glittergoods

December in the rear-view mirror

Wow, a low-grade, all-encompassing seasonal illness plus the secret + scary quilting of a very important project plus the usual holiday mayhem sure takes the will to blog right out of a girl.  Looking back over my shoulder, it doesn't seem like it was SO bad, which is probably the same sort of naturally-occurring blind spot that results in second children.

I made cookies:

{Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies from Martha.  So, so good.}

We made cookies:

{Thumbs up to Perfect Vegan Sugar Cookies, which are indeed quite perfect, definitely the best of the vegan recipes I've tried.  Thumbs, sadly, down to those cute little squeezy bottles I got for easy & fun cookie decorating with the kids.  There's a reason that pastry bags are tried & true, & that reason, my friends, is air bubbles.  I think I'm going to look into one of those icing caulk gun situations for next year.}

I finished the house pillow:

{For my father, who is a collector of house-shaped things, & I have only not capitalized "collector" because there are no caps LARGE ENOUGH to describe how much of a collector he is, so the pillow was well-received.  I made the house up as I went along, with about a 50% success rate in my attempt to be intuitive about necessary seam allowance additions, but in the end it turned out more or less as I'd planned.  I have some things to learn about piecing triangles, though.}

I also finished, on December 23, the wedding quilt for my sister & brother-in-law, then spent all day December 24 in mild fits about whether it was going to 1. survive the wash, 2. emerge from the wash without any remaining chalk lines, & 3. be dry in time for Christmas presentation.

{The answer is yes on all three counts, I am very proud of myself (also:  phew), but no finished project pictures here because I think I am going to give it a whole post of its own.}

The kids put together an ode to Santa, poster-style (complete with short song at the bottom):

{And Santa did not disappoint.}

Yeah, it wasn't SO bad. 

I'm hoping to whip out a couple pairs of New Year's pajama pants before bedtime tomorrow night, but a certain almost-seven someone who had plenty of time to cool his heels & ogle the wares at craft shows this month has some sort of stuffed monster animal project in mind for tomorrow, so we'll see what gets done.  Either way sounds like a pretty good way to spend tomorrow.  2007 is all but done!  Bring it on, 2008!

lately

Lately it looks like this here.

I, however, have been deep underground in chilly basement studio doing things like:

trying my hand at some colorful pillows,

taking eighty zillion photos at the last outdoor soccer game of the year, in which my kid proved that all that time he spent begging to watch The Soccer Channel actually had some real-world payoff (note that I said outdoor, his first indoor season game is on Saturday because we are apparently those kind of soccer people, though I think I might be on duty with his sister then at the girliest birthday party place on earth),

making another Simple Tote from Bend the Rules for a birthday present (though not for the upcoming uber-girly one) -- the enormity of my love for this bag is matched only by the inevitability that I will screw seriously up at least once in every attempt, this time being putting the inside pocket on (with plenty of cunning partition & detail stitching) upside down & then sewing the top edge topstitching with bobbin so out of whack that the bag was practically filled with loose loopy thread when I was done,

& then tucking the tote into a be-princessed gift bag,

making an excellent geeky birthday shirt for my excellent geeky husband,

& then cooking him a birthday feast, including but not limited to vegan carrot cake cupcakes with "cream cheese" frosting.  (We also had roasted squash soup, salad, fancy goat cheeses with good whole wheaty bread, individual seitan pot pies with biscuit tops, & pumpkin ale, but I was too busy eating to take pictures.)  I have probably mentioned before, but I think it's worth saying again that the Real Food Daily carrot cake recipe is the best vegan carrot cake recipe I've ever tried, & also, if I may digress into the world of vegan frosting for a moment, here is my tip for very easy, very tasty vegan cream cheese frosting:  1/2 container tofutti better-than-cream-cheese + 2T or so buttery stick creamed together thoroughly, then beat in enough powdered sugar to make a nice spreadably stiff frosting.  If I'm remembering correctly, the recipe in Vegan Cupcakes has a higher margarine to cream cheese ratio, but I prefer the flavor this way.

I managed to finish the second of the cowhand costumes today, at the last of the last minutes, though I still have two treat bags to finish.*  Simple Tote, I'm coming for you again!

*On top of working full steam ahead getting ready for the Queen Anne Artists Trunk Show!  It's going to be good!

apple season

Because it is the time of year to hurl myself enthusiastically into a fresh new season of cooking, plus also the time of year that my Washingtonian apple snobbery happily coexists with the apples actually available to me, I made roasted applesauce last night, inspired by the recipe in the latest Martha -- which is, I discovered near-identical to the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, except full of butter & brown sugar instead of maple syrup & canola oil.

