Henry and Zelda

Vegan MOFO- Day 10

2011-10-12T19:53:00.001-07:00

Three ingredients two ways!!

Both of these have kale, quinoa, and lentils.

The top picture can be warm or cold. It is quinoa, steamed kale (steamed with the quinoa!), lentils, roasted red peppers, with lemon, garlic oil, salt and pepper.

The picture below is a raw kale salad with quinoa, lentils, and tomato dressed in the rest of my cashew tamari dressing.
I was able to make both of these beauties in less than an hour because I used all of the same ingredients. AND who says being vegan is expensive?! Nothing pricey about clearance lentils, bulk bin quinoa, and dollar store roasted red peppers, ya'll.

Vegan MOFO- Day 9

2011-10-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

Vegan MOFO Survey!!!

It is that time of mofo. That survey time. oh. yeah.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?

Silk unsweetened. My kiddos drink the hell out of Hemp Dream Hemp Milk.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?

For MOFO? I need to make something breakfast-y. I need to make a cake (and *oh* do I have a plan!). And.... I dunno. Requests?

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?

Nutritional Yeast, Garlic, Salt and Pepper

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?

I accidentally made blue potato leek soup. I tied the leeks with a blue string. Oh no.

5. Favorite pickled item?

The only pickled item I buy are claussen pickles. And that is very rare.

6. How do you organize your recipes?

In my brain. I recently bought a pretty recipe box, so we will see how that goes.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?

Recycle, trash, and garbage disposal. I plan to compost when we move into a new house.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?

Kale, avocado, and home made peanut butter cups.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?

There was a time in middle school where my mom seemed really happy and she would make me some sort of interesting after school snack everyday. Always something new and different like a roasted butternut squash with maple syrup.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?

Tofutti chocolate cookie crunch. I wish it had ribbons of peanut butter though.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?

My food processor. <3

12. Spice/herb you would die without?

cilantro

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?

Rose Elliot's Classic Vegetarian Cookbook. In 7th grade I made my mom a mother's day feast with recipes from this book.

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?

Not much of a jelly fan. Seedless raspberry?

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?

Cake!

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?

Tofu.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?

I love cooking all meals, but my favorite time to cook is the afternoon.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?

A cupcake stand, the kid's lunch boxes, a ceramic avocado, and probably a bunch of other stuff. I hate that there is stuff on it. Grr.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.

Broccoli, Amy's TV dinners, herb oil packs

20. What’s on your grocery list?

I just went shopping, but I do need a lemon, some not natural peanut butter (for a recipe), and seltzer.

21. Favorite grocery store?

Wheatsville Food Co-op

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.

There isn't one.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?

fatfreevegan

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?

Chocolove Sea Salt and Almond chocolate bars, Rose City Chocolatiers candy boxes

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?

I don't think this counts as lately, but last month I bought a whole Vegan Treats cake to eat during a hurricane.

26. Favorite pumpkin thing to eat?

Pumpkin Pie!

Vegan MOFO- Day 8

2011-10-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

Gluten Free Pizza!

Mikey made me gluten free pizza tonight while I was at work. He even made sauce from scratch (well, from a can of whole peeled tomatoes scratch). It is Bob's Red Mill GF Pizza Crust mix (which tastes just like their bread mix-different preparation though), sauce, tofu, tempeh, peppers, onions, and daiya.

Totally delicious.

FYI- THIS GF pizza crust does not vegan-ize well. It turned to gel. Ugh.

Help with Mike's Dissertation!

2011-10-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

I am currently conducting research into how sport impacts the family
unit. I am looking for families with at least 2 children, one of whom
is participating in select sport. Each family member would need to
fill out a brief survey and I would conduct a one-on-one interview
with each individual family member. Interviews have ranged from 30
minutes to just over an hour. This study has been fully approved by
the University of Texas. If you have any questions please email me at
newhousebailey@utexas.edu

Vegan MOFO- Day 7

2011-10-08T21:08:00.001-07:00

I saw this recipe on Pinterest today and had to make it. Two ingredient pumpkin cake. You had me at two. All it is is a box of cake mix (I used vegan gluten free- pictured above) and a can of pumpkin. You just mix it together and bake it. I was skeptical, especially considering the who gluten free curve ball, but it was awesome!

I also made the apple cider glaze (it had... gasp... three ingredients!!). I made the glaze with a box of apple fruitbles juice instead of real cider and it came out just great. It is totally necessary too. The cake is not very sweet on its own. If you want it to be a legit dessert, it needs something.

The whole shebang took about 5 minutes of prep work (one minute of that was shaking the can to get the pumpkin out) and 35 minutes to bake (I let it go a little longer than the recipe; I probably didn't need to). I will totally make this again. It gets the vegan semi-homemade queen's seal of approval.

Vegan MOFO- Day 6

2011-10-08T17:38:00.001-07:00

I figured since I taught you how to cook kale southern lady style this week, I could show you what Virginians do with summer squash.

I will apologize in advance for the crappy cell phone picture. Camera cord is still hiding, and I figured crappy picture beats no picture.

Summer squash. Namely yellow squash and zucchini. I whole heartedly believe it is a sin to under cook summer squash. No vegetable preparation irritates me more than a undercooked squash. Blech. AND if you haven't noticed yet, it is the southern way to cook the hell out of everything using as much fat as possible. Now, I don't use my fat, but these are still delicious and velvety.

1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced
5 small zucchini or yellow squash, halved and sliced about 1/4 inch thick*
1-2 Tb margarine (I use EB whipped)
1-2 cloves of minced garlic or garlic powder to taste
1/2 tsp liquid smoke (takes the place of pork fat smokiness)
salt and pepper to taste, heavy on the pepper

Heat the pan to medium heat. Throw in the margarine and onions. Give it a shake, put the lid on and let it go for awhile. Stir or shake every couple of minutes. Once they are starting to caramelize, throw in everything else and put the lid back on. Do that stir or shake thing again. When the squash is almost soft enough, take the lid off to let the excess cook out. When it is done, the squash will be bright but soft and maybe a little caramelized.

*Notice I said small. That giant squash you have growing in your garden might win you a prize at the fair, but it isn't going to taste good. The seeds will be too big and too tough. You would have to scoop them out prior to cooking to make the squash worth your while. Also, if you are growing them yourself make sure they get lots of water. A squash will grow without a ton of water but it will be dry and pointless when you try to cook it.

Vegan MOFO- Day 5

2011-10-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

This post is an homage to the best cake in the history of cakes. It isn't gluten free at all. I brave hurricanes, shut down public transportation, headaches, and stomach cramps for you- you beautiful bitch of a cake.

Vegan Treats Peanut Butter Bomb

I hate you. But I love you.

I want to motor boat your fluffy mounds.

Vegan MOFO- Day 4

2011-10-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Kale!!!!

I can't find my camera cord, so I will have to insert photos later. Major bummer.

Seriously though. Kale!! I love kale. I am actually cooking some right now to have as an after dinner snack. Crazy vegans and their weird desserts!

This week, I bought a ridiculous amount of kale and have done three things with it. Well, three things with it.

1) Kale and white bean soup with potatoes. Yum! I didn't use any sort of recipe or measure anything out. I am sure you could find a recipe easy peasy.

2) Raw kale salad with carrots, quinoa, and cashew tamari dressing. You could do any cashew Caesar type dressing with this. I am oddly, not a huge fan of carrots, but I love them paired with raw kale.

1 bunch of kale, rinsed and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and coined
1 cup of quinoa
1/3 cup of cashew dressing

Toss it all together. Serves three.

3) Kale. Just kale. Made the way a proper southern lady makes it.

4 bunches of kale, soaked in a sink filled with cold water, de-stemmed*, and chopped
4 cups of vegetable broth
5 cloves of garlic, 2 minced 3 sliced
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp chili oil (or red pepper flakes if you don't have the oil)
at least 2 TB of earth balance (I like whipped). Let's be clear, feel free to use more
salt/pepper to taste

Fill a pot with everything but the kale. This is called you hot stock. Turn it up to medium and throw in the kale. Put the lid on and let it come to a boil. Once the lid is shaking, turn it down and let it go for a long long time. Like 40-60 minutes until the kale is velvety smooth.

Now, you could serve it right away, but it is actually better if you refrigerate it over night in the hot stock and serve it the next day.

* and yes. you do need to de-stem them. The stems will never get as soft as the leaves, and it throws off the balance of textures.

Vegan MOFO- Day 3

2011-10-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

Dis somebody say Donuts?!!!!!

Henry did last night. He said he would only go to bed if I promised to make him donuts the next day. I had to oblige! I heart donuts. Sadly, I hadn't made any since I stopped eating wheat. I am an expert donut maker. Really, I am. I even seriously thought about opening a donut food cart at one point.

Since I wanted to have everything ready in the morning for Henry, I just used a Bob's Red Mill gluten free bread mix that I had in the pantry for the dough. I made the dough in the bread maker. I truly find it to be better at getting the dough together than human hands. Once the dough was mixed and risen, I put it in a zip bag and into the fridge.

When I was ready to make the donuts I got the oil heating up, made a quick ganache, some lemon filling (also quick- just lemon juice, sugar, and a dash of arrowroot), and a powdered sugar glaze. I rolloed out the dough (about half of what I made the night before) and cut it into 6 rounds with a glass.

Three of the rounds got holes in the middle and were fried first. Those got the ganache on top. The other three were left hole-less and were fried a little longer. Those got filled with the lemon filling and dipped in the glaze.

The rest of the dough was turned into zeppolis. Zepplois are traditionally fried pizza dough balls. Once fried, they are thrown in little paper sacks with powdered sugar, or cinnamon sugar. I did both!

All in all, it was pretty good. Not as good as my wheat-y recipe. I will definitely do some tweaking next times, but definitely good enough for this guy:

Vegan MOFO- Day 2

2011-10-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

As a doula and childbirth educator, I get a lot of questions about what to pack in a labor bag. With it being Vegan MOFO I couldn't not talk about labor food!

So, here we go. If you are laboring without intervention, these are my go to snacks:

Source- http://zico.com/products/benefits

Unless you are allergic to coconut, you have to have coconut water. It is like nature's Gatorade. It is full of potassium and electrolytes, making it the perfect birth beverage.

Source- www.larabar.com

Larabars make an awesome labor snack. They are just fruit and nuts, so they provide a quick shot carbohydrate and good protein to keep your energy up. My favorite flavor is cherry pie. I think it actually does taste like cherry pie.

source- www.cliffbar.com

Fruit snacks are great for the quick burst of energy too. I like Cliff fruit ropes, but you can get any fresh fruit or fruit leather. Bananas are a fantastic fruit to eat in labor, as they are loaded with potassium. I had a mama snack on a banana while crowning once. It was pretty bad ass.

source- www.crunchmaster.com

These are my favorite gluten free cracker. Having a whole grain cracker of some sort is good for a nice slower digesting carb. It is also good for quelling nausea.

source- www.planters.com

Nuts are a great source of protein. You will want to pack at least one protein rich food in your bag. Nuts are convenient because they keep well and come in these single serving packages. Vegan jerky would also be a good choice.

Another tip is to put the line, "I would like the freedom to eat and drink during labor" on your birth plan if you are birthing in the hospital. Most hospitals have strict no food policies, but your doctor can override that that by signing your plan that says that. Keep in mind that you can only eat if you aren't receiving augmenting drugs (like pitocin) or pain meds (like an epidural). If your doctor says that you probably won't want to eat in labor anyways, let them know you plan to pack easy to eat snacks in case you do.

Vegan MOFO- Day 1

2011-10-03T14:48:00.001-07:00

So.... I totally failed at blogging the first two days of Vegan MOFO. But Hey! Guess what?! It is VEGAN MOFO!!!

For those of you who don't know, that means Vegan Month of Food. I will be blogging every day about vegan food. I promise. I know I let you down the past few days. I was at a wedding out of town. Speaking of weddings, let's talk about vegan food at non-vegan weddings!

I am probably in the minority here, but I do not expect anyone to cater to me. Being a vegan that doesn't eat wheat, I am pretty complicated. People's weddings are about them, not about me, so I always plan ahead and eat before or bring food. That leads me to being pleasantly surprised when there is something I can eat. And sometimes leads me to chipoltle smells in my purse (cough cough this weekend cough cough).

My friend's wedding this weekend was super fun. She also arranged for food for me and her other vegan friends. Notice I said, "other vegan friends". I am not the only one! Viva le Revolution! We had fruit, soft spring rolls, a super yummy fall salad with apples and almonds, and pasta with red sauce (no pasta for me, because of the wheat but I was already full anyways). Pasta with red sauce is a go to for most places (a vegan cliche, if you will), but this was a really lovely menu.

The worst thing I have ever had at a wedding (besides nothing) frozen mixed vegetables still kind of frozen over plain pasta. The thought was very nice, but I wish they had thought of something else. :)

I have two faves. One person had a buffet that has a bunch of grilled vegetables and ciabatta (that was before no wheat). I made a slammin' sandwich. My other fave was my BFF Andria's wedding. She made sure her vegans had vegan pad thai. Our friend Katie made delicious vegan cupcakes and an awesome pie for the groom that I totally stole a bite of. Who wouldn't steal a bite of that?

Photograph by Lovelight Photography © May 2008
Pie by Katie Hubbard!

Wheat Free

2011-08-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

This lady is giving up wheat. So sad! I feel like it is a punch in the gut, being a wheat free vegan, but when I eat wheat I feel like I have been punched in the gut. This isn't really new news. I have always had a craptastic digestive system. For those of you who were with me when I was pregnant with Zelda, you know I couldn't eat wheat at all for most of it. I was never supposed to go back to eating it, but I couldn't help myself. It is too wonderful.

But I am ready now. Ready to be the most inconvenient dinner guest. Ever.

Being wheat free in Austin is pretty easy. It would for sure be harder if I had celiac's or something, but since it is just an intolerance, I have lots of restaurant options. Lots of stuff in the stores too.

Example #1: Crunchmaster Multi-Grain Crackers from Costco (see above). Delicious! What better than the Mary's Gone Crackers crazy GF crackers.

Example #2: King Arthur (my faaaaaavorite flour company) Gluten Free Bread Mix. I got some on sale from Whole Foods. It is fantastic! There aren't a ton of vegan GF breads out there. The ones that are aren't very good.

Mike veganized this by using ener-g egg replacer for the eggs and earth balance whipped for the butter. Then he just threw everything in the bread maker. It is just like real bread. Great texture. I am really sensitive to the bitterness of a lot of GF products and this isn't bitter at all.

As a PS I emailed the company to make sure the mix was vegan and it is. The fatty acids listed in the ingredients are vegetable based. Score!

Henry's Birthday Party

2011-08-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

Henry had his 4th birthday party this Saturday at the Hoppin' House. The Hoppin' House is a jumpy house place that is awesome. We have been spending most of our afternoons here and even got a membership pass so we can come an unlimited amount!

Henry had been wanting to have his birthday party here for months, so we gave in and had a party away from home! I am so glad we did. It was awesome. And eventhough I didn't have time to cook the quesadillas I planned to have prior to the party, it was so easy. We just showed up and had a party. No cleaning. Very little cooking (quesadillas!).
Henry wanted a Hot Wheels party. Mike and I were pretty tickled. Henry is a big nerd like us. He likes Star Wars, comic books, etc. but Hot Wheels is all his. We didn't influence him into loving them, so we think it is pretty cute. The party room at the Hoppin' House matched our decorations perfectly, as it was red and black.

Here is Henry showing off how happy he is (please notice how sweaty he is. Poor kid):
Everyone had a fantastic time. We ate quesadillas, chips, salsa, guac, and beans. Henry didn't want me to make him a cake. He just wanted candy so he could be more like Dagmar. I brought a dozen cupcakes just in case, but everyone was digging on the candy.

Zelda had a good time posing for pictures in front of this hoppy house:

All in all, it was awesome! Yay parties!

Zelda's First Day of "School"

2011-08-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

Zelda's first day of "school" was August 1st. She is going to a "school" called Habibi's Hutch. Which my friend tells me loosely translates to "My Lover's House". hahaha

The reason school is in quotes is that it isn't a traditional school. At all. They call themselves a "Natural Childlife Preserve". The phrase it pretty fitting. The kiddos just run around enjoying being children. They play in the sprinkler, dance to their teacher's guitar playing (the other day I walked in on some kids rocking out to Joanna Newsom and was quite pleased), and just plain run around crazy.

It is a good place for her to learn good interpersonal skills and for her to learn to stand on her own a little bit. I feel like I have spent the past year and a half with her as my little buddy. It was awesome, but I was so busy with Henry's schedule and my schedule she didn't get many play dates or other chances for building friendships. I think she is going to have a blast here. Parents are always welcome to stay and play. I might have to do that one of these days. I am totally envious.

Summer Hiatus

2011-08-08T07:46:00.001-07:00

So I took a summer hiatus from my blog. I normally talk about life and food stuff here, and life stuff has been too busy and food stuff hasn't been happening much because it has been too darn hot to cook.

Life stuff is good. Still childbirth educating and doula-ing. I am crossing my fingers that I will be able to do a 6 week childbirth ed series for my collective soon. The doula-ing has bee super busy. Last month I had 3 births in 4 days. Whew!

I have been working a lot on my postpartum doula training and doing some postpartum work as well. I look forward to things slowing down so I have more time to focus on developing that.

As for the food stuff, we have been eating but mostly eating out or foraging in the fridge. I have felt too overwhelmed with real life and too hot to do any meal planning. That is all changing though because Henry has been getting upset every time we go out for dinner. He wants to eat at home on his own table. I get that. You win, little buddy.

So, summer hiatus is over. Hello.

Food!

2011-05-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

I wish I had pictures of all the yummy food I have been cooking, but I left my camera in my other purse. Wompity Womp!

That won't keep me from talking about all the food I have been cooking. The day the baby was born our friend Brian came over and helped me make a huge batch of chickpea cutlets. We have been eating those all week!

