We really, really, really love Veganomicon. Omg. This is Herb scalloped potatoes, roasted portobellos, and roasted green beans. All 3 of us really loved this dinner. We've made these potatoes a few times already, they are unbelievably good and so easy! I love easy! Shae's a huge mushroom fan, so he was insanely happy about the portobellos, I like this marinade a lot better than others I've used. I added some oregano, basil & thyme. I have no idea why it didn't occur to me earlier to roast green beans, but let me just say Yuuuuuuummm! So much better. Screw steaming.

A few nights ago, Shae went into his bedroom and I, teasingly, locked his bedroom door. I expected him to giggle and demand to be released. Instead he got really, really quiet. We listened at the door and nothing! No response. Then pushed this note, wrapped around a crayon, under the door.

Another obsession, foreign money. Except you cannot call it money, you have to say "currency" and if you mess up his sorted piles he'll look at you like the world is ending. Unbelievable how much enjoyment he's getting out of this. Comparing coins to each other, converting them to US money to see how much they are worth, pondering what the countries cultures are like. This is so much better than video games!

Some awesome vegans are offering to send him coins & bills from other countries and he is downright thrilled. Yet another reason why

Shae <3's Cozy Inside

Ever heard of an 8 year old boy obsessed with food? I use the word obsessed because Shae's very all or nothing. When he gets excited about something, he gets really, really full-force into it.

Today he came home from school and spotted Joni's book- Cozy Inside open on the counter (to the fluffy omelets) and started oohhhhinng and aaahhhhing over everything. Screaming "mom! come look at this! we have to make this!". Getting more and more excited with each page and picture. He was downright giddy. He's begged for corn fritters, easy cheesy sauce, breakfast burritos, potato cheese soup and curried cashew chicken salad.

And get this! He saw garlic in one of the ingredient lists and he said "That's okay. I'll still eat it!". Yeah. He agreed to knowingly ingest garlic.

Something strange is going on here.

We heart etsy!

We are so in love with etsy! First of all, we sell lots of pins and things there, so yeah, we love that. Actually, let's just get that out of the way first...

Etsy Buy Handmade teenytinytantrums

Check out our shop! And see that adorable little robot vegan kids pin? That's Shae's. He asks every day if he sold any or not and gets so proud of himself when he has. He's saving up right now to go to the skatepark, he says. He's working on a vegan themed coloring book thingy that we'll be selling before long, so keep your eyes open for that.

If Shae sees me on etsy, he'll run over and question me about his pin & his profits, then he wants to search for pirates and bikes and animals and stuff. I've caught him searching for different types of foods before and giggling over the fake food toys and jewelry. Then of course he launches into his next entrepreneurial plan to get rich and famous. He's always entertaining.

I stalk all of the crafters who are by far, more talented than I and try really hard not to buy everything! For jewelry, I am obsessed with BlueRoo, of course, but also brookadelphia and lilikoi designs. My favorite artist of-the-moment is Unconventional Ida, by K Smith. But the shops that I browse the most often, who literally hurt me with their product photos are the vegan bakers! Vegan Honey and Vegan Propamanda.

We're trying really hard this year to give handmade gifts. We're making photo albums for some people, scarves, jewelry, ornaments, pins, cookies, muffins, etc. Etsy has been a great source for crafts outside of our realm of creativity. I'm way more excited shopping for and giving handmade gifts than I've ever been buying the same old stuff from the box stores. Handmade is where it's at! Support crafter and the love of craft!

basketball season!

First basketball game! Shae's been playing baseball and soccer on teams since he was 4, but we hadn't found a good place for him to do basketball at until now. We got really lucky with a great coach through the ymca. Shae's loving it! He's picking up on everything really quickly and doing a great job listening to his coach's feedback. He played point guard for the first game, they won 14-2!

So long, VeganMoFo.

This post was from November 30th, the official end of Vegan Mofo, the Vegan Month of Food. Course I didn't post it that day, why would I? We didn't actually stick with VeganMoFo we well as I would have liked, but it did really get me in the habit of updating this blog and also discovering loads of fun vegan blogs. I hope everyone keeps up with them now that we are off the clock.

