Regrowing Romaine Lettuce

I recently watched a video on YouTube and the presenter cut up a romaine lettuce and mentioned that if you wished you could regrow the lettuce. A few days later I was cutting up several heads of romaine lettuce and thought about regrowing them, so I googled and found another YouTube video with a short and easy how to guide. And it is really easy. Take the cut off end of the romaine lettuce and put it in a little water, perhaps half an inch of water, change and/or replenish the water daily. After one day a little growth had taken place, after a week they had grown to five or six inches in height. After two weeks it is recommended that they be planted in soil to finish growing because at that point they need more nourishment that just the water alone can provide. My mom likes iceberg lettuce so she took the cut off end and placed it in water, and it too started to grow. Below are four pictures taken over the course of one week.

Peanut Butter Bread - Oh Boy

As I was idly scrolling through Yahoo this morning a story about making bread without yeast popped up, Peanut Butter Bread. I am a bit of peanut butter addict, my favorite is Smuckers Natural peanut butter, but pretty much any natural nut butter hits the spot

.

Although this specific recipe is not vegan, I used plant milk as a replacement for the mammary gland secretions of cows. This recipe claims to be taken from a cookbook published in 1932, and so the story goes, this was a popular bread during the Great Depression, who knows. But what I do know is it sounds good, the picture of the finished product looked fabulous, and I am going to make a few loaves to give to our children and their families. And the comments on the Yahoo story, and the recipe page were all pretty much rave reviews. 

Ingredients:

 2 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. sugar

4 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 1/3 c. milk (I used Soy milk)

1/2 c. peanut butter (I added about 3/4 c and used a store brand creamy pb)

Method:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix together dry ingredients.

Mix in the milk, then the peanut butter.

Scrape into greased loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour.

ENJOY!

The possibilities are maybe not endless for tweaks to this recipe but use your imagination. Because the recipe has very basic ingredients and is not a sweet bread like banana bread and the peanut butter flavor is subtle you could certainly make it sweeter by adding chocolate chips, or raisins, dates, currants, or use crunchy peanut butter, or any nut butter you like, shredded apple or mashed banana, whatever strikes your fancy and whatever you have on hand. But made just as above I think it is a pleasant bread and would make a nice side to soup or stew type meal.

Peace be with you,

Bean

Vegan Meatless Mushroom-Walnut Loaf Recipe

2 1/2 tablespoons of flaxseed plus 5 tablespoons of water (for flax eggs)
1 medium onion diced- any type of onion is fine
3/4 cup of celery diced
3 cloves of garlic
3 1/2 cups of baby bella (cremini) mushrooms, finely diced (but I think any type of mushroom is fine)
2 cups cooked brown rice
1 cup of cooked potato - mashed
3/4 cup of old fashioned oats
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup of walnuts finely chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 tablespoon vegan worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
pepper to taste.
Ketchup for the topping.

Heat oven to 375 degrees and line a large loaf pan with parchment paper.

Put potato on to cook.
Put rice on to cook
Mix flaxseed and water and set a side it will gel up in about ten minutes
Saute onions and celery for about 5 minutes in a little vegetable broth, then add garlic, thyme, parsley, sage, rosemary, salt and pepper. Saute for an additional two minutes.
Add finely chopped mushrooms and cook for around seven to nine minutes.
In large bowl place mashed potato, rice, oats, breadcrumbs, corn starch, walnuts, tomato paste, worcestershire sauce and combine well and add the mushroom mixture and continue to combine well.

Press mixture into prepared loaf pan, top with ketchup, bake for twenty-five to thirty minutes.

Can be refrigerated for 4 - 6 days, or kept in freezer for 2 - 3 months.

Great cold in a sandwich the next day, reheats well for future meals.

I found this recipe at at Vegan Huggs click here to visit website it is a treasure trove of recipes and if you sign up for the newsletter you are periodically emailed delicious vegan recipes.

ENJOY, my family, vegans and omnivores alike, enjoy this nut loaf.

