Christina’s Tofu-Noodle Bake

Healthy comfort food! Casseroles and one-pot meals rock when you are in a hurry but want to resist the urge to cave and get take-out. The convenience of just mixing random ingredients in a pot or pan or whatever and tossing it (gently) in the oven is not to be over-looked. When you can manage to use healthy ingredients in said pan, well, bravo to you!

I was really curious about Macrobiotics about a year ago. I was aware of its existence and knew vaguely what it was all about, but I started digging around on the net and invested in a few books to find out for myself. I think there is a great deal that I can glean from the philosophy behind Macrobiotics, though a hard-core Macro lifestyle doesn’t really work for me. What does work for me is eating whole (locally-grown) foods whenever possible and avoiding processed and pre-packaged fare.

One of the Macro cookbooks I picked up along the way is Christina Pirello’s Cooking the Whole Foods Way- and I love it. This book is extremely user-friendly, and with 500 vegan recipes- has lots to offer everyone, Macrobiotic or not. There are some ingredients which may seem unfamiliar to some such as mochi or umeboshi paste (pictured above), but she’s got a great glossary section explaining everything, and really, many of the recipes can be made with substitutions.

This noodle bake is very, very easy to make, and I have added and substituted various veggies depending on what I had on hand. It’s rich and creamy and comforting, and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy (in a good way). The mochi, a sort of pounded sweet brown rice cake, and thinly sliced on top it becomes very melty and cheese-like and adds a richness to the casserole, but it is also very good without it, so don’t let that hold you back!

Tofu-Noodle Bake, adapted from Cooking The Whole Foods Way by Christina Pirello:

• package firm tofu, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon white miso (I use more like a tablespoon)
• 1 teaspoon umeboshi paste
• 3 tablespoons tahini (you may want to use a little more)
• 1 teaspoon brown rice syrup (I use more like a tablespoon. Agave works, too.)
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce (again, I use more, it’s to your taste, really)
• 4 to 6 tablespoons water
• 2 cups cooked small noodles (use whole-wheat, for your health! Then you can splurge on cookies or cupcakes or something for dessert…balance, baby, balance!)
• 2 shallots, diced (I skip this)
• 1 carrot, diced (I use at least 2, usually more)
• 1 stalk broccoli (including stem), diced
• 4oz package brown rice mochi, very thinly sliced

I add to that 1 diced onion, a cup of frozen peas or green beans, courgette slices, whatevah.

Oven heated to about 400F/200C, put the tofu, miso, umeboshi paste, tahini, rice syrup, soy sauce and water in food processor and add enough water so you have a creamy paste.

Toss noodles and veggies together and add the paste, being sure that everything is coated nicely. If you’re skipping the mochi, just cover and pop in oven for around 40 minutes or so, taking off cover (foil works well here) for last maybe 10 mins so it’s a bit crunchy on the top.

If you’re going mochi here, just cover the casserole with the mochi and lightly sprinkle with water, then cover with foil being careful it’s not touching the top because it will stick and you’ll be sad. Check after about 40 minutes and if the mochi isn’t melted add a little more water and put it back in for another 5. If it’s still not melted you probably didn’t slice it thin enough, but it’s not the end of the world, you can probably still enjoy it.

With a little pepper sprinkled on top it is almost as good as the mac & cheese casserole I loved growing up as a kid. It’s very good with just a simple green salad, but, I doubt I need to tell you what to eat with it!

 

Iron – Woman & Chickpea Tabouleh

I have been doing a bit of lurking to see what my fellow vegan athletes (and wanna be athletes like yours truly) are eating to fuel their workouts. The protein isn’t so difficult to get, even though heavy exercisers – whatever that means – need a bit more, my problem area is more in the iron department. I am just one of those people who has a difficult time ironing up, and since I’m moving towards 40 miles a week I need to be careful to make every nutrient-packed calorie count (er, yeah, my twinkiesque cupcakes were loaded with iron, I know). Zipping around the blogosphere a bit back I happened upon a fabulous blog by Veg*Triathlete. Jen the Veg*Triathlete generously shares gorgeous pics of her menus in her Fuel section, and I enjoyed snooping around for some new ideas. And behold…

safsouf or chickpea tabouleh

I think because it’s so chilly outside I’m thinking more hot-meals and I tend to forget how refreshing it can be to have a ‘cold’ salad. I’m a huge fan of taboulehs, making tons of variations depending on what I have on hand or in the fridge, but I tend to make them much more in the summer months when I can just toss everything in a bowl in the morning and have it be fresh, perfect and chilled by evening when I take it out. I boiled up the beans when out for my run, then tossed it all together and forgot about it until lunchtime. So good. I am a garlic fiend, so I added four cloves of the raw stuff, and I also added raisins for a little extra zam (this also keeps the vampires away, the garlic that is, not the raisins).