On our last day of the month, we baked a cake for my parents for their anniversary. it was a quickie cake, as I wasn't feeling too great and we had to be done before basketball practice, but it was yummy! Just ask Shae....

Haha. Totally drunk off chocolate cake mix! We used our favorite easy cake recipe from La Dolce Vegan, and topped it off with Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World's Fluffy White Buttercream. Tinted some of the frosting pinkish red and flavored it raspberry and threw some letting on the cake. My first time, so yeah, that's kind of obvious I think. It was good though!

Things we love:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade bleuroo.etsy.com

This is the start of something new I'll be doing, linking to various things that we love. Starting off is my friend Amanda's etsy shop! She makes really great earrings and the cutest hand embroidered onesies & baby shirts, ever. I almost always am wearing her earrings, I'm so in love with them. I'm really, insanely picky about earrings too, most are so overdone. Too many details, too frilly. Amanda's are just simple and pretty! And my super-sensitive ears like them, which is nothing short of amazing. Check her out, it's not to late to buy for christmas!

ps- Bleuroo has a great article up on the North Florida Craft Revolution blog about crafting moms. read it!

...and the survey says!

Oh, yes, time to jump on the bandwagon! Finally- the survey that's been traveling around veganmofo land by Food Snobbery.

Plus a bonus picture of Shae hugging on Karma & and reading Vegan with a Vengeance. I promise we love Three & Topaz too, even though I've posted 2 pictures of just Karma in a row.

And on with the suvey...

1. Favorite non-dairy milk? Well, Silk Plain is the only kind that all 3 of us like, so that's what we buy. But I love,love,love Almond Milk.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
vcon macdaddy
cozy inside's tofu omelette
vcons fudgy blueberry brownies

3. Topping of choice for popcorn? lots and lots of salt & earth balance
4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure? a month or so, I exploded a cake in the oven. I'm still not sure how it managed to literally explode up to the top of the oven.
5. Favorite pickled item?boring old dill pickles. yum.
6. How do you organize your recipes? in a binder with plastic covers on each recipe. stole this idea from pamela!

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal? Trash compactor, Garbage Disposal and trash

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)?
mashed potatoes
soul veg mac & cheese
tomatoes

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood? mommy's mashed potatoes and gravy!

10. Favorite vegan ice cream? Soy Delicious! We can only get a few flavors here, but I haven't met one I didn't love. Mint chocolate chip is my dream soy ice cream. One day panama city will love me enough.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance? Kitchenaid stand mixer

12. Spice/herb you would die without? oregano

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time? probably the sarah kramer books
14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly? strawberry

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend? lasagna
16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh? tofu
17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)? dinner, since that's the only time of day I really cook.
18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator? dust, probably.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
vwav best pumpkin muffins
edamame
tater tots (I tried to think of something less awful, but couldn't.)

20. What's on your grocery list? Bread and coffee
21. Favorite grocery store? Publix

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet. Matt's mom's Tennessee Cake. I tried once, but since it's basically all non-vegan ingredients, it's hard to exactly replicate.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa's because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Just the Food
Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk
Cake Maker to the Stars
24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate? Rice Milk Chocolate

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately? ummmmm nothing really. I'm a cheapo.

Veganomicon, we love you!

Does this look gross? When we took the picture last night, all we could think was "OMG I want to eat that right now!" and now that I look at it, it's not the most appetizing picture. Please ignore that because that was some damn good food. (Also, lets ignore the glaringly obvious lack of vegetable on that plate. I need to go grocery shopping!)

This was Shae's favorite meal in weeks. He's already begged to have Chickpea Cutlets again tonight, which works out fine for me since I made a double batch last night.

