the sides and top. I picked it up to move him one day. And he did not come with the cage. No biggie because I was able to pop it back over him before he discovered he was free. But unsettling none-the-less. & turned that cage upside down thinking that would solve the problem. 

Then just a few days later & was doing the usual bunny chores while the kids were enjoying play time. She glanced toward them and noticed little Emma (older baby) hoping around the yard, not the play pen, the yard. This picture was a self portrait after she caught her and before the adrenaline subsided. She's not sure where or how Emma waved the magic wand and let herself out. 

Just Friday the three of us got to do some bunnie herding when Charlotte (fabulous Craig's list cage debacle bunny) got out of the cage that Darcy had vacated. The door was latched tight, the sides and corners all buttoned up and the bars are all in place. Now, Charlotte is much bigger than Darcy, no way she'd get out of the bottom. And & had flipped the cage so the slipping out the bottom situation wasn't an option. Hmmm. 

The only option is for Charlotte to have stretched out, grabbed the top and pulled herself up Mission Impossible style, and out through the bigger opening. Or climbing the sides. Oy. Slippery bunnies we've got. 

This is what we've learned in the two months and one week since bunnies entered our lives. 

The stereotypes about bunny's fertility, speed of mating, and as magician's sidekicks do indeed contain slivers of truth. Are there any others I need to look into? I suppose I should do a study on the Easter Bunny before I start finding eggs all around the yard and house. .

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Deep Thoughts for a Monday

So, Saturday I played a bit at PicMonkey while I should've been putting my clothes away, folding laundry, weeding, sweeping the floors etc. 

Oh, the things you can do at PicMonkey, the things you can do. 

And the things you can avoid.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Vegan Maple Pecan Monkey Bread

Vegan Maple Pecan Monkey Bread

Dough

• 3 teaspoons yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110-115 f)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1 TBSP ground flax
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour + additional (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup) to knead into dough as needed. (I used mix of unbleached white and whole wheat pastry flour)

Place yeast in a bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the warm water, stir, add sugar. Let sit for several minutes until it looks foamy. Add oil, salt, flax and remaining water. Stir. Add the flour. Begin kneading the dough, adding flour until it becomes elastic and smooth.  BTW, I usually do this right in the bowl. Cover the dough and set aside for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. The dough will double. 

The Gooey Stuff

2-3 TBSP Earth Balance or coconut oil
1/3 Cup Maple syrup
1/3 Cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 Cup pecans

Preheat oven to 375

While waiting for dough to rise melt 2 -3 TBSP of Earth Balance or coconut oil in a small bowl. 

In an additional small bowl mix together two teaspoons cinnamon and 1/3 cup of sugar until blended. 

Chop or crush pecans if not already in pieces. 

When dough is doubled break it into approximate 1 inch balls. Dip each ball into Earth Balance/coconut oil then roll in cinnamon sugar mixture. Fill the bottom of a greased bundt pan. Pour half the pecans and half the maple syrup over the monkey nuggets. Then continue with the dough balls until you run out. Pour the remaining pecans and maple syrup over the last row and if you have cinnamon/sugar and oil left drizzle/sprinkle that over the top. 

Bake at 375 for 23-25 Minutes

When done let sit for a few minutes then place a serving plate over the bundt pan and invert. Let sit again for a few minutes then lift the pan off the bread, protecting yourself from steam. Serve. 

The maiden voyage of this recipe was nearly perfect. It wasn't all that much more involved to make the bread than to cut  those super processed biscuits into quarters. And with the flax and whole grain flour it feels better, too. I did try this with just the maple syrup and no sugar. It just wasn't gooey enough. Close. But the addition of the brown sugar coating each piece will take it to the next level.