Kasha and Bowties

1 c raw kasha (whole buckwheat groats)
1 c uncooked bowtie pasta (farfalle)
1 tbs olive oil (for frying)
1 med onion, chopped
about 8 med brown mushrooms, chopped
1.5 c vegetable broth, boiling in lidded saucepan

Boil and drain bowties. Set aside.
Heat oil in skillet add chopped onion and mushrooms and saute until soft and translucent.
Ad kasha and stir constantly until it begins to turn brown and smell toasty.
Pour sauteed kasha mixture in to boiling broth.
Lid saucepan and lower heat to simmer.
Simmer until liquid is absorbed.
Add bowties.
Stir and serve.

Green Oatmeal

It's green! The sprouts are alive and it's warm and delicious.












1 cup rolled oats
2 tbs flax seeds, ground
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs raisins

Mix dry ingredients together well and add 1 cup 120F water. Use more or less water to your taste.

Let it rest for 5 minutes or so. Add more warm water if needed.
Sprinkle 1/2 cup sprout salad on top and stir gently.

Eat. Enjoy your green day.

Happy New Year

The family came and went, presents were opened, liquor was drunk, grievances aired. There were feats of strength. It was a great Festivus, all around.

I've got the pole down and almost all the dishes and laundry done. The boy got a much needed room makeover from his Grandma. it's like Bakugan threw up in there.















Seriously, he loves it and thank you VERY much!
He has gotten up and made his bed carefully every morning so far and he LOVES sleeping in his room.

We ate food, too.

I ate vegan and they were nice enough to go vegetarian for the weekend. Cheese and milk but no actual meat, I was impressed and grateful.

There was vegan lasagna with spinach, roasted veges and cashew cheese

















Vegan Pizza with basil, tomato, olives, seitan, cashew cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms.

















There was also a night of chili and beans and rice and tortillas but I don't seem to have gotten a photo.

So happy new year, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful time and ate good food. Let's see where this year takes us, huh?

I hope you all had a nice holiday

We went to San Francisco.







Haight St.






The boy is spending the summer with his mother.








More Haight






We will see him again in August. Its going to be very quiet here, I think.

August 2nd we will go down to pick him up and to see a free show at Excelsior park on Jerry Day.

We had a great time. We went camping in Oroville.


This is where we rough it.






























Bagel and seitan grilled over mesquite fire.



















Once we got to San Francisco and got everyone together, we had a barbecue in the park





Sweet potato, onions, small sweet peppers and portobello mushrooms



















In a lettuce leaf.


Here is avocado with tortilla chips. Tortilla chips were my downfall.






I ate pretty high raw while I was there. Next month I will keep track exactly what I eat and of how much I spend on food.




















It was a long drive. I'm glad I wore flip flops.








The man didn't smoke in the car for the whole trip so we stopped at a lot of rest areas. It was a nice trip. No ashes in my eyes. Thank you, Baby.







Shasta with a cloud cap. Sunday afternoon on the way home.
















We drove through a wild fire just outside of Klamath Falls


















And now I am sitting having a smoothie and I'm so happy to be home with my kitty. He's pawing at me so I guess I should go see what he wants.











Smoothie is frozen banana
a plum
4 leaves of rainbow chard
1 granny smith apple
maca
hemp
e3live
chia seeds
flax seeds
If there was anything else in there I don't remember. It was very good.

First entry of our trip to San Francisco From Klamath Falls for the Boy's 9th Birthday

The boy is gone to school and the man off to work and I am here alone. I have a metric assload of laundry to do but I also have a metric assload of photos and videos to process and email and post, etc. Much work ahead but for now...

I managed to stay raw for most of the trip, other than the alcoholic beverages and a couple of nutter butter peanut butter sandwich cookies, which are horrible junk but at least they are vegan. I brought a large amount of bananas, oranges, grapes and raw flaxseed crackers so I had plenty to eat. I didn't go to restaurants except the man took me to Cafe Gratitude. We split the appetizer platter, had a green juice and a shot of E3live, shared an enchilada and a slice of ginger pear cheesecake.

And now a word about the Repaired Kitty Fund. You can click the button over there>>> if you want and donate.

**********************************

Thanks to everyone who has donated to the Kitty Repair Fund. We have raised $880 the last I heard and that is just pretty great if you ask me, but if you can, please give a couple more bucks.


Here is a photo of Repaired Cat and a new friend. Please do go here and read about her progress






















*********************************
Back to the story.
I know it's a couple of days late but here is my tribute to 4/20.


We left at the crack of dawn, 7 am. We wanted to get in early and be able to relax.















And now, the terribly coincidental places we stopped in on the way there.


This is the water tower that I keep telling you about that says POT on it. I think this is Dorris, but I'm not positive if that is the of the name of the town.






The town could be named POT for all I know. After all, we are coming up on Weed.