While I waited for Andria, Jim, and Malcolm to get home Kari and I cleaned the house from top to bottom. Mops and all! I also made 3 enchilada casseroles, 3 lasagnas, a bug pot of kale, and a big pot of Thai tomato bisque.

The night they came home we had chickpea cutlets, corn on the cob, and kale. The next day for lunch we had the tomato soup and some more kale. We have also eaten cheezy potato and broccoli bake with chickpea cutlets, pizza, and enchilada casserole. Nom nom nom.

I think I would make a great housekeeper. You can call me Ms. Bigglesworth.

Andria's Birth!

2011-05-18T14:46:00.001-07:00

Photo Cred Kari Bedford!

My best friend Andria was due to have her first baby on May 12^th. I was planning on flying in on the 15^th to stay a week to be there for the baby’s birth and help out afterwards. I spent most of early May totally stressed out and worried I was going to miss it. Two weeks before I was due to fly in, I also had the urge to change my flight to come in on the 14^th, so I did. I just had to listen to my instincts. I am SO glad I did, because I got up at 9 am on the 15^th to find she had been having early labor contractions since 7:30 am. Holla!

Since I had come in so late the night before we still needed to go to the store to get me some food (crazy vegans…). We took our time getting ready, but since it was Sunday the health food store didn’t open til noon. We killed the time by going to Target to get giant panties that would hold postpartum pads and getting lunch at Noodles and Company. Andria’s contractions were short but about 5 minutes apart. She had a contraction at the Target checkout and scared the cashier. That was fun. Finally we did our grocery shopping and went back home to labor.

Andria wanted to keep it a secret that she was in labor, so we just hung around the house away from our computers. We watched some Dawson’s Creek. Not only is it the best show ever, we figured looking at Joshua Jackson might get her oxytocin flowing. It worked! Labor got really intense; so intense that we had to mute the show during contractions. Around 5pm, Andria was starting to feel like heading into the hospital to get checked. We held her off a little bit by calling Kari Bedford, our friend and her birth photographer. She took a bunch of pictures of Andria laboring and of me dancing to Justin Bieber songs. Jim and I made a lot of “That’s what she said” jokes. When the jokes stopped being funny and contractions were about 3 minutes apart, we figured it might be a good idea to go in just to get checked. Kari went home to wait for the call to come back.

The hospital was just a quick jaunt away. We got up to the maternity ward just before 7 pm. There, we were met by nurse mc meanie pants. She was soooo grumpy! It was pretty hilarious. She put us in a triage room with another girl, which was something new to me. I had never been in a big group triage room before. We tried to be quiet, but having a baby is fun and we were laughing a lot. Finally, Andria got checked and monitored. She was only 3-4 centimeters so we went home. She was so skeeved by being in the hospital; she lost her birth gusto and stopped contracting. Things picked up again as soon as she was out of there.

Per Helen’s (her midwife) request, we went home. Andria took a bath and had some sleepy time tea. Then Andria lay in bed sandwiched between Jim and I. She slept a bit between her contractions, but they were getting really intense. Just past 11pm, we decided to leave again. Since Andria’s labor was disturbed by the hospital the first time, she decided to keep her eyes closed this time until she got into her own room and got the lights dimmed. This proved to be pretty hilarious, because after 11pm everyone has to enter the Emergency entrance, sign some papers, and get rolled up in a wheelchair by some guy. Our guy’s name was Ed. Ed was very uncomfortable with this job. He wheeled her up to the maternity ward real

fast. Andria kept saying she felt like she was on a roller coaster. Right before we got there Andria asked him to stop for a really hard contraction. Jim stood in front of the wheelchair, and Ed was like, “Sir. I can’t move with you standing there”. Jim just said, “I know.” It was pretty awesome.

Eventually she got in her room. She got settled and checked. She was 5-6 centimeters now. We called her mom to tell her what was up. Her mom got there in about 6 minutes. We decided to have her labor in the tub for a bit. She sat frog-legged facing us with towels wrapped around her. Jim and I took turns pouring warm water on her. Kari got there sometime around then, and started taking her pictures again.

After the tub she went back and forth from the ball to the bed for a couple of hours. She really liked laboring side-lying. She was tired and was enjoying napping between her contractions. Between 4 am and 5 am she started to feel really pushy. She wasn’t quite dilated all the way though. She was almost 9 cm. I

told her to pant to keep from pushing. The best thing happened with next contraction. She was so out of it, she remembered that she was supposed to pant, but instead of actually panting she went, “pant pant pant…”. Jim and I almost lost it. It was so awesome.

She was having a really hard time not pushing with her contractions, so they checked her again. She was about 9.5 cm. Her bag was still intact and bulging through. Helen broke it and she was instantly 10. Yes!

So she was finally “allowed” to push, but she was so far into labor land she just didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to push and get the baby the heck out, but she didn’t really know what to do. She wasn’t feeling very instinctual about it. All of us were trying to tell her what to do, but she couldn’t “hear” us. Afterwards she said she, “kept hearing all these voices. All sorts of well-intentioned voices”. Ha! It was pretty funny because we kept asking her to hold her breath and direct it downward and she would

take a deep breath and immediately blow it out.

Finally I had to take charge. I don’t think she could have listened to anyone else. In fact, she kept telling everyone else to be quiet. I held her face and told her to listen to me. I told her I lied when I said she could push however she wanted to, because she wanted him out fast and what she was doing wasn’t doing that for her. I told her what she was going to do then walked through it with her for a few contractions. She started to get it, but he still wasn’t moving down so we switched to hands and knees. That did it! It was the last position she wanted to push in, but her push was so productive this way. Jim switched spots with me and took his turn guiding her.

I went over to the counter to get the crockpot of warm water for compresses. The nurse thought I was referring to her vagina as a crockpot for some reason, which was the second most hilarious thing that happened that day. I assumed my position at the tail end. Holding the compresses on her perineum and giving status updates. Now that she was in hands and knees, the baby was coming out pretty quick. We told Andria just a few more big pushes before hi head was out, and she popped up and got after it. Helen called Jim over, and the baby’s head came out. She told him to watch the baby rotate. She told him the

first thing he was going to see was his dad’s face. Oi! It was so darn sweet.

Once his head was out, the rest of him pretty much fell out. Jim got to catch him. I was right there and put my hand on him too. Jim carried him over to Andria, she flipped over, and Jim put Malcolm Jude Crawford Whitehead on her chest. It was 5:44 am May 16^th. He was 7 pounds 8.5 ounces.

I lost it. I have been to a lot of births, a lot of births of people that I really liked, but never to a birth of someone that I love. I was crying like a darn baby. I am so in love with my best friend and her baby. She was so amazing. She just surrendered to her labor and she did it. It was so beautiful. Congrats Andria and Jim! I love ya’ll madly!

Mother's Day 2011!

2011-05-08T17:02:00.001-07:00

So I had these grand plans to take all sorts of pictures today and didn't. Epic fail.

We had an awesome day! I could have slept in all morning if I wanted to, but I decided to make the most of my day. I got up at 8:30 after sleeping horribly. Needless to say, I am exhausted. Coffee didn't even help. It was worth it though.

I got up, got dressed, and Mike and I wrangled the kiddos to get ready for breakfast. We headed to bouldin creek coffee house, our regular Sunday breakfast spot. I got my usual hazelnut latte and today's special. Holy pajamas it was delicious. It was a scallion corn cake topped with scrambled tofu, chipotle pecan pesto, raw kale, and served with a side of their beans. It sounds kind of crazy, but I would totally order it again if they had it.

After breakfast, we went to Little Stacy Park. When we got there it was empty! I was pretty shocked. We had a great time playing and eventually ran into one of Henry's school friends and a neighbor friend! Then we went to Target and "each" got a prize. I say "each" because Mike's and my prizes were really for the kids. Zelda got a Hello Kitty compact with a mirror and pop out brush from the one spot, Henry got a 68 cent jump rope, Mike got a clearance Tron motorcycle racing track thing that is really fun, and I got a sprinkler ball thing for the back yard. The cats got some kitty litter.

After Target we headed home. The kids needed to get ready for nap and I needed to get ready for a meeting with a client. When I got home from the meeting, Zelda was still napping and Mike and Henry were playing with the motorcycle thing. It was super fun.

When Z woke up, we got ready to head up north for our dinner reservations at Steeping Room. A client of mine had given me a gift card to there after her birth! How freaking sweet! It is pretty hilarious that everyone knows how much I love it. I even made a comment today that I could bathe in their coconut green tea, so long as I had a straw.

We got there a smidge early, so I bought some new underpants from Victoria's Secret to pass the time. Some of you may know that I accidentally bough GIGANTIC underpants a few weeks ago. So gigantic they go well past my belly button. I swear. Last time I buy underwear in a plastic package. Trust.

Anyways, while we were in there the sales lady asked if she could help. I told her I was looking for just the plain cotton underpants. Henry exclaimed that I shouldn't get cotton underpants EVER. I asked him why, and he told me that cotton balls fall apart too easy and that they wouldn't make good underpants. Thanks buddy!

Once that was taken care of, we had dinner. It was great. I just love the Steeping Room.

The evening was capped off nicely by two screaming kids the whole way home. Can't win em' all! :)

Sorry I haven't blogged much lately. I can't even begin to explain how busy I have been. I promise I will keep you updated as soon as I have checked a few things off the to-do list.

Let's all squeal and jump up and down

2011-04-01T19:45:00.001-07:00

I reached my pre-pregnancy weight today.

I will probably have to lose about 10 more pounds to fit into all my old clothes, but I can fit into some old clothes. But serious Yay!! From the date of Zelda's birth to today I have lost 65 pounds. Holy hell that was hard and 20 of it was baby! ;)

New Tattoo!!

2011-04-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

I finally got my new tattoo!! Thanks Annie Mess, magical tattoo artist! This picture isn't the best. My regular camera battery was dead, so I took a really awkward photo with my phone. I promise I will upload a better picture once it is healed.

The sitting went great! I always love to see and chat with Annie. Also, arm tattoos are waaaay less painful than back tattoos. I also got a little bit touched up on my back, so I totally got to do a direct comparison. Getting tattooed a little made me wanna get tattooed some more. I think I will get some pretty flowers or something added to my back piece. Make it a little more girly.

Love. Just Love it.

These are a few of my favorite things...

2011-03-31T11:11:00.001-07:00

Have I done this before? I know when I made my zine' I did this. Whatever. I am doing it again! I have so many friends having babies right now. I also work with pregnant people and babies, so I have babies (and their stuff) on my brain.

"These are a few of my favorite things..." Baby Edition!

I. Favorite places to sleep-

Arm's Reach co-sleeper or Arm's Reach Cocoon. Why? Well, why would you get a plain old pack n' play when you can get one that will also connect to your bed? When the baby wakes up in the night, if they haven't pooped, you can just roll over and pop your boob in their mouth. You don't have to get up and wake up all the way. When you are done, just close up shop and go back to your space. The cocoon requires some movement, since you have to get the baby OUT of it to feed, but it is so awesome ya'll. It is a hanging basinet. Zelda slept so good in it. She slept through the night from 8 weeks until 4 months when she got to big for it and needed to transition out/started teething. It gently sways when your baby moves lulling them back to sleep. Swoon.

I also LOVE this Ikea crib. It is super cheap and you can add specially made for it teething rails. This crib was recently recalled for just a little minute. A shipment of them were sent with the wrong screws. All is well now, so don't worry. I also love ikea foam crib mattresses. They don't make noise like the vinyl covered ones.

II.What should baby sleep in?-

Gowns or pjs with zippers folks. What fool thought it would be a good idea to put 20 snaps on a baby's pajama? The last thing you wanna do in the dark in the middle of the night is try to snap snaps. Ugh.

We are big swaddlers and Happiest Baby on the Block technique users. Mikey is a champion swaddler with a regular blanket. He really gets in there and gets it tight. His favorite blankets are Carter's 34x34 newborn blankets. The blanket being square is KEY.

I am a horrible swaddler. I do everything he does and the baby's arms always can wiggle out. I like the Kiddopatomus velcro swaddleme blankets. I know people go gaga for the Miracle Blanket, but I don't see how something triple the price is that much more awesome. It is so easy to find these used too at used baby shops.

Once they start to learn to roll over they shouldn't be swaddled anymore, but I still like to have them covered up. I used Halo Sleep Sacks with Henry for almost a solid year. Zelda's room was warmer and she didn't like anything on her until winter time. I totally love these though. Any sleep sack will do in the beginning, but Halo is the only company I have found that makes them big enough for older babies and walkers.

III. Feeding-

I know everyone loves the Boppy. It is cool for baby play and lounging, but for breastfeeding you GOTTA go with the Brest Friend nursing pillow. Hands down, it is way more functional. Baby is more supported, mama's back is supported, and you can nurse standing up with it. It also has a pocket if you need to carry your phone or a bottle or something. Whenever I find one used, I snatch it up so I can give it as a gift to friends. I just love it.

For pumping, I LOVE these flanges. The Sit Back flange fits Medela pumps. They are angled so you can actually sit back in a chair instead of having to lean forward to your milk doesn't run back out at you. Coolest darn things. Also, big reminder to get at least 27 mm flanges, go even bigger if you have big boobs. One of the biggest pumping mistakes is using the flanges that come with your pump. They are too small for most people. You will yield more milk with bigger flanges. You will also be more comfortable.

My favorite bottle is the Dr. Brown's. No one will ever convince me that any bottle is better. Yes, it has more parts. No, that doesn't matter. Just take the bottle apart, throw the pieces in a munchkin dishwasher basket and you are G2G. This bottle doesn't create a vacuum and baby really gets less air. Which means less gas. Which means more happy. I like the glass ones best, bu the polypropolene are cool too.

Boon makes the best spoons. They have the ones that hold food that are great for taking to a restaurant. They also have the spoons that screw onto food pouches (another thing I love).

In addition to food pouches, Sprout baby food is delicious. But you already knew that because you read my blog and saw my last post about it. ;)

And last but not least on feeding, I love these containers for food. You knew that too.

IV. Wearing

You gotta wear your baby. It is intimate and far more practical than lugging around the bucket seat or using a stroller. My most FAVORITE baby wearing device is the Ergo. I have used my ergo since Henry was 6 months old (that is when I discovered it), and I still use it. FOR BOTH KIDS. Yes. I can still wear Henry in it until he is 45 pounds. It is super comfy too. They also make an infant insert so you can use it when they are wee.

I used a Bjorn the first few months. I really love the bjorn, but it gets really uncomfortable when they hit about 12-15 pounds. It is awesome for when they are teeny tiny though. It is so easy to score these used too. I go one for $8 the other day still with all the original instructions.

I really like the moby wrap, but honestly I didn't use mine much. Mainly because it is so long and I am so short. It was a pain. They are totally awesome though. Especially if you are taller. I actually have a knock off moby called a Lovey dud. It is prettier. :) Henry has a kid's size one too!

V. Diapers

Ya'll know how I feel about diapers. Cloth! I do use some disposable though. For those I use Nature Baby Care. I buy them through the Amazon Mom's program. Sign up for it. It is free and you get a great discount. Never buy diapers from the store!! Also, Nature Babycare is the best for the environment and only a few cents more per diaper than Huggies. 7th Generation is the next best and it is only a penny more per diaper. If you are going to go disposable, do it responsibly.

My favorite wipes are Earth's Best Baby flushable toddler wipes or Nature Baby Care flushable Toddler wipes. They aren't as plush and big as standard baby wipes, but they are good and FLUSHABLE. HUGE when you are cloth diapering. You gotta go flushable or reusable. Trying to throw away poopy wipes is, well, gross.

Ok! That is all for now. I am sure I love other things...

Spa Day!

2011-03-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

I had a spa day today!! For Valentine's Day Mike bought me a living social voucher for a spa day at the vegan salon in town, Nature Co. Salon and Spa. I love that place. I have been before for a mani/pedi and it is quite nice. The polish they use is the BEST. It is a brand called Sparitual. It lasts a long time, and they just have the best colors. I almost got my nails painted teal and Barbie Corvette pink, but I got french on my hands and a bronze color on my toes instead. I have a baby shower this weekend and thought I would get pretty instead of jazzy. Next time!

The day started out with a 1 hour massage with Rachel. So relaxing. She was great and was also into natural birth. Yay for things in common! The I had a 1 hour facial with Martha. I had only ever had one other facial, but this one was way better. She used a chocolate mask! It smelled so delicious! After the facial I have my mani/pedi with Shannah again. She is so great. She did my last mani/pedi too. She knows a lot about nails and nail care and is just a pleasure to chat to. It is never awkward conversation like it is at other salons sometimes. Erin did my conditioning treatment and blowout. She was great to talk to too! I felt like I was talking to an old friend. There was lots of laughing. I also got to si under one of the old school crazy helmet hair dryers. Dream. Come. True. I will definitely be having her cut my hair next time I get it "did".

Love it! Everyone should seriously go here. Why would you go get toxins rubbed all over your body when you can have a super quality NATURAL and NON-TOXIC experience that is of better quality?

Hives Strike Again!

2011-03-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is Henry's "strong" face by the way. He is showing off his muscles.

I am horribly allergic to most antibiotics. I pray I will never be afflicted with any serious bacterial yuck. I guess Henry is following in my foot steps!

Poor H has had this awful string of illness that I wrote about awhile back. His ear infection has been reoccurring. First, he was on something that started with a C. Got better. A week later he was back in with another infection and given azythromiacin. Fast forward two weeks and he has another ear infection. He is given azt again, but this time it doesn't work and his fever starts spiking to 105. In comes the amoxicillan. Other than being thoroughly hyperactive (woo side effct of antibiotics on Henry), it seemed to be working. It actually did work, but on about day 4 I notice some bumps on Henry's back. They were gone by the next morning, but I was suspicious.

Day 7 we picked Henry up from school and he was covered head to toe in hives. It just kept getting worse and worse. It got even worse (much worse!) than the picture above. Poor dude is miserable. He hasn't slept much the past two nights. I hope tonight is better. The hives aren't as red, and his face (which was one giant hive)is mostly clear. I look forward to him getting back to 100%.

