Soap Making

Hey everyone!  As most of you know we are in the process of remodeling our kitchen, which still isn't finished yet, so still no food to blog about.  Yes, we are slow.  We did take off Christmas weekend though to be with our families, so that put us behind.  We hope to put our new counter tops in Saturday and hopefully "almost" finish things up over the weekend. 

Below is a picture of me making soap back in November.  Yep, I made some soap for Christmas presents.  They didn't turn out how I wanted them to, but they still turned out great.  I thought the recipe was going to make more than what it actually did, but it didn't.  Tony made me a soap box to pour the mixture into, but since I didn't have enough to fill the soap box up, I poured the mixture into silicone muffin cups.  Tony's genius idea.  So, instead of square bars of soap I ended up with round bars, which turned out pretty cute.

After the soap hardened in their molds for 48 hours, I dumped them out to cure for 3 plus weeks.   I had to flip them everyday so they would cure evenly.  All that has something to do with the lye that's in them.  The ingredients that I used to make the soap were coconut oil, shea butter, almond oil, water, sodium hydroxide (lye), and warm vanilla sugar fragrance oil.   We have been using the soap for several weeks now and absolutely love it.  It leaves your skin feeling so soft and silky.  Tony's already asking when I'll be making more.  My next batch of soap is going to be a type of oatmeal soap made with homemade almond milk.  It will make a bigger batch, so I will be able to use the soap box that Tony made for me.   My goal is to be able to make that around mid January.  If the oatmeal soap turns out as good as this batch did, I'll be doing a giveaway.  The only bad  thing about making the soap is that you have to let it cure for at least 3 weeks.   It's very hard to wait that long. :o)

Here we have a close up of one right after I took it out of the mold. Pretty bright looking huh.

Here's a bar after they had cured for over a month.  I took this picture with my phone, so the picture is a little on the dark side.  The soap did darken though as it cured.

Here's one all wrapped up ready to be gifted. 

I haven't heard how everyone liked the soap, but I hope they like it as much as Tony and I do.

I hope everyone has a save and Happy New Year!   It will be next year before I blog again and hopefully it will be with pictures of my newly remodeled kitchen.

~Peace~

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow....

This morning I woke up to snow on the ground.  Yay, our first snow of the year.  I don't ever remember us getting snow this early in the winter though.  I wonder if this is what's to come for the cold winter season?  I do love snow.  It makes me wish I was still a kid, so I could have snow days and get to stay home.  Luckily this snow didn't stick to the streets.  Even though the snow didn't stick the the streets, I can guarantee that everyone was at the grocery store yesterday stocking up on bread and milk.   The mention of snow around here puts people in a panic state of mind.  :o)

Yesterday afternoon I was having some serious stomach pains.  I'm not sure what they were from, but they lasted until about 8:00 last night.  With that being said, I did not feel like cooking supper, so Tony dove right in and took care of things while I laid on the couch cuddled up with Maggie.  We had planned on having pizza last night, and below is what my pizza looked like after Tony got finished making it.  How good does that look?  He even took the picture.   He used my left over fajita veggies that I brought home from Casa Marina (our favorite Mexican place) Saturday night.  He also added some Roma tomatoes and used some Newman's spaghetti sauce along with some Daiya mozzarella cheese.  He told me to remember that if it wasn't good that it was made with love.  :o)   No worries though....It was delicious, and actually better than the ones that I've been making lately.

~Peace~

Better Late than Never......

 Happy Monday!  I know this is a little late, but hey....late is better than never....right?   Here's the recap of my Thanksgiving.   I was a little like this after we ate our Thanksgiving meal. 