So thanks Jen for the inspiration!

And in a 30 Days of Yoga update, we’re cruising to day 10. I wish I could say my calves were loosening up nicely… I think because I generally manage to squeeze in about three or four yoga sessions a week I’m not seeing a huge difference yet. Patients, grasshopper. Patients.

 

Whatever happened to Sunday Dinners? Lentil Casserole & “Wanna Be” Twinkiesque Cupcakes

Ever since drooling over Jennifer McCann’s veganized Twinkie(r) recipe, I have been able to think of nothing else (sorry, just had to laugh at the absurdity of that sentence- can you imagine only thinking about spongecake & creme filling? No dwelling on worrying about stressing over thinking about things like paying the bills, what to feed your 2 year-old, grading papers for students who really don’t care anyway, your checking account’s current negative balance, et all.) Let’s say that the vegan Twinkies(r) have been on my mind. A lot.

I went to a few stores in town and none of them carried anything even close to the cakelette tins one needs to build the perfect vegan Twinkie(r). While ordering them on-line is a possibility, the shipping is more than the tins…so, I surrendered to the idea of just making cupcakes, but that is so not the same thing.

 

The other little snag in my devious plot for vegan Twinkie(r) perfection was that the recipe for the creme filling calls for barley malt powder. Now, if you think finding the cakelette tins is a problem here, you can forget about finding something as obscure as barley malt powder.

Not prepared to renounce a chance at tasting the sweet nostalgia of my youth, I decided to improvise (as usual) and used the “Fluffy White Icing” recipe from Vegan With A Vengeance. I’ve made Isa’s (Can I call you Isa? I think I can. Or would you prefer Ms. Isa? How about Vegan Cupcake Goddess?) “Fauxstess Cupcakes” before (they are délicioso), though I’d not gone the extra caloric-mile with the cream filling. It was a mile well worth taking, because it was perfect. The recipe calls for non-hydrogenated shortening which is also impossible to find in ma ville, but doubling up on the non-hydrogenated margarine worked perfectly much to my delight!

The Twinkie-cupcake experience was all rather exciting for me as I’d never used a pastry bag to fill anything before- how fun! I actually exploded a few cupcakes in the process (which was also kinda fun), but it was no problem, I just decided to cover up the damage with some swirly-cream! (I felt so Martha Stewart).

 

Before…

after!

Mr. Fish had never before tasted the goodness that we call Twinkie(r), and he was converted instantly. I’d planned on bringing some to work with me today to make up for the Valentine’s cupcakes which never made it…and he persuaded me that it was better to keep them here, with us. For Us.

I was so busy being productive yesterday with the cupcakes and my long run and putting the finishing touches on my Pointy Kitty (which I’ll blog more on later), that the dinner part of Sunday just sort of slipped away from me.

Being that it’s the end of the month (we’re paid monthly here in France) and the cupboards are beginning to be a wee bit bare, and I was rather short on time (and energy, licking all that cream filling off my fingers was exhausting!), I wanted to find a nutritious and delicious casserole recipe, but where? how? Who would help me through this dilemma?

Didn’t actually get a photo of the casserole, so here’s another cupcake!

Casseroles make me think of the 1950’s, which make me think retro, which logically make me think of looking in a Sarah Kramer cookbook. Makes sense, right? See, here’s the deal, I have a love/hate relationship with La Dolce Vegan!. You know, like the colleague you seem to always be sort of harping about, so much so that someone finally tells you “hey, you have a crush on them!”- Ha! and all the incredulous “No I don’t, whatever!”s in the world can’t change the fact that you spend an awful lot of time talking about said person.