Bean

A Cold and Frosty Morning and Kimchi Update

I LOVE walking on a cold winters morning. I leave when it is dark, layered up against the cold, and I totally enjoy the hour and half I spend outdoors as I begin my day. The sky is dark, the constellations stand out well, the moon is bright, if there is snow on the ground it crunches pleasingly as I march along. I listen to BBC Radio 4, or 4Extra, as I walk, enjoying a story or play. It is the best time, I think I am a bit of a loner at heart, and I really enjoy being alone with my thoughts and being outside.
As I mentioned it is dark when I start out, but by the end of my walk the sun is rising, and the last part of my walk is due east, so I really get the full impact of a winter morning sunrise, and they are spectacularly beautiful. Here are some pictures to enjoy from this mornings walk, it was 12 degrees, so quite cold, but no wind, and believe me that makes all the difference.

 

 

 

Kimchi update - FAILURE :) Oh my, I followed for the most part a recipe from Epicurious.  I read the recipe review comments after making my kimchi, many noted that the recipe was way too salty. I thought mine would be okay because I omitted the soy sauce and fish sauce, both very salty. Sadly I was quite mistaken, to say my kimchi was salty is truly a gross understatement of the facts, it was so salty it was inedible. And, then the half cup of red pepper, I did a little less, made the mixture so spicy hot it literally burned my mouth. I let the kimchi sit another day and tried it again, it was still vile beyond belief so I had to throw it all away. I feel sad, quite sad, to have wasted two entire Napa cabbages, as they are so delightfully tasty. I did however very much enjoy the small jar of store bought kimchi, but will not make this a regular purchase as it is very expensive. I think if I want to eat fermented food I will stick with my old, inexpensive standby, sauerkraut!

 

 

 



Kimchi Experimentation and a Book Review

2 Quarts of Kimchi

I purchased a small jar of kimchi so I could try it, and I found it very pleasant, very flavorful, a nice little addition to a meal. I looked at several recipes online and just kind of cobbled them together to make my own vat. So this is how I made mine, can't tell you how it tastes as it now needs to sit for three days and ferment.

I took two heads of napa cabbage and mixed in 1 cup of coarse salt and then covered everything with water, placed a plate on top of the cabbage to weight it down, covered the bowl with saran wrap, and then set the bowl in the basement overnight. This morning I drained and very thoroughly rinsed the Napa cabbage. I cut up 8 ounces of daikon radish into matchstick size pieces, finely chopped ginger, probably 2 ounces, a bunch of green onions chopped, a few leaves of mustard greens chopped, 2 tablespoons of garlic, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and almost half a cup of ground red pepper. I mixed everything together for a while, then jammed the whole lot into a half gallon mason jar. The jar is now sitting in the fridge and I will leave it alone for three days and hopefully have some good tasting kimchi on Tuesday. My Kimchi is vegan, I did not had fish sauce, or shrimp sauce, this is a standard ingredient in most Kimchi, I also did not add soy sauce as I didn't want to continue to boost the salt level of the mixture.

Kimchi is good for gut health as the fermentation process produces good microbes for your gut, a little bit goes a long way, it sure is a powerhouse of flavors, and it will keep indefinitely in the fridge. I assume it will just become more flavorful the longer it sits.

 Granddaughter Alivia in her "bright stripe" sweater

I finished the sweater I was knitting for Alivia, I like how it turned out, I have started a second sweater for little sister Aubrey.

Bean - Book Reviewer

I mentioned in my last post that I finished reading Fall of the Giants by Ken Follett. I would now like to review the book.

I was not a big fan of the characters in the book, they were so obviously plot devices to be the eyes of each major historical event, and they continually kept crossing each others paths in a way that seemed unbelievable, and of course one or more where always present at all major historical events during the time period covered. But that said, I feel that I learned a lot about WW1, and other political issues going on during that time period.

