Recap Day 6: In Which I Discover There's An App For That

So here I am giving mobile blogging another try and so far this seems to be working. If your interested it's Blogwriter and I am trying the free Lite version to make sure it's compatible before shelling out any bucks. The fact the developers even let you do that gives them gold stars in my book. Assuming all goes well I will upgrade and be able to add the pics mobilely as well, for now expect some edited pics later.

Now for the pledge progress, last night was easy. No plans other than dinner and watching our latest Netflix. As previously mentioned the menu was Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh recipe found here Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moscowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Tostones and Brazilian Kale (yes I am still cooking Viva Vegan). I have written about tofu prep before and will briefly go into how to tackle tempeh now.

Tempeh is another classic Asian ingredient. It is Indonesian in origin and is basically a fermented soy or other grain cake. Some find it a tad bitter so it is recommended you either steam it or simmer it for 10 minutes. It also needs a marinade or glaze in order to add in flavor. It can be marinated for as little as an hour or all day while you're at work. Tonight I grilled it in a grill pan and served it as is. You can also crumble it up as a ground meat substitute, make them into buffalo wings, cut it into strips or chunks for stews. It's a versatile ingredient so don't let it scare you.

Sean's food fact of the day is that the pigment that makes blueberries blue is anthocyanin.  Tonight is our congregatons big fund raising dinner and auction so tv free dinner is a no brainer.

Recap Day 5: In Which Mobile Blogging Proves an Epic Fail but a $14 Appliance Makes My Day

As a tribute to just how out of control my schedule can sometimes be, I give you my first attempt at mobile blogging(but more on that later).  What success I managed to have on Day 5 is a tribute to two devices.  One quite high tech, my Iphone, the other decidely low tech, the beauty pictured below, my tortilla press.  Three guesses which works better.....

My Iphone costs about 27 times as much as the tortilla press and because I am a cooking geek it will be a toss up which I am more in love with. I think most of you know the glory of the "smart phone" but I suspect you will need some convincing about the press. So here goes:

It costs about 14 dollars. It requires no energy other than minimal elbow grease. It makes identical perfectly round 7 inch circles of dough! Observe the tortilla in the pan above. I now have visions of naan, roti, calzones, empanadas, mini pizzas and fruit filled handpies dancing before my eyes. Anything that can be made out of cute little dough circles can be mine! And according to the box, I can even use it to smoosh my tostones before the second fry when I make dinner tonight. I have an ancient kitchen with minimal shelf and counter space so a gadget needs to earn it's chops with me. This little beauty has.  My Iphone?  Well it did allow me to email myself the photos and the blog posts which should have been uploaded to Blogger directly but decided to either fail or send one sentence at a time as an individual post.  Epic Fail, thank you very much!
So tonight was a moderate success. Ironically enough the fly in the ointment was my own UUCMC nominating committee meeting. I ate sans tv with Steven joining me for moral support. The kids and dad did the same later I trust. The menu:  leftovers. I reheated last night's grilled veggies, wrapped them in a homemade tortilla and added chipolte hot sauce. Yum! Last night's potato salad was on the side.

Sean's food fact of the day is "I like blueberries". Yup pretty lame but mom wasn't home and at least it is indeed a fact.

Tonight is Day 6 and a Friday with no soccer practice so a much more relaxed dinner should be served around 6. The menu is Hot Sauce Glazed Grilled Tempeh, Tostones and Brazilian Shredded Kale. Expect a major treatise on tempeh in the next post.

Oh and if you have successfully mobile blogged using an Iphone, I would love a lesson.

Recap Days 3 and 4: In Which I Am Forced to Eat My Hat But don't Buy Holly a Puppy

As already stated Day 3 was anticipated as an outrageously busy day.  It was the last day before my audit at work, soccer practice for Emma and Steven, School Board and School Budget Elections with an Ice Cream Social for the kids and of course a school night.  Added in at the last minute was my teenagers final admittance that she was indeed sick enough to need to see the doctor and 5 pages of math homework for my son.  I couldn't really see where we were going to eat at all, let alone eat together.  But with a little manuevering and the admission that life is short so eat dessert first....we managed to eat take out around the table after the icecream.  This was seen as a wonderful innovation by my two youngest.  The oldest, was upstairs in bed diagnosed with strep throat which I swore I would eat my hat if that was what was really wrong.  Well suffice it to say a Lakewood Blueclaws cap fricasse was on my menu for the evening.  It was tough but we managed to make day 3 a success!  Sean's fact for the day is :  Blueberry's grow best in direct sunlight.(who knew?)

Day 4 was promising to be a challenge as well due to my actually having the audit, a Jr Class trip to NYC, dance class and school work.  This time I employed my other favorite trick for busy weeknight meals:  the crockpot. 
Tonight's menu contains two things you won't see very often in this house:  The ominvores had meat and my daughter and I ate a premade vegan non-meat product.  The heathens had spare ribs made with BBQ sauce in the crockpot.  Basically the hubby cooks the meat or it needs to be made in a way that I don't really need to look at it or touch it--hence the crockpot.  Which does evidently make very good ribs.  I personally think pork ribs look far better on the cutie above.  Holly and I had the Morningstar Farms riblets which are actually quite good.  Sean came very close to stealing mine rather than going with the little piggy.  I usually don't buy premade stuff because let's face it just because it is vegan doesn't mean it isn't processed frankenfood with environmental implications.  Also Morningstar managed to anger more than a few of my fellow vegans by changing the recipes on several of their formerly vegan products to add random egg whites and things which obviously weren't need as they had sold quite well in their previous incarnation.  It kind of felt like they were giving us the finger so you know what...Boca and home made are just fine by me.

Along with our protein (yes I watch a little too much Top Chef), we had a latin style potato salad and grilled asparagus and zuccini.  Quick and yummy and eaten by all.  The only hitch in this day was Holly's near meltdown when we refused to let her turn on Jeopardy until we were done.  Teenagers.

Sean's fact of the day for day 4 is:  The USA has the largest consumption of Blueberries in the world.  I feel at least some responsibility for this fact.  We eat a lot of blueberries.

Day 5 is shaping up for more scheduling craziness with a meeting for me, and an afterschool orientation for Holly.  Thank goodness I did a lot of cooking this week as I am thinking the menu will be leftovers!  Dinner will be served at 6pm. 

How are you doing on your pledge?  Drop me a line about what you and your family are doing.  I don't have to talk about myself ALL the time.

Happy Earthday and please take a moment today to remember Holly Maddux.  As much as I love environmentalism and respect the earth, the original founder of this day in addition to being an environmentalist committed a rather horrible murder.  It is unfortunate if  his victim and her family should be forgotten.  Justice is important for all beings.