Christmas with a Vengeance

Hello everyone! Regardless to what you all did last weekend, I hope you enjoyed the long weekend and ate lots of goodies! Now that things are going to be slowing down a bit, I'll be back to blogging more regularly.

I haven't been cooking or baking much lately due to being low on time and the homeowner's curse- my oven is dying! I doubt it ever had quite the workout it's had since it started living with me, but it's getting progressively worse, so we're going to have to face the inevitable and look into getting a new one soon. While we're at it, we're going to get a new fridge because our current one is on the fritz as well. It's a domino effect, I tell you! Our dishwasher hasn't worked worth anything, either, but that's not necessary so it's going to wait. We haven't had a decent dishwasher in years, so I'm used to doing it by hand anyway. At least it functions as a huge drying rack! Anyway, while I'm not looking forward to the cost, the idea of having some shiny new appliances that are energy efficient and will be vegan from "birth" is exciting.

Christmas Eve breakfast, crepes with an apple and pear compote and an almond version of Dreena's Creamy Cashew Dip on top.

Very beige, but full of flavor!

We had a lovely Christmas Eve. In keeping with making our own traditions, we decided to do Christmas on Christmas Eve. Why not?! It was just us, but we've been so busy lately it was exactly what we needed. We hung out in our pj's and ate food and watched movies and just plain relaxed. While Santa was good to both of us (check out this cute shirt Jim got me!) I think Bindhi had the best day. Her Aunt Leslie made Bindhi and her brothers some organic catnip toys that she dug out of the bag while I was at work. They are all well-slobbered on and have dozens of teeth holes in them. And we got them a set of these cubes. We used to have a set, but gave them to my sister-in-law. The ones we got have a leopard print on them, very sassy! They are great because when you need to tidy up, they fold up like those wire sun visors you have in your car and they take up no space. Bindhi's favorite activity is to get in one and push against the sides until it rolls over. She just rolls them all over the place. It's so cute to watch. The boys just like to sleep in them.

For dinner on the Eve we went to a local vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant called Van Hanh. It was our first time there and I'm not sure if we'll be back. The great thing about the place is that it's volunteer run by Buddhist nuns and the proceeds benefit the local Buddhist temple. But the food was had was all rather... greasy. Jim and I both left feeling slightly ill.


But not too ill, apparently, because we decided to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies later that night! We munched on them while watching one of my holiday favorites, Elf.

Christmas day we slept in and had a lazy breakfast of toast and fruit smoothies. Our big dinner got simplified making the Stewed Tofu and Potatoes from VwaV.

I'd somehow never noticed this recipe before, but someone mentioned it to me recently and when I looked at it, wow, I knew I had to make it and soon! Of course, like always, I added carrots and I made 1 1/2 times the gravy amount so there would be extra (can you ever have too much gravy?). The only other change was that I only used 1 cup wine total, because that's all I had, and subbed the rest with water and I only used one medium onion and the garlic, no shallots. Served with some organic ciabatta. It made hearty portions with plenty of leftovers. Yum!

Dessert was a parfait of puddings, the orange pudding from VCTOTW and the chocolate pudding from VWAV.

I layered the puddings while warm and put a layer of chocolate chips in the middle, which melted into a creamy filling. I also sprinkled a few on top along with some fresh orange segments. Creamy and filling, but not too sweet. A nice change of pace for dessert for 2 sugar addicts.

I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to blog hopping soon to see what everyone's been up to!

Quickie Post

Sorry for the gap in posts, but I've been very busy, as I know many of you have been as well. I will be back to a more regular posting schedule after the holiday buzz dies down. We went to Seattle this last weekend to see my brother-in-law and his wife and we definitely did a little eating tour of Seattle, as well as a shopping tour! And, forgetful as I am, I forgot my camera up there! Max is sending it down and I will be doing a Seattle post. We ate at a handful of delicious restaurants and picked up some cool finds, including a stack of new vinyl. Right now I'm listing to "Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk", which is Star Wars music ala disco. So freaking cool.

And now, a quick post.

Brunch a few weekends ago, Susan's fat free quiche adapted with what we had on hand, some sundried tomatoes and zucchini.

On the side we had tempeh crumbles and a throw-together fruit salad with a can of pineapple, banana, vanilla soy yogurt and some ground flaxseed. Firstly, can you say "Soy, oh soy"? The quiche were good, but too good, really. They were so egg-like I made it through half of one and I couldn't eat any more. I imagine that if you were baking a brunch for omni's this would be a hit.

