Sparky

I love this story! It's about a deaf dog named Sparky. I'd read about him in People magazine this week and what this article doesn't say is that the breeders were thisclose to putting him to sleep because he's deaf. They figured he was no good to anyone and that no one would want him.

Then, he was adopted by a family that decided his "handicap" was to much to handle so they deposited him at a shelter.

From there he went to a prison in Licking Missouri (you can't make this stuff up!), where he was taught sign language.

Now he happily resides at a school for the deaf where the students love him and are teaching him more sign language. How cool is that?

Did I mention that I love this story? ;)

Happy Easter!

Good Stuff

It used to bother me when I didn't have all the ingredients for a recipe because I thought its success was based on making it exactly as the recipe called for. Now that doesn't bother me as much because I figure if the dish turns out bad, I can always make it again, following the recipe. If it's still bad, well, I don't make it again. :)

Anyway, the other day I decided to make Roasted Cauliflower and Rice Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. There were four ingredients that I didn't have.

1. white wine vinegar (I substituted brown rice vinegar)

2. ripe tomato (I substituted cherry tomatoes)

3. & 4. red bell pepper and celery (I substituted with steamed asparagus)

It still was delicious! I took a picture of it but blogger isn't cooperating with me posting it.

Oh, but a funny thing about it. The ingredients call for navy or other white beans. And then they aren't mentioned again . . . so they didn't get included in the dish. They weren't missed. Maybe I'll include them next time. :)

Last night I used the left over rice to make Rice Waffles with Vegetable Melange from The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. I've had this several times and really like it. My nephew was over and he was having it for the first time. He scraped the vegetables off of the waffle (after piling them on himself) and ate them first. Then he went in search of my maple syrup. He said he liked it all but prefers the waffles with syrup. (Again, I have a picture I can't post. *sigh*)

Today for lunch I wanted something fast and easy so I went for the Chickpea-Tomato Wraps from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. This was one of those situations where I ultimately found out that just because it doesn't look good doesn't mean it doesn't taste good. It called for sun-dried tomatoes. I've never eaten those before but I did happen to have some on hand. I didn't take a picture because I fully expected to not like it because the tomatoes, when cut up, made me think of meat that has been chewed and spit out. But the wraps were surprisingly good despite that. This was another recipe where you had to mash the beans and that was the hardest part of the preparation.

So there you go, three dishes and three winners! :)

Vegan Quesadillas

One of my new year's goals was to blog more. So far I'm not doing so good on that one. So, in an effort to jumpstart that goal, I've decided to do some blogging on foods I've discovered since becoming a vegan. I haven't totally worked out how I'll do it - whether or not I'll only discuss new recipes or if I'll discuss some I've already tried and liked. Most likely it'll be a little bit of both, seeing as how I've made roughly 100 new recipes in the last year and it'd be a shame not to discuss some of them. :)

Anyway, to today's new discovery . . . Refried Beans and Salsa Quesadillas.

Quesadillas was one of the few Mexican food dishes that I liked but I haven't had any since I became a vegan. Then a few weeks ago I bought a new cookbook (1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson) and it had several recipes for vegan quesadillas. The Refried Beans and Salsa Quesadillas looked to be the least complicated with the least amount of ingredients and the least amount of cooking steps so it's the one I picked.

I should mention that I somehow missed the "Refried" portion of the recipe name, not that it really matters since "refried" beans aren't a listed ingredient.

Anyway, I did a mental check of the list of ingredients and the only item I wasn't sure of was the salsa. There's a recipe for homemade salsa but I didn't have all the ingredients and it would be more work so I was going with store-bought salsa. I looked everywhere and didn't find it. So it was on my list when I went to the grocery store today. Since the list was in my head, it was the one thing I forgot to pick up at the store so I decided to make up my own recipe for salsa and I was digging through my pantry when I found a bottle of salsa in the back. I figured I was good. Right?

I have so many variations of beans in my pantry it's not funny. But do I have the pinto beans that the recipe calls for? Uh, no! So I substituted red kidney beans (because I had multiple cans of it) for the pinto beans.

Bottom line, I loved this dish. It was fast. It was easy (the hardest thing was mashing the beans!). It was delicious. Pinto beans might give it a different taste or texture (maybe?) but I can't imagine liking it any better than I did.

I give it two spoons up!

April Book Review

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Without going into a lot of detail, the past year has been such that I haven't done a lot of reading. That said, I decided to go a different way this month on the book review. My theme for this month is "Regardless of what life throws her, a girl's gotta eat" so I'm going to talk cookbooks. Over the years I've gotten a number of cookbooks but it wasn't until last year that I actually started using cookbooks to make meals from. There are a number of great ones out there but the one I'm going to talk about today is Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

I chose this one because of some special features it has that I've not seen in other cookbooks. For example, it tells you how long it will take to make each dish. Most cookbooks have the instructions, telling you how long each step takes but this book takes the math lesson out of the kitchen. ;)

Aside from that, the book also has icons with each recipe to help you know what to expect from this recipe. The icons include:

• A shopping cart indicating that the ingredients for the recipe can be found at any grocery store.



• 45 - indicating that the recipe takes 45 minutes or less to make



• F - indicating that the recipe is fat free (or at least lower fat)



• S - indicating the recipe is soy free



• G - indicating the recipe is gluten free

It was a while back but within a 24 hour time frame I learned of three people I knew of having an allergy to gluten. Every time I make one of the recipes indicating they're gluten free, I think of those people. Several of these recipes are staples in my diet! In any event, I like knowing what I'm getting into when I make a recipe and this book gives me more information than any other cookbook I've used. And the end result is pretty tasty too! I've made quite a few of the dishes and so far I haven't found one that I didn't like. Yes this is a vegan cookbook but I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand by meat-loving folks. It has a whole section of side-dishes that could nicely complement any main dish - meat or vegan. In my opinion, it's just a great cookbook that would be a great addition to anyone's library of cookbooks. :) I refer to it quite frequently when planning my menus and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys cooking.