Garden Bounty

Not many x’s have been added to anything over the last couple days and Im sorely missing the relaxation I get from my crafting hobbies.  I was able to spend a couple minutes with my tiny garden tonight, cleaning out unwanted growing things, clipping off leaves and bits that arent going to grow so the energy can be spent elsewhere.

Garden

I was out watering and checking out things yesterday and found a bounty of 4 strawberries!  All untouched/eaten by those evil beasts that seem to be beating me to the berries.

The perfect amount for each one of us in the house to try.  Today I found two and wasn’t as giving.  Those wonderful small gifts were washed, greenery carefully removed and popped right in my mouth where I enjoyed every bite.

Food

Tonight I made more bean-quinoa burgers and some “sausage”.  Ive posted about the burgers before – tonight I used pinto beans that I soaked over the weekend.  They are another tasty smelling bean when cooking.  The ‘sausage’ is new and no one has tried them yet.  More of me trying to get some extras cooked and ready for whatever and more of what I tried to get done yesterday so I could take a well needed (wanted) break from the kitchen.

Chickpea Tenders

I found this thanks to a good friend recommending Happy Herbivore blog to me.  From there I added the FB page as a fave and found a picture of these on a post

The recipe can be found in her Everyday Happy Herbivore cook book (which I very highly recommend!)

She uses a number of extra mixes (sour cream, poultry seasoning mix, no-chicken broth powder) in this dish that I strongly suggest are made up in advanced.  All the mixes are a mix now, use a little in the recipe you need it for and you’ve saved time for the next recipe – or that’s how it pretty much worked for me the first time I made these.

Vital wheat gluten (Bob’s Red Mill!) is some fun stuff to play with!

Ive made this dish twice and both times they went faster than I could blink. (ok not really but very well received)  Good for lunch, dinner and snacks.  They can be made smaller than chicken breast size – think nuggets, but it does take a while to shape all those little things and the bigger size fits wonderfully on Dave’s Killer bread for a sandwich.

May IHSW

Great start to this weekend – with a finish for LHN Peace.

I worked on my Ink Circle’s RYO2013 project but have negative stitches and wasn’t able to complete the rip out.  It does not pay to try and keep stitching when your eyes have been flipping the GO TO BED sign for a while

Food

Tonight’s feasting was over Sweet Potato Lasagna by Forks Over Knives. Unfortunately I cant share it as it can only be found in their cookbook

I modified mine a bit, using whole wheat pasta as trying to find lasagna noodles that are a whole grain is next to impossible where I live. I also include broccoli, mushrooms, celery, ACV and turmeric to the mix of veggies and spices. I also went out on a limb and made enough for two lasagna dishes.

Happy to report that this dish is a huge hit! I had barely enough left of one dish for lunch tomorrow and a whole dish for dinner later this week. Perfect

This is NOT a weekday meal. It took me a very long time getting everything cut up, cooked and assembled. I cant see where any time could be saved if everything was cutup and ready to go as the cauliflower and sweet potatoes both are steamed, then put through the food processor (ok that was another change I made but easier to get the sweets eaten), then the noodles are cooked.

The best thing, other than the thumbs up for a good meal, was the 45 min cooking time. Wonderful break for me :oP

I have thoughts of changing this up some more but still working things out.  I would like to make this again, it is very filing and satisfying and would be great for a fall/winter dish but there needs to be some way to speed up the prep time…

Life Style

As you may have been noticing, there have been drastic changes in our eating habits. To be blunt we have moved from meat eaters to plant eaters – Mostly Vegan. There is little to no meat or dairy (including eggs) being consumed and Im not missing it.

I still have milk in my coffee, Im trying to change to almond milk but its hard – it just doesn’t cream up the same. And yes, the smell of a good meal with cooking meat can make my tummy grumble with anticipation but we are dedicated.

