the cuteness hurts!

Support your local (or unlocal, whatever!) Vegan family! Buy pins! lots of them!. There's some jewelry and embroidered thongs. (yep, you read that correctly.) at my etsy shop too.

VeganMoFo

Soooooo tonight we made the infamous Veganomicon Chickpea Cutlets and let's just say that I could have eaten that entire recipe myself, they were so good. Shae flipped for them! He made the Potato Squashers from Eat Drink & Be Vegan, by himself. Got to use a knife and everything. Happy kid. Those were awesome too. I have no idea why they were so much better than regular baked potatoes, but that bit of olive oil really kept us from getting the Earth Balance out and drowning them like we usually would. And those crispy skins... yuuuummmmm. Also, who knew that preheating the oven was the most exciting thing ever?!?!? (according to Shae it is.)

Shae's commentary on dinner- "This dinner was as great as WATERMELON! P.S. I love watermelon." Um, yeah. That's quite a compliment there. You know how kids always bug for junkfood in the store? Since Shae was old enough to talk, he's begged, at every shopping trip, for watermelon. He's gotten much smarter and now knows that politely asking and reminding me of watermelon's healthiness is the surefire way to getting his way.

So since I'm paranoid, Shae still thinks using a butter knife is a privilege. But thanks to Hung and Top Chef, he's been wanting to use "real knives! real BIG knives!". ack. I gave in and let him pierce the potatoes with a steak knife. Still has 10 fingers!


And then his yummy potato goodness-


I forgot to take a picture after we put the mushroom gravy on, because these cutlets smelled soooo good and we were starving. But believe me, we will be making many, many more of these. Like, maybe even today already. So unbelievably good. Isa & Terry have replaced our dependence on storebought faux chicken patties. Especially since they were so incredibly easy (and cheap!) to make. Yay VCon!


And of course, an action shot. He inhaled a cutlet & a potato and then went back for seconds. of both. and actually ate every single bit of it. That's too be expected with anything potato, but is a huge compliment towards the cutlets.

Happy Halloween!

okay, we have chickpea cutlets(vcon) and potato squashers(EDBV) in the oven, Shae is entranced in pokemon world(on his DS), so I'm going to continue with my quest of getting up-to-date with new pictures on here.

Next up, cupcakes! Vegan cupcakes, once again, took over Shae's classroom. First time for third grade and whooooaaa did they go over well! His pregnant teacher ate 3 of them, then begged me to be the official cupcake maker for all class events. Another teacher begged for the recipes, even though they know we are vegan. Hell yeah. I usually always use recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World for all my cakey needs, but this time I only used it for the frosting. Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting, worth the price of the book alone. I'm so not kidding. For the cupcakes, I usedLa Dolce Vegan- Tara's Chocolate Cake. In our house, we refer to it as "Matt's cake" because there was one of Shae's birthdays, long ago, where I tried like 3 different cake recipes and they all flopped and looked horrible and I flipped out, until Matt saved the day. Grabbed a random recipe and magically turned out the best cake ever (it's just a wacky cake! agh!). So my whole family requests "Matt's Cake" from time to time, mostly just to torment me I think. It really is good, moist cake though. Anyway, then we dressed them up all gross-like to please the little 8 year olds.




and on a totally unrelated note, yet on the same camera card--- this is our little buddy, Eli, modeling one of my vegan knit hats. isn't he adorable?!


Back to Halloween! This is the first year that Shae has carved his own pumpkin! Dad helped him pick out a stencil and set it up and Shae concentrated soooooo hard.


Cute, right?


And of course, Dad did one too. I choose the owl, that was my huge contribution! Matt does some awesome pumpkins every year.


And what to Vegan Ninja's do? They use their stealth weaponry on.... pumpkins. oh yeah.


Also, they attack the Devil! She who holds the UnVegan Candy, beware!

yo, veganmofo!

Shae's been super interested in cooking lately and asking to be allowed to do more complicated stuff, so we're joining in on the veganmofo thing! That means that each day in november (yeah, yeah, we're a day late), we'll be posting something vegan food related. Should be fun & motivating. Shae's already asking if he can use the chef knife. scary. (not a chance, there, buddy!)

