sarah palin

Damn, if she didn't already disgust me with her stand against same-sex marriages, opposition of woman's reproductive rights, and her disturbing belief in creationism, then her office decor would have certainly sealed the deal for me.

thanks, mom!

My mom got me a lil' sewing machine! I've always wanted one, so I'm really excited.

thumbs up:



First order of business, is learn how to sew. It's been about 15 years since I've used a machine or followed a pattern. I think I'll start by making a bunch of catnip pillows for charity. But I want to make them good, so it might be a while.

Speaking of cats, Miles gave me a cankle:



Yeah, he's still heading up the Atlanta chapter of the L.J.A. (Little Jerk Association). He's still adorable though, so he's always off the hook. Brat.

bowls of things.

I hate posting about great food with blurry photos, but that doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. The camera is focusing only about 30% of the time. So let's all use our imagination, shall we?

Last night we had a tremendous stir fry. We began with one vidalia onion, chopped, tossed in the wok with a few splashes of oil and some taco seasoning. Add in 1/2 bag of Soy Curls (soaked and drained)and stir fry with about 1 cup corn kernals and a few handfuls of baby spinach. Serve over brown rice, and top with ripe tomatoes, avocado chunks, and black beans. Huge food!



Something else we have been going gaga over is ravioli with cream sauce. This takes no time to make, which is perfect for us since we don't get home in the evenings until around 9:00pm most nights. We "make" a quick batch of Rising Moon ravioli (Butternut Squash is my fave), and top it with some semi-homemade cream sauce.
Mimic Creme makes the best damn cream sauce ever. All I do is heat up some unsweetened Mimic Creme on medium heat, and add some vegan chicken-style seasoning to taste, along with basil, minced garlic, and lots of spinach. Sprinkle libreally with vegan parma. Done! Awesome! Sop up the extra with Teese bread!



So tell me.... what's your favorite quick dinners?

OPBG (other people's baked goods)

So, Ive been trying to be good and not bake & eat fatty things all the time. I'm saving myself for Ken's upcoming birthday, for which he's requested a vegan chocolate strawberry cheesecake. In a few weeks, we will rock that shit. Until then, I'll continue to eat a lot of fruit.
But oh. We have some friends who have been baking a lot lately, then sharing the goods with us. Jerks.

Laura brought us a loaf of her rustic sourdough, which was beyond awesome. We ate slices of this for days, sopping up pasta sauce or just toasting up. I mean, look at it!



She also shared some vegan cherry cheese danishes. Unbelievable. I can't remember the last time I had a cheese danish, and when I did I'm sure it wasn't a beautiful, homemade danish with quality ingredients.



(These are Laura's pictures. Ya'll know my camera isn't working right.)

AR recap.

We've pretty much been slammed with work since the moment we rolled back into town on Monday. So here's a brief recap of the AR conference by the numbers.

Total hours spent in the behemoth rental van: 23

Percentage of those hours listening to viking metal and old thrash metal: 60%

Number of Teese sandwiches eaten: 2.5

Number of Chreese sandwiches eaten: 2.5

Number of Temptation ice cream cones eaten: 1

Total number of awesome people we met: too many to count!

New Friends made: 6+

Number of weirdos who approached us: only about 2. A much lower number than at home! Go figure.

Total number of talks I was able to attend: sadly, only 1. (history of activist oppression)But it sufficiently scared the shit outta me.

Number of times I shared an elevator with Peter Young: 1

Total conversations I had with Howard Lyman: 1

Total number of times we had to hear the Supreme Master dvd coming from the table next to us: 576, at least.

Some good stuff: meeting a lot of cool people, several of whom we have only had previous email contact with. Chad, Emiko & Eban from Food Fight were amazingly awesome and nice. Rounding off the Portland contingent was Joshivore, who is one of our favorite people. Behold! Josh and a bit of his Herbivore empire!



We also were inspired by some cool folks who do good work at our favorite animal sanctuaries. We met Jenny from Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, and hung out with the lovely Liz who works with Farm Sanctuary. We also got to talk with some of the bad-asses from Sea Shepherd. Those guys.... holy shit. Talk about some gutsy activism.

So, food. We were pretty much stuck at the exhibit table for most of the time. Luckily, the Chicago Soy Dairy people were there with plenty of Teese, bread and sandwich presses. Those jerks. Waving yummy sandwiches in our faces all day:



And they had big waffle cones filled with Temptation ice cream for purchase. Bastards.

We managed to have a few dinners out in the city, too. We went with Josh and Liz to Soul Vegetarian, but they had run out of food. Luckily, Everlasting Life was only a few blocks up. We filled up some to-go boxes with huge piles of BBQ tofu, potato salad, collard greens, and more.
On Saturday night, we went to a pleasant little place called Sunflower Vegetarian. Actually, we went there on Sunday night as well. I apologize for the serious lack of pictures in this post. Our camera is still playing the selective focus game. All the pictures I took are pretty shitty. But here's a blurry pic of the delicious dish I had at Sunflower on Sunday:



This was called Popeye-something-or-other. It's a spinach and potato patty, breaded and covered in a black pepper sauce. So amazing. I'm going to try and recreate this at home, for sure.

And yes! We went to Sticky Fingers! We picked up big ol' cinnamon rolls, cookies, Little Devils, and more. The cinnamon rolls are huge there.



We really missed the boys, and were glad to get home. Plus, my butt was sore from driving forever. We keep forgetting that we have no groceries in the house, so we have been eating store-bought avocado/cucumber sushi for breakfast everyday. Time to go shopping.

see you next week?

nataliedee.com

Donuts on the grill? Ah, no. There hasn't been a whole lot of cooking going on at all lately, due to us being so busy. We are taking a 10+ hour drive to Washington D.C. this week to attend and exhibit at the Animal Rights National Conference, and we've been consumed with various annoyances involving the trip and all that comes with it. But we're excited to be going!

See you later, dudes.

candies and shiny things.

First of all, the lovely Elise of Dark Faerie Creations recently nominated my blog for an award. And she presented me with this shiny thing:



So, thanks Elise! I can't imagine why, as I don't update this joint very often and my pictures usually suck. But it's still nice to be thought of. Along with the shiny prize, I'm supposed to nominate seven other blogs. But I'm really not good at that kind of thing. I read and love far too many to single out seven of you! (end of cop out)

Oh hey, I used some of those marshmallows for something other than just filling my maw. Well, they're still taking up space in my maw, but now cleverly disguised as rocky road candy.
Behold, the blurry candy:



Most people think of rocky road as a flavor of ice cream. Probably from some early influence of The Goonies. But rocky road is traditionally a candy, usually made in block form with chocolate, nuts, and marshmallows. It's the easiest thing in the world to make, too. Just melt down some of your favorite vegan chocolate, mix in a splash or two of soy creamer, and pour over some salted peanuts and marshmallow bits. Then let the chocolate firm back up in the fridge.
I used mini cupcake liners and just spooned in the candy, so we would have little bite-sized pieces to enjoy. Easy and delish!