Update

I'll make this short and sweet. While the recipes I posted 2 days ago looked delicious, and were essentially good recipes, they weren't my favorite, and here's why:

The stuffing would have been better if I had used less bread, but it wasn't special enough to warrant a second attempt. I say, there are probably better vegan stuffing recipes out there to try.

The squash was a good recipe. I used 2 butternut squash, and Ryan & I ate half of one before we pureed the rest, and it was MUCH better before it was pureed. It was quite delicious. So, skip the Cuisinart step.

Today we're putting up the Christmas decorations and then maybe I'll subject Hannah to "Gone With the Wind" on DVD tonight. :)

Hope you all are recovering from you tryptophan stuper nicely, and that you haven't got trampled by Black Friday shoppers.

Vegans are Thankful too!

I think if I weren't a vegan, I would be wondering what vegans eat on Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd post a little something about what this one is doing for the holiday.

First of all, yes, there is such a thing as Tofurkey. And, no, I am not serving or eating Tofurkey for Thanksgiving. The longer I am a vegan, the less interested I am in meat substitutes. It's not about meat - it's about ALL the other excellent goodies God gave us to eat! Fortunately, this Thanksgiving I don't have to worry about playing hostess and making anyone else happy with my vegan dishes. We are going to Ryan's brother Jon's house, so there will be all the standard dishes: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc. But I am bringing a few goodies.

I won't eat the mashed potatoes because they are usually made with milk, so I'm going to make some roast butternut squash puree. You just roast butternut squash with salt & pepper, shallots, honey and thyme, and then puree it in a food processor. YUM! That will give me lots of Vitamin A and C and Calcium. I have been all about squash lately. I absolutely hated it as a kid, but now it is quite the opposite. I made a squash soup the other day that was to-die-for delicious. I ate 4 bowls of it at one sitting!

I'm also going to make my own herb stuffing because most seasonings contain meat flavorings. I'm using this recipe. Except there will be no celery. Celery is yucky. I'll probably bring some wild rice to round out my plate. And of course, I will have the cranberry sauce. :)

I'm bringing an apple pie, which will be vegan, and a banana cream pie, which will not. I refuse to cook meat, but I will cook things with dairy for other people to eat.

Overall, it sounds like a delicious Thanksgiving to me!

I wish you all a happy and healthy, family- and friend-filled Thanksgiving holiday. May we all be truly thankful.

Red, Round and Recycled

Well, that was fun! I bought new sheets awhile back, and while my old ones were too stretched-out and holey to sleep on anymore, my conscience shrank away from just tossing them. Then I thought, hey, they're t-shirt sheets, why not slice them up and crochet a rug? So, that's what I did. It was a great project to work on in the living room while watching movies.

Behold, my red, round, rag rug.

Just a small flicker

Uh oh...

I do believe I am starting to get the sewing itch back. It's bad timing, considering I just put everything in storage a month ago. But I was surfing the BurdaStyle website looking at members' sewing creations when I came across a skirt pattern that I didn't particularly even like, but for some reason it make my heart skip a beat! I'm thinking that had something to do with the description: "This is the skirt you wear when you can't wear your pajamas." lol I don't think I'll be digging my sewing equipment out of the garage just yet, though. First we'll have to see if this little flicker grows into a flame.

Meanwhile, I wanted to brag share the artwork that my multi-talented daughter has created lately. This one she made for art class.


This one she swears took her only a few minutes to do, and that it came from her imagination. She was actually skeptical of my reaction because I loved it so much. "Uh, Mom, are you serious with all the oohing and aahing?" lol I LOVE this sketch. It has so much movement, charm and whimsy!

Hello there!
So here I am, still unsure of whether or not to blog. I enjoy blogging, I just think my old topics have gone stale. And it doesn't help that I am creating NOTHING these days.

I suppose that's slightly untrue. I've been doing some interesting cooking lately, still maintaining my vegan diet and loving it. There is SO much good food out there that I never knew about until I quit with the meat and dairy! I've also had a few culinary failures, but they were still edible, and sometimes that's good enough.

As far as sewing goes, I have actually put almost everything in storage. The only thing I didn't put in the garage is my sewing machine, and it's sitting on the floor in the office/ex-sewing room in case I have to do some mending or something quick like that. I haven't really thought through all the reasons I put everything away, but I think mostly I was just fed up with all these UFO's screaming for my attention and sapping my creative energy. I have to be in a certain mindset to truly enjoy sewing, and I think a break was in order. Part of preparing everything for storage was ruthlessly ridding myself of the evidence of unfinished projects and anything else that made me feel guilty/wasteful/lazy/sad. This will be nice when I decide to drag everything out again - I will be able to start fresh, rather than slogging through all my old business.

This sort of leaves me with the What do I blog about now? question... I guess I'll have to be more creative... ironically enough.

Work is going well and keeping me busy. For those who don't know, I'm working at a law office processing bankruptcies. Unfortunately, business is booming, so I have job security for the foreseeable future... It's interesting work, and quite the eye-opener sometimes. It's sad how many people are filing because of medical debt. And speaking as someone who is no longer under the giant cozy umbrella of employer-paid health insurance, can I hear a Public Option Amen?

That's it for today's post. We're heading over to my favorite mother-in-law's house to celebrate her birthday today. Happy Birthday, Alida! You're the best. :)