pineapple-cashew-quinoa stir-fry

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

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

coconut lime cupcakes

autumnal baked goods for january

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.

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

things I made for christmas

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

christmas pictures

merry christmas!

Merry Christmas, blog readers!

christmas eve

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

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

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

oscar and yeast

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

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

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

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

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.