I've moved .......

My new blog can be found here, please come join me:

http://motheringbythemoon.blogspot.com/

I'm leaving this blog for now, I'm not sure if I'll ever delete it but I did need a new space. 

Tofu, and Notes On Not Being A Dick.

I've always been kind of meh on tofu.  It's kind of slimy and I don't love the texture.  But every vegan recipe site I look at (since I am a proud faux-vegan) is all tofu this, tofu that, you must gargle with tofu 3x a day.  So I tried it again and Das Bich recommended baking the tofu first, which dries it out and gives it a more meat-y texture.  Last night I pressed the tofu first instead, laying it on a plate lined with a paper towel, laying another paper towel and plate over top, then laying a heavy cookbook on top of the plate.  This squeezes out the extra moisture and firms up the tofu.  And then I did this:

Slice tofu into 1/4" slices, then in half.  In a small bowl add soy sauce, in a separate small bowl mix together panko bread crumbs, 1 Tb nutritional yeast, 1 tsp dry mustard, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper. Spray cookie sheet with baking spray.  Dredge tofu slices in soy sauce, then bread crumb mixture, then lay on cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 1/2 an hour, flipping slices halfway through.  I had mine with a side of lemony sauteed kale from our kale-zilla plant.

Mooch has become a persnickety eater as she got older, but she loved these.  She kept asking if they were chicken or cheese (suckah)  Forget about the Mister coming near these - he is not down with faux-veganism.  He's all about the Paleo diet these days and if I hear "but is it Paleo?" one more time I may lose my shit.

This week started out with me being stressed about everything I have to finish up at my current job.  I start in a new department on August 6th, and my baby brat sister B'lanna is getting married on the 25th.  My house looked like a tornado hit it.  It was very all about me and how stressed I was, and then someone walked into a movie theater in Colorado and killed a lot of people, including a six year old little girl.  And if there is ANY positive, and positive doesn't even seem the right word, out of these horrific unimaginable senseless things; maybe it's that for some of us it makes us hit the reset button on our "all caught up in me" world.  I hugged the girls so tight they complained, and fixed my husband the stupid f-ing Paleo dinner he requested. I put together a big bag of stuff to donate to Goodwill.  I made a conscious effort to smile at everyone, and played parking meter fairy.  It's my small response of putting positivity back into the world when people are hurting and reeling and angry and scared.  And I re-posted a portion of Obama's speech that he made regarding what happened in Colorado to my FB page.  Because he was essentially summing up my feelings - pay more attention to how we treat each other.  And it turned into a politicized freaking argument. 

In the midst of this I was accused of "living in a haze".  You know what?  Fine.  Yes I do not follow politics to the point I can rattle off statistics, because the more I learn about politics the more it becomes crystal clear that all politicians are more or less actors who will tell us whatever we want to hear.  And the more I follow them the more frustrated I become.  And the more frustrated I become, my patience with everything goes down, and that's not good.  Because ultimately I think it's the small things that matter the most - and how we treat each other is the end-all, be-all.  The truth is if you look back over your day and realize that 90% of the time you were either annoyed or stressed or angry, then you're not being a positive force in this world, no matter what you're doing.  If you realize that almost everything you've said in a day has either been argumentative or negative, THEN YOU NEED TO CHANGE.  And if you make a decision not to then you own a small piece of the bad things that happen in this world, no matter how you spin it.  And if consciously trying to be positive and spread the love is a "hazy" point of view ... then stay hazy :-)

Rodents of Unusual Size?

I don't think they exist.

Here Is Your Chance To Be Super Awesome

Tegan was the first person to tattoo me (and probably the last) and she also inked a giant pin-up girl on the Mister's shoulder.  She was one of my bestest childhood friend's girlfriends for a while.  She moved a few years ago and I still hear updates on her occasionally from a mutual friend who drives 4 hours to get tattooed by her because she is hands down the best, least painful tattoo artist ever.  Like, no cartoon-y cheesy crap, you could seriously hang her artwork up and it would look like something you would find at Anthropologie and want but not be able to afford.

So when her and my childhood friend broke up it got nasty for a while and of course since my friend was my friend I had his back and was on Team Anti-Tegan, which is childish and high-school-mean-girl-y (what?).  I said some things I shouldn't have said.  And then after all was said and done I felt like a dick - rightly so - and emailed her to apologize.  She didn't reply and I probably wouldn't either.  Another mutual friend linked me to her blog, and I saw that she had gotten married and had a baby and was total hippie-mama-organic-gardener-co-sleeping-breast-feeding lady.  In other words, my kind of chick.

