awesome waffles and a worried mom.

Guess who got a waffle maker for xmas? It took some getting used to, as I've never actually made waffles before. But I think I have it down now. This was our breakfast this morning. Chocolate chip waffles topped with maple syrup, strawberries, and soyatoo whipped topping. Wowie.

I'm the worried mom from the blog title. Miles was feeling better after his vet visit, up until last night. Now both he and Moe are disinterested in their food, and Miles threw up once more this morning. They have both eaten about a spoonful worth of wet food today. I spoke to the vet office this morning before they closed for the holiday, and they suggested that Moe & Miles may be sharing a stomach bug of some sort. I was told to watch them and make sure they keep most of their food down, and to take them to emergency if they get worse. Otherwise, I have to take them both back in on Wednesday.
I'm really scared, especially since they are both sick now. But we will just have to keep an eye on them. They both seem mostly normal, just pooping more and not begging for food. I hope they're going to be okay.

poor miles.

Miles hasn't been feeling well since Tuesday night. He had been acting kind of pitiful that evening, and we came home to some gross messes on the floor yesterday. He felt like he had a fever, so I took him to the vet first thing this morning.
The vet felt comfortable sending him home after a full day of observance, but we are supposed to keep an eye on him in case he gets worse. Poor lil' feller. No more messes, but he's acting tired. Probably because his beauty sleep was interrupted today with all the vet stuff. Get well soon, buddy!

In food related news, I finally had a chance to make the Creamy Tomato Soup from Veganomicon. (I know, I do actually own other cookbooks...) and it was very tasty, but honestly I was expecting more "creamy" with all of the yukon gold potatoes in it. It was good, but it was so thick that I sort of felt like I was eating tomato sauce with a spoon. I will probably add soy creamer to this for thinning and for more creaminess next time around.
That being said, this is a super (souper?) easy soup to make, especially with the aid of the immersion blender.



It's topped with Parma, in case you were wondering. Parma rules.

party's over.

That was a nice break, but it's back to work tomorrow. Ken and I both baked today! He made his yummy banana bread from HIAV, and I made another batch of the Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookies from 'nomicon as well as a batch of Dreena's chocolate chip cookies. A good time was had by all.



I was glad we had a chance to travel up and visit my mom yesterday. Here's my pretty mommy, who turned 70 last week:



And here I am with my oldest brother Scott and our mom. This picture of me makes me want to go fetal and weep while shoving cookies into my mouth, but it's nice to have a pic of all of us together at least.

how you say....cassoulet?

So I made the bean & leek cassoulet from 'nomicon to take to my mom's house today. But rather than the called-for biscuit topping, I wanted to top it with puff pastry. I found out from Lori that the Pepperidge Farm Puff pastry is vegan. And though we both agreed that the PF puff pastry is full of hydrogenated crap, that a little bit every now and then probably won't kill us.
So, it looks and smells awesome, and hopefully it will taste awesome. Is it still a cassoulet, or did I just turn it into a pot pie? Ah, whatever.



I will leave you with proof that Miles is noisy:

early christmas dinner

I don't eat Tofurky for the holiday novelty factor. I eat it because I freakin' love it!
Tonight we celebrated the beginning of our first few days off since our NYC weekend in September with the basics:
Tofurky Roast, mashed potatoes, dino kale with fire roasted tomatoes, gravy and store bought rolls. Perfect!
Tomorrow we are heading out to visit my mom, and I plan on whipping up a variation of the cassoulet from Veganomicon to bring with. I have high hopes for it. I'll post pictures, if it comes out well. :)

when holiday baking goes horribly wrong.

I have an old friend named Kellie, who is a line-crosser. It's one of her best qualities. She's also very creative and funny as hell. Last night, I had the privilege of viewing one of her most socially unacceptable masterpieces- a very special take on a gingerbread house. Click here to see pictures of it in all it's glory. If you're easily offended, then perhaps just skip the link.
Kudos Kellie, kudos!

bizzy, and a mish mash of things.

Whew. It's so hard to be productive and festive this time of year, because it's our busiest time for the store. I had such grand ideas... send out fresh baked goods as gifts, for example. Ha. I haven't even had time to send anyone a card, much less bake in quantity. But soon we will have a day off, oh yes!

