pie pet blog

our adventure at the Rally for Sanity/Fear

2010-10-30T18:09:00.001-04:00

We tried almost our hardest to go to the rally, but google sent us someplace strange and we got to the Metro station later than we meant to. Then we didn't have enough money on our fare cards so we started waiting in this giant line that came out of the station and went halfway down the block. You should really never wait in a line when you don't know what it is for. It could be a line to buy a hot pretzel or to receive an amateur body piercing. This particular line took over an hour and then at the front it split into six or seven separate lines for each metro card machine, at which point it became clear that everyone who wasn't a dope was walking past the whole line and cutting in during the confusion where it split into multiple lines. Meanwhile, the people in front of us the whole time were inexplicably sewing buttons onto a shirt with a needle and thread.

Anyway so then we put money on our cards but every train that went by was completely packed upon arrival so no one could get on whatsoever. It became apparent that the aforementioned non-dopey people were taking the train in the OPPOSITE direction to the end of the line so they could get on empty trains. But when we tried to do that, the WRONG direction train was already full. Then they couldn't get the door closed on that train so they took it out of service and all those people had to join us on the platform. That's when we quit and went out for brunch.

As we were leaving the line to get into the station was even LONGER even though it was past noon by then. I thought I took a picture of both halves but I guess I didn't. On the other side the line goes for about a block and then it loops around and comes back to here. Once you get in that tiny black box there is still a long hallway before the individual lines. So, I definitely feel that I got the gist of the rally just from spending 2.5 hours at the West Falls Church metro station. Basically, it was supercrowded and some people were funny and a lot of people thought they were funny. Hurrah for Sanity/Fear!

Squirrenny

2010-10-29T21:32:00.003-04:00

Are you getting in the mood for Halloween??

Well you have to! It's mandatory!

2010-06-05T08:28:00.000-04:00

For Memorial Day we went to West Virginia, to Monongahela National Forest. It is only 2 hours away, who knew? I am endlessly fascinated by the Dolly Sods area, which is a bog on top of a mountain. It also has unexploded WWII mortars, sasquatch, and alpine meadows.

Pictures!

2010-05-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

This cat sits on his stoop and then when every time Lenny walks by the cat runs out to greet him/smack him in the face. Lenny finds this VERY EXCITING.

dog crane

2010-03-05T18:00:00.001-05:00

winter = definitely not over

2010-02-06T08:14:00.001-05:00

winter = not over

2010-02-03T08:59:00.001-05:00

virginia beach

2010-01-19T20:10:00.001-05:00

We went to Virginia Beach for the weekend. The beach was not crowded. It was Lenny's first time staying in a hotel and he did quite well except for the two times that he wanted to have a pee in the lobby.

On Sunday it was rainy in the morning so we went to the Virginia Aquarium where certain things reminded us of Lenny.

On Monday, before driving back, we went for a hike at The Great Dismal Swamp. Unfortunately the boardwalk trail to the lake was closed and otherwise it is not that exciting to hike since a loop there is just a rectangle of four completely straight roads that run along the ditches. It was swampy though.

There is a set of pictures.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T22:00:00.002-05:00

those pineapple cookies

2009-12-23T07:37:00.003-05:00

These are a traditional cookie of Christmas in my family, along with peanut butter blossoms and cut-outs. They do not have a name that I know of as we refer to them as "those pineapple cookies." My mother did not believe they could be veganized but in fact the veganized version is still nice and flakey and lighter and less greasy (the old ones left grease spots on napkins) and the dough is quite pleasant to work with. It is totally worth all the fiddliness of making them even when you see your uncle tossing them into his mouth five at a time.

Pineapple Cookies (Vegan)
makes maybe like six dozen or so? I would count them but we already ate a million of them.

1 8oz tub tofutti better-than-cream cheese (I used the yellow, non-hydrogenated one)
1 cup Earth Balance, slightly softened
2 cups flour

Cream together fake cream cheese and fake butter. Add flour and mix until combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap, flatten into a disc, and chill until cold. Meanwhile make filling:

2 cans crushed pineapple, drained thoroughly
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch

Combine in a saucepan and cook, stirring, until the milkiness turns clear. Cool completely.

Preheat oven to 350.

Roll out the dough to about 1/8" thick and use a sharp knife to cut into about 2" squares. The smaller they are, the cuter, but the more you will get sick of making them. You can mash the trimmings together and roll them out again but I wouldn't do that more than once or twice. Transfer the squares to a cookie sheet (put them close together because they do not puff up much) and use a teaspoon to put a little diagonal line of pineapple on each square. Fold the other two corners up so it is like a little pineapple baby wrapped in a blanket, sealing with a little bit of water.

Bake for 15-16 minutes, just until the little tips are starting to brown.

Santa hopes that you will not forget to supervise your puppy while you are making these cookies.

better peanut butter blossoms

2009-12-22T13:18:00.006-05:00

Do you really enjoy cracking your tooth on a big hard waxy chunk of pseudo-chocolate full of nasty cow secretions made by a certain obnoxious company that has been recycling its christmas commercial since 1990 in the middle of your cookie? No, you don't. A nice blob of rich chocolatey ganache is so much better!

The only special thing you need to do is find something to make a thumbprint in the cookie with. You cannot literally use your thumb because you do it when the cookie is hot so you will burn your thumb off. What you want is something cylindrical, about 1/2" in diameter, and fairly flat. I used the handle of a particular potato masher. It seems that certain bottle caps (tamari especially) look about right too. Wrap it in foil so that it does not get dough in its crevices. If this sounds like a pain then just think of what a pain it is to take all the wrappers off those little wax blobs.

Vegan Peanut Butter Blossoms

makes ~ 72

1 cup Earth Balance

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 egg replacers (3 tsp Ener-G whisked with 1/4C hot water)

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1-2 T soymilk

extra sugar for rolling

ganache:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (Ghiradelli)
1/4 cup soymilk

Preheat oven to 375.

Soften EB and mix with peanut butter. Add sugars gradually until creamy and well-blended. Beat in egg replacer and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. Add little splashes of soymilk until you have a cohesive but soft-ish dough. If it is too stiff then it will crack a lot when you make the ganache holes.

Form 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Bake 13 minutes. Immediately after removing from oven, firmly yet gently press something into the surface of each cookie to make an indentation. Remove to rack and cool.

Make ganache by melting chocolate chips and soymilk in the microwave. It takes about 1-1:30 minutes. Stir until smooth and glossy then use a teaspoon to put a little dollop into each cookie hole. If you are a real over-achiever you could probably pipe it in with a pastry bag.

VOILA!

what is this, buffalo?

2009-12-19T09:05:00.002-05:00

I was supposed to drive to Buffalo for Christmas today but then I did not since we are in the midst of a Paralyzing Blizzard.

It is not even windy. Sometimes I think Accuweather is a drama queen. However, everyone here drives their car off the road when there is one inch of snow so the paralysis part could be true.

It is supposed to be 10 more inches by this evening! They better get their one snowplow out. Yesterday I participated in the mad rush on snow shovels at the Home Depot so we are ready.

Lenny sings (and dances)

2009-12-12T13:11:00.002-05:00

science!

2009-12-08T19:54:00.002-05:00

We did that petco DNA test on Lenny that tells you what breeds your mutt is made of. We swabbed his cheek with a mascara brush and mailed it to A Lab. This is what came back:

Ha ha, just kidding.

Huh.

??

I think it is problematic because certain breeds are not profiled yet and some of those might be Lenny breeds. Like foxhound. He does like the snow though. Clearly that comes from the malamute. That and the one blue eye.

2009-12-05T11:49:00.001-05:00

2009-11-16T22:28:00.000-05:00

This is what I do at work now. It is not vegan of me. Also I have not dissected anything in six years and getting all the trachea off makes my head explode.

happy halloween!