A couple of reasons why Im more dedicated now that even a month ago are the numbers 20 and 9. 20 is the number of lbs I have lost since the beginning of the year and more than 1/2 of that is since I really took the plunge into vegan foods. 9 is the number of inches Ive lost since mid March, when I started tracking again. With numbers like these, and with them consistently falling, I don’t want to think about going back.

I havent really changed my exercise habits, D and I have been walking to the bus station every morning since the start of the year, which is almost 1.5 miles, and I take the bus home everyday which adds another 1/4-1/2 mile. I know that soon I will need to step it up a bit, add more walking in or a bike ride on the weekends maybe, to keep the bod working.

I don’t count calories, carbs or anything. D and I do make sure that what we eat as a family is not over processed, is whole foods, grains, organic, lots of fruit and veggies, and vegan. Listening to your body is the best thing anyone can do. Stop eating when you’re full. Drink water. Think about what it may cost to over indulge in anything.

I havent wanted to post about my changes and losses for the sense of failure if it slows down or starts going the other way but I so want to shout out what I have accomplished so far.

(not me but someday soon!)

Boo!

Hey there!  Ive been around, had ideas to share but the whole opening up the live writer app and applying fingers to keys was just a bit much for me to do apparently. 

Spent a wonderful weekend at Silver Falls over Mother’s Day.  Perfect weather, wonderful camp spot.  It’s a wonderful camp ground for short weekend stays.  No full hookups (other than for camp hosts).  Highly recommended.

Stitching

A finish!  LHN’s Peace

The border gave me fits as well as the whole needing to count but I didn’t ground it! (bonus for me)  Im a bit behind as Faith has been released or will be very soon.

Ink Circles RYO 2013

Anyone else fallen off the deep-end and into this fun SAL?  There is a Lonely Family of just three colors that Ive pulled for pinks and another one for purple and a splash of yellow.  I have grand aspirations of having these done by Oct so I can have them made into pillows for christmas presents.  Time will tell…

Food

Oh yes I have several recipes to share but this one was just made tonight.  Another meal that can be made ahead of time, cooked and eaten later in the week.  Although most of the items Ive “saved” didn’t make it to dinner the next day.

Black Bean Quinoa Burger

This one is from Vegetarian Times and I found it while looking for burger recipes I can make ahead of time for camping trips, lunches dinners when I am gonna be late and really don’t want to put anything together or just eat salad.

For this recipe – I didn’t have black beans but did have white so used what I had.

Ingredients

½ cup quinoa

1 small onion, finely chopped (1 cup)

6 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and finely chopped (¼ cup)

1½ cups cooked black beans, or 1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)

2 tsp. dried steak seasoning

8 whole-grain hamburger buns

1. Stir together quinoa and 1½ cups water in small saucepan, and season with salt, if desired. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes, or until all liquid is absorbed. (You should have 1½ cups cooked quinoa.)

2. Meanwhile, place onion and sun-dried tomatoes in medium nonstick skillet, and cook over medium heat. (The oil left on the tomatoes should be enough to sauté the onion.) Cook 3 to 4 minutes, or until onion has softened. Stir in ¾ cup black beans, garlic, steak seasoning, and 1½ cups water. Simmer 9 to 11 minutes, or until most of liquid has evaporated.

3. Transfer bean-onion mixture to food processor, add ¾ cup cooked quinoa, and process until smooth. Transfer to bowl, and stir in remaining ¾ cup quinoa and remaining ¾ cup black beans. Season with salt and pepper, if desired, and cool.

4. Preheat oven to 350°F, and generously coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Shape bean mixture into 8 patties (½ cup each), and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes, or until patties are crisp on top. Flip patties with spatula, and bake 10 minutes more, or until both sides are crisp and brown. Serve on buns.

Reducing – this took a bit longer than 11 min and I moved the heat up a bit over med

The recipe says this will make 8 patties at 1/2 c each.  I used a 1/2 cup to scoop and got 4 and a half.  Next time I will use 1/4 c and see if I get 8.  The 1/2c makes a big burger.  The half was perfect for me.