A lot has happened in a week or so. The most exciting is that I've decided I want to be a runner. Why is that weird? Well, for one thing I'm not the least bit athletic. I'm overweight, and I pretty much despise exercise. The only time I have ever consistantly kept up with an exercise routine is when Christy and I took yoga classes for two years. So here we are- day nine of my running experiment. I've gone out there six days out of the past nine. I'm pretty weak, I can't run for long. I have to go as far as I can, then walk. Everything hurts. My knees, shins, ankles, feet. It sucks. But for some reason, I still feel compelled to accomplish this. Ken is a good trainer too, by the way. He's a real runner. We'll see how long I can take it.
But anyway. Here's some pictures and stuff.

Moe! It's Moe's world, we just live in it. I like this picture because everything in it is Moe-ified. Not one but two scratchy posts in the background, along with a framed picture of him on the end table. What you can't see is Moe hair on every surface.



The store parking lot gets tagged pretty often with cool graffiti. I especially like this one that recently appeared because you don't see much graffiti that includes birdies wearing fat albert style hats.




We have a really sweet customer that owns a date farm. She sent us an amazing care package of fancy dates in several varieties. They taste fucking amazing, so sweet and good. There were a lot more than this, we had to give some away because there were too many for us to eat. This is what we kept:



And Ken made banana bread with some of those lovely dates by following the recipe from HIAV. It turned out great!



Tonight we wanted to try a new vegan feta cheese we got in at the store, so we made a pizza with one of those pre-made Rustic Crusts. We topped the sourdough crust with sauce, crumbled vegan feta, black olives, onions, and sun dried tomatoes. This was VERY GOOD. The feta is flavorful and nice, without being too stinky like real cheese. And I have enough sun dried tomatoes left over to (hopefully) whip up a batch of Creamy Tomato Soup from the Veganomicon tomorrow night. I've been craving the hell out of some tomato soup lately.



So yeah. More cooking should be happening next week, I hope!

happy elves.

Bwahahahaha! You can thank my sister in law for that one. I love how seriously Moe seems to be taking it.

worth a look

I recently ran across the most amazing blog: The Daily Coyote. Gorgeous photographs of a coyote named Charlie who hangs out with a family in Montana, including their cat.
The cuteness, I can hardly stand it!

heaven is breakfast for dinner.

I'm not much for eating in the morning, even though I know it's better for you and all that. I really need to be awake for a few hours before I feel like eating. And once I am, I usually crave savory, non-breakfast foods. For example- this morning I had avocado & cucumber sushi for breakfast. Another common breakfast for me a tomato sandwich. Weird, I know.
But don't get me wrong... I love breakfast foods. But I tend to eat them for dinner, or on a rare lazy brunch afternoon. We had an awesome breakfast dinner last night:



Tofu scramble with spinach and mushrooms (Ken's didn't have mushrooms, as he's allergic), sweet potato hash with onions, garlic, and soy sausage, and a side of toasted french bread for scrambler dippin'.
I'm pretty particular about tofu scrambles. I really hate an excessively wet, runny scramble. It needs to be firm and flavorful. But I'm okay with pretty much any vegetable and spice combination, with the exception of bell peppers. Yick. Why do so many restaurants use bell peppers in their scrambles? There's none of that mess at our house.

a salad and some cats.

First the salad:



Ken and I like to do "Kitchen Sink" kind of salads, where you just toss everything from the fridge on top of lettuce. This is chopped romaine, grape tomatoes, celery, onion, black olives, "steak" strips, and apple chunks. It's always good, no matter what we toss in there.
Moe begs for all food, even salad. This was just before I gave him some lettuce:



See the eyes? How could I possibly turn him down?
In other cat news, Christy asked me if Moe and Miles ever interact with one another. They don't really get along, so they sometimes fight. Besides that, they just ignore one another. With the exception of Moe constantly sniffing Miles. Any time Miles walks by Moe, Moe has to get a good sniff in. I wonder if he ever smells different than the last time he was sniffed? he always smells the same to me, kind of like fruit loops.


Miles loves the heat vents now that it's colder. He's always camped out in front of one:



The boys. They're so cute.