2009-10-30T20:41:00.002-04:00

Why oh why do the pets hate us so? How oh how does Target know that we cannot resist discounted pet halloween costumes?

guaranteed good time: make pets jump and take their pictures

2009-10-26T20:21:00.001-04:00

shenandoah camping

2009-10-17T10:20:00.002-04:00

Last weekend we went camping with my parents at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. Normally we only go to the northern part of Shenandoah because it is closer so I was excited to go to the other end. It was Lenny's first time camping and he was pretty good, by which I mean he was not much worse than he is at home, except for the first night, when he was not tired at all and alternated between biting us and trying to chew his way out of the tent all night.

I knew something was going to be wrong with our campsite because it was the only reservable one that was not reserved already. It was just that it is not level so you slide down the mountain all night, and also it is not that big because most of it is taken up by shrubberies full of ticks and spiders.

On Saturday it was a little rainy. We did the Big Run Loop trail which is 5.8 miles and 1100 ft elevation change and it elicited massive amounts of whining from the hike participants. We only saw a couple people until the connection with the Appalachian Trail where there were many skinny young people with scraggley beards.

"Check the map again because I am tired and so I feel that the hike should be over now so we must be going the wrong way."

Lenny has no complaints.

On Sunday it was nicer and we did the Rose River Falls Loop. I didn't think it was that much easier but there was much less complaining. It was rather crowded though and every now and then you would look back and see a pack of toddlers dressed in LL Bean fleeces hurtling towards you.

Here are some more pictures.

blue donut head

2009-10-03T10:20:00.000-04:00

Lenny was neutered yesterday. We are supposed to keep him calm for ten days. HA.

Lenny goes to Washington Again

2009-09-22T22:01:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we took Lenny to the National Arboretum. Let me tell you what is more fun than taking a dog who has just discovered the joy of lifting his leg to a place full of plants he is not supposed to pee upon. Not much.

We got some sandwiches at Java Green on the way. Everything they say about Java Green taking a million years and costing a million dollars is true. However they have a vegan frappuccino with whipped cream.

There is a koi pond at the arboretum and the way they slimily swarm all over each other is kind of creepy.

PS I am writing most of my boring crap about cooking on this new blog with Jennifer: Meats Be Gone. As you can see I will continue to write boring crap about Lenny right here.

Lenny goes to Washington

2009-09-13T08:27:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we took Lenny to DC to Vegfest. Sometimes he ducks away when people try to pet him so we are trying to socialize him more. He did very well and did not have a head explosion and met many dogs and let many people pet him and only ducked away a little bit.

Chris O waited in a giant line to buy us a tasty cake from Vegan Treats. We also had some falafels and some oddly gooey soft-serve vanilla ice cream. Lenny had a sample of V-Dog and serious amount of face-licking from Caramello.

Then we took Lenny for a walk on the national mall which was swarming with militant republicans.

Don't Tread On [Lenny's Tail]!

As Lenny was petted by both vegans and republicans in one day, I think we get a gold star for socialization.

victims of the earectomizer

2009-08-29T07:06:00.001-04:00

adventures in demodectic mange

2009-08-22T19:19:00.002-04:00

It was very sad and lonely without Oscar. I found this poor puppy on petfinder. He was in a high-kill gassing shelter in North Carolina.

An organization called A Shelter Friend pulled him from the shelter for us and arranged to send him to us. He had to be in quarantine for 2 weeks to make sure he was healthy enough to travel. Unfortunately during that two weeks his shelter illnesses got much worse. Lenny showed up in a crazy van full of dogs on their way to rescues in the northeast, at 2am. He was a mess!

Poor Lenny had demodex mange with a secondary staph infection, coccidia, hookworms, and tapeworms. Also he stunk like a dirty horse. It is sad for dogs in shelters how the stress and circumstances can make them so sick. And also make their furs fall out so no one wants to adopt them. But now after six weeks of a million pills, Lenny is better! I just hope the day comes soon when I no longer have to squirt ivermectin down his gullet. He is now very feisty and bitey and has gained 13 pounds. He will be starting dog school soon.

2009-08-12T21:54:00.001-04:00

2009-06-29T22:25:00.002-04:00

Oscar was diagnosed with splenic leiomyosarcoma on May 15th.

We had his spleen and the tumor removed and he recovered well. We did one round of chemo but last week we found out that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and liver.

Now he is gone.

He was my best friend for six years and I miss him very much already.

slime mold

2009-05-08T07:07:00.003-04:00

We have a big tree stump in the backyard and it has recently developed this crazy toxic-looking goo. It is apparently resistant to the monsoon rains. It also has a giant cloud of tiny flies living with it.

Slime molds are not fungi. Because they can move.

A myxo begins life as a microscopic spore. After it’s shaken out like a salt grain from its "parent" fruiting body, it germinates to produce a cell that in turn joins another of its fellows to form a zygote. The zygote devours bacteria found in decaying wood and elsewhere, increases its size by nuclear division, then masses into a blob called a plasmodium. The plasmodium—which can be clear, a preppy khaki, hot pink, or a flashy yellow, orange or red—acts like a giant amoeba, gorging on its prey of bacteria, spores and even other myxos until it runs out of food, whereupon it hikes off at about 1/25 of an inch per hour to a suitable location to sprout the fruiting bodies. The ideal spot is high enough to catch a passing breeze and dry enough to avoid fungi. Then the whole program repeats itself. - more here

This is not so nice. Where is this enormous slime mold going to go when it is time to fruit? Is it going to try to come into the house? It might be smart enough to do it.

I am kind of excited to see what its fruiting bodies look like though. Sometimes they are really interesting.

dog food delivery

2009-04-27T21:38:00.004-04:00

happy easter

2009-04-12T08:26:00.004-04:00

happy easter II

2009-04-12T08:03:00.000-04:00

I am scanning a bunch of old family photos. This is my Auntie Margaret:

My mother and Margie, who has a very fancy hat and tricycle.

My grandma.

Oscar 2009

2009-03-29T20:39:00.003-04:00

I entered Oscar in this dopey contest so he can be more famous. Vote Oscar!

look how dumb

2009-03-16T22:37:00.003-04:00

Chris O got a new sweatshirt at the mall. It is ridiculous. Also he made a new blog. I don't see how it's satirical if it is exactly the same as the original though.

now it is one month later

2009-03-08T22:56:00.004-04:00

Winter is over! Today it was 77. We went to Sky Meadows State Park. It is rather hilly.

Too bad everything still looks brown and disgusting.

On Friday I made sushi. They are lumpy and ununiform in size. It was my first time.

Last weekend we went to Assateague Island National Seashore where Wild Ponies Run Free and Approach Your Car in Search of Cheez-Its.

Chris O took this picture as I was busy trying to discourage Oscar from slamming his body against the car windows as he expressed his great desire to bite a wild pony by screaming in an eardrum-shattering fashion. Anyway, we are going to camp here at the end of May despite all the warnings about how if you camp on Assateague Island you will die of mosquitoes, rip tides, pony kickings, sunburn, sandstorms, ticks, sand fleas and exposure/starvation after the ponies trample your tent and eat all your food. More pictures.

the state bird of virginia

2009-02-08T21:12:00.005-05:00

Today we went to Shenandoah National Park which is only a little over one hour away. It was 63 degrees. Everyone at work is always going on about how many ticks there are here and how last year everyone got lyme disease and how on the first warm day you can literally see the foliage writhing with ticks. Anyways we just did a little hike and halfway through I looked down at Oscar and there was a big giant tick sitting right in the middle of his head. Then in the car I saw a little tiny one running across his white stripe on his head. Then we went home and I gave him a bath and there were ticks floating in the water. Then he sat next to me on the couch and there was a tick on his neck! There are so many ticks! And you can only see Oscar's ticks when they are in his white parts and he is 80% made up of black parts! It is so vile. I guess they are living in the carpets now. Do people just get used to this or what?

