A Very Autumnal Giveaway

/ Kelly / 53 Comments

Look, I’m only a couple of days late in getting this post up! I promised you a giveaway, and a giveaway you shall receive.

Because fall has undeniably arrived here in the Midwest, I went with an autumnal theme for this giveaway. Check it out:

 

This could be yours!

 

The goods:

* Stash’s Pumpkin Spice decaf tea. Normally I don’t do decaf, but this flavor called to me in the store, and I couldn’t resist! Although it’s more “spice” than “pumpkin,” it’s still really quite tasty and perfect for a chilly October morning; I enjoy dipping a Gingersnapper into it for maximum spice deliciousness (and I’m usually not a dipper – soggy crumbs in my tea?! Blech!).
* Organic & Pure Cinnamon Chai with Rooibus tea. I haven’t tried this one, but it looked so autumnal that I had to grab a box!
* Bayfield no-sugar-added apple butter. Yummy locally-made apple butter!
* A stash of Larabars. I went with vaguely fall-ish (or perhaps just holiday-ish) flavors: Pecan Pie, Apple Pie, Gingersnap, Carrot Cake, and Banana Bread.
* Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons. I wanted to include a cookbook, and Nava Atlas’ delightful collection of soups and stews seemed perfect! The section with recipes for fall are chock full of squash, lentils, taters, and all sorts of hearty, filling ingredients. Mmm!

The logistics:

To enter, simply comment and let me know your favorite thing about fall. If you don’t have a blog that’s linked in your comment, please leave an e-mail address so I can get in contact with you!

For an extra entry, mention the giveaway on your blog and then come back here and leave another comment.

I’ll randomly select a winner on Wednesday, 15th October at 7:00 PM CST.

As ever, thanks for reading! Good luck! :)

Cinnamon & Spice Squash Stew (+ bibliophilia!)

/ Kelly / 6 Comments

In case you didn’t know, I am a bibliophile. I do have a B.A. in English, after all. Nothin’ (except maybe a strong caffeinated beverage) gets my heart a-racin’ like a big stack of books. I’m like a kid in Willy Wonka’s factory in a library or bookstore… or anywhere with well-stocked bookshelves, really. However, I think that my favorite book-y locale is a good ol’ fashioned used book sale. You know the type, the Friends-of-Such-and-Such-Library-Quarterly-Book-Sale type deal where you exchange a few crumpled dollar bills for a towering stack of books. I stumbled across one such sale last month and exercised an extreme amount of self-control, only buying a few books and a couple of old maps and box of stationery (for $1!!!). But since then, I’ve had a hunger – a desire, a craving! – to waste time browsing the stacks, to pile a basket high with cheap, well-loved tomes, and to generally satiate my bibliophilic urge.

Today I finally got to do just that, at another used book sale held by the same organization. Oh, it was heaven. I spent $6.25 and came away with a stash of language books (Hebrew! Italian! German! French!), more maps, more stationery, and novels. Lots and lots of novels.

Oh, rapture!

Doesn’t that just make your heart happy? Mine is singing with joy. Most of those cost just a quarter. Isn’t that ridiculous? A quarter! I was particularly pleased with the Canterbury Tales, because I have a rather embarrassing Chaucer collection and I always like adding to it with another version of the Tales. This is a prose version, and I don’t think I have one of those yet! So exciting. That bibliophilic urge? I don’t think it’s satiated so much as kindled! Ah well.

I also managed to snag a few old copies of Vegetarian Times magazine. As I perused the October 2008 edition, a recipe for the charmingly-titled “Spicy Fall Stew Baked in a Pumpkin” caught my eye, and I decided to channel that idea and create something similar for my own dinner – Cinnamon & Spice Squash Stew.

Squashlicious!

My stew shares barely anything in common with its VT cousin, other than the fact that it is baked in a winter squash. It’s a mish-mash meal, comprised mostly of CSA veggies and some Black Japonica rice my parents brought when they visited this summer. It’s also a hearty, warming dish full of autumnal veggies, and I washed it down with a cold glass of apple cider. It seems a little silly to provide a recipe for something so full of random ingredients, but I’ll do it anyway – just for posterity.

Cinnamon & Spice Squash Stew
Ingredients
1 acorn squash
1/2 cup uncooked Black Japonica rice
3/4 cup cherry tomatoes*
3/4 cup chickpeas
Small bunch of leeks, chopped into small rings
1 clove garlic, diced
Small pat Earth Balance
Generous sprinkle cinnamon
Dash sage
Dash thyme
Dash crushed red pepper
Salt & pepper to taste
Toasted walnuts (optional, but delicious!)