A Christmas surprise last week from a great customer of ours, Diane.

Vegan truffles! Wingnut Confections are vegan, made locally and delivered to their retail outlets by bike. It doesn't get any more Portland than that! They were heavenly, literally the best vegan truffles I've ever had. Hazelnut, marionberry, peppermint and Earl Grey. Yummmmm.

We went with Chris and Kate to go see Howard Hugues' flying boat, more widely known as the "Spruce Goose" a couple of weekends ago.

It was so enormous that we couldn't take a picture of the entire plane. The museum was built to fit it and all the other planes are sheltered by its massive presence. Wow. It was a very cool museum and the Goose was great. If you're ever near McMinnville and you have any appreciation for design, aviation or just general geekery, make the stop.

Okay, more soon. I hope you're all weathering winter and the holidays well!

Where's the time going?

Wow, I am behind on everything. Firstly, I'm several posts behind on responding to your comments. For that, I apologize. I will catch up.

As I'm sure many of you are experiencing, it's that crazy, busy time of year. I'm in the middle of several holiday projects that are keeping me on my toes, and I'm up to my ears at Herbivore. It's actually rather fun, between holiday shopping and several new designs we have, I've been flooded with orders, but it's really fun packing them up, because I'm like Santa Claus. Except for the elves. And the sleigh. But I have a red hoodie and I'm pretty darn jolly this time of year!

My shortbread recipe is up on my recipes page. Enjoy! They are great for planning ahead, you can make the dough even several days ahead of time, refrigerate it and then you just have to slice and bake.

A few items from this week:

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Walnut cookies from an issue of Martha Stewart Living a few months ago. They were really tasty and were ridiculously easy to veganize, one of those recipes where you look at it and wonder why it wasn't vegan to begin with. It was like banana chocolate chip bread in cookie form. Yum.


These are the Peanuttiest Blondies that Crystal posted about, that she got from Vegan Diva. I made them with chunk peanut butter and didn't add the extra peanuts. Man, they were great. I sent the cookies and the bars to work with Jim, so the guys there got a (secretly) vegan treat and then I wouldn't be tempted to eat them all.

BTW, Jim isn't secretly a vegan at work, he just works primarily with pretty average guys and he just doesn't like to be singled out as the weird guy, because in his industry you don't really want to make yourself the center of attention for being "weird". If someone asks, though, he talks openly about it and has vegan-related bumper stickers on his car, etc.


This was my mini-bulk cooking this week, a throw-together Indian stew with some a saffron jasmine and quinoa blend. The stew was basically some sauteed onion, a large can of roasted tomatoes, some diced potatoes and carrots, lentils, water and garam masala. Very fragrant and hearty and a nice change up from eating so much soup!

The week in (food) pictures

It's Sunday night. It's late. I'm tired. But there are so many food pics on my camera, I had to post! These are random, sequentially, but I suppose that doesn't matter to anyone except me.

A quick waldorf salad, using what we had around.


Some Jonagold apples, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and vanilla soy yogurt. This was great for breakfast or with lunch. It's so easy to throw together, I'm not sure why I don't do it more often.

A lasagna I made the other night.


I used those no-cook style noodles and they worked really well. It was layered with Real Food Daily ricotta, zucchini, mushrooms and black olives. Served with a veggie roll from Wild Oats (only at the Fremont one, Portland folks).

I finally found a TJ's near us that carries their meatless meatballs.


I swear they aren't Nate's brand, they taste firmer and more flavorful. Jim felt like he was coming down with a cold today, so he got to make the call on dinner tonight, so we had meatball subs, baked beans drenched in barbeque sauce and a salad.

This morning was brunch day, so I made the raspberry lime variation on Isa's basic pancake recipe in VwaV. They were lovely. Inspired by Leslie's recent post, I ran some frozen mangos and mixed berries through the food processor.


The result was more of a chutney than a puree. It was delicious and Jim even ate some! He's strickly a maple syrup boy, where as I only use maple syrup if there is no fruit whatsoever in the house. I also made the Tempeh Sausage Crumbles from VWaV for the first time and wow! Have we been missing out! I like tempeh, but I've never liked the ways I've been able to make it at home, but this was fantastic.

The other night we had calzones.


Ready to bake pizza dough from the grocery store along with artichokes, mushrooms, black olives and some slices of Tofutti mozzerella that have been living in our fridge.