I made this Hearty Lentil and Mushroom Shepherds Pie from Fat Free Vegan to take for Thanksgiving.  It turned out great.  I'm sorry, but I don't have a picture of it.  I got in such hurry to get out the door that I forgot to photograph it.   After I realized that I never took a picture, I decided that I would take a picture of my Thanksgiving plate, but I left the camera out in the car.  I was about to starve, so I didn't go get it....sorry.  I had planned on taking some roasted veggies, but was told there would be plenty of veggies that I could eat, so I didn't make any.  After glancing over everything I asked about certain dishes to make sure they were vegan, and dug in.   Later on that evening my niece commented on how good the green beans were.  Then, out it came...the green beans were cooked in beef brother.  WHAT?  At that moment my little niece looked at me and said "you ate green beans didn't you?"  Yep, I sure did, because I was told they were okay for me to eat.  Apologies came from my SIL, and she said that she never thought about that not making them vegan.   Again, I explained what a vegan was, and explained my diet and what it did and did not consist of. Of course, I'm not the type of person that just blows my top, but I was very upset.  I felt like throwing up and my insides felt all dirty and violated!  After that I found out that several other dishes that were there were not actually vegan either, but was told they were.  I didn't eat those though...thank goodness.  From now on, I will for sure be taking my own meal to any family function that we have.  Shen, I know.....  It's not just family though , no one here in the South understands the full meaning of what a vegan is.  They all seem to think it just means that you don't eat meat.  No matter how many times you explain it, they just don't get it.  I have to admit, I debated about whether I should blog about my Thanksgiving or not, because I have family that reads my blog, but I decided that I wanted to and I hope that it doesn't offend anyone.   

So with all that being said, we all did a lot of this over the remainder of the long weekend..  I started to blog several times, but just couldn't bring myself to it.   :o)

I did take a little time to make Isa's Marbled Banana Bread.  I think I swirled the batter a little too long though.  It almost looks like plain ole chocolate banana bread.  Sure did taste good though.  Tony suggested adding walnuts to it the next time.  I think that would be a great addition. 

I also made some granola.  I've been wanting to make some for a while now, but just haven't done it.  I finally got around to it Saturday morning.  I used oats, hemp seeds, walnuts, shredded coconut, dried cranberries, dried apricots, wheat germ, safflower oil, brown sugar, rice syrup, and vanilla.  I used Alicia Silverstone's recipe in The Kind Diet as a guide to go by.  If you don't have her book, you can find the recipe here.

 I didn't have anything to take for lunch today, so I went to the cafeteria in hopes to get a salad.  I was a little too late though.  They were all gone.  I lucked up though, they had some steamed veggies....yay!

Anyway, I have a lot of catching up to do on my blog reading.  I do hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving weekend and I hope you aren't as behind at work as I am.  :o)

~Peace~

A Little Food Feud Action

Happy Monday Tuesday (I started my post on Monday, but didn't get to finish...CRAZY day yesterday)!  I took full advantage of the extra hour that daylight savings time gave us Sunday by doing a little baking.  First let me tell you where one of the fabulous recipes that I made came from.  It came from one of FoodFued's zines called Marmalade Umlaut.  I have to say a a couple of things about her zines before I go into the food.  I bought 5 a while back and they are great.  Maud is a so funny.  You can't help but laugh out loud and some of the things she says and talks about. Then there is the serious side of Maud giving up some of her great knowledge and wonderful recipes.   There are a lot of recipes that I plan on making from her zines soon, but what I made Sunday was at the top of the list!  If you haven't checked out Maud's zines, you really should!  :o)   I'm waiting patiently for the new to come out....

I made the Pumpkin Pie Brownies from Issue 9.  I've been wanting and meaning to make these for the last couple of weeks, but just couldn't seem to find the time.  I'm glad I finally took the time, because they are awesome.   They have a rich brownie layer on the bottom and a creamy pumpkin layer on top.  I was going to be fancy and grate some dark chocolate to put on top instead of chocolate chips, but that didn't work out very well.  Since the chocolate slivers didn't work, I melted the chocolate, so I could drizzle it over the top.  That didn't turn out how I wanted it to either, but the taste is what mattered the most here.  Here's an example of Maud' humor.   She made a note beside the recipe saying " I made this.  Oh, and ruined it....sorry".   Then she wrote "Better luck to the rest of you, and do NOT sub a 7" pan for the 9" one...."    I couldn't help but giggle when I read that.

