eat good food all year long

Time for more summertime awesomeness easy peasy lazy hot and sweaty meals!  First up is a radioactive picture of some lovely zucchini provencal that I made with my friend Becca.  We also baked some tofu with bbq sauce and she sauteed red cabbage in raspberry vinegar with apples (amazing).

lovely layers

This was kind of like a lasagna without noodles.  And it ruled.  You can find the initial recipe here, but we used 3 zucchini, 3 tomatoes, and added tons of minced garlic to each layer.  Even better that way.  Anyway, it's something to do with the mountains of zucchini that I'm sure you'll have this summer.  It's always good to have a nice zucchini recipe.

who needs color when you can have tots and corn and breaded things?

Ha.  Seriously though, these were the tofu fish sticks from Vegan Dad's blog, and they were fabulous.  A bit messy to prepare, but worth it.  Nice and crunchy with a soft interior.  I had no idea you could get things this crunchy by just baking them.  We made the tartar sauce as well, but I hated it because I am, as you might remember, currently hating vegan mayo.  Blegh.  Anywho, we channelled our inner children and had them with tots and corn on the cob.  That's how we roll.

we eat healthy crap too, ok?

This kick-ass salad was assembled by me.  I made this salad specifically to go with this wonderful lime thyme dressing from VegWeb.  You know, I always used to think my mom was nuts for putting strawberries in salads.  Not so, friends.  Paired with a nicely salty salad dressings, strawberries in salads are the bomb.  Anyway, after I made the dressing, I marinated some tempeh in about 1/4 of it, and then pan fried it to get it nice and browned.  Genius, let me tell you.

how could anything this green be bad?

Everyone:  make this dressing.  I didn't think it tasted overly thyme-y, but maybe I didn't add enough.  At any rate, I only added 2 Tbsp of the sugar, which was way too much for me, so I reccommend only adding 1 Tbsp and working up from there.  I also added way more salt and lime and a little red wine vinegar to make it more tart.  We ate the leftovers of this dressing for days on salads.  Fabulous.

smoked tofu is awesome.

Ok, I'd never had smoked tofu.  We were in Indiana this past weekend to see Michael's family, and I saw this in a health food store and just had to get it.  Amazing.  It's...creamy.  Like cheese.  It tastes more like cheese than any vegan cheese I've ever had.  Weird, but very cool.  It's rich though...I probably didn't need to eat all that, but what the hell.  Served up cold (straight out of the package) with some roasted asparagus and curried couscous (recipe from the idiot cookbook).  I cut my tofu up into little bits and mixed it with the couscous and it ruled.  I so wish we could get this stuff around here...but it's like 5 bucks a package, so it's definitely a luxury item for us.

i made muffins!

Another VegWeb recipe.  I kind of forgot that I had a bajillion recipes saved on there and revisited them this past week a bunch, obviously.  These gems are orange poppyseed muffins.  And they were glorious.  Though not really orange-y.  I even added the zest of a big orange along with the orange juice (fresh squeezed).  Next time, I will add twice that much zest.  Also, here's a perk: the only fat they have in them is from the flax seeds.  They're not even gross or dense because of it.  Fluffy.  Moist.  Almost cupcake-like.  Oh, another bonus: they are super cute on top!  I don't know how that happened, but I definitely am a fan. 

israeli couscous is not for everyone

By 'everyone', I definitely do not include myself.  Because I loved it.  Michael, not so much.  But that's ok.  I ate the crap out of this.  For it, I roasted 2 tomatoes that I diced beforehand with some sliced green olives, then added that to the prepared couscous.  We found this for $1.50 a bag at Big Lots, which makes me happy.  It was a nice lunch, anyway.  For me.

everything in the kitchen pasta, plus portobellos

This weekend at Michael's parents' house, we cooked dinner the first night.  Basically, anything I found in the kitchen, I put in the pasta.  That includes asparagus, green olives, spinach, onions, scallions, roasted red peppers, and artichokes.  It was very vegetable-y and yummy.  Michael grilled the mushrooms, and even though I claim to hate portobellos, these were delicious.  I was also kind of drunk though, so I might blame that.

summertime classic

Because of my embargo on vegan mayo, I have to be creative when it comes to pasta salad now.  As some of you might remember, I am enthusiastically obsessed with the flavor combination of mint and dill.  This pasta salad was the perfect vehicle for it.  Those two herbs, plus peas, scallions, and red cabbage, then a generous dousing of olive oil and red wine vinegar.  It was heavenly.

the best dips are the accidental ones

Right?  Well, maybe.  Anyway, I was starving and wanted hummus, but didn't have any chickpeas.  Or lemons.  Thus, curried white bean dip was born.  I made it in about 2 minutes and it was absolutely addictive.  I even have a recipe.

