Friday, November 30, 2007

O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

Our tree is up - actually has been since last Friday...

The Man-Cub has had the honor of picking our tree for the last 7 years or so...

He generally does a very good job - he's getting better at it anyway...

The whole house smells like balsam - we get used to it and then leave and come back and get to smell it afresh...

The Man-Cub loves the stag candle holder...

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Tag - you're it

This is not for a meme - the Man-Cub and his friends were playing an adapted version of tag in the little bit of snow we got before Thanksgiving. You have to stay on the pathway - much more difficult to avoid being tagged...

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Thanksgiving Treats

I made Bryanna's reliable pecan pie to take to a Thanksgiving potluck last week - the Man-Cub called it Northern Pecan Pie - I guess as opposed to Southern Pecan Pie...

I also made a green bean casserole with vegan mushroom soup - I've posted that and the recipe before...

both were yummy and got 'all eaten up'...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Skit

My den was responsible for the skit at last nights pack meeting. Here they are practicing their skit - 'Lewis and Clark get lost'.

The Man-Cub is Clark - in the 'coonskin' cap.

The theme for the month was Indian Nations and I must say that it was difficult to find a skit that wasn't insensitive/derogatory to Native Americans - this one was pretty cute - it's not vegan 'though.

LEWIS AND CLARK GET LOST
Character: 4 Native Americans, Lewis and Clark
Scene: 4 Native Americans on stage, Lewis and Clark enter.
Lewis: Hello my name is Lewis.
Clark: And mine's Clark, and we're exploring our way across this new
land.
Native American 1: We don't think its' a new land. We've lived here for many moons.
Lewis: Great! You should know your way around very well.
Clark: And that's great because you see, we are lost. Could you help us
find our way to the Missouri River?
Native American 2: Missouri River? Never heard of it.
Native American 3: Me either. I've heard of the Misery River, but it's downstream quite a ways.
Native American 4: I once ate some liver from a cow from Missouri, but I guess
you're not looking for the Missouri Liver.
Lewis: You are all crazy. You've lived here all these years, and you can't
tell us how to get to the Missouri River?
Clark: You must not roam much.
Native American 1: That may well be, but at least we aren't lost!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Story Telling Photos

Hannah at Bittersweet http://bittersweetblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/photographers-best-friend/ is having a photo contest - a series of photos that tell a story. This one happened quite by accident - the Man-Cub was stacking and counting our Moravian Spice Cookies and he was so determined to get them all to stand up - he called it his 'leaning tower of cookies'...




Ah well - all's well that ends well - and this ended as a delicious plate of cookies...

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Moravian Spice Cookies

My dear friend Amy used to live in Winston Salem, NC - and we used to stroll around Old Salem - where they make Moravian Spice Cookies. They were not (vegan but they are vegetarian) and the recipe was quite easy to vegan-ize.
The recipe is here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Moravian-Spice-Cookies/Detail.aspx - just use Earth Balance instead of butter.
The dough looks sort of dry and crumbly after mixing...
but wrap it and let it rest a bit and it will come together...
I roll mine out between two sheets of plastic wrap - that way I don't have to add any more flour - just roll it out really thin (almost like making lefse - haha)...

and then be careful to bake only until the edges start to brown - they are very thin and crispy - and we got about 70 cookies from this batch...

63 the Man-Cub says - to be exact...

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Vegan Sausage

I used Bryanna's recipe for vegan breakfast sausage - and it's really yummy! - I've had it a couple of times on a leftover toasted biscuit for breakfast and on a toasted english muffin.

I'm getting better at the kind of seitan made in broth...

These smelled so good frying...

I wrapped them individually for school day breakfasts...

and popped them in the freezer - they probably won't last long enough to need to be frozen.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Another Good Turn

The Man-Cub's Pack collected food for the needy at the local grocery store again. He was much more assertive handing out the flyers this year. He was paired with a Tiger Cub (very shy) for his hour shift. I think it works well to have an older Cub help a younger one like this - we should probably do more in that way - maybe I'll take my Webelos Den to a Tiger Cub meeting and have them help with the craft, etc. I hope that next year in his last year as a Cub Scout - the Boy Scouts do some integration activities so that the transition will be less difficult.

They collected over $200 in donations and over 500 lbs of food - YAY!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

I took these pumpkin spice (the Man-Cub's choice) cupcakes to the Man-Cub's class for a Thanksgiving snack yesterday.


I adapted a recipe for a World War II ration cake that doesn't use any eggs.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

1 3/4 flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Mix dry ingredients in one bowl

1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup water
Mix wet ingredients in one bowl - then add to dry ingredients and mix well with a whisk. Then add 2 teaspoons vinegar and mix well and pour immediately into cupcake pans - this made 12 cupcakes - so when those came out I made 12 more.

The icing is just a buttercream icing made with Earth Balance and soymilk - I was going to add some tofutti cream cheese - but decided not to.

These were super easy moist and yummy!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Going Into Winter

by Hubert Witheford

I am in the full blast.
Never
I begin to understand
Was I ever
Out of it.

Usually
The trees relax gradually
Into nakedness
But today the leaves hurtle past me.

Each morning
I wake earlier
Mourning
The chances
That will never happen again,

Welcoming
The deluded sparrows
Who think it is dawn.

