A Gift To Touch The Heart

There are many gifts I've given and received. Yet as time progresses it's the intangibles that stand out. For me, in a season amidst dinners and goodies, this is the time the true thoughtfullness of family and friends comes to the forefront.

It is always appreciated when the response I get after telling someone my diet, to hear, "Tell me more." I feel that they are genuinely interested in the friendship between the two of us and want to deepen it by digging deeper and showing interest. Yet, I am deeply touched when not only does that someone remember my needs, but fills them.

Many vegans attend dinners by either eating prior to or taking their own food. I attended a party this Christmas where the hostess, bless her, had a spread of mostly vegan food. Her response, "well we can all eat your food but you can't eat all of ours, so we catered to you." She does the same for her celiac friends. True gracious hostess, true friend, truely felt.

There are simple adjustments easily made, with a little research. This hostess researched and found the consensus on Tofutti cream cheese, yes, it's as good as the real stuff. I'll add a few more hints to veganizing a dish. Veganaise is awesome, better than the real stuff. Earth Balance is a simple butter substiute, found for less at the biggest of big box retailers.  A simple google search can yield plenty of options for egg substitute (who doesn't have vinegar, water, and baking powder in their cupboard?). And lastly, keep a shelf stable box of non-dairy milk around. It's easily swapped out for the cow milk in recipes.

Thank you to friends and family that not only invited me to your functions, but also provided me sustance that I didn't have to make myself. It was truely a treat that fed hunger in both my stomach and heart.

Bean Dip

I used to make a slow cooker bean dip and never bothered to veganize it because of all the dairy it contained. I don't miss it anymore. Earlier this week my husband stumbled upon a very similar taste when he was being creative in the kitchen.

We originally ate this dip with corn chips then expanded to burritos. It would be great in a layer dip with green onions, tofutti, tomatos, etc. Try it!

First, make this "Cheesy" sauce. It's great on macaroni noodles (good enough for company) and then use the leftovers in beans, like we did. Here's the sauce, in case you don't want to flip pages.

¹/₂ cup nutritional yeast flakes
¹/₂ cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon salt
¹/₂ teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups water
¹/₄ cup oil
1 teaspoon prepared mustard 

Mix nutritional yeast flakes, flour, salt, and garlic powder in a 2-quart saucepan. Whisk in water.

Cook over medium heat, whisking, until mixture thickens and bubbles. Cook 30 seconds more, then remove from heat and whisk in oil and mustard. Sauce will thicken as it cools.

Then add a can of refried beans (no lard kind) or reconstitute bean flakes. Add salsa to taste.

Seriously, this tastes like a nacho cheese dip with beans. I was even tempted to add a can of green chiles.

Jellies and Jams

Thanks to the email about sugar that I posted I've tried to substitute out sugar whenever I can.  I've been making my own jam for a while, after I discovered this freezer jam pectin that only requires 1 1/2 cups of sugar for 4 cups of crushed fruit, instead of a one-to-one ratio. Saturday I attempted to try making it with honey instead of sugar. Raw honey, to be exact, since I didn't cook it and could preserve its qualities. It turned out great, but it taste's like berry jam with honey instead of just berry jam. Next time I'll try fructose or evaporated cane juice.

If you're someone who's trying to eliminate high fructose corn syrup or corn sugar from your diet, or cares about finding non-GMO sugar sources, I highly recommend trying your hand at making jam. Just about all my neighborhood friends (even those who previously couldn't cook) have adopted this method because it's so incredibly easy. Here's pictures of the supplies you need.
Both these pectins are the same, just packaged differently. In the Phoenix area, you can find them at Albertsons and sometimes Wal Mart. Don't buy any other pectin though, it will require more sugar. Amazon carries it too.



These jars are a must. If you put jam into any other plastic container, the minute it falls out of the freezer the container will crack and shatter. These have fallen out many times and are still intact.

I'd love to hear about your attempts and successes!

The Best Apple Pie

My baking apples stacked up and I attempted my hand at an apple pie. It's been declared by our head-of-house, "It the best apple pie I've EVER had!"

AND it was so easy and simple.

First, invest in Marie Calendar's frozen pie crusts. They're vegan and delicious. I never mastered pie crust making, nor did I enjoy eating one, but this was enjoyable to prep and eat. two come packaged together. Thaw one crust while you prepare the filling:

5 large baking apples (Granny Smith is best) peeled, cored, and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/8 t. freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 425. Mix together the filling ingredients. Pour into the second, frozen crust. Cover the pie with the thawed crust. Crimp edges and bake for 10 minutes. Lower temp to 350 and bake for 45 minutes. The pie comes out perfect, no burnt crusts.

Top with coconut cream

Coconut cream: open a can of Thai coconut milk, scoop out all the cream and whip it up with powdered sugar to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for firmer cream.

Retrench and Clean out the cupboards

How to save money on big spending months, like December, or save the pennies for another trip to Disney. Call it what you will, this is what I'm doing.

Every time I come home from vacation I run to my discount produce market, Superstition Ranch, and stock up. I have now made an exception, especially with December upon us. I decided to look through and eat all those canned foods I ignore because I've been so spoiled with eating fresh all the time. Even my back up frozen foods have gotten a good hard look.

Since I can't get my family to eat soup the majority of the year (can I blame them? Who wants soup when it's 80 degree or higher outside?) I busted out the #10 can of soup I dry-pack canned five year ago. One cup of this stuff, 8 cups of water, some seasoning, and an hour makes for a great meal. It has alphabet noodles, split peas, lentils, rice, carrot, and onion, all our dietary requirements. It goes a long way and I'm hoping to really off set any further expenses this year.