Cook rice according to the directions on the package. While it’s cooking, chop up the veggies. Melt the EB and then sauté the garlic and leeks until soft. Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, and spices and let simmer. Preheat the oven to 425 or so. Meanwhile, slice the top off the acorn squash and remove the seeds and stringy bits. Place the squash into a pan filled with a little water (you might need to chop a bit off the bottom of the squash so it’ll stay upright in the pan). When the rice is done, combine it with the tomato-chickpea mixture and spoon it into the squash. Place the sliced-off top back onto the squash, put it into the oven, and roast it for 45 minutes or until the it’s soft and tender inside. Remove from oven, top with toasted walnuts, and enjoy! You can eat it straight from the squash or spoon it – along with the squash! – into bowls.

*I used a handful of frozen cherry tomatoes – when my parents visited, they gave me a huuuge basket of tomatoes from their garden. So I threw a bunch of them (3-4 lbs, maybe!) in a freezer bag, and now I just pop ’em into recipes as needed! Works like a charm.

Do you write down random recipes you create on the fly? How about book sales – are you into them?

525,600 Minutes of Vegan Madness

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

Today is my one-year veganiversary. What a crazy, unpredictable, amazing 365 days it’s been – I went vegan, got a full-time job, moved to Madison, and essentially started a totally new chapter in this little life of mine. I feel so much more centered than I did a year ago, so much more comfortable with who I am and what makes me tick. I might not know exactly what I want to do with my life or what I want to be when I grow up or where I’ll be in 5, 10, 15 years, but hey – I’m enjoying the ride. And, as I’ve said before, being vegan is an essential part of that.

It can be difficult, I think, to really grasp how much one seemingly simple dietary decision might affect you and your life. But when it’s tied to something in which you believe so strongly – that nobody and nothing should suffer for your sake – how can it not make a huge difference? I’ve never been one to put too much stock in the idea of good energy or bad vibes or anything, but who knows – maybe eating a cruelty-free diet really does have some unintended, unquantifiable results. I can’t disprove that, so maybe I should give the idea a little more credence.

Anyway, how did I celebrate this special day? Well, I smeared myself with tofu and nutritional yeast and ran around naked, yelling about factory farms and how easy it is to get plant-based protein! …no, that’s a lie. Really I went to work, came home, ate some sweet potatoes, watched a Russian version of Anna Karenina, and am contemplating an early bedtime. Yeah, boring. I didn’t even bake myself a cake. But I did get my first raise at work! And yesterday I ate one of my favorite veggies EVER.

O M G.

I’m not quite sure I can express how ecstatic I was to get Brussels sprouts in our CSA share this week. And my wonderful roomie grabbed an extra bag, so I can enjoy double the sprouty goodness! I know they look a little burnt, but trust me – they’re just crisped to perfection, roasted with a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic, sea salt, and a dash of pepper. Perfection, I tell you.

Anyway, I’m spent. Time to crack open American Gods and then get some shut-eye. Tune in tomorrow or Sunday for a super-exciting GIVEAWAY POST!

P.S. Pardon the lame/cliché RENT quote in the title of this post. It’s 11:00 PM; give a girl a break!

Alert, alert! Giveaway: your input needed!

/ Kelly / 9 Comments

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the presses! It’s nearly October?! When did that happen? April may be the cruellest month (and that’s debatable), but September sure feels like the shortest. I know people (including me) say that all the time, but honestly? September flew by like a hummingbird on speed.

And that means that October fast approacheth. And that means that my one-year veganiversary fast approacheth!  I made the “official” switch to veganism on the first of October last year, just in time for VeganMoFo. I’d essentially been vegan for a while, but I came out of the closet, went public, and stopped with the very occasional consumption of eggs or dairy (which had mostly been to appease people and not make waves).

As I’ve said recently, making the official switch was by far one of my best decisions. So I’d like to celebrate! And what better way than by embracing my inner hobbit and giving away presents to all you wonderful folks? I haven’t yet decided what I should give away, so here’s the fun part – you can tell me! Do you like giveaways with food as the prize? A cookbook? An eclectic mix of fun ephemera? Let me know! I’ll take all your input into consideration and have the official giveaway post up in a week or so. :)

And just so this isn’t a text-only post, here’s a photo of some cookies.

Choco-chippers!

I’m pretty sure this was from a more successful attempt at making Dreena’s cookies than that last time I tried ’em… hehe.