If you haven't already guessed, those are the cutlets from VCON of course. And the scalloped potatoes. I was not prepared for how delicious those potatoes would be! I made a different recipe a few months ago and they were just so-so. Not terrible, but not good enough to make again. The VCON ones are instant hits that I'll be making forever, probably. So easy. So yummy. Shae actually ate all of his right away. He's been in a ridiculously picky stage lately, so this made us really really happy. Picky stages are no fun whatsoever. He ranked these potatoes as "just as good as mashed potatoes", so basically that's like they are made of pure gold. I am really loving Isa & Terry right now for creating food that pleases him, when even cookies & desserts are getting whined about.

tis the season

She isn't really that sweet, I swear. Karma's one of those cats that you totally love, until you happen to look at her wrong and she tries to murder you. Pretty sure she is part puma. Shae can get away with whatever he wants with her though. Drags her around hugging on her, yanks her into bed with him and she just loves every second of it. Course if anyone else wiggles a toe, there will be bloodshed!

See the christmas tree behind her? We put it up the day after Thanksgiving, while Grandma Cat was still staying with us. Before she got sick, Christmas was her favorite time of year. She'd spend weeks and weeks, and then months & months working on her perfect tree and decorating her house. It was adorable. While our tree is no where near as Martha-ish as hers used to be, she still seemed to really enjoy looking at it. Staring at the lights an the angels. At one point she momentarily recognized it and said "oh, Christmas", only lucid words we heard from her this week.

smashing pumpkins!

give thanks!

Let's all pretend that I posted this on Thanksgiving! Okay? great. Now let's move on. I try to do little crafts with Shae whenever we have a chance, this banner was a last-minute idea that not only allowed him to rummage through the yard for leaves and acorns and whatnot, but it also gave me peace & quiet to cook! He was especially proud of the "S", due to all of the acorns.


Tofurkey! One of those love it or hate it foods, I think. We really, really love it. really, really. I want another now that I'm looking at this picture, actually. My favorite thing in the whole entire world is tofurkey, my mom's mashed potatoes & mushroom gravy, all on the same fork. Nothing better than that.


Green Bean Casserole! This is a recipe that Pamela gave me last year. I loved it so much, I made it a few times since then, but had to have it on Thanksgiving again. Shae wasn't into it. Probably because he saw the onions. His only request for the meal was plain peas. He ate a million of those babies.


Sweet Potato Casserole! omg, good. Even my grandfather who is terrified of my scary food loved this. Just to clarify, to him, anything not from McDonalds is scary. I try to ignore this, but sometimes I offer to break eggs on top of cupcakes to make them more palatable for him. augh. Anyway. This casserole went over really, really well. I was planning on posting the recipes, but it's super basic and I have no idea where I got it from, and also my hands already hurt from too-much typing. So take whichever one of those excuses you want. I might post it later, since my dad wants the recipe anyway. Haha, that's really cute actually. That my dad asked me for a recipe.



Bar full of food. Hopefully you guys can't see the poor, murdered carcass all the way at the other end. (how else do you think we ended up with 10 meat-eaters at our thanksgiving? they brought their stuff with them. and my mom made her magical mashed potatoes vegan, as she has for years cause she's the bestest.)


And for the desserts! Lemon Gem minicupcakes from VwaV, with Lemon Buttercream frosting from vctotw. And an apple pie, served with vanilla soy delicious. I think I ate at least four thousand of those itty bitty cupcakes. That equals 1 regular one, right??


And onto the Vegan Kid! This is how the cooking mostly went. WIth Shae dancing through the kitchen every few minutes. He gets really into it, quite entertaining actually. Spent lots of time laughing and watching him, when I should have been paying attention to the food.


And of course, playing with Pop Pop! In the background you can see more of the family hanging out with Shae's "Grandma Cat", Matt's grandmother. She was visiting it us all week, and even though she's far progressed with alzheimers and wasn't actually aware of what was going on, I think she really enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Lots more posts will magically appear soon, you'll think they are new, but they've actually been there all along. really!

dear veganmofo,
over the weekend we visited the land of meat. we ate a load of peanut butter sandwiches. shae snuck a lot of soda and somehow managed to make a "pepsi footprint" on the hotel bed. long drive home, then shae got sick and missed school yesterday. now his great-grandma is in town. we don't care about food right now. i'm sorry. be distracted by this adorable picture of shae as a new vegetarian. probably 6 months or so into it.

sincerely,
mother of the vegan kid.

thanksgiving lunch at school

"Those mashed potatoes with the seitan and the mushroom gravy were PERFECTO! Those kids who usually say my food is gross were admiring me today. Their food was just plain old stuff, nothing compared to mine. And it smelled bad."
---Shae


Their food really did stink. Yuck.

