Black Lotus Brewing Co.

Last Friday Goods and I were off to Whole Foods....it's a little jaunt away, so we don't get to go very often, but afterwards we thought we would try an new place for some grub. Black Lotus Brewing Co. in Clawson, MI.....
Of course I previewed the menu on line like any good little vegan would do. They had loads of vegan options....but ended up not having any VODKA, so I ended up with a beer with a hint of apricot in it. Not bad for beer. They had free popcorn too! I love popcorn so I scooped some up......

It was a pretty place....had setting outside too. Here is a pic of Goods trying to contain his excitement....

Goods had un-vegan food, but I had pizza, with tempeh, pineapple and toffuti cheese. I asked for extra sauce on it, but it didn't happen.

It was good, but nothing exciting. Here's another pic of the place in the other direction - they have a stage for entertainment...Good's wouldn't let me go up and dance, he can be a stick in the mud at times........

I doubt that we will go back, one because it's a jaunt away, and two, they don't have vodka....but it was nice to go to a place that I had loads of options!

Dee's a Little Squirrely....

I love squirrels, I'm just nuts over them. They are just so cute and fuzzy, not to mention- so trainable. I really should have a squirrel circus, but that would be so un-vegan of me.

They come to our kitchen door looking for nuts...His name is John. And if you can guess why, then I'll send you and autograph picture of John

This is an OLD photo, this is Big Mamma....I wasn't expecting her to jump on me, but I acted all cool about it.

Guess I wasn't going fast enough for her, she had to try and speed things along....

They have ME eating right out of their hands, or would that be paws???

So you get the gist, that I love squirrels. So now you can you can just imagine my excitement when I found this T-shirt, for Goods, at a local Marshall's....

(thank you Goods for modeling)

Fluffy, was not amused, she thought she should be the one on her Daddy's chest instead of that squirrel.

THE END

Dee F. Changs

I heart, PF Changs. Loads of VEGAN options for me and the food is great....and they make great cocktails to boot!

I normally get their Coconut Curry Vegetables, because it's so yummy, and also because Goods isn't gaagaa over curry so I don't use it much at home. But....I was perusing some blogs, one of which was "Yeah, that Vegan Shit" because she's so funny (I think she's a she)...and there was a new link to her new site "Vegan in Cleveland" - I know where Cleveland is so I followed the link. She mentioned that at PF Changs you can get ORANGE PEEL TOFU.

When went to PF Changs a few days later, I looked for it. Well I saw it in the "dead chicken section" of menu, so I asked them to sub tofu. I WAS IN HEAVEN- it was the yummiest! Here is a pix of some left overs.....
No veggies with it, but that was okay, the dish wasn't really saucy, but yet so flavorful...brown rice was perfect with it.

So this past weekend I wanted it again. One problem, I wasn't at PF Changs, I was only in my kitchen. On line I found the copycat recipe - Looky here: ORANGE PEEL CHICKEN MINUS THE CHICKEN RECIPE.

I, of course, used tofu...and mine turned out saucy!
I served it with some veggies from leftover kabobs I made a few days before. Here is the sauce recipe I used from the link above; with the exception of the water, I substitute orange juice for it.

Sauce:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 tablespoons minced garlic

4 green onions, sliced

1 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup water (OJ for me)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons chili garlic sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Prepare sauce by heating 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add minced garlic and sliced green onions. Add tomato sauce and water quickly before the garlic burns. Add sugar, chili garlic sauce and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Simmer 5 to 6 minutes or until sauce thickens, then turn off the heat.

Last night for dinner, was fridge cleanout night, and I scored the rest of the orange peel tofu. I added a chunk of leftover bbq tempeh, and ate it over some tofu noodles. It was a lovely dish of protein! I think next time I will make the orange peel tofu with tempeh instead, it was totally yummy in it.

So after dinner it was time to go to my weekly ceramic class. I was excited to go since this was the day I got to take home the finish product of my hard work (BTW 3 coats EACH COLOR!!!!!) from the last few weeks.....TAH DAHHHHHH...

I designed, drew, and painted a "DAY OF THE DEAD" plate. Goods and I collect Day of the Dead art, so I was excited to bring it home to our collection. If I choose, I can even serve vegan food on it!

The weekend is almost here - ENJOY!

Moooove Over Real Cows....

Not that I have ANY interest in buying or consuming milk, but this is just so wrong on so many different levels....

CLONED COW DAIRY!

That is all I have to say....

Vegan Chocolate Chips- SCORE!!!

No fancy title for this post - just doesn't need one.
I'm not a big chocolate fan, as shameful as it is, but I do like a good chocolate chip cookie once in a while. I've used a few different brands of vegan chocolate chips that aren't bad, but now I found one that is GREAT and at the local grocery store TO BOOT!

LOOKIE!!!!!
No, your eyes are not deceiving you...they are KROGER BRAND- Private Selection Organic, No Preservative Semi-Sweet!! I believe they are $3.99 a bag- so the price is great too! They are the BIG chips, not the mini size chips.

Here is the list of ingredients: Organic Sugar, Organic Chocolate Liquor, Organic Cocoa Butter, Organic Soy Lecithin. THAT'S IT!!! It does say that it "may contain milk" well "I may win the lottery" too...so the way I look at it- I'm using them!

Besides eating them solo (for taste test purposes of course) I made Brownies. I've been out to find the best brownie recipe for a while now -I made this one ; it was very good, but mine turned out all crumbly-I have no clue what happened....but as you can see, it didn't go to waste.

Maybe add an "egg" next time (and of course you know I mean a fake egg).