Pantry Project Part Deux!

2011-03-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

OK! So remember when I did my pantry project and it went awesome except I didn't clear out my pantry? Well, I do, so last week I organized my pantry. Now I know what is in there! That was my fatal flaw last time.

I feel like I am starting in a good place this time. My freezer is still pretty empty. I have some costco oatmeal pouches and veggie burgers taking up space in there, but other than that it is just Popsicles and placenta. My fridge is a nightmare, but it is mostly filled with fresh fruits and veggies.

We recently got a juicer on clearance at Target, so I went bananas at Costco in the produce section. That should take care of the bulk of the, well, bulk. Yesterday I went through a pound of spinach and about 2 pounds of grapes to make about a quart of juice. womp.

Anywho, there are new rules for this pantry project. First rule is that I am still eating out. I missed the Steeping Room way too much during the last PP. Second Rule is that I am allowed to buy things other than fresh fruits and veggies, but no PANTRY items. I gotta empty that thing out. Someone commission me to make a cake, because I have about 6 pounds of flour in there.

wish me luck!

I am Certified Doula!!!

2011-03-09T13:03:00.001-08:00

Woohoo!!

To take the edge off of all the bad news we had been getting, the universe sent me a call the day after we found out Mike didn't get the job- I was declared certified by DONA!!!

What does this mean? For right now, it means I make more monies. I also seem a bit more legit (though there are oodles of fabulous doulas that aren't certified for their own reasons). It is also just kind of nice. I did this work and something came of it.

I LOVE it. I didn't think I would love it as much as I do. I am not good at not getting 8-10 hours a sleep a night. Somehow I get the energy to pull through for 20+ hours. It is like magic. There is nothing. NOTHING. more magical than seeing a child be born. I feel so blessed that people choose me to be a part of their most intimate life moments.

Slacker

2011-03-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

where is my upper lip?!

I am a blog slacker. We had a good month and a half of sickness. I am not even exaggerating. I wish I were. Henry had the flu- twice. Zelda had a cold. Both kids had RSV. Both kids had ear infections. Henry's ear drum burst. His medicine didn't work. Ear started to fill up again. New medicine worked, but two weeks of anti-biotics made Henry a walking, talking maniac. It sucked hard.

But what else happened?

Last month we finished our pantry project. It was awesome. We cleared out our freezer and fridge, but we didn't even begin to broach the depths of the pantry. And now everything is all stuff again. Le sigh.

Mike interviewed for a job in Saint Louis. We really really really really (did I say really?) wanted him to get this job. The interview went awesome. It couldn't have gone better. Except he didn't get the job. They gave it to the other guy, because he had more experience teaching sport law and sport finance specifically. I blame Mike not getting the job on the fact that he was TA-ing PE classes for two years when academic TA positions should have gone to him instead of master's students. UT FAIL.

The folks really liked him too and sent some super nice emails afterwards. I hope to end up in Saint Louis still. We'll just have to be patient.

While we were waiting to find out about the job I got to go to STL myself to visit Andria. We had a slammin' good time. We went house hunting and had delish lunch with a college friend.

When we got back to springfield, we met up with folks at Lil' Saigon for a sort of surprise birthday party. I had schemed with Jake and her mom to get some Dawson's Creek centerpiece made. They were lovely.

We drove to Chicago the next day with Jake and Jim. We stayed at a hotel across from rock and roll McDonalds of Wesley Willis fame. It was epic. We ate at the chicago diner and I shopped in shops we don't have in Austin. It was rediculously cold, wet, and rainy, but we had a lot of fun. We even went swimming in the hotel pool! wild!

The coolest thing that happened was that we went to the Dismemberment Plan show!!! Ahhh! There I am on stage in yellow. I have seen DPlan at least 6 times. Every time (I think minus the day it was outside and raining, but maybe even that day) I have gotten on the stage for Ice of Boston. Every time I have been in the same spot. You can youtube it. People have posted videos.

Eventhough it was freakishly cold, I had so much fun walking around Chicago in the rain with my bestie. It was silly and fun.

12 months!

2011-01-24T17:22:00.000-08:00

Zelda turned 12 months on Saturday! I spent most of the day getting misty and crying a little bit because my baby isn't a baby anymore. She is sweet and hilarious and a total ham. She still doesn't eat anything. I really hope she isn't worried about her weight already. ;)

Until she got sick this week, she was sleeping through the night. She slept through 4 nights in a row! Wo0! Sleep was awesome, because I was sick and Mike was pooped. The big news is that she has started WALKING!!!

A week before her first birthday, she took her first steps. She has been taking steps here and there all week. Tonight she walked from the bat cave to the train table! That probbaly doesn't mean anything to you, but it roughly translate to about 10 steps.

On Zelda's actual birthday she had a Cat themed party. It was made complete with a "Hello Kitty" (or "Hi Cat" as I have been jokingly calling it) bounce house and pinata.
I made streamers out of glamour cats pictures, bells, and ribbons.
I made her a strawberry lemonade cake, which she (big surprise!) didn't eat.
Here she is horribly offended that we would offer her such a delicious thing. Look for the video on Flickr.

Happy Birthday Baby!! I really can not believe it has been a year. She has changed and grown so much. While I am sad to see her baby days drifting away, I am so excited to see that person she is becoming. Love you Lady Face.

Pantry Project Day... oh I forget what day I'm on!

2011-01-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

We are still kicking it with the pantry project over here! I can not believe I am just about a week away from Zelda;s birthday- our designated end date. I still have so much stuff in my pantry!! I might have to continue!

We have gone to the store once to get veggies. It was nuts to go to Whole Foods and spend just under $30. That never happens!

Also this week, I ate out once. The doula collective I am apart of had their all hands meeting and a group date to a restaurant. I had to participate! Other than that, I have totally held strong. This week we have had spaghetti (no picture. you know what spaghetti looks like), pot pie (above!), and joanna nugget cutlets with a lemon-y pasta (below!). and we had the subsequent leftovers.
I miss eating out, but I am digging on this pantry project thing. I want to get that pantry empty. I want to take an after picture that isn't embarrassing!

Target Deal Getters!

2011-01-07T19:02:00.001-08:00

Mike wants to create an entire blog about our Target deal getting. Maybe we will one day. Until then we'll just have this post. Mike and I score at Target. We have the finger on the pulse of every store and know how to get the deal. See those numbers up there? You Saved $70.75. You Saved $89.20. You Saved $131.09!!! We've had higher too. We had one that said we saved $180-something around Halloween after we bought a bunch of costumes 90% off (dress up box).

This says a couple of things:

1) Things are marked way up. Unless you need it or would pine over it enough for it to affect your life, DO NOT BUY IT FULL PRICE.

2) There is way too much STUFF in this world.

3) We are awesome.

The Austin area is prime for Target clearance shopping. Why? We have a dozen. Yes. A dozen Targets. At least. Those are just the ones I can't count in my head. Towns with only one Target just doesn't have enough product to have significant mark downs. Mike and I have a few favorites. They even have their own "pet" names:

Cat Pee- the one closest to us on Lamar and Manchaca. Named so because it smells like cat pee. I have a theory that somebody has been mopping the carpets.

Popcorn- a favorite. It smells like popcorn. This one has amazing deals. Great for pre-inventory toy clearance in January. I-35 and Airport.

Fancy- this is the one near Balcones Woods and the North Costco. It is... Fancy.

Greatland- named so because it is the only Target Greatland (that we know of) in Austin. It has amazing pre-inventory baby and kid stuff clearance. They also are the first to drop their mark downs on their toys after Christmas.

Stripper Target- the one way north off I-35 in the same parking lot as Rick's Caberet. This one is an interesting one. They have lots of things that you might not be able to find at other Targets and it is pretty sleepy. Maybe because it is near a strip club.

This is the time of year that we do a lot of Targeting. As much as a love Target, I am always happy for it to be over. It starts after Christmas with the after Christmas sales. We buy things we really really want at half off with hopes to price match. We normally get about 1/2 of that at 75% off and then 1/2 of that 75% off stuff at 90%.

Our score of the season is a bunch of Nick and Nora pajamas that are normally $14.99 for $1.49 a pair.

We also get our toys for the year at this time. All Targets clearance the baby stuff and toys before their inventory. We buy holiday and birthday gifts for every kid we know 50-90% off. It is pretty amazing.

In other Target news, I had my first Target related injury yesterday. I was just walking and I felt my foot hurt. I didn't think anything of it. I kept walking and my foot felt mushy. I looked down and it was pouring blood. I have no earthly idea of what happened. I went back to look and I didn't see anything. I got home and cleaned it up. The clean up revealed a small cut thank goodness. I was bleeding so much I thought I might need stitches.

Maybe this is just the divine's way of telling me to take a picture of my beautifully pedicured toes.

Pantry Project Dinner 9

2011-01-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I made bread! And rolls! I really don't like making bread because I don't like kneading, but I did it! Thanks pantry project!

I had to make bread because we ran out. I was making rolls for the tomato soup I made for dinner and decided to do a few rolls and a loaf for sandwiches. It is so good! I love having fresh baked bread in the house.

It was really easy too. I really shouldn't be so afraid of making bread.

Pantry Project Breakfast! 8

2011-01-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Hey friends. Don't worry. I haven't fallen off the pantry project wagon. We have been eating a lot of leftovers so there hasn't been a lot to post about. I also was at a birth for 18 hours Wednesday-Thursday and crashed, leaving no time for blogging.

The other day I made breakfast for my friend Brianna on her birthday. We had berry-lime pancakes all from my pantry and a fruit salad made from fruit from both of us. It was delicious. I added a little bit of lime juice to the milk for the pancakes to make it buttermilk-y and the zest of one lime. I didn't think it would make much of a difference, but it was great!
The pantry project itself is going really well. I haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg with the pantry yet. To be honest, I am kind of afraid of it, so we have been eating around the edges. The fridge and freezer are getting really empty. Since I am avoiding the pantry, we had tater tots, peas, and ravioli for lunch. Very pantry project-y meal.

Pantry Project Dinner 7

2011-01-03T18:25:00.001-08:00

One week!! I haven't eaten at a restaurant for one whole week! I have bought two or three things from the grocery store! This is NUTS.

I am the girl who loves grocery shopping. I love eating out. This is easier than I thought it would be. The hardest part was driving by steeping room yesterday. I haven't eaten there since before Christmas. I am growing weak.

I figured I would do Pizza again tonight. Once a week pizza will make Mike more willing to keep participating. This one is smokey tempeh, garlic, and sun dried tomato pizza. Henry helped make it! It was totally delicious, but none of you can have any because Henry licked the vegan cheese before putting it on.

Pantry Project Dinner 6

2011-01-03T18:17:00.000-08:00

Alrighty. For Day 6 we went easy. Sandwiches and a salad. I was so tired last night ya'll. I took a 2.5 hour nap that day and was still hurting. I had some smokey maple tempeh strips so I crisped those up in a pan and assembled TAT-wiches. Tempeh, avacado, and tomato on toasted bread.

Super delicious even if it did only take five minutes. Mike ate two!

Pantry Project Dinner 5

2011-01-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

Mmmm. Last night we had grilled tofu points with biscuits and pepper gravy. I could eat biscuits and gravy every darn day. This was so good. I also got to use my tofu Xpress that Mike got me for Christmas. It is amazing. I can't sing its praises enough.

Expect a lot of biscuits and pancakes this month. I have a 5 pound box of baking mix to go through.

Pantry Project Dinner 4

2011-01-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

Here is what we had for New Years! We have it every year. It was black eyed pea and quinoa croquettes from Vegan With a Vengeance, some herb gravy I whipped up, collards, and corn bread. The cornbread was especially pantry project-y, as I found the cornmeal in the back of the pantry and it was expired. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone!

New Years!

2011-01-01T11:38:00.001-08:00

Henry rang in the New Year a little early (about 7:00pm) by holding his first sparkler. We were going to go to Auditorium Shores for the big family event, but by the time we got everyone fed it was too late. Henry had his heart set on a party so we improvised. We asked Henry what kind of party he wanted to have. He said he wanted to have a birthday party, so we put a candle in the cake we had left over from Christmas and sang. We played some board games.
I got my butt kicked at Candy Land. Everyone beat me. It was rough. After a game of Star Wars Guess Who, the kiddos were ready to hit the sack. Mike and I watched the Sorcerer's Apprentice (for the second time. It is so good).

This morning we went out and ran some errands before all the people who had more fun than we did last night woke up. When we got home I fixed up our traditional New Year's Brunch- black eyed pea and quinoa croquettes from VWAV, collards, and cornbread. YUM.

Pantry Project Dinner 3

2011-01-01T11:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had to make an amendment to my pantry project rules to allow baby food for Zelda and snacks for Henry. Zelda won't need too much baby food since she is starting to eat more stuff we have at home, but after two days of only having carrots, celery, and oranges for snacks Henry was really getting sick of it. I guess three year olds don't handle pantry projects as well as thirty year olds.

Yesterday I started off by cooking my collards for New Years (they are better the next day). With the hotstock from the collards I added a thinly sliced onion, some bay, and some savory. I boiled the black eyed peas in that. When they started to get soft, I took out about 2 cups of them for the New Years croquettes. To what was left in the pot I added a cup of Arborio (risotto) rice, two bell peppers, and three ribs of celery. I reduced the heat, threw the lid on it, and let it rip for 20 minutes before turning off the heat.

What I got was the beautiful hoppin' john you see here. It was delicious.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T18:33:00.000-08:00

2010 started like this for us. Christmas with out bestest friends, a baby cooking in my uterus, Indian food, and girl talk Jenga.

After lots of waiting this happened on January 22nd:
Before my little dude turned three (terrible twos don't exist! three is insane!!) he was the most joyful and hilarious sweetie pie.
We went on a Florida vacation and Zelda had some fun in the sun.
The year ended like this:
a family of four. three cats. two dogs. loving life. loving you. 24/7.

A lot of folks are hemming and hawing about 2010 being the worst year ever. I am glad the bad year wasn't contagious! Our 2010 wasn't bad! It was busy and crazy and stressful and ended in the blink of an eye, but it wasn't bad.

*I had a totally amazing labor and birth that culminated in a totally amazing baby.

*I gained a million pounds being pregnant and on bed rest. I have lost almost 40 of the post-baby having pounds- only 10 away from my pre-pregnancy weight! Yes! I didn't think I could do it. The thought of losing that much weight seemed impossible. I feel pretty bad ass.

*I figured out what I am going to be when I grow up and love doing it.

*Henry started pre-school and has developed a love of nature, the outdoors, and tumbling.

I am sure a million other interesting things happened too. It all just happened so fast.

Pantry Project Dinner 2

2010-12-30T20:36:00.000-08:00

Remember that stir fry I mentioned?! Here it is! It was really yummy too. All my leftover crudite, some onions, homemade sauce, and some gardein nugget-y things I had in the freezer over quinoa.

Pantry Project- Day 1

2010-12-28T17:55:00.001-08:00

A few friends of mine recently did what is called a "pantry project". The idea behind it is that a lot of people have enough food in their pantry to feed themselves for 30 days- if they are creative. My rule for myself is that I can buy fruits and vegetables and tofu (in small quantities) once I run out of the stuff I have already. I also am allowing myself to buy a bunch of gluten this week in preparation for this project so I can make seitan since I don't keep much protein around the house as it is.

Day one I made a "philly cheese steak" pizza and a salad for dinner. The dough was just some frozen dough I have had in the freezer for forever. The sauce was some canned sauce that I had in the- wait for it - pantry. I had some vegan Monterrey jack that I had left over from Christmas dinner. I had some philly steak style tofurkey that I bought on a whim the other day. I also had a bag of vegetables that I have been using for everything since Christmas eve. They were the crudite from my failed Christmas Eve party. I have made salad, green curry, and now pizza from those veggies. I also plan to make a stir fry with them. Yay for prepped veggies!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

All was calm when I woke up this morning. Or shall I rephrase that? Got up this morning, since I didn't really sleep (co-"sleeping" excited toddler and a teething baby). Everyone else was finally passed out, so I turned on the coffee maker, got the sausage balls a-cooking, and marveled at our spoils. Santa brought Zelda a karaoke/music stand toy thing, Henry a Bat Cave, Mike a Sodea Stream water carbonator, and me a Neville Longbottom wizard wand in addition to all the goodies in our stockings.

We did Christmas upstairs under out little tree (from our second year being married!)again this year. We were going to try it downstairs (un-babyproofed!) under the big tree, but Henry told us he, "wanted the little tree that Santa comes to".

Zelda was the second person up. I got her changed and took her in to wake up the boys. I let her crawl all over them. The first things Henry said was, "Is it Christmas?!". The second thing he said was, "Is Shiina here?!" (she wasn't). The kid is girl crazy.
We had a lot of presents to open thanks to our generous friends and family and us getting good deals. Next year I think Mike and I need to cool it a bit. Even though we didn't spend a lot of money, there was a ton of stuff. Henry wanted to quit about half way through! We eventually got him to open everything. I would have let him take a bigger break, but I had cooking to do!

We all got some really awesome stuff. Henry's favorites, as of this evening, were his bat cave, his shark bite bay car track, and the monster truck Shiina got him. He has been playing a game called "Batman, Robin, and truck". He slept with the Pillow Pal his aunt got him and read some of his tag books. He told me before bed he wanted to play the video game his Grandma and Grandpa got him tomorrow. He could use a good zone out. :)

Zelda's favorite thing to do today was hold a Buzz Lightyear wing chase Herbie around. She didn't care about any of her presents. She is teething pretty hardcore and was really grumpy. Such is the first Christmas. Next year she will probably be more excited!

Mike's says his favorite gift was the legos Henry and Zelda got him, but he had the best reaction when he opened the Nerf ball popper I got him. He had mentioned a month or so ago that one of his all time favorite gifts as a child was his original Nerf ball popper. I almost wish I hadn't been so awesome and got him a new one, because he keeps shooting me! This evening he has made 3 liters of seltzer with his Soda Stream, so I think he is enjoying that too.

