Come For The Daring Bakers Challenge, Stay For Diann’s Soup!

This is my first skipped challenge. I hated to do it, but I decided to sit this one out, literally, because my broken foot has really slowed me down this month. I’ve been perfecting my “balance on one leg & stir” technique to make good on my prior baking commitments (ie: recipe testing for not-yet-published cookbooks for really groovy blogging friends), but trimming off some of the “extras” was deemed necessary.

You can bet your boots that I’ll be visiting my Daring Baker buddies to look at their lovely Caramel Cakes, (a recipe by Shauna Fish Lydon), and I bid you visit the Daring Bakers Blogroll to do the same! I would also like to thank this month’s trio of hosts: Jenny of Foray Into Food, Alex of Brownie and Blondie and Dolores of Culinary Curiosity. Choosing a challenge recipe, and spending time of the forums answering questions and double checking recipe details is a chunk of work and even if I didn’t make the cake this month, I will give it a shot at some point, so thanks for your hard work!

But wait, don’t run off just yet! I have something delicious to share with you!

Fit vegan super-mum and nurse Diann posted a recipe for Samosa Soup in the wake of a literal samosa take-over of the vegan blogosphere, and I decided that indeed, resistance *was* futile, and caved to the goodness. As many of you know, it’s always a treat when Diann posts a recipe, and I set to peeling and washing the veg, etc., humming as I went, happy to have a delicious and rather easy meal to prepare, Guppy and Monsieur Fish were listening to the new Cure album playing in the living room…life was good.

Samosa Stuffing Goodness with Baked Chickpea Cutlets

And then, as I was dumping the veg into my stock pot, it hit me that there really was an awful lot of potatoes and carrots and cauliflower and what the heck did I do?…?…? I again consulted the recipe, which was clear and easy to follow, and it hit me like a sack of potatoes, I was following the recipe, but rather than using pounds I was using kilos! So rather than 1lb of cauliflower, I had over 2, and same for the carrots, the potatoes, etc. Silly, silly Shellyfish. No matter, a bit of tweaking with the spices, some additional coconut milk and viola! It wasn’t so much soup anymore, more like Samosa Stuffing sans crust. It was fantastical (yes, my new favourite word) and we had it served over rice, along side the “Chickpea Cutlets” from VCON, and with crispy tofu. A delicious mistake which really helped me out because we had leftovers for a few days, which meant I didn’t need to prepare anything to eat!

Now go make yourself some of that soup! Measure carefully out there, kids!

Who’ll be paying it forward? Oh, and receiving handmade love from the Shellyfish?

While our friends in the United States are stuffing themselves with tofurkey, mashed taters & gravy and pumpkin pie & soy whipped cream, I’m here slaving over a hot Random Number Generator to pick the lovelies who’ll be getting a little love from me…what *wouldn’t* I do for you, my blogger buddies for whom I am so thankful?

I’m truly technologically impaired and cannot figure out how to do that groovy little save the image thing to show you the Random.ORG page, but I’ve already spent too much time trying, and it’s not happening…so here you go – a nice old fashioned copied list :

• 7
• 6
• 12
• 1
• 16

But who hides behind these numbers you ask?

Jeni Treehugger – Heathen Vegan

Tacha – Hanies

Natalia – Gatti Fili e Farina

Trina – Your Vegan Mom

Katie – Chocolate Covered Vegan

I know, I said I was only going to choose 3 people, but I’m so bad about just picking 3…even with the help of the cold, unfeeling website. Now I have to send 5 handmade gifts all over the world! But it’s ok, because I have 365 days to send them something! I don’t think I’ll wait an entire year…I’m hoping to craft something up in the first few months of 2009.

My little family’s celebration will be tomorrow… but if whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving today, or you did in October, or never – I am always thankful for you and your blogs that I look forward to reading every day!

On My Desk…

I really enjoy checking in with what I’m working on (or what I should be working on) at least once a week. Helps keep me “on task”. As a child “difficulty remaining on task” was often written in my academic file (yeah, that hasn’t so much changed).  I believe the pedagogues of the day failed to appreciate my multi-tasking nature…

Imagine my delight when I received this in the mail!

This is a rather fun and exciting project so I wanted to be sure to share with you! Tacha who bloggs at Hanies was looking for volunteers to test her new epattern, and I volunteered right away. She wields a needle with talent, and I have been devouring her posts on her various printing adventures (because I *so* want to take the plunge…but Santa needs to send me the screen printing kit!). And for you sporty-types out there, Tacha finished the NY Marathon in under 4 hours! So yeah, she’s cool.

