Apostrophe abuse

This is an actual photo of an actual shirt available at an actual store. The store has a name that rhymes with Small Part. I have an inside source who works there and unpacked this item to stock on the shelves. Enjoy.

Really???

UPDATE: These have now hit the shelves. Get 'em while they're hot.

Dean the foster puppy

This Dalmatian mix puppy was in a Pueblo shelter for almost 3 months, and I couldn't stand it so I said I would foster him for Dalmatian Rescue. I thought he'd be a real project but he fits right in. Why nobody picked him up is beyond me, unless it's because his name was Houdini. So, I'm calling him Dean. He's a nice puppy with no issues. Poor guy.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

The myth of the vegetarian chicken

Here's a post about what I've learned about chickens this year. None of it is news to people with chickens, so if you have some skip the post.

You can feed chickens vegetarian scratch that's healthy for them, but unless they're confined indoors they will find a way to eat bugs. That's one of the best things about chickens, that they eat bugs and slugs. Those hens will lay the tastiest eggs. If you read a label on store-bought chicken eggs that says the hens are vegetarian fed, they are either living in a bug-free (read: unnatural) environment or sneaking in some buggy snacks. I admit I'm no expert on fowl but I have learned a lot about them this year. They're more badass then I had previously thought.

I hesitate to post this photo, because there's rice in the pan and it looks like I don't clean my pans. I was actually about to make a second helping of fried rice with these eggs and didn't see any reason to clean up the rice from the last one. Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see the difference in yolk color between these two eggs. They are from chickens that live in the same flock, but one, a New Hampshire Red, is a nice bird who stays in the coop. The other one I call Problem Chicken; she is an athletic and foolhardy Egyptian, and runs around wherever she pleases so she can eat insects, especially grasshoppers. But that's not all she eats. She nailed a tiny frog once (well, probably more than once but I just had the misfortune of witnessing it once). In the photo, her egg is the one with the deeper color yolk. The other one is still a fresh, tasty, nutritious egg, but the murderous Problem Chicken's is a little heartier.

If you tilt your head, you perv, they look like boobies

There are pros and cons to keeping backyard chickens. The pros are obvious. I won't go into the controversy about hatcheries. You can raise your own, but it looks kind of complicated, with incubators and stuff. I have been to farms with hens and roosters of heritage varieties that seem to just flock together and raise families though. But obviously they do risk their lives when they run around like PC does. The people in my neighborhood I have gotten eggs from lost half their little flock to a fox last year. They're kind of predator magnets. When I had a frail little old kitty, I remember thinking I was glad we didn't keep chickens that would attract red-tailed hawks.

Since I'm on the subject, I have to out Nest Fresh. The artwork and wordy marketing essays on the package describe a virtual chicken Shangri-La, even going so far as to say the hens are "a little spoiled." However, Nest Fresh customer service confirmed that all their farms have debeaked hens. I'm not making the connection between "spoiled" and "debeaked." That may no longer be the case at this writing, but it was last year. The lesson is that, if you have certain criteria you require from manufacturers or farms before buying their products, read the label critically.

Moussaka - not worth the effort

Of all the tasty and healthy stuff I could eat, this rates a 6 or 7 on a scale of 10, and takes forever to make. I used a recipe from Roy and Lisa Walford's book, "The Anti-aging Plan," which has other nutrient-rich recipes we like. However, there are so many steps in making any kind of moussaka that I would have to have a lot of time on my hands or a surplus of eggplant to do it again. Tonight we're going to have pumpkin soup, because that seems simpler and for some reason there is a pumpkin taking up space on the counter.

Came across this blog looking for Vegan Moussaka recipes

This East Coast family posts recipes that look like they taste really good:
The Vegan(ish) Experiment: Day 55: Vegan Moussaka!

YGWYG

Recently we were having supper and EG said his teacher had told his classmate Lucy "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." We are not sure if Lucy is an actual classmate or EG's alter ego, because his stories about Lucy often involve her doing something slightly naughty like taking his hat or complaining about her snack. She then gets reprimanded with something like "You get what you get..." or "Y tu tiempo se acabo (...and your time is up)!"

EG's anecdote changed my life. After that, if he whined about getting water when he wanted juice, I just used "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." and it shut him down. Then I used it on the dog. And horses: "Here's your alfalfa." "We want grass!" "YGWYGAYDTAF!" Shuts 'em right down.

It's not just a phrase, it's a new outlook. What if it's 4:30 on Friday, and the QA manager wants you to revise some code you wrote, because the marketing guy thinks you can do it in 10 minutes? Drop a YGWYGAYDTAF. Shut 'em down.

Black Walnut Raspberry Cookies (vegan)

Looks like the one on top got too much frosting. Oops. I came up with this recipe by tweaking a basic sugar cookie recipe until it no longer even faintly resembled the original, so can I take credit for it? Then again, the reviews on this aren't all in yet so I might not want to. This recipe if for 5000-6000 feet so it will be different at sea level.

Dry ingredients:

3.5 cups white whole wheat flour (or combination of white and whole wheat, or whole wheat pastry flour); at sea level, start with 3 cups

0.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients:
0.5 cup Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread (1 stick)
0.5 cup ground walnuts (grind in a mini-prep or coffeegrinder until almost like peanut or almond butter)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup agave syrup
0.5 teaspoons black walnut extract (saw this at the spice store, and that's why I came up with this - wanted an excuse to use it)
Optional: add a half cup or more of chopped walnuts; I didn't, because I wanted to be able to roll out the dough

1. Whisk together dry ingredients.
2. Cream Earth Balance and brown sugar until light tan color and fluffy, then add syrup and extract and mix thoroughly.
3. Add dry ingredients no more than a half cup at a time, or there will be flour all over the walls in your kitchen.
4. Chill dough in fridge for at least an hour, or freeze for longer storage.
5. Preheat oven to 365 F (I think this translates to 350 at sea level).
6. Roll out dough to the same thickness you would gingerbread cookies (no I did not measure) and cut whatever shapes you want; mine are fairly uniform 1.5 inch circles because I wanted to make sandwich cookies.
7. Bake for 9 minutes - or at least that's what I found was perfect for mine.
8. Cool and frost with this raspberry frosting/filling:

1 stick Earth Balance
2 teaspoons raspberry extract
Around 2 cups confectioner's sugar (if you are seriously vegan, get organic or a brand that doesn't whiten sugar with bone char)
Coconut, almond or soy milk to thin frosting if needed

Freeze in an airtight container or freezer bag for at least a day and they will soften when they thaw.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The cookies are good and not too sweet, but the frosting is like candy. I might try a maple filling for the next batch but I was in the mood to experiment with a nut and berry flavor combination and had high hopes for it. I don't know if it's worth suggesting you buy these two extracts if you're never going to use them again, so I'll try to come up with some additional uses for raspberry and black walnut.