Curried Bean Dip

1 15 oz can butter beans, drained (or other white bean.  or any bean, really.)

2 large cloves of garlic

1/4-1/2 15 oz can coconut milk

1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce

1 Tbsp red curry powder

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp dried dill

1 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp salt

Throw the beans and garlic in a food processor and process until smooth(ish).  Add spices (except salt) and 1/4 can of coconut milk, and continue to process, adding more coconut milk until it gets to the consistency you like.  Add the salt, to taste.  It's spicy, so if you're a wimp, leave out the chili garlic sauce or use yellow curry powder.  Wuss.

recently, we've been stealing herbs

Yeah, we found this apartment building down the block that has rosemary, mint, oregano, and lemon verbena growing in the yard.  No one's ever around.  What?  Anyway, it's fun to add fresh, free herbs to food.  For example, here we added mint and dried dill to those beans.  And roasted the potatoes with rosemary.

the basil is ours

Yeah, too bad there's nowhere with free basil, huh?  Oh well, we have some growing in our kitchen (and two other plants maturing on the porch).  Basil and tomatoes are a classic summertime combination, but add some avocado to that mix and...  Oh my.  It's pretty, too.

Hope you're all still enjoying your summer!  Except for those of you who are now having winter.  Disregard.  Remember, even though it's a million degrees out and you're hot and sweaty and tired, that's no excuse to not eat decent food.  Though, admittedly, I do use that excuse from time to time.  Nobody's perfect.

i live, kind of.

So, I got the flu.  It knocked me on my ass.  'Nuff said.  

As a form of apology, please accept these delicious meals, in electronic form:

all kinds of rad

These are the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Isa's blog.  They are pretty much the bee's knees.  Wait, is that vegan?  Regardless, is it too 1925?  Oh well.  You should make them.  As you can see, I burned mine slightly, but all in all, I'm pretty damned proud of my frying skills.  Cause I made this all by my lonesome one night.  I substituted tahini everywhere that the recipe called for Veganaise because I was all out of my trusty Nayonaise.  Still was totally awesome.  That remoulade on top is key, as well.  Make it all together when (not if) you do.  That soup in the background is the asparagus and spinach soup from Nava Atlas' Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for all Seasons (here on out called 'the soup book' because I gaurantee I will not want to type all that out every time I use the book).  It was a nice and simple soup, very fresh tasting and mighty easy to pull together.  I'm pretty smitten with this soup book.  You'll see.

giada pasta

Giada basically makes me want to vomit.  I hate most things about her.  She's too gorgeous and skinny to be this chef who makes all this fattening food.  She smiles too much and her teeth are too white.  Her shirts are too low cut.  And tight.  Which is probably why Michael was watching her show one day and got the idea for this pasta she was making (jk, but seriously).  It's cherry tomatoes roasted with garlic and capers and lemon juice (um, hello) and breadcrumbs on top of all that.  Then you mix it in with some pasta that you coated with parmesan (we've got a stockpile of vegan parmesan, it rules).  I got to pick out that fun pasta...I think it was called 'Wacky Mac'.  I could not resist.  Could you resist wagon wheels in your pasta?  Really though, this pasta was amazing.  So rich and creamy, somehow.  It had a lot of oil in it.  And it was wonderful.  Before the pasta, we ate this:

ceasar spectacular

As always, dressing recipe from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  It's so fabulous.  I keep wanting to make the ceasar dressing from Veganomicon, but...I never have silken tofu.  Ever.  I kind of loathe it.  Plus, what is up with it needing to be fresh and not vacuum packed?  Really?  I love that cookbook, but so many ingredients just will not ever be found in West Virginia.  Ever.  Not to say I don't sub stuff in all the time.  It's just kind of a pain when I'm hungry and grouchy.  Anyway, that's all fine and well because the uncheese recipe is a favorite.  We added red bell peppers to our salad for some color and sweetness.  It ruled.

black bean quinoa mango etc

Ah...speaking of Veganomicon...  I made these two salads from it for a book club meeting I had a while back.  This one was a hit, but thank goodness the girls like cilantro.  A cup of cilantro?  Are you freaking kidding me?  I didn't add that much.  I mean, it tasted good.  I liked it.  But I think I just have a moral dillemna about adding that much cilantro to anything.  

