...12.19...Over the Weekend...

...the Christmas Pageant was this weekend...they always do such an outstanding job with this production...it was so much fun...

...a very limited shopping trip...we're leaving for Japan next week...

...the Amaryllis Mom gave us for Christmas is sprouting up quite healthily...

...I got Amy's little pressie ready for gifting...we're getting together for Christmas a little bit later this week...so I ironed and reused a piece of tissue paper...

...I saw this cozy pair of pink booties and thought of Amy...so I bought them for her...

...the crinkly gold and white shreds are from another package...and I got the gold gift bag on clearance last year for a quarter...

...so it's a pretty frugal little giftie...Amy and I really just give each other little tokens of our affection...over all the years we've known each other...

...in anticipation of Mom's visit this weekend...I made a banana pudding...using my Bird's Custard and Kedem vanilla tea biscuits as vegan vanilla wafers are so hard to find...

...it's pretty perfect anyway...

...and I got out all the 'fixins' for her famous Vegan Ritz Cracker Cookies...

...for dinner we had pan fried Impossible Burger...with a mushroom sauce that the Man spent all day making...

...and these delicious turnips...they were like candy they were so good...

...and mashed potatoes and peas...of course...it was a fun and delicious dinner...and we were too stuffed to eat any banana pudding...haha...

...but that didn't stop us from making cookies...assembly line style...I made the peanut butter Ritz sandwiches and Mom stirred and dipped the cookies in the vegan white chocolate...

...and onto the parchment and a generous dousing of sprinkles...

...these are so delicious...and so easy to make...I wonder why we only have them at Christmastime...

...and my sweet nephew's wife sent us this delicious box full of...

...Vegan Chex Mix...a specialty of hers...and now we've got plenty to snack on...haha...

...and breakfast this morning before Mom left with Kitten (she's babysitting Kitten while we're in Japan...for 3 WEEKS...bless her heart)...

...I made my regular muffin recipe as "French Puffs"...you just don't add any fruit and then roll them in vegan butter and cinnamon and sugar while they're hot...

...they are so delicious...and they really do remind me a lot of the French Puffs I ate in France...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...12.17...Dinner and a Movie...

...dinner was a simple one...baked tofu...which I ate with A1 sauce...and a big baked potato...half of which I had with Myoko's butter and half with sauteed peppers and onions...a big salad and a 3 bean salad...I love 3 Bean salad...no idea why I don't make it more often...so i was pretty stuffed after that...

...we watched a "psychological drama" The Wonder...the trailer seemed a bit 'dark' to me and I was afraid it would be too stressful for me to watch...it wasn't scary though...it's about a girl who has survived even though she hasn't eaten in 4 months...which is of course not possible...the townsmen hire a nurse and a nun to 'watch' her...and see if it is a hoax...well of course it is...but they don't expose the hoax because she stops eating for realz...and then gets really weak and almost dies...of course...

...I would call it a pretty good movie...if you're into that sort of dark psychological theme...and it is after all just a movie about some people...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.16...A NEW BIKE...

...so here's my NEW BIKE...and she has quite the story...remember last year...mid-pandemic...when I refurbished my existing 20+ year old bike...

...that was in the early fall...and my Birthday was in July...so...sometime BEFORE July...before I started the conversion...the Man had ordered me a NEW BIKE...(more on that in a bit)...but because of supply chain issues related to the pandemic...they weren't able to deliver it for my birthday...OR...for longer than a whole year after that...I was happily riding my new/old bike all during that time...completely oblivious to the fact that there really was a new bike on the way...the Man is so good at keeping secrets apparently...haha...and he said that the company would email him every month giving him the option to cancel the order or continue to wait...and he always chose continue to wait because he really wanted to surprise me with a new bike...so...so...very...sweet...

...he said he silently watched me all through the refurb without saying a word...

...and then finally a year and a half after he place the order...he got the call that the bike had finally arrived...

...and here she is...

...the guy who delivered the bike was so nice...

