Vegan Cashew Mayo

I bookmarked this vegan mayo recipe the second it popped up in my feed. Last night, while making a franken-casserole of corn tortillas, leftover chickpea dip, rotel, seitan, spinach that was going off and whatever jarred peppers and other dregs I could find in the fridge, I recalled the addendum where Celine mentioned using it as a topping for pasta bakes. I figured that a bubbly topping might make this dish a little more edible, so I decided to give it a try--with a few changes. I've been trying to make more of our foods from scratch, so I buzzed some cashews in the vita-mix and used the milk as a sub for the soymilk in the recipe. I also added way more dill because I love it so much. We don't have a microwave or an immersion blender, so I alternated between heating the mixture on the stove and blending it in the vita-mix. It sounds like a lot of work, but it only took a few minutes and we were both really surprised by the great results. My favorite thing about this recipe is that, if you make your own milk and use dry mustard instead of prepared, it can be made with only pantry staples. The casserole actually turned out pretty well and I still have this little pot of mayo to use on sandwiches and in chickpea salad this week. And I'm always excited to have one more reliable recipe to replace a product that we've been buying at the store.

Summer Slacking

Digby!

I realize that I've been a huge blog slacker lately, but I have been cooking, baking, salad making, etc--so I promise to start pulling the camera out and posting more often. After a few disappointing experiments this summer, we've just started planning a fall garden that I'm hoping to document over the next several months as well. Additionally, we've been selling some furniture and miscellaneous junk on craiglist and ebay in an attempt to simplify and make a heavy end of summer cleaning more feasible, so some cleaning/remodeling posts may be forthcoming. In fact, there are so many projects in waiting that I don't think that I could list them all here (although, maybe I should try). And, of course, I've been spending every 20 minutes of the last two months trying to house train the puppy that we found and "definitely" weren't keeping. He and Riker instantly became best friends, so I've been scrambling to make sure he is car ready for our trip back to Oklahoma next weekend. He's doing really well! Other things happening around here in the last month: squash burgers, guitar shows, kalachandji's, hiking, tons of library books, estate sales, paletas, come dine with me and so on and so forth.

The Vegan Scoop

Lately, we've been alternating between being super busy and super lazy. In either case, not much blog worthy cooking is being done around here. We've been depending on reliable favorites like pizza, sandwiches, cereal, salads and scrambles. The high 90 degree weather and a lot of outdoor work doesn't make me any more interested turning on the oven, either. I can, however, manage about 10 minutes at the stove every day trying out some of the amazing recipes in The Vegan Scoop. Really, what's ten minutes at the stove when the result is a quart of delicious ice cream? I haven't seen much written about this book, but I had a Borders gift certificate and have heard way too many rave reviews of Wheeler's Ice Cream not to give it a go. So far, we've made vanilla, peanut butter, coffee, chocolate chip and a couple of variations, chocolate mint chocolate chip and peanut butter chocolate chip. That's actually my favorite thing about this book--the fact that you are given an excellent base and encouraged to add whatever you have in your kitchen to make new flavor combinations. That, and the fact that it has produced the absolute best vegan ice creams that I've ever had--smooth, creamy and rich. Obviously, I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase, but if you need more convincing before buying the book, everyday dish has two videos with recipes.

Camp Dogs

It worked! It wasn't exactly comfortable on the hardwood floor (we really need sleeping pads), and it took them a while to settle down and go to sleep, but they were really well behaved. Which means that they can start camping with us! Though, I think we're going to have to get Riker his own sleeping bag because it was a bit crowded sharing mine.

Camping In

grilled corn and skewers with seitan, zucchini, squash, onions and mushrooms


amazingly delicious grilled pineapple

We're having a "camping with dogs" trial run in our living room tonight. We're going to set up the tent and sleep with all the windows open to see if the dogs can handle the noise without freaking out and ripping through the thin nylon walls. To make it extra camp-outty, we grilled seitan/veggie skewers for dinner and pineapple slices for dessert. If it goes well, we'll be taking the pups for their first camp out next weekend. Hopefully, a long day of hiking will leave them exhausted enough to sleep through any wilderness sounds.