TREATS

2009-02-07T10:21:00.001-05:00

The cat knows where the treats are.

cat toy + cell phone video capture = friday night

2009-01-30T20:38:00.003-05:00

Animal News

2009-01-25T11:57:00.004-05:00

(click to embiggen)
I love this section of the newspaper so much.

LEESBURG, Shenandoah St, Jan. 25. A portly dog wanted to eat some Spam for his Sunday breakfast. The Spam was fried in a pan. The dog waited. When the Spam was cool, the dog ate the Spam. Then he took a nap.

the only fun thing about zero degrees

2009-01-19T08:56:00.001-05:00

the sea and the tick

2008-12-28T18:03:00.003-05:00

It was freakishly windy today so we went to look at the lake because that is what you do in Buffalo when there is weather. It was pretty cool because the water was crashing up over the breakwall.

In the car I found a giant tick on Oscar. I don't know where he got it but it confirms the one thing I knew about Virginia before I moved there, which is that it is completely crawling with disgusting ticks.

I got a little plastic thing at the pet store that works really well for extracting them, though.

christmas puppy

2008-12-27T21:50:00.003-05:00

I hope everyone is having a nice holiday season.
The weather is crazy. There was a ton of snow but then today it was 59. So there is a lot of water in the creek.

oscar enjoys civil war history

2008-12-20T15:48:00.001-05:00

We went to Harper's Ferry.

odd things about virginia

2008-12-20T07:55:00.002-05:00

Apparently these mutant grapefruits grow on the trees.

Avocado lemon pie. From Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant.

moving in winter

2008-12-12T20:29:00.002-05:00

So fun.

I have injured my right hand and right knee loading the truck. Perhaps I shall injure my left hand and left knee unloading the truck.

Tomorrow we drive!

cupcakes for babra

2008-12-05T08:38:00.004-05:00

I made the chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting from VCTOtW for my co-worker's birthday.

Sometimes at Starbucks they write "Babra" on her cup and I find that endlessly amusing.

They told me to use natural peanut butter, but I used Peter Pan peanut butter. Technically everything that exists in the world is "natural," so whatever.

I also used Earth Balance shortening because I forgot I hate it, so the frosting had a little plastickiness to it. Otherwise it was just like the really good cake we had at Farm Sanctuary Thanksgiving. Maybe one day I will make this in cake format!

carcass-free thanksgiving #2

2008-11-28T10:21:00.004-05:00

I made dinner for my mom, aunt & uncle, cousin, grandpa, and my mom's friend Jim.

I made a hubbard squash the size of a portly dog.

Actually I only made half of it because that is all that fit in the oven.

I made some warm artichoke spinach dip.

I didn't use a recipe, but it is just a sliced leek and 4 minced cloves of garlic sauteed in olive oil, mixed with a block of frozen spinach (thawed) and a can of artichoke hearts (drained-n-chopped), 4 ox of tofutti cream cheese, a scoop of tofutti sour cream, salt, pepper, a tiny bit of cayenne, and a little sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Bake til hot. Serve with pita chips so everyone ruins their appetite and forgets to be angry that there is no turkey.

Speaking of no turkey.

The fake turkey was really good and definitely worth all of the work. Although I guess I could have arranged it a little nicer on the platter. Nonetheless, is MUCH better than tofurkey - the texture is much better, it is not rubbery at all. Next time I wouldn't do the roulade though. The stuffing inside was a little damp and the structure of it made it puff up in a stupid way while it was cooking and it was hard to turn. In loaf format I think it would be perfect.

Pretty standard: mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry chutney, stuffing, squash, fake turkey, roasted brussels sprouts, the ubiquitous Pillsbury crescent roll.

I made a rather dreadful pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Luckily I also made some backup sparkled ginger cookies.

You can see the bad cheesecake there lurking in the background. I should have just made regular pumpkin pie. I feel deprived about it now so I will have to make one to go with the leftovers.

More pictures.

it broasts AND it bribles

2008-11-26T19:09:00.005-05:00

Today I spent a million hours making Bryanna Clark Grogan's Soy & Seitan Turkey. (I had to go on an emergency trip to Kmart to get a tiny roaster, during which I could not stop thinking of the 8-in-1 Super Pan.)

The fake turkey looks kind of creepy or maybe I just think it looks creepy because yesterday I watched a creepy show on TLC about malformed conjoined twins.

Before baking. Like a giant toe! It is the roulade format so there is onion/apple/sage bread stuffing rolled up inside. Anyway now it is all baked and resting in the fridge, which is supposed to improve its texture for tomorrow.

I also recreated the tempeh salad with cranberry vinaigrette that I had at the Garden Cafe in Woodstock last weekend.

I shall tell you how to make it because it is really good.

8 oz package tempeh, cut into bite-size squares
3/4 c vegetable broth
Put in skillet, cover, and cook until broth is absorbed. Cool.

2/3 c fresh or frozen cranberries
1/4 c sugar
1/2 c apple cider vingar
Combine in small saucepan and cook on medium 5-10 minutes, until cranberry skins split. Cool slightly and puree in blender or food processor. Put in bowl and whisk in:

2 t dijon mustard
2 T canola oil

Add the tempeh and 3-4 cups of shredded raw cabbage. Then mix in a big scoop of Vegenaise and season with salt and pepper. Mmm. We ate it with roasted sweet potatoes and whole wheat couscous. The cafe served it with wild rice vegetable stew and steamed kale.

carcass-free thanksgiving #1

2008-11-24T20:38:00.009-05:00

Welp I see from my helpful poll that my year of blog neglect has diminished my readership to four people, one of whom is a liar, so that frees me up to unselfconsciously ramble about crap just like back in the good old days.

This weekend I continued my trend of forcing Chris O to go on a 6+ hour road trip every five days (This Time With NonStop Christmas Music) and we went to Thanksliving at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary.

We stayed in a cute little cottage at Phoenicia Village which was very convenient and nice, although the Catskills region in general has a kind of Headless Horseman/Rip Van Winkle creepy feeling about it.

Woodstock Farm Sanctuary is very nice and it was pleasant to go to a vegan-centric event in the midst of the American carcass-mongering holiday season.

Poor turkeys. Well, not these ones in particular. These ones are having some squash.

There were lots of nice goats.

For appetizers they had little phyllo dough cups with mushroominess inside and pieces of baguette with Dr. Cow's Tree Nut Cheese, which was good and goat-cheese like. Then for dinner it was Celebration Roast which I had never had before. I don't think it's that much better than Tofurkey though. It has a stuffing-like center, but the center still has a meaty, seitany texture, which is a little weird.

Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate cake with fluffy peanut butter frosting and it was so good that I ate it until my stomach was all gurgley.

On our way home we saw a little jack russell trotting along the road. We opened the car door and he jumped in.

Then we wasted a bunch of time driving him to his house where no one was home and then dropping him off at his vet. He was very cute but a little stinky.

Anyway there are some more pictures.

I think I will update my blog again.

2008-11-10T08:32:00.003-05:00

Here is the news.

1. I am moving to northern Virginia next month because I have a new job.

2. I am taking this one and this one with me.

3. All of us are vegan, except one of us cheats by stealing butter off kitchen tables when he is out visiting.

easter

2008-03-23T20:50:00.008-04:00

Easter is way too early/sneaky this year which precluded me from doing any glitter-based Martha Stewart craft projects. But these pussywillows in my grandpa's back field are almost ripe. Despite the concerns.

Oscar thinks that if he sits at the table like a person, someone will serve him a plate of food. He acts confused and dismayed when it does not happen.

I am obsessed with veganizing placek. (Placek is a Polish sweet bread, like a yeasted coffee cake, which normally has a pound of butter and eight eggs in it.) After making a couple gummy bricks, I finally made an edible one, except I burnt it and had to cut the bottom off. Also it does not taste unhealthy enough. Also the crumbs all fell off the top. I think I am two placeks away from making a perfect vegan placek but I am really sick of placek now, so.