This one was good too:

brooklyn deli pasta salad

I've never had pasta salad from a Brooklyn deli.  I get it though.  It's simple.  It doesn't need to have all kinds of complicated ingredients because the beauty is in the simple flavors shining through.  It was yummy.  I did think it was a little bland though, and added about a tablespoon of some mustard that Michael had made (I know!) to spice it up and add another dimension.  Because, no matter how important simplicity is, I am always up for fucking it up haha...  Oh well.

While we're on the subject of cold salads...

lunch perfection

I made a big pot of quinoa when I made that salad for the book club so I could have a base for some lunches the following week.  So on Monday when I came home for lunch hungry and in a hurry, this came together fairly quickly.  It's diced mango, sliced radishes, the quinoa, and green onions in my favorite poppyseed dressing.  It was light, but filling and darn tasty.  

On Cinco de Mayo, I went to a party and needed to bring food.  My taste buds had not yet bounced back from the flu (I feel like I missed a lot of good food during this time)...  So Michael made the food for it!  Coconut black beans with mango and avocado.

not really that mexican, but whatever

People went apeshit over this stuff.  It is good, though, I've had it many times before.  The beans get so creamy when you cook them with coconut milk, and the avocado only adds to that effect.  Then the mangos add the perfect amount of sweet...  Add some cayenne, cumin, and salt (and maybe some lime juice) and you're in business.  It's seriously the easiest and tastiest little meal to make.  I like to just eat it with a spoon, but it would be good wrapped in tortillas or eaten as a dip with chips, even.  And evidently, it is good party food.

So I don't know about where you live, but it's been raining pretty much nonstop here for the past 10 days.  Well, as I write that, the sun is shining, but it did rain earlier today, I swear.  Rain's cool and all, but sometimes you just get sick of it.  And what better way to chase away the rainy day blues than with a giant bowl of soup and some fresh bread?

bread-like, anyway

Those up there are the Onion-Rye Scones from the soup book.  It was serendipitous because Michael and I had just broken our pantry challenge (finally) and had bought some rye flour on a whim.  This was perfect also because you don't have to wait for it to rise.  That's another thing I like about that book, the breads are all quick breads that can be made in the time it takes to make the soup you're making to go with it.  Nifty!  These came together sort of quickly (it took the longest to saute the onions) and ended up being quite delicious.  My taste buds were in and out during this meal, but they were sort of sweet and salty and generally awesome.  I thought they'd rise more... and I would not really call these 'scones' per se, but... whatever.  Call 'em what you like, I just call them tasty.  And good for dipping into soup.

rainy meals are the best

mock clam chowder

We ate the 'scones' with the clam chowder recipe from the same book.  Now, I must tell you that I used to be quite the eater of clam chowder.  Creamy, salty, sweet, chewy...  I couldn't get enough.  We're talking New England here, not Manhattan.  Don't you dare put tomatoes in my clam chowder.  Or mock clam chowder, that is.  It's just wrong.  Anyway, if you didn't know it already, oyster mushrooms are the best substitute for clams out there.  The recipe calls for baked tofu, but we had oyster mushrooms in the fridge and used those instead.  And it was good.  Michael also added some dried veggie flakes to the soup for some color.  My only complaint is that there was way too much frigging corn in this soup.  It calls for 3 cups.  Next time I'd only put in 2 or 1 1/2 cups, because by the time you got to the bottom of your bowl, it was like you were forcing yourself to eat all this damned corn and it got kind of more filling than I would have liked.  Regardless, this is the best mock clam chowder I've had since becoming vegan.  Highly reccommended.

When you're on a pantry challenge, you find yourself making some interesting stuff.  Flavor combinations that never occured to you before suddenly sound like the most genius ideas ever.  Mostly because you're starving and detoxing from having your regular ingredients on hand.  What?  I'm out of turmeric?  I'm sure mustard powder will be fine in this, then.  At least it'll be yellow.  Huh?  No more nayonaise?  Well, tahini's creamy.  I'm sure that'll be great.  And in this case, no frozen blueberries for those muffins you are craving?  Who needs 'em when you've got strawberry jam?

aren't they purty?

