Food, squirrelly food,a squirrel and Whatcha Eatin' #4!

Yay for productivity! Today I got our front entry way painted, ran some errands, sewed and started up a shop at Etsy to sell my tofu pouches and some other stuff that I'm working on. If you're not familiar with Etsy, it's a really great outlet if you make stuff and it's a wonderful place to find one-of-a-kind gifts and support independant crafters.

Last night for dinner we had black bean burritos.

Simple tortillas with some black beans, lettuce, salsa, Tofutti sour cream, guac and on Jim's some shredded cashew cheese that I made last week. Simple and yummy.

For a Halloween dessert I made Dreena's carmel sauce from Vive and served it with a sliced Jonagold.

It was very good, but I used rice milk and it left a bit of an aftertaste, so next time I will use soy.

Today I wanted something slightly sweet, but not too sweet and nothing that required leaving the house for ingredients. I tend to get stuck on a cookbook and continue making things from it, so once again I turned to Vive. When I saw the title for the Squirrely Scones, how could I say no to that?

Very good. Spread a little more than they rose, but that was my fault, because I only had half of the amount of baking powder and I added some more baking soda to compensate, but I didn't have any cream of tartar to mix in, which leads me to...

Whatcha Eatin' #4: Cream of Tartar
Growing up I always thought that cream of tartar was related to tartar sauce, which repulsed me, so I would omit it from recipes. Cream of tartar is actually acidic residue that is a biproduct of wine. CoT is acid from grapes that is neutralized with potassium. CoT is the activator in many kinds of baking powder, which is why when you're in a pinch you can replace baking powder by mixing equal parts baking soda and cream of tartar.

I was able to catch Mr. Squirrel moments before crawling down, snatching a peanut and making a getaway... and then coming back in 2 minutes to steal another one.


Product review!

My brother-in-law sent us this popcorn from Seattle, but it's actually from Hawaii, but was purchased at an Asian grocery. Confused yet? It's called Hawaiian Hurricane Popcorn: Mochi Crunch and Nori. I was really pleased to see that some label reading was done to ensure that it was vegan (although it was sent to us wrapped with a bow made out of feathers on top, but hey, he's trying). First you pop the popcorn and dump it into a provided bag and then add the mochi crunch and nori bits. Then you open the "buttery sauce" which isn't very healthy (partially hydrogentated oils), but I figure for as seldom as we consume hydrogenated oils, we'll live. Jim was a little Noried out after a little bit, but I really enjoyed it. It was lightly sweet and lightly salty and a little greasy and oceany tasting. I guess oceany isn't usually a positive way to describe something, but it's seaweed, so what do you expect? I think we'll enjoy the rest of it on movie nights, with some cold cans of Blue Sky.