When I got home there was a starling in my apartment. It is bad luck! Or else it means there will be an Important Message.

More Easter Pictures

drear.

2008-03-20T00:18:00.007-04:00

I have really had enough of the weather but at least fog is interesting. Now it is back to snowing. I am completely tired of snow.

Oscar = never tired of snow.

¡enchiladas!

2008-03-13T23:43:00.006-04:00

Potato Kale Enchiladas with Roasted Chile Sauce. Mine are not as pretty as the recipe photo ones. I think because I put them together the night before I baked them so they comingled overnight and it was hard to get them out of the pan looking pretty. It is not really a weeknight recipe. It tastes much fancier than anything I normally make.

Black beans like so, except from a can.

this is the best idea I have ever had.

2008-03-12T23:03:00.006-04:00

A couple weeks ago I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and then I froze most of them instead of baking them. Now I have constant access to warm melty cookies. Of course, it is potentially not brilliant to heat up the whole oven to bake two cookies and potentially not brilliant to eat two cookies every night at 11pm. But still.

I slightly modified the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I think this cures them of the creepy translucency they come down with on day two. Of course if you do it my way they will not survive more than ten minutes out of the oven anyway. I will post the recipe since the VWaV version is already on the internets in five frillion places. I made them partly whole wheat and you can kind of tell, but I like that because it makes me feel better about eating them every day late at night.

1 cup Earth Balance buttery sticks, at room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp ground flax seeds whisked with 3 Tbsp water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (check ingredients for vegan-worthy chips)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Cream together the margarine and sugar until fluffy.
Add the molasses, vanilla, and flax glop. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. The dough will make you concerned with its unnatural stiffness. Form the dough into cookie-like discs. They will not be spreading out much at all so flatten them a little. Place onto ungreased cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet in freezer until solid then dump into ziploc bag for storage. Put straight from freezer to oven to bake (remove from ziploc). If you bake them in a hot oven (400ish) the outside browns while the inside is still gushy. GENIUS!

rainbow pox

2008-03-04T21:16:00.009-05:00

I finally got a 1M tip but I am not so good at it. I thought adding some nonpareils (why NONpareils? Where are the pareils?) would draw attention away from the subpar piping but now they look like they have come down with a disease. Oh well.

in-like-a-lion cake

2008-03-02T22:21:00.006-05:00

March is only somewhat coming in like a lion. It's sort of a wimpy lion. Definitely not a lamb though, so I went with the lion cake even though I felt more like making a lamb cake.

It's banana cake with chocolate mousse and sliced bananas inside, then covered in ganache. All the recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - the cake is the banana split cupcakes, 1.5x, baked in a jelly roll pan and cut into squares. I could have done a nicer job on the ganache but my theme lately is "impatience."

dreary & not dreary

2008-03-01T17:26:00.006-05:00

Cross-country skiing at Sprague Brook. Egregiously, this is the only time I have gone all winter. Good thing it is not a problem to wait until March.

Maybe this should be a secret surprise, but I am not so good at maintaining motivation on long-term secret projects. In fact I never finish knitting anything other than hats and dog sweaters, but this time I will...

It is SO freaky how the yarn sucks the dye out of the kool aid. Drinking kool aid really cannot be good for your insides.

Orange, lemonade, and tropical fruit punch or something like that. Boiling kool aid is not my air freshener of choice. It is maybe not AS bright as it looks in the photo, but it is pretty bright.

snow & cupcakes

2008-02-23T16:56:00.011-05:00

Everyone at my workplace has a disgusting illness that makes them cough constantly like we are a tuberculosis sanitarium. I think I am resisting its advances through the use of 2000% RDA of vitamin C and a million Cold-Eezes which makes me proud of myself because normally I catch every illness I come into contact with. It is because I have weak tonsils. So in the interest of tempting fate I took Oscar snowshoeing today.

There were lots of nice striped shadows.

Then I made vanilla and agave nectar cupcakes with vegan chocolate buttercream. I think my oven is too hot because they came out a little dark, agave nectar is fussy. But Jennifer showed me the error of my ways in regard to vegan fluffy buttercream, which is that Spectrum shortening is much, much better than Earth Balance shortening for vegan fluffy buttercream. In fact while I was checking out at Wegmans the woman ahead of me asked whether it was better than Earth Balance, and I had to say yes. Sorry Earth Balance shortening. You are just too plasticky.

dogs

2008-02-20T19:42:00.004-05:00

Sable, my mom's friend Peggy's sheltie.

My aunt's lab/poodle-but-somehow-not-quite-looking-like-a-labradoodle Larry and Peggy's lab, Clarabelle.

More pictures.

back to regular life

2008-02-20T00:34:00.003-05:00

Eighteen degrees and no more vegan hollandaise. :(

I Am Sore in My Hams

2008-02-19T00:32:00.004-05:00

Today Jennifer and I hiked 9.4 miles which is highly impressive for us because Jennifer's uterus is the size of a cantaloupe, and I am lazy. We did the Tomales Point trail at Point Reyes National Seashore.

We went all the way to the end because we are impressive.

There are many magnificent elks along the trail.

Also, many lovely sceneries.

Afterwards we went to dinner at the fruitiest restaurant in all of Berkeley. It is vegan and 90% raw. I think the way most people feel about vegan food is the way I feel about raw food. Like the revulsion they feel when they hear a dessert is made without butter is the revulsion I feel when I hear that a "burrito" is wrapped in a raw collard green instead of a tortilla.

Besides the communal tables which I very much never appreciate, all of the menu items are affirmations. Then the waiter repeats them back to you. You are wonderful! I got a warm grain bowl but I guess in raw-food-land "warm" just means "not cold" and does not mean "body temperature or above" which is how I normally think of warm. Anyway, it was pretty good once I got over my shock at being freed from the tyranny of heat. Also, I have a newfound appreciation for fake cheese-ish items made of cashew. Jennifer had some cashew glop on her I am Prosperous which was sort of like creme fraiche.

I got this juice called I am Succulent because I wanted the boyishly handsome yet unfortunately spiritually-journeying waiter to tell me I was succulent. It is grapefruit and celery or something and I think it stripped a layer of skin off of my tongue.

I got a piece of lemon meringue pie ("you are amazing!") to go because I was intrigued by vegan meringue but it is pretty amazingly gross. I guess I forgot the crust would be raw. There are severe textural issues in all three components and the meringue is just like a dense cold paste. I am Amazing(ly not impressed).

There are some more pictures in the Visiting Jennifer's Belly set.

belly visit

2008-02-17T17:53:00.006-05:00

In case you did not notice, I am in Berkeley visiting Jemnifer and her fetus. I have not been back here since I quit grad school in 2003 but I used to live upstairs.

Her uterus is as big as a cantaloupe!

The weather is delightful.

Experience our adventures (which mostly entail eating food) here.
Or read Jenmifer's perspective here.

jennifer belly need pancake

2008-02-15T16:26:00.005-05:00

choc choc chip

2008-02-01T23:43:00.002-05:00

pineapple-cashew-quinoa stir-fry

2008-01-31T21:23:00.002-05:00

From Veganomicon. Wegmans didn't have a red chile so I used some red pepper flakes. I didn't know red quinoa existed so that was exciting. I have only had the boring white kind before.

bees, winter

2008-01-26T16:49:00.002-05:00

The number one question people ask me about bees in the winter is, what do the bees do in the winter?

In the winter, the bees huddle together in a cluster with the queen in the middle. They shiver their wing muscles in order to generate heat, so it stays warm in the center of the cluster. The outer layer of bees gets so cold they cannot move, but somehow they get shuffled into the center to warm up again. They cannot leave the cluster when it is cold, but when there are breaks in the temperature the bees leave the cluster and eat honey. They need about 50 pounds of honey to get through the winter. My hives are wrapped in some classy black plastic and duct tape for the winter. One has an expensive insulation that I bought from an official bee store. The other one has pipe insulation from home depot with a black plastic garbage bag over it. I'm worried about the pipe insulation hive. That is the one I started last summer and it was kind of pathetic.