I learned a lot about the suffragettes and how initially only women age 30 or older, who owned property worth more than five pounds, and/or were married to a man who owned property at the value or more were finally allowed the right to vote in 1918, in fact the 100 year anniversary just occurred and I knew what a battle that limited right was, and all thanks to the book I read.

I learned that the average working man did not have the right to vote, all decisions favored the wealthy and they had all of the power and all of the say in the governing of Great Britain, and unsurprisingly laws favored the wealthy and did nothing for the working man but keep him poor and in his place.

I learned that WW1 was a war started for no really good reason, and it kind of ran out of steam because no one really knew what they wanted as an end result. The average working man had no say whatsoever about going into war and they were literally slaughtered by the tens of thousands in a completely unnecessary war. 

I learned a lot about the Russian revolution, how desperately impoverished the Russian people were under the thumb of the Tsars, and how they managed to unseat the Tsars and to get in new leadership, the Soviets (a word that means council) only to find that for the most part they were no better off. I guess as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So, I would recommend this book because it is jam packed with historical facts, it shows the impact of historical events on the elite, middle class and working poor, and sadly makes you realize that 100 years later the world is still just as confusing and power hungry as it ever was.

I will be starting the 2nd book in the trilogy in the next week or two and will review when finished.

Bread Baking

For many, many years Dave and I have made our own bread and I couldn't tell you when we last purchased a loaf of bread.  The basic white bread recipe that we use was given to me by my dad. My dad baked bread most Saturday's of my childhood, making a weeks worth of loaves for the family. I started to make bread in my early twenties, but not very often, and at first it did not turn out so well. Over time I started to have more consistent results with my bread making, but still it was something that I did once in a while, we still purchased a lot of bread as we had four growing children at home, believe me we went through a lot of bread each week. My husband started to get interested in the process and decided to try the recipe, his first batch turned out very well  and he has baked bread ever since. Dave is home more in the winter and tends to take care of the bread making during the winter months, and I tend to take care of it in the warmer months. Usually when we bake bread we make two batches for ten loaves this keeps us going for a couple of weeks.We have pretty consistently made our own bread for about fifteen years. I sometimes make oatmeal bread for a change, I will post the recipe another day.

Basic White Bread

2 T dry yeast
2T salt
4T shortening
6T sugar
4 1/2 cups warm water - 110 -115 degrees F
10 - 12 cups of water

Yield 5 loaves, or 4 LARGE loaves
Place, yeast, salt, shortening, and sugar into a large mixing bowl, add the warm water, stir, let stand for five minutes or so, yeast will be nice and foamy.

Add 8 cups of flour, stir in, it will be a big goopy, sticky mess.
Add 2 cups of flour, and dump the entire mixture onto the counter.

Have another cup of flour handy, start kneading the bread, by pulling up the side and pushing it into the middle, turn pull up the side and push into the middle, turn and repeat for about ten minutes. Withing a minute or two you will have a much more manageable dough, keep sprinkling the counter with the extra flour so that the dough doesn't stick, keep kneading. After about ten minutes the dough will feel different, kind of clammy, elastic, and smooth. Use a little shortening to grease the mixing bowl, take the dough and rub it in the bowl to grease the bottom, then invert the dough (greased side is now up), cover the bowl with a dish towel and let sit for 40 - 50 minutes to rise.

Once the dough has risen, dump it out onto the counter, let it rest a minute, then divide into four or five parts, depending upon how many loaves you desire. Roll each portion out into a rectangle, then fold the ends in so that the rectangle is now 1/3 of the original size, then roll up and pinch ends and place in the bread pan. Cover the bread pans with a dish towel and leave the loaves to rise for an hour to an hour and a half.

Heat the oven to 420, bake the loaves, up to three at a time, for 22 minutes.  Remove each loaf from its pan immediately, sit the loaf sideways across the top of the pan and allow to cool.

Bread Makers Treat!