I love the classics.













You know some teenager risked life, limb and freedom to scramble up that rickety old tower and inscribe those three letters. It warms my heart.




Grass Lake.

















There are many beautiful rest stops on the way. Grass Lake is in the perfect location for a last minute bathroom stop before we get into the winding mountain and we have stopped there before.
There are usually a lot of birds there but I didn't see any big cranes.














Goofing off
















Looking like my mother.














And then we went to Weed, California.
Usually we just cruise through Weed and I say, Look, Boy, a TOTEM POLE, and he says COOL! or AWESOME! and we keep going but this time, for 4/20 the man thought it would be a good idea to get a Weed, Ca, commemorative t-shirt.



Something like this









While they were in the store I got this photo of the mountain and the arch and the sunrise.















And that was it for the marijuana themed 4/20 entry. An illegal drug that I NEVER DO and you shouldn't either. Cheers.

I will come back later with more photos and witty commentary. I'm tired and need rest.

Here comes Easter. Again.

Then you should read this. Yet another egg farm, is caught being terribly cruel to chickens in a hidden camera sting

Reprinted from http://www.sunjournal.com

State executes search warrant at Turner egg farm

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

TURNER — State agriculture officials are executing a search warrant at Quality Egg of New England on the Plains Road, the former DeCoster Egg Farm, searching for evidence of animal cruelty.

A representative of Mercy for Animals, a national animal protection organization, was hired by Quality Egg and secretly videotaped conditions of the farm from Dec. 16 through Feb. 1. Mercy for Animals filed a formal complaint against the farm with the Animal Welfare Program of the Maine Department of Agriculture on March 19, seeking civil and criminal charges against the farm and its workers.

According to the complaint, Mercy for Animals representatives documented "an ongoing pattern of cruelty to animals, including:

• Supervisors and other workers kicking live hens into manure pits;
• An ill, live hen hung by her leg on a feeding trough without apparent veterinary care or humane euthanasia;
• At least 150 hens stuck on the wires of their cages or trapped under parts of cages, unable to access food or water, or to protect themselves from their cage mates;
• Holes in the flooring of dilapidated cages, many large enough for live hens to fall through into the manure pits below;
• Inhumanely unclean conditions, including extremely decomposed corpses and rotting eggs in cages with live hens producing eggs for human consumption, and hens living with feces caked on them.
• Live hens with their body parts stuck in caging, including at least one live hen's face, pressed against moving conveyor belts.

Quality Egg, originally founded as AJ DeCoster Egg Farms in 1961, was reorganized in 1997 as a limited liability company. The largest producer of eggs in New England, the company's Web site publishes a pledge to strive for "safe quality production at all times," including "meeting the demanding quality standards of the U.S. Department of Agriculture at all times."

According to Maine law, egg-laying hens fall under the protection of Maine's animal cruelty laws. Franklin County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson has been assigned to handle this case.

According Mercy for Animals' undercover investigation, on Dec. 17, "I saw a hen in a top battery cage who was stuck under her front cage wall. ...I tried to push her gently, but she wouldn't move and appeared wedged in between cage wires."

Pointing out the problem to a supervisor, the undercover worker reports that the supervisor "grabbed the hen by a leg and yanked her free forcefully. As he did so, the hen cried out and flapped her wings. She was briefly caught at her cage door" before the supervisor yanked the bird again, spun her around one time by her neck and dropped her on the ground, nudging her with his foot toward the manure pit. "Halfway under a bottom-level egg belt, she popped back onto the floor, flapping her wings, thrashing and bouncing back and forth," according to the worker.

The search warrant, filed in Lewiston District Court, is impounded until State Police file an inventory of their search.

Norma Worley, of the state's Animal Welfare Department, along with three state animal agents and four state troopers, assigned to provide security for the Department of Ag, were at the farm Wednesday afternoon, according to a Sun Journal reporter and photographer at the scene.

It appeared investigators were also removing plastic trash bags from buildings at the farm.

Bob LeClair, a safety compliance officer at the farm, said he could not comment on the situation but a prepared statement from Quality Egg would be made available soon.

There is video, too.

Holidays all seem to center around a corpse in one way or another. I hope you have a happy Easter. I hope that your Easter doesn't involve being cruel to your fellow beings, including chickens, rabbits, lambs and pigs.

MLK DAY 2009

Good morning.

The boy is home today. MLK is a school holiday.

We got some hair clippers yesterday and today I gave him a nice clipper cut. 1 inch all over his head. It looks neat and tidy and he likes it that way.
It will save him a good ten minutes every morning doing his hair. His bed head is legendary.

Unfortunately, he also has a bit of a cold so I am trying to keep him quiet and pumping juice. Commercial apple juice, but it is 100% juice. He won't try juice that I make and since I'm off sweet fruit, I don't foresee making any. Now he's having a bagel with Nutella. Not vegan. He doesn't care.