There is still some mess from that October storm. Last summer I sort of tried to clear up some of the brush but that ended abruptly when I found a giant, dead, limp, rotten-looking snake that turned out to be a live snake posing as a dead rotten snake.

Oscar is pretty.

exciting odometer day

2008-01-26T09:42:00.002-05:00

coconut lime cupcakes

2008-01-20T19:57:00.002-05:00

autumnal baked goods for january

2008-01-06T09:07:00.002-05:00

The pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. I added some raisins because... well, I just added some raisins, ok. Very good and not really that much of a pain.

Cranberry nut bread. I modified an epicurious recipe. You could definitely add more cranberries. I didn't because my cranberries were old and it was annoying picking out the bad ones.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease up a loaf pan.

Collect 2 t zest from and then juice 2 navel oranges. Put the juice in a measuring cup and add soymilk up to 1 cup. Then put in the blender with 1/4 c silken tofu from a box and blend until completely smooth. Put the rest of the box of tofu into the refrigerator, forget about it for a week, and then throw it away.

Mix together:
2 c flour
1 c sugar
1.5 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda

Cut in until crumby:
1 stick Earth Balance

Stir in the liquids along with 1/2 t vanilla and the orange zest, until just barely combined. Stir in 1 c (or more!) coarsely chopped cranberries and 1/3 c chopped walnuts.

Bake until whatever you can find to stick in there comes out clean, about one hour.

FALSE

2008-01-05T15:56:00.001-05:00

The lab next to mine got a copy of The Atlas of Creation a while ago. I find it insulting that my own lab did not get one. Anyways, it is really a very striking book. Here you can see its extremely fancy cover with holograms on it. I guess not really holograms. What are those things called where they have two different pictures from different angles.

Anyway, this is my favorite figure. I do not think you can argue with the fact that no matter how long you watch the barrel, you will not be able to make a cherry tree OR an owl come out. Or a majestic horse. Or a preppy toddler.

The caption says:

Evolutionists believe that chance, by itself, is a creative force. Let them take a very large barrel and place into it whatever materials they think are necessary to produce a living cell. Let them then heat the barrel, freeze it or have it struck by lightning. Let them stand watch over this barrel, bequeathing the task to future generations, for millions, even billions of years. Let them monitor the barrel constantly at every moment, leaving nothing to chance. Let them employ whatever conditions they believe are necessary for the production of a living entity. They will be unable to produce even a single cell from this barrel. They will be unable to produce a horse, butterfly, flower, duck, cherry or lemon tree, owl or ant. No matter what they do, they will be unable to produce scientists who examine their own cells under a microscope, and human beings who think, reason, judge, rejoice and feel excitement and longing.

Anyway, the whole basis of arguments in the book is that there are no transitional fossils. Seriously, think about it, when have you seen a fossilized starflipper?

Or a crocomunk?

And that is how you can use photoshop to help you prove points about evolution.

PS You can download a pdf of The Atlas of Creation, but it's not as impressive as the huge book itself. And there is nothing else in it as awesome as the barrel.

i am a poor dog with no legs

2007-12-30T12:13:00.002-05:00

things I made for christmas

2007-12-29T11:26:00.002-05:00

Fragrant Indian Brittle from epicurious. For some reason that name sounds disgusting to me so I prefer to think of it as Cardamom Nut Brittle. The recipe says to cook the sugar to 350 degrees but everyone in the epicurious comments is complaining about that. The sugar temperature chart I looked at said that 310-320 is good for brittles, so I stopped at about 315 and it was fine. It is really fascinating how sugar changes as it goes through its stages. I want to try making vegan caramels. I don't even like candy that much, but it is so interesting. Anyway, the brittle might be more exciting with some black pepper or cayenne. I used the full amount of cardamom, I don't know what those epicurious commenters were complaining about there, waaah wah too much cardamom. I wish there was some kind of system for epicurious comments where you could tell who has a helpful comment and who is just a bad cook.

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti from Veganomicon. Really good but yet again I had to add an extra huge amount of flour. What is wrong with me and my measuring cup???

Sugared almonds. I burnt the crap out of the first batch of these. The recipe is vague. You have to cook the sugar syrup for quite a while before adding the almonds, otherwise the almonds burn before the coating is done. If I had still had the candy thermometer out on the second batch of these, I could be more helpful right now. At first the sugar syrup boils in big bubbles, and then it starts to be more foamy. I added the almonds at that point, but they were on the verge of burning, so it might have still been a little early. It is very exciting when the sugar seizes up and dries out and then re-melts. It might be better to do in a skillet. And, it would be better to use twice as many almonds. When you pour them out with this ratio, there is a huge glob of goo and it's impossible to get the almonds unclumped. So it's finicky but they're very pretty and tasty at the end.

I feel inordinately guilty whenever I don't love something from Veganomicon. This is the mushroom walnut pate. It looks just like cat food and it is kind of bland. Maybe I didn't add enough salt. But it seems like it needs some porcini mushrooms or something.

My mom gave me a punch bowl so I had to make punch. This is ginger pomegranate punch and it is great. There was a massive pomegranate related shortage at the supermarket so I had to use "pomegranate cocktail" instead of pure pomegranate juice but I bet it would be even better with real pomegranate juice.

post-christmas

2007-12-26T12:13:00.002-05:00

christmas pictures

merry christmas!

2007-12-25T09:14:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas, blog readers!

christmas eve

2007-12-24T20:39:00.002-05:00

Ooooh, look what I got for christmas, a fancy flash. No more artistically blurry indoor photographs! Now I can terrorize everyone with my camera even more and they can whine even more. Waaah, that is so bright, are you the paparazzi, you are burning out our eyeballs, waaaah wah...

Oscar likes my grandpa.

Also, Oscar is crazy for Limburger cheese.

My cousin. Isn't the non-blurriness astounding?

cut outs

2007-12-22T21:31:00.003-05:00

Today I decorated christmas cookies with my parents and somehow, probably due to the wine, the family togetherness degenerated into making unflattering cookie depictions of each other.

That's me with the fangs.

Ah, the holiday season.

ginger cookies

2007-12-21T08:44:00.002-05:00

I don't know what it is about me and Vegan with a Vengeance, but it seems like my doughs are always way too sticky. It is odd because I measure my flour wrong anyway, by dipping the cup into the bag, instead of by sprinkling it into the cup grain by grain with a teaspoon or however you are supposed to do it, and that's supposed to give you too much flour. Well ANYWAY. I added an extra half cup or so of flour. I like these Sparkled Ginger Cookies a lot, they are not too sweet despite being covered in sugar. But I'm taking them to my lab holiday party and I don't know how they will go over there. They're great with a cup of tea but maybe they won't be good with a big cup of pop. Ick. I don't know how people can drink pop. It's not really like me to fret over the unrefined tastes of my cookie audience. It must be the benevolent spirit of the winter holidays.

I switched to saying "soda" a long time ago but I'm using "pop" here for the authentic Buffalo flavor.

a good use for a snowy day and a $4 thrift store sweater

2007-12-16T17:09:00.002-05:00

oscar and yeast

2007-12-05T08:26:00.002-05:00

Last night I had a dream that Oscar was being swallowed by a giant snake. I had a little knife and I was trying to decide how I should hack open the snake to get Oscar out. Luckily I was having this dream in the 7 minutes of snooze alarm time so I woke up before I had to do any cutting. I love Oscar. Look at his little tail!