Not only do I get to test her pattern, but she sent me everything I need to finish the project!

I’ll share the finished project soon! Maybe even by this weekend (let’s hope!).

Paying It Forward…

A few days ago the Vegan Activist & Texas Sweetheart Amanda hosted a rather seasonal giveaway & new blogging event, and lucky me, I get to participate! Amanda is going to mail a few little parcels of handmade love & I’ll be one of the fortunate recipients.

There are so many lovely giveaways in blogland, bloggers eagerly commenting and abuzz with the excitement of winning an unexpected gift, but that’s it. Someone wins, and then the generosity comes to a screeching halt and we go on with our lives. Nice, but lacking in momentum. This giveaway is a little different, however, because the “receivers” are also to become “givers”, if you will. In fact, that’s the most important rule of the game…

The rules are simple: I will send three people who leave a comment on this post a handmade gift within the next 365 days. I am willing to post anywhere in the world, so don’t let that stop you from commenting.

The catch is that you must have a blog and be willing to do the same thing….

The original rules stipulate that it’s to be the first three to leave comments are to win a little love, but I don’t so much like that because it makes it seem all “rush rush” and “hurry” and “let’s be in a race to be winners!”, and this isn’t about competition or running to beat anything or anyone, unless I am running a race, which as you all know I won’t be doing for a while…

I also think it would be appropriate for the “receivers” to post once they have received their bobble of handmade love to share the joy with the rest of us! Part of what I love about this event is it’s helping to keep our precious blogosphere a generous, giving place, and seeing all these handmade, “not sponsored by a major corporation” packages of love arriving all over the world will be a bright and happy thing in the sometimes gloomy world, don’t you think?

I’m going to close the comments on this post on Wednesday, November 26th at 6 p.m. (approx.) Paris time. Using the random number generator to chose new participants, I’ll post their names on Thursday, November 27th in celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States – Happy Holidays to my friends & family living in the U.S.! Please be sure to mention in your comment if you are indeed willing to “Pay It Forward”, and commit to choosing at least three peeps on your own blog to receive a little “happy mail”. Also be sure to include your blog’s URL & email in the comment information!

Hurray for giving & receiving!

The incredible disappearing meatlessballs & Shower me with awards why don’t you!

I’ve recently been the happy recipient of a blog award! Lucky me!

Jessica of Awesome. Vegan. Rad. and River of Wing It Vegan fame have both honored me with The Butterfly Award. I think both of these rather groovy chicas are the bee’s knees and always look forward to the amazing goodness on their blogs (like River’s donuts & Jessica’s brinner. Excuse me while I feel sorry for myself because I don’t have some of that deliciousness happening on my dinner table right now). Thank you both, because you make me feel all special and loved, and darn it, that’s cool!

Can I just say that I find this award hilarious because of its grammatical ineptitude? I’m serious. I love that it’s a bit whimsical yet silly, rather sweet yet imperfect. Reminds me a little bit of myself! I’m supposed to pass this on, but I’m not terribly good at such things, so here’s the deal – if you’re on my blogroll (see link love above) you are thusly nominated. I believe I’m to pass this on to 10 people, which means that I am nominating far too many people, but I have issues with a) maths, and b) rules. The thing is, if you’re on the roll, I totally dig you, so it’s sincere – and that being said, I lost many links during the re-design so please don’t hesitate to drop me an email or message if you notice yours is missing!

Now for those meatlessballs! A few weeks ago now the superadorablesweet Jessy of Happyveganface posted Dan’s Greenrice & Tempeh Meatlessballs. ( I’ll try to not make any sophomoric jokes, but it’s not easy.) As with many of Jessy’s recipes, it sounded like it should be made post-haste, and my friends, it was. These tempeh boulettes (meatballs) are really amazing – I was out of tahini when I made them so I subbed aprox. 2 tablespoons gluten flour to give them some grip, and it worked beautifully. These were so good that we were rather disappointed to not have another package of tempeh in the fridge to make some more the following day!

But no picture? What’s up with that? Well, I’ll tell you…Monsieur Fish rarely uses the camera, but he did, and luckily I had only a few pictures on it because he accidentally erased them all. I wasn’t going to blog about a meal sans photo, but this meal is really worth mentioning! You’ll get some eye candy when you go to Jessy’s blog for the recipe!