My favorite gift is my Tofu Xpress!! It presses all the water out of a block of tofu. This makes the texture firmer, the tofu more willing to take on marinades, and just makes it more yummy. I have been wanting one for a long time. Can't wait to use it!
We had so much fun enjoying this day together. I am so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. It was nice to just stay home with my loves all day.

Zelda is 11 Months!

2010-12-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Sweet teensy Zelda is 11 months old!! Holy Pajamas she will be a year old in a month. How did this happen?!

Zelda has done a lot of growing up this month. She has gone from two, maybe three, teeth to having SIX! Four on top and two on bottom. She got all four of the top ones in a two week span. She "cruises" all the time now. She can stand without holding onto things.

She still isn't crazy about eating things with texture. It has gotten a little better. She likes refried beans and will even put a puff into her mouth (and then promptly spit it out). She eats a lot more and has been sleeping a lot better. She sleeps all the way through the night about half the time. Thank goodness!

She also loves reading the Ina May classic, Spiritual Midwifery (the book in the picture). ;)

The Great Yo Gabba Gabba Disaster of Ought Ten!

2010-12-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

Yeah. I know you can't really put ought in front of ten, but I am the boss of this blog and what I say goes! Ought ten it is!

The happy magical picture you see above was brought to you by a rediculous series of parental goofs. This story starts months and months ago when Yo Gabba Gabba decided to do another live tour. In the first round of tour date releases Frisco was the only date in Texas, so with the help of Mike's mom and her Amex we scored great tickets right away in the presale.

Fast forward a few weeks and they announced three other Texas shows. All closer than Frisco. No worries, we'll do some visiting with the fam in Frisco that weekend. It'll be awesome.

Fast forward a few more weeks and I am in the throws of completeing my doula certification and I have a client due a week before the show. First babies are generally born 8 days past their due date. I decide to play it safe and buy tickets to the show closest to Austin and sell the Frisco tickets (they sold no problem, no loss there).

What happens after that? Client has her baby early it is an amazing and wonderful experience for all. So happy I am doing what I am doing. That frees the frisco weekend, but we already have tickets for Cedar Park. I also have another client due at the end of December and am afriad she'll go early too. We stay in town.

We spend all week talking about how excited we are to go to YGG on SUNDAY. Gab to the lady at the comic book store about the show. Giggle in the car because we just can't wait. Saturday Mike goes out with friends. Henry, Zelda, and I go holiday shopping for Mike and score him a great gift. Mike gets home. We put the kids to bed. I am checking flickr when it hits me. Flickr friends have pictures from a YGG show. Why would they have already posted pictures? Because the show was that day!! That show that I thought was on Sunday? Well, it was saturday. I had confused it with the Frisco dates.

OMG. I have never felt worse about anything in my whole life. I am not kidding. I felt like throwing up. My heart was broken. I cried. I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt like someone should beat me up. I had been so busy with meetings and classes and playing chauffeur that I made a huge faux pas.

I hemmed and hawed over what to do. Mike was beside himself. He was catatonic. I had never seen him like that before. After trying to reach ticket master and not being able to, I decided the only way I would ever feel better would be to go to the Frisco show. You know. The one on SUNDAY that I had already had tickets to. And sold.

Luckily tickets weren't sold out. Out fab neighbors agreed to watch the dogs. We loaded up the car before we went to bed, and as soon as the kids were up and fed we hit the road. We got to Frisco around 11. Played with the cousins for about 2 hours then went to the show.

I am still reconciling the financial situation (and have placed calls and emails with all parties involved to get some sort of compensation for the unused CP tickets). That aside, I am so glad we made the decision we did. I would have been in complete misery if I hadn't made this call. It might sound crazy to some of you, but the thought if shattering my three year olds little heart and missing seeing him see his favorite characters was the worst thing I could think of.

The show was amazing. More magical that I expected. Henry was in awe. He sat and just grinned. Zelda clapped and did a lot of dancing:

It was so much fun. We had an absolute blast. When Biz came out to do beat boxing with the kids henry was so brave. He went down to the floor to stand in line to sit with him. He didn't get to, but Henry HATES crowds. I was so happy that he put that aside to try and meet Biz. He wasn't even upset that he didn't get to. He kept saying he "got close to biz!".

We ended up recouping the cost of one ticket at the show. The event was sponsored by Revolution Foods, a company that makes baby food and kid snacks. They had some product for the folks leaving to take and we got about $40 worth of babyfood. Wo0! Now we just need to get the other folks to work with us a little to recoup our CP costs.

Look at this happiness hangover:

I hope visions of floating Brobies and crying Goobles are dancing in his head tonight.

Vegan MOFO 25- Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

Here is this year's plate. The lighting today was horrible. It was dark and dreary all day, so almost all my pictures are dark. Oh well! Thanksgiving was lovely even if the pictures don't convey it.

Here you see here is: green bean casserole, seitan roast stuffed with cornbread stuffing, butternut squash, smashed fancy potatoes w/ garlic and parsley, sweet potatoes with dandies, and brussell sprouts.

I am thankful for lots of things. Here is a short list of what I am thankful for:

*My wonderful husband who is a super fun guy and awesome father
*My gorgeous children who are the most hilarious and amazing people I know
*My family for their love and sacrifice
*Mike's side of the family for their support and generosity
*My friends who stand by me even though most days the most communication I can muster is a comment on Facebook.
*Andria and Jim for being great friends and sharing the holiday with me.
*How America has not only become more accepting of veganism but has embraced it. The 14 year old vegan girl in me could have never dreamed this big. Vegan books on the best seller list?! Waiters knowing what a vegan is?! Wild!

Vegan MOFO 24- Thanksgiving Prep

2010-11-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

Cornbread stuffing. Or dressing. Whatever you call it, how could you have any other? So sweet! Such a great mouth feel! I always start out by making my favorite cornbread recipe and cooking it on a sheet pan. Then I use a pizza cutter to cut it into cubes.

I shake em up and pop them into the oven at 350 to toast. While that is happening I get going on the veggies. I can't stand a brown plate. Maybe it is the health educator in me, but I have to have 5 colors on my plate. Even if it is mostly beige....

I use this combination of veggies in my stuffing: zucchini, onion, celery, red pepper, and eggplant. I diced them and cook them with a little earth balance, garlic, pepper, and sage based poultry seasoning. I like to use this combination of veggies because it allows me to use untraditional Thanksgiving veggies and give our holiday dishes an extra flavor and color boost.

Steamy! Delicious!

Toasty!

Once all that is done mix everything together with a handful of chopped parsley. Pour a mixture of stock and melted margarine (I use 1 cup stock, 2 TB margarine) over it and dig in with your hands to get it all mashed together. Then put it in a pretty dish:

Top it with roasted salted pecans and bake it until it is warm and holds it shape. Generally 30-40 minutes. It comes out looking like this:
nom nom nom nom nom.

Vegan MOFO 23- Cilantro Walnut Pesto

2010-11-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is a very green bowl. Pesto. Broccoli. Lots of green. Lots of good. My go-to pesto here is cilantro walnut pesto. Not only because it is delicious, but also because cilantro is CHEAP.

Here is how I do it for one big batch:
1/4 # cilantro (about 3 big bunches with most of the stems cut off)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cups stock (you could use olive oil here and add a ton of fat)
2 small handfuls of walnuts (how precise!)
3-5 cloves of garlic (I use 5. I love garlic)
salt and pepper to taste

blend it all up in your food processor. Or use a mortar and pestle if you are OG.

Zelda is 10 Months!

2010-11-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

Zelda turned 10 months today. It is nearly impossible to get a picture of her in this darn bathtub. She won't hold still! This month the drain and a baby oil sample held her attention. This picture blows my mind though. Go back and look at my flickr around September of 2008. She looks, right now, exactly how Henry looked when he was about 13-14 months old. Holy pajamas. Twins!

Let's see... Zelda can pull up and stand on her own without holding on to anything for a few seconds before having to sit down. She is cutting several teeth right now. One has half cut through, so she has 2 1/2 teeth. She loves teething biscuits. I love them too because they make her smell delicious. Her other favorite food is almond butter. It has really helped her get filed up. We credit the almond butter to helping her sleep better.

Speaking of sleeping, it has been SO much better. We are normally only having one wake up and sometimes she sleeps through the night. Even with the teething! Sometimes we have to give her ibuprophen, but this round of teething has been much easier.

She really loves getting into Henry's stuff and oing whatever Henry is doing. That really bothers him, but he is getting better about sharing with her. It has bee hard though. He often tells me that he doesn't like to share with her. I want to tell him tough titties, but I just sympathize instead.

Zelda is a happy happy baby. She is so fun. So sassy and opinionated. Love her.

Vegan MOFO 22- School Potluck

2010-11-22T19:55:00.000-08:00

Mike got a really good action shot of me chewing, huh? When you say you have a vegan kid people automatically get on the defensive. What about parties?! What about birthday cake? They have no choice!!

1) No kids have a choice. Parents feed their children the foods they eat. When I was three my mother didn't ask me if I wanted to be a vegan. I ate what the family ate until I was old enough to say I didn't want to. So long as people are making sure their children are healthy and respecting their children's feelings about food I think we should respect the family.

2) Birthday cake? Parties? Really? Vegans make delicious foods. And Delicious cakes. I promise there is no deprivation. The chubby chub on my thighs is evidence of that. I don't see folks doing too much worrying about the kid that is allergic to nuts. I always make sure Henry has something good to eat. If it is a special occasion I always make sure he isn't left out. If he goes to a party that can not or will not accommodate our diet, I find out what is being served and try to bring something similar. It really isn't a big deal.

Today was Henry's school Thanksgiving potluck. He was really excited to have us eat lunch with him and his friends. I made gluten "raviolis". I took Joanna's nugget recipe (double batch) rolled out half, put dollops of stuffing about an inch apart, rolled out the other half and placed it on top, then I used a pizza cutter to cut out the squares. I sealed the edges with a fork and baked according to her directions. I also made the Golden Gravy from Joanna Vaught's Zine #1 to go with it.

It was a HUGE hit with both kids and parents. Both veggies and non-veggies. I had several people ask about the recipe.

I also brought some gingersnaps for dessert. Some other folks brought fruit and a green salad, so we had a nice little meal going on. Henry's teacher is a vegan as well, so she was happy to have something to eat. Gotta spread the love.

Vegan MOFO 21- Sandwiches

2010-11-21T20:34:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite restaurant sandwich (remember that survey I did a few days ago?). Ginger tofu with lemon edamame spread on ciabatta. It also has carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, and pickled red onions. I get it with the tao of green salad.

I have mentioned the Steeping Room a few times this month.I even had a mofo post dedicated to it last year. It really is my favorite restaurant in Austin. I can't get enough. Luckily, I have been really busy this month and have had to run a lot of errands up north. Which means more Steeping for me!!!

I got my Ginger Tofu sandwich on my anniversary Friday. I got the grilled vegetable sandwich today. I love the grilled vegetable sandwich for a dozen reasons, but my favorite reason is that it is seasonal. The fall vegetable one has butternut squash, eggplant, spinach, walnuts, and hummus.
Henry gets a PB&J almost every time. They always arrange the fruit very artfully. I wish I had gotten a picture of it before he dug in.
Sandwiches are just so darn good.

vegan mofo 20- joke

2010-11-20T21:47:00.000-08:00

i am about to miss the cut off for today so i will share a quick joke:

why is there only 239 beans in irish bean soup?

because one more would be too farty.

it is food related! beans are the ultimate vegan joke. toot!

Happy Anniversary!

2010-11-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

I have a few minutes left in my anniversary, so I wanted to do a shout out since I forgot to get Mike a card. Not that I think Mike will read it, because, really, when has he ever read my blog? I don't care though! I am doing some fist pumps right now! Five years! We beat Christina Aguilera and her husband. They married on the same day/year as us. We are awesome.

We are both really goofy and nerdy and love music, but for everything we have in common we have something NOT AT ALL in common.

Exhibit A: Mike is not very affectionate. Especially not in public. I am a kissing maniac. I sneak em' in when he isn't looking. I walk around Target with Zelda in the carrier and kiss her head every 20 seconds. I hug everybody. Put that handshake away.

Exhibit B: Mike loves Ska. Ok. I can get behind a few ska songs. But really? Ska? Really?

Exhibit C: I love dancing. This article and the next might seem like no big deal to you. If it does you have no idea how much I love dancing. I will dance by myself (and often have to) at a wedding. I'll be the first one on the dance floor and the last one off. Mike doesn't really dance. He tries sometimes but mostly he just hangs out while I dance.

Exhibit D: Mike will not do karaoke. I lie. Mike will not do karaoke unless he is extremely inebriated and only amongst friends. I love karaoke. The whole point is having fun, not having a good singing voice. He was scarred by a rough rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" and has flashbacks every time. Oi.

Exhibit E: Scrabble. Don't even get me started. We don't play it together.

Why bring all this stuff up? All this stuff that we don't have working for us? I brought it up because it doesn't matter. We have too much fun together. Disagreeing about this stuff keeps us sharp and gives us something to do (dance lesson, ahem!). In the past five years we have lived in 3 different states, gone to Disney World three times, had two babies, adopted 6 animals, bought a house, bought a car, and seen some totally epic shows (Dead Milkmen! Joanna Newsom with the Austin Symphony!). I am so glad I was silly enough to marry you when I was 21 after only dating you for a year. You are a great partner and an awesome daddy to our kiddos. I outkicked my coverage.

Vegan MOFO 19- Hello Kitty Cupcake

2010-11-19T19:10:00.000-08:00

Henry and I participated in a hello kitty cake walk and won two vegan hello kitty cupcakes baked by Sugar Mamas Bakeshop. Um. Delicious. Here is the story of this cupcakes destruction:
First bite. Excitement. Apprehension. Can I handle this cupcake?!
ooooooh. I am so happy, but I wish I could eat a cupcake!! Booooo.
He goes for it!
He scores!! Yesss.

Vegan MOFO 18- Thanksgiving Plans?

2010-11-18T14:00:00.001-08:00

This was last year's Thanksgiving plate. Seitan en croute, garlic parsley mashed potatoes, stuffing muffins, fresh cut corn, carrots, cranberry relish, and a roll. This year I am going to attempt a seitan stuffed with stuffing (my usual cornbread dressing with veggies and roasted pecans), more garlic parsley mashed potatoes, more cranberry relish, Joanna Vaught's gravy from her Potluck zine, green bean casserole, and rolls. For dessert I am making a chocolate walnut pie.

I have made the cranberry relish for my family every Thanksgiving since I was about four. I learned to amke it in Sunday School:

1 bag fresh cranberries
1 large seedless orange
1/2 cup sugar

grind it all up in a blender or food processor and let it sit in the fridge for 2-3 days before serving.

Yum!
For Henry's Thanksgiving potluck at school on Monday I am making little seitan "raviolis" stuffed with stuffing using Joanna's nugget recipe.

What are ya'll fixing this year?

Vegan MOFO 17- Vegan Costco

2010-11-17T12:38:00.001-08:00

the cat came with the table.

So one day my friend Brianna said she was going to Costco. I had nothing to do so I tagged along. Wow! Things have changed since I last walked into a warehouse store. There was a lot of organics and a lot of vegan food.

Mike and I had a BJ's (insert crude jokes here) membership when we lived on Long Island and we used it a lot. We were on a tight budget and there weren't many vegan friendly restaurants to choose from at the time so it made a lot of sense. We bought big things of staples- whole wheat pasta, rice, beans, soymilk and peanut butter. They didn't have much by the way of produce and not much else we would use.

The Costco here in Austin was awesome. Even the lady at the membership desk was a vegetarian! What brought me back after our initial visit with Brianna was the almond butter. Zelda is flying through jars of almond butter. She loves it. Our wallets hate it. Costco has a 26 oz jar of almond butter for $5.99. Half of what we pay for less almond butter at other stores. It is even cheaper than the bulk bin. Just the savings on almond butter would be worth the cost of membership. What other goodies did we find? Here are some of last nights finds:

12 oz of raspberries for 3.49
2 loaves of multi grain bread 3.99
4 pounds of organic quinoa 9.49
12 oz. gorgeous prewashed and trimmed cilantro 2.99
3 pounds broccoli florets 4.29
14 veggie and sunflower seed burgers 11.79
3 containers organic tofu 3.99
4 pounds organic salsa 5.99
3 pounds walnuts 12.99
3 pounds prunes 5.99
!!12 pounds!! organic applesauce 8.89

my ultimate?
6 pounds 6 ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes for... !! $2.89 !! That is that cost of three pounds of tomatoes I would have to peel myself! Crazy! I can make so many jars of spaghetti sauce with that!

We got some other stuff too, but no one cares about baby carrots or brussell sprouts. They had some vegan thin mint style cookies that looked amazing but I couldn't pull the trigger. They were almost 200 calories and 9 grams of fat for two. I would rather just not even go there.

I wanted so much stuff but there just wasn't room for it. I have no place to put 20 pounds of pinto beans. Even if they are less than six bucks. My main complaint is that they didn't have unsweetend soymilk for my cooking or little individual rice or almond milk boxes which are good to have for trips and such. AND they had organic peanut butter but not natural peanut butter. I can't stand the sweetened stuff. BJ's had those things. Maybe I should write them a letter.

Wanna know what else was awesome though? When we got our membership they asked if someone referred us and when we got Brianna's member number we each got $20 gift cards. Nuts right? I am not fishing for gift cards here, but if any of you friends of mine go and get a membership email me or call me if your costco does referrals and I will give you my member number. You can keep your gift cards. I just like people to get great deals.

Vegan MOFO 16- Early Adventures in Food Dehydrating

2010-11-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hey howdy hey! I present your with zucchini chips and boy are they good! We just got a food dehydrator this week and have been having fun playing with it. Henry used to eat everything and became extremely picky around 18 months of age. Since then I have been trying very hard to convince him that he likes things he used to love. Luckily for me, he will eat almost anything in chip form. Unfortunately for me those veggie chips in the bulk bin are really expensive and salty. I am hoping I can turn him into a veggie lover once again. This is what has started our adventure into food dehydrating.