Glorious Sunrise

I was up early this morning getting the bread going, and was privileged to view a stunning sunrise, I grabbed my camera and took a couple of pictures. I am glad I took the pictures immediately, because within five minutes the glorious golden light was gone and it was just an ordinary early morning again, but for just a few minutes it was truly enchanting.

View to the west, the camera really captured the strange light.

View to the east - spectacular!

Few to the west a minute or two after the first picture already the light had changed .

Sauerkraut

 Well when you have a lot of cabbage what else can you do but make sauerkraut. I now have twenty-five pounds of shredded cabbage fermenting in a bucket in the kitchen. It will start to smell a little rank around here in a few days, but we will have to put up with it for 4 - 6 weeks, then I will can the sauerkraut and the house will smell a whole lot better :)

Shredding the cabbage, thank heavens for my trusty old food processor, it made quick work of shredding all that cabbage.

The cabbage breaks down very quickly, I have twenty-five pounds of shredded cabbage in the bucket.

All you need to make sauerkraut is a food grade bucket, cabbage and salt. Shred five pounds of cabbage, mix it with 3 T of salt, let sit for five or so minutes, then put in the bucket and press until water begins to pull out of the cabbage. Continue on, five pounds at a time. When the final batch of cabbage is packed into the bucket the water should be over the cabbage. Place a layer of cheesecloth over the cabbage, then add a plate for a weight, this makes sure that the cabbage remains submerged, you can add a weight if necessary. Put the lid on the bucket, not tightly, just sit it on top. Leave for 4 - 6 weeks, daily skim the scum from the top. This is the only recipe I have ever read that tells me to skim the scum daily!!  Once the sauerkraut is ready, pack into quart jars and process in a hot water canner.  Yummy, so good with pork roast and mashed potato, or bratwurst. I did not have sauerkraut until I met my husband, he loves the stuff, I learned to like it, at first I just like the taste of pork cooked in sauerkraut, but now I love the stuff too.

Baking and Other Stuff

On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family, my sister Michelle and her husband Nick are both in the US until Monday when they will return to London.  On Wednesday we were blessed with beautiful weather and a high of sixty, very rare in late November.  Each Thanksgiving we have family picture day, it works well because we are all together in one place at the same time, this does not happen very often, it was extra fun taking the pictures this year as we had two new additions to the family this year.  Follow the link if you would like to see our fabulously fun family pics, it was super awesome because we were able to be outside, always the best place to be photographed in my opinion.  My Dad is the family photographer and does a fantastic job. http://www.indianapete.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?s=0&username=indianapete&a_id=5844948&s_id=6669311&q=http%3A//www.indianapete.phanfare.com/5844948

Tomorrow we will celebrate Christmas at Manitou with my family and it will be a year until we are all together again. This year I will treasure especially as Emily is leaving for the Air Force at the end of January and it may be a few years before we are able to have everyone together again.

Now on to Baking.
Every year a make traditional English Christmas cakes, the recipe is rich and includes 2lbs of dried fruit, almonds and cherries.  Once the cakes are baked they are kept in a tin and each week I "feed" them a little dry sherry, I usually bake the cakes at the end of October and by Christmas they are ready and oh, oh, oh, oh, oh are they good.  It is standard to cover the cakes with marzipan a week before Christmas, and the day before Christmas decorate with royal icing, the cakes look splendid.  Over the years we have decided to pass on marzipan and royal icing, who needs the additional calories? and the fruit cake stands well on its own.  I have a standing order each year to bake a cake for both of my sisters and my parents and of course for Dave and me, I now make 6" diameter cakes, again we can all enjoy the Christmas cake but not live to regret it :).