On My Desk…

On my desk today…some holiday cheer. Oh, and my desk is also my sofa, because that’s where I’ve got my silly leg propped up.

I’ve got these almost finished upish. I’m trying to make enough ornaments to send to family & friends this year. These are so basic it’s a hair embarrassing, but here’s my ancient Chinese secret : just trace the inside of a star-shaped cookie or sandwich cutter, round the edges if you like. Me, I like. Give them a sophisticated (ahem) 2-dimensional look by whip stitching two stars together with some polyfill in the middle.

I know. Just call me Ms. Stewart.

Other players

I’ll test your cookies, baby.

The alternate title for this post was “You say pain killers, I say cookies.”

I couldn’t decide.

Probably because of the pain killers. Ha!

I may be down, but I’m not out of the kitchen, and I have been bakin’ up a little love courtesy of two of the sassiest, snappiest and most seductive ladies of the net…Celine and Joni.

Running the Paris Marathon might not happen (just yet), but I am embarking on a marathon of recipe testing for their upcoming collaborative cookbook project. Uh huh. You may now officially begin drooling my friends.

Chewy Ginger Cookies

Guppy & I had a little collaborative effort of our own in the kitchen – this of course would explain the purple sprinkles. These have become my new favourite ginger cookie ever! I wuv these cookies, and so did Guppy. We ate them all (there weren’t too many, honest!). Don’t tell Monsieur F we made them, K? He’ll never know…

But don’t you go feeling all sorry for M. Fish on me, because he got to go crazy with these :

Toasted Pine Nut & Chive Soda Rolls

There is a magical recipe for soda rolls that is going to make you think that Celine invented the wheel or something. Which she did. Didn’t she? This recipe is as flexible as a poll dancer kids – I opted for the toasted pine nuts & chives because I thought they would go nicely with the “lets put all the left-over veg and pasta in a big pot with some veg stock and call it soup” I was making. And they did. In fact, they were so classy and sophisticated (yet refreshingly down to earth, like me! Ha!) no one really paid much mind to the tasty yet strange looking soup in their bowls. Right on.

More test recipes to come my hungry friends.

Wanna Sign My Cast?

My little piggies, in all their swollen glory.

What did you do this morning? Me, I went to see the Orthopedic Specialist Dude who told me what nearly every medical professional has told me for as long as I can remember, “You know, this is really rather unique…”. At this point they generally go on to explain to me how I have extra tendons or ligaments or bones (all true) or how what happened isn’t possible (yet it is) or how they’ve never seen anything quite like whatever it is that’s wrong with me. Happen to you, too? I *so* believe you.

The “unique” thing about my accidented foot is that given the way I fell, I “shouldn’t” have the injuries I have. Ha! Tell that to the foot & ankle, people! In fact, “it’s really impossible, or I guess improbable” quoth Dr. Orhto Dude. I love doctors – and they love me, because I’m FUN! That being said, he re-confirmed that I managed to blow the three main ligaments on the lateral side of my foot, which came as no surprise, but the big news was that I also managed to break a bone!

I don’t mess around, people.

While the preliminary x-rays were cleared by the radiologist last Thursday, Mr. Ortho Dude took one look at them, pressed down on a spot on my foot that made me say all sorts of bad words (on the inside) and informed me that I broke my calcanius – not all of it thankfully, but the part that articulates with the rest of the world – turned it into a bit of an anti-social piece of rif-raff no longer interested in maintaining a healthy relationship with the rest of the gang.

You know when you really want to be wrong? I knew something was broken. In fact, it was the first thing I said to the paramedics when they asked me what happened. I could tell. I felt it friggin’ snap. Bugger. I would have loved to have been wrong about that one.

But what does this all mean? When can I go back to running and jumping and leaping tall buildings, etc.? Well, the cast is on for 4 weeks. Then we’ll see after the x-rays. In December. You know, far, far from now. Like almost in 2009. Bugger.

If I must be casted, let’s at least have some fun with it, right?

Non-sporty Monsieur Fish has a very dry sense of humor.

Guppy signed when she came home from school at lunch. “L” is the first letter of her name, the picture on the left is of our accident, and the one on the right is of a jellyfish (she is drawing jellyfish like nobody’s business) but drawing on these resin casts isn’t easy, so she crossed it out because she thought it wasn’t pretty. I told her she could try again later. I’m cool with that.