Our biggest successes have been these zucchini chips and the dried apple we made. The apple didn't photograph well at all though. Henry swears he doesn't like the zucchini chips but he has eaten the ones I put on his plate without complaint so he can't find them that horrible.

So far we have also tried for carrot chips and raisins. I had some carrots and some grapes in the fridge that needed to be cooked or eaten stat. I sliced the carrots lengthwise about 1/4 inch thick in my food processor. They went for about 8 hours yesterday and are more like carrot jerky than carrot chips. I still need to work on those. Mike really likes them as carrot jerky, so all is not lost.

The grapes are still going. I took them out last night because I didn't know how I felt about the dehydrator running for a full 24 hours. Made me nervous. They didn't seem to do much all day yesterday. A few were a little shrivel-y. This morning I cut a slit in eat one and popped them back in. Things are going much faster today. Hopefully I will have a picture to add later on.

I look forward to all of the things I am going to dehydrate. I hope this appliance ends up getting a lot of use. The food dehydrator infomercial was my favorite from my youth. I would stay up late just hoping to catch it. I need to go find that on you tube and see all the things I can dry.

If anyone has any great recipes or tips on making veggies more chip like leave em' here!

Vegan MOFO 15- Kids Breakfast

2010-11-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

This picture isn't exciting. But what the picture is of is exciting. Toad in a hole. I learned about toad in a hole in the Molly, the American Girl's, cookbook that I got for Christmas when I was about 8. I have been meaning to re-work this for awhile now. Henry loves bread. He loves tofu. He'll love this. I am so excited.

You take a piece of bread and use your favorite cookie cutter (I used a cookie cutter of the United States because I love America) to cut a hole out of the middle. Heat your skillet to medium-low heat. This is important. DO NOT heat it too hot. It will burn before the middle gets done if you do this.

Put just a dab of Earth Balance in the pan and let it melt. Spread it around the pan and put the bread on. Spread some vegan omlette batter into the hole. Let it cook on that side for 3-4 minutes then flip and cook that side for the same amount of time.

So what else do vegan kids eat for breakfast? Cereal. Pancakes. Waffles. Peanut butter toast. Those are no brainers.

We have two things that Henry loves for breakfast.

1) My personal favorite. Grits. I have been eating grits for breakfast my whole life. I make them with unsweetened soymilk and add 1 TB of nutritional yeast, 1 tsp margarine, dash of pepper, and a dash of garlic salt per serving.

2) Pumpkin-Almonds Oatmeal. Use whatever packet of oatmeal you like. We usually use flax or hemp seed oatmeal. Cook it using 1/2 the amount of recommended liquid. Make that liquid your favorite non-dairy milk. Microwave it for one minute then stir in a heaping tablespoon of pureed pumpkin and a tablespoon of almond butter. If your oatmeal doesn't already have cinnamon in it, add a dash. We always have pumpkin on hand for baking and baby food. If you don't always have pumpkin you can use sweet potato or something else you might have on hand.

Vegan MOFO 14- Breakfast at Steeping Room

2010-11-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

The Steeping Room is my favorite restaurant in Austin. Hands down. Lots of vegans go gaga for food trailers and dives. This isn't that kind of place. This is a tea room. With amazing and delicious (often vegan!) food. Everything is really fresh and really quality. They recently expanded their brunch and breakfast offerings, so we popped over this morning to check it out.

Mike had a breakfast bowl (above) with black beans, potatoes, mixed greens, and cashew sauce. I have had this before and I can vouch for it being delish. Henry had already eaten breakfast since he woke up around 7:30, so he had a snack of tofu and croutons:
That plain side of tofu was wonderful. Crispy and chewy. Nom nom. Zelda had eaten too, but we brought her some applesauce and ordered her a side of almond butter. Here she is enjoying it:
I shared a pot of tea with Herbie (BIL). We had silver needle white jasmine. Pretty good. Really mild. I was expecting it to taste a little more jasmine-y after smelling the tea (they have a wall of little dishes of tea that you can smell). I can't wait to be able to drink tea with more caffiene once I am done being a milk factory.
Now for the piece de resistance! Chai spice french toast. OMG. It was so good. It was way bigger than I needed (I couldn't finish it) and I really wanted something lighter, but how can you resist this gorgeous thing? It was new and I had to try it. YUM.

Vegan MOFO 13- Lunch Out

2010-11-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

We had a busy morning of Austin Comic-Con-ing. (check the flickr for all of the nerdy goodness). Lunchtime came and we knew we needed to get something delicious and quick so we could get the kiddos home to nap. Lucky for us I had printed out our Thai Fresh groupon to keep in the car!

I love Thai Fresh. I think it is my favorite Thai place in town. It is quick and super kid friendly. They have a little kitchen and a bunch of toys for the kiddos to play with while you wait for your food. They aren't exclusively vegetarian, but they always have a handful of really good vegan options. Today I think there was two vegan curries, one vegan noodle dish, one vegan soup, and one vegan mixed vegetable mix.

You order at the counter, deli style, and they heat up your food. I got a two-item plate with the coconut vermacelli and the yellow curry (see above). The coconut noodles are kind of like pad thai, but way better. The yellow curry was tofu and potatoes in a bunch of sauce:
One thing I like is that they have the option of brown rice. You don't see that a lot at Thai restaurants.

Henry had little bits of my lunch:
Zelda packed a lunch. She is having home made sweet potatoes and applesauce. She also had some organic mum-mum. Complete side note- I LOVE the container shown below. We travel with food a lot and this is great. Now that I am making more food for her I can package it this way and keep it in the fridge for ready made meals! Take that yucky processed gerber meals that aren't vegan anyways!
After lunch we swung by Sugar Mama's Bakeshop on the way home for some dessert (as if we needed any after our totally delicious and filling lunch!). I got the chocolate covered cherry cupcake. Delicious. It didn't even make the ride home. I had to dig in.

Vegan MOFO 12- Best thing I ever ate

2010-11-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

I don't really feel like blogging today. My childhood cat died this morning. I am, however, determined to blog every day of Vegan MOFO. I didn't cook anything today (unless you count microwaving left over casserole), so I had to draw on one of my favorite Food Network shows for inspiration: The Best Thing I Ever Ate.

Each episode has a theme- best ting I ever ate with chopsticks, best spicy food, best thing with chocolate.... The folks on the channel talk about their favorite food and they show the restaurants and how it is made. Great show. Especially great for people like me who just LOVE FOOD. I like to watch people make that face. You know, that face where their eyes roll into the back of their heads and they go "mmmmmm"? Best face ever. Alton even had a vegan dish as his favorite thing to eat with chopsticks! It was a mock eel made with shitake mushrooms. Looked really good.

I would love to be on that show. But since they seem to hate vegans and I am not famous, so my blog will have to do. Here are my picks for some of their episode themes:

With Chopsticks: This kind of goes against the "Where you Can Get It!" aspect of the show since this restaurant closed in 2002, but the best thing I ever ate with chopsticks was the cold sesame noodle salad at Forbidden City in Virginia Beach. I have blogged about it before, but it was so good. Noodles in the best sesame-peanut sauce ever topped with shredded cucumber, carrots and bean sprouts. I miss it.

Totally Fried: The best fried thing I have ever eaten is the Crispy Soul "Chicken" at VP2 in NYC. It is perfectly seasoned and has a subtle sweetness. They sell it as an appetizer and part of a meal.

Pizza: My favorite pizza used to be the pizza at Bella Pizzaria in Norfolk Virginia, but it has really gone down hill lately. My NEW favorite is Mellow Mushroom's pizza made vegan with daiya, potatoes, and tempeh.

Cake Walk: The best cake in the whole world is the peanut butter bomb cake at the Vegan Treats bakery in Bethlahem, Pa. They sell to NYC and Philly too.

Hidden Treasures: Nobody ever goes to NYC for their fancy Vegan pilgrimage and says "I ate at Curly's Vegetarian Lunch every day!". Except me. And everyone I take there. Because it is the best vegetarian restaurant in NYC and no one knows it! 1) They sell vegan treats 2) They sell American style food made Vegetarian/Vegan. The vegan huevos rancheros brunch is what kept me coming again and again. Eventually I branched out. Other faves are the Thanksgiving sandwich, suna melt, crab fake po boy... everything is delicious.

With My Hands: Asther's Ethiopian in Austin has really yummy vegan foods. They say the azifa will leave your taste buds jumping for joy. It really does. Scoop it up with some injera.... heavenly.

Between Bread: Best sandwich on the vegan planet is the ginger tofu on ciabatta with lemon edamame spread (instead of hummus) at the Steeping Room in Austin. There isn't anything else to say. Go get it.

Wake Up Call: Breakfast in Austin is Mr. Natural's tofu migas with refried beans and potatoes on corn tortillas. I blogged about it last October. I am pretty pissed because they cut the portion and almost doubled the price last year. I used to get it for breakfast twice or more a week but now I rarely get it. It IS the best migas and the best breakfast in town if you can afford it.

Best I Ever Drank: I don't drink anymore but my most favorite drink is a dharmata at Bardo in Norfolk, Virginia. It is grapefruit vodka, vanilla rum, raspberry rum, and passion fruit juice. They serve it with an edible orchid. Delicious.

Vegan MOFO 11- Leftovers Casseroles!

2010-11-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of food clogging up my freezer and my fridge. The chili cook-off was last weekend which meant I had a lot of chili related ingredients. I also had a lot of chili. And for some reason I had a whole bag of corn tortillas that I didn't remember buying. Elves?

Whenever I need to just get rid of stuff I make casseroles. Casseroles are magical wonderful things. Read any 1950's cookbook and you will know you can put ANYTHING into a casserole. The weirder the better. These aren't that weird though!

The one you see above is a taco casserole. Not to be confused with the enchilada casserole (though I did use the same sauce). It has boca crumble (GMO free! they sell the gmo free kind at wheatsville in austin), corn, peas (yeah, that is the weird part. i don't put peas in tacos), tomatoes and caramelized onions that I sauteed and seasoned with cumin and garlic. Then I just layered it: sauce, tortilla, sauce, mixture, sauce, tortilla, sauce..... You can top it with vegan cheese or add vegan cheese in between the layers if you would like. If you are feeling really crazy you can used fried flat corn tortillas for a different texture.

If you were serving this for a legit dinner you could serve it with shredded iceburg lettuce and diced tomatoes on top. For a pre-main dish salad I would go with cubed watermelon and avocado with cilantro, a tiny bit of minced jalepeno, and some salt.

This is a chili casserole. One of my favorite things. Same layering method as the taco and enchilada casseroles, but instead of sauce and filling it is just chili. It goes like this: chili liquid, tortillas, chili, tortillas, chili, tortillas.... then an inch or two from the top spread out your favorite sweet corn bread batter. This is really the perfect casserole for people with all sorts of chili heat preferences. The tortillas and cornbread mellow out the heat, so you can use a spicier chili than you may be used to.

Both casseroles bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

I made 2 taco casseroles and one big chili casserole in less than an hour. Awesome.

Vegan MOFO 10- Applesauce!

2010-11-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

I was trying to think of a way to tie in food and my baby. Baby Food! But first an update on the baby:

Zelda had her 9 month well check today. She is fit as a fiddle. She is 18 pounds 4 ounces, only about a pound up from last month since she has been so active and crawling. She is still 27 inches, but I don't trust the nurses measurements month to month. She squirms so much I doubt it is accurate. They gave me her head circumfrence in centimeters this time. When I am feeling less lazy I will convert it and edit this post. Long story short, she has a big head.

No shots today (yay!) but they had to draw some blood (boo!). I had the choice of them doing it this time or next time so I figured we would just get it over with. They drew blood to screen for lead and anemia. Two things I would like to know about since she is putting everything in her mouth (lead) and nursing less (anemia). It sucked. I won't get into details but she was MAD. It didn't seem to hurt her at all. I don't think she even flinched when the needle went in. She let me have it though. One thing that was interesting was that she calmed down as soon as I signed "all done" to her. Yay for baby signs. The nurse commented that she had never seen her red head's temper before. There it is, nurse Donna. There it is.

Zelda is also cutting at least two teeth. Why in twos?! So strange. I hope all her teeth get in so she starts eating more FOOD! (nice segue huh?)

Zelda has been eating us out of house an home. She is super persnickity and would only eat really smooth stuff for awhile. Anything with texture would make her gag. That means she wouldn't eat baby food I made. Ugh.

Now she will eat a little texture (key word little) so I made her some applesauce.

5 apples, peeled and cored/sliced
1/4-1/2 cup water (depending on how thick you want it)
1/2 tsp baking spice or cinnamon

Throw everything in a big pot. let it cook, covered, on medium heat for about 30 minutes. When it is all mushy and soft blend it. I, of course, used my immersion blender.
Then I put it in these cute little four ounce containers. 5 big apples makes 5 jars of baby food.

Vegan MOFO 9- Product Reviews!

2010-11-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a few days ago that I bought a lot of Thanksgiving fare. Something I had never had before was a Field Roast brand Celebration Roast. Mike loved it. I thought it was pretty good. Not as good as home made but better than Tofurkey. I am still chasing the dragon of Now and Zen's Unturkey.

My only real complaint is that it was described as stuffed but the stuffing was weird. I expected more traditional stuffing. It felt like and tasted like it was stuffed with the roast itself. Just mixed with lentils and other things. I was mostly surprised.

It was good though and I would recommend it.
I had it with Green Giant steam in bag green beans. One of my lady magazines had reviewed a bunch of different vegetables and said that these green beans were as close to fresh as you can get without them actually being fresh. They were good. I steamed them in the microwave, drained them and tossed them with a little earth balance (about 1 1/2 tsp), salt and pepper.

They definitely tasted better than normal frozen green beans and a million times better than canned. They had a hint of frozen green bean taste, but that was ok. I would totally get these again. The mild frozen taste was offset by me not having to trim them.

Since Zelda has been born I have become a big fan of steam in bag vegetables. I don't always get to go to the store to get fresh stuff when I need to. It is so nice to have a quick back up.

Vegan MOFO 8- Joanna's Nuggets and Cutlets

2010-11-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

This post is an homage to my dear electronic friend (and once in person friend!) Joanna Vaught. She has an amazing cookbook, an awesome blog, and a couple of pretty sweet potluck zines. She has created the recipes for my TWO favorite seitan/gluten recipes AND my favorite Mac and Cheeze recipe.

People are always asking me how to make seitan and what recipes I use. I pretty much without fail tell them to google "Joanna Cutlets", "Joanna Nuggets", and to buy Yellow Rose Recipes.

This particular post is really about my love of the nuggets recipe. It is so good and so easy. Several of my omni mom friends make them for their kiddos. I make a batch at least once a week. I am always pushing the limits of the recipe too.
1) I have never used the dried mustard powder. Simply because I have never had any (comes of fine anyways!)
2) I have tried several different types of breading. Henry's favorite is when I make homemade breadcrumbs out of sourdough.
3) I recently baked an unbreaded cutlet (see above) and it was delicious!
4) I have stuffed them and made mega stuffed nugget cutlets things by making one big nugget/cutlet, putting a tablespoon of filling on it, then smushing another one on top. Bread and bake per usual.

my point is that this is one of the greatest recipes of all time because it is so simple yet so versatile and unbelievably quick. It is faster for me to make these than it is for me to go to the store to buy a bag of Boca Nuggets or something. Way more delicious too.

Now go buy her cookbook before they sell out.

Vegan MOFO 7- Vegan Chili Cook-off

2010-11-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

Today I participated in my second vegan chili cook off! It was so much fun. I made my table really pretty with a lovely red and aqua floral theme. The chili I make is the best vegan chili i have ever tasted. Most people agree with me. It is called Cashew Taste Explosion.

Here is what it looks like:
The day started out really great and then the power went out in the whole park. Talk about a cook-off emergency!! Only a few of us were cooking with electric. Most of the teams had propane cookers. My chili was all put together when the power went out (whew!) it just needed to cook more to get the cashews soft. Thank goodness for the apocalyptic chili team who had an extra propane camp stove. Three cheers for sharing vegans.
I brought my lucky Irish boot that Andria gave me. It is filled with lucky iodized sea salt.
I was unbelievably touched by how many people loved my chili. People came up to my booth super excited to see me, because they remembered me from TWO YEARS ago!! How awesome is that? I got a lot of People's Choice tickets in my bucket. Not enough to win that title, but enough to make me feel extra loved.

My chili sold out in 2 hours. Great that people loved it, but not great because not everyone got to try it. There were people (several!) that came by asking if they could scrape the sides of my pot with their spoons. Too cute. I am taking Alice from Quintasensual's advice for next time and will make 10 gallons instead of 5.

I didn't end up placing. I am so bummed. I will fully admit when I have been beat, but I really don't understand my loss. I really thought I was going to place this year. So many folks were excited about my chili. I guess the judges like something else!

Mike is mad because the team that won advertised theirs as wheat/soy free and the announcer thought that was just great. But mine was too. I just didn't think anyone cared or I would have put it on my sign. Oddly enough, someone told me they really loved my chili and said they wanted to vote for me but they didn't understand why I used corn. I told them I liked corn and they said, "but your body can't digest it." Your body doesn't digest a lot of things you eat. That is why we poop. I digress...

All was not lost though. I got to see some old VNA friends, meet some electronic friends in real life (hi!), and got to cook chili outside in beautiful weather. Maybe next year, Charlie Brown...

Vegan MOFO 6- Survey!!

2010-11-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

A bunch of surveys have been going around vegan mofo land. I would love to credit this to the original author, but I have no idea who that is!! Props to you, wherever you are!

1. What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?
I guess when I was 12 and just becoming a vegetarian I would say, "I could never be vegan! I would miss ice cream too much!". Well I don't miss ice cream at all. There are too many yummy vegan ice creams out there to even think about cow's milk ice cream.

2. What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?
Tough one. I was never that picky about things that are vegan. I guess I would have to say Okra? I don't eat it that often, but okra cooked properly is delicious.