So go score yourself a bag!

Dee is for D-isastor

So I got a new cookbook...

I was leaving for ceramic class last week and I asked Goods to pick out some recipes that looked appealing to him so I/we could make them that coming weekend. All the little colored tabbies were the recipes he choose, obviously I/we didn't make them all....but here are the ones we decided on:

• Garlic Puree with Croutons (page 12)


• Provencal Chickpea Flour Pancake to serve w/ above (page 8)


• Fennel, Orange & Black Olive Salad (page 69)


• Squash Gnocchi with Walnut Sauce (pages 107 & 108)

Sounds yummy, no?

So here I am boiling 2 heads of garlic for the Garlic Puree....

And another picture to show you my fancy spoon holder I forgot I had and never used.

The whole object of the Garlic Puree was to cook the garlic, with the skins on and put it through a food mill....with the remaining broth that was left and it would come out a garlic paste and spread that your bread or croutons...so I envisioned. It came out more like a broth with a hint of garlic. No way was I going to waste 2 bulbs of garlic goodness - so I set forth to remedy the "puree".
I got my emulsion blender out, added a couple of gloves of raw garlic and some olive oil. It helped, but it sure wasn't what we were expecting.

For the Chickpea Flour Pancake - well the recipe was a runny mess, so I added A LOT more chickpea flour and made a butt load of pancakes in a skillet - sorry no picture. They were good, but I've made them before that way.

Now onto the Gnocchi- let me stat that this was my virgin attempt in making these....and I need some practice. They came out really puffy spongy, so instead of baking them in the oven, as the recipe calls for, we "fried" them in a skillet to try and take some of the moisture out.

With the Pesto Sauce (which was a pretty good pesto)

With just some butter and nutritional yeast, oh and maybe some seasonings.

And here is a pic of the rest of the food....

I made the croutons for Goods, I try and stay on a low gluten diet as much as possible. The mustardy colored stuff on the left is the garlic mess. The Fennel Salad...I had high hopes for it....but we sere disappointed - it was bland....pretty, but bland.

And here is a close-up of the gnocchi.....just to torture you some more.

We will be attempting gnocchi again. I think more flour was needed. You couldn't taste the butternut squash in them which was disappointing. BUT....a couple of days later we had left overs....to torture Goods some more. The gnocchi actually firmed up some, but this time they were baked with spaghetti sauce and vegan cheese.

That is the end of the disaster.

Next entry will be much more positive...probably.

Just what I need ANOTHER hobby.....

Well it's been a while since I blog of non-food related Good-Dees....so I thought I would "treat" you with some items I made with the new hobby I've started. I started to go to ceramic class. I initially went just to do a lighted ceramic Christmas tree for my Mother, because the one she had for almost 50 years -broke into a million pieces. So her favorite daughter came to the rescue, and I made on for her for a Christmas gift. She is tickled, so tickled in fact that she is displaying it all year, not sure if that is a great idea with a new Great Dane Puppy in the house- but yeah, it's her call. (I would post a photo of 'Maddy', the new puppy, but MY MOTHER only uses a POLAROID INSTANT CAMERA- and those photos just don't scan well.)

I really like going to this ceramic shop, it's cluttered with all kinds of stuff and the lady that owns the place has been in business for over 40 years - she is just a doll! She didn't even think I was weird requesting NON-ANIMAL HAIR brushes....but here is some of the stuff I did...

A chip dip dish- or more like a hummus serving dish in my case-

I do like to be more creative then just splattering coats of paint on things, so I started to do detailed painting - This was one of Goods' birthday gifts...

The project I'm working on now is a "Day of the Dead" plate that I drew and I am doing detailed painting on it....and of course I will share when it's completed.

I'll be back with a food post soon.....

Where has "D" been?

I was relaxing with Goods in Mexico....

We had a great time of course......

But we came home with a respiratory bug that now, going on 5 weeks, we might be seeing the end of it...well at least I am, Goods, not so much. But that made me feel very unbloggy.

But, what I want to chat about today is Vegan Health...I have a story for you.

Shortly after Halloween I started to experience hip/joint pain, especially when I went out for my runs. It started to get worse, it hurt when I walked and I started to have a major "limp". I went to my Chiropractor, whom I think the world of, and he did his magic. Well it didn't work, and as he puts it "I'm a very fixable person". I had an appointment made for my NEW family doctor, and at that time he asked me if I had any concerns that I wanted to discuss. I brought up the topic of my hip/joint pain. He checked it out and he said it was definitely not pain radiating from my lower back (which my Chiro thought). I had x-rays done, along with some blood work, and I had an appointment back with him in a month.

Here are the findings:

X-rays - CLEAR!!! but my Hip/Joint pain - still very painful.

B-12 - not a shock, it was low, so we are fixing that.

NOW this is where it gets interesting....

my Vitamin D was extremely LOW. Normal range is 50-90 - Mine was 19!! WHERE'S MY D??? Because I don't really eat food that is fortified with Vitamin D and then combine that with living in the frozen tundra of Michigan - My "D" was low. You can read all the symptoms of the deficiency here - but the one major symptom I was having was BONE/JOINT PAIN. So my doctor instructed me to take 2000 iu of Vit-D a day. I've been taking it since Jan 12th and I am back to walking, running and skipping normally!! After a run, I still have some minor discomfort in my joints my NOTHING like before.

So pretty please, ask your doctor to check you Vitamin D levels, especially if you live in wintry country.

I'll be back in the next few with a dinner disaster that Goods and I made this weekend (okay Goods was more like the manual laberor)