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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Fudge It!

Nuts and dried fruit... blah-blah-blah, yeah, we all know they're really good for you but damn, you can sometimes feel like a squirrel as you chomp away on yet another handful of impromptu trailmix. When trying to raise children the vegan way it's import to allow for calorie-dense food to fill their little tums and give them enough energy to fuel their growth and their lifestyle. Nuts and dried fruit are a very good, very fibre-rich way of doing this. But if you - like me - have grown bored of plain old apricots, raisins and walnuts and have run out of exotic, tempting dried pineapple, sour cherry and macadamia nuts, why not try the Carob-Almond fudge from 'Eat To Live'. Frugal Veggie Mama is a fan, as is Jennifer Shmoo, so with such sterling commendations I whipped-up a batch today. Verdict? Moreish!!! I used sunflower seed butter in place of almond butter as that's all I had and while it was good I can imagine with almond butter it would be absolutely superb. Ho-Tep clamoured for more-while it provided McGonnagle with a much-needed boost of energy before Judo. Seed butter, dessicated coconut, carob and dates soaked in soya milk. That's it. So easy and so virtuous!
The other night I was trying to use up the contents of my fridge veggie drawer before they expired and decided to make a variation on cauliflower cheese. I boiled waxy potatoes, cauliflower florets and carrot slices until tender before throwing a bag of sad-looking mangetout in at the last minute. I blended-up the tangy nacho-cheeze sauce from 'The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook' and heated-it up before slightly mashing the drained veg and pouring over the sauce. The results? Well, the unique combination of roasted red peppers and chunkily ground cashews left my cheeze sauce with the colour and texture... of puke.
Thank GOD it tasted good, though my son - who is still eating with his eyes at the moment - refused point blank to try it with the cute Scottish colloquialism 'that's STINKIN', mummy!'.

Hmmm... Judge for yourself!!!


Saturday, June 6, 2009

Guess Who's coming to Dinner...

Whose is that top hat?

And glitzy brooch?

Why - is that Willie Wonka?!!

Oh no! It's just McGonnagle, dragged-up for Bathgate Gala Day of course!
The theme for her school's float this year was Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and so, with our great love of dressing-up,, it was just one big excuse to get creative! I made a papier mache top hat with the aid of these guys (Oh how I LOVE YouTube!!!), a cardboard brooch painted glittery-gold and a gobstopper-topped walking stick that cunningly utilised a ping-pong ball and a length of garden cane. A root through the drawers procured the rest of her outfit. I think she looked fab and she certainly enjoyed hamming it-up as she walked the procession route through Bathgate with her Dad!
Despite intermittent showers, a good time was had by all and the thought suddenly dawned on me as Ho-Tep and I watched the procession pass - this would be the last year we would be able to watch on the sidelines. My little boy is starting pre-school this August and so next year we'll have TWO children in the procession accompanied by TWO adults! I'm already looking forward to the costume-fun we'll be having!!!...
As for dinner, well how about a little squash, sage and spring green risotto stirred by my favourite sous-chef?

Have a great weekend, everybody!!!






Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Holy Cap-uchin!!!!!

Image from City-Data.com

Channel 4 showed this documentary tonight, about people in the US buying capuchin monkeys to dress them-up like dollies, diaper them and pretend they're their babies.
I had to switch over - I actually felt like I was watching the equivalent of kiddie porn as some fat, middle-aged housewife smeared lipstick over a dollie-dressed, dead-eyed capuchin and insisted 'she likes it, she wouldn't sit still if she didn't!'.
I didn't even know this kind of stuff went on. Those poor, poor monkeys - bred in cages to be torn away from their mothers at eight or nine days old and handed over to some complete fantasist who's then going to set about suppressing all their natural instincts as best as they can for the next... forty years? And how indicative of our complete lack of empathy for any other species that we don't see that as an issue. I don't even know why I'm blogging this... I usually reserve this space for clumsy veganisations of junk food and pix of my little darlings... I guess having been raised to be a bit cynical, and seen enough AR footage to be like, 'yeah, that's bad, man, but am I surprised? No... ' I was just... so, so shocked when watching this documentary I felt I had to blog about it! It was so bad my poor, long-suffering husband had to find a semi-humorous documentary about breasts to snap me out of it...
So, to cheer myself up, here's some more pix of my little darlings in the summer sun.