3. What vegan dish or food you feel like you should like, but don’t?
I don't like daiya that much. I hate the cheddar style. The white kind is good on pizza, the occasional sandwich, and fondue. It isn't my favorite though. In fact I had to give Mike my garlic bread the other day because the daiya on it made me want to puke.

4. What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?
Water. Currently lime sparkling water. I also consume boat loads of decaf Luzianne iced tea.

5. What dish are you famous for making or bringing to gatherings?
I joke about being famous for making roasted potatoes, because my dad always requests I make them. I do get asked to make chocolate silk pie a decent amount too.

6. Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)? interesting question! I probably do, but can't think of any.

7. What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home? The combination of chocolate and peanut butter. I wanted to kiss mike and punch him in equal measure for buying a bag of chocolate chip peanut butter uncle eddie's cookies on Thursday. I ate 3/4 of the bag that day. I have baby weight to lose! What was he thinking?! It wasn't like he got to really have any...

8. What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged? Seitan. I do not like most of the packaged seitan I have tried.

9. What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get the good stuff?
Vanilla. I only used Penzey's double strength vanilla. Thanks to my MIL Judy who often buys it for me! Also good Cumin is a must for me. I bought store brand cumin once and only once.

10. Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?
I am not much of a snacker but I do have portion control problems. I don't really do chips or anything, but I can eat two plates of dinner if left to graze.

11. What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?
Tempeh and potato OR fried eggplant, tomato, and basil.

12. What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?
vegetable would probably be broccoli. My favorite fruit is a warm ripe juicy peach. Texas peaches will not do.

13. What is the best salad dressing?
Wheatsville cilantro lime. hands down.

14. What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?
earth balance!!!

15. What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best? seitan noodle simply because it is so quick and easy if I already have seitan made.

16. What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?
chocolate cupcake and peanut butter frosting. duh.

17. What is your favorite kind of cookie?
I make the best chocolate chip pecan cookies in the whole world.

18. What is your most-loved weeknight meal?
Mexican Risotto is my most loved. My most made is probably something with pasta.

19. What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat? Kalamata olive bread.

20. Favorite non-dairy milk?
unsweetened soy. I only use it for cooking. Any of the fridge brands will do. I don't care for the tetra pack kind. My kids drink hempmilk almost exclusively though.

21. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
My sisters would say the tater tots frozen in hi-C was a miss.

22. Favorite pickled item?
claussen mini kosher dills. i rarely eat them as they are hypertension in a jar.

23. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
quinoa for the nutrition, avacado for the yum, and peaches for the sweet.

24. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
I remember making my mom mother's day dinner from my first vegetarian cook book when I was in 7th grade. I made tomato soup, cheese souffle, and her favorite cake. All from scratch. I am fond of that memory because it was when I realized I loved cooking.

25. Favorite vegan ice cream? tofutti chocolate cookie crunch but I can't find it anywhere here. Another favorite I can't get here is chicago soy dairy's cookie dough and peach cobbler. so. good.

26. Most loved kitchen appliance?
food processor. how did people live without them?!

27. Spice/herb you would die without?
cilantro.

28. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
not a huge fan, but all fruit raspberry is pretty good.

29. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend? black bean salad.

30. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
oh gosh. i am gonna go tofu but seitan is a close second.

31. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
I love cooking holiday meals. I like cooking in the mid day. I often cook dinner mid day and just reheat it for actual dinner.

32. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
gardein "chicken", popsicles galore (henry's), my placenta.

33. What’s on your grocery list?
i need veggies and cashews for my chili cook-off chili.

34. Favorite grocery store? wheatsville food co-op

35. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
corned beef hash. the kind out of the can.

36. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3? fat free vegan, vegan dad, and good good things.

37. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
chocolate sea salt and almonds chocolate bar. I wish they made them mini sized.

38. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
as mentioned in my previous post, we bought gardein stuffed "turkey" and a celebration roast. We also bought a tofurkey at the same time. It ended up being about $35 worth of loaves. Rediculous. Especially since I like mine the best. They are just so good to have on hand for easy dinners that feel fancy.

Vegan MOFO 5- Thanksgiving Came Early

2010-11-05T14:41:00.001-07:00

With Halloween over, everyone is gearing up for Thanksgiving. Wheatsville, our local food co-op, has a freezer display of a bunch of vegan roasts and pies. They had two things I had never had: Gardein stuffing stuffed Turkey and a Field Roast stuffed with stuffing too. I think they were both new. I usually make my own seitan loafs for holidays, but it is fun to have some of these things on hand for easy dinners.

Last night I whipped up some mashed potatoes real quick and cooked the stuffed "turkey" things. They even came with gravy! They were pretty good. The Gardein "turkey" was firmer in texture than the "chicken". Mike didn't like the stuffing, but I thought it had a nice flavor to it. The texture was really mushy. Almost like mashed potatoes. It didn't matter if you ate it with the pretend "turkey". The gravy that came with it was good and waaaaaay better than the tofurkey gravy. There just wasn't much of it.

Vegan MOFO 4- Split Pea/Carrot Soup

2010-11-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Excuse my photos. It has been really doom and gloomy around here and the lighting is no good. You know what doom and gloom is good for though, right? SOUP!!!

It was rainy and cold and windy. I didn't really feel like cooking anything involved, so I decided to do split pea soup. It is really easy PEAsy. teehee.

Here is how I made it (don't worry about the chopping being uniform. you are going to blend it anyways):

1/2 onion diced
3 cloves garlic
2 carrots, rough chopped
1 cup split peas
2 tsp boullion (i used "chicken style")
4 cups water (or nix the boullion and just use stock)
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
pepper to taste

Spray the bottom of the pot with a little oil. Heat it to medium and throw in the onions and garlic. Let them cook for about 5 minutes then throw everything else in the pot. Give it a stir, throw the lid on it and reduce the heat to medium-low. Leave it for about an hour. You can stir it once or twice to make sure it isn't sticking. After an hour, check it to make sure everything is soft. If it is take it off the heat and let it cool just a bit. Then hit it with your immersion blender or blend it in batches in a regular blender.

We had ours with pretzel garlic bread.

Vegan MOFO 3- Enchilada Casserole

2010-11-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Texas has really changed the way I cook- for the better! I use way more spices and chilies than I used to. More black beans. More cilantro. It made things more awesome.

People in Austin are all over enchilada casserole. I had never even considered it before I moved here. It makes sense. It is so much easier than rolling individual enchiladas. Just like regular enchiladas, you can do anything with them. Fill them with whatever. Sauce them with whatever.

This particular casserole is black bean, sweet potato, corn, and kale. It is sauced with the enchilada sauce I wrote about yesterday!

I am not going to post a recipe for you but I will post the method:

*preheat oven to 350 degrees
*spray bottom of casserole dish with oil
*spread sauce on bottom and cover with one layer of corn tortillas
*spread sauce over tortillas
*top with filling (I did cubed sweet potato, corn, onion, black beans and cumin then topped that with chopped kale. I usually do potato, zucchini, black beans, tofu and corn with cumin)
*top with sauce
*throw on another layer of corn tortillas
*top with sauce
*repeat or bake
*bake, covered, for one hour

What you have then is a huge pile of delicious.

Vegan MOFO 2- Enchilada Sauce

2010-11-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

I like to make sauce from scratch whenever a store has romas for less than 99 cents a pound. You have to remove the peels first. Start out by washing and scoring (see above) each tomato.

Put them in a pot of salted water and bring that water to a boil. Normally, by the time the water is JUST boiling the skins are starting to separate. Don't let it go too long or you will have tomato mush instead of peeled tomatoes.

Drain the tomatoes and pop them in an ice bath. You do this for two reasons:

1) You don't want the tomatoes to be too hot to handle.
2) You don't want the tomatoes to keep cooking.
Remove the skin of each tomato and put it back into the pot. For this batch I had 20 tomatoes. To the tomatoes I added:

1/2 cup peanut butter (or nut/seed butter of your choosing)
5 roasted hatch green chilis (you can add whatever/however many chilis you want)
5 cloves of garlic
2 onions, cut into eighths
1 bunch of cilantro, stems trimmed a bit
juice on 1 lime
1 heaping tablespoon of cumin
1 teaspoon vegetable "chicken style" boullion
1/2 cup water (I used leftover ice bath water as it is tomato-y)
salt to taste

Throw the cover on this and let it rip on medium-low for at least an hour. It will look like this before you cover it:

It will look like this after it has cooked:
I blend it all smooth with my immersion blender once it has cooled a bit. You can put it in a regular blender in batches.

This makes enough for 2 16 ounce jars and 1 batch of sauce for dinner that night.
This sauce is by no means traditional. It is just what I like. My favorite nuts to use are peanuts and cashews. Almond butter wasn't as creamy or flavorful when I tried it. You can really make this your own as it is more a method than a recipe.

Come back tomorrow to see the casserole I made with said sauce!

Vegan MOFO 1- Halloween Food

2010-11-01T08:50:00.001-07:00

Halloween Food. For me, Halloween food is peanut butter cups. Sometimes pizza too. Even though I am not supposed to eat chocolate (heart burn) or things high in fat (junky stomach) I will always make an exception for Halloween. Friday night I made some peanut butter cups (see above). They were totally legit with the paper wrapper and everything. So yummy.
Mike makes sugar cookies for every holiday (with the appropriate cookie cutters of course!). It is his "thing". They are pretty much the one thing he cooks unless you count sandwiches or weird queso-y dip that looks like barf. He veganizes this recipe. He has been making them this way FOR YEARS and everyone goes bananas for his cookies. This year we had tomb stones, ghosts, bats, haunted houses, and pumpkins.
This was our first year doing any real trick or treating. Henry hit up about ten houses. Almost everyone was someone we knew. We let him pick some other houses to try too. A lot of folks in our neighborhood weren't giving it away last night. Shame. Henry had a lot of bad luck.

A lot of folks ask what we do, as vegans, about trick or treating. We go trick or treating just like anyone else would. We say thank you and take what we are given (unless you count the one time last night where Henry put back a thing of candy corn and said, "I think this has egg in it."). After trick or treats we dump out everything and separate the vegan candy from the non-vegan candy.

Henry decided this year that the Great Pumpkin (a la Charlie Brown) was going to come take his non-vegan candy and leave him a toy. I thought that was hilarious that he came to this assumption so we played along. The non-vegan pile went to the Great Pumpkin (Uncle Jeff) in exchange for some sort of loopdy loop track thing. Very exciting (see video)!

When handing out candy we always have to get a TON. We run out every year, so in order to not break the bank we get 75%-90% off candy the year before. We buy all the left over halloween candy and put it in a closet. I am never tempted to eat it because I never buy candy I really like. This year we had skittles, twizzlers, pez, and dum dums. We also had little toys for babies too little for candy. Which brings me to my rules for trick or treaters:

1) I do not give candy to babies. You get a toy or you get nothing because you are too little to eat candy.

2) I do not give choking hazards to small children. Sorry, Spiderman. You get some crayons and play-doh because Pez can kill you.

3) Do not put your hands in my bowl and for goodness sakes don't make requests.

4) If you are old enough to have your own cell phone, wear a slutty costume, or have a mustache you are probably too old to be trick or treating. I will give you candy anyways. I am a push over. But I find you irritating.

Some of my neighbors don't give candy to kids not in costume but I find that really harsh. Lots of kids can't afford costumes. I would never punish them for something they have no control over. I just wish their parents would help them make something.

I love Halloween. I truly do. Handing out candy is so much fun. We sit on the porch until we run out. Then we watch Halloween-y things and eat our peanut butter cups until we feel sick. Peanut Butter Cup sick is the best kind of sick.

Vegan MOFO Warning!

2010-10-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Vegan Month of Food starts on Monday! This is your official heads up. As always, I will be donating my blogging services to the event. I know. Your mouth is already watering for my food. I know.

9 months!

2010-10-29T19:23:00.001-07:00

Zelda turned 9 months while we were in Illinois (I'll blog about that when I am feeling less overwhelmed). We had to delay her monthly bathtub photo until we got back that Monday.

She is getting so big! In her other 9 month photos she is all over the place. I am amazed I got a good one of her sitting.

Zelda is doing more legit crawling and less army crawling. She is pulling up and standing and sometimes cruises around.

She says "mama", "dada", and "nana" (that means she wants to nurse). She also tries to say other things like kitty and dog. We know what she is saying but other people probably don't. She can sign "more" and "all done".

She has started capping very enthusiastically and squeals with delight when she sees someone she loves. She is just so freaking awesome and gorgeous and cute.

Speaking of gorgeous, everywhere we go people stop us to ogle her. Very flattering. Kind of creepy. Like the guy who told her she didn't need to go to the zoo to see wild animals, she just needed to be where she was (Whole Foods).

Fun in Frisco

2010-10-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago we went to Frisco. It was a really fun trip. I got to eat at the Spiral Diner on the way in too. Death Star Sundae.....

Mike's Grandma Dorothy passed away earlier that week. It meant a lot to us to spend time with family even though we didn't travel to Ohio for the funeral.

We got there Thursday night and hung out just a bit before getting everyone to bed.

Friday me and Mike took Henry on a date to the mall while Becky watched Zelda. That night the kids had a movie night. We got snacks and they watched finding Nemo together. It was terribly cute and Henry was super excited to stay up late and wait for Mike and Herbie to return from the airport.

Saturday morning we went to one pumpkin patch. The cousins had a good time bounce housing it (above).
Henry reenacted scenes from Mercer Mayer's Fall Fesitval.
Zelda didn't take kindly to being a pumpkin.
After the first pumpkin patch, Mike and Herbie headed off to the Texas/OU football game. Texas lost because Mike forgot to buy OU Sucks beer this year.

After naps, Becky and I walked the kiddos over to their neighborhood pumpkin patch. I know, two in one day. It was magic. There were even pretend Tinkerbells at this one. We also rode on a little train, had a hay ride, and decorated a pumpkin.

Sunday we headed on home so I could meet a friend for dinner and catching up. Good times.

Case of You

2010-10-06T21:50:00.001-07:00

Joni (Mitchell) and I have been spending a lot of time together lately. In the car. With my ipod in a very specific spot so it actually works.

I am a rock and roll kind of girl but this crisp fall weather makes me want to sit on the porch and get lost in some beautiful song writing. I haven't had time to actually sit on a porch for any extended period of time, but in my head when I am driving and listening to Joni I am on that porch.

In my fantasy I am also smoking a cigarette which is strange because I don't smoke and think smoking is disgusting. It just seems appropriate. The glow of the burning ash and all that. Maybe if I live out my fantasy in real life we'll shoot for a candle.

My favorite part of this song is this part:

Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

When I listen to it it hurts so good that I have to put my hand on my chest.

I also like how it starts out, Just before our love got lost... I like the idea of love being lost. Not gone. Just lost. All the biological changes that happen in your brain when you love are bound to leave a lasting imprint. Even if it is locked deep in memory.

Oh Joni. You got me, lady. You got me.

Parenting

2010-10-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Corey sent me this great article:

All Joy and No Fun

Why parents hate parenting. By Jennifer Senior

I am really glad he did. The information in this article is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Thanks to Corey, the statistics to back up my feelings fell into my lap. Parenting is HARD. A lot of historical things contribute to the "state" of parenting today. Some of these things I knew already from being a Women's Studies major who took a ton of sociology courses, there were some real !AHA! moments for me while reading this.

Here are a few nuggets:

"all parents spend more time today with their children than they did in 1975, including mothers, in spite of the great rush of women into the American workforce. Today’s married mothers also have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week); 71 percent say they crave more time for themselves (as do 57 percent of married fathers). Yet 85 percent of all parents still—still!—think they don’t spend enough time with their children."

I hate this!! Why do we always feel we aren't good enough? (oh yeah. magazines and media...) As a parent I know what it means to be selfless and put others' needs before my own. I also know the guilt that accompanies "me" time. It shouldn't be that way. You have to take care of yourself if you are ever going to properly care for someone else. When I don't check in with myself, I know I am not the best parent I can be. I am less patient and less with it. It is really hard to find the time and it is really hard to find that balance.

"When people wait to have children, they’re also bringing different sensibilities to the enterprise. They’ve spent their adult lives as professionals, believing there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things; now they’re applying the same logic to the family-expansion business, and they’re surrounded by a marketplace that only affirms and reinforces this idea."

"It’s totally different from going from your parents’ house to immediately having a baby. Now you know what you’re giving up."

It is rough dudes. I LOVE spending time with my children. I think they are the most hilarious and wonderful little things. Like the article says, they really bring me a lot of JOY. But... lately I have been day dreaming about going to the mall. It is a simple fantasy. I am at the mall. By myself. No one is crying or running away. I can take my time. No one needs to be picked up. I don't need to get home to nurse anybody. Or worry about having enough cash for the baby sitter. I get to try on clothes (and they fit!) and play with make-up... I don't get to do stuff like this anymore. I can't go to a movie without having my cell on my lap in case I get called to come home. I don't know when the heck I am going to have a sexy vacation.

The trade off is totally worth it. Totally. But you miss it. You really do. I wouldn't believe anyone who said they didn't.

"If you are no longer fretting about spending too little time with your children after they’re born (because you have a year of paid maternity leave), if you’re no longer anxious about finding affordable child care once you go back to work (because the state subsidizes it), if you’re no longer wondering how to pay for your children’s education and health care (because they’re free)—well, it stands to reason that your own mental health would improve. When Kahneman and his colleagues did another version of his survey of working women, this time comparing those in Columbus, Ohio, to those in Rennes, France, the French sample enjoyed child care a good deal more than its American counterpart. “We’ve put all this energy into being perfect parents,” says Judith Warner, author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, “instead of political change that would make family life better.” "

I don't personally have this stress, because I am in a different situation than most 9-5-ers, but I know so many people who struggle with this. I can't even count the calls for help or advice about childcare. Good childcare is hard to find and hard to afford. Women are often forced to choose between work and family. Work and breastfeeding. Parents work full time and miss a ton of their child's first year. It shouldn't be that way.