Check back later on for our chickpea cutlets from veganomicon.

in disguise

"A wig is a hat, because it's headwear" Not allowed to wear costumes to school on halloween was apparently getting to Shae. He has to wear uniform colors and plain stuff to school and he's never been a fan of that. Halloween was hat day- a charity thing where you donate a buck and wear whatever hat you want to school. So Shae convinces me that a wig is a hat and I cave in because really, look how adorable he is. You would too. Next thing you know he's begging me to draw a "mustache and soul patch" on him. When he walked into school, it was like he was instantly famous. Screams and points and crowds. whoa.



his real costume:

smile! laugh!

a bunch of our friends have just had babies and shae's just loving it. this is my oldest friend rachel's little boy, cole. he just happens to be shae's "favorite baby". he's only 4 weeks old, but shae was trying his hardest to get smiles and giggles, mostly he just got wide eyes and wiggles.

BBQ, eagles, festivals and slides.

Last year, we went to an fsu game and it rained, we froze and fsu was totally crushed by wake forest. not fun. This year, the weather was gorgeous, fsu creamed duke, and we ate some amazing food beforehand. At lunchtime, we had some goddess tofu, steamed veggies & chocolate cake at New Leaf Market. The goddess tofu was amaaaaaazinggg. And I'm pretty sure Shae is in love with whoever made the cake. Then right before the game, we had BBQ tofu sandwiches and mac & cheese at Soul Veg, our favorite place on earth! Would live there if we could, even if it IS just a portable food cart. Sigh.

this is the BBQ tofu sandwich:


and Shae with his Trademark Soul Veg mac & cheese


No pictures from the actual game, since I left my camera in the car. Oops.

On Sunday we went to a fun festival at St Andrews State Park called Nature's Gallery. It had a big focus on natures, animals, the earth, and local artists. Shae did lots of crafts- drew on a reusable shopping bag and learned what happens to those nasty plastic one that the cashiers push at us, made lots of crafts, met local artists.

Here is with with his skull mask. With the lovely "tears of blood". DO NOT call it a pirate, cause it's totally not. no, no, no.


And here is the scary bald eagle, who I am pretty sure wanted to murder me.


Matt and Shae leaving the festival. Shae loaded down with crafts, Matt carrying all my plants


And then Shae going down a huge inflatable slide at a fall festival Sunday night. He did this no less than a million times.

biloxi weekend

last weekend, we went to biloxi, mississippi to visit matts family. i'm pretty surprised that we didn't have to drag shae out of there he had so much fun.

doggie treats!

we can't find ANY vegan doggie treats locally anymore (thanks A LOT panama city!), so we made some peanut butter cookies from http://www.yummyfordogs.org/ for him. he is one happy guy!

who needs roomba?


rambling on about how he plans on winning top chef, season 19.


sneaking cookie dough.


and the spooky cookies! we did bats & cats, but the cat pictures are blurry.




recipe: Peanut Butter Power Bites

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup peanut butter
Egg replacer equivalent to 1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
* Combine flour and wheat germ.
* Add peanut butter, egg replacer, oil and water and mix thoroughly.
* When it becomes too stiff to stir, knead the dough till smooth, adding a tablespoon of water, if needed.
* Roll to 1/4 inch thickness.
* Cut into desired shapes.
* Bake for 30-35 minutes, being careful not to over cook.

Ouch!

Shae's first stitches. He either fell when leaning on the side of a table, or jumped out of an airplane. Depends on who ya ask.

Shae's new little buddy! (our friends little boy)

Ninja Chef

Oh yeah, that's how he rolls. Grinding up walnuts, ninja style.

pup luv

silliness with his doggy...

Good old Peanut Butter.

Again, I'm posting old pictures! I don't even remember how long ago, but it was on the camera, so here ya go. Shae helped his little cousin Hailey make peanut butter pinwheels. Who knew something so easy would be so fun & entertaining?


The gooey finished product.


And then somehow they appeared, wearing silly hats and socks on their hands. Military style crawling across the house. Something about aliens, I think? Lots of giggling.

hot shot?