I also made HH's glazed pumpkin biscuits Sunday morning.  I added some cranberries to mine.  Cranberries just seem to pare well with pumpkin for me.  I thought I got the recipe off her website, but I didn't see it there.   I was going to post the link, but I can't seem to find it now....sorry.   They were good and pretty low in calories.  I'm not counting but someone else is.  :o)

I was off work Friday, and as most of you know we took a road trip to whole foods, so I could get some things that I was out of and of course get new things.   We left the house around noon, so by the time we got to Memphis we both were about to starve.  I suggested we go to P.F. Chang's, because we don't have one in Jackson.  I've only been wanting to try it for what seems like forever.  For starters we got a couple of veggie spring rolls (yum). 

For my main meal I ordered the Coconut Curry Vegetables, which was Stir-fried vegetables, crispy silken tofu and peanuts in a mild curry powder and coconut milk sauce...very good.   I no longer have to be jealous of Shen's P.F. Chang's meals, because I have now tried it and know that I like it... and, I will go back.  :o)  Well, I say I won't be jealous...It could be worse now that I've actually tried and liked it!  Thanks for posting those delicious meals Shen!

Here's one shot of some Whole Food's loot that I got.  I know it's nothing new for you guys, but for me it was like hitting winning the lottery.  The mint candy bar and B-12 are for Tony.  I finally decided to buy a can of Artichoke Hearts.  Now I need some help in finding the perfect recipe for them.  Any suggestions on a recipe for a person who's never tried them before? 

Here's some more goodies that I finally remembered to get and some new things that I found that I just had to try.  I finally found Honey Crisp apples...yay...and they are so good!  Tony found the soy pudding (I totally over looked it), so I had to get that to try, you know, since he pointed it out. :o)   I also found the stuffed grape leaves that VaVa and Shen have been eating.  Thanks for telling me where they were Shen.  And I FINALLY found Miso....thank goodness!

It was such a beautiful day on Sunday that we decided to get out and ride around.  We ended up stopping by Tony's sisters farm for a little donkey love.  Her name is Bashful.   She used to be bashful, but she's not anymore.  She is such a sweet heart!

She is so loving....I really wanted to take her home with me!

She loved on Tony a lot more...I think she thought his cologne smelt good.  :o)



I hope everyone had a great weekend!

~Peace~

Pancakes and Tempeh Orzilla

Happy Tuesday!  I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!  Sunday morning I made HH's whole wheat pancakes and a strawberry syrup to go on top.  These were so good that Tony and I both went back for seconds.  I've tried and tried to make good vegan pancakes, but they always come out too dense or too dry.  These were perfect, at least for my pancake making abilities.   I had some strawberry jam in the refrigerator, so I put a couple spoonfuls of that in a microwave safe bowl along with some maple syrup and a little vegan butter.  I warmed that up in the microwave for about 30 seconds and mixed it up and then topped the pancakes with it....total yumminess!

 

Sunday night I was wanting something hot and was going to make some soup, but I came across Isa's Tempeh Orzilla over at Post Punk Kitchen.  I just happen to have all the ingredients and I thought this was the perfect recipe to use up the rest of my orzo.  The sundried tomatoes and tempeh crumbles made this supper yummy!  Of course I liked that it had spinach in it too.  For some reason I just love spinach in pasta dishes.  I had a lot of leftovers, so this is what I'm having for lunch most of this week.