I happily pay my taxes. I would happily pay more. I want the comfort of knowing that people are taken care of. I want children to grow up in a world with parents who are able to take care of them and not worry about how they are going to afford health care and childcare. My parents both worked their asses off when I was a kid. So much that I didn't see them as much as I should have. We still struggled to make ends meet. My childhood and my relationship with my parents would have been so much better without that stress.

I don't understand people who are against public healthcare and child care. Most of those people have probably never struggled or seen the struggle.

“When you pause to think what children mean to you, of course they make you feel good...The problem is, 95 percent of the time, you’re not thinking about what they mean to you. You’re thinking that you have to take them to piano lessons."

Ahhhh. I loved this. I had a big moment when I read this part. I forget this a lot. It is difficult not to focus on the to-do list. When I do slow down and just exist with them I am so much happier. So much more joyful.

Because it's cute...

2010-09-22T12:42:00.001-07:00

Be still, my heart.

8 Months!

2010-09-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

Zelda is 8 months today!! She did a good job scratching up her face last night while she was SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT! It was very exciting to have a full night's rest. It had been weeks.

You may notice that this is the first "birthday" picture without the bumbo. In the past month Zelda has learned to sit up on her own. She also has gotten her bottom two teeth. I think the one to the right of her front middle is through too but it is hard to tell.

Zelda is a total sweetie pie. She has a really fun personality. She is a daddy's girl. Whenever she sees Mike she starts flapping her arms and kicking her legs until he picks her up. It is really cute.

Right now her two favorite things are her "chew chew" (a fish shaped teething ring) and a plastic piece of lettuce from Henry's kitchen set. Teething much? ;)

Henry's First Day of Preschool

2010-09-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

Last Monday we had the open house for Henry's first preschool and he started last Wednesday. He has gone to co-op mother's day out style "schools" since he was 20 months, but this is his first real school. This year he is at his preschool M/W mornings and co-op T/Th mornings.

He had a blast at his open house. We met his teacher (who is a total sweetheart and a VEGAN!), explored his classroom, and played outside. The playground is amazing. It is a nature based preschool, so it doesn't have traditional playground equipment. It has musical instruments, a painting station, ropes, tires, a huge sandbox with lots of toys and water, and lots of other imagination building stuff. When we were going to his co-op school Tuesday morning he kept asking to go to "the school with the sand box instead".

Wednesday he was really jazzed about going. He gets to start out the day on the playground. When we left he looked like the above picture. When we picked him up he looked like this:
Henry does not do well when things are loud or when he feels crowded (gee I wonder who he gets that from). After his first day, his teacher mentioned that "he sure likes to throw things". Eep! We gave her some tips on keeping him in a good place mentally and talked to him about it. He had a much better day Monday. In fact, he had so much fun Monday that we had to peel his dirty clothes off of him in the parking lot and change his clothes before putting him in the car.

He is so excited about this school and so are we. We found a great fit at Nature's Way Preschool.

Live Music Capital of the World

2010-09-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have gone to some really amazing shows in my day. I have a list in my head of the best shows I've been to that I add and subtract from and reform every now and then. A lot of shows on that list have been in Austin.

Austin is the self-proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World!". I giggle when I see this because a lot of it is just frat daddy bands playing in stinky bars. After last night, I have budged a little. We went to see Loudon Wainwright at the Bass Concert Hall. Holy Pajamas were the acoustics amazing! It was just Loudon and his guitar (and his piano for one song). He is so good and it sounded so good. I could have watched him play for hours.

It was really lucky happenstance that we stumbled upon his show. He somehow wasn't picked up
on my radar, even though I have been wanting to see him for ages. I forgot our baby sitter was coming over Thursday, so when she showed up I didn't have anything for her to do. We agreed she would come back Friday night. Mike and I hemmed and hawed over what we would do and then he saw it. Loudon. Bass Concert Hall. Ten bucks. WOW.

He was opening for some people who are probably more famous that I had never heard of. It was awesome to catch the opening act, meet him, hug him, embarrass myself, and then go get vegan soft serve. Great date. Great night.

Austin has made some dreams come true for me, no doubt. I have seen bands play that I never thought I would see play:

1) Joanna Newsom
2) The Dead Milkmen (I almost died at this one! how exciting!)
3) Daniel Johnston

AND

This month I get to see Pavement and The Pixies (albeit I am going to the Houston Pixies show)

If only Junior/Senior would come here...

feelings

2010-09-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I have been having some feelings about Henry's birth for a long time now. I feel like maybe if I write them down I will be able to process them better and feel better about the situation. Whew!

First things first, I adore Henry and am VERY lucky is birth went as well as it did and that he was great. That said, I have a few bones to pick.

I feel like I wasn't a participant in the end of my pregnancy and my labor. I feel like it happened to me. These feelings have been getting stronger and stronger over the past few years and really hit a head when I found out (only two weeks ago!!) that he was born posterior. How did I not know this?! I was the one who pushed him out for crying out loud!

There are a series of things that just went wrong. Even though I had prepared with childbirth classes and read ALL the books, as a first time mom I really didn't stand up for myself. A lot of these things that happened are my own fault because I didn't get a second opinion or I didn't just say NO. BUT the people taking care of me just didn't listen or care when it came down to it. They just took away my power.

1) Midwife in New York bullied me into getting Rhogam when I told her I wasn't comfortable getting blood products if I didn't have to. Should have listened to my gut because henry was rh negative anyways.

2) Dr. Berry decides my blood sugar levels are too high (they weren't) and puts me on gliburide. This makes me unable to deliver in the birth center and I have to go into doctor care for the remainder of my pregnancy. The things here is that my blood sugar was not too high. I would have one or two sugars over 120 a week. I should have never been put on that medication. It made me sick and that decision led to the yucky hospital birth I ended up having.

3) Dr. Berry thinks my baby is going to be gigantic and because of the diabetes encourages my doctor to induce. First off, Henry was only 8 1/2 pounds. Not 11 like he was estimating. Second, my placenta was fine. My fluid was fine. Where was the real indication to induce? I just trusted that this was the way it had to be. I talked to Dr. Thompson (my ob) about how I didn't want to induce and how I didn't want to induce with pitocin if I had to but in the end I was induced with pitocin the day before my due date. I felt like she was hearing me when she read my birth plan, but when the actual day came it was like a completely different doctor.

4) My labor was really unpleasant. In addition to the pitocin contractions I was having really bad back labor. NOW I know that henry was posterior. Unfortunately, eventhough I told them I was having horrible back labor, the nurse and doctor never suggested I change positions or indicated that he might be posterior. Eventhough I took the classes, when you are in labor you really don't remember everything. I should have had a doula. UGH.

5) My nurse, who knew I wanted to continue without pain medication checked me and told me I was 7 centimeters. Then she said "you probably have about two more hours until you are ready to push." When I heard that I lost all my gusto. Why did she have to say that? She should have said "You are entering transition! You can do this!" or something positive. Instead she just crushed me. In my highly suggestable state I ended up getting an epidural. Something I really regret doing. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people deciding to get an epidural if they think that is what is best for them. I just didn't want one. I know I could have done it without one if I had just had more support. That is what frustrates me so much.

6) About an hour later I was fully dialated and ready to push. Cool! I get to meet my baby! In my birth plan I told my doctor I wanted the birth to be more intimate and that I did not have a lot of people in the room. What happened? I get covered in blue paper and the room is filled with people I have never seen before. If the intimate birth I wanted wasn't a possibilty she should have told me so when we discussed it. Not shocked the pants off me right before my baby comes out. In fact, the mirror I asked for never came, so all I got to see of henry being born was blue paper. That is how I didn't know he came out sunny side up. I didn't get to see it.

I know this probablt seems like a lot of dis-jointed whining. It kind of is, but when you prepare for one thing and get the opposite it is really upsetting. I just feel so sad that I have all of this anger surrounding my son's birth. I should only feel happiness, but it was frustrating and scary.

If I had to do it over, I would have had a doula for sure. I really don't think I am a good candidate for a doula in general because I don't like people to talk to me or touch me when I am in labor. BUT a doula would have offered me the support the doctor and nurses couldn't and that my poor husband didn't know how to offer.

Cloth Diapers 101

2010-08-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Cloth Diapers 101

I admit it. I am a cloth diaper junkie. I love them. I want everyone to use them as much as they can. Not just because they are good for the environment and because I have taken a personal stance against using disposable products as much as I can muster but also because they are cute as all get out.

What about this reason? Every regular disposable diaper that has ever been produced is still on this earth. None of them have biodegraded yet. I bet some of the really early ones never will. I just don't feel comfortable crapping up the world with my baby's diapers if I can help it.

Cloth diapering is really easy despite what your mother has probably told you. I wash the diapers every 2-3 days and hang them to dry. Hanging them makes them last longer and smell nicer but you don't have to. You can throw them in the dryer on low. You'd have to if you have cold winters. It really is not a big deal. Especially with all of the money you are saving and the time you would spend going to the store JUST to buy diapers.

If your kiddo is in a day care that won't CD or if you have a heavy wetter who wears disposables at night , you can still cloth diaper part time. You are still saving money and being less wasteful.

My personal favorite place to buy cloth diapers online is based out of my homeland (Virginia!). It is www.diaperjunction.com. Why do I like them so much? They have a diaper trial program that often leaves them with preowned diapers to sell. You might say "yuck!" to a preowned cloth diaper, but hear me out, most of them have either been used once or not at all and they are thouroughly washed and sterilized before being sold. All of the preowned diapers I have used are immaculate. And you save a lot of money.

Here is a quick tutorial on the different types of cloth diapers. Visit diaper junction or http://www.kellyscloset.com/ for more information on the how-to's. Pay special attention to the how to wash. It can help your diapers last longer and have less leaks.

About leaks, all diapers are intended to be checked/changed every 1.5-2 hours of awake time. With a disposable, you may not have a leak in that time span but your baby is still soaked. Change frequently for less leaks. Gradually, your baby will use less and less as potty training nears. They normally go from 10 a day to about 5 or 6.

Also I didn't list it here but www.amazon.com has a lot of diapers and covers for great prices and free shipping. Their subscribe and save and amazon moms programs save you a bundle. especially if you can only CD part time and need to buy some disposables. For those I would recomend Nature Baby Care. And Amazon has a registry program albeit most grandmas have no idea how to use it.

prefolds and covers:

Prefolds are the cheapest type of cloth diapering. They are also the easiest to launder in my opinion. This is the old school way- minus the pins and plastic pants your mama used on you. Now you use covers (the best are totally cute fabric with the interior waterproofed and one size fits all) and prefolds. That's it. You can use a snappi to close it but you don't have to. These are really easy, but once your baby gets mobile it gets a little trickier. Just put the prefold on top of the cover, put your baby on it, snap it shut and make sure none of the cloth part is sticking out. if it is just shove it back in. These are among the bulkiest but who really cares? You are saving a fortune and helping the environment. Just buy pants stretchy or one size up.

Also to help with the bulkiness, make sure you are using a prefold that corresponds with your baby's size. Once your baby is about 12-15 pounds that standard size will be great until potty training, but teeny babies need teeny prefolds. They don't pee that much, so even the gerber ones folks use as burp cloths will suffice for them. Just make sure you get the 100% cotton ones not the ones with the polyester batting if you go gerber.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4060012 bum genius makes a set you can put on your registry

http://www.clothdiaper.com/PRODUCTS/Factory-Seconds_2 this is a great place to buy extra prefolds. the factory seconds are like outlet store diapers. the stitching is messed up or something minor. Super cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/Thirsties-Wrap-Snap-Meadow-Size/dp/B003AJXY1U/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1283046565&sr=8-5

thirsties duowrap snap is my fave prefold cover. they come in cool colors and patterns. They have two sizes. Teeny tiny and everyone else. You only need a couple because you can use them over and over until you do laundry unless they get poopy. And I have NEVER had a leak.

Fitteds:

You use covers with fitteds too. They look like a complete diaper, but they have no water-proofing layer. They are awesome and rarely leak. You essentially put on two diapers, but it is super easy. Not at all complicated.

http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=51&products_id=2813

http://www.thirstiesbaby.com/fab_fitted.htm

flip or hybrid diapers:

flip diapers are diapers you can use both a diposable and cloth insert. Very easy. You can use these covers again and again too. They are what I used when I was first starting out. Gdiapers are at all babies r us. You can also join their gmum group to get lots of great coupons.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4060013

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4422529

all in ones:

All in ones are my personal favorite. They work just like a disposable so even someone who was totally cluless can use them.

http://www.kellyscloset.com/bumGenius-Elemental-Organic-All-in-One-One-Size-Diaper_p_3367.html this is what I would use exclusively if they had existed when I was pregnant with henry. They are more expensive (as you will notice). But you will only ever need about 18. They will last for every single child if you take care of them. More up front cost for a big long term savings. I have a couple of them and I find, depending on the size of your baby, they will fit them at least until their first birthday. If you baby is really chunky you might have to buy large size diapers later on. **Diaper junction often has these preowned!!!**

http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=51&products_id=1811 *These are what I use and love. They have been discontinued, so get them while they last!!

pocket diapers:

I don't like pocket diapers. I don't want to stuff things or unstuff things covered in pee. Most people love them though. They are a cover that you stuff an absorbent insert into. One good thing is you can make them as absorbent as you want by adding more stuffing. The all in one bum genius have a pocket too that you can fill for night time, etc. Lots of people love this brand:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3696419

Cloth Diaper Accessories

http://www.amazon.com/Kushies-Wet-Bag-Pack-Large/dp/B0029DPGDW/ref=pd_sim_ba_6

wet bags are great for carrying in your purse to put your soiled diapers in. They are easy to make too!

http://www.amazon.com/Kushies-Flushable-Biodgradable-Diaper-Liners/dp/B000V0QTMC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1283091627&sr=8-2

lots of people use these to make poop disposal painless. I have never had to use them, but my kids have weird poop.

http://www.amazon.com/Charlies-Soap-Powder-2-64-Loads/dp/B0018B15FE/ref=pd_sbs_hpc_11

residue free detergent is key for cloth diapers. Using regular detergent with scents and such can leave residue on your diapers that causes leaks. This detergent is cheap and you can use it on all of your clothes. For diapers you only need a little bit- 2 Tb. If you have a front loader it helps to put it actually in the barrel before you add the diapers.

http://www.amazon.com/Safety-1st-Simple-Step-Diaper/dp/B00083HK0M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1283092280&sr=8-1

I love this diaper pail. It holds the perfect amount for one load. It also has a slot for a deo disk.

http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Hammer-Nursery-Fresheners-Pack/dp/B0035ER58I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1283092349&sr=1-1

my favorite deo disks. You can get them at target too.

http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Hammer-Nursery-Fresheners-Pack/dp/B0035ER58I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1283092349&sr=1-1

diaper sprayers are good for getting difficult poop off of your diapers. I have never had to use one, but some people swear by them. Using the flushable liners makes his not really necessary. ALSO exclusively breastfed baby poop does not eed to be rinsed off. Weird, I know. But true!

At Babies R Us they sell Earth's Best Baby flushable toddler wipes. Those are the disposable wipes I use. They are the only non-chemical-y flushable wipes you can get these days. I also use some cloth wipes. Little Gerber wash cloths work really well for that.

Happy CD-ing!!

Read Comics in Public Day

2010-08-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

My husband is a big nerd so of course we had to participate in read comics in public day. The kiddos have been sick, but were less stuffy today. This afternoon we went over to UT's turtle pond to get down to business. We had a great time and I think the sunshine made the kiddos feel even better.

The turtle pond was awesome. There was a giant one that Henry dubbed "Gobble Gut". We had a good time trying to get him to look at us. I am sure everyone thought we were crazy for whispering "Gobble Gut!" at lilly pads.

Hatch Green Chile Burgers

2010-08-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

Yum Yum. I am loving hatch green chile season. Tonight I was inspired by my friend Krys and the burgers she made for her dinner. I just had to follow suit.

mince all of your vegetables or pulse them in a food processor. Put everything in a bowl and mix it up with your hands. Form it into 4 patties. Grill them or bake them at 400 in the oven. Flipping once for either.

We ate them with baked seasoned red potato fries. We just cut the potatoes into fry shapes and tossed it with penzey's 4 s seasoning, cumin, and garlic salt. Then I gave them a good spray of oil. I baked them at 425 for about 15 minutes flipping once.

Hatch Green Chiles are Here!

2010-08-28T13:01:00.001-07:00

I made this Hatch Green Chile "Queso" Casserole. Mike said it was "restaurant worthy". Wee!

It was sort of borderline for my GP diet. I have been trying to add in a little more fiber and see how that goes. This amount makes 4 servings and has about 8 grams of fat per serving. A little higher than I am supposed to have in a meal but a great amount for a normal person with a normal stomach.

This can be made really quickly (it took me 25 minutes) if you are a good multi-tasker. with a four burner stove. :)

* White Rice, long grain, 1 cup
* Vegetable Broth, 2 cup
* Tofu, extra firm, 1/2 block 1/2 inch cubed
* Red Ripe Tomatoes, 3 small, de-seeded and chopped
* Peppers, sweet, red, raw, chopped, 1 cup
* Hatch chile pepers, .5 cup, chopped
* Onions, raw, .5 cup, chopped
* Zucchini, 1 cup, chopped
*Garlic, 2 cloves minced
* Nutritional Yeast, 1/2 cup
* Unsweetened Soy Milk, 1.5 cup
* Margarine, hard, 1 tb
* Flour, 1 tb
* fajita seasoning, 1 tsp
* ground cumin, 1 tsp
* salt and pepper to taste
* cilantro, 1/4 cup chopped

1) heat the vegetable broth in a pot with a lid. when it looks like it is about to boil turn it down to medium LOW, stir in the rice and cover. (this will cook for 20 minutes then remove from heat)

2) Heat a big non-stick pan with at least 2 inch sides to medium heat, as it heats chop your vegetables (not the Tomatoes!) and add them as you chop, stirring ocassionally. These will cook for about 10 minutes then stir in the garlic and refer to step 5.