Dinner a few nights ago, inspired by Jess.

I had the new, super firm tofu they've been carrying at TJ's in the fridge and when she mentioned baking it in the Soy Vay marinade I knew I'd be making it soon. I used the Soy Vay teriyaki, along with a splash of toasted sesame seed oil. We had roasted veggies on the side: potatoes, carrots, onions and our new friend, parsnips. Who knew something with such an unfortunate appearance and name would be so good? Lesson learned.

Baked for the store this weekend: Cherry Almond Shortbread.


I usually make the shortbread and press a dried cherry and some almond slices into the top of each cookie, but I was too tired to do that, so I subbed out some of the flour for almond meal and finely chopped up the cherries and added them to the mix.

From midweek, Eggnog Muffins from La Dolce Vegan. I used the Hollynog which had been living in my fridge for about a week. It is no comparison to the Chocolate Peppermint soy milk that Vitasoy is making right now.


I haven't always had the best of luck baking from Sarah's book, but these muffins were great. I topped each one with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. Simple, very low sugar and festive.

Check it!

I'm in comic form!

www.totallynotvegan.com

Monster post: Treats, Sweets and Some Real Food, Too.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. My brother-in-law and his wife headed back up to Seattle late Friday night because Max had a lot of stuff to get done for a work project that was due today. Sadly, they missed out on weekend brunch. Now, I know this is going to be, like, the third time in the past month I've posted pumpkin pancakes using the VwaV waffle recipe, but this time there's a twist:



A new, fantastic way to use up extra cranberry sauce! Katie's cranberry sauce was dee-lish and I had to figure out a way to eat some more, since Jim won't help in that department. It was very yummy, alongside our standard rosemary potatoes.

Jim and I got to go on a little road trip on Sunday to Eugene, about 2 1/2 hours south of Portland. We finally sold a car that we've been trying to sell for a few months and the buyer, who lives in southern Oregon, asked if we could meet halfway. The weather was looking ominous, so we didn't get to do much exploring, but we did make a stop at a bakery that I'd heard much about, Sweet Life Patisserie . It is a hopping little bakery that offers quite the spread of vegan treats.


This isn't the best photo ever, but it gives you an idea of the amazing and beautiful cakes that were all vegan. All of their cakes, vegan and otherwise, were really well priced, too, with whole cakes ranging from $15-30. Not too shabby.


This is a shot of some Mexican chocolate pots and chocolate dipped cookie sandwiches, both of which are vegan.


Some muffins and some incredible looking cinnamon rolls, schmeared with a thick vegan frosting. Wowzers! Jim and I were overloaded with options!

Jim really wanted something savory. Unlike me, he can't eat sweets on an empty tank. This was a Mediterranean pizzatta:

A soft, doughy roll smeared with hummus, spinach and roasted red peppers.

I'm a full believer in dessert first, so I got a pizzatta to go and indulged in a slice of possibly the best cheesecake I've ever had:

This was a tofu-based cheesecake. I didn't really think it was possible for a tofu cheesecake to taste good, let alone unbelievable! It was truly creamy, flavorful, sweet without being too sweet and just plain heavenly. The crust had the occasional little granule of salt, making it a fantastic taste experience. Sweet Life is clearly a hot spot in Eugene, at 4 on a Sunday the place was packed and we had to sit outside in the chilly weather to get a seat.

Last night, after getting home from our trip, we started decorating our tree! This is the first year in 2 years that we've had a regular tree setup because Linus is so crappy with it, but I really, really wanted a tree. So far, so good.

It's over half decorated, minus about a foot and a half of the bottom to minimize destruction via chewing.

I gave Bindhi the aerial tour of the tree. She liked sniffing all of the ornaments.


Today I did some bulk cooking. I had a few random ingredients that I wasn't sure what to do with, so I turned to my trusted friend, Martha Stewart.

Let me take a moment to talk about my serious love for Martha. Many people criticize her and dislike her, but I genuinely respect her from the bottom of my heart and this is why: She came from a generation of women who began to shun the domesticity usually associtated with women and then the tide began to change and people looked down their nose on domestic things like cooking and crafting. Martha stepped up and showed that you can be a successful business person and still enjoy making table centerpieces. I spent a large portion of my adolescence feeling ashamed that I liked to do things like decorate cookies and make handmade gifts because I felt this societal pressure that I was supposed to be "beyond" that. Thankfully, people have hung in there and now there is a whole crafty industry thriving from what I trace back to Martha's trailblazing. You can have your cake and eat it, too, so to speak. You can be an independent woman and a feminist and you don't have to reject things that are historically "girly" to do so. Because you have the choice of whether or not to do it in the first place. So that is why I love Martha Stewart, even if she eats meat and can be a bitch. You can't be perfect, I suppose, and at least her daughter is a vegetarian and got Martha to swear off fur. It's a start.