English Christmas Cake

Another annual baking tradition for me is the making of shortbread, I give a small tin to each of my sisters and my parents at Christmas.  I think shortbread is amazing!!!  It is made with very basic ingredients, I quadruple the recipe from my Marguerite Pattern cookery book, it goes as follows:

Shortbread
12 oz butter - softened
7 oz sugar
12 oz plain flour
4 oz rice flour

Cream the butter with half of the sugar until extremely well mixed, add the flour and again make sure it is really, really worked into the butter/sugar mixture.  Then add the remaining sugar and mix in well.
This quadrupled batch needs to be baked in a 9"/13" baking pan. Put the dough into the baking pan and then push it into the pan and make sure the dough is even throughout the pan, lightly sprinkle sugar over the top.  Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, it may take a minute or two or three longer.
Allow the shortbread to cool for ten minutes, cut into one and half inch squares and leave it in the pan to let it cool for another half hour. Remove the shortbread from the pan and enjoy, but make sure you pack most of it up to give away as gifts, this stuff is NOT lo-cal.

Shortbread

Today I also baked a Victoria Sandwich, this is a very traditional English sponge cake.  In England it is not the norm to frost cakes. The Victoria sandwich cake if usually filled with strawberry or raspberry jam and a light dusting of confectioners sugar is sieved over the top. If you want to get fancy with the light dusting of sugar you can lay a doily over the cake, lightly sieve the sugar and then carefully remove the doily, this is a delightful way to finish the cake.Another interesting tidbit about the VS, it has four ingredients, butter, sugar, eggs and flour, and the authentic way to make it is to weigh the eggs (usually 3) and then add the exact same weight of each of the other ingredients.  To make you cream the butter well, add the sugar and mix well, slowly incorporate the beaten eggs and then add the flour.  Most recipes now call to add 1 T of milk which should be folded in gently after all the other steps are complete.  If you use plain flour (all purpose) you will need to add 1 t of baking powder.  The VS bakes at 355 for 18 -25 minutes and calls for a 7" diameter cake pan, if you do not have one, in the US 8" seems to be standard, you can use the 8" and simply bake for a little shorter time. Keep in mind that an 8 inch pan will produce a wider, flatter cake than the 7" one. After baking allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then remove and finish cooling on a rack.  Spread strawberry jam thickly on the bottom half, put on the top, sieve lightly with confectioners sugar and voila you have a Victoria Sandwich.  This is NOT a rich cake, but is nice and goes well with afternoon tea.

Victoria Sandwich

I love that my family incorporate many English traditions into our family celebrations, we always have Christmas Crackers http://www.englishteastore.com/crackers.html  please note these are not something you eat :) We always have our English Christmas cake, my Mom makes the best trifle, we have mince pies, sausage rolls, a large tin of Quality Street (excellent candy), and some years Christmas pudding. We have lived in the US since 1978 and in many ways are very American and in other ways we are still very English.

Oh, and yes, unfortunately none of the above recipes are vegan, I generally do not eat desserts so do not mind having a little of something really good once in a while. I will say that the vegan baked goods I have tried have not been very good, it seems that sugar, butter, and eggs are key ingredients for a rich, tasty dessert. I guess I am practicing quality over quantity, I am quite happy to enjoy a vegan diet 99% of the time, but on a holiday or special occasion enjoy a tasty treat.  Moderation is the key to good living.

Today I took Emily and the grandsons into Fort Wayne, we stopped at the Fort Wayne Historical Museum to tour the Gingerbread Festival, this is fun event and there are an awful lot of gingerbread creations on display. The creators ranged in age from pre-school to adult along with a professional category. The boys really liked the SpongeBob Squarepants entry, and another that recreated a large red barn with lots of little animals.  A girl scout troop had a fun log cabin entry with a pond with "goldfish" swimming in it, the boys liked this as goldfish crackers are a favorite treat.  All entries have to be made with edible stuff, and some people are very creative. After the Gingerbread Festival we headed over to Christmas at the Old Fort, there were vendors set up in each of the fort buildings, and games for kids, unfortunately our nice weather from Thursday is long gone and today it was overcast and the high was only in the mid thirties, since this activity was primarily outside we did not stay as long as we might have done if the weather had been warmer.  I was able to visit the Heirloom Spoon man and purchase some more beautifully made wooden cooking utensils for Christmas gifts, and another vendor was selling everything beeswax. I purchased my FIRST EVER beeswax candles, what a pleasant surprise to find that they have the most delightful aroma, I also purchased some beeswax soap that smells divine.  One of the games for kids involved tying a donut on a string and then the participant, in this case Patrick, had to put his hands in his pockets and attempt to eat the donut, this is not an easy task.  With some help Patrick did finally manage to master the donut and his persistence paid off with a tummy full of yummy donut.  When we returned home we had lunch and warmed up and then watched The Wizard of Oz, what a fab movie.  During the movie Pat and Charlie fell asleep, a little later Henry and I headed into the kitchen to assemble our gingerbread house kit, we had fun putting it together, we had a few collapses during assembly but in the end it turned out fine.

