Premortality, Mortality and Sexuality Well today I came across two interesting things. The first is that I got reconnected with this girl from Phoenix. She is writing a novel about premortality and mortality - it's a Fiction piece all completely made up from her own mind. I like the idea of the story because it's something I've thought about. What exactly happened in premortality. How can Heavenly Father know each of us so intimately? Mark has said it this way to me. That premortality - part of eternity - just going the other direction - as no beginning - no time. So even though Heavenly Father and Mother have had billions of children - they have raised each of them and therefore know each of them personally. And that obviously has taken a really really really long "time". So back to this book that Autumn* is writing - it's interesting because she writes it about a girl named Emily and that her twin from premorality is now her "devil" tempter on eart...
Posts
How to make your own grape juice: Get a lot of fresh grapes from your garden at the end of the season. Put them in the food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse a few times. Then strain into a big bowl. This produces the best grape juice you will ever taste. So much better than store bought - so wholesome and delicious. Just look at that juice - it's not all watery and clear like store-bought - it's thick and the taste is out of this world. Now I can see why some people spend hundreds of dollars or euros as the case may be on those juice machines. I'd really like one especially since we plan to continue growing more grapes and other fruits and veggies in our own little garden. I'm looking forward to the harvest!
The Best Cinnamon Rolls with Shiny Sweet Glaze These are real easy to make if you have a bread maker to make the dough. I suggest getting one. Some people don't like bread from the bread maker as I discovered yesterday while chatting with a friend. I said to her - you can just let the machine make the dough and then bake it in the oven - that way you still get that classic bread-loaf shape - or so you can make cinnamon rolls and other happy treats like this one - that comes from one of my most favorite cookbooks - Make a Mix. I got this book from the DI thriftstore in Delta for like 50 cents. You can't beat that. It's an old book written by some Mormon ladies. And these recipes are tried and tested on big families I bet. These are really good. I've made them lots of times but this time was my first time making them vegan without the eggs and dairy milk. I think they turned out awesome - just goes to show you don't really need eggs at all. The recipe - I put it her...
Yummy Pumpkin Recipes I tried several different pumpkin recipes recently. Here is my rundown on the recipes. The first one I tried was the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (page 126). These were delicious. I especially liked how they were not too dense or gummy like muffins sometimes are - and they were not too oily. They were just the perfect cake consistency like they should be. And they really really were delicious. I shall make them again soon. My husband Mark who does not like Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies - like the ones they sell at Smiths Food & Drug - he likes these cupcakes a lot. They are not too over powering with pumpkin flavor - that might be why. So, we give this recipe 2 thumbs up. The next recipe came from vegweb.com - Pumpkin Chipolte Soup with corn and pine nuts. This was a spicy soup indeed. Almost too spicy. I liked the combination of corn and toasted pine nuts - but I would have preferred having it ta...
Ginger Peanut Soup from vegweb.com submitted by Helen -------------------------------------------------- Original Recipe: 1- 1/2 cup chopped broccoli 1- 1/2 cup chopped cauliflower 1 medium onion, chopped 1 Tbsp ginger, grated 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 2 Tbsp olive oil 3 cup vegetable stock or water 1 28oz can diced tomatoes 5 Tbsp peanut butter In large stock pot, saute onions in oil until soft. Add other veggies, ginger, garlic, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper until veggies are just tender. Add stock or water, canned tomatoes, and peanut butter. Reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes. ------------------------------------------------- I like to serve it with pita bread. It makes a delicous meal. We like to eat soup for our main meals quite regularly. This one is really yummy. The only thing I usually do differently is use 1 1/2 t ground ginger and I occassionally add other vegetables - like this time I made it with sliced ...
Zen Spiral Afgan - Pattern #: 70629AD Lion Brand Yarn I recently finished this afgan. It was fun to make because I had never made a circular afgan before. I had always just made those classic granny square afgans - so this was a nice change. But it was difficult in the beginning because I misread the instructions and increased every 8 stitches instead of a total of 8 stitches around each side as it got bigger and bigger. I don't think the instructions were very clear for a beginner - such as I. Not that I'm a beginner because I've been crocheting for years - but I'm a beginner when it comes to reading patterns. Anyways, I caught on pretty quick that I had it all wrong and had to undo the whole thing. That made me pretty mad. But I was back to the round I should have been on correctly very quick. Once I started doing it the correct way I finished it in about 2 weeks. It was also nice because once I started doing it correctly I noticed a pattern - that I was making like ...