3) chop tomatoes and cilantro and set aside.

4) in a skillet heated to medium high, toss together the tofu and fajita seasoning. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 10 minutes turn off heat.

5) once your veggies are a little soft, vigorously stir in the flour. Add the margarine and vigorously stir again. Stir in the nutritional yeast. Stir in the soy milk. Let this come to a boil stirring occasionally.

6) once the veggie mixture starts to thicken stir in the tomatoes, cumin, salt and pepper. Stir in the rice (it should be done by now). Gently fold in the tofu.

7) put in a pretty dish and top with chopped cilantro.

More Baby Food Talk

2010-08-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

Sprout!! How could I forget Sprout!? I LOVE this baby food. I forgot to mention it in my previous post because Zelda just started eating it (it is thicker than your typical jarred stuff). I, however, have been cooking with it for a loooong time.

I used baby food a lot in baked goods and pancakes instead of oil. It can add great flavor, sneak in veggies, and cuts the calories.

Sprout is as close to homemade that you can get at the store. In fact, it is probably better than home made. The food isn't steamed or boiled and pureed. It is roasted. You can tell too. Open a package and you are sent to flavor heaven. Zelda has been gobbling it up. Luckily, the HEB near our house has a coupon for buy 3 get one free. It is also the cheapest place in town to buy it anyways.

Our favorites? Roasted sweet potato and white beans, roasted apples and oatmeal, and my favorite for pancakes- roasted banana and brown rice. Only one of the pouches isn't vegan.

The web site is pretty neat too. It has some good info on why to go organic for baby food and food progression.

Henryisms

2010-08-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

Henry: sing the nanana song!! (henry speak for michael jackson's P.Y.T)

Me: nananana Huh! nananana! lalalala!

Henry: No Mommy! The PF Changs part! Love you! PF Changs!

Fun with Food

2010-08-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

Henry didn't take much of a nap today. Can you tell by the picture above? I was trying really hard to amuse myself. Pac Man is a giant butternut squash biscuit. It was delicious. I made it more of a sweet sort of biscuit but if I were to do it savory I would cut the cinnamon and sugar and add garlic and sage. Here is how pac-man happened:

preheat oven to 450. in a bowl mix together four, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add all of the wet ingredients to the dry and stir together. Roll out and cut into rounds or just press it into a greased 8 inch cake pan to make one loaf. Bake for about 15-18 minutes until the sides start to turn golden.

While it is baking whisk together margarine, vanilla sugar and cinnamon. When biscuits are done brush the margarine mixture over the tops.

Here is my vegan chicken and rice. I make this all the time. I normally use risotto rice, but long grain white was all I had on hand. For the broth I really like the no chicken bullion paste with water. This was also a little higher in fiber than I maybe should have done. We'll see how my tummy does.

put a pot on medium heat. add your chopped vegetables and let them soften a bit. After about 5 minutes add the garlic, sage, nutritional yeast, and veggie chicken. Give it a stir and reduce the heat to medium low. Stir in the rice then stir in the broth. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. This makes enough for two grown ups and a toddler.

Baby Food for...babies

2010-08-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

As crunchy as I am, i am just not into making baby food purees. I like making stuff once they are eating chunkier stuff and have less restrictions. But baby food for little babies isn't my thing. I wanted to give a shout out to my most favorite jarred baby foods in lieu of posting a recipe or something. I'll post those once Zelda starts eating thicker foods.

Healthy Times is my favorite baby food. I have convinced myself it is called "Happy Baby Time" food though. I don't know how. The names are quite different. Happy Baby Time just sounds better. Anywho, their food is organic (yay!), interesting (yay!), and inexpensive (yay!). Compared to Earth's Best organic baby food which can range from 79 cents to 1.79 a jar, Healthy Times is only 69 cents per jar at Sun Harvest. They carry it at some central markets too, but I never buy it there.

My favorite flavor is Pumpkin Pie which is really cinnamon-y and delicious. Sometimes I use it in baked goods. Harvest Time Vegetable Dinner is really good too. It has sweet potates, butternut squash and pumpkin. Both my kids love(d) it. They also do a lot of neat fruit and grain mixes.

An honorable mention here in Austin is Randall's grocery store brand. Their store brand is organic and they have some really great purees, especially for the 7 months and up set. Lentils, spinach and potatoes is a good one. Henry's fave was the spaghetti dinner. Sometimes you can get it onsale 20 jars for 10 bucks. Not bad not bad.

Right now zelda doesn't like anything remotely thick. She is super picky. Soon enough she will be doing some chew-y things and I will post about the food I make for her. I already have visions of risotto...

D'oh! Donuts!

2010-08-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

I have had a few people ask me about my donuts. I love making donuts. They are actually one of my favorite foods. I like to do all sorts of different fillings and glazes. I haven't made them in awhile since I couldn't eat them when I was pregnant, but I am pretty sure I can remember off the top of my head how I do my favorite- Lemon!

For my donuts I veganize this alton brown recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/yeast-doughnuts-recipe/index.html

I know a lot of folks would make up their own recipe, but if it's not broke don't fix it! I have tried so many different recipes over the years. Including one that took me, andria, and an ex-boyfriend over 4 hours to make. Ex-boyfriend was asleep by the time they were done so Andria and I sat on the kitchen counter and ate the damn things at 4am. Breakfast?

To veganize it I use unsweetened soymilk instead of cow's milk and ener-g egg replacer instead of eggs. Some folks have beef with ener-g, but in some recipes (like this one!) it works really well. Feel free to try flax or something instead. I have only ever done it this way though.

Follow the recipe above and for the filling/glaze....

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix that together in a beaker. Or measuring cup. Whatever. Then divide it between two pots on your stove.

To ONE of the pots add a teaspoon of agar agar.

Put both pots onto boil, stirring each occasionally. When the pot without the agar comes to a boil and is a little thick cut it off and remove it from the heat. That will be your glaze.

When the agar pot is thick turn it off and remove from heat. That will be your filling.

With a pastry bag, filled the donuts with the (cooled!) filling then (using tongs) dip it in the glaze and set on a rack with a towel under it. Ta da!

Henryisms

2010-08-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

mike: that is one feisty feline!

henry: that IS one spicy sea lion!

Butternut Squash and Shallot Pasta

2010-08-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Finally something with color!!

This is a variation of this rachel ray recipe: http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=1059

I used t make that recipe all the time but since I can't digest all the fat or the fiber I had to switch it up a little bit. Here is the scoop:

bring a pot of salty water to boil and throw in your pasta. While that is going put your shallots in a non-stick pan that is heated to medium-low heat. Let them start to turn a little golden and stir in your garlic. Let that go for a bit stirring occasionally.

When you pasta is almost done add the frozen squash to the pot. Give it a stir and let it continue to sit on the stove for about two minutes. Ladel 2-3 scoops of pasta liquid into your shallot pot. Drain your pasta. DO NOT rinse it.

Add parsley and nutritional yeast to the shallot mixture then stir in the pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste. Eat!

just over 200 calories and only one gram of fat. wo0t!

Last Meal

2010-08-14T18:46:00.001-07:00

I had to post a picture of the last thing I made before starting my crazy diet. It was soooo delicious. Meet enchilada casserole. I think my friend Amy Nyland turned me on to the idea of such a thing. I have done it with various fillings. Including chili!

This one has tofu, black beans, corn, zucchini, and daiya layered with corn tortillas and this really yummy sauce I made. I had homemade salsa fresca left over from Henry's party. I threw that in a pot with some fresh tomatoes, peanut butter, cumin, and mexican oregano. I let it simmer for about an hour then hit it with the immulsion blender.

I have a whole other casserole in the freezer taunting me. ugh.

Day Three of Diet

2010-08-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

This really is just the saddest looking plate. Everything was good though! What you see is potato and eggplant pesto pasta, spinach, and a gardein "chicken" fillet. I was gonna make a big batch of seitan for this week's meals but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Thanks for standing in Gardein!

After seeing all the different oil free pestos on Fat Free Vegan, I was feeling like throwing what I had together to make a sauce. This is what happened.

Here is the recipe for the Potato and Eggplant Pesto:

1 medium sized red potato
1 medium sized eggplant, peeled
3/4 cup basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
3 Tb Nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste

I nuked the potato in the microwave for 6 minutes to get it soft. You could easily bake it. Preheat your oven to 400 and place the peeled eggplant slice side down on a greased baking sheet. I baked it for about 30 minutes, but depending on you eggplant it could take more/less time.

Once the potato and eggplant are cooked throw everything in a food processor or blender and let it rip.

Butternut Squash with Asparagus Pesto

2010-08-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

So I think this would be better with gimme lean (browned first then added in) or just seitan strips. It was best spread on bread. Sorry that it looks like puke. To break down the fiber in the squash i had to cook it really soft. Imagine bright orange chunks. I love that they are based in Illinois, but I wasn't feeling the Upton's. Gimme lean has more fiber though.

The inspiration for the asparagus pesto came from Fat Free Vegan, but I didn't use her recipe. I am just winging it, per usual. It was delicious.

* upton's naturals sausage style seitan, 1 package
* Asparagus, fresh, 2 cup
* Basil, 15 leaves
* Butternut Squash, 2 cup, cubes (i use frozen)
* Nutritional Yeast 4 Tb
* Spinach, fresh, 1 cup
* Shiitake Mushrooms, 1 cup pieces
* Salt and pepper to taste (I used 1/2 tsp of each and it was a little salty)

Directions

preheat your oven to 400. spray pan with pam and roast asparagus until really soft. It is fine if it gets a little charred.

While that is happening cook butternut squash and mushrooms over medium heat until soft and warmed through. Add the seitan. Fold in spinach and cook until wilted.

When asparagus is done puree in a food processor with the basil, salt, and nutritional yeast.

Mix everything together and enjoy!

Tummy Trouble!

2010-08-12T13:49:00.001-07:00

So anyone who knows me well knows I have had tummy trouble. For forever. During a pretty routine scope of my esophogus my GI doctor found that my stomach isn't emptying the way it should. After over 12 hours of fasting (and a 24 hour liquid diet before that), I still had fluid in my stomach when they put the scope in it. All signs point to a (mild) case of gastroparesis.

The doctor wanted to do a test to diagnose it for sure BUT the only way the lab here does the test is by having the patient eat a radioactive egg sandwich and watch it digest with magical medical equipment. Since I don't eat egg (and would have an AWFUL reaction that would make the test pointless if I did) the doctor wants me to go on a gastroparesis diet for a few weeks to see how I feel.

When I googled "gastroparesis vegan" I got nothing. Other than my own post on the PPK of course... You see, the diet is a low-fat and LOW-FIBER diet. Low-fiber and vegan seems like a joke. But worry not dear friends. I will be forging ahead. With the inspiration of one of my favorite food blogs Fat Free Vegan and Spark People, I will be monitoring what I eat and posting my recipes here for other low-fiber vegans (ha!) to enjoy.

Plus I am sure Nate wants something other than pictures of my kids. I still owe you that donut recipe. I haven't forgotten. ;)

How to have a yo gabba gabba birthday party

2010-08-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I was tired and didn't really talk about HOW the party happened. I try to always be eco-concious and use as little disposables as possible. I made cloth napkins out of a Yo Gabba Gabba bed sheet. We have a collections of rainbow colored plastic plates, cups and bowls that we always use at parties like this. We had to get plastic forks because half of my regular forks have mysteriously dissapeared. If you've seen them let me know!!

Above you see the cupcakes. They were made with Isa's Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World Chocolate Cupcake and Buttercream recipes. I used lemon extract in the frosting to make it a little yummier and I ALWAYS use almond extract instead of vanilla in the cake. It is way better that way. The cakes are topped with little Yo Gabba Gabba rings I got off Ebay. They sell them at Birthday Express, but they were much less expensive on Ebay. The tablecloth is one that I got on clearance at Target last year. It is very festive and matched out themes.
Here you see a shot of the table. I bought orange buckets from the One Spot at target and printed off a picture of all the charactrs profiles to tape on. There is a balloon in each characters color weighted to the bottom of the bucket. The centerpiece and blowers are from target and were about $3 each. The drink bucket in the background was bought on clearance from Target last summer.
We did a build your own favor bag bar. We got Brobee kites 75% off at Target and had a bowl of outdoor toy shovels, playdoh, and 49 cent Ikea stuffed animals. The shovels and play doh were (guess what!) bought on clearance at Target. I buy the playdoh packs after christmas, halloween, and easter. The normally go 75-90% off. The bags are paper lunch sacks I glued charater pictures on. Nick Jr.'s website has a HUGE variety of free printables. They range from coloring pages (as you will see below) to games and educational packets.
The cut outs were a HUGE success. We bought the crepe paper part off Etsy from Daisy Valasquez we mounted on tri-fold board, but you could do a more permanent mount on wood if you wanted. We had a coloring station and decorated the living room with pictures and Henry's YGG toys he already had. We also bought a simple Brobee Pinata off Etsy from Trish's Treasures.
For an extra dessert we made mustache cookies! 1) We love mustaches and always have. 2) Muno loves Mustaches !! Check out the Halloween and Christmas episodes for reference. We bought the cookie cutter and the sticks from my favorite baking supply site Bake It Pretty. The recipe is a veganized version of a Land o'Lakes sugar cookie recipe. This recipe always wins at parties.

Henryisms

2010-08-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

All from today during a car ride meltdown caused by a broken pretzel. I love three year olds!!!

henry: daddy's all done with henry. he's going to eat him now.

mike: what do you want to be for halloween?
henry: nothing! i want to burn all my clothes!! go ride on train now!!!!

mike: i like your lego boom box.
henry: i don't like it. it's too loud. don't like it very much.

Happy Birthday Henry!!!

2010-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

My sweet boy is three today!! Love your guts!!

Party! Take Three!

2010-08-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the above picture we had a great party!! I made a bunch of delicious food (that I forgot to take pictures of) and we had some awesome sprinkler time and chitty chat time.

The food was a vegan taco bar with beer marinated seitan fajitas, refried beans, and cilantro lime rice. I made salsa, guac, and lemon edamame spread to go on em'. We also had a banana boom box cake and chocolate cupcakes with lemon-y vanilla buttercream.
Henry had several costume changes. the above outfit was it third outfit of the day.
Henry enjoys his cake.
everyone got a chance to feel like the kind folks on Yo Gabba Gabba
Henry reached his goal of looking like Christian Bale in the Newsies.

Check out more pictures on flickr!!

6 months!!

2010-08-02T12:26:00.000-07:00

Miss Zelda turned 6 months on July 22nd. Andria was in town so she took some real cute pictures of her (as you can see!).

Zelda still has no teeth, but they should be here any day. She can sort of crawl. It isn't your traditional crawling, but she does two types of moving- army crawling and froggy hopping.

She is a total sweetie pie. Her next doctor visit isn't until August 11th, so I don't have any stats. I do have good news though! Since the introduction of solids, she has had less and less formula each day. She is on her way to being only breast and food fed. NO FORMULA. It has taken six months but I have been slowly building my supply and her eating solids has really helped too. yay!

As for the foods, she loves squash and carrots. She likes sweet potatoes and peas. She isn't crazy about fruit or green beans. She hates bananas. I think she gets that from Andria.

Henry and Zelda

Vegan MOFO- Day 10

Vegan MOFO- Day 9

Vegan MOFO- Day 8

Help with Mike's Dissertation!

Vegan MOFO- Day 7

Vegan MOFO- Day 6

Vegan MOFO- Day 5

Vegan MOFO- Day 4

Vegan MOFO- Day 3

Vegan MOFO- Day 2

Vegan MOFO- Day 1

Wheat Free

Henry's Birthday Party

Zelda's First Day of "School"

Summer Hiatus

Food!

Andria's Birth!

Mother's Day 2011!

Let's all squeal and jump up and down

New Tattoo!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Spa Day!

Hives Strike Again!

Pantry Project Part Deux!

I am Certified Doula!!!

Slacker

12 months!

Pantry Project Day... oh I forget what day I'm on!

Target Deal Getters!

Pantry Project Dinner 9

Pantry Project *Breakfast!* 8

Pantry Project Dinner 7

Pantry Project Dinner 6

Pantry Project Dinner 5

Pantry Project Dinner 4

New Years!

Pantry Project Dinner 3

Happy New Year!

Pantry Project Dinner 2

Pantry Project- Day 1

Merry Christmas!

Zelda is 11 Months!

The Great Yo Gabba Gabba Disaster of Ought Ten!

Vegan MOFO 25- Happy Thanksgiving!

Vegan MOFO 24- Thanksgiving Prep

Vegan MOFO 23- Cilantro Walnut Pesto

Zelda is 10 Months!

Vegan MOFO 22- School Potluck

Vegan MOFO 21- Sandwiches

vegan mofo 20- joke

Happy Anniversary!

Vegan MOFO 19- Hello Kitty Cupcake

Vegan MOFO 18- Thanksgiving Plans?

Vegan MOFO 17- Vegan Costco

Vegan MOFO 16- Early Adventures in Food Dehydrating

Vegan MOFO 15- Kids Breakfast

Vegan MOFO 14- Breakfast at Steeping Room

Vegan MOFO 13- Lunch Out

Vegan MOFO 12- Best thing I ever ate

Vegan MOFO 11- Leftovers Casseroles!

Vegan MOFO 10- Applesauce!

Vegan MOFO 9- Product Reviews!

Vegan MOFO 8- Joanna's Nuggets and Cutlets

Vegan MOFO 7- Vegan Chili Cook-off

Vegan MOFO 6- Survey!!

Vegan MOFO 5- Thanksgiving Came Early

Vegan MOFO 4- Split Pea/Carrot Soup

Vegan MOFO 3- Enchilada Casserole

Vegan MOFO 2- Enchilada Sauce

Vegan MOFO 1- Halloween Food

Vegan MOFO Warning!

9 months!

Fun in Frisco

Case of You

Parenting

All Joy and No Fun

Why parents hate parenting. By Jennifer Senior

Because it's cute...

8 Months!

Pantry Project Breakfast! 8