So then I randomly look at her blog one day and the c-word is there.  There is a picture of her, dazed and in a hospital bed, after a double mastectomy.  She just had another baby, 4 1/2 months ago.  She has invasive ductal carcinoma, stage 2.  She had to stop breastfeeding her daughter, get a double mastectomy, and then start chemotherapy.  She has no health insurance, and since she is self-employed, is not eligible for unemployment or disability.  Yeah.  And you know what she is thinking about?  She set up a breast milk donation page for her daughter, Joslyn, so she will continue receiving breastmilk (which also needs couriers and other kinds of support -https://www.facebook.com/groups/359465547452714/

There are stories on her blog of her daughter crying and rooting around for her breast, while Tegan lets down milk that she can't feed her daughter because she still has radioactive chemicals in her body.  She talks about the frustration of not being able to work and make money when she needs to make money to fight her cancer.  http://talesofatattoomom.blogspot.com/?m=1
Dudes.  Fuck cancer.

Here is her website with a link to a PayPal account that you can donate to, and don't forget to look over her amazing designs -  http://www.teganink.com/donation.php
Anything is better than nothing.  It will make you feel so good to give sparkly unicorns may fly out of your butt.  And if you know anyone in Jersey who could help her out, please spread the word. 
http://www.giveforward.com/tegansbreastcancerfund?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fb_wall&utm_campaign=vanity_page&og_action=hug

Phonetic Alphabet Done RIGHT

Because I have an uncommon first name and a monstrosity of an Italian last name, almost every time I'm speaking on the phone I get asked to spell my name.  And then the panic sets in because I cannot remember if "d" is dog or diptheria or demonstrative.  "G" is even worse. 

I was on the phone with a hotel clerk this morning making a reservation for SB and he asked the dreaded "G as in ...." and trailed off. 
G as in goat.
Did you just say goat? *snicker*
Umm, yeah.  (OMG I hate your stupid face)

The lovely Beth helped me come up with a MUCH more user-friendly phonetic alphabet.

A as in Appolonia
B as in Bratwurst
C as in Conundrum
D as in Divorcee
E as in Elliptical
F as in your Mom.  BOOM.  (Not my fault if whoever you're speaking to hangs up)  As an alternative you can also use formidable.
G as in Gelatinous
H as in Homoerotic
I as in Invasive procedure
J as in Jorge
K as in Kim Zolciak
M as in Menarche
N as in notyourproblem
O as in O-face
P as in prescription, those are prescription
Q as in Quinoa
R as in Romper room
S as in Slutty
T as in Tumultuous
U as in Uterus
V as in Victorious vagina
W as in White trash
X as in X-mas
Y as in YOLO
Z as in Zacquisha

You are welcome, world!

Garden and Ass Kicking Update.

I'm kicking my own ass, not anyone else's.  22 lbs lost in the last 3 months - that's in addition to the the 40-50 lbs of preg weight that I had to lose with each kid.  Yes that much - go big or go home people.  So I've lost at least one Olsen twin

by my own mix of somewhat-veganism, Jillian Michaels, and running.  It has been tough as balls.  And made me really mad at the people who lose weight and you ask how they did it and they're all "Oh I just stopped drinking soda."  First of all, how much soda was your fat ass drinking; second of all I hate you because my body wants to make sure all my internal organs are really, reaaallllllyyy well padded and it would never let go of precious fat that easily.  I'm working on getting the last 10 lbs off right now and toning the stomach that hauled two 8+ lb babies around and my body is desperately trying to make sure my intestines keep their highly important M&M and wine padding.

Onto .... ze garden

It's funny to me the way the garden evolved this year.  Even though it's only 18ft I rotated where everything was planted, and tried garlic and carrots which I've never grown before.  I don't know if my garden is planted on top of fertilizer-rich murder victims or I just am super lucky but everything is going CA-RAZY.  I thought I was being super proactive getting my pea supports up early (metal stakes with plastic mesh fencing strung across)  these babies are 3 feet tall.  And then my peas grew straight up and over and across their neighbors.  From last year where I only got enough peas for a handful a day, I'm picking half a basket every other day.  The carrots took a while but are now producing regularly (we planted heirloom Danvers carrots) and the garlic was SO easy.

 I'm going to give you the super simple dummy proof way to grow garlic and use it.  You ready?  OK.  Go to the store - any store that sells garlic.  It does not have to be organic or pesticide free or whatever.  Get two big bulbs and break it apart into cloves and plant the cloves, pointy side up, in rows right before the first frost of the fall.  In the spring you'll see what look like spring onions shooting up from them.  Then they will develop little flowers, called scapes

Aren't they pretty?  I kept them in a vase on the windowsill.  And they are completely edible and have a mild garlic taste to them, so chop them up, stem and all, and use them where you would use green onions or garlic. 

Now you just have to wait for your garlic stalks to turn brown and look dead-ish.  Then you dig up the garlic and braid the stalks

And then hang it up.  Feel free to point out to anyone who comes into your house that you may indeed be the craftiest bitch, ever.