Yesterday for Halloween we were supposed to bring finger foods to work for a little party.  I was having a hard time in deciding what to make, but I knew I wanted it to have to do with pumpkin.  I finally decided on Isa's Pumpkin Muffins.  It seems that everyone who has tried them has loved them.   Tony suggested that I leave out the dried cranberry's though.   Most people where I live like plain and simple, so I took his advise.  I made half of them plain and I added walnuts in the other half.   Everyone at worked loved them and kept on raving about how good they were.  My co-workers were even asking for the recipe...woohoo...   My boss, who doesn't really like pumpkin, even loved them.  I do make a couple of changes to Isa's recipe though.  I always use whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose, and I only use one cup of sugar.  Sometimes I use safflower oil instead of the vegetable oil too. 

These were my Halloween treats for yesterday....I LOVE these things.  I actually bought a bag for Tony because he loves them.  I used to not like them at all, but I was hungry when we bought them, so I ate a couple to curb my hunger craving.  I was hooked after the first one.  We bought a bag Sunday and can you believe that the bag of chick-o-sticks are almost gone.   They are very addictive.  :o)

 ~Peace~

Liebster Award and Good Eats

First I want to thank Cassie over at Vegan Fox In The Snow for giving me the Liebster Award.  Thank you so much Cassie....you're so sweet!  I had no idea what Liebster meant, so I'm glad that Cassie explained the meaning behind this award.  "Liebster" is German for 'dearest' or 'beloved' but it can also mean 'favorite'. The idea behind this award is to bring attention to blogs with fewer than 200 followers and show some support.

Here are the rules for winning this award.

1.  Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2.  Reveal 5 of your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3.  Post the award on your blog.

4.  Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the www!


This is very hard to only pick 5 bloggers, because I love all the blogs that I read, so I'm going to pick the newest ones that I've started following.

Veggie Burgher

Almost Skinny Vegan Food

This is What I Eat

A Diary of an Animal Lover

Zombie Cats Eating Plants

These are all great blogs, so if you haven't already, go check them out....you will NOT be disappointed!

Sunday morning I made HH's cinnamon rolls.   They were just okay.  I know, my first HH recipe that I don't love, but that could be due to the baker and not the recipe.   After I put the cinnamon rolls in the oven, I noticed that my yeast had expired....oops!   They didn't rise, and they were a little on the dry side.   As soon as I get some fresh yeast, I think I'll give them another try.  I can't imagine these not being good.....

Sunday night I made Veganomicon's Scalloped potatoes.  I told Tony what I was cooking for supper and he asked can't you just make them from a box?   Oh my...I told him these would be way better and to just wait.  Score... again.... for the vegans....he agreed that they were very good.  This was actually my first try at making any type of scalloped potatoes from scratch.  I have no idea what in the world took me so long to to try it.  People, forget the boxed stuff!   These are way better and will not disappoint!  I can't wait to make these for a family get together.  No one will ever believe that they are vegan! 

I also made Vecon's Chickpea Cutlets...always delish!  I topped them off with some good ole Country Bob's.  And last, but not least, I had some good ole black eyed peas to round my meal off.  :o)  I actually ended up adding some Country Bob's to the black eyed peas too....man was that ever tasty! 

While I was on vacation I tried several things that I got in my care package from Hally.  One of my favorites was this Candy bar.  If you've never had one and you used to like a Snickers, then you will love the Jokerz candy bar.   I don't have these where I live, but you can bet that I'm about to figure out where I can order them from.  I also had the Buccaneer which taste exactly like a Milky Way....YUM!  I didn't realize how much I missed eating candy bars.  :o)

Just looking at this picture makes me want another one...bad!

What's your favorite vegan candy bar?

~Peace~

A Pumpkin Kind of Morning and Vegan Care Package Swap

This morning when I got up I wanted to try out a Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe that I found a while back.  I changed the recipe up a bit and it was delish!  Here's how I made mine.