Swappin’ and Eatin’, ‘cos That’s How I Do

/ Kelly / 12 Comments

Hello, all! Hope your weekends are going well – mine has been really excellent. Yesterday I had the pleasure of receiving a package as part of the vegan care package swap that Lindsay organized. Lindsay paired me with the wonderful Lisa, who blogs over at Vegan Cookbook Critic. If you’re unfamiliar with Lisa’s blog, you really ought to hightail it over there and check out all the delicious, mouth-watering, and mostly raw recipes she creates and so kindly shares.

I had a great time scouring Madison for local goods to send to Lisa, and I was absolutely thrilled to receive her package! Check out the loot:

To the swapper go the spoils.

I’m spoiled, I know. Here’s what Lisa sent:

  • Three boxes of vegan cookies – Double Chocolate, Ginger Snappers, and Momints (chocolate-mint, obviously!)
  • A handful of delicious maple hard candies that I might’ve devoured already, because I’m a maple fiend
  • A package of some gorgeous pink rice
  • A package of vegan muffin mix
  • A little packet of hemp seeds
  • A container of berbere spice (!)
  • A sweet little “eat cake not carcass” pin
  • A packet of Artisana’s Cashini Butter
  • A People Towel!

Seriously, this is an amazing box full o’ goodies. I love everything! I’d never heard of People Towels, but goodness gracious – what a wonderful idea! Small, personal, quick-drying hand towels you can throw in your purse so that you don’t have to waste paper every time you use a public restroom. Genius! After visiting their website and learning that a couple of stores in Madison sell the towels, I now have an idea for some Christmas presents for friends & family. :)

Will do.

Lisa – thank you so much! You’re an A+ swapper in my book.

Although it was tempting to eat nothing but those cookies for dinner tonight, I opted for something easy – if not quick – instead. Check it – roasted acorn squash and Averie’s Sesame Maple Ginger Tofu.

Cross-hatched tofu?

I know my plate has a distinct lack of greenery, but I have a moratorium on grocery shopping at the moment – it’s CSA day on Wednesday, so right now I’m just using up crisper drawer stragglers. This was still a really filling dinner – the tofu was yummy and sweet, and I topped the acorn squash with a little bit of coconut oil and garam masala and it was heavenly. Look, Ma – I’m slowly but surely overcoming my squash aversion AND my dislike of mixing the savory and the sweet!

What was the best part of your weekend?

Unpopular Opinion: My Feelings Re: Daiya

/ Kelly / 15 Comments

The search for a “realistic” vegan cheese, one that approximates all the hallmark characteristics of dairy-based cheese – meltability, stretchability, the-odor-of-old-socksability – is a quest shared by many new vegans (and some grizzled veterans of the veg world). Cheese is often the one, ahem, sticking point when it comes to making the transition from vegetarian to vegan; most people can’t fathom giving up their monterey jack and their mozzarella. We’ve all heard it a thousand times – “I thought about going vegan but I LOVE CHEESE!!1!!!11!” and, “OMG but cheese is so good! How do you do it?! LOL!” and my favorite, “…but how do you eat pizza?!” Because pizza ain’t pizza unless it’s got globs of oily, congealed pus on top! Them’s the facts, girlz and boyz!

Many – if not most – of us have been there. I loved cheese; I enjoyed sharp, tangy cheddars and soft, spreadable bries. Heck, I spent one memorable spring break in France with one of my closest friends, subsisting off hardly more than chevre and baguettes (…and creme brulee). I played the “cheese is too good to give up!” card for a while, but once I stopped eating it, I found I didn’t miss it. Easy peasy. I’ve been vegan nearly a year now, and I can count on one foot the number of times I’ve craved cheese. This might not be the case for everyone, but I’d argue that many – if not most – vegans have a much less difficult time ditching the cheese than they’d anticipated.

But somehow the idea of a vegan cheese intrigues me. Every so often I get a craving for something creamy and rich, and inevitably this leads to me making a vegan mac and cheese dish, since I’m too cheap to go out and purchase vegan cheese. And, inevitably, I end up eating too much and feeling uncomfortably full. I don’t care for too-rich foods, and most vegan mac and cheese sauces are heavy on the Earth Balance. Yick.

Knowing that, you might wonder why I made a [rare] spontaneous grocery store purchase a while back. Why on Earth would I purchase Amy’s new Daiya-based mac and cheese, when even homemade dishes of this sort leave me swearing off mac and cheese for good? Yeah, I don’t know. Once in a while I fall prey to hype, and the Daiya hype – well, it got me. I’d had it once before on a vegan pizza at a veg meet-up, but the delicious veggies on the pizza overwhelmed the Daiya and I couldn’t really make a judgment one way or the other. So I tried the mac and cheese.

Cheese-tastic?