This is a creation that apparently tasted amazing, but I didn't really taste much of it...  Stupid taste buds, and all.  But I was hungry on a weekend morning and we had no oatmeal or cereal or fruit.  Muffins are a generally good catch-all for random ingredients.  And I had strawberry jam and lemons.  The general idea (i.e., the measurements for flour/liquid/baking soda and powder) came from the Blueberry Lemon Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  They would probably be great with blueberries.  But they were damned fine with strawberry jam, too.  I also added some fresh minced basil to the batter, but no one could taste it.  Next time I'd add more, because I bet it would add an awesome flavor dimension.  Anyway, basically I just made the recipe without the blueberries and put them in the muffin cups, then went back and put a teaspoon of straberry jam on the top and swirled it around with a toothpick.  I thought this would fully integrate the jam, but as you will notice, it did not.

lovely little things though

It all stayed on the tops of the muffins, so there was this division of rich, lemony bottom half and sweet, sticky strawberry tops.  What I'm saying here is that these were awesome.  Michael ate like 8 of them in one afternoon.  And my friend Becca ate one when we went to the movies and said they ruled.  So.  Even without properly working tastebuds or a pantry stocked to the brim with fabulous ingredients, I (and you) can make stuff work that will blow people away.  Skip your next grocery trip and get creative.  

I have more to show you from the pantry challenge and all that, but I'm kind of tired from all this thinking and typing and remembering.  Plus, I don't want to spoil you with too much awesomeness at once.

WIP Wednesday, quiches, and muffins

First off, this will be a quick post.  I'm sleepy.  And slighty drunken.  My bad!  And Top Chef is on.  Triple whammy.  Anyway, I've been working on my knit stitches.  This is for my WIP Wednesday (visit shellyfish if you don't know what I'm talking about!).  This is my special knit stitch for sweaters (knit, purl, alternate rows).

Next up is my first try at cable knitting.  You can just see the little swirly-doo.

swirl twirl!

This swirlydoo takes lots of time, but is fun, nonetheless.  I enjoy it.  I want to try making some knit animalpals, but have yet to find any fun patterns.  It will be, though!

Chick-wheat savory muffins

These are Celine's wonderful savory muffins.  Michael made these and we had them with dinner last night.  Then I had one for breakfast.  Then I had one with lunch.  They taste like fluffy falafel!  Wonderful, wonderful.  I fully reccommend that you made theses as soon as possible.  PS - they are my new favorite muffin AND biscuit!

mini quiches

These are the mini crustless tofu quiches from fatfreevegankitchen.com.  I modify mine, using regular tofu instead of silken and other veggies besides mushrooms (none on hand and i just don't like 'em that much).  Still, I garnished them with a little cherry tomato while baking and they turned out wonderful!  Hint:  super spraying your tins with spray oil  makes them come out easier.

all together now

Steamed carrots (on sale, what!) with mustard sauce from Vcon, quiches, and chick muffins.  Lovely.  I especially loves the muffins soaked in the mustard sauce.  Woo!  And now, I must continue watching Top Chef.  See ya!

come on vivian, put your glasses on

(nerf herder....yessssss I'm in a poppy punk mood today.)

Well.  First off, I've been given an award for how awesome my blog is by Becks at I am not a Rabbit.  Look.

And while I'm not sure about the grammatical correctness of this particular award (ever know?), I am surely happy to receive it!  Becks authors one of my favorite blogs.  She's one of what I like to call my 'Brit Blog Buddies' and is a constant source of fabulous looking food, hilariousness, and fun brit words that make me giggle because I'm easily amused.  Plus, she made some of the most awesome comic strips during Vegan Mofo that I've ever seen.  Anyway, I'm supposed to nominate 10 (!) other blogs for this award.  That seems like a bit much to me, and since I am lazy and a rulebreaking rebel at heart, I'm only going to nominate 5 people.  But I'm going to do it at the end of this post so that we can get on with some food porn, ok?  Yeah, I didn't think you'd have a problem with that.

First up is a lovely dinner that I ate for breakfast the following 2 mornings because I loved it just that much.  I got in the mood for lentils the other day when my boss was talking about how gross they are (he's demented, seriously) and how that must be all that 'vayguns' eat.  Which got me to thinking:  I don't eat nearly enough lentils.  I used the savory lentils recipe from ED&BV.  Except I sauteed an onion first and used a veggie bouillon cube instead of a mushroom one (ew).  I also have had several winter squashies staring at me since the beginning of October that needed using.  So I just baked the crap out of most of them and smooshed em up with some cinnamon, cumin, garlic powder, EB, and a dash of soymilk.  

breakfast?  sure, why not?

