product review: field roast grain meat co. sausage

holy shit this was some good sausage! field roast grain meat co. , i think i'm in loooooove! i had the smoked apple sage, mr. jewy picked it up for us as a special treat. it rocked out on my taste buds. very pricey though. the spousal unit wouldn't tell me what he paid for it. i'm curious about their other products.

verdict? two turntables and a microphone. i'm sure this is good on a bun, but we had ours with pancakes for one brunch meal and with waffles during another brunch meal.

rockin' the casserole part deux

i finally made cora's thanksgiving casserole on christmas. i finally posted about it at the end of february. at this rate, i'll have my birthday cake by july 4th, and our anniversary dinner by cookie's first birthday. let's see what else i'll get done late this year! seriously, i have been working hard in the kitchen. it's just a balance. i can't cook and post on the same day because of my other motherly duties. i'm getting more sleep and feeling like i'm doing better--but damn this shit is hard. i always thought that saying that "parenting was the hardest job you'll ever love" was fluffy crap, but it's true. i really love my kids and spouse. in these crazy times i find a ton of comfort in my family.

and comfort means comfort food. you can't get any better than the thanksgiving day casserole, courtesy of the improvisational cora jean. cora was mr. jewy's mom and quite the down home cook. of course, she made everything with meat. ever watch "the brady bunch movie" where shelly long's character is at the butcher getting 80lbs of hamburger? that was cora. to boot she cooked for one of the pickiest eaters on the planet, my father-in-law, so i don't think mr. jewy grew up having many green vegetables simply because his daddy didn't like them. what a cryin' shame!

so--thanksgiving casserole. i didn't get a good picture of it to show the nice layers. here's what ya do: grease up a casserole dish and layer it with leftover stuffing, seitan, veggies, and top with mashed potatoes and gravy. bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes. i used bianca's recipe for seitan. since it was a tester recipe, i can't share it with you but it is one of the most suitable seitan recipes to use if you have something that requires a mock chicken-type meat. i also used her seitan recipe the day i made those spring rolls i posted about a few entries ago. i served mine with a mashed sweet potato and honey maple glazed green beans. it was a nice holiday dish.

one of veganomicon's best kept secrets

late photo, i made this during x-mas: this is the pumpkin cake with strudel topping from veganomicon. super awesome. the true sign of its power is that my hubby took some to work and one of his hardcore omnivore non-pumpkin eatin' colleagues was snorting it in the bathroom.

spring in the wintertime-(some assembly required)

wintertime has me down, so i thought i'd make spring come a little early.
i took some rice paper wraps, baby spinach, shredded carrot, avocado slices and bits of seitan sauteed in mae ploi sweet chili sauce and peanut butter.
this is how i roll. the photo is blurry because i move so fast!
see, i'm already rolling another one. they see me rollin' they be hatin'.
finished product. now, they're not the prettiest spring rolls on earth, but they were dang tasty. remember the combo: baby spinach, shredded carrot, avocado slices, and seitan sauteed in sweet chili/peanut butter. squeeze some lime on the rolls once done and serve with some soy sauce and sweet chili sauce for dippin'.

will this cookie please make up its mind?

i'm so sleep deprived i don't know what day it is anymore. i have so many ingredients going on in my life, i'm confused and don't know who i am. these cookies are from isa and terry's cookbook-(i've made quite the effort to try as many new things from this book and veganomicon). just like me and my loopiness from lack of sleep, these cookies are confused because they have so many ingredients they don't know what they want to be. cookie? brownie? a bowl of oatmeal?

they're good right outta the oven, but are pretty dry thereafter. reminds me of what a no bake cookie might taste like if it were actually baked and had some chocolate chips thrown in for good measure. not my favorite, but they weren't bad.