 

That’s me. I totally think Kramer is a righteous fish and her books are hip, but I just can’t figure out how to effectively use LDV. I can’t find things easily. Take yesterday for example. I wanted I casserole recipe, so I look under casseroles in the index. I find just a few. Nothing that would work with my kitchen stock. I continue to flip through and accidentally happen upon “Wendy’s Lentil & Brown Rice Casserole” (which was not with the casseroles, go figure). Cool. I put down book, the Guppy picks up book and starts reading it and of course page is lost. I can’t find it. I know C for casserole won’t help, I then look under W for Wendy but that doesn’t work… luckily for me I found it under “lentils” because it was yummy. I amped up the spices adding more basil and oregano, adding turmeric, cumin, crushed red pepper flakes, and four carrots. Very tasty, very easy. One pot meals rule! Yes you have to take it out to stir a few times, but since I had dishes to do and papers to grade at the kitchen table, it wasn’t terribly difficult.

I would like to say we enjoyed the casserole with a fresh, green salad with mustard vinaigrette (that was the plan) and homemade rolls (also the plan), but we were so full from noshing on the cupcakes that, well, we just left those out.

Sundays = The Long Run

Here are some beautiful moments from this morning’s run through the forest. It was still pretty darn cold when I took off, so there was some cool-looking misty-fog, which made me feel all daring and fearless, how cool is that?

The forest where I run is the largest in France (so say the locals, anyway). If you’ve ever seen a French movie with a woodsy-forest scene in it, it was probably filmed here.

There are also these fabulous rocky outcroppings which are amazing. In addition to the outcroppings, there are wild boar, and they freak me out a little (let us just say I have a very healthy respect for them after an unplanned encounter with them last year). I have no pictures of them, because unlike me, they are not vegan, and while they rightfully don’t appreciate we humans invading their turf, I don’t want them taking out their angst on little ‘ole moi.

A Joy Division Moment…

Last night Mr. Fish and I watched Anton Corbijn’s 2007 film Control which recounts the rise and fall of Ian Curtis of Joy Division (one of my favorite post-punk bands). We both found Corbijn’s film to be somber and sophisticated, the stark beauty of the black and white images accompanied by a poignant screen play, beautiful in its simplicity- light and airy, not weighed down by unending dialogues and wordy diatribes, in contrast to the weight of the events themselves: the perfect illustration of the dichotomies Curtis seemed unable to make peace with.

So, enough of my babbling, enjoy two great Joy Division songs!

Attack of the Killer-Tasting Veggie Burgers & Dangerously-Delicious Buns!

Have you ever noticed the sometimes bizarre feeling of ‘oneness’ out there in our little universe? For example, you look for a VW Bug as you cruise through town, and then you notice them all over.

There suddenly seems to be many more Bugs than you had imagined.

Huh… (imagine Twilight Zone theme music here) if they were to organize, I mean, communicate amongst themselves and, I don’t know, find a strong leader they could car-rally behind, well, yikes! they could take over the roads, the planet even! Dum-dah-dum-dum…

I began having this eerie feeling about a week ago. I felt a hankerin’ for a veggie/soy burger, with mustard and pickles and onions and homemade ketchup- the works! We have grain/soy/veg-type patties that can be purchased here in my little French village, but they sure aren’t cheap, and let’s face it, pre-packaged vegan foods (like all prepared foods) are often health food’s version of junk food with lots of things rather difficult to pronounce on the ingredient list. Homemade is better, but I sheepishly admit to you that while I have tempted many a recipe, I had never made Meatless-Macs myself.

Until now…

Since I was in the mood for some veggie burger goodness, I was probably more aware of all the veggie burgerness out there, but still, it seems to be everywhere lately. I went to visit One Frugal Foodie for the first time, and she not only has a fab blog, but also has a mouth-watering picture and recipe to propose. While zipping around Susan V’s excellent choice of veggie burger recipes at Fat Free Vegan I oogled her Veggie-Oat Burger (among other choices!), even this week’s Meatout Mondays recipe is entited “Nuts about Burgers”! (If your’re not familiar with the Meatout campaign, a branch of FARM- the Farm Animal Reform Movement, you should check out all the good stuff they do, and sign up for their weekly newsletter Meatout Monday’s). Giving in to the obvious galactic command, I realized that “Resistance is Futile” and began flipping through my cook books to see what I could chose from. Difficult to decide, but in the end the winners were the “Soyburgers” from the perennial classic The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook which is just so killer-great (both the book and the burgers).