Henry really enjoyed this project

And in today's mail my package from Minnesota arrived, I had ordered a tie-dye piece from Beth, another blogger,http://bld-in-mt.blogspot.com/2012/11/matts-artform.html and it arrived today, I just love it and was pleased to pop it on the kitchen table and then place my beeswax candles in the candlesticks. Beth's husband Matt is the tie-dyer and he does some amazing stuff, follow the link to check out some of his other work.

I just love the colors in this tie-dye

Well that is today's update, I hope all that celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful day with family and friends.
Bean

Vegan Cooking

In my late twenties and early thirties I was a vegetarian, my husband and children were not, it was challenging and eventually I stopped being a vegetarian. Earlier this year I started to consciously reduce the amount of meat in my diet and when I did eat meat I made sure it was good quality.  I also decided to drastically reduce the amount of sugar I consume, sugar is SO destructive causing a lot of inflammation and tiredness, not to mention the affect on blood sugar. Slowly but surely my diet became vegetarian, it wasn't my goal, it has just happened as I move to healthier and healthier eating.  Change comes slowly and is best implemented  over time, reducing meat, reducing sugar came first. Then no meat, then removing food items made with white flour, and cutting back on my consumption of high carbohydrate vegetables.  Next it was time to make sure I was getting a consistent amount of fiber in diet, I eat a serving of All Bran each morning. Another thing I have changed is the amount of water I drink each day, I try to at least three quarts per day plus tea, and my morning cup of coffee.  Soon the morning cup of coffee will be history as I plan to cut back the amount of caffeine I consume. Then all of sudden I wasn't eating cheese, I discovered Almond Milk, so have that on my cereal in place of cows milk, and I am not eating eggs. Google almond milk to learn of the health benefits, there is 1 gram of fiber in a 1 cup serving and ONLY 40 calories and it tastes great on cereal. I like rice pudding, using almond milk instead of cows milk, brown rice instead of white, eliminating the butter and halving the sugar, I get a wonderful rice pudding dessert with a 1/3 of the calories of conventional rice pudding and still get all of the flavor.  I like to add cardamon or nutmeg to my rice pudding.
 As I read the above paragraph it seems like a huge amount of change, yet it does not seem like it, as one change was made the next change just seemed the right thing to do and was easily incorporated. I eat a wide variety of low carb vegetables like onions, kale, collard greens, spinach, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, lots of beans, fresh fruit, quinoa, brown rice, and the occasional squash.  I have experimented with different recipes and made some extremely flavorfully complex soups, stir fries and casseroles.  The best thing is that Dave is eating so much better, he loves his meat and I could not imagine him ever being a vegetarian, but he consumes more vegetables then he ever has and enjoys many of the dishes I make served along side a pork chop or piece of chicken, it seems like a win win for both of us. Dave discovered that hummus is good, he is eating a lot less cheese and now eats Wasa whole grain crackers with hummus!
I have raided our local library for vegan cook books, and found one author I really like, Robin Robertson. I like Robin's cook books, she does not get into complicated recipes, they are generally easy to make and most often I have all of the ingredients.
Am I preaching here that everyone should be a vegan, absolutely not, but I am preaching that incorporating some healthy new things into your diet may pave the way to more healthy changes and ultimately good health. Would I say I am a vegetarian or a vegan, for the most part yes, but if I felt like eating some salmon, or a small steak, or a piece of chicken I probably would, I just really haven't felt like eating meat that is all. And my overall goal is to make sure that I do all I can to ensure good health. If you have Netflix you might want to check out the documentary Forks Over Knives, it is a bit long, but the message is good and it is inspiring, I have watched it several times.