Since I can't just follow simple directions, I chopped but did not peel the apples, tossed them with canola oil, a chunk of buttery stick, maple syrup, brown sugar, & cinnamon, then cooked them at 400F until they were like tiny little baked apples but not quite until they were mushy enough to sauce.  I want to cook this every day, if only for the amazing smell.  (I think these apples are dessert, not applesauce -- I like mine unsweetened -- but whatever they are, they're good enough that I had to go out last night & buy some vanilla ice cream to put under them.  It was late enough that it was the hour of the young hipsters at the grocery store, & I felt a bit like I'd wandered into a foreign country, though that could have just been my disorientation at being in the store without being weighted down by giant cart + demanding children.)

Today, in between sneaking bites of cold apples from the fridge, I tried to get started on some crowns, but ended up using up most of my work time sitting in front of the computer with my daughter on my lap, sending a whole bunch of dorky Photobooth pictures of the two of us to my husband.  Sometimes working from home is the best thing ever.

3 green recipes for blog action day

1.  Whether or not you are a vegetarian, eating less meat is a good way to reduce your carbon footprint.  Here's my recipe for Brown Tofu, which is one of my top three all-time proudest tofu achievements & which I use in all sorts of things:  over brown rice, with brown gravy; chopped & mixed with mayo + pickle for tofu salad sandwiches; tossed into any sort of asian noodle salad; tossed with cooked curly noodles, diced avocado, & Annie's Goddess Dressing for easiest pasta salad ever.  Basically, my family will eat it at any temperature, at any time, in any dish.  Maybe yours will too.

Brown Tofu

• 1 20 oz package vacuum-packed extra firm tofu, cut in 1" cubes (I use Wildwood extra firm; you can use as little as 16 oz tofu without having to adjust your liquid amounts).
• 1-2 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 c Bragg's Liquid Aminos (can substitute soy sauce, though the end flavor will be sharper & saltier)
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 3/4 c water

Over medium-high heat in a nonstick pan, heat the olive oil & then add the tofu cubes, stirring occasionally until the tofu starts to turn golden.  Meanwhile, fill a glass measuring cup to the 1/4c mark with Bragg's, add 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, & then fill to the 1 cup mark with water.  (If you're going to make tofu salad, you can add 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning or 1/2 tsp Spike to the liquid at this point).  When the tofu has some good golden color, add the marinade & simmer, stirring now & then, until all the liquid is gone -- then keep cooking, stirring more frequently, until the tofu is as brown & crispy as you like.

2.  Around the time I got pregnant with my first child, which not coincidentally was around the time that my normally sensitive sense of smell became ridiculously epic (like the worst superpower ever), I started having a really difficult time coping with the chemically perfumed or bleachy smells of conventional household cleansers.  Happily, my nose & I were saved by Better Basics for the Home, which is a fantastic book of natural recipes for home cleaning & maintenance.  Since then, the selection of readily available "green clean" products has just exploded, & while these days I often just grab a bottle of Method off the shelf, lately I've been noticing that some of their scents are starting to weigh a little heavily on me too (I love the new "go naked" line, though).  I haven't quite committed to mixing up all of my own cleaners again, but the soft scrub recipe from BBftH has been my favorite for years.  You can find the official recipe at that link; I find that starting with 1/2 cup baking soda produces more cleanser that I can use at one time, so I usually just put a few heaping tablespoons of baking soda in a bowl, then add enough peppermint Dr. Bronner's to make it the consistency of stiff frosting.  Sometimes I add a drop or two of lavender oil, sometimes I don't.  Use this anywhere that you can rinse off -- sinks, counters, tubs, tile.

3.  Also around the time of my first pregnancy, I came across a magical diaper wipe solution recipe in a parenting forum (if you are wondering if nesting turns me into a kind of DIY anti-chemical commando, the answer is yes).  When my son was a baby, we used this exclusively, with homemade flannel wipes.  By the time my daughter was born we were overwhelmed by the number of tiny bottoms in our care & started using packaged wipes, but still kept this mix around for "freshening up" & also as a truly excellent anti-rash spray.

Diaper Wipe Solution

• 1/2 tsp liquid Dr. Bronner's baby soap
• 2 drops tea tree oil (anti-fungal)
• 2 drops lavender oil (soothing, anti-bacterial)
• 1 1/2 cups distilled water (you can use regular water, but distilled is better for long-term storage)

Mix everything together, store in a spray bottle.  Use freely on bottoms in need.