Sorting & admiring the beans.

The New Farm recipe won out because it seemed the fastest and easiest among my cook book recipe contenders. Soybeans, oat-flakes, spices, onion, optional pepper (we chose red), etc. Nothing too crazy, but oh-so good. I amped up the spices adding cumin and lots of garlic powder, and also added a little wheat germ to the mix and rolled the pre-patties in germ to make them easier to handle. The soy mixture was delicious even before being fried up- tasted like a bean dip- and the Guppy & I enjoyed dipping apple slices in the little bit that was left in the mixing bowl.

We couldn’t put such delicious burgers on just anything, we needed the most delicious buns ever, and boy did we find the recipe for the job! Once again, The New Farm in hand, the Guppy and I whipped up some “Soft Sandwhich Buns” that were, honestly, the best roll-biscuit-bun thing I’ve ever baked up. A bit of minimal waiting (a total of 40 minutes from beginning to end before putting them in the oven for a mere 20 minutes) these buns were delightful.

 

The Guppy, kneader extraordinaire!

Much to my dismay the Guppy poured in some extra sugar as we were mixing the ingredients- a couple of teaspoons maybe- but it turned out to be just enough so that when former fast-food junkie Mr. Fish tasted one he gave me what was possibly the kindest of comments he could have conjured up, “This is better than Macdo!”. Merci, mon amour.

 

An Om Moment… and some Vegan Fudge, too!

30 Days of Yoga: Day 3

Today is the first time I’ve done yoga with the Guppy. When she was a wee little fish she would sometimes watch me, but we had never shared the mat before.

An interesting experience.

It was perhaps not the most classically zen moment, but she was thrilled to be sharing this moment with me, and our 20 minutes of oneness were probably more intrinsically zen than I know.

(That being said, I do hope to be doing solo yoga tomorrow.)

Another way that many folks get their zen on is from some form of chocolate, like, say for example some delicious (and far easier to make than maintaining good alignment in down-dog with a 2 year-old swinging from your hips) Vegan Fudge! (Trust me, the fudge is wonderful, the exact opposite of the quality of this photo…)

 

If you’ve not yet been to Shmooed Food, the fantastic blog by Jennifer McCann, author of the famed Vegan Lunchbox (which I would so love to get a copy of!), well, you’re missing out on one of the greatest Vegan Foodie blogs out there. Tons of great recipes & fab pictures (unlike the blurry mess of fudge above…go check out the recipe & the picture).

The fudge was very quick to make and rated high on the yummy factor. Mine was a bit slushy and didn’t really harden (which didn’t keep anyone in the Fish household from partaking), but I didn’t add any vegan marshmallows, and I think that would have helped gel things up nicely.

While wasting time and not getting things done scouring the Shmooed Food blog, I was drooling over her Vegan Twinkie recipe, and I just don’t think it’s possible to tell you how much I enjoy devouring inhaling eating Twinkies. This is something I just have to try. I’ll keep you posted…

30 Days of Yoga! Because Yoga Is Like Chocolate For The Soul…

I’m sooo excited about all the super-creative stuff I’m going to be working on this year. I’ve got a mini-mountain of projects just aching to move from the “can’t wait to do this” pile to the more active “look what I’m doing” pile. Changing my focus this time around, I decided to opt for very different (for me) resolutions this year: learning to knit & crochet (there were two others, but they are personal, but really, not exciting, so don’t feel left out!).

For those who know me, it probably seems rather odd for me to be seemingly so excited about such –gasp!– domestic-y sorts of things, but it is my mission to constantly keep the world guessing about my true identity.

I spread all my crafty goodies on my bed during the Guppy’s nap today to try to decide what to do. I had almost half of a pathetically-basic beginner’s scarf done, but learned a beginning knitter’s lesson the hard way: keep all projects well hidden from curious 2 year-olds. I came home from teaching and Mr. Fish was trying desperately to fix the damage, which was super-cute, but futile. Helas. My incredibly gifted in the knitting and crochet department is coming for a yet-to-be-determined-when visit, and I can’t wait to learn from a human and not try to decipher cryptic instructions from books and the net.

