crack the plates

Shana Tova! Rosh Hashanah tashlikh – we tossed stale challah (symbolizing our sins) into the water outside Temple Israel Dayton. regretful of my wrongdoing in the past year, I scattered a big handful.

the geese were thrilled to eat our “sins”

searching for more trouble.

the view from the water

on the way back, we strolled past the community garden

Eid Mubarak! up bright & (too?) early for Eid prayers at the Islamic Society of North America in Plainfield, Indiana

such a blessing to spend my day with these wonderful friends.

quiet van en route home.

dozens of dark chocolate cookies with black raspberry centers for vegan pizza party & Eid celebration

ALL of this food is CRUELTY-FREE! thanks VEGFUND for helping us at Earlham Animal Advocates United throw an amazing pizza party for our community!

…and, of course, to master vegan chef Donnie for pulling it all off. (He’s real busy right now working on a fellowship app, but he may eventually surface & update his blog at blackveganism.wordpress.com) Look at that brilliant multi-tasking!

Donnie makes pizza like nobody’s biz. Thanks DAIYA for donating TWENTY POUNDS of your amazing cheeze! Folks went bonkers.

Eid Mubarak! Party at Russell house!

And an impromptu night ride with Jabani.

couldn’t ask for better.

I found this entry in my drafts section, where there are a number of others like it: all pictures, no text. I might as well post them and just try to re-create the context as best as possible.

It appears that on this particular night I went a little insane. Thinking back, it must have been the very last vegan co-op dinner of Earlham Animal Advocates United faithfuls: Benji, Jenny, Suzanne, Erinn, Hannah, & Tamar. The menu was comfort food; on the eve of summer, the last big heavy meal of the season. Benji & Jenny were the only two to make it, but they ate EVERYTHING.

The main course: no-chick’n pot pies. An original recipe and one of the best things that comes out my kitchen, it’s also super labor intensive.

• First, chop all the (organic organic organic) onions, carrots & celery quite small and saute them in the skillet with oil. Do the onions & celery first, then add the carrots and spices–a mixture of organic marjoram, thyme, oregano and whatever else sounds good. I’m partial to the first two.
• For protein, re-constitute some large-chunk TVP or used cubed extra firm tofu. If using TVP, chop it into bite-sized pieces: this helps it absorb the flavor & is more appealing to your delicate guests. Saute protein of choice in a skillet with a little oil, tamari, black pepper, & nutritional yeast.
• Prepare a vegan brown gravy. Make something easy like Bryanna’s no-fat, or go all out and do the Grit’s: up to half a container of earth balance, full-fat soymilk, lotsa tamari, nutritional yeast–tons of flavor.
• Finally, mix all this together in a big ol’ bowl:

Ta-da! That’s a lot of the recipe, but not everything.

Pour the filling to pie plates or casseroles. I doubled this recipe (because I THOUGHT I was feeding 8), so I had a lot of filling to go around:

Make the biscuit crust. Find a great recipe & go for it. Roll out the dough and use a small glass (not drinking-size, but one down) to cut out pretty little circles. Start from the middle and go outward so you don’t waste as much dough. I suppose if you wanted to be heart-breakingly lazy you could just lay the rolled-out dough over the casserole like a pie crust & do it up that way. But if I recommended that, I probably wouldn’t take so much time cutting up pretty little circles, now would I?

Apply the crust:

It looks about like this when you’re all done:

As is evident, you can use the little pieces of extra biscuit dough to fill in the corners/edges. Or, you know, just eat them.

Bake it! 350 for… half an hour? Twenty minutes? Check & see when your biscuits start to look a done. Because the filling is already cooked, it’s not necessary for it to be in the oven for ages. You’re really just trying to get the biscuits cooked through–crusty on the outside and soft within. Like this:

Ah, the macaroni and cheese…it’s all coming back to me now. This is possibly the best ever macaroni recipe. Forget it Daiya fans–this stuff’s tops, the monarch of Macs. Brian gave me this recipe in 2008 & it’s still my favorite based solely on the number of people (emphasis on PEOPLE-veg & non) it’s made deliriously happy. It’s worth buying the new Farm cookbook just for this recipe, though increase the amount of nutritional yeast from one cup to two. Jenny, take note.

I mean, look at this.

And here’s some boring boring skillet corn. Seriously, scrape the corn off the cob, add some earth balance, add some soy milk, add some white pepper, add some salt, heat. the end.

Cutting into the pot-pie:

Worthy of a deep-south diner, or, as it were, a last meal.

Apart from taking half a day, this meal is super rich–which is why I only make it a few times a year, usually for special events & non-vegetarians. That’s right, flesh-eaters, you betta watch your waist around this bitch. It tastes soooooooo good because it has 60 grams of fat and three days’ worth of calories. But all you’ll hear is my sweet little southern accent: “Go on sugar, have a second helpin’. I got chocolate cake in there for dessert.”

Today was a pleasant day. I presented the bulletin board I made yesterday on the flooding in Pakistan at Richmond Church of the Brethren:

Though I was disheartened at the general lack of awareness of the tragedy, I was overwhelmed with support, love, prayers, and encouragement. We collected $197 towards Church World Service (a cooperative ministry of 35 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations, providing sustainable self-help, development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance around the world). RCoB is definitely a place where, if you have a passion, people will support you. That’s how the charitable knitting group Loops of Love got such a strong following, and how the (computer) hardware co-op got started, too. I feel blessed to be a part of such a caring, service-oriented community.

I have a tendency to belittle myself & my accomplishments. I’m simultaneously great at lifting up others even as I tear myself down: for example, just today I took someone’s attempt at giving a meaningful compliment & turned it, in two sentences, into a paean to their awesomeness. So it was good to acknowledge that, had I not put this thing together, it would have been just my little $35 going towards the food package of rice, wheat flour, beans, sugar, cooking oil, tea and salt (basics for a family for a month). But because I had the courage to invite others in, $162 (and perhaps more) was also given. I hope I have the guts to do this sort of thing again in the future.

If you’re interested in giving to help repair lives caught in perhaps the single greatest natural disaster of our time (yes, more people affected than the South-East Asian tsunami & earthquakes in Kashmir & Haiti combined), I recommend Church World Service (obvies) or Doctors Without Borders. Either of those links go directly to the gift pages.

I made some fried green tomatoes to go with a lunch of left-overs:

Nope, not much to look at.

Some vegan mac-n-cheese, topped with Daiya:

In the afternoon Nate & I played Lord of the Rings Risk on the front lawn and drank my favorite Rogue, hazelnut brown nectar. Several friends passed by; it was nice to experience the ambient people noise, as there are generally very few opportunities for that sort of thing in Richmond.

For dinner I made another bhindi with perfect little green zebras.

A little while ago we went to see Nagini, our friend Patrick’s little lady lizard. Her name is actually Kudu and she’s a blue-tongued skink.

Under Nate’s skateboard at the old apartment:

I’m still too afraid to pick her up, but I ADORE her. I bring her watermelon (a seeming favorite) at every opportunity. Patrick’s aware of my ardor; he dropped off a key with a note saying he’d be out of town for a few days and that she wouldn’t really need to be checked on, but I might appreciate the key anyway.

Risk is kind of a long game so we had to finish up just before bed. I am the Risk master; Nate didn’t stand a chance. I did so well I had to start using the other “good” color pieces. Check out this army invading northward from Osgiliath:

Enough for now!