(Inspired by Blog Action Day: environment)

a kitchen kind of afternoon

When you are a vegetarian & you go out to eat at a certain type of restaurant at a certain time of year in this town, odds are that the one choice available to you is a dish of ravioli, stuffed with a sweetish dense-ish vegetable (butternut squash, beets, pumpkin), served in a sauce that involves a lot of garlic, a lot of butter or olive oil, & some sort of bitter green.  I don't care for sweet vegetables, or, really, sweet entrees in general, but the thing about this kind of ravioli is that I always get very irritated when there I am on date night & I am forced to order stupid squash ravioli again, only it is, 9 times out of 10, very good.

So I've been craving this very specific dish lately, & this weekend I got some frozen squash ravioli & came up with a pretty reasonable version.  But then this afternoon, I found myself with a day that had gone pretty smoothly, an inclination to cook, & a butternut squash.  I wasn't about to tackle ravioli (that's a family affair around here), but ever since my first attempt I've been thinking about a sort of inside-out version, fresh gnocchi with big chunks of roasted squash & garlicky, buttery chard. 

I decided to try the gnocchi from Vegan with a Vengeance, because I was curious about using baked potatoes in the recipe (I have always boiled them).  I think that the baking, plus using 1/2 c whole wheat flour to 1 c whole wheat pastry flour added a really nice layer to the dish that stood up well to being tossed with assertive fall flavors.

I think that it was pretty prescient of me to fail to thoroughly clean out the summer garden beds, so that the chard I'd been neglecting for months could flourish just in time to provide us with dinner tonight.   I sauteed it with garlic, olive oil, & a good chunk of Earth Balance "buttery sticks," the vegan margarine with the worst name but best flavor around.

I get this roasted squash prep from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, though I had never even glanced a the squash section of that book until a friend brought this dish to Thanksgiving years ago.

Even after putting them through the ricer, I found the baked potatoes a little harder to incorporate with the flour than boiled would have been, but in the end, the same dense dryness that made them hard to mix turned into a really excellent dough that had just the right amount of non-sticky moisture.

I do like flicking them down the fork into a pile of rustic little dumplings.  Don't they look just right for fall?

see you, summer

I can tell that the beginning of school has arrived just in time, since I had fallen into a sort of end-of-summer daze that results in things like accidentally ordering a dozen donuts, realizing partway through, & then being too embarrassed/conscious of the line behind me to ask the nice donut girl to change the order.  You're all, cha, accidental donut over-ordering, right, but listen, I really only meant to order SIX, which is not exactly a dainty number either, is it?  (Typing right like that reminds me that my children have both taken to saying niiice in a low-slung, appreciative kind of way, which cracks us up every time & is a fine testament to all the hipster twenty-somethings who populate summer camps & preschools around here.)

One nice, though slightly overwhelming, thing about the end of summer is that the Great Wall of Tomato kicked into overdrive.  The front-yard experiment paid off, & will be repeated next year. Although maybe with not quite so many plants.

Things have slowed down now, but for about a week I was picking a colander like this every other day.  I'd say that the all-around winner for both good taste + crazy numbers has been the sungold, which is a delicious orange cherry tomato & which will is very unruly & will completely take over your entire tomato wall bed, insinuating little glowing clusters of tomatoes throughout the other plants, if you let it.  In the middle of the colander there, on the stem, are a few black cherry tomatoes, which are the size of big superballs & just gorgeous, though not quite as impressively tasty as the sungold.  The big tomato winner (seen at the back) is the Black Prince plant, which -- according to the plant list at the Seattle Tilth website -- is supposed to grow 2" fruit but has been producing lots of 4-5" tomatoes for us. 

I have had to be a little inventive in dealing with the harvest, but there are worse things than eating fresh-picked tomatoes every single day.

Back to school for them means back to work for me.  Time to start getting ready for fall/winter shows.

Meanwhile, my (first-grader!) son sets up & photographs more playmobil soccer vignettes.  I let him use the big camera for these, & I love watching him find his shot with a camera he can barely keep steady.  My husband just brought home istopmotion (he's totally been waiting for an excuse), so there's no end in sight to this fad.

Tried my hand at dyeing some fabric, along with some wide twill tape.  Man, I love that chartreuse.

