Back but Not Really...

Me and the family are just back from a lovely relaxing break in Fuerteventura - no TV, no Internet, just sun, sea, sangria and lots and lots of books. I got through David Peace's excellent 'Nineteen Seventy-Seven' and 'Nineteen Eighty', 'Project Everlasting' and managed to start reading the funniest book about Steven Seagal and his movies I've ever found. Or rather, my brother has ever found - thanks for the great pressie again, Chris!
I managed to 'lose' our camera too, so somewhere on the windy island some pikey scumbag has themselves a new camera with a load of arty shots of my brown feet against the horizon at sunset.
All these events have led me to believe its time I took a little break from blogging. Not forever, but just for now. The eighteen month old boy who I started blogging about is now almost three and starting pre-school this August and my daughter - well, she just gets longer and hungrier, with more extra-curricular activities to add to her repertoire. I'll still be lurking around with interest on everyone elses' blogs, and will probably reappear in time for Vegan MoFo, so until then - until I get a new camera, I hope you all take care of yourselves and you loved ones, and keep on rollin'.

DJx

Fudge It!

Nuts and dried fruit... blah-blah-blah, yeah, we all know they're really good for you but damn, you can sometimes feel like a squirrel as you chomp away on yet another handful of impromptu trailmix. When trying to raise children the vegan way it's import to allow for calorie-dense food to fill their little tums and give them enough energy to fuel their growth and their lifestyle. Nuts and dried fruit are a very good, very fibre-rich way of doing this. But if you - like me - have grown bored of plain old apricots, raisins and walnuts and have run out of exotic, tempting dried pineapple, sour cherry and macadamia nuts, why not try the Carob-Almond fudge from 'Eat To Live'. Frugal Veggie Mama is a fan, as is Jennifer Shmoo, so with such sterling commendations I whipped-up a batch today. Verdict? Moreish!!! I used sunflower seed butter in place of almond butter as that's all I had and while it was good I can imagine with almond butter it would be absolutely superb. Ho-Tep clamoured for more-while it provided McGonnagle with a much-needed boost of energy before Judo. Seed butter, dessicated coconut, carob and dates soaked in soya milk. That's it. So easy and so virtuous!

The other night I was trying to use up the contents of my fridge veggie drawer before they expired and decided to make a variation on cauliflower cheese. I boiled waxy potatoes, cauliflower florets and carrot slices until tender before throwing a bag of sad-looking mangetout in at the last minute. I blended-up the tangy nacho-cheeze sauce from 'The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook' and heated-it up before slightly mashing the drained veg and pouring over the sauce. The results? Well, the unique combination of roasted red peppers and chunkily ground cashews left my cheeze sauce with the colour and texture... of puke.
Thank GOD it tasted good, though my son - who is still eating with his eyes at the moment - refused point blank to try it with the cute Scottish colloquialism 'that's STINKIN', mummy!'.

Hmmm... Judge for yourself!!!

Guess Who's coming to Dinner...

Whose is that top hat?

And glitzy brooch?

Why - is that Willie Wonka?!!

Oh no! It's just McGonnagle, dragged-up for Bathgate Gala Day of course!
The theme for her school's float this year was Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and so, with our great love of dressing-up,, it was just one big excuse to get creative! I made a papier mache top hat with the aid of these guys (Oh how I LOVE YouTube!!!), a cardboard brooch painted glittery-gold and a gobstopper-topped walking stick that cunningly utilised a ping-pong ball and a length of garden cane. A root through the drawers procured the rest of her outfit. I think she looked fab and she certainly enjoyed hamming it-up as she walked the procession route through Bathgate with her Dad!
Despite intermittent showers, a good time was had by all and the thought suddenly dawned on me as Ho-Tep and I watched the procession pass - this would be the last year we would be able to watch on the sidelines. My little boy is starting pre-school this August and so next year we'll have TWO children in the procession accompanied by TWO adults! I'm already looking forward to the costume-fun we'll be having!!!...

As for dinner, well how about a little squash, sage and spring green risotto stirred by my favourite sous-chef?

Have a great weekend, everybody!!!

Holy Cap-uchin!!!!!

Image from City-Data.com

Channel 4 showed this documentary tonight, about people in the US buying capuchin monkeys to dress them-up like dollies, diaper them and pretend they're their babies.
I had to switch over - I actually felt like I was watching the equivalent of kiddie porn as some fat, middle-aged housewife smeared lipstick over a dollie-dressed, dead-eyed capuchin and insisted 'she likes it, she wouldn't sit still if she didn't!'.
I didn't even know this kind of stuff went on. Those poor, poor monkeys - bred in cages to be torn away from their mothers at eight or nine days old and handed over to some complete fantasist who's then going to set about suppressing all their natural instincts as best as they can for the next... forty years? And how indicative of our complete lack of empathy for any other species that we don't see that as an issue. I don't even know why I'm blogging this... I usually reserve this space for clumsy veganisations of junk food and pix of my little darlings... I guess having been raised to be a bit cynical, and seen enough AR footage to be like, 'yeah, that's bad, man, but am I surprised? No... ' I was just... so, so shocked when watching this documentary I felt I had to blog about it! It was so bad my poor, long-suffering husband had to find a semi-humorous documentary about breasts to snap me out of it...
So, to cheer myself up, here's some more pix of my little darlings in the summer sun.