I've also pulled out the freeze-dried foods we started eating a little while back and have those out for snacks. The kids love it. Freeze-dried corn and pears - it's candy!

Soup is very well accompanied by a cool house. Cool, but not a cold house. We have turned on our heat once. In the winter I save energy by making bread or cleaning the oven when the house is too cold. Easy right? It needs to be done anyway. And those sweatshirts need a little bit of exercise in the short time we can use them.

I can really appreciate my produce even more after these sacrifices. Sometimes I look back and am amazed, who knew I'd get so excited over broccoli and lettuce from my garden or a new vegetable or fruit in my basket? I can't wait for the month to be over and can have all that lovely inspiration for meals again!

I Miss 'Nog

Egg Nog.

I used to consume it by the gallons this time of year. I tried Rice Nog last year. Not the same. BUT...
Meander over here and try out the Holiday Nog. I recommend less water for a thicker drink. Yum...and sugar free!

Detoxing from Disney

My husband and I both recognized Disneyland was stimulation overload for our little ones, but I didn't realize quite how overloaded they were. No, it wasn't hearing "It's a Small World" a million times over. Lucky for us, It's a Small World played Christmas songs as well as its theme music. My over-threes just needed a little extra sleep after we got home. The younger-than-threes were a whole different story.

My baby only pooped two times of the four days we were there. This is a mother's biggest worry sometimes, especially if she's ever had a child that has had a problem. I have, and I was concerned. Most doctors say it's normal for a breast-fed baby to poop once every ten days. Well, maybe that's true if mommy is an omnivore, but for me, that just isn't the case. She also didn't ever get a big block of nap time, like sleeping her usual three to four hour nap. When we got home, she slept beautifully and boy have I had my share of dirty diapers. Hooray!!!!

My two-year-old's detox was interesting. She's not normally a napper, but got plenty of rest in the stroller. Her issue was actually food.  I didn't restrict her eating. I let her decide, within bounds, what good food she wanted. Well, in four days, despite my soy milk, Trio, and Cliff bars, she got animal-product overload and threw up and had a fever for a couple days after we got home. Thank goodness it wasn't while we were there! She's now back to normal and it was refreshing to have a little less craziness for those couple days. Now, out of the pjs and back to life!

Disneyland with young kids and Vegan

It's magical and fun. As I mentioned before here, going to Disney Parks has been a new experience for me everytime. This was no exception. This time, I did it with my four kids, five and younger. It helped to have a few extra adult family members in tow. I learned a few lessons along the way. So in addition to my earlier post, here goes:

• Always book down time. Be it naps, or waiting for a parade, or having a enough seats for tired kids to nap in a stroller, be ready for down time.
• Use cranky bucks. I got this idea from the Family Fun magazine. It worked wonders. The bucks were in $5 denominations, equaling 5 minutes of cranky time. If they didn't use it, they could cash it in for real money and buy a toy. We use justice and mercy at our house. Justice took away the bucks when the kids used them, mercy kicked in on the last day. They'd been so well-behaved the whole trip I couldn't deny them forgiveness and mercy. They got to use the whole amount.
• Character Meals. I decided this is the only way to see characters. It's expensive, but so worth the money. Our most expensive meal was at Goofy's Kitchen for dinner. Yet, it was this meal we saw the most characters at one time, seven, and Chip and Dale each gave my son such great attention! They teased and teased him with hiding his pen and then his autograph book. You can't get that kind of fun at the Meet and Greets in the park! PCH Grill was the most intimate, fun, and least expensive. It reminded me a lot of O'Hana at the Polynesian Resort at WDW. Our third was Ariel's Grotto, to see the princesses. I don't know how hard it normally is to see princesses in the park, but I sure enjoyed sitting down to food and eating while they came to me. My feet thanked me too!
• Character Meals and vegan: Not a problem. Notify somebody, the server, cast members in the buffet area, just about anyone with a name tag. They will either have the chef come chat with you, or notify the chef and have him create a plate for you. These plates of food were enormous. You will not leave hungry or feel neglected. I did make sure the dietary need was on my reservation.
• Bathrooms. Take note of every bathroom marked on the map. We visited every single one. 
• Baby stations. I wish there were more of these. Sometimes it was so out of the way that I'd sit with my Hooter Hider and nurse on a bench. It was comforting to see other mothers do the same. Other times I just wore my sling and nursed the baby while in cue lines for the ride. If the baby station is close, and your child is under 48 inches, use it! I could always convince a child to use the bathroom when I told them there was a special little potty waiting.
• Ample time. We took four days to do both parks. It was enough time to hit all the rides, parades, and still get in naps or early bed times. Although I do wish we'd done more napping. We were very tired by the fourth day.
• Beware of weekends. It started to get busy on Friday night and was totally packed on Saturday. I'm used to early December crowds at Disney World and I quickly learned that the local population uses Disneyland as weekend entertainment, rather than a destination vacation as we were using it. With young kids, I will totally vote for using vacation days so we can go during the week and fight fewer crowds.
• Use the Disney transportation. The train around Disneyland was fun! And a great way to get to Toon Town. The monorail was a great ride and saved walking when we took it from Tomorrowland to Downtown Disney to get to our Character Meals in the hotels.
• Be honest and kind. Use honey, not vinegar, to get help. If you try to slide by the rules or bully a cast member you won't get nearly as much help then if you are up front and honest. I was in a sticky situation with timing and this technique saved a night from going sour.