My verdict? BLECH, BLECH, DOUBLE BLECH. I could barely finish it, for the following reasons:

  1. It was way too rich and fat-laden for me.
  2. The cheeze-to-pasta ratio was WAY off – I am NOT a fan of heavy-handed doses of sauces; I like a light coating and that’s it.
  3. It tasted a bit like melty plastic.

Seriously, I did not enjoy this dish. I felt vaguely nauseated the entire time I was eating it, but I was determined not to waste [too much of] it. The bottom line, I think, is that my body just doesn’t tolerate fatty foods well. I’ve always been this way – as a kid, I’d wake up with stomachaches after eating something like buttery popcorn or creamy alfredo sauce. I’d sit in front of the porcelain throne with my oh-so-patient Mommy, sweating it out and miserably counting the tiles on the floor until my stomach gave up and I had to vomit. Even now, when I eat heavy foods, I get stomachaches and I can feel my heart racing faster. If that’s not a sign that I’m not meant to eat fat-laden meals, I don’t know what is. So I stick to cleaner, lighter meals and get my fat in the form of avocados and nut butters and the occasional sweet treat.

This can be problematic – I’m a naturally skinny gal, and when people see thin folks forgoing a burger and noshing on salad instead, they automatically assume the person is on a diet. Incorrect, sirs and madams! I’ve never dieted, and I never intend to do so. I just like – need – to eat the foods that make me feel good. It’s not weight-related whatsoever; it’s all about my health. I do not feel healthy when I eat very fatty foods. That’s the bottom line.

I liken this to the way some people are slightly intolerant of various fruits and vegetables. Certain members of my family who Shall Not Be Named get rather gaseous from bananas and broccoli and spinach, even though they enjoy those foods. Others don’t do well with wheat. And that’s not even taking into consideration major food allergies or something like Celiac disease.

The upshot of all this? Next time I’m in the mood for a spontaneous food purchase, I won’t reach for this mac and cheese. I might give the Daiya shreds a try in a quesadilla or something, but I’ve no immediate plans to do so. I don’t crave cheese, so why fix what ain’t broken? More for all you Daiya-lovers out there, right? :)

Have you tried Daiya? What do you think? Can you tell that your body just doesn’t deal well with certain types of food?

Five Minute Photoshop: Know Your Onion

/ Kelly / 1 Comment

You know those disorienting moments between wakefulness and sleep when the line between dream and reality blurs and you can never quite tell what’s real and what’s not? I tend to have a lot of those, mostly because I’m a bit abusive and like hitting my Snooze button a couple of times before getting out of bed. This morning, as I waited for my alarm to go off one final time at 5:45, I found myself in that nebulous stage of half-awake, half-asleep. And suddenly I had a panic-inducing thought:

“MY ALARM’S GOING TO GO OFF IN ONE MINUTE AND I HAVE TO DICE THREE ONIONS BEFORE THAT HAPPENS!!!”

…yeah. That got me up and out of bed before I realized that, no, I had no pressing need for diced onions at 5:45 AM. Still, I feel like it’s indicative of something: food is always on my brain, even when I sleep!

To sleep, perchance to dream of onions.

Anyone else have a funny half-awake, half-asleep dream lately?

Image taken from here and then lolcatized by me… obviously.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

Spoiler: This post contains only one of the nouns in its title. Double spoiler: It ain’t a bear or Battlestar Galactica (though I do love me some BSG). Triple spoiler (for the slow-minded): It’s a beet!

You know what’s sad? Up until maybe a year or two ago, I don’t think I’d ever eaten beets. Despite the fact that most people make a scrunchy-face of dislike when you mention beets, I didn’t particularly have any preconceived notions about them during my childhood. They were just one of those foods neither of my parents used. When I finally tried them, the first beets I met came from a can. And that first meeting was… well, it wasn’t great. Frankly, I was underwhelmed. If it had been a first date, I would have been reluctant to agree to a second, y’know? But hey, I like to give food – and people, for that matter – a second chance. First impressions might be hard to change, but not impossible. So when my CSA share earlier this year included beets, I gamely sliced one up and ate it raw. And you know what? That second, can-free meeting was a life-changer. I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve felt like hitting myself for not striking up a relationship with these gorgeous veggies sooner in my life. They’re so versatile! Delightfully crunchy when raw, they’re also wonderful cooked. Last month, my roomie and I made vegan borscht, and its rich, satisfying, hearty flavors absolutely blew me away. Then, a few nights ago, I roasted them with some potatoes and felt like I’d died and went to a veggie-full heaven when I tasted the sweet, intense flavor of the jewel-toned beet-bits, what with their perfectly roasted, tender interiors and their slightly crispy, almost caramelized exteriors.