Still trying to re-fabulize the blog (ahem JEN) and work on getting back up to speed with all my bloggy lovahhhs.  I am reading your posts, I'm just too busy braiding garlic to comment.  Bear with me.

Hay What's Up With Your Totally F-ing Jacked Blog?

  Oooooohhhh you know, just that Blogger has decided to charge you from now on if you try to upload new images for your header or anything else.  So this is just one jacked-up looking blog until I figure this shit out.  It looks awful and I apologize, but honestly every time I try to fix it I would get so frustrated I'd log onto Pinterest instead, and that's not productive so instead I am giving you a post about Jen. Jen is the original MT blogger-design-thingy diva and my BFF from way back.  Jen is funny as hell and is raising two kids by herself and working full time and being a domestic goddess.  AND bailing me out of my self-constructed blog crisis.  She had to be difficult and move to Florida though, so my only means of harassing her now is through phone, text, or IM.  I was trying to find a recipe she IM'ed me a while ago and ended up reading through all of our past IM's and laughing so hard I did this weird snorty thing, so I am sharing some highlights with you.  Enjoy.  I've left the typos.   me: just held lil tiny one month old baby

  so effing cute

and so nice to hand him back the minute he started crying

Jen: No joke...I'm so done with kids

me: I'll drink to that   me: Hi, I'm a fegan. That would be the word for a faux-vegan

 Jen: Sounds like a lord if the rings character

me: I am Fegan the Undecided, I shall pillage your veggies and maybe sneak a bite of sausage   me:Veep line fromt onight to spice things up :

  *tonight

  you know what the fuck I mean

  "Really, have you met most people, Amy? cause I have, and most of them are fucking idiots"

Julia L.D. speaks the truths.

 Jen: Never correct yourself with me, i have my lydia to English dictionary with me always

me: it is most handy and littered with profanity.

  *and slutty

 Jen: Way smitty

  Slutty

Auto correct didn't like slutty

  It's judgmental

 me: YOU DON'T KNOW ME AUTOCORRECT

  and yet you are an excellent judge of character

Jen: It refuses to let me type shitr

  S

  H

  I

  T

 me: Type "shiite" maybe you're talking about kurdish rebels.

 are they?

  wait

  is that true?

  goddamnit brain, you come up with weird facts   me: uuughhhhh SB just heated up his lunch and I would swear on a box of wine it smells like a bucket of rotten vegetables

 Jen: it probably is...well fermented anyway

me: so nasty

 Jen: speaks the woman who ate a baby sheep on a stick and muched up chick peas

 me: Baby sheep are delicious, don't step   me: Lookatcha with teh wedding pinboard :-)

  i love it

 Jen: oh thats me planning for Thing 1

 me: worse comes to worse we'll throw ourselves really big elaborate parties

 Jen: ive gone off marriage

  we can have theme parties

me: And have registries and everything

  and everyone will be contractually obligated to look worse than us

Jen: yeah, we can tell them its a troll and goblin party and we can dress as sexy fiaries or something

 me: Slutty faeries

 Jen: i pretty much have it all worked out in my head

me: I'm only undecided on teh proper # of man-slaves to carry us in

 Jen: never too many, thats my thought  Jen also has forever bad-ass-ness status because after I was all about how great rats are for pets she got two for her kids and then **this** happened   Jen: Dude, just got home from 1 night over at Dude's house

  and one of the rats ate the other one

  like from the side, all the guts and stuff

 me: OH MY HELL

Jen: we gave them lots of food before we left too

 me: Have you considered the possibility that your house is built on an Indian burial ground?  I mean, seriously.  Who has that happen to them?    Jen: ok so cannibal rat is like super rat

 me: did it wrestle a rattlesnake to death?

Jen: hes doing tricks now

  i think he killed the other one because it was inferior

 Me: you need to rename the rat cage Thunderdome  She also is a vegan.  A vegan WHO BAKES.  And makes really yummy amazing things that even non-vegans would eat.  me:I hate that for every "motivation to exercise" pin there's like 10 recipes of the worst junk food

  like cookie batter brownie bites with snickers topped with marshmallow fluff

  I just made that up but now I want ti

 *it

 Jen: i think i just went into a diabetic coma reading it

 me: but you're drooling too, right?

 Jen: maybe a little

 havent had snickers or fluff in a dogs age

  cookies and brownies....guilty!

coming up on my 9 month vegan anniversary

me: Vagaversary?

  Vegaversary

  vagina?what?

  Jen: vagwho?

 me: vagyourmama

 Jen: your momma so fat she eats her cereal out of a satellite dish

 

Jen: got that sunabitch IUD out yesterday

me: OMG ... I will say a rosary for your ladybits. You OK?

 