We had the chicken seitan from Don't eat off the sidewalk, instant mashed potatoes (give me a break! it was early!), mushroom gravy, green beans, and VwaV pumpkin muffins. It was sooooo good. If I hadn't already bought a tofurkey, I'd serve this seitan instead. Thank you Katie!

Shae's favorites and least favorites, by: shae

Well, well, the vegan kid has decided to actually contribute to his blog today! He's sitting here munching on the chicken seitan from Katie's Zine, talking about how it's "sooooooooo so so so good". (it really is! yum!) I made it today, to reheat for his lunch tomorrow. His school is having their Thanksgiving Dinner, you know the mushy cafeteria version of dead bird- so he'll be rockin' the seitan. Last year his class learned all about Tofurkey when he brought that. I also made some of Isa's Best Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance for dessert.

Anyway, back to Shae. He wants to list his favorite foods, or as he said "other foods that are extraordinary!". I'm his typist.

1. watermelon
2. chocolate cake
3. seitan
4. Soul Veg Mac & Cheese
5. lasagna ("just the kind of isa's tofu in it")
6. peanut butter sandwiches
7. tofurkey
8. stirfry
9. peas
10. chips
11. FruitaBu
12. tings ("that should go up WAY FURTHER!")
13. mashed potatoes
14. smores
15. cheeseburgers (boca, with tofutti cheese)
16. noodles
17. Barbara's Snackimals, chocolate chip flavor
18. cheese grits ("that goes with with watermelon!" as it should. he eats them nearly every single morning!)
19. applesauce
20. pizza
21. spaghetti with cheese
22. stroganoff
23. cupcakes ("any flavor")
24. chili
25. soy dogs
26. popsicles
27. chocolate soy ice cream
28. mushrooms
29. apples ("especially Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious")
30. cashews
31. peanut butter bars
32. rice krispie treats
33. pumpkin muffins
34. popcorn
35. creamed corn
36. corn on the cob
37. green beans
38. black beans & yellow rice
39. back bean dip
40. pears
41. peaches
42. peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (from soy, not oi!)
43. seasoned almonds
44. apple chips
45. pineapple
46. Panda Puffs Cereal
47. dill pickles
48. HUMMUS AND PITA (I was told to do that in capital letters.)
49. Pretzels
50. smores (after telling him he already wrote that, he said "I really like them!"
51. hot cocoa
52. dark chocolate dreams peanut butter
53. mushroom gravy
54. french fries
55. kidney beans
56. baked beans
and he quits! That was all just streaming out of his mouth, I could barely keep up to type it all. Ya think he likes food?!?!

And things he "despises":
1. onions
2. hot tamales
3. atomic fire balls
4. hot sauce
5. bell peppers
6. brussel sprouts
7. raisins
8. oatmeal
9. salsa
10. GARLIC

...and that's it. The garlic part amuses me the most since its in nearly every single thing I make. And he knows this! When he was little, he caught us putting garlic in the spaghetti sauce and we told him it would make it taste like "chocolate" and then for about a year after that he begged us to put the chocolate in the spaghetti. Good times.

Oh, the gift that just keeps giving. He's reading this over my shoulder, out loud, but quietly. He catches up to me, turns to me and said "That really happened, didn't it?" I told him yes, and he groaned loudly and threw himself on the floor laughing.

burgers & smores

Sorry bout that, VeganMoFo. I've been sick all weekend, cold turned sinus infection, loads of fun. Boys have been fending for themselves. Basically I can sum the entire 3 day weekend up like this: "Dad! Let's play baseball! I'm hungry, can I have a cheeseburger? Dad, let's play football! I'm hungry, can I have a cheeseburger? Dad, let's skateboard! I'm hungry, can I have a cheeseburger? Dad, let's ride bikes! I'm hungry, can I have a cheeseburger?" and so on and on and on. I have no idea what made him suddenly addicted to his wheat bread, veganaise, ketchup, boca burger, tofutti soycheese burgers, but whoa was he loving them.