Now, you read the above and well, I sound pretty chipper, don’t I? In reality I’m feeling a bit deflated. When my alarm went off today for my run I got up, walked to make an espresso, turned on the machine, and then just walked back to bed, tail between my legs (and the worst part is I didn’t even feel more rested when the alarm went off two hours later!). Who stole my mojo? Où se trouve mon zen? And while we’re at it, let’s look for that generally-over-abundant energy, please.

I run about 30 miles a week, which to most avid runners isn’t huge, but what I really dig about running is its subjectivity. It’s personal. Your PR is *yours*, no one else’s, and only you know where you started from, how much work you put in, and how much you’ve gained (well, unless you’re a competitive athlete and that’s different). In order to maintain my running habit I have to get up early (between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m.), which is also about perspective, but for me it’s really ugly early, and since I sometimes don’t get to bed until after 11 p.m. (like the midnight last night), the morning can be tough. This doesn’t usually bother me for more than my initial 15 minutes of waking up, and once I’m dressed & out the door I’m feeling good.

But not today.

I’m really in an energy funk, and I know we are all feeling some version of cabin fever, but it’s really getting me down. Getting up and running to beat the sunrise is one thing. Running in freezing temps with rain pelting you is another. Rain is my friend, but I need some zesty sunny energy goodness!!

Yoga is also my friend, and I try to hit the mat at least four times a week, though sometimes it’s more like two or three. For me, yoga is necessary- without it I can’t run, my lower extremities being a bit damaged from so many years of dance, but it’s not just about keeping my soleus from snapping like a ratty old window blind.

Yoga is like chocolate for the soul. You feel all yummy and warm and sweet when you’re done, and I think that’s what I need. It’s what we all need! So here we go, it’s the “let’s get February over with and out the door 30 days of yoga challenge”. I officially started on Monday, so this is day two for me. The rules are simple, for a day to qualify there must be a minimum of 10 minutes of structured yoga. I think if I can stick to it, it might help me find my fleeting mojo, or at least to concentrate on something other than the cold temps when my alarm goes off in the morning…I’ll keep you posted.

“Whatever happened to Sunday Dinners?” featuring tempeh, veggies and dessert!

In our continuing series “Whatever happened to Sunday Dinners?” I would like to propose:

• Barbequed Tempeh from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook
• Chickpea Broccoli Casserole from Vegan With A Vengeance
• Gâteau au “fromage” à l’orange & aux amandes (orange & almond tofu “fromage” cheese cake) a Shellyfish original.

If you’re hungry, scroll down, this is a little long…

Being a vegan isn’t always easy. Dealing with an oft-misinformed public, tricky labeling, well-meaning but misguided friends and family members choosing sometimes radically inappropriate moments* to re-vegan-hash the “So why don’t you eat meat again?” question, stern-faced teachers and daycare personnel, incredulous about the lack of animal protein in your child’s diet…and so many other examples. I became a vegetarian over 18 years ago, and I was very lucky to have a supportive omnivore family, and then I moved to the other end of the United States and was living in an extremely veg-friendly city with great veg-friendly businesses, bakeries, groceries and restaurants. While I very, very rarely did anything resembling “cooking” or “baking”, I always had veg-friendly things to eat at my apartment, but I admit to very often eating out or getting take-out, and was generally a very lazy veg who was lacto-ovo much of the time.

It’s not the same life anymore for the Shellyfish, and I find myself spending more and more time in the kitchen. I used to cringe when I would imagine the “TMF” (typical married female) living somewhere between her laundry room and her kitchen, waiting on her husband and kids… (this reductionist view may well explain my former fear of commitment syndrome). I’ve evolved, and while some chicas are sadly uber-oppressed, I’m happy (most of the time) being a part-time stay-at-home mom, and I have discovered a new passion these past few years: spending time in the kitchen!