We've had our first little snow - that will probably stay on the ground now - Just in time for Thanksgiving. The Man-Cub was thrilled to see it this morning - and our bird feeder was blown from it's tree and crashed - the deluded sparrows still fluttered to the seeds on the ground...

...it's still snowing...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Twinkletoes

I made the twinkletoes - I needed some new slippers (Yes after much patching - the beloved Sacha slippers were patchable no more) and I happened to have some leftover black yarn (from Robert's afghan) - I didn't even need a whole skein.

It was fun and easy and I had a new pair of slippers in an evening...

My only changes were to add a little triangle of stitches to the strap...

And although these are adorably cute - they aren't easy to slip on and off...

I'm going to stitch little felt pads on the bottoms in hopes that they will last longer too...

Monday, November 19, 2007

Peach Calzone

I know you're thinking what's the picture of apples for with that title. Well I do have a lot of apples still to work up - but I found a lone package of frozen peaches in the freezer - not really enough for a full pie - but I didn't want to let them go bad...

So I made a half a pie crust (my trusty oil recipe from the sidebar) and just mixed the peaches with a little sugar and flour...

It was really good - and made a perfect 3 serving size - I may do this more often...

Sunday, November 18, 2007

National Blog Posting Month

Did you know that November is National Blog Posting Month? - I've joined the ring. I need a little bit of added stress - making me post to the blog - I figured - hey I'm over half way already and I didn't even know about it...

nablopomo07

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Tagged

Helena at http://sanctimony.net/
tagged me with a meme.

RULES:
A. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
B. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
C. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
D. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Random Things:

1. I speak French too - I even get to listen to French Radio Canada - as we're just about 1 hour from the border...
2. I have been to France...
3. I have been to Canada...
4. I have not been to Mexico...
5. If I'm sittin' - I'm knittin'...
6. I love snow...
7. I make up words - for no real reason - for example - I'm more likely to call our dog 'Pooka' than 'Jack' (Jack is his real name) - he now answers to both...

I tag...

Karen http://world-of-karen.blogspot.com/
Mom http://hallofflowers.blogspot.com/
Keith http://www.kdab.blogspot.com/
Denise http://www.kdab.blogspot.com/
Vania http://acraftyvegan.blogspot.com/
Torrance http://torranceknits.blogspot.com/
Kala http://vegancraftastic.blogspot.com/

Thanks Helena - nice to meet you.

Friday, November 16, 2007

The Garden Asleep

We put the garden to bed for the winter last weekend - we tilled in a nice layer of compost - so it's all ready to go for next spring.

We still have some onions potatoes and cabbages from the garden in the veg bin of the fridge - but they'll all be gone soon - and then no more organic veg for a while...

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Finished T-Shirt Prints

The LYO finished their t-shirts last night and peeled the paper off to reveal...

TaDaaa

They all did a really good job!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

As Southern as Grits


That's me - up here anyway - I don't think I stood out as 'southern' down south - but up here I sure do. I probably won't ever say about like 'a boat' or roof like 'ruff' - but I do try to fit in and say 'fer funny' or 'fer sweet' whenever I can - of course with my accent it's bound to sound funny to their ears - I just know they're thinking - 'oh fer cute - she's trying to talk like us...'

A gentleman at church the other day asked the Man what a 'grit' was - and he thought that was funny as we had never heard it used in the singular.

The Man-Cub is still not very fond of grits - when he was a toddler we used to make cream of wheat and call it grits - then one time I gave him 'real' grits and he said 'No Mama - I don't like sand in them' - I know Awww - fer sweet...

Anywhooo - I do love my grits. The Man orders them from http://www.mybrandsinc.com/ShopOnline/catalog.asp We have to buy a case at a time - but we can eat a case of grits...


I make mine extra creamy by adding a bit more water and the Earth Balance while they are cooking and I stir them quite a bit too.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Free Rice

This is so much fun - I could play it all day - if I didn't have work and knitting to do that is...

I'm trying to donate at least 1000 grains a day - that takes about 5 minutes of play.
http://www.freerice.com/ - Go Play Now!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Stuffed Peppers

I thought I'd try out a new recipe before I served it for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's a stuffed pepper recipe from The Domestic Affair http://www.domesticaffair.ca/

These were really good - I baked them in little custard dishes because I thought it would be cute...

I put a couple of tablespoons of water in the bottom of each dish and wrapped it in aluminum foil...

Served here with turnip greens (the manager ordered them and some collards - and even some okra - especially for me - frozen, of course - but still YAY!) baked sweet potatoes, cornbread and homemade applesauce - the menu for Thanksgiving will be more traditional...

A closeup - I should have moved the potato - so you could see the pepper better...

Oh - the custard cup thing didn't really work out for serving - as we wanted to cut the pepper up with the stuffing - it was still cute 'though...

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Fun with Freezer Paper


Every year our LYO makes T-shirts emblazoned with the LYO logo. And we use Freezer Paper stencils to do this...

I print a copy of the pattern on 11 x 17 paper for each youth...

And they use an exacto knife to cut out the pattern...

Needless to say - some stencils are prettier than others...

Then we iron them onto the shirt...

And use a little sponge thingy to 'trounce' the white paint on...

They are invariably happy with their shirts - I think they feel a real sense of accomplishment and I try to help (or interfere) with their creative process as little as possible...