I'm going to be putting some cuts of this lightweight dyed twill tape (along with matching heavyweight tape) up in my etsy shop sometime later today.  I thought I might get to it this morning, but all this back-to-school freedom has me a little scattered.  I think I'd better stay out of the donut shop for a while.

good day for soup III: seitan stew

Fellow Vegetarians and Friends of the Vegetable, have I got a stew for you.  Our recent irritating bout of unseasonably cool weather had the upside of me tinkering around in the kitchen & ending up with this dish,  which is an adaptation of a recipe from a Sunset I found while sorting old magazines for recycling (sometimes it is worth going through all of them all over again!  I am vindicated!).  It's rich, bright, & flavorful, & the first time I served it we all sat around talking about what a good cook I am.  Even the four year-old.

Seitan, also called "wheat meat," is important here.  It's my preferred protein for any dish where I want a substantial, chewy texture without going for the fake soy "meats."  Lots of people make their own, but producing seitan turns out to be one of the few crafts that doesn't capture my imagination, so I just buy White Wave chicken style (broth-packed) from the co-op's refrigerated section (look near the tofu + veggie "meats").  I use the seitan broth in this recipe; if you make your own or use a different brand, just use a good veg broth instead.  Take note:  the White Wave seitan broth is so very salty that I do not add any additional salt when using it; if you're using a different broth, salt to taste.

Serve with crusty bread (important for getting every last bit of broth!) & a green salad.

Seitan Stew

1 package White Wave chicken-style seitan, broth reserved
2 T whole wheat flour
black pepper, pref. freshly ground
4T olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 T capers, drained & roughly chopped
2T white wine vinegar
1 lb baby red potatoes, quartered
1 15oz can chickpeas, drained & rinsed
1 15oz can quartered artichoke hearts
1/2 c mixed green & kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1/4 c Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, chopped
1T lemon juice or to taste

Drain the seitan, pouring the broth into a measuring cup & adding enough water to equal 2 1/2 cups.  Cut the seitan into bite size pieces.

Heat 2T olive oil over medium-high heat in a heavy nonstick pot.  Add the seitan, whole wheat flour, & pepper to taste.  Cook, stirring frequently, until browned.  The flour will coat the bottom of the pan & start turning dark brown; don't worry about it sticking, but keep an eye on it because you don't want it to burn.

Remove the seitan from the pot & set aside.  Reduce heat to medium, then add the remaining 2T olive oil, the garlic, & the capers, & stir for about 30 seconds.  Add 1/2 cup broth & the white wine vinegar, then simmer until reduced by half, stirring to deglaze (mix all those browned bits in).

Add the rest of the broth, seitan, chickpeas, & potatoes, return to simmer, then cover & cook 10 mins.  Add the artichokes (cut up any big pieces -- everything should be bite-sized), then cover & cook another 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

Stir in olives, parsley, & lemon juice, then season with pepper to taste.

good day for soup II

Spicy Red Lentil Soup*

This is my version of a curried red lentil soup, adapted & evolved from a recipe I got years ago from Carole.  I'm sure that the curry powder & garam masala are probably redundant, but, well, I'm not really trying to be any sort of authentic here, plus I find that the combination of the two gives great flavor without being too hot for little palates.  If you've got everything on hand, it's quick to throw together & just leave simmering on the stove until dinnertime (like most curried soups, this one is even better the next day, too).  Don't forget to add the lemon juice at the end -- it really brightens up the flavor.

2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dry ginger
1 tsp garam masala
1/2-1 tsp curry powder (the smaller amount makes a kid-friendly slightly spicy soup)
1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 c red lentils, rinsed & drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 medium carrot, peeled & diced
1 medium potato, peeled & diced

6 c water
2 tsp salt
2 T lemon juice

Heat the olive oil in a big pot over medium heat; saute the garlic, ginger, garam masala, curry powder, & cumin for a couple of minutes (keep a close eye on the garlic so it doesn't burn).

Add the lentils, garbanzo beans, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, water, & salt to the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer & cook, partially covered, for about 40 minutes.  When the carrots & potatoes are soft, puree the soup (either use a stick blender to puree it right in the pot or use a regular blender to puree about half of it at a time).  The soup should be nice & thick; if it's too thin, just simmer it, uncovered, a little while longer.   Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice & taste for salt.

I like to serve this with a scoop of plain goat yogurt on top, toasted pita bread triangles for dipping, & a simple green salad.

*also just called Spicy Soup, also called Spicy Soup That's Only Called Spicy Soup Because It's Not Really Spicy, Is It, Mommo?