With the plethora of vegan cookbooks on the market and the growing numbers of vegan recipes on-line, it’s rather easy to find cruelty-free delicious things to prepare. While I am still in a far from veg-friendly French town, we have three, count ’em, three health-food stores where I can find (expensive) tofu and other “oddities”, and when I lived in the area summer of 2004, there was much less choice to be had. It’s exciting to see things changing! While newly pregnant during Fall of 2004 (and home-bound and hungry!), I ordered a copy of The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook edited by Louise Hagler and Dorothy R. Bates at the suggestion of a friend brought up in a veg-household (and whose mom is a mid-wife). This cookbook is so amazing! I rarely see it cited on the veg-blogosphere, and it’s dommage because it is really one of the most complete, basic vegan bibles out there. It explains DIY tofu, tempeh, yuba, gluten/seitan, you name it. The other great thing about this book is that it doesn’t call for specific hard-to-find brand-names, most everything is findable for a country mouse or a city mouse. I admit NFVC isn’t as hip or sexy as the newer, glossy books available. This book is from the mid-70s (just like me!), and it’s retro without trying to be. Get this book. You will not regret it. Well, maybe you will, but I think you’ll really like it.

Enough babble, on with our Sunday Dinner menu!

Until yesterday I’d never made my own BBQ sauce. There is a snappy recipe in the NFVC that you let simmer for an hour, and it is tangy and sassy and all those great BBQ adjectives rolled into one. Get your sauce going, then start your gâteau au fromage. I adapted this recipe from the basic Tofu Cheesecake recipe in NFVC, and have never regretted it. I’ve got another variation with maple syrup & pecans, but that’s for another day…

• GATEAU AU “fromage” À L’ORANGE ET AUX AMANDES
• 500g/about 1lb medium tofu (just pat dry, don’t press)
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup veg. oil of choice
• 1 cup organic sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 tablespoon orange essence/orange water (different brands call it different things)
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• shaved almonds, orange slices, raspberry coulis for garnish

Break up the tofu, and add all ingredients together in a food processor or blender and whip until creamy and smooth. If things are a bit grainy, mix some more, adding a hair of orange juice if it’s too thick. Pour into your crust of choice and bake at 350f for about 45 minutes or until it hardly jiggles in the middle. Let cool completely before trying to cut it!

While your gâteau is cooking and your BBQ sauce is simmering, you can set to work on the “Chickpea Broccoli Casserole” from VWAV. I’d never made it before, and I learned the hard way that you can’t always do with a “stiff fork” what you can do with a potato masher. After getting nowhere with my fourchette, I decided to squish my chickpeas with my bare hands (I’m a brute).

Once you get your casserole in the oven, just deep-fry your tempeh, and pour a little of your now-finished sauce in the bottom of a baking dish, add your blotted tempeh, then bake for about 15 minutes at around 350f.

Everything was so super delicious! Mr. Fish was a little afraid of the casserole because it looked so “healthy”, but once he tasted it (and covered it with BBQ sauce) everything was fine. The Guppy devoured her gâteau au fauxmage, but the BBQ sauce was a little too much for her.

*like at the dinner table when they are about to wolf-down a fork-full of dead animal…I usually say, “I don’t think this is an appropriate time to talk about this.” or something similar, they push, I begin discussing slaughter-house strategies, etc., and inevitably someone at the table is horribly offended and gets all ‘radical vegan’ on me…

Valentines for my Valentines : Late Love Is Better Than No Love, Right?

Here they are, the hand-made valentines I’ve been working on since early January (I started them on my birthday, actually). As mentioned in my previous post I don’t have much sewing or craft experience, so for the nimble-fingered, 13 felt and bead hearts don’t seem like a much of a feat, and I admit that doing them wasn’t difficult, but when I compare the first few hearts with the last few, the difference in the stitching is huge! When ever I had a few free minutes (my copious free-time is far from limitless, but you can always make time when you really want to do something, right?) I would add a few beads or cut out some hearts.

My goal was to get them finished before Valentine’s Day, and I did indeed manage that- I put the final touches on the last heart the morning of the 11th, but getting them into envelopes and in the mail, well, that just happened today.

Sending them regular mail, they should get to the States before Saint Patrick’s Day…

So here they are, and there they go. They are on their way to Michigan and to Arizona to remind the ones I love that I miss them so and that they are always in my heart. My poor belle-mère, my mother-in-law, had a heart attack two weeks before Valentine’s Day, so she got her felt heart early. She is recovering very well for her 75 years, and she had her felt heart hanging next to her bed in the CCU at the hospital. A healthy heart is what I wish for everyone this year. And lots of love, too!