A pic of how P put his burger together.  Hummus may be adding more beans to the mix but its something he is loving and will use more than peanut butter on sandwiches.

Dave’s Killer bread, garlic hummus, spinach, burger.  Mine was similar – just added some cucumber slices for added crunch

Sun

I am loving the sun we are getting these days.  Im hoping it stays around but not stay so hot!  High 70’s for now is just fine.

Gardening

Thanks to the wonderful sun, I have been spending time in the yard getting some foodstuffs planted

Peas, Chard, Marigolds, kale – planted next to the garage where they can get some sun but stay out of the rays during the hot times of the PacNW.

A whole barrel of basil!  Well just planted seeds.  Here’s hoping the squirrels stay out now.  This was a favorite area of theirs for burring whatever this winter.

Strawberry update – over to the far lower left you might just be able to see the first red strawberry!  Lots of new growth, flowers and itty-bitty strawberries peaking out everywhere.

And finally a big NOPE!  This bugger is the larvae of a Lesser Underwing moth.  While sure the moths may look nice the caterpillar stage of these nopes like to take plants down at dirt level.  We have been finding them in the soil next to the garage and Im sure they are everywhere in the dirt.  So Im on a mission and they are not something I will be saving, unlike all the worms Ive been finding.  Not quite sure what Im going to do with the them, for now they will be dumped into a planter that is current filled with water.

Im working on another area to get some summer and fall squash planted and finding a spot for sweet potatoes.

Stitching

I havent been adding much to any projects.  I found an addition issue with LHN’s Peace that had to be taken care of.  The border was off and I couldn’t see just what/where until I started on the inside.  Then the it was so glaring and not fixable that all the border had to go.  Lots of negative stitching this week.

But Im happy to say that finally as of tonight it is out – a nice easy project to do while making pancakes for this week’s breakfasts.  I have grand plans to get the border finished on Peace so I can get started on Courage.

Grainy

Stitching update – my IHSW project from this past weekend.

LHN Peace

I think this one is going slower because of all the fiddly-bits (leaves, flowers, fish)

Have you seen the next one?

Courage

Love the purple!

More Food!

Whole-Grain Pancakes

 

1 ½ cups plant-based milk
2/3 cup quick-cooking oats
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoon canola oil

1. In a medium bowl, combine milk and oats. Let stand 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, baking powder, and salt. Stir oil into oat mixture and add oat mixture to dry ingredients. Stir just until flour mixture is moistened (batter will be lumpy)

3. Spray nonstick 12-inch skillet with nonstick cooking spray; heat over medium heat until hot. Making 4 pancakes at a time, pour batter by scant ¼ cups into skillet, spreading batter into 3 ½-inch circles. With a wide spatula, turn pancakes and cook until undersides are golden brown. Transfer pancakes to platter. Cover to keep warm.

4. Repeat as needed with remaining batter.

Recipe from Simple Vegan by Good Housekeeping

Now for my changes

Exchanged the oil for applesauce.  It made the pancakes a bit dense but as it’s a pancake it didn’t make them too bouncy.

I used vanilla Almond milk (mmm)

Big approval from the minions

Im planning on using this recipe on camping trips.  With us moving from meat/dairy, and this not using eggs, its one less item I need to refrigerate.  I had hoped to mix up all the dry and just add the liquids as needed but then I read all the words and found the phrase “let stand”  Bah!  No matter.  Its an easy one to mix up, “let stand” part and all.

Plants are in

The strawberries are in.  The first 10 at least.  Im hoping to get maybe a few more.  The 10 I got almost filled the place I had for them, two more would complete the area.  To many more may not grow too well.  I don’t want them too crowded.

if you look closely, you can see the beginnings of a few strawberries

cross posted at The Inverted Gardener