They made a really nice pair with the salty herbiness of the lentils adding some texture to the smooth and sweet squash.  By the by, I used 2 butternut squash and one carnivale.  I still have a carnivale and 2 pie pumpkins to do something with.  It's just such an effort to cut these stupid winter squashes.  Is anyone else with me on this?  Also, after roasting, it is NOT simple and easy to just scoop out the squashiness for me.  The peel always wants to hang out with the inside forever and ever and it bothers me.  So.  This was a labor of...love.  Emphasis on the labor, but there was still a hefty serving of love involved.

Next up is a bok choy overload.  Michael made this one!  At first, when he suggested hot and sour soup (vcon recipe) I was like no no no no no.  Because the only hot and sour soup I've ever had was goopy and GROSS.  This was not either of those things.  But I did 86 most of the mushrooms called for.  I did allow baby bellas to be added, but not sliced so that I could get around them easily.

goop and gross free.

We used bok choy instead of napa cabbage cause there was no napa cabbage at the store that day.  There was also no baby bok choy, which was needed for that bok choy recipe in vcon (can't be bothered to go look up the proper name, sue me).  So we just ate a lot of bok choy in its fully grown form for dinner.  They did however, have sugar snap peas at the store on SALE (yay!) so we added them to that recipe.  Ate it atop the very last of the bamboo rice that I got at Target forever ago.  Green rice is fun.  It is not, however, really any different in taste than normal rice and costs twice as much.  Life's interesting, isn't it?

mean green dinner time

One of the squash giving me the evil eye for awhile now was a spaghetti squash.  I had never had this before, but I've heard people loving it all over the place recently, so I thought what the hell I'll try it out.  It's healthier than spaghetti, right?  It's also a crapload sweeter than spaghetti, which no one told me and surprised me in this dish that I created.  It was good though.  A little crunchy.  I dunno, it took like 20 minutes to cook in my microwave, which didn't seem right, so next time I think I'll just bake it in the oven.  

look at those delicious babies...mwahahaha

You see those pine nuts?  Them's toasted pine nuts, kids.  You know why I did that?  Because Jessy over at HappyVeganFace puts them on pretty much everything and I thought well shit it must be good.  Ummmmyeah.  It is more than good.  It's fucking awesome.  I knew I liked that girl ;)  Oh, what's that?  You want a recipe?  Ok.

Artichoking the Hell Outta some Spaghetti Squash

1 big spaghetti squash, prepared (microwave, roast, whatever)

2 cups prepared baby artichokes or artichoke hearts (not preseasoned!)

1-2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise

some big handfuls of fresh spinach (however much you like, remember it cooks down to practically nothing)

1 Tbsp capers, chopped (optional, i GUESS)

3 big garlic cloves, minced

1 huge shallot (2 medium), minced

1-2 tsp basil pesto

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup dry white wine

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

toasted pine nuts for garnish (do it!)

Ok, so get your squash ready and set aside.  Meanwhile, heat a dash of olive oil in a big skillet with fairly high sides.  Saute garlic, shallots, and capers (if using).  Once the garlic looks like it's about to burn (this always happens in like 20 seconds for me), rescue it by pouring in the wine.  Immediately add artichokes, tomatoes, spinach, and lemon juice and bring to a good simmer.  I usually put the spinach on top of everything so that it steams up nicely before you have to stir it in.  Cover and let simmer about 5 minutes, until the spinach starts wilting.  Stir it all up, also stirring in the pesto.  Continue to simmer until the artichokes are tender (maybe 5 more minutes).  Add squash to pan, toss to combine, and allow to heat through on low heat.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Garnish with pine nuts.  If you're like me and aren't allowed to cook with capers, but love them anyway, you will also garnish with the capers that you couldn't add to the sauce.  :P

Like I said before, this was a little sweet, so if you want, add some vinegar to your sauce to cut that.  I didn't think of it in time to add it and I don't really know how it would taste, so I didn't add it to my recipe.  However, if you're just using the sauce with regular pasta (it would KILL on linguine), it's probably not an issue.

I served this with the bread that I made earlier in the evening when I was in a baking frenzy.  

oh...this bread.

