Go Penn State

I am in a sea of green here today in Michigan....

So I am here to say----GO.....

Vat-O-Cheese

Contemplating dinner last night, I had a few factors that was going to determine what was going to be served. One, I need to use up stuff before Goods and I venture to my parents for Thanksgiving, two, I wanted to try a new Mac & Cheese recipe since I want to make it for our Thanksgiving fest...and three, I've been on a mission to find the best mac & cheese. I decided try the cheese sauce from Vegan Dad's website, but instead of noodles, we put the sauce on baked potatoes- the potatoes were starting to sprout eyes, so they needed to be used. Here is the VAT of cheese sauce that the recipe made.

And here is the recipe link -
Vegan Dad's Mac & Cheese

And this is our dinner table - please excuse the tubs of stuff, I usually do not allow plastic on our table but I think I was still in shock of the amount of cheese sauce we had to eat before we leave Weds.

This was the best cheese sauce. I did however adjusted it to our tastes. One, I put only a 1/2 teaspoon of salt in it....but I ended up adding the additional 1/2 teaspoon the recipe called for. I also added an additional 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast (because I love this stuff), and I added extra garlic powder, added fresh ground pepper and some dried parsley. As you can see the photo above, I heated the sauce in a pot, on the stove instead of heating it with the called for noodles.

I can't wait to pour this on noodles - I hope I have enough cheese sauce left....

Actually I'm going to try an freeze a little container of it and see how it survives...I'll let you know. UPDATE - the sauce FREEZES GREAT!

I Give this 5 out of 5 forks!

I'm back and I'm raw...

Yes, it's been a long time. I was going to start blogging again after our Halloween extravaganza-in fact that Monday with "Flower of the Week"- but that Monday (11/3) turned out to be totally sucky and I had another matter to spend my energy on. You can see below posts, if you care to. It still sucks, but one must proceed with a new normal.

SOOOOOOOOOO....my new normal is RAW. Okay, not really but over the summer and fall I've been doing a lot more raw "cooking". This is my new favorite junk food - KALE CHIPS!

Kale Chips

1 big bunch of kale, washed torn, remove thick stems.
put in big bowl
add: enough tahini to lightly coat (or more to taste- I used approx 1/4 c.)
then add some spices - suggestions: SPIKE (awesome), Garlic Powder, Italian Seasoning, Cayenne Pepper, Nutritional Yeast, Fresh Parsley - endless possibilities.

Stir until well coated.

Lay the Kale onto the dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 105 degrees until crispy. This usually takes 12ish hours. I flip the kale in the midst of the dehydration time...I also sample throughout, which is crucial in the dehydrating process :-)

I guess the kale chips are not 100% raw - I can't find raw tahini (not noted on my label of tahini) and I don't know if the seasonings are truly raw. But it's all so good....and much better then potato chips and I'm talking health and TASTE wise! humm... how about some tahihi potato chips??? I guess an experiment will be forth coming.

Also another favorites is raw corn chips- but I'll save that until I have a photo.

But I will leave you with a photo of Goods and me attending the Greenfield Village Halloween Nights . ...and yes, we were pretty much the only adults dressup WITHOUT KIDS. Who needs a kid when I have Goods????

Our Halloween Photos are in a Flikr set here. I forgot to take photos of all the vegan food I made for the party...my vegan chilie was a hit along with my favorite nacho cheese recipe.

Goods and I have a ton of activities planned for the rest of the year, so hopefully I will have some fun posts posted! See you then.

Oh - and GO PENN STATE!

20 things I miss about Guido

I miss......

1. Her waiting by the door for me to come home from work.


2. Her constant meowing until she got her wet food for breakfast or dinner


3. How she ran after me, when I was feeding her dinner, even if I ran around the house with the can of food just to taunt her (don't judge me, it was adorable)


4. Her fang.


5. Her haunting meow in the middle of the night...still don't know what was up with that.


6. Her begging for pizza or bacon from Goods.


7. How she watched tubers flying thru the air.


8. How Fluffy cat would kick her butt!


9. How she use to try and attack the birds and squirrels through the window.


10. Watching her sleep as close as she could get to the fireplace without combusting.


11. Her pushing Lily out of the way the so SHE could be the one to drink out of the bathroom sink faucet.


12. Her laying in her cardboard box.


13. How she would snuggle with her sister.


14. How she would run out of the litterbox and run around the house after she did #2.


15. Her licking her sister's head.


16. Laying in the middle of the kitchen floor like a dog.


17. How she would walk on our pillows and heads when we laid in bed.


18. How she would huddle in the hall when it stormed


19. How she would eat vegan hotdogs.


20. I miss everything.....

Guido -

Our hearts are broken....

Feb 13,1995 - Nov 3,2008