And then I piled the beets and the taters on a small mound of brown rice, arranged that on a bed of sauteed beet greens and tatsoi, drizzled the whole shebang with a tangy agave-Dijon sauce, and confirmed the fact that I was in veggie heaven.

Beet-o-riffic!

I know this photo ain’t pretty. I know it’s got some shiny spots, and the lighting’s bad, and the beets look burnt (they’re not). But I’m sucking it up and posting it anyway, because it was damn delicious. DAMN DELICIOUS, I tell you.

I’m officially enraptured with these finger-staining root veggies, and I’m eagerly awaiting our next meeting. If there were a beet fan club, I’d join it. Clearly I should have been born a Schrute.

Any favorite beet recipes out there? Or do you not like beets (you sad, unenlightened soul)?

Ch-ch-ch-chili!

/ Kelly / 6 Comments

Man, my internet connection is le suxxorz. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, as I don’t pay for it – it’s included in the rent for our apartment. At the same time, though, if our complex advertises free internet as an amenity, it should probably be usable internet, right? As in, it shouldn’t take eons for a single page to load, and I shouldn’t have to budget a century if I want to watch online TV, right?

Oh well.

Anyway, that’s the reason my posts are a bit sparse – my internet connection is spotty at best, and it takes me ages to write up a photo-heavy post. Sometimes WordPress won’t load the photos or Flickr doesn’t care to cooperate… it’s a tough deal. Occasionally I’ll take a small break at work and put something together, but it’s crunch time for the writers at my company and I don’t have all that much free time during the work day.

Enough complaining. Here, have a photo of some chili.

Comfort food, y/y?

I love chili because it’s so damn accommodating to whatever the heck’s chilling in your fridge waiting to be eaten. This specimen include the dregs of a CSA share and some assorted hot peppers from my plants; in fact, other than the beans, the spices, and a can of fire-roasted tomatoes, everything here is local. Hooray for corn and onions and garlic and hot peppers and more tomatoes!

Chili’s also great because it’s embarassingly easy. You sauté the garlic and onions, add some spices, throw it in a pot with your veggies and beans, and let ‘er go. You come back an hour (or a couple of hours) later, and you’ve got a spicy pot of warmth and yumminess ready for your eating pleasure. It’s almost impossible to go wrong! Although I do have a coworker who swears that his mother makes the absolute worst chili in the world – apparently elbow noodles, cheap beef, and kidney beans do not an edible substance make. I’ll take his word for it, I think.

What’s your favorite chili recipe or combination of veggies? Personally, I’m digging the addition of corn – the plump kernels are a nice contrast to the rest of the veggies, which tend to get soft and rather homogenous in texture.

The Cat’s Out of the Bag[el] Now!

/ Kelly / 9 Comments

Look what I had for breakfast!

Labeled for easy identification.

Homemade bagels, straight outta Vegan Brunch. I made 6 plain bagels and 6 of the sundried tomato variety – I rehydrated a couple of sundried tomatoes, chopped ’em up, and added them to the dough before I letting it rise. I haven’t sampled a tomato one yet, but I’m optimistic.

These were super easy to make, although I found the dough a little dry, and it didn’t rise very much or seem very pliable – maybe I accidentally didn’t add enough water to my water + yeast mixture? I definitely didn’t add too much flour. As a result, the bagels are a little on the diminutive side – the one pictured here is probably the biggest of the bunch. But they still taste good, even if they are small and a bit lumpy. I put some organic blueberry preserves on half of this guy, and it was quite scrumptious.

If this looks like a light breakfast, you’re right – I wanted to leave a little room in my belly, because I’m going out for lunch with some vegans from work! I joined a vegan interest-type group earlier this week, and by some marvel of serendipity, they’d been planning a lunch meet-up at The Green Owl today. The Green Owl is Madison’s only fully vegetarian restaurant, and pretty much all of their menu is veganizable (if it’s not vegan already). And it’s all delicious. And they have an adorable owl motif throughout the restaurant! It’s almost too much awesomeness in one place.

Confession: There was mold in my blueberry preserves when I opened the jar this morning – guess I hadn’t eaten any in quite a while! But I performed some surgery and excised that shizz, and then proceeded to use the non-moldy preserves on my bagel. Is that gross? Unsafe? I got rid of all the mold and any jam that touched it, and I hate wasting food. What do you do when you encounter mold? Call it a day and throw your food away? Or do you clear off the offending bits and move on with your life?

P.S. Bonus points for anyone who can identify the quote in this post’s title! …and by “bonus points,” I mean I will think you are equally as silly as I am. :P