Anyway, I had some mushrooms I really needed to do something with because they were on their way out. A quick search her website came up with this recipe for Mushroom Barley Soup.


I altered the recipe by using 2 cups of sliced, chopped fresh cremini mushrooms instead of the dried ones and instead of using some sour cream, I just whisked the flour and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch into 1 cup of soy milk and added that to thicken it. I also pureed a couple of cups of the soup to really make it hardy and thick. I cooked up some wild rice to pack it up with for a very stick-to-your ribs meal that reminds me of Minnesota winters. I can never eat wild rice without thinking of Minnesota.

Then I wanted to try cooking with millet, which is new to my cooking and this recipe also used up a stray sweet potato that was lingering in my pantry as well.



These are millet Veggie Burgers. I didn't have any parsley or peas (how did I run out of peas?!), but otherwise I stuck to the recipe. This makes 8 really big patties, so next time I will halve the recipe. We really liked them a lot. The sesame seed oil along with the spices created a truly complex flavor. They are like other typical patties, a little delicate and I recommend refrigerating them for at least an hour. We just had them on a toasted Dave's Killer Bread baguette with baby romaine lettuce, tomato and the standard fixin's and some green beans, or as Jim decided to rename them tonight, green French fries. The boy is weird.

After dinner we had to have dessert! I couldn't leave Sweet Life having tried only one treat, so we got this chocolate raspberry cake to go.

It was just as heavenly as it looks, if a tad too rich, but it was good for sharing.

Breakfast muffins: I got to use up some more homemade marmalade with these Orange Marmalade muffins from May All Be Fed, the recipe portion of a John Robbins book.
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The recipes in this book are really well-rounded and this particular muffin recipe has no added sugar, it uses the marmalade and orange juice for sweetness. They are yummy, but next time I'm going to add some vanilla to make them taste like orange creamsicles. I plan on doing more cooking from this book soon, it's been getting neglected on my book shelf.

Okay, now I've been up far too late! I need to go to bed, so I'll respond to comments on my previous post tomorrow. Night!

It's NOT Turkey Day!

Or, at least, it wasn't in our house!

My brother-in-law, this wife and our friends Chris and his wife spent Thanksgiving with us yesterday and we had a very fun afternoon/evening stuffing ourselves silly, chatting and playing games. My brother-in-law, Max and his wife Katie (yes, we had 2 Chris/Kris' and a Kate/Katie combo) are getting ready this morning, so I thought I would sneak in a food post!

Sweet potatoes with caramlized apple bits on top (they didn't really carmelize that well) from Martha Stewart (links to recipe).


Kate's amazing stuffing that I'm now worshipping her for. Stuffing, to me, is the essential element of Thanksgiving and this was some very exceptional stuffing.


A garbanzo/mushroom/walnut loaf wrapped in puff pastry. The recipe was from Michelle. It was a lovely loaf that was very impressive and so easy, I whipped together the filling the night before and just had to stuff and bake them the next day.


Focaccia bread, trying to keep warm in the bread basket.


Chickpea gravy and Katie's incredible cranberry sauce. In the distance you can see the top of the banana peanut butter cake. The gravy was great as always (thank you Isa!) and Katie's cranberry sauce was the perfect mixture of fragrant, tart, sweet and spiced.



A pan holding dozens and dozens of cooked pierogi. Yum! It's always nice to have the memory of my grandma around when I can, in action. Normally this would be a Christmas treat, but it was nice to shake things up a bit. Aren't I a loose cannon, this is how I live on the wild side, forgoing mashed potatoes for pierogi. Whoo-hoo!



I didn't get pictures of dessert! We had the banana peanut butter cake I've posted about before as well as a Sweet Pea Bakery pumpkin pie, with vanilla ice cream and some Soyatoo Whipped Cream on top.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and ate lots of goodies! I look forward to blog hopping and seeing what you are up to this weekend. While I have issues with the foundation of Thanksgiving really just being a Hallmark attempt at glossing over decades of cultural genocide, I also like to just make it my own thing because it's not going to go away and if we can turn it into something significant and meaningful now, then that's a step. And I figure when we have kids, I'll set them straight anyhow. As for me, in my book, today marks the first day of the Christmas season and I'm ready to decorate and be joyful, darnit!

