Saturday, February 26, 2011

Re-emergence!

So, life got the better of me, and I haven't been good about writing. But, take two...


I definitely have the winter doldrums. I couldn't walk to work at all in February, and only twice in January---so much for saving the planet that way. And, March marks my student teaching, so I will have to drive there as well. BUT, spring is just around the corner, and so I plan to make new strides. Between walking to school and training for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (My Avon Walk page), I plan to hang up my keys as soon as the weather gets better. In the meantime, I have been sorting and saving plastic, aluminum, etc. in hopes of learning where I can recycle them.


Found another vegan gem. Trader Joe's Vegetable Gyozas in the frozen food section are incredibly yummy! Get or make a dipping sauce for them. They are really easy to cook and all my non-vegan party guests really enjoyed them. Bummer: Cupcake wine that was previously listed on Barnivore.com as vegan is now listed as non-vegan. But, Fish Eye is vegan and I tried the white, and it was pretty good. And lastly, I made two recipes that came out terrific. The first was pancakes:


http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5138.0


The first time I made it, I used almond milk and they were good, the second time I made them I used soy milk, and they were terrific! I cut the recipe in half, don't know if that makes a difference.


I also used a modified Tollhouse cookie recipe:


http://www.idausa.org/vegandays/comp_cook.html



I used Trader Joe's chocolate chips, Earth Balance butter, Ener-G egg replacer. These came out great and were very addictive!


Today I broke out the calendar to start plotting potential plant dates on it. And I am happy to say, gardening season is just around the corner. Happily, some of the snow has melted so that I can actually see the fence around the garden and the tips of the raspberry plants. Most of the raised beds are still buried and I can't see the blueberries, but hopefully, the weather is turning around. This year I am going to start a lot of things inside because I think they could have used a longer growing season. (I will let you know how this works out since it is opposite of what the directions say to do.) I am looking forward to planting season, and am using this winter time to research pest prevention. I figure being proactive could make my life a lot easier in the spring/summer when I will have to wage war with bugs, bunnies and the groundhog. As soon as the weather permits, I will start putting the used kitty litter (no solids) under the shed as a No Vacancy sign for the groundhog; that seemed to work fairly well last year. Oh, and I got a real scarecrow, through Freecycle, to help out with the crows.


Thanks for reading; I'll write once a week from now on. No promises, but...
Laura