The Legend of Sleepy Elf

Well, we most certainly APOLOGIZE for our delinquent blog-havior. Sometimes, we have so many irons in the fire we lose track of important and crucial life stuffs…this bein’ one of them. So without further ado, we’ll get on with the ‘bidness’ of bloggin’.

We had two big events this past week that took up most of our kinky Elfin cookery time. First of all, we made cookies for all the golfers and volunteers at the Putting for Paws Golf Tournament. It was held on Friday October 16 out a Whisper Lake Golf Club in Madison MS. A grand time was had by all and the Elf sponsored some holes. One for herowns-elf

and one for our most recent Rainbow Bridge girl, Stella

and the third for our two other pup-angels who remain forever in our hearts, Libby (aka Babalooie) the Maltese and Sydney Ann (aka Bitty) the Yorkie/Chihuahua.

We spent many hours baking about 16 dozen cookies to cover this event and the next one. It appeared that the golfers had a sweet tooth because the cookies went pretty quick.

Saturday, October 17, we participated (again with cookies for sale) at an annual event at a local park called WOOFSTOCK! It’s an event to focus on the misconceptions about Pit Bulls and to raise awareness of these dogs.  There were lots of great dogs all around; however, it seems that there were so many events going on that day all over; attendance was down slightly. Not only did folks miss out on some great animal interaction but also the musical talent was absolutely spectacular—well and not to mention, the cookies! The Elf and a Pit-mix named Nestle walking in the Pit Parade.

We have been able to prepare a couple of our most favorite dishes during the week, most notably, Ethiopian Cabbage or by its Ethiopian name, Atakilt Wat. We ran across this recipe on one of our favorite sites, Vegan Richa.

http://www.veganricha.com/2014/07/atakilt-wat-ethiopian-cabbage-potato.html 

 This is such a good recipe for those of you who like spicy food…we’ll go through it step by step pictorially, that is. First you’ll need to cut up your cabbage.

Chop and dice some onions and a green chile.

Mince some fresh ginger.

Slice some carrots.

Cube some potatoes.

And get your ‘mis en place’ so you can commence to cookin’!

Sauté your onions, garlic and chile.

Add that wonderful Berbere spice and the ginger.

Then your vegetables.

And finally the chopped cabbage. Let it cook according to directions so you cabbage is cooked and your vegetables are crisp tender. It’s so delicious!

Today, we made a seitan ‘Prime Rib’ Roast ala The Gentle Chef. The only picture available at present is the one between the ‘roast’ coming out of the oven and about to go into a simmering broth.

We’ve made this once before and it was quite good. One of the issues from the first roast was trying to keep the simmering sauce at a slow simmer rather than a boil OR the opposite…just a really hot bath. Both do not result in optimal texture. THIS time, though, we nailed it (the simmering anyway) and the roast is now resting in the frig overnight to give the texture time to ‘ripen’ (for lack of a better word.

Last night (Monday), we prepared a new recipe from Tasty’s site called Cauliflower Fried Rice.
https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos/1655825898003386/?pnref=story

However we COMPLETELY forgot to take any pictures. Instead of eggs as the recipe called for, we substituted shredded extra-firm tofu seasoned with Turmeric and Kala Namak (Black Salt) for the egg coloring and flavor. And we used Delight Soy Nuggets (the BEST plant based chicken you can find in a store) instead of beef. We found the Delight Soy when we visited Jud (brother-dear) in NC a few years back and could NOT tell the difference between it and chicken. It is carried by Whole Foods in most places. Want to see if Rainbow here will start to carry it as well.

And, tonight we continue on a cauliflower kick. We are going to prepare Crispy Cauliflower Cakes. The picture that showed on Facebook yesterday required you to download some kind of toolbar before getting the recipe…not us. We just googled Crispy Cauliflower Cakes and found a vegan recipe that looks awesome, so THAT’S what we’ll try.
http://theveglife.com/crispy-cauliflower-cakes-vegan/

You know, you just never can guess what will appear in the garden once  you start throwing scraps in it…we’d shown you what we THOUGHT was a budding melon some time back. Well, here it is AGAIN! This ain’t no melon! It’s a full blown cantaloupe! And we cut it up today to taste it. It’s sweet and yummy! Who’da thought! And, there’s one more out there.

Finally, for this week…you know we had such fun with Susan Voisin and her FatFree Vegan Kitchen site a while back. We did a little ‘Julie et Julia’ wannabe and tried a recipe from her site once a week. Now that fall is here, we want to dive back in and look at some slow cooker recipes, stews and soups that will warm us from the inside out. So, this will get underway the first blog of November (which is Nov 1, by the way). That means we’ll alert you to the recipe we’ll be preparing on the October 24 blog!
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/
And stay tuned for a possibly cool announcement on that day as well!!

Until then, Til then, as always, remember to remember to breathe deep, laugh a lot, eat plants, love life and DO EPIC.

The Elf