Quick Pre-Thanksgiving Post

Yesterday, which was 2 days before Thanksgiving, I went to the grocery store after work and they were directing traffic! It was madness, but I was able to pick up my last few items and also pop by a new location of a local pizza chain that just opened up in the same strip.


Here are some Hot Lips vegan slices. Red sauce with red bell pepper, onion, kalmata olives, basil pineapple and possibly some other things I'm forgetting. The pineapple was removed prior to eating. Not on our pizza, thanks.

Prepping some food stuff for the big day, I made some garlic potato filled pierogi.

Here they are post boiling, prior to going into the freezer for a quick freeze. They'll be served fried up with onions and Earth Balance, yum! Normally pierogi would be a Christmas dinner thing for my family, but this year I decided to change things up a bit.

There will be a turkey in the middle of our table this year and her name is Oakly.

This is the 3rd year we've participated in Farm Sanctuary's Turkey Adoption Program. Oakly caught more than just our eye, because Leslie cooincidentally adopted her too!

Our menu:
garbanzo, walnut and mushroom loaf wrapped in a puff pastry
sundried tomato foccacia
pierogi
mashed yam recipe with carmalized apples on top from Martha Stewart Living
stuffing, courtesy of Kate
cranberry sauce, courtesy of my sister-in-law Katie
roasted mini squash
chickpea gravy

pumpkin pie from Sweet Pea Bakery
banana peanut butter chocolate cake

There will be many pictures to show, I'm sure! I hope you all have a lovely, cruelty-free holiday with lots of food! Give your omni family members the greatest gift you can- a guilt trip about their eating habits! ;)

Thank you, updates and food.

Thanks to everyone for your condolences and support. While I knew we were attached to her, I didn't really realize how hard it truly was going to be. Moussa passed away while we were at work on Friday. We had known that this was going to happen for awhile now, but it was still a surprise, in a way. We felt happy that she was able to live with us in our home, so that we could bury her here. A few weeks ago, when she first started acting elderly, we went out and bought a little wooden box, figuring it was best to be prepared. Friday night Jim and I both wrote her a little note to tuck into the box and Jim took care of situating her in the box with some cotton fluff. It was dark and raining, so we left it in the cage. That night I woke up to see Linus staring into her cage, waiting for her to come out and play. It was utterly heart-breaking and I went and brought him into bed with us.

We weren't able to bury her until Sunday. It's amazing how once someone is a part of your life, it can be so hard to let go of old habits. I still keeping going up to the bedroom as soon as I come home to make sure the temperature is alright. I woke up last night because of the heat vent squeaking, thinking that it was her wheel and wondering if it needed to be adjusted. The spot where her cage was is not just a gaping hole on our dressers, but in our lives. I think what makes it so hard is that it's difficult to get closure from a relationship like that. We were infatuated with her and she was barely aware of us. There was no real way to say goodbye.

The passing is hard and then having to actually deal with it is its own thing. Jim, I know, is dealing with this much harder than he'd imagined. But he has had to actually deal with it, so that makes sense. He was the bearer of bad news to me, he took care of the coffin, he dug the grave, he cleaned the cage. I don't know what I would do without his strength because I'm a blubbering mess. So thank you all. Moussa really was a loved and special part of our lives and I'm glad that I was able to share her light with all of you.

Now, for all of our sake's, let's turn to less-serious matters: food.

Saturday was the Vegan Holiday Festival here in Portland. This was the first year of it and judging by the turn out and response, there will be many more to come. Jim came to help set up and ended up staying the whole day to check out the speakers who included Brendan Brazier, a vegan triathalon winner, and the famous Howard Lyman. Jim really liked Brendan's presentation and he adored Howard Lyman.

There was food, food and more food to be found! Samples out the wa-zoo, I tell you! I am curious to know what other attendees ate, though, because I got kind of sick that night and I heard a few other people did too. Jim and I ate most of the same things, though, and he was fine. It may have just been that I ate some junk, but I really didn't eat that much. Anyway, not to put a bad spin on it, because it was a really fun day.