I sometimes get really sad because I know they don't want to stop using dairy products. I don't think I will ever be able to keep a vegan kitchen. Death and sadness flavor everything I eat, even if I don't actually eat the dairy and eggs.
When we were shopping yesterday, the man mentioned that dairy didn't kill cows and I set him straight. I explained the whole process of dairy: rape, pregnancy, abduction of the calves from the mother to be made veal and die young, or to become dairy cows and suffer the same fate as their mother and then be slaughtered after a life of slavery, right there in the health food section. And I didn't whisper.

I hope someone heard me and thinks about it. I hope the man heard me and thinks about it.

We also went to the feed store. We got some seeds and some starter trays. I got a bunch of herbs, oregano, basil, and some marigolds. The man got a few varieties of tomatoes. I haven't ever had my own garden and I don't think he has either. We are both very excited about growing and eating our own tomatoes and herbs. This is year one.

New Year 2009

Hi, all. Just a short blurb for now. E is off today and the boy is on a sleep over at a friend's. We have no plans and aren't doing anything.
I got a small tripod for my camera, and I will try to make some nice raw food prep videos for you all to enjoy in the future.

Have a happy holiday.

White Xmas

The icicle reached the ground!














An Xmas Miracle!

We have ice curtains on every window

Green Juice Feasting on a Tuesday and Wildlife around the house

I woke up feeling really good and decided to do a juice feast today. (2)



All green juice

All day

All you can drink












I have celery, cucumber, cabbage, spinach and parsley and will be juicing them in various combinations all day. I am on my third glass already and it's only 9 am. (3)

I looked out the door to see how the monster icicle is doing and saw these





























Little deer hoofie prints, right up to the steps!

I think he or she was trying to get a bite of the frozen pumpkin.









one of them ate the carrot out of the snowman's nose, too.




Yesterday I saw those little black and white snowbirds(1) crawling all over the "rock" wall out front. I went out after they were gone and all I could see that they might be eating was dead bugs from old spiderwebs.

Ooh, and i found a BIG spider in the house yesterday while cleaning the kitchen floor! I talked her into climbing on a piece of paper and then tossed her out the door. I'm sorry spider. I really don't like killing them, I never have. I think they are VERY beneficial and besides, the birds live off the webs in the winter...

The monster icicle.



















It still hasn't touched the ground yet but we are rooting for it, root root.

Cheers!













Footnotes
1. they always make me think of Anne Murray "...spread your tiny wings and fly away. Take the snow back with you where you came from on that day..."
2. I don't have a juicer, so I blend my veges with water then strain them. I have a pretty fine mesh colander that i put it through once and then strain the juice a second time with my nut milk bag. Email me if you think you need further instructions for this. It's really pretty simple.
3. I think they taste all right but I have been off sugar for years. Never really liked it that much. I let Erik taste it and he almost hurked. He was expecting it to be sweet like green smoothie. Sorry, baby.

Raw Vegan Cruelty-free Holiday Nog made with peanut milk

It's round two in the Quest for Veganog

2 cups filtered water
1 cup raw peanuts, soaked for 8 hours and drained

Blend these in the blender and strain for approx 2 cups peanut milk.

Put the pulp in the freezer to be used in a different recipe

Put the strained nut milk back in the blender

Add

3 ripe bananas, or 1 cup of dates or a combo, thereof.
nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon to taste

Blend until completely smooth, about 2 minutes or more. Then blend it some more. Like 2 more minutes. It has to be positively frothy.

Decant and enjoy. Works well with brandy, if you are into that.

I am having this for lunch and writing up this entry while slurping it up, YUM.


I never can get to the camera fast enough to get a shot of the full glass!

Vegan Stuffed Squash and the Evergleam Solstice Tree

Happy Winter Solstice, Y'all.

When I eat cooked food, once a month or so, I like squash.



This is a small pumpkin with chopped up sweet potato, carrot, celery, onion, tomato, sunflower seeds, parsely, watercress, sage, olive oil, salt and pepper.
I heat the oven as low as it will go. Ours has a digital readout which tells you how hot it is. How accurate that is, I don't know. It reads 170F.

I put each half of the pumpkins, raw, with raw stuffing in the oven with a dollop of coconut oil on top of each one, a half cup of water in the bottom of each pan to keep them from getting too dry and leave it alone for six hours.

Scrumptious. E kept saying, "You call this cooked? This is barely cooked. Delicious, but not really cooked." Just the way I like it, hehe.

I was able to take the pans out of the oven with no oven mitt, that's how low the oven was. But the pumpkin was soft and the onions were wilted. This was the first time I ever "cooked" with coconut oil and I thought it tasted a lot like Chinese food.