Today I made Black Bean Soup with a Splash - the splash was a 1/3 cup of sherry, a delicious soup which will feed me for the next few days. The recipe was out of 1000 Vegan Recipes.

Along with the black bean soup I made Portuguese Kale Soup, the recipe is from Carb Conscious Vegetarian, this soup is amazingly good, I have made it over and over again, this too will feed me over the next few days. I don't always use kale, collard greens work well too.

 Most soup recipes call for vegetable broth, I have tried several brands and I like this one the best, I buy it at Kroger in the Natural Foods section.  I like the Swanson vegetable broth, but they do not offer a low sodium version.  I have tried a few store brand vegetable broths but was not overly keen on the flavor. Purchased broth is convenient, I may start to experiment with making my own.

I have renewed my loan from the library for the Carb Conscious Vegetarian cook book multiple times, the book now looks extremely well used as I have had it in constant use, I am going to order my very own copy for keeps. I just found the 1000 Vegan Recipes cook book this week at the library, I have only made the black bean soup, it is good. I may end up purchasing a copy of this book too if it proves to be useful. I certainly will continue to sing the praises of Robin Robertson she has done a phenomenal  job with both of these books.

I found the Vegan Holiday Kitchen cook book at our local branch library, it has some very nice recipes, more suitable for holidays as most are quite rich.  I plan to make the wildrice stuffed acorn squash, pictured on the front cover, for Thanksgiving, along with all the traditional foods for the rest of the family.

On Monday I went to a Walmart in Fort Wayne, rather than my local one, and I found that they had an International aisle, something my Walmart does not have. What an array of foods are to be found in this wonderful aisle, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Bosnian, African, Middle Eastern, Greek, and probably more countries represented.  As I perused the selection, I came across Ahmad Tea of London in the Middle Eastern section, I bought a box of the Cardamon tea, (I love cardamon), along with the tea was a complimentary glass tea cup, all this for $4 what a deal.  The tea is so nice, no bitterness, and nice hint of cardamon.  I am going to try some other varieties of the Ahmad tea, I looked it up on Amazon, all kinds have 5 star reviews, although the prices on Amazon were five to six times higher than Walmart. And don't you just love the tea cup??

An interesting fact about cardamon, it is the worlds third most expensive spice, with vanilla coming in first and saffron second.  Cardamon is very nice when added to rice pudding, in fact it is da bomb!!

October Catch Up

Guess I got tired of blogging for a while, so I didn't blog, but today I feel like blogging so here goes.  This is a lazy post, just a catch up of October and mainly in pictures.  In some ways it has been a busy month, yet in other ways not. Yesterday was a cold, windy, rainy day, Amber picked the boys up around four, so I made a big mug of tea, put a movie on Netflix, The Lady Vanishes, a 1938 Alfred Hitchcock film, and picked up my knitting. I enjoyed the tea, the movie, and got a lot of knitting done!! A lazy yet productive hour and half. What am I knitting you might ask, a v-neck cardigan for myself in a color called oatmeal in the Vanna's choice yarn line.

A week or so ago we had some rather splendid weather, an Indian Summer, a few days of highs in the seventies, it is very important to get outside and enjoy the gift of a balmy fall day. The day before, a Sunday afternoon, I started to clean up the gardens, pulled some weeks, cut back suckers on some of the fruit trees, and pulled up all of the dead plants, zinnia, marigold, tomato, green bean, peppers, then cut back the asparagus, and generally had a good tidy up.  I started a fire and burned a lot of the stuff in our campfire ring.  On the Monday afternoon I went out to burn more stuff that I had piled in the center of the tomato patch.  Once the fire was going I decided to burn all of the tree limbs and debris that came down after the bad storm on June 29. I had a fabulous time outside, my fire was amazing, in fact I ended up with two fires going and by the following morning all I had left were piles of ash that I can spread over the gardens.  I still need to clean up the raspberry canes, and do a few more clean up chores, and am living in hope that we will have another balmy fall day to do the rest of the work.