I was super busy working at the Herbivore tables, so naturally I forgot to take pictures. Purely Decadent was there giving out 1/2 cup mini-pints of ice cream all day long. I thought for sure they would run out, but they didn't. I had a pecan praline one that was heavenly. Toby's was there with tofu pate samples, Tofurky was there, a hemp company called Living Harvest, giving out samples of their soon-to-be-released hemp milk! It was wonderful. There were tangible, non-digestible goods as well, but there was a lot of food. The only picture I did take was a festive cupcake from Sweetpea Bakery:

I didn't eat it, I just took the picture before it was consumed. All in all, it was a good and eventful day. Plus I met Jess and Erica which was very cool.

This isn't a terribly exciting picture, but it was a departure from my normal breakfast, so I found it photoworthy.

I usually eat oatmeal with fruit or fruit with soy yogurt, but last week, as I was about to thaw some frozen berries, I thought about making a smoothie. I hadn't even unpacked my blender from move up here, so finding it was a bit of a challenge, but I was able to dig it out and I made this smoothie with some frozen berries, some peaches, almond milk, pomegranate juice and some ground flaxseeds. It was a delicious and filling treat, along with a thawed orange poppyseed muffin that I baked the week before, with a little bit of Earth Balance melting inside.

Yesterday night, the night after the festival, I woke up feeling not-so-good, so I had to call in to work on Sunday, which I spent getting pampered on the couch by Jim. I spent most of the day eating bland food and drinking ginger tea, but later that evening I wanted something more substantial, so Jim made some brown rice and thawed out some chili that was living in our freezer.

Not a terribly eventful picture, but more interesting than a stockpot of soup, like I've been doing so much of lately! Topped with a spoonful of salsa and a dollop of Toffuti sour cream.


Tonight I made a veggie burger that I got at Trader Joe's. The brand is Dr. Praegger and they were California burgers.

They are truly veggie burgers, as was evidenced by the bright green block I pulled out of the box. The ingredients read like the contents of a vegetable crisper. I cooked it in a splash of canola oil and ate it bare-bones on part of a Dave's Killer Bread Peace Bomb, along with some chips and salsa. The burger was good, if a bit flavorless. At least it's full of good stuff!

For those of you who didn't know this, I recently found out about a policy that Trader Joe's has that will most likely be of interest to you. TJ's will not carry foods that contain GMO's. This is a relief as someone who normally avoids anything that contains soy or corn ingredients unless it's organic. While I still prefer organics over anything else, it's nice to know that if I want to get something there, I at least don't need to worry about Frankenfoods.

And, in case you've never seen this, this video is a must-see for all vegans and vegetarians alike and is sure to put a smile on your face:

Rest in peace, sweet Moussa. 11/17/06

Newspaper article and the kitty parade!

There was an article run in the Portland Tribune this week about the vegan community here, the resources available, and the migration of vegans from all over the country. Because we moved here for the community, the writer interviewed me a few weeks ago. 1 1/2 hours of conversation yielded a quote I never actually said, but whatever, it's still a good article. You can read it here.

Okay, I decided to do a little sampling of my kitty pictures and put them up here. There are just so many of them and they are so cute! 3 years ago we bought a digital camera to "start documenting our life together". At this point that amounts to approximately 5-6 pictures of us and over 3000 of the cats. I'm not kidding. They are just so cute!



Here's a lovely picture of my sweet little Ravi. We adopted Ravi from a coworker of mine on Thanksgiving weekend 2002. He's a totally mama's boy.


Here are Ravi and Bindhi, snuggling next to our fake fireplace at an apartment we lived at in Mesa. This was the winter after we found her, so she's only about 6 months old in this pic. It's hard to tell, but she's a lot smaller than Ravi in this picture. Bindhi was found on the side of the road in AZ, in July and she was only 4 weeks old. But man, she was one tough little cat! She put us through the ringer!


This is a classic Bindhi moment, when she was a little kid. She dug out this roll of t.p. on her own, but she was so cute, I just had to capture the moment and let her play with it.


A cute picture of Linus that Jim took during an extensive photo shoot while he was figuring out all of the setting on our camera. Linus loves the camera and if you have it out, you have to take a picture of him or he will make your life hell. Every night I take pictures of my food, he hears the camera, walks into the kitchen and starts yelling, so I have to take his picture as well. Linus was from a shelter in Minnesota.


Linus and Ravi when Ravi was a wee one. My baby boys!


We hardly ever have them all in one spot. This was also when we lived in Mesa. Linus likes Bindhi's company, but he's never been very big on Bindhi touching him, so this is a big moment for them. You can see Ravi's legs sprawled in the background.