3/4 cup almond milk

1 cup brewed coffee

2 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon maple syrup (may need more if you like it sweeter)

Combine milk and spices in a saucepan and bring to a boil on the stove.  Remove and pour into a blender and blend until frothy.  Pour into a large mug and then add the cup of coffee and stir.  I sprinkled a little apple pie spice on top to make it pretty.  :o)

Saturday morning I made The Best Pumpkin Muffins from Isa's Vegan with a Vengeance.  I swear these are my most favorite muffins.  So this morning I had a left over pumpkin muffin and a pumpkin spice latte. YUM!!!!

I was off again Friday, so I took my mom shopping and spent the day with her. When I got home I had box sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me.  I tore into it right away.  I knew what it was.  Look at all these goodies that were in it.  This was from the care package swap that Cook Vegan Lover put on.  This was my first year to participate in the swap, and it was so much fun!  I was matched up with Hally from The Odd Couple Eats.  I enjoyed getting to know Hally thru email.  It was so ironic that we got paired up.  Her husband is an Omni just like mine, and she also became a Vegan after reading The Kind Diet.  Okay, on to all the awesome goodies that I got.  I got some cinnamon crispies and a cherry chocolate candy bar from One Lucky Duck.  I tore into the chocolate yesterday and OMG...it is soooo good!  There was a jar of Montmorency Cherry jam and Harissa from Le Pain Quotidien in the box.  The funny thing is that I have been wanting to try Harissa for some time, so I am so excited about that.  I can't wait to spread that cherry jam on some toast or maybe a bagel with some cream cheese...mmmm    She also threw in a Primal Strip, a meatless vegan jerky for my hubby (Texas BBQ flavor).  Now how sweet and thoughtful is that.  Also in the box were a couple more candy bars (which I am dying to dig into), spicy pumpkin seeds, Funky Monkey pink pineapple crunchies, some wasabi flavor Healthy Seaweed snacks, and for an extra she threw in a bar of soap that she got at a wedding that she went to.  Now that's a lot of stuff!  We've been so busy that I haven't had time to try much of it yet.  As you can see I did manage to try some chocolate.  I love my chocolate!  :o)

The Harissa and jam

cinnamon crispies, pink pineapple crunchies, and spicy pumpkin seeds

CHOCOLATE!!!!   :o)

Tony's Primal Strip that I'm sure he will let me sample.

Some HOT seaweed snacks....very good though!

The bar of soap that I can't wait to try.

I love that I have a new friend in Hally.  She lives in NYC and Tony's sister lives in NJ, so I'm hoping that the next time we go to visit his sister that maybe..just maybe Hally and I will be able to meet up.  I look forward to keeping in touch with her.  As I sad, this was my first vegan swap and it won't be my last!

I won't be around this week, because I am on vacation and I'm outta here.  :o)  I'm going to take some very needed time away, so I will see guys in a week.  :o)  Hope everyone has a great week!!!

~Peace~ 

Mexican, Almond Cookies, and ILVTOFU

Happy HUMP day!  Last night we had Mexican food for dinner.  I made tostadas with re fried beans,  Fantastic Foods Taco Filling, lettuce, and tomatoes.  I also made some Mexican rice to go along with it.  To make the Mexican rice, I mixed in some taco seasoning and several packets of mild taco bell sauce into some cooked brown rice and fried it a bit....very yummy!  I was very disappointed as I was went to the frig to get some Daiya cheddar cheese out.  When I opened the brand new package it was all molded inside...BLEH!  I looked at the expiration date, and it still had 2 weeks left before it expired.  Have you ever had that to happen to you before?  Since I didn't have any cheese, I just sprinkled some nutritional yeast on top, which turned out to be good.  Tony seemed to enjoy his dinner as well.   He did use a little "real" cheddar cheese on his....just a little  :o)  

Last night when I got home from work I made Aimee's Leftover Almond Pulp Cookies, which were fantastic.  They aren't sweet at all, and have such a unique taste about them.  I love the fact that these are so healthy.  I tripled the recipe though, and I did leave out the pistachios, because I didn't have any.  I also made the cookies three different ways.  I made a few with dried cranberries as Aimee did, a few plain ones, and a few with  carob chips in them.  You can find her recipe here.

