Vegan Craftastic: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Vegan Mini Pizzas!

What's more fun that vegan pizza? Vegan mini pizza!

I made these cuties for lunch yesterday using homemade tomato basil jam, Daiya vegan cheese, and homemade dried jalapeno and basil. These were sooo yummy and a great use for the tomato basil jam. And of course, the Daiya melted beautifully in the toaster oven. My husband was more than a little bit jealous of my english muffin pizzas when I described them, next time I'll have to make them on a day he's not working!

-kala

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Cookie Quickie

Just a quick post today, I really wanted to share a new vegan chocolate bit of heaven that I tried this past weekend. Enjoy Life has been my go-to company for vegan and allergy friendly chocolate chips for quite a while, so I was really excited when I saw Mega Chunks at my local Whole Foods! First of all, anything called chocolate mega chunks is automatically awesome :) I used them in a batch of oatmeal cookies:

The mega chunks are huge and delicious, they make cookies just a touch more decadent, and that's always a good thing! I would totally buy these again and would recommend them to anyone looking for a new addition to chocolate chip cookies. Just to clarify, Enjoy Life did not send me samples of this product, we bought these as a TOTALLY necessary addition to our weekly food shopping trip!

-kala

Friday, August 26, 2011

Trousseau

Knit night is a dangerous place people! You come in, sit down, get comfy, and then, without warning someone can walk in with the most gorgeous finished project that you just HAVE to knit for yourself! This happened to me two weeks ago, my friend Kathy walked in with a beautiful shawl and from that moment on, it was all I could think about. The shawl in question is Trousseau by Carol Feller and it's from the Twist Collective. I started my shawl last night while watching Priest (great movie by the way) - here's how far I got:

I'm really enjoying Trousseau so far, it's the part of shawl knitting that I love the most, that first bit of a top down shawls when you saw progress really quickly! I'm thinking this project won't take too terribly long to finish since I'm using DK weight yarn...but you never know. Speaking of the yarn, I'm using some grassy green Nashua Creative Focus Cotton DK that I had in my stash. The yarn was originally going to be a light cardigan, but I couldn't get gauge to save my life so it's going to be broken up into smaller projects instead.

Are you guys working on anything new?

-kala

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Things I Love: The Clymb

Ok, so anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not an outdoorsy kind of gal. Just the idea of camping gives me hives, everything about it kind of freaks me out: getting dirty, sleeping on the ground, and worst of all, lack of bathrooms, oh the horror! So when I got a $10 credit from Klout for a new deal site called The Clymb that specializes in outdoor activity and gear deals, I was doubtful that I'd ever find anything to use it on. But yesterday they started a deal that got my little vegan heart pumping: cheap vegan smores bars! The Halo S'mores bars from ProBar are AMAZING so I was super excited when I saw the great deal on a box of the tasty little treats. I ordered a box right away and look forward to noshing on them while doing the closest thing to camping you'll see me doing: knitting in my living room watching bad reality tv or shows about vampires!

If you guys sign up for The Clymb, please use my referral link, that way if you ever decide to purchase something from the site, I get a $10 referral credit, yay! I know some of you guys are more outdoorsy than I will ever be, so I hope you find some fun gear to add to your stash, or maybe a gift when it gets closer to the holidays.

So where do you fall on the outdoorsy scale?

-kala

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

How to Dehydrate Jalapenos

One of the most amazing things about Summer is the abundance of gorgeous, delicious, local produce available at the farmers markets. Here in the Twin Cities, we're lucky to have several markets that take place during the week, making it easy to shop even if you can't make it on the weekend. This past week, I picked up two containers of fresh jalapeno peppers with the intention of pickling them. Life got in the way however, and enough days passed that I decided to dry them instead. My ultimate goal was to make something that tasted like the delicious dried jalapenos that I buy sometimes at Penzeys, they're SO GOOD! I like them added into cornbread, chili, and any other dishes that need a bit of a kick.

So here's what I did to make my dehydrated peppers:

1. Use organic, home grown, or farmers market quality peppers if you can.

2. Use gloves AT ALL TIMES when you're handling the peppers. Pepper oil is irritating to your hands and anything else you touch with your hands, so please be careful and don't burn yourself.

3. Wash and dry your peppers. Cut off the stem and discard. Slice peppers into thin rings. If you want a milder end product, remove the seeds and inner membrane. I left mine in because I like it hot!

4. Place your slices on racks in your dehydrator. Dehydrate at 135 degrees F for about 12 hours, or until peppers are completely dried out. I haven't dried anything using a regular oven, but it can likely be done, just do a bit of research for temps and times. Make sure to dehydrate in a well ventilated area, the fumes from the peppers can be irritating to breathe. I did mine in my kitchen with the window open and a fan blowing and didn't have any problems.

5. After your peppers are dry, turn off your dehydrator and let the slices cool completely.

6. Place your slices in a food processor (or you can chop them by hand, wearing gloves) and pulse until desired consistency is reached.

7. Place in a clean jar or other container.

What dishes would you use dehydrated jalapenos in?

-kala

Monday, August 22, 2011

Bookish Anticipation

As Summer starts to come to and end, my mind is on books. There are some potentially awesome books coming out later this year and I can't wait to get my hands on them! Here are just a few that I think deserve a place on my shelf:

Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. A book full of vegan pie recipes, yes please!

Quick and Easy Vegan Slow Cooking by Carla Kelly. Slow cooker recipes are great when I'm short on time and I'm glad a vegan book is finally being published!

We Sure Can by Sarah B. Hood. I'm always looking to add to my collection of canning books, and this looks like a fun one!