...it's a Grandma Bike (Oma Fiets)...and we were watching a documentary about Holland and they talked about these Grandma Bikes...and how just about everyone there rides them...how smooth and comfortable they are...

...so they Man found a place in America (Peace Bicycles) that sells them...

...and he ordered one...and then waited quite patiently for it to arrive...

...I've put my beloved basket on her...not sure about the other changes I made to Beloved Old Bike...I'm a little bit sad about her...

...but I really do LOVE my new Oma Fiets...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.15...What I Ate in a Day...as a Vegan...

...I had a pretty big breakfast...scrambled tofu...veggie sausage...and 2 slices of toast...

...so...surprisingly I had a snack mid-morning...just a banana and some peanut butter...

...so then I wasn't very hungry for lunch...but I had made an instant pot of garbanzo beans because I wanted to make some hummus...

...so I had a small bowl of those...with a microwaved baked potato and some romaine lettuce leaves...which I folded up and ate with the beans...

...then...not surprisingly...I had an afternoon snack...some of the hummus with some of the multi-grain bread I'd made over the weekend...

...for dinner...absolutely nothing new or exciting...I Griddler-ed some sweet potato fries (Fry-Daddy-ed some for the Man...haha)...

...made a vegan coleslaw...I had to make a vegan mayo first...

...baked some tofu...

...and then Griddler-ed some zucchini...

...and that all made for a very satisfying supper...

...what did you eat yesterday?...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.14...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...I did the heel with the lighter burgundy...

...and then doing a princess sole (the smooth stitches of the stockinette to the inside of the sock...against my foot)...

...I pretty quickly knit to the toe...which I also knit in the lighter burgundy...I'm actually loving thing scrap yarn socks...and I'm ready to Kitchener the toe...and I'm pretty pleased with myself for thinking to switch to knit for the entire last round...because whenever I do a princess sole...the Kitchener stitch is kind of wonky right at the end as you don't have two smooth knit stiches to join together...but now I do...

...on to sock #2...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.13...Tuesdays with Julia...

...we made a delicious appetizer with three recipe titles...VEGAN MOULES EN SAUCE MOUCLADES/MOULES À LA POULETTE/MOULES À LA BÉARNAISE...

...very creamy and warm...nice for a little winter get-together...

...and all of the particulars are over at The Vegan Version...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.12...Over the Weekend...

...steaming waffles in the waffle iron...

...we started the weekend off with waffles...always good...

...I did the weekly shopping...of note...new-to-us plant based margarine...from Blue Bonnet...it's a little bit cheaper than Earth Balance...we'll see if it's as good...

...we went for a walk...and one of the ponds had this aerator that was making a rainbow pattern in the afternoon light...

...it was so pretty...

...and it shimmered and moved with us as we walked around that side of the pond...and disappeared when we turned the corner...

...this was the ornament that Mom gave me when they packed up Grandma's house...and I may have ruined it...

...it had some tree rosin on it...so using hot water and a mild soap...I washed that off the outside...and then...for some strange reason...I put a drop of soap on the inside and just held my finger over the top and gave it a little shake...DON'T EVER DO THAT WITH YOUR ANTIQUE ORNAMENTS...ARGHHHH...all of the silver washed off the inside...and I was left with basically a clear glass ornament...ARGHHH again...

...so I'm trying to recreate that mercury glass effect using some shiny metallic paint that we just happened to have...I like the way it looks...but I wish it was still original...oh well...it IS still an ornament from my Grandma...

...I made a vegan pie crust...

...baked it...

...and filled it with lemon pudding (it was instant...just made with almond milk)...

...it was good...it didn't set up as nicely as a cooked pudding would have though...

...remembering how good that impromptu bee-free-honee-mustard dressing was that I made a couple of nights ago...I on purpose made a whole jar...yum...

...and the only other food prep I did was to bake a loaf of multi-grain bread...and I sent my sweet sissie a bunch of recipes from my old bread machine cookbook...the man likes this one...(my favorite is the Dill Bread)...

...this one is yummy though...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!