Fish Fingers??!

Nope! I have managed to replace a British institution with sticks of cauldron firm tofu, marinated in a mix of Sea Isle Jerk BBQ sauce and dark soya sauce before being breaded with some Jamaican spicy flour mix and fried in a helluva lotta vegetable oil. Served over a relatively bland creamy mushroom pasta dish this tasted AMAZING!!!! Mcgonnagle ate every last mouthful, though between these and Dan and Jessy's tempeh meatless balls, I think she may be growing out of her soyfoods aversion - finally!!

This is a very dark picture of an amazing smoothie I had for lunch! Rocket/arugula with strawberries and limes, basil, 2 cups mixed fruit salad, 2 tbsp ground flaxseed and 4 pre-soaked dates. Delicious and refreshing with the peppery rocket, sweet strawberries, tart and juicy limes and flavourful basil making a remarkable combination! I think I got this idea off Swell Vegan's blog but I can't remember exactly as it was a while ago now. I do remember thinking at the time how good it would be - and it was!

Pictures from the Potty.

A pic mainly for Jeni Treehugger to illustrate my 'Longstocking' reference. Taken by Ho-tep - obviously!

This is how we make popcorn...

... at Skint Vegan Towers. Yeah, that's right - no pussying about, we just make it in the 5 litre pressure cooker. Shake of mexican salt, drizzle of hempseed oil and lemon juice and voila! Just enough to get us through a viewing of the Rugrats Movie!
With the warmer weather, potty training my youngest has begun in earnest. As I am the laziest mum on the face of the planet I prefer to leave my young to the point where they can change their own nappy before attempting potty training. Some mums consider this scandalous - don't forget, certain areas of motherhood are a competitive sport - but I always think: in twenty years time, who's gonna give a shit? (Pardon the pun.)

So, my son is currently wandering around the garden wearing a t-shirt, a pair of my multicoloured stripy knee socks and a smile, while I pack-up the terry nappies ready for resale on ebay. To all the mums out there - he knows when he wants to go when he is half-naked from the waist-down, but the minute I slap a pair of pants on the young man, all he wants to do is pee in-situ. Any hints or tips on how to overcome this issue? He starts nursery in August and I would hope that at that point I'm not sending him there still looking like a Pippi Longstocking-inspired flasher.
As I'm preoccupied with wiping-up misses, and general chaperoning the sprinkle-happy Ho-Tep constantly, I don't want to spend too long in the kitchen. Food has been easy.

Stir-fry with tofu puffs, cauliflower, chinese spinach, carrot, onion, ginger, celery and lots and lots of rice noodles. I seasoned it with hoisin sauce, veggie oyster sauce and dark soya sauce and it was delicious!

I roasted a whole butternut squash chopped into large chunks, 2 onions and a head of garlic drizzled with truffle oil, smoked salt and my mum's home-made extra spicy garam masala. Meanwhile I simmered a cup of lentils in about four cups of water until tender. Once the veggies were tender (about an hour and a half as I did have a school run in the middle!) I blended them together with the cooked lentils and water and about 1/4 cup soya sauce.

This soup was CRAZY good!!!! And it practically made itself!!!

I made mini-pizzas topped with redwoods pepperoni, sliced black olives, a really good marinara sauce and Sofcheez crumbles from 'The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook'. These got the big thumbs-up from the kids which was great as it was a really easy topping to whip up - firm tofu, salt, miso and lemon juice and you're good to go! I subbed red wine vinegar for lemon juice as I'd ran out of the fresh stuff and it was still really good! We had this with curly fries - yummy!!
The following day I used some leftover pizza dough and marinara sauce, sauteed onions, sliced black olives and a shed-load of grated cheddar-style cheezly to make the world's ugliest stromboli. It was absolutely delicious, but such a mess I just couldn't bring myself to take a pic!!

And I think this has been helping me keep my head between spillages and fights and laying laminate flooring in the midst of a hayfever resurgence - Pukka's harmonise tea. It's my new favourite tea - I love it so much I've bought a couple of packets for two of my friends! Sadly, this is the tea that Tesco has decided to discontinue just as I've discovered it, but you can buy it at healthfood stores and also online - and upon browsing the site I felt a bit abashed that I'd never before realised how much stuff Pukka did apart from from tea! A lot of commercially-produced fruit and herbal teas are a bit insipid for my taste but this one is lovely - the vanilla adds a hint of sweetness, the rose and shatavari are lovely and fragrant. I've been drinking this in preference to my regular sweet milky builder's tea it's so good! So that's been a round-up of our busy weekend - hope yours has been slightly less hectic!

Rehome a Hen!

Ever fancied a couple of chooks scratching about the back garden? Do you have an omni or vegetarian partner who'd love the idea of the odd fresh egg from a truly free-range hen? Or would your parents fancy a few to indulge their dream of a small-holding? Well now is the perfect time to get one! BunnyHuggers.org recently alerted me to the fact that there are 10,000 chickens needing rehomed from a battery farm that is closing down in Norfolk. They need rehoming before the 28th June or the remainder will be slaughtered - an outcome that it would be brilliant to avoid if possible!!!
If you or anyone you know might be interested, then please email littlehenrescue at googlemail.com. And if it's not for you - pass the word on!