For lunch I had a Chik'n patty sammy on some Ezekiel 4:9 bread with some of my homemade dill pickles and Dijon mustard on it.  Along with that I had some whole grain pita chips.  Yes, a very boring lunch.  I wasn't feeling so hot this morning.  For some reason, my stomach has been burning the last few days and it wasn't at it's best this morning, so I decided I might just need a sandwich for lunch.  I also only ate a piece of toast and jelly for breakfast along with some stomach ease tea (which tasted nasty)!   I made myself drink it though.

I just had to share this license plate with you also.  This license plate made it on our local news last night, because the state of TN denied this personalized plate to a woman who lives in Murfreesboro TN.  They said it was vulgar....what????   Yeah, their interpretation of the license plate was not to say "I love tofu"....ugh.  They even interviewed some people to see what their take was on the personalized plate and the crazy people of TN also thought it was meant to be vulgar (eyes rolling).  Anyway, the woman just happens to work for PETA (who totally has her back), so she just might end up with the plate after all...we shall see.  Go here if you want to read a little more on it.  I just thought it was funny and ridiculous, so I had to share it. 

~Peace~

Veggie Pasta and Soooo Ready for the Long Weekend!

Happy FRIDAY!!!   I am so glad the weekend is near, and so glad I have 3 days off work.  Do you have big plans for the long weekend?  We'll be staying home and hopefully painting/redecorating our home office.  I'll have to take a before and after picture for you and post that on Tuesday.  I doubt I'll be doing much if any blogging over the holiday weekend, so that's why I say I'll post it on Tuesday.  :o)

Yesterday was Maggie's "Spa Day" at the vet.  As you can tell in this picture, she was not very happy to be getting dropped off.   I do believe she was saying "Mom, do you really have to take my picture, and PLEASE don't leave me here!"  Poor baby!   After I picked her up from the vet yesterday, I took her to the chiro to see what he could do to help her to walk better.  She hasn't been in a while, and she hasn't been getting around so well lately.  She had a big hump in her back, so I knew something was out of whack.  He did some adjusting on her and it seemed to help a little.  It was hard to tell at the chiro's office how much it was really going to help, but after we got home she was getting around a lot better.  She was only able to walk a few steps before she would fall down in the sitting position.  She's able to walk a lot farther now.  Chiro's are wonderful...even for pets!   And her eye, well it looks great.  She looks like she's winking all the time.  She has fully adjusted to it being gone now.  My baby has such a big heart!  

Bananas are back in my house, so I've been able to make my smoothies again.  This one was a VERY green smoothie!  This one consisted of water, banana, a date, frozen mango, fresh ginger, and a LOT of spinach. 

Wednesday night for supper I made some veggie pasta...it totally hit the spot and was very yummy!  I used whole wheat pasta, zucchini, spinach, chickpeas, Roma tomatoes, minced garlic, olive oil, and some red wine.  I  also made Happy Herbivores Corn Cakes to go along with it.  They were very good also.  They reminded me of the Jiffy corn bread mix.  That was the first time that I had ever actually put flour in the mix to make cornbread.  I've always just used straight corn meal.  They turned out great though.

 

For 3 nights in a row, our dessert has been chocolate covered strawberries.  I love chocolate covered strawberries!  I don't know why I don't make them more often.  Every night they would get eaten before I got a picture of them.  The last night we had them I had just sat on the couch beside Tony with the plate and thought of a picture.  We both were ready to dig in, so Tony took the plate and held it under the lamp and snapped a picture of them.  This is why the berries are all over the place on the plate.  :o)

Have you ever tried any of the Odwalla smoothie drinks.  I got this superfood one the other day at Kroger and it was pretty good.   Not as good as the Naked though.  :o)

I hope everyone has a great and safe Labor Day weekend!

~Peace~Love~Happiness~