Six Years Anniversary! (Sept 7) So we decided to spend the day in style. We drove a lot - and when we got where we were going we had lots of fun. We saw the cube houses in Rotterdam and then we ate vegetarian Chinese food at De Oude Plek. It was delicious. Photos of the Cube houses are featured on the other blog - mod homes in the Netherlands. Photos of the food are here! I had this bird's nest thingy. It was sweet n spicy. It had cashew nuts and the vegetarian chicken - I think it was made from wheat. It was delicious. I had it over noodles. Yum. Mark had the babipangang - i probably just spelled that wrong. But whatever - it was super sweet and delicious. Mark had really been looking forward to it. Ever since we went vegetarian he had been craving his favorite thing to eat at these Dutch/Chinese restaurants. He was so satisfied with the meal that he said: I can't wait to come back! Too bad we didn't get any take out - next time we will. We also started the meal with sweet...
Friday Night Dinner & Dessert (5 Sep - 2008) Soy-Sweet Tofu with Mango Salsa & Cucumber-Melon Sorbet We served it over a bed of cous cous and a side salad sprinkled with pine nuts. Yummy. Delicious. I found this recipe on weightwatchers a few years ago and I've veganized it. The recipe goes like this (Serves 4): Marinate 1 pkg firm, pressed tofu cut in blocks in 4 T maple syrup (or brown rice syrup, agave syrup, corn syrup or molasses) and 4 T low sodium soy sauce or Tamari. Set aside. Combine 1/2 mango (canned or fresh) chopped, with 4 T lime or lemon juice, 1 T dry ground coriander and 1 small onion, chopped. Set aside. Cook tofu in pan with oil till browned on all sides. Serve with mango salsa on a bed of couscous. Complement with salad tossed with oil and vinegar and topped with chopped nuts. I used pine nuts. Also good with peanuts or macadamia. I also sprinkled chopped hazelnuts over the mango salsa. Gives it an extra dimension. This is the Mango Salsa. It is made wit...
Dinner tonight was very yummy. We started with Carrot Bisque from VWAV, then we also had Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) and we followed that with Grape-Lime Sorbet. This is the Carrot Bisque (page 56) from Vegan with a Vengeance. The only thing I did different to the recipe was use plain soy milk in place of the coconut milk. I halved the recipe so I didn't feel like opening a can of coconut milk when I have soy milk to use up. I really liked it. Mark did not like it much. He thought it was too sweet. There is only a little bit of maple syrup in it. I suppose the sweetness comes naturally from the carrots. I liked it. For some odd reason this photo is coming out sideways. It's not sideways when I view it in PSP so I have no idea why it's like this. But they were good. Mark thought they tasted like "wieners" of all things - I have no idea why. He says it's because the leaf is like the skin of wieners and that the taste inside was spicy. Got the recipe from th...
Vegan with a Vengeance food photos and more recipe reviews. Mango-Ginger Tofu (page 153) See review in previous post Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes (page 35) See review in previous post Coconut Pancakes with Pineapple Sauce (page 32-33) My review of coconut pancakes... First off, this is the first vegan pancake recipe I've made where the pancakes where really thick like typical American pancakes. I liked that. However, Mark thought the nutmeg gave it too much of a "grown up" taste as he described it. And you really couldn't taste the coconut. I was thinking if I make these again that I would either omit the nutmeg or reduce it by half. And that I would first toast the shredded coconut because that really helps bring out the flavor. We had leftover pancakes and I finished some off today and I found that the coconut flavor is more noticeable the second day... but usually when you serve pancakes it's the first day they get eaten so the flavor really needs to...
Vegan with a vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz Opinion: I haven't tried that many recipes in the book yet that's why I haven't put any official reviews of it on Amazon.com - where I bought the book. But here are my reviews of the few recipes I have tried. Mango-ginger Tofu (page 153) Good. We gave it two thumbs up. Isa uses peanut oil in a lot of her recipes - I don't know why - maybe it's cheap in the U.S. I have never even seen it over here. I used sesame oil in its place. I also wasn't sure about the ground allspice - what that is exactly in the Netherlands - so I used garam masala. I didn't have fresh ginger so I used half the amount called for with ground ginger. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly. We served it over rice with steam broccoli. but we ended up mixing it all together and it resembled something like what you'd get at Eazies in Eindhoven. Very tasty. Sweet - with a slight spicy aftertaste. It was a long preparation but if you ...
Opinion: iPhone In my humble opinion - i say humble because I don't own one... the iPhone is not really necessary. Sure you have all these gadgets in one - but it can't replace the real thing. For example, it has iTunes on it and you can buy separate speakers to play your music on. But get this, suppose you are having a get together with your friends - board game night or something and you are playing some music from your iPhone and then a phone call comes in - you have to stop the music.... I think that's annoying... or maybe you miss the call... again... annoying! As Mark put it - it truly is a personal computer - don't go getting rid of your other iPod, camera, etc... I'm sure you will still need those things - the iPhone cannot replace them - yet.