I got this recipe over at Happy Herbivore.  It's beer bread, guys.  BEER bread.  And since we just happened to have a bunch of beer in the fridge yesterday, it seemed like the most obvious option.  Plus, it was the easiest bread I've ever made and it's delicious.  Moist on the inside, crusty as all get out on the outside (I used Sam Adam's Winter Ale in it, in case you're curious).  I have no complaints.  Hers is prettier than mine though.

I also baked some more of these muffins from Vegan Dad's blog.  Pumpkin-y, apple-y, raisin-y, bran-y, yummy.  I doubled the recipe and took half to work today.  They were a hit.  I like em too.  What he says about them...getting the mail moving in the morning...is true, too, which is always a plus with me.

muffin overload?  never.

Ok, so now I have to nominate people.  I've been thinking about this all day.  At least one of the people I want to nominate has already been nominated, but I've decided that I'm not going to let that stop me.  Because I want them to know how cool I think they are, too.  So.  Only 5, ok?

1. Lindy Loo over at Yeah that 'Vegan Shit'.  She's hilarious.  She's crass.  Hers is the blog that made me want to start blogging.  I always thought blogging was kind of stupid before I read her blog.  Then I realized that you can curse on the internet and no one will tell you not to.  Which is only one of the reasons I started blogging.  I don't think I even got up the guts to start cursing until last month, really.  Which is weird because I'm kind of a pottymouth.  But my parents read, so.  There ya go.  Anyway, Lindy Loo also seems like the kind of gal that I would totally hang out with if I had any friends in real life.  She's smart and passionate and just plain cool.  Also, she named her cats after JD Salinger book characters and then gave me a link to a website where I can find lots of book recommendations.  Um, yeah.  She rules.

2. Jessy from HappyVeganFace.  Jessy is one very happy girl.  And I love that about her.  Literally everything she writes makes me smile.  Be it her own blog, comments on my blog, or comments on someone else's blog, she's always 100% cheerful and it's awesome.  Usually chronic cheerfulness annoys me, but Jessy balances it out with a good mix of made-up words and total rad-ness and seriously AMAZING food.  Plus, she's my dad's favorite commentor here and usually anything my dad likes is really good.  Except meat.  Jessy is also compassionate and makes a big effort to help the world in general.  She's in a challenge to basically make your own everything and use less of stuff which is cool, and she also adopted a turkey.  So yeah, Jessy is a good apple.

3.  Shellyfish at Musings from the Fishbowl.  Shelly's crafty.  She makes things for people.  And not just whatever stuff, but seriously she embroiders things.  She makes little dolls for her newborn neice and her guppy (who is terminally adorable).  I like this trait.  Craftiness is something that I have little patience for, and I really wish I had inherited the gene for it from my mom.  My mom has always been amazing at a sewing machine (and by hand) and still makes me things, which rules.  So anyone who promotes that in this day and age of store bought crap, I'm a fan of.  She also lives in France and sometimes writes French phrases which I understand nothing of but really enjoy seeing.  (I need a Spanish blog buddy, I can read Spanish, darnit.)

4.  Liz from Food Snobbery is My Hobbery.  First off, awesome blog title.  Second, this girl has a helluva garden.  She has dazzled me with her gardening skills and the fresh food she creates using it all up.  This is like my utopia.  She's also another compassionate one and I'm amazed at her ability to balance her life what with a hubby and kids and all the various activities I've heard her mention.  I can only hope that one day I will have my shit together like Liz seems to.  Yeah, also, did I mention her garden?  And that she makes jam?  And that she bakes her own bread every week?  This chica is truly DIY to the max and I love it.

5.  Michelle at My Zoetrope.  Michelle is an awesome artist.  Don't believe me?  Click on the link and find the link on her page to her etsy shop.  She's truly talented.  I admire her creativity and her art.  I'm saving up my money to buy her mustache christmas ornaments because I really feel that my life is not complete without them.  Reading her blog makes me wish that I was the drawing type of artist instead of the photography and ceramics type.  Alas.  She also cooks up some tasty-looking food.  I love multitalented vegans.  It's nice to read about things other than food sometimes (I know, I must be crazy) and the musings of a fellow artist are inspiring and remind me of my art school friends who have all but disappeared from my life as of late. 

So thank you ladies for all being...great.  I'm out of words now, because I just typed a whole lot of awesome, witty shit.  Now I must go plan my brinner.  Yes, you read that right.  Breakfast for dinner is on the menu.

(hey, whaddya guys think of my semi-healthier, but still yummy dinners?)