So those are just a few that I'm looking forward to, and I didn't even get to the knitting and crafting books! What books are you looking forward to?

-kala

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Finished Knit: Multnomah Shawl!

Can you believe it, I actually finished knitting something! See:

I finished the knitting part of my Multnomah while on vacation and then I promptly blocked it and wove in the ends at knit night when I got back. I haven't had a lot of time to knit lately so this little guy took longer than it should have, but it was a fun knit and the shawlette will look cute in the Fall.

The yarn is Sock Candy from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, which is becoming one of my favorite all time yarns for things other than socks (I like a thinner yarn for socks). I also threw in a stripe that wasn't in the pattern, I used a dark brown shade of Comfy Fingering. The only change I made to the pattern was that I stopped a little early, I was worried about running out of yarn and feather and fan gets a little tiresome after a while.

Finished any projects lately?

-kala

Monday, August 15, 2011

Back from Vacation!

I'm still alive, really! Sorry for the long blog break, I was on vacation in the wilds of northern Minnesota. My husband and I took a much needed trip to visit my parents - lucky for me, everyone gets along really well, there aren't any weird in law issues, yay! We had a lot of fun and got to unwind, so I'd say it was a successful vacation.

Since the Beltrami County Fair was going on while we were up there, we decided to give it a peek. It was really disappointing though because the crafts and veggie buildings were both closed for judging on the day we went, curses! The rest of the fair was pretty lackluster too, not a lot to do but take pictures in front of things like this (me and my husband):

While in downtown Bemidji, I spotted a bit of yarn graffiti so of course I had to take a picture:

Have you guys been up to anything fun?

-kala

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Zucchini Baba Ganoush

Have you guys seen the newest post on Bittersweet? It's one of my favorite blogs and I was super excited to see a recipe for eggplant free baba ganoush recently! You see, my husband is allergic to eggplant (the last time he ate it he had to go to the hospital because he couldn't breathe) and misses baba ganoush terribly. The recipe on Bittersweet replaces the eggplant with zucchini, so I picked out some gorgeous and delicious veggies from the farmers market and set to work.

The recipe was very simple , but I did sub out a few ingredients - instead of the smoked salt I used some smoked paprika and a touch of liquid smoke. The baba ganoush came out really delicious, my husband LOVES it which makes me really happy! This is actually my first time having any kind of baba ganoush, for whatever reason I had never tried it before I met Shane, and after that I made sure to never have any eggplant in the house so the baba occasion never came up. I totally recommend this recipe, eggplant allergy or not, it's a great way to use some of the yummy fresh zucchini out there! I like mine with a bit of hummus and some pita bread.

-kala

Friday, August 05, 2011

Knitting Mojo

I think I finally got my knitting mojo back! After weeks and weeks of not being even a little bit excited about knitting, I'm finally back to my old knitting self again! It happens just about every Summer, the heat just zaps any knitting desire, and this Summer has been an absolute killer with epic heat and humidity. But lately I've made some nice progress on my Multnomah shawl:

I'm almost done with the kniting, just a few more repeats on the feather and fan border. I can't wait for it to be done, although I won't wear it until the Fall...but still!

Working on anything fun lately?

-kala

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Strength Goal Progress and the 30 Day Shred

So it's been a few weeks since I wrote about my big goal to get stronger (here's a link to that post if you'd like to read it) and I thought it was time for an update.

I've been really loyal to the 30 Day Shred DVD I bought, even though it kicks my butt! But it's kicks it in a good way so all is forgiven :) Anyway, I think today will be Day 20 of the Shred, I'm only counting days when I do a workout. I've gone through all of the levels, there are three workouts on the DVD, each level is harder than the last and builds on muscles that you've strengthened in the previous workouts. Level 2 is a killer, just so you know! But it also makes my back feel amazing so I've been doing that for the past few workouts. I think from now on, I'll just do whatever level I feel like that day because if I just do Level 3 for the rest of my life I'll go crazy!

I can definitely tell that the 30 Day Shred DVD has helped me get stronger. I hit a very cool milestone yesterday, I was able to do a full on non-modified push up for the first time in my life, that was super exciting! If you read my previous post, you know my ultimate goal is to do a one armed push up, so I'm on my way! I can also see and feel muscles developing in my body, especially in the shoulder and back areas. There's also new muscle development in my calves that I've never had before. The workouts have also strengthened my core and helped TONS with my back pain.

I haven't weighed myself since the start because my goal, like I said in my previous post, isn't to lose weight, but to get stronger and have less back pain. I'll probably weigh myself at some point just to see where I'm at, but I'm really trying to get my mind past the number and more focused on how healthy I feel. That is the hardest part of this journey for sure, it's like trying to reverse a lifetime of the message that the smaller you are, the better you are. Which is of course total crap, but it's so ingrained from so early on that it's tough to beat. But I'm getting better, stronger, and healthier, so I'm well on my way to my goal!

-kala

Monday, August 01, 2011

Vegan Cookies Galore

There are few people that I love to bake for more than my friends at knit night. And I really know when a batch of baked goods is a success when I bring a plate of goodies and they're gone before I can eat one myself! But I'm usually sneaky and save a few at home for myself. This past week, I made a batch of jam thumbprint cookies using the same homemade cherry raspberry jam that I used to fill my vegan pop tarts. Since I found this awesome recipe for thumbprints, it's all I use, it's simple and really delicious.

I also tried a new recipe, the Giant Bakery Style Double Chocolate Cookies from Kelly Peloza's book The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur. They were AMAZING, so yummy and very very chocolately! Seriously, this is a great book that everyone should own and I have totally found my new favorite chocolate cookie recipe.

So what's your favorite kind of cookie?

-kala

Pages