I’ve been meaning to plant garlic since September. I keep forgetting or, in all honesty, am lazy as shit.  Today was going to be the day!! The lot we are renting used to have another trailer on it, but now is just a big open weedy area. We didn’t utilize it for this years garden for some reason, more than likely because the neighbors through their cat litter and brush onto it (who does that???!).

I had scored some big bulbs from the garden when I picked up my last poundage. All together, we planted about 90 cloves of garlic. I hope they all come up next year, we’ll be sitting pretty if they do!

All the cloves

Keith doing a little prepping before we get to work

A very lonely looking garlic clove…

Once it got too cold out, we came inside and made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance.

Donuts!!!!!!!!!!! I was bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement as we headed over to Mighty-O. Seriously, even now I am bouncing up and down just thinking about those donuts. Migthy-O is an awesome little place. We got there just as they were putting the tags on the donuts out. Despite it being only 7:30 in the morning, I got 3 donuts. Lotsa sugar, let me tell ya. The first day I got french toast, sprinkles and pumpkin cream filled donuts. I stood at the counter gazing for at least five minutes because it was so hard to choose! I wanted one of each! I even got laughed at by the lady at the counter because I was so excited…little kid in a candy shop much?

As we sat around the table, donuts quickly got broken in half and passed around. Man, the french toast donut rocked my world. Mighty. -O also serves hot drinks and juice. I thought the price was so comparable to prices you would find in a Missoula bakery, even with the tax added in.

This is the only picture I got because I was too busy shoving my mouth full.

The last day we were in Seattle, we headed back to Mighty-O donuts. I got a six pack of donuts for Keith, and 3 (again!) for myself. It’s a good thing I don’t live in Seattle because I would gain so much weight in no time from eating there everyday. I also snagged Keith an awesome t-shirt, which I will put a picture up of soon.

On the way back home, I thought to myself and Kat, “You know, I sure did get Keith a lot of stuff. He doesn’t like sweets. He won’t notice one donuts missing….” Righhhhhhhhhht. Kat and I split five donuts on that eight hours trip. I saved Keith one donut, the French Toast donut. Haha…oops?

In honor of World Vegan Day, I thought I’d share some of my favorite pictures of my furbabies.

Baby tries to escape the confines of the garden. Even though he’s the youngest of the bunch at 1.5 years old, he’s the alpha male. He’s also the biggest mama’s boy in the world.

Socks likes to dig in the dirt. He also likes to whine for attention. Even when he gets attention he whines. He’s also onery and chases the timid cats around.

Ah…sweet Summer belly. Summer considers herself the mama of the group. She bathes the others (seriously, they don’t bathe themselves anymore!). She’s a husky female who likes to eat. Occasionally, the Baby will slap her when she’s eating to get her to stop. It’s so funny.

We also have two other cats, Toes and Maya. They are really timid and shy and getting a picture of them is very hard to do! I will have to try and get some so I can post those cuties!

Emma here. Yes, yesterday was the last day of veganmofo, but I am going to push on because I still have four more posts to go. I was too lazy to put them up yesterday. Epic fail!

This jambalaya may not taste like the real thing. I really don’t know, I’ve never had real jambalaya. This recipe is cheap, easy and oh, so tasty. Keith even gave it a ten out of ten, and he never does that. This is the second time I’ve made this, the first time I made it with fresh tomatoes, this time with stewed tomatoes. Both are delicious! It doesn’t take too many fresh tomatoes to make this.

RECIPE:

28 oz Stewed Tomatoes (or fresh tomatoes, cut up small<—– super tasty!)

3/4 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp salt

Pinch Cayenne

1/2 tsp hot sauce

1 tsp  chili powder

Pinch onion powder

1/4 cup roasted Anaheim Peppers

3/4 cup wild rice

Earth Balance

Instructions:

Cook the wild rice until done. Once the wild rice has cooked, put the butter, spices, onions and garlic in a skillet. Cook on medium heat until onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes, roasted peppers, hot sauce and rice. Cook for 20 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Serve warm with bread and nutritional yeast.

What’s a girl to do in a big city? Eat ethnic food, of course! If you’ve read any of my blog posts regarding ethnic food in Missoula, you’ll know there’s no such thing. When my friend mentioned eating at Tastes of India, it was a resounding YES!

Tastes of India is also located near the University district off of Roosevelt Way . They have a parking lot, so you don’t have to find street parking. It was really busy when we arrived, and my friend that met us there had to wait twenty minutes from the times she got there till we showed up. About ten minutes later we were seated. They were really apologetic about the wait and we received free appetizers. Three words: Stuffed Grapes Leaves. YUM. Kat and I shared a dish like the cool kids we are. No, really, we ARE cool. We had a potato and cauliflower curry dish.

It was dark in the restaurant, so none of the photos we took came out too good.