I ate TWO slices, or a whole half pumpkin



And in keeping with the holiday spirit, we have a tree up



It's a vintage EVERGLEAM that I found at Goodwill for $5. Score! I wasn't even going to have a tree, but when I saw that thing, new in the box. I grabbed it and had it set up almost before we got it home, lol.

Here is a long shot so you can really see it
No presents, yet. They are all stashed in the garage, shh!

SNOW DAY!!!

No school for the boy today, the snow is too deep even with the hardened bus drivers of the Klam County School District.


This is the view out the front window yesterday morning.














The bus doesn't mind driving through that, but THIS:














Is apparently too much.

Here are the icicles in the front porch on the 15th














Here they are today.















I don't feel hungry today and I haven't eaten anything. I am glad I made meatloaf cups for dinner tonight so I don't have to prepare anything. I am hoping I will be hungry by dinner time but for now I will just fast today and hope I feel hungry again someday...
Just kidding.

This is my third day not eating sweet fruit and I don't feel any different, other than not being hungry. I had craving for sweets last night but it passed. The organic (1) chocolate bar sitting on the counter doesn't help much. (2)














Did you know that most cravings only last for three minutes? I learned that when I quit smoking. I just distract myself, and believe me this place has plenty of distractions. I think I will stash the chocolate.


Speaking of distractions, someone is demanding my attention.

Footnotes:
1. but not raw so it's easier to resist
2. I have decided to experiment with footnotes instead of parenthesis. Let me know how you like it.

Raw Vegan Holiday Recipe Classic Green Bean Casserole

A classic recipe, rawified, as they say.

I was inspired by this recipe from Gone Raw and this one from Recipezaar

So, here we go with my version.

First the sauce. Here are some of the ingredients:














Approx one clove of garlic, peeled
2 tbs sunflower seed
1tbs sesame seed
juice and pulp of about a half inch slice of lemon. I cut the slice from half a lemon, removed the peel and blended it with everything else.
2 tsp nutritional yeast
1/2 ripe avocado














4 small brown mushrooms














1/4 tsp salt















Blend all together until super creamy. Use more or less salt to your taste. I use brown mushrooms because it makes the sauce brown instead of green. If you don't mind green sauce you can use white mushrooms, or any kind of mushrooms you like. I think this tastes and looks the most like Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, which is most like what we are trying to duplicate. Isn't it? Yeah, it is.

Here it is green, before the mushrooms were added















And here, with the mushrooms and a little more water. You don't want it too thin, or it will be more soupy than casserole-y














It sticks to the spoon but it's not really thick. (Next time I will make it thicker for a shorter dehydration time)

These are green beans that have been in the freezer for at least 24 hours. This preserves the enzymes but causes the cell walls to burst, resulting in a softer, more "cooked" texture to the bean














Begin to julienne all the green beans














Become very tired of that very quickly and just chop them all in small pieces and put them in the individual dishes that will go in the dehydrator














add the sauce and stir














Dehydrate.














I put these in at 10 am and expect to eat them no earlier than 6pm. I am hoping that a lot of the liquid will be released in the form of steam and that this will thicken up. I don't quite know what to do about the onions for the top.

As usual, I will update with finished photos, reviews and notes on what I would do different next time, later


UPDATE:

I went to check on the mini casseroles and just as I suspected the sauce is thickening and turning darker in color. It's been about two hours at this point














Side view so you can see the level of liquid went down














You can see the color difference there, also.

From the top:















Stirring















I stirred it up and put it back in the dehydrator. I will probably continue to stir it every two hours or so and then about 4pm let it get crusty on top until time to eat.

UPDATE the SECOND!! ONIONS

Darling BF is a green bean casserole aficionado. He is the one who makes the casserole for his family's holiday dinners. When I casually mentioned trying to make this for the family thanksgiving his reply was "fine, but make a small one". :0 Jerk.

So he is feeling a little trepidation. Having eaten my raw food creations for, what over 2 weeks now? (still doing the smoothie every morning and still losing weight, thank you) he saw the post and asked me what I was going to do about the crispy onions.

So, I headed for the kitchen. I grabbed my slicer and made short work of an onion. Then I grabbed the first thing that came to mind. Nutritional Yeast.

I dredged the rings and strings of onion in the yeast with some added salt. I put them in the dehydrator here:














I don't think it will take long to make them crispy. I will let you know.

UPDATE 3, the money shot:















The onions are crispy and tasty. Better than I thought they would be.

He dipped his finger in the sauce and proclaimed it "good, but needs pepper!" I'll take that as a yes.

I put more pepper on his with his crispy onions :)

Dinner is in about an hour, I put the onion topped individual green bean casseroles back in the dehydrator until then.

They will be served with a mixed vege salad. Carrots, zukes, cauli, spinach. Probably some grated fresh horseradish, lemon and olive oil for dressing.

I better go start chopping!