I do not love nutritional yeast. One of my most disgusting memories of my vegan roommate from five years ago was the horrible boxed macaroni-and-yeast he ate all the time. But I thought maybe I was at a level of veganism where I might be able to try again with the pasta/nutritional yeast combo. It is like Level 8 or something. Right above the ability to actually enjoy soy ice cream. Anyway, I would probably like this better if I hadn't tasted the sauce beforehand. Or hadn't smelled it. There is some subtle tone in the smell of nutritional yeast that I cannot handle at all. Anyway, for one bite I would think this was the most delicious thing ever, and then the next bite would make me feel ill. Maybe it's that it looks cheesey and I forget it's not cheese. So, it was a very complex experience which I will attempt again in a year or two. (It's mac daddy from Veganomicon and I fully endorse the recipe, if you like nutritional yeast.)

crumby cranberry squares

2007-12-02T20:40:00.002-05:00

Mmmm. Cranberries. Based on this recipe, except with earth balance instead of butter, and made in a 9x13 pan instead of 7x10 (7x10? wtf?) because otherwise they are too thick. And the baking times reduced a little bit.

backyard food chain

2007-11-30T08:56:00.002-05:00

Do you see the lump on the fence? That's the hawk that eats the little birds that come to the bird feeder. Well, they used to come to the bird feeder.

variations on a theme

2007-11-28T22:14:00.002-05:00

I figured out that if I open up my Emeril Brand Panini Press so it is flat, I can grill tofu without making it into a waffle fry. Italian-style-ish grilled tofu, Roasted Tomato Couscous with Capers from Veganomicon, brussels sprouts.

Smokey tempeh, Lazy Person Baked Beans, Sauteed Collards, all from Veganomicon. In case you can't tell I am too lazy to go find the book so I just made up the names of the things. They might be right. Also mashed sweet potatoes.

cold weather kayaking

2007-11-25T19:11:00.002-05:00

Today I went kayaking even though I usually do not kayak in winter because I am a sissy. At first we planned to go to Buckhorn, which is a swamp on Grand Island, but there was a problem.

Which is, that it was frozen solid.

So we went to Tonawanda Creek.

Here's two unrelated pictures of food so that I don't get kicked out of veganmofo.

Lentil soup, from this recipe, but with vegetable stock (duh) and some bay leaves and red wine added. In the background, pillsbury crescent rolls, the best accidentally vegan food ever. Overnight the soup thickened up so that now it is a big pot of lentils. I seem to generally have that problem with soup. And, portabella mushroom salad with spicy mustard dressing from Veganomicon. My mother declared this The Best Salad Ever. With sweet potato french fries.

thanksgiving recap

2007-11-23T10:16:00.002-05:00

I hope you all had a nice thanksgiving.

My food photography skills buckled under the pressure of thanksgiving. Here's my dinner anyway. I made Veganomicon chickpea cutlets. My dad made gravy. And my mom and I brought little tiny containers of our own private butter-free squash and mashed potatoes and Earth Balance.

Dessert! Bryanna's pumpkin pie with Cook's Illustrated's pie crust with their ridiculous 1:2 fat:flour ratio. This pie was pretty good for a first attempt at a vegan pumpkin pie. But, it makes enough filling for only a shallow pie plate so next time I would double it. Shallow pies are for sissies. Also, the brown sugar makes it very BROWN. Which is not so attractive. So white sugar next year. When serving pie to non-vegans you don't want them to assume that vegan pies are brown. The texture was pretty good though. I used 3 tablespoons of cornstarch but I would do 4 next time. I went for the low end this time due to my residual trauma from the eraser pie. Oh, then there is apple pie, and a VCTOtW gingerbread cupcake.

Some more pictures.

And now, I have harnessed the power of YouTube to allow you to share in the Thanksgiving after dinner entertainments.

First, Oscar licks the roasting pan.

Don't worry. It gets better.

Next, we go outside and feed the leftovers to the chickens.

My uncle has three kinds of chickens now. The same old red ones from last year. Then some white ones that he rescued from some people who couldn't take care of them. You can see those white ones do not yet know how to eat from a spoon. And the ones all sitting together are Araucanas, the kind that lay blue eggs and have feathers on their legs and no tails. The Araucanas were sleepy for some reason.

Finally we retire indoors to torment Oscar with the model train.

Yay. I am glad my family is the type that finds it hilarious to make the dog bark for twenty solid minutes after dinner... some people might find that annoying. Anyways, happy thanksgiving!

the demanding lifestyle of a portly dog

2007-11-22T11:04:00.002-05:00

Poor Oscar is forced to nap on a pile of pillows. Sometimes more than three times in a single day.

MMMMMMMM

2007-11-21T19:37:00.002-05:00

In the background, my current favorite sandwich - a big slab of grilled tofu on a baguette with sauteed onions and red peppers and a lot of fake mayonnaise. I really like the tofu + baguette + mayo combination, it reminds me of that vietnamese sandwich at the restaurant in Berkeley. The one that costs like one dollar. Except that one was fried tofu and it had cilantro. And some other stuff. Hard to remember. Am old now.

Anyways, in the foreground are these really good eggplant things that our Georgian postdoc brought to our Thanksgiving potluck. I bartered her my extra cupcakes for them. They are big slices of eggplant fried and then wrapped in a little packet with some kind of ground up walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. They are spicy and oily and great. My mother says they look like toads. She is cranky because she is on a diet.

Now I gotta make some pies.

gingerbread cupcakes with lemony cream cheese frosting

2007-11-20T23:03:00.002-05:00

These are my favorites by far of all the vegan cupcakes that are taking over the world that I have made so far. This is a batch-and-a-half since it's for my lab potluck and my family thanksgiving. But I had to make four big ones since I ran out of little cupcake papers.

Tomorrow: two pies. I've never made a vegan pumpkin pie before. It is for the family so it needs to be as traditional as possible. I am planning on going the cornstarch route rather than the tofu route. Is this a horrible mistake? Discuss.

isa pizza. reduced sodium.

2007-11-19T21:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I made Isa Pizza from VWaV but I forgot to take a picture of it until this morning. The other thing I forgot was to add salt to the dough. Which, in case you were wondering, is not a good idea... so that was sad.

tofu + cookie

2007-11-17T10:12:00.002-05:00

Last night I used my Emeril brand panini press to make grilled tofu for my leftover veganomicon caesar. It is very easy but it comes out kind of like a waffle fry because the lid is so heavy. Maybe I should read the instructional booklet. Maybe I should also focus the camera before taking pictures. So many regrets.

Also I made these cookies. I'm still not 100% thrilled with earth balance for cookies. It's so dense and greasy. Maybe I need to put a fake egg in there.

caesar

2007-11-14T20:52:00.002-05:00

Veganomicon caesar salad, except plain croutons, because I was too lazy to roast a garlic.

Ground almonds for texture = GENIUS.

maple cupcakes

2007-11-13T21:07:00.002-05:00

I made the Maple Cupcakes with Creamy Maple Icing and Sugared Walnuts from VCTOtW. Except I left out the maple extract because I didn't have any because, uh, I don't really like maple that much... Anyway, at first I was worried because the major ingredient in the icing is powdered soy milk, with which I had recently had a bad experience (GOOD WORK JEMNIFER!).

Look how white it is! Why is it so white? Ah, remember when I used to think fake milk was weird for NOT being white? Anyway, it has a weird moist powdery texture and it smells like tofu and it is REALLY GROSS in coffee. Maybe the vanilla flavor version would be ok in coffee. I am not going to spend $10.99 to find out though. HOWEVER, it does make a nice fluffy icing as long as you let it sit until all the chunks dissolve, because otherwise they stick to your teeth in a creepy way.

allegany

2007-11-12T09:51:00.002-05:00

I never get tired of this:

Yeah, anyway, yesterday I went with my mother and her friend and Oscar to Allegany state park. There is snow there. Which would be great if I were impatient for snow. Which I am not.

This is the little road to the stone tower.