The food was absolutely delicious, and such a reasonable price! Kat and I scarfed through our dish so fast it was unreal. I also got half a order of stuffed grape leaves. Damn, those things are good. If you are in the area, I definitely recommend checking Tastes of India out!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm Pizza. While Kat, Erin and I were walking down 15th St. to Sidecar, we saw Pizza Pi next door. I knew what I was having for lunch!

Here ensues the photo and video collection of Pizza Pi:

Outside Sidecar For Pigs Peace looking over at Pizza Pi

Our Field Roast Pizza. Tasty! I just wish they had melted the Teese more..but it had such great      flavor!

Italian Sausage Sandwich, it so good, especially the white sauce underneath!

Tasty Breadsticks with Marinara

My crappy video!

Last weekend myself and three friends roadtripped to Seattle to check out the University of Washington campus, visit a friend and eat good food. I got a chance to go by a couple of vegan spots.  Sidecar for Pigs Peace is a vegan grocery store located near the Unviersity District.

Sidecar is a cute little grocery shop. I was expecting it to be a little big bigger and to hold mainstream items as well as the specialty vegan items. It was more of a hole in the wall with specialty items (I was really surprised there was no produce).  They have a nice selection of dog and cat items, as well as Sidecar for Pigs Peace shirts, stickers, purses, wallets, etc. I was so happy when I saw that they have white chocolate chips! I thought the price was very reasonable, the same as I would find at the Good Food Store in Missoula. They had a bunch of vegan sweets such as: Sweet ‘N Sara Marshmallows, marshmallow kits, Dandies, Mahalo’s, Jokerz, various loose chocolate coins, and Mighty-o Donuts. The freezer had lots of fake meat that I never even knew existed. Need some mock tuna? How about mock crab? They’ve got it! The sandwhiches in the cooler looked tasty as well. There were various kinds, but I recall Kat becoming overwhelmingly excited by the mock Tuna Sandwhich. I also picked up some Daiya Cheese, which unfortunately had mold. Sad day. I got Keith some B-Fresh gum and a bottle of locally made white wine. The best purchase was my “Love Animals. Don’t eat them” pin featuring Winnie The Pooh. Oh, yeah, first vegan pin!

If you are in Seattle, stop by Sidecar for Pigs Peace and show them some love!

We  carved our pumpkin last night. It was fun!

Halloween finger, that is. I changed it up and made it into a peanut butter twix bar because it sounded so good! This is one of those recipes you don’t do as I do, but as I say.  The cookie tastes delicious, but I executed the finger poorly (poured the chocolate on, then the nail, you can tell in the picture). The right directions are below.

RECIPE: (courtesy of Kat’s Mom’s Friend)

325 degrees 20-25 minutes

1 cup margarine,softened
1 cup sugar
1 ener-g egg replacer
1 tsp. vanilla
2 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup whole, blanced almonds (i.e., without the “skin”) ( I just used whole almonds, them’s dirty fingernails!)
Red gel/frosting

PEANUT BUTTER FILLING:

Peanut butter

Powdered Sugar

(You will have to adjust the amount of peanut butter to suit your own needs and tastes. Aim for a stiffer peanut consistency. We used1/4 cup of peanut butter for 8 fingers)

Chocolate Coating:

Chocolate chips

Soymilk (Enough to make the chocolate liquidy when you heat it up, don’t make it too runny, it won’t firm up)

Green Food Coloring (Optional)

Roll into logs about 3-4 inches long and make cuts in the middle with a knife to look like knuckles. I usually push the middle (by squeezing on each end) so that the knuckles are lumpy and misshapen. When they are done and cool, whip up the peanut butter and powdered sugar mixture. Roll into misshapen logs and place on finger. Press almonds onto peanut butter until they have a good hold. Melt one of your chocolates and pour over fingers. Now do your other chocolate. Use a little of both chocolates to define the knuckles on the fingers. Use either red frosting or gel: near the nail, or better yet, the back of the finger where it’s supposed to attach to the hand.

When frost came, Keith and I had to bring all our green tomatoes inside. It’s been kind of hard to use them fast enough since they’ve ripened. One evening I decided to attempt pasta sauce. Let me tell you, had I known how good it was, I would have started making this sooner. Seriously, fresh pasta sauce beats store bought hands down. It’s very quick and easy, as well.

PASTA SAUCE:

7 large tomatoes, cut up

1 large onion, chopped

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 zucchini, chopped

Olive Oil

Oregano

Basil

Salt

Pepper

Instructions: Heat oil in a skillet and add 3/4 of the onion and 3/4 of the garlic. Sautee. While that is cooking, add the remaining veggies in the blender and blend until pureed. Once that is pureed, add to the sauteed veggies. Add spices to taste. I usually do pretty heaping teaspoons of both oregano and basil, 1/2 tsp salt and a dash of pepper. Feel free to mix it up. The sauce is going to be a pepto-bismal color, cook on a low boil until it thickens, about thirty minutes.  The color will change to a rich red when it’s almost done.