Dave and I have been enjoying board games lately, we have always enjoyed Scrabble, but one evening we were "game" for anything, we played cards, we played Othello, a game I always enjoy playing but Dave thinks it a rather silly game, we played Scrabble and then we played chess.  We only have one chess game and it belongs to our son Ben, it is The Simpson's chess set, it is rather hard to take the game seriously when Homer is King!!!  Boy when the game started I was kicking @@@, then my opponent made a sneaky move and everything went downhill for me super-de-duper-de fast!!  I don't think I won a single game all evening, but I did have a good time.

Can you believe it?? Little Charlie was 5 months old on the 10/27, he is a gorgeous little chappy!!

Pumpkin carving took place at our house about ten days before Halloween, some of the pumpkins we grew and Amber bought some to add to the pile. Every one had a pumpkin to carve, most of us carved the old fashioned way using a knife. Dave had to be hi-tech, he used a Dremel, and Matt and Traci decided it worked well so they used it as well. One draw back to the Dremel, it emits a fine mist of pumpkin while carving, I kept finding bits of pumpkin to clean up for several days!!! While everyone carved I made them waffles and sausage for supper.

Let the carving begin.

The Pumpkins anxiously awaiting carving!

Henry enjoys a few waffles. 

 Traci means business when she cleans out a pumpkin!

 Matt being creative with the Dremel.

 One of Matt's pumpkins, he is a Notre Dame fan - can you tell!!

 Our handiwork on display - I think they look wonderful.

 Fun in a box.  A few weeks ago Amber and Brad had a mini disaster at their house.  They have a well pit in their back yard, it is about 6 feet deep, at the bottom of the pit is their pressure tank for the well.  Brad went out to mow the grass and noticed water gushing out from under the cover on the 6 foot deep pit, YIKES!!  Dave and I went over, Dave turned off the well and went to look in the pit, the pressure tank was floating on the surface, surely not a good sign.  Anyway, long story short, once the well was shut off and the pit drained  Dave was able to install a new pressure tank, turn on the well and the little family had water again and all for the price of a pressure tank.  Our pressure tank also needed replacing, so Dave picked a new one up for us when he got one for Amber and Brad, this was very cool because now we had two identical good sized boxes for making box boats!!!  The boys were very excited and have played for hours in their boxes, they have been cars, boats, beds, houses, space ships, just to name a few things, they have eaten lunch in them, hidden in them, looked at books in them.  Don't you just love how such a simple item, an empty cardboard box, can just cause the imagine to churn and create hours of contented fun.

 Fun with cooking.  I recently decided to try fingerling potatoes, and ventured into the trying the purple variety, aren't they beautiful when freshly cut?  I tossed them in a little olive oil and herbs and roasted them, very nice they were too.  The bottom pan is Potatoes with Garlic and Peanut Butter - an extremely good curry, I enjoyed it with Quinoa.  Don't get me started on Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) I love the stuff and can't imagine how I ever survived without it. If you like tabouleh you will probably love it if you make it with quinoa rather than bulgar wheat.  The recipe for the Potatoes with Garlic and Peanut can be found here: http://bld-in-mt.blogspot.com/2012/10/baby-potatoes-with-garlic-and-peanut.html

And last but not least, Traci - no Alivia has not yet arrived into this world. I took this picture on Sunday, it was  Alivia's official due date, she is not making any signs of impending arrival yet, Traci is keeping herself busy and not going too crazy with the waiting.  But we can't wait, how exciting for Matt and Traci they are going to be good parents and they are so ready for little Alivia to get here as are the rest of us.