My goals as of right now are not to gain 5Kg over the next two months and to try to do as much as I can (ab work, free weights, etc.) in the mean time. Must shake off the “eat more cookies and you’ll feel better” blues.

If I knew how to knit, I’d make myself some little toe warmers. Burr.

I’ve got some yummy food to share with you tomorrow. Don’t worry, this hasn’t become “Musings From The Footbowl”. Promise.

Also a huge & gigantic thanks for all the love. It really makes a big difference, believe it or not.

a rather injuredfish…

I’ve been vacillating between feeling sorry for myself, and feeling horribly embarrassed about feeling sorry for myself. I’m hoping that blogging about this with have a cathartic effect on me. I also know I’m going to regret publishing pictures where I look like such a Grinch, but I felt like I needed to take them.

Guppy and I were in a bit of a bicycle accident. Thankfully she is a-o.k. Not a scratch. Thank you, child-protective helmet.

Me? Not so much. I am so grateful that it wasn’t worse (we were very lucky according to witnesses) and for all the amazing people who just appeared out of nowhere to help us…especially to reassure Guppy, because I was stretched out on the sidewalk, and though I tried to reassure her and tell her it was going to be ok, I was in some horrible pain. I also went into shock and nearly passed out, so thank you so much amazing recycling guys who stopped your truck and called the ambulance and took care of my bicycle, and to the kind motorist who wrapped me up in the fleece blanket and called my husband, and especially thanks to the super-nice woman who held Guppy’s hand and engaged her in conversation, listening patiently as Guppy told her all about the new shoes she was wearing.

Preliminary x-rays are suggesting my foot/ankle isn’t broken, but the orthopedic surgeon I’m seeing again Monday wants more x-rays to be sure. When I was 14 I blew the 3 major ligaments in my foot after a bad ballet landing…and this is all rather déjà vu-ish. The small handful of you who read my training blog know how excited I’ve been about training for the Paris Marathon in April…and I do mention my SportyFishness here from time to time. I am super-freaking out, in a horrible woe-is-me way, and I’m embarrassed about it. I am 100% dependant on Monsieur Fish (who could frankly use some lessons in cheering up & caring for those he loves, usually the roles are reversed, so maybe it’s a practice issue?) and I loathe not being able to do things myself.

I also had to kiss going to the Salon Marie Claire today good-bye, and I was so very really terribly looking forward to going since I reserved my spot for the workshop I was to take back in July. No goodie bag. No fabric samples. No giveaways. Snif. Snif.

But back to feeling terrible about feeling so sorry for myself. I totally need to get over it – I mean, people freaking loose their feet after accidents! I could have been so much worse off, not to mention the fact that Guppy was fine which is no minor miracle. I know I need to get over myself, but damn this is really, really hard. I usually run upwards of 40 miles/week, ride my bike everywhere, and weight train oh, and practice yoga. My big workout today was going from the couch to the bathroom. My butt hurts from sitting so much for pete’s sake!

Ok, I’ll sit back and wait for the heal effects of “getting it off my chest” to take action. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Memes, An Award & Some Lovely Giveaways

Check out these beautiful giveaways!

The marvelously talented Hanna is giving away a Collage Pack, filled with beautiful vintage pages from Sweden. Hanna’s blog is so inspiring, I can hardly keep myself from stopping everything and art journaling  (or I guess I should say beginning an art journal) whenever I read what she and her crafty mum have been up to! Visit her Etsy shoppe if you want some fantastic gift ideas (I love everything!). All you have to do is head over there and leave her a comment! Easy Peasy!

Modish is having a gihugic (totally a word) giveaway, too! Same thing kids, just go over and leave a comment! How easy is that? I am drooling over this stuff!

And you can try your luck over at Old Red Barn where you could win yourself one of three gorgeous quilts! Just what we need to keep us warm and to throw over the un-made bed to hide the mess!

Look what the lovely Miss Marie gave me :

This is my second Brilliante Award, so does this mean I’m extra-brillante? (I think they make cremes for that…).

I’ve recently been tagged for two fun memes by Allularpunk and HoneyB. I am here to say that I will not flake on these memes – and you my dear readers will hold me accountable! I will get to them pronto!

And yes, I have again changed my blog’s look. I’m having a bit of an identity crisis I think. I wish I was all HTML savvy and could just create my own look! Can’t I just embroider one? Tee hee.