Hodge-podge

I have so much to tell you! I’ve been completely consumed with crafting for holiday presents. I’m attempting to wrap all my gifts in reusable gift bags this year. That means that even for the gifts I’m not making, there’s still a bit of work put in to each one. The worst part is, I can’t even show off the gifts I’ve made yet in case any of the recipients read this blog. Don’t worry though, I’ll have some recaps after the holidays with some reviews and such.

Besides the hours devoted to sewing and the like, I do have some exciting news. Cupcakes from Vegan Bake Sale are now available at Meet Market in Silverlake. I just delivered the first order of Cookies & Cream, Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Spice cupcakes. Go get some! It will probably be your last chance before the holidays.

This year is going to be my cats’ first Christmas living with us. They’re loving all the boxes they get to play with (and a few catnip treats). It’s like cardboard box heaven for them. We adopted Meeme and Mochi on January 3rd of this year and they make me happy every single day. Seriously. I love them so much. Part of the reason I want to bring this up is that LA animal services is offering 50% off adoption fees for the holidays. Not that the fees are even very high to begin with, but it’s just that much more incentive to open your home and heart to one of these animals in need. If you’re considering getting an animal this year, I urge you to turn to the public animal shelters as these are usually the animals at highest risk of being put down. Not to mention they make it extremely easy for you to adopt.

Oh there’s so much more to say, but it will have to wait a little while still. Till then…

Thanksgiving 2009

I’m going to keep the chatting to a minimum and just show you a photo tour of our Thanksgiving this year. Enjoy!

It all started with a donut from Madeline Bistro.

The phillet no phish sandwich, Thanksgiving sandwich (which is pretty much all you could ever want from Thanksgiving), mashed potatoes and gravy.

Vanishing meal. Also consumed: biscuits & gravy, crepes filled with fruit. All amazing.

Visiting turkeys from Animal Acres. Luckily these guys will live long happy lives instead of being abused and murdered this Thanksgiving. Yeah, I said that.

Homemade pumpkin soy nog. My mom made this! I think that’s pretty awesome.

When making a pie, it is absolutely necessary to make a mess. It makes it taste better, I promise.

Best way to work up an appetite before Thanksgiving dinner. Okay so it was a rather leisurely ride to the beach. We were rewarded with a gorgeous sunset.

Brussels sprouts with capers. Oh how I love brussels sprouts.

Perfectly fluffy and wonderful mashed potatoes whipped up by Shawn. He also made fabulous gravy to go on top.

There’s that apple pie! All baked up with the infamous crumbly top. This is the last thing I stuffed in my face today.

Happy Thanksgiving! (p.s. Shawn does not like to smile in photos. He really is having a good time, don’t let the serious face fool you.)

Pumpkin Ravioli

Recently all I want to eat in the world is pasta with some sort of nutritional yeast sauce. It’s just so tasty and the perfect thing after a long day. In order to spice things up a little and tie in some of that fall flavor, I tried my hand at making pumpkin ravioli. Did you hear about the pumpkin shortage? Word on the street is there might not be any pumpkin left after Thanksgiving this year. Stock up before it’s too late. While you’re at it, you should try some of these raviolis.

This ravioli is rich and filled with all the essence of fall. It is perfectly paired with one of my new favorite sauces, a buttery sage sauce. I was so hungry that I kind of skipped the part where I write down the recipe for these guys but I can at least give you a general idea. All measurements are approximate.

Pumpkin Ravioli Filling

1 can pureed pumkin

1/2 cup Earth Balance

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp Sage

1/2 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/4 tsp salt

pinch of nutmeg

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Melt the Earth Balance in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add the pureed pumpkin and stir to combine. Add the seasonings to taste and cook for about 5 minutes.  Simple, right? Spoon into your prepared pasta dough (or whatever you’re using), form into raviolis and cook for 3 – 7 minutes.

The sauce, is very similar to the filling but with a completely different tangy flavor. It goes good with almost any pasta dish, but you probably want to avoid that since it’s pretty rich. It will be hard to resist though. Just so you know in advance. I never said this recipe was good for you.

Butter Sage Sauce

1/2 cup Earth Balance

1/2 tsp sage

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

juice of 1/2 lemon

ground pepper

Again melt the Earth Balance in a small sauce pan until it starts to bubble. Add the sage and nutritional yeast and let cook for about 3 more minutes, until it thickens slightly. Remove from heat and add lemon juice. Stir to combine fully and serve and devour!

zombies are out to get you

This Halloween Shawn and I participated in the Zombiethon run/walk around the Silverlake reservoir. We dressed up like zombies, terrorized a few Silverlake residents and had a lovely time walking around the reservoir on a beautiful October afternoon. Of course it was all for a good cause of raising awareness about brain cancer.

Since we’re pros in the zombie transformation department, Shawn won first place in the costume contest! He got a gift bag with a bunch of cool stuff, including an awesome limited edition zombiethon tee shirt, some gift certificates and of course a zombie craft kit. Of course, I completely hijacked the craft kit. It as put together by Home Ec and included everything you need to make some awesome zombie embroidery.

I stitched this zombie boy and girl on kitchen towels following the pattern from Sublime Stitching. The iron on patterns were super easy to follow, even for a first time stitcher like myself. Not to mention they look scary and awesome. It is kind of addicting too. I suddenly have the urge to stitch creepy little faces on fabric, sweatshirts, tees, towels, anything. Best of all, I finally get to use all that embroidery floss I’ve been holding on to from my friendship bracelet days (yeah we’re talking pre-teens).

You can check out Shawn’s photos from the event here and see more of the zombie madness. Also, check out our Halloween costumes (and a lot more)!

Baked Pumpkin Fusilli

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

If you haven’t noticed, Halloween is my favorite. I had to get one pumpkin recipe in for VeganMoFo, but of course, I waited for the last minute and didn’t have any ideas that wouldn’t take all day. I turned to my trusted cookbook collection and found the Baked Pumpkin Ziti recipe in Veganomicon. Of course I didn’t actually follow the recipe, but it’s nearly the same. It was a hearty dish for lunch on Halloween, with a bit of spiciness. I didn’t have a chance to make the seasoned breadcrumbs for the top, and instead substituted some seasoned flax meal. This is perhaps where my version was seriously lacking. I enjoyed the dish but it wasn’t terribly exciting. I find that often pumpkin can turn a generally tasty meal into something rather bland. Next time maybe I’ll add in some tomato or just more spices.

And that brings us to the end of VeganMoFo 2009. It’s been a blast and I’m a bit sad it’s going to be over. I’m also a little relieved. This month has definitely been a strain on my psyche, trying to blog every day while  filling every other free moment with projects and fun to celebrate fall and Halloween. I loved it, but I won’t pretend there weren’t times when the lack of sleep really did get to me. I’m so glad I found so many other really amazing blogs out there to read though and some great inspiration.

Now I’m off to prepare for more Halloween festivities. I still haven’t finished my costume. And I’m already running late! Yikes. Hope everyone has a frightful and delicious holiday!