Picnic! Roasted eggplant, tomato, and basil sandwich; beets; tomato-rice soup with roasted garlic and navy beans from Veganomicon. I used one can of diced tomatoes and one of those Muir Glen fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, because they didn't have plain crushed tomatoes in the natural foods aka the everything-is-one-dollar-more-expensive-here section of the grocery store and I was too lazy to walk the quarter mile to the regular tomato sauce section. Anyway, that worked out. Usually those fire-roasted tomatoes take over everything but they are good here.

Oscar likes to run around.

chocolate peanut butter highs and lows

2007-11-11T08:14:00.003-05:00

So, I had my first unsalvageable vegan cooking failure.

The peanut butter pie from VWaV... why lord is there so much agar? Maybe it's because I had flakes instead of powder. But it calls for 3 tablespoons, and I used two, because I know from my previous weird fascination with agar jellies that that is a crazy amount of agar. Anyways, after I boiled it I still knew that was going to be way too much but then it was so fun or something to pour it into the blender that I dumped it all in.. and then it set into this horrible gelatinous brick that has the same texture as a cold, wet pencil eraser except a little more chalky. Also contributing to the disgustingness is probably the fact that my grocery store only has firm silken-tofu-in-a-box in the "LITE" form. It makes no sense to me. But anyway. I threw the whole thing out, but it was not that sad, because the pre-made crust I used tasted kind of like cardboard dust mixed with the floor sweepings from the cocoa factory.

In better news...

These are chocolate peanut butter shells and they are great. If you use the weird "special dark" cocoa that I have, then the outside tastes like an Oreo. Someone saw me eating one at work and said that it looked "not home-made," which in knitting is a huge compliment so maybe that is a compliment in vegan baking also. (I overbaked half of these a little though so don't do that. Take them out as soon as they start to crack on top and they will be much better. Also put in more filling than you think is reasonable.)

I had to make a very difficult decision on Friday, so tell me what you would have done. It was especially hard because the decision involved coffee and therefore had to be made BEFORE having coffee.

The choices are:
Silk, the faux cream of choice, except that it has been in the refrigerator for a very, very long time and the sides are suspiciously bloated.
Weird, powdered soy "beverage" mix which is apparently made from ground-up tofu and I only bought in order to make the supernatural agave icing from VCTOtW.
Unopened rice milk, but then what am I going to do with the rest of that rice milk once it's open? Also rice milk = ick.

BAGELZ

2007-09-29T20:20:00.003-04:00

This is a Martha Stewart recipe and after this I am completely convinced that none of Martha's baking recipes are tested as written. There are always weird problems, like the description of what is supposed to be happening is never accurate, she always makes you use about three times as many bowls as makes sense, and the filling:pastry ratios are usually way off. This time Martha wants you to proof your yeast by just adding it to warm water. Now, I am not a yeast biologist, but I think you need to add some sugar to get your yeast to foam. Oh wait, I am a yeast biologist. Anyway, then she wants you to bake the bagels on parchment paper at 500 degrees. Martha, at what temperature does paper ignite? 450! Why do you want to set off all our smoke alarms? Also she calls for 1.5 tablespoons of salt. Where is my half-tablespoon measuring spoon? (They are on the verge of too salty so I think 1T would be adequate.)

But as long as you ignore most of the instructions, these bagels are great. Dense, bagelly, with an excellent chewy/crispy crust. I was skeptical that they would be that much better than store bagels, but they really are much better, and not that much work since you can make the kitchenaid do the kneading for you.

blueberry reign of terror

2007-08-31T08:44:00.003-04:00

Our postdoc went blueberry picking last weekend and she didn't realize how sour they were until she got home with ten pounds of them. Now every day she brings more of them in and tries to make us eat them. I made some into the sunny blueberry corn muffins from vegan with a vengeance. They would be better except I only had coarse cornmeal. So now instead of everyone being forced to eat sour berries, they will be forced to eat gritty muffins. With sour berries inside. Happy Friday!

bees

2006-09-14T23:29:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday the weather was nice for a change so I took that opportunity to install my screen bottom board. The screen bottom board is mostly for mite control (normally the mites fall off the bees and land on the regular bottom board, where they can just climb right back on, but with the screen they fall through and are trapped) but also for ventilation so that things do not get too moist and moldy in the winter. My bees don't have mites but if they do get a mite I want it to fall through a screen, dammit.

Anyway, the goldenrod nectar flow was on and the bees were very busy, lots of traffic going in and out of the entrance. It's good when they're busy because then they pay less attention to stinging.

Here is some dark nectar the bees have collected... could it be buckwheat???

The bees are raising some drones. Drones are male bees and they are only around towards the end of summer; they grow up in larger cells from unfertilized eggs. Here is some drone comb that the bees built in the space between their top and bottom levels, it ripped open when I took the top super off so you can see the pupating drones:

Here is a drone, all grown up, he is that guy in the middle with the big eyes:

Drones are funny. They have no stings so you can molest them all you want. They are helpless and rely on the workers to be fed. They don't get up until afternoon and then they just go out and look for chicks. They also tend to clean their eyeballs with their forelegs a lot, which makes them look like vain men smoothing their hair.

The first whole bee on the left is a baby who just hatched out of her cell - her fur is all damp and matted. Isn't she cute? Also you can see some foragers with orange pollen on their legs, they are looking for a cell to unload it into. It was crazy how much pollen the bees were bringing in, and the whole hive was busy and excited and rushing around, it was pretty neat.

Overall I am worried about my bees making it through the winter. They seem to be raising a ton of brood instead of storing up honey. They do have several frames of pollen stored, so that is good. (They use pollen to feed the baby bees and they will need it in the spring to get the colony built up again... assuming they are still alive...) They are supposed to have 60-70 lbs of honey to get through winter and they do not have that much at all, and they have frames and frames and frames of brood. I need to go back through and count up exactly what they have, but it's not good. It might be a problem that I have been feeding them light syrup (5 lbs of sugar in a gallon), which apparently stimulates brood-rearing more than heavy syrup (10 lbs in a gallon) which they are more likely to store. So today I made heavy syrup which is even more of a pain in the ass than making light syrup and I have to see if I can get corn syrup from the restaurant supply store, since I think I am going to have to feed them constantly for as long as I can into the cold weather. And trust that they are going to stop making more hungry bees and start making honey.

What they are trying to do is build up high numbers of foragers for fall nectar flow, but that is almost over and I think they are confused because I started them so late. Anyway I spent a lot of time reading (doom-laden) things on the internet and agonizing about what I should do (add a super? queen excluder? switch the top and bottom hive bodies? put all the old brood in the top and put a queen excluder in so that the queen will stop laying goddamn eggs in the empty cells and they can put nectar in there?) but I think I am just going to constantly feed heavy syrup and trust that the bees are not stupid and will figure out what to do... at least that is what I am going to do until the end of the month at which time I might freak out and do something else... like move them into my basement for the winter?

Also I bought a super fancy hive wrap insulation layer.

Who is a very handsome dog?

Virtual Oscar Walking

2006-09-01T22:51:00.003-04:00

bees

2006-08-07T21:01:00.002-04:00

I finally got a veil so I am no longer beekeeping like a fool.

Although I still wear shorts and a t-shirt and sandals so maybe I am only marginally less foolish. Here I have just puffed some smoke between the two boxes and am about to lift off the second story.

Lifting out the second frame.

Cute little bees! The white stuff on the frame is capped honey. The yellow caps have baby bees underneath, pupating; the more brownish ones are older and will emerge soon. If you look at the bottom towards the left you can sort of see some uncapped brood - it is like a big grub curled up there in the cell.

day 23 for bees

2006-07-25T22:28:00.002-04:00

My bees are doing quite well and have drawn out eight of the frames in their hive and have a lot of capped brood (which means the first baby bees will be born in the next week). I rewarded them with a second story.

Also my buckwheat is coming up and some is on its second set of leaves.