Friday night pizza

When I make pizza I use the dough recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (I wouldn't say that it's my favorite veg cookbook but I do find myself using it a lot for basics) with 1 cup of whole wheat flour to about 3 cups of unbleached, plus increasing the salt (I use kosher, can't speak for sea) to 2 tsps.   This dough is consistently easy (especially when I do all the kneading in my stand mixer) & good (all that whole wheat means that you can't skimp on the rising/resting time, though).  In my fantasy life where I have so much free time that I am able to crack all of the cooking puzzles that have ever stumped me, I would recreate the dough from a frozen crust we once had that made use of vinegar in an extremely light & crispy way (at least, I think it was the vinegar; all other ingredients were the usual obvious ones), but in my real life, I turn to this one every time.

I think that in my husband's eyes, the pizza just barely makes up for the amount of mess I produce while making it.  We've been together long enough that he no longer actually comments on my love for putting everything in small white bowls whether it's necessary or not, but then again, sometimes silence speaks volumes.  Tonight we featured:  red sauce (homemade, also from a VCfE recipe), black olives, veg pepperoni (I don't use it often, but it's nice addition sometimes), roasted red peppers, mushrooms, artichokes, goat mozzarella.  (This list is reminding me that one of the all time best ever things to put on pizza is potatoes, by the way.)

I love the way that pizza can be as fancy or as easy as you like, & also how it's one of those meals that asks you to slow down while making it, but not too much, so it's still reasonable to make for a weeknight dinner.  It's definitely on my "more often" list for the year.

thanksgiving weekend

I have been going so fast lately that I have tried to make the most of the past few days "off" (although is it really a day off if you spend 5 hours in the kitchen -- even if you love cooking?).  We started off with a leaf garland (yeah, I know that the blog holiday train has already left autumnal decorations far behind, but I loved the idea (via Blair via Pink Trees with templates from Martha) & I'm playing catch-up), cut, painted + glittered by me, strung under the direction of my three year old.  We're happy with it, though the fall/winter holiday season is always the one time of year that I feel the lack of a waiting-to-be-decorated mantel in the house.

Thanksgiving morning I made apple waffles.  I am not a huge waffle fan, myself, but the family likes them & I do love the process of making them.  The waffle iron is such a mysterious machine to me, & I always hold my breath a little when I open it, sure that the batter won't have spread or the waffle will stick or etc.

The waffles, while tasty, are probably not really worth showing off, but I didn't get any other food pictures until after we'd already eaten our dinner, & a leftover bowl of gravy is just not that visually appealing.  I make a pretty excellent vegetarian Thanksgiving:  our main dish is this thing the kids call "Thanksgiving bread," based on an old Vegetarian Times recipe & which is basically seitan, topped with stuffing, wrapped in puff pastry.  It's delicious & centerpiece-ish & such a festival of wheat that it could take out the gluten-intolerant at ten paces.  We do all the sides, too, but for me it's really the Thanksgiving bread that makes it a harvest feast.

Since then, I've been getting the kitchen ready for the new appliances that are coming tomorrow (trip to Ikea the day after Thanksgiving:  not as bad as you'd think), visiting the cat at the vet (post-op recovery from suddenly discovered urgent situation:  she is crabby but doing very well for being 14), going to the fabric store (line:  longest ever, plus then I had to defend the idea of using corduroy for curtains to the checkout guy), & actually getting another project crossed off my list.

This is the little red skirt that's been hanging around unsewn for a while.  Once I gave up on my original plan to do a contrasting-but-still-red border, I wasn't sure what to do with it until I saw Sally's appliqués mentioned on the CRAFT blog.  Thus, me at Joann on Saturday, longest line ever, corduroy debate with checkout guy.  This was my first experience with Wonder Under, & while it worked perfectly well for what I had in mind & I knew, thanks to Sally's post, to expect some fraying (which I'm seeing already after applying & stitching it), it does make me wonder if the people who use it for art quilts have some special anti-fray techniques when using it.  (Edited to add:  after running it through the wash for the first time, I'm seeing some softening/slight fraying of the edges, but overall the design is holding its line much more cleanly than I was anticipating.)

I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with the appliqué idea until pretty late last night (while watching bad cable movies.  Has Donald Sutherland ever been in a conspiracy theory movie where he doesn't turn out to be one of the conspirators?), & it took me a good long while to pull together the right fabrics for the look I had in mind.  I love it when I've got the time to sift through my fabric collection, waiting for things to click into place.  Today I've got a big colorful mess to clean up & a slightly calmed sewing yen (Blair, I'm right there with you on wanting to start a new quilt), which seems like a good way to close out the weekend.  Tomorrow later tonight, back to work.