And then last night, Matt came up with the best idea. ever. Smores using Dark Chocolate Dreams. Forking amazing.




I think that smores picture makes up for skipping all those posts. Tasted even better than is looks. mmmmmmmmmm.

chili & cornbread!

Yep, that's chili in his teeth! We've been waiting for cold weather to have some chili and I'm glad we waited until veganomicon was here. We all looooovveeeeee the vcon cornbread. Matt says it tastes just like his mom used to make (and she's just about as down home southern as you can possibly get. The chili is just a souped up version of my moms chili, basic and delicious. 'Course we had to make it in two separate pots- Shaes and Ours. Shae's is tailor-made to his little palate. "no onions, no peppers, no seasoning AT ALL". He loved his bean/tvp/mushroom combo though. This is the first time he's eaten & loved chili. It's one of those foods he's always hated, I did too as a kid. I figure it's better to cater to his tastes than to just let him hate such a wonderful food. Scroll down and drool over that amazing cornbread.

grocery experiment, tofu scramble, chickpea casserole,

Wow, my internet service provider hates me. I tried to post this dinner twice last night and both times my internet cut out before I had it saved. So, here I am a day late, per usual, posting about yesterdays food as I cook tonights. Okay! A few days ago, Joni at Just the Food blogged about The Great Grocery Experiment of 2007 and I thought it was genius! So, what did I do? Went to the store to stock up on bread & soymilk because we would be reduced to tears without them. I'd hate to even imagine Shae's reaction to a day without a peanut butter sandwich! I always try to switch it for something more interesting, but then he'll say "Instead of the snack can I have a PB sandwich?". I've given up. He might turn into a big pile of wheat bread and peanut butter one day. I'm okay with that. Anyway, soymilk and bread. I can't believe I'm doing this, but this is the contents of our pantry & fridge. Yep, that's a huge walk-in pantry, except you can't even see the floor due to the massive amounts of food. Ack!



I know you are all jealous of the case of Tings! Shae is inhaling them. Okay, I am too. Whatever. And I'm pretty embarrassed to be showing off our worst vice- bottled water. I know, I know. It's awful and wasteful and I feel like such a shit for using it. Our well water is brownish and tastes disgusting, so it is not drinkable. We've tried MANY different types of filters with no luck. We really should at least buy big containers instead of the little ones, but we don't. I do not endorse bottled water drinking! Do as I say, kids, not as I do!

And onto the food! First we have my breakfast yesterday: a simple tofu scramble with spinach. This is the closest thing I've tasted to egg, it was crazy! I'm not even sure how. It was really basic. garlic, tumeric, cumin, oregano? I don't even remember what else. Had lots and lots of spinach in it too which was soooooooo good. Had the leftovers for breakfast this morning too.


A funny thing with Shae and tofu scramble. He thinks he hates them, but he really doesn't! He had some once and didn't like it. Another time (nearly the same scramble! from Vegan with a Vengeance), I told it was a "Tofu Stirfry" and magically he loved it. I'm so amused by little things like that. I don't believe in hiding stuff in kids foods or tricking them into eating stuff, because I think you are doing them a HUGE disservice in the process, but I am really fascinated by the power of suggestion and word. Shae's a smart guy, you can't get a lot past him in other ways. But poof! A scramble is a stirfry and all is right with the world. (and oh crap. he's about to read this and the jig will be UP!)

Erm, next up was last night's dinner. We had a bunch of broccoli that we needed to use, so of courrssseee that means VWaV's Chickpea Broccoli Casserole. Left out the onions to please the boy. Also, made the Cheesy Sauce from Veganomicon...ohhhh boy am I going to be making that often. So good. So versatile. whoa. We all loved it so much. Thank you Isa & Terry! <3 <3 <3



We're so not making that again without adding the cheesy sauce. Made it magical!