See all that green stuff. Well all the green stuff that is not grass or weeds is buckwheat. Good job buckwheat. Buckwheat makes very dark honey. It is the cool thing in beekeeping to like pale honey, like basswood, but I think it is sissy. It is unlikely that the bees will have any extra honey for me this year because they will need to keep it for the winter, but it is good practice for next year.

bee week #1

2006-07-08T12:31:00.002-04:00

This morning I harassed my beehive for real for the first time. I had to switch the unpainted hive body for the painted one. Also I had to make sure that the queen got out of her little cage and was laying eggs.

This is where my bees live. I am not one hundred percent pleased with the location, which I picked out in a hurry, thinking I could move it later. Then I realized I can only move it at night otherwise all the bees out foraging will not be able to find their way home. So I guess I will just live with it. (It would be better if it got more morning sun to make sure that the bees wake up nice and early.)

Here are some of my little darlings at the entrance. They will get to have a larger entrance once there are more of them. Sometimes other bees try to rob them or else wasps and things try to come in. This way the entrance is small enough that they can defend it.

The bees are doing a good job and have built a lot of comb. Also some of the cells have pollen, so I know they are actually going out and working and not just filling the cells with Wegmans sugar. See, they start with just a flat sheet of foundation in each frame and they have to build the cells out of wax, you can see some foundation in the lower right corner, it is yellow with wires through it. Here is some screwy comb they have built where the queen cage was. See, if there is more than 3/8" of space between the frames they fill it up with their own comb and the little wooden box with the queen inside was between this frame and the next one, so there was too much space. I had to take this chunk off, which was slightly nerve-wracking, because I am still beekeeping without a veil. This is not because I am a tough guy (although clearly I am a tough guy) but because it was backordered, so I cancelled it, and then I lost my debit card so now I can't order anything until I get a new one. Anyway, the bees are nice and I am not afraid of them, but pulling apart big chunks of their house while they have the potential to fly up and sting me on the eyeball is still not that fun.

Also the queen was still in her cage. They ate a hole through the queen candy but not a big enough hole for the queen to squeeze her fat ass through. So I had to let her out and there was an exciting moment where she ran around on top of the frames and acted like she might fly away before she went down into the hive. But now I think everything is fine and she better get to work and lay some damn eggs.

What clever little bees.

My uncle plowed this field for me. Now he has to disc it. I don't know what that means because although I am highly fascinated by farming, I know very little about it. Anyway then I am going to plant buckwheat for my bees. The middle of July is apparently the proper time for planting buckwheat, luckily. Then in late August he will plow it under and I will plant red clover, which grows in the fall, and then comes back and blooms in the spring. Then my little bees will be happy, assuming they are still alive in the spring. The hive is way back in the trees at the very very end of fields in the picture. So everyone who is asking me about my grandparents neighbors being upset about the bees, see? Don't worry. The backyard is very large.

how not to get started in beekeeping

2006-07-03T09:15:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago I remembered that I like bees, and my grandparents said I could keep some in their backyard. But it turns out that if you want to have bees, you are supposed to order them in January and then they are delivered in May and if you don't get them started by the end of May then there is all kinds of doom and they will not be ready in time for winter and will all die horrible deaths etc etc etc. But I ordered some bees anyways, because I am impatient and did not want to wait 11 months to have bees, and I think maybe if I feed them all summer and hope for a mild autumn they might squeeze through the winter, despite this nursery rhyme. And also I ordered a hive. And a feeder and a smoker. But then I never heard back from the place that was supposed to ship my bees, so I assumed they were disreputable, because really no one ships package bees after May because it is too hot and etc, and my bees were never coming, and I gave up, and decided I would order some in January like I was supposed to. So I put the hive together but only this much:

And I was using it as a coffee table. See I didn't paint it or anything. And I didn't put the frames together. And the shipping on my veil and smoker and feeder was delayed but eh.

And then on Saturday at 8:33am I got a call from the post office that I should come get my bees. My bees! They came in a box like this, through the mail, they are from Georgia:

So the post office in South Buffalo is not really accustomed to having a huge buzzing box of three pounds of bees. The post office man said, "I don't like bees" when I signed for my bees.

Then we had to come home and superfast nail all the frames together and install the beeswax foundation and paint the bottom board and try to make a feeder out of a mayonnaise jar since my feeder is not coming until today. And also I didn't have a hive tool or a veil. So I installed my bees in a t-shirt and flip-flops with a butter knife for a hive tool. Although I cheated, because I was supposed to shake them all out of their mailing box, but I got scared on account of not having a veil, so just took the lid off, took the queen out (she is in a separate little box inside the big box), took the cork off of her cage and stuck her in the hive (the hole is plugged with this solid sugar candy stuff, so the bees eat through it after a while, but they will stay with the queen, so this way she doesn't get out until they are used to living in their hive, otherwise they might all fly away and live somewhere else), and then I just put the whole box with the lid off into the second story of the hive. I didn't get stung, but if I had shaken them out there would have been tons of bees flying around in the air, and it is a little unnerving since I haven't worked with bees since the summer of '00 and I never, ever did anything without a veil, and you must remain calm when working with the bees, because if you start to freak out that there are so many bees flying around then you get clumsy, and then once you get stung once there is an alarm pheromone issue and everything goes to hell.

The bad news is that I have to go get the mailing box out today, and the bees are going to be in a worse mood than they were in when they first got here, because now they think they have to defend their hive maybe. And I have to install their real feeder. And I am not supposed to mess with them too much or they freak out and reject the queen because they will think it is her fault. Also I have to finish painting the outer cover and the hive bodies, although that might wait until next week so that I don't molest them too much. Oh and also I noticed that there were ants crawling around a lot last night so I have to lift the hive up onto cinder blocks and sprinkle cinnamon all around it.

Also the bees might be cranky today because it is overcast and windy. The bees like nice weather. I hope UPS brings my veil.

a story about how I bought a couch today

2006-01-08T22:08:00.002-05:00

I hate when people post materialistic blog entries about things they buy, but this is the most exciting thing that has happened to me since... hmm, yeah, it's been a while. And I am trying to keep the blog energy on high for 2006.

Anyway, I have been very impatient to get a couch. Sitting on the floor with Oscar all the time was starting to have a negative effect on my self-esteem. So this was the big weekend. Yesterday I made my parents go to three separate furniture stores and look at many, many couches and weigh their various virtures and shortcomings. Then I made the couch salesman talk to me forever about microsuede. And finally, I decided on a couch. And then we came home, and measured the doorway. For various geometrical reasons, the couch has to stand on its end to get through the entryway, and the couch (which happened to be the smallest couch at the store) was 83 inches long. And the doorway is 80 inches. How I was filled with despair, because no couch would ever fit, and apparently that is why the people who lived here before had to use ropes to hoist their couch up over the balcony, and why it had to be sawed apart to get it out.

But then! The glorious light of IKEA shone down upon me! For you see, IKEA sells couches that come in four big boxes. Oh IKEA. So smart.

Sadly, I don't live 20 minutes from IKEA anymore. Now going to IKEA is a major expedition which involves driving for over an hour and crossing an international border. It also involves: buying many things without considering volume issues because if we have a pickup truck and everything is in a flat box, how could it not fit?; spending 45 minutes rearranging twelve giant heavy boxes so they stick out as little as possible and strapping them down in such a way that it is obvious that girls who don't really know how to tie appropriate knots did it; and worrying the whole way home about (1) the Mikael Corner Desk Unit slipping out and causing a massive laminated particle board highway disaster (2) getting into trouble at the border for driving with improperly secured IKEA products. As well as various other delightful things involving receipts, taxes, duty, and whatnot.

But anyway!

It was all worth it for you, Lund Bjuv.

Oh, right, also I had to put it together. But actually it wasn't that bad. Who but IKEA could make a couch that comes in four giant boxes?

Oscar wants to sit on Lund Bjuv.
I don't think so, Oscar. Lund Bjuv does not even have all his cushion covers on yet.

Anyway, my life feels much more complete now.