Wordless Wednesday-Seeking for Peace

Taken by Dirkey at the Seattle Public Market on 7/29/07

Hey!

I'm home!
Really home, but now Schmoop is going away tonight for two days. Man....
But as of Friday we have two whole months to be together before I have to go away again.

Sad News

My mother just called me and let me know my cousin Michelle passed away today. Michelle was about 45 and a very sweet person. She had a very kind heart and gentle demeanor and will be missed greatly. Please keep in prayer her husband David and her kids, as well as my aunt Sue and my mother as this is very sudden.
Thanks,
Dirkey

Biggest Douche of the Year Award goes too....

Me... :(
I made a good friend who is also nine months pregnant cry.
Because I'm a jerk with no memory.

Fun Weekend

So this weekend we are going here and staying at a hotel near there on Friday and Saturday night. The festival should be alot of fun, and while we are there I want to check out some local stuff. To make it a super weekend Schmoop and I are going to stay here tonight, i'm super jazzed about this cause it looks so nice!! The room is beautiful and there is a jacuzzi tub! Tomorrow I want to check out Gettysburg and maybe some other stuff around there before heading up to the festival.
Then Saturday maybe head into Lancaster and check that out a bit before the music starts.
I'm so excited! :)

Wordless Wednesday-Happy Birthday Baby!

Picture of Schmoop taken 8/14/07 by Dirkey

Happy Happy Schmoop Day

A song for Schmoops 32 Birthday

Happy Happy Schmoop Day
It comes but once a year
Happy Happy Schmoop Day
Lets laugh and dance and cheer!

So yes, its Schmoops birthday and what does that mean?
It means 32 Things I Love about Schmoop!!

1. I love waking up to your good morning kisses
2. holding your hand
3. watching you install stuff (my hottie mr. fixit!)
4. the way you encourage me to be the best
5. knowing that you love me no matter what
6. seeing you play with Mason and the other kids
7. how much the kiddos love you
8. your eyes
9. your honest heart
10. how caring you are
11. that you try hard to do what is best
12. watching you play the guitar
13. when you say you don't want any more toys, then have to stop in the toy department of whatever store we are in
14. your silliness
15. your openness to try new things (even Vegan things!)
16. watching you read your Bible
17. taking a walk and talking with you
18. riding in the car with you
19. doing nothing with you
20. falling asleep in your arms
21. being protected by you
22. your face when I do something you don't understand
23. how loyal you are to your family and friends
24. Your smile
25. Your thoughtfullness
26. calling you my husband and being your wife
27. that you're my family
28. when you make goofy faces
29. when you make me laugh out loud.
30. playing with you hair
31. watching you play in the worship team (gee we really need to go to church again its been forever!)
32. that I get to spend the rest of my life loving you and finding new things about you to love.

I'm so happy that God put us together and that we got married. You are the most wonderful husband in the world and I couldn't imagine my life without you in it.
Love you, my wonderful
Forever yours,
Dirkey

Photo Hunters-Rows

mmm Rows of Sushi

Nintendo Birthday Cake

This is for Schmoop's friend Kevin's birthday. He's a big video game person so this seemed like the natural cake to make for him. :)

Vegan week Day 3, 4 and 5

Day 3 Veggie Burgers.
When I served these to Jason he said they didn't really remind him of burgers but of crab cakes without the crab. So they are now called uncrabby patties in this house. :)


Day 4-Black Bean Taco's-These were awesome I loved them. It was really tasty!


Day 5- Mushroom Broccoli Quiche. This was pretty good, I want to put more veggies in it next time it was too much. You put firm tofu in the food processor for the quicheness and it tastes like eating really thick ricotta cheese just too much needed something to lighten it up more. Maybe would be a good winter food.

All in all I loved this little experiment. We will be keeping this up!

Vegan Week

Even though I haven't posted I'm still following the Vegan week, I have pictures I'll post up later. Its only been 4 days but I can already tell that its having a great effect on me. I generally feel better. I have been a bit grumpy but that might be because I've stopped eating ice cream and drinking soda, my huge two vices. I haven't really missed it but I do see myself getting short with Schmoop when he first gets home, which normally doesn't happen. Don't worry we make up later :). I asked Schmoop if he would be ok if we kept it up and he's cool with it, so I made a menu plan for week two already. I even have a sourdough starter in the works. Oh, I'm ambitious. I have really taken to this though.
The other thing is that we have been making a clean house a priority. It was generally decent but it is *almost* guest worthy all the time now. Just have to do a bit of tweeking and it should be ready for a party at any time.

Wordless Wednesday-She cracks me up!

Picture of Meggie taken 8-05-07 by Dirkey

Burdock=Butt (vegan day 3)

So when I told people that one of my recipe's for this week called for Burdock it was mostly met with crinkled noses and disgust. I don't think I know anyone who regularly eats Burdock so I can see why. I was extremely curious to see how todays dinner would go considering that it called for the Burdock.. Well it suprised me in that it didn't taste like poop, yeah I know I'm a positive thinker. :)
It tasted like you would imagine a piece of root tasting. yum.. but with enough ginger and soy sauce it was decent.


So I started out with ginger and sesame sauce in a pan simmering, then I added some onion until it was transluscent. After this I added some Burdock, Carrots, Mushrooms, Cabbage and simmered these for about 5 minutes. On top of this I added some brown rice and raw broccoli added about 1/4 inch of water and some soy sauce and covered for about 10 minutes. I served warm with some Brown Rice Vinegar. It was pretty good!

This is so crazy!

Vegan Week-Day 2

So yesterday we had a cauliflower veggie stir fry type thing and also the lentil soup that Schmoop made last night.
Yumm!!! It was awesome! The cauliflower stuff was good but spicy, the lentils were just good. Schmoop loved the lentils beforehand so he was ecstatic to know he could have them at home!
I'm digging this whole natural food eating so far. I was a bad vegan this morning I had a banana with pb and honey for breakfast, yes, (gasp) I had honey. But it was goood.h

Vegan Week-Day 1

So today we went shopping for the vegetarian/vegan week. I didn't actually think of beginning this today but only preparing for doing it tomorrow but I realized that I had a menu planned for tonight. Needless to say today we didn't do vegetarian except for dinner. I made the Samosa's, Schmoop is making lentil soup, and we went without the Cauliflower Veggie thing. I think what I'll do is have the Lentil Soup and the Cauliflower thing for dinner tomorrow as its mostly prepped already.
As far as shopping we ended up getting everything we needed but at times it was a bit comical. One of the recipe's for this week calls for Burdock, needless to say I have no idea what Burdock is. I called my resident hippie kid best friend to ask her and she said she had no idea but it sounded like it tastes like butt. To which I replied, well I guess I'm not inviting you over for dinner that night! I ended up calling my other bff Mama K who googled it and told me it was somewhat of a root, weed type thing. So I wandered around whole foods trying to find a root/weed that I couldn't identify; turns out what I found was the fabled burdock. (I'll let you know how that goes!). There were a bunch of spices we needed since alot of the recipes came from the indian cookbook and I don't have any indian spices save some Curry. We ended up spending about $170 (ouch!!!) but we did get a ton of spices and splurged in areas I don't normally (getting a couple of bottles of juice to help kick the soda habit). I'm happy with what we got, all of it organic and it seems we have a good little pantry going of healthy good for you foods. Alot of the things we will not need to buy weekly so I'm thinking our actual grocery bills might stay the same or decrease since meat is such a pricey commodity. Mostly it will be purchasing the organic produce and replenishing whatever we need in the pantry.

The Samosa's are a potatoey filled pastry that you fry in veggie oil.

I made 20 of them and Schmoop and I downed 2.5 each for dinner as well as a Cilantro Chutney, or Dhania Chutney, that I also made (Cilantro, onion, chili pepper, cumin seeds, lemon juice). The Samosa's have in them potatoes, cumin seeds, ginger, peas, salt, coriander powder, green chili pepper, Mango Powder and Garam Masala (indian spice).


You mix it all together and fry each side about 4 minutes each in veggie oil. I know, I wasn't too big into the frying but they actually are not so bad in the nutritional facts with all the veggies in them (each one has 125 calories, 6 grams of fat, 1 gram of dietary fiber and no cholestorol as per my cookbook). Hee hee the chutney has 1 calorie!

Yum!!!!!

Photo Hunters-Forky

Oh you said funky.. my bad..
Picture of schmoop taken on Labor day last year.

Trying New Things

I was reading in Shelly's Blog about the health benifits and other benifits of going vegitarian/vegan. I brought up to Schmoop a few weeks ago the idea of possibly doing this and he kind of gave me a funny look and went along with his buisiness. It wasn't too big of a deal with me so I let it go. Today Schmoop brought it back up and asked if I was serious about it, if I was he was cool with trying it out. So on the way home I stopped and got a barrage of books to read to start out this week. I ended up doing my whole menu plan from two cookbooks I already have, Cooking the Whole Foods Way by Christina Pirello and New Indian Home Cooking by Madhu Gadia.
On deck for this week we have
Monday: Samosa's, Cauliflower Mixed Vegitables and Lentil Soup
Tuesday: Fried Rice and Veggies
Wednesday: Millet and Veggie Burgers and Grilled Veggies
Thursday: Potatoe Stuffed Roti, Lentil Soup (leftover) and Cauliflower Mixed Vegitables (leftover)
Friday: Mushroom, Brocolli Quiche

I will be preparing what I can on Sunday and will post pictures each day of that days meal. This will be our experiment week, no matter what I know in the future we will have an increase in organic foods and fruits and free reign meats. The whole menu for this weeks dinners are vegan, I will be adding in some dairy for breakfasts, snacks so its not entirely but we'll just see how it goes.

Wordless Wednesday-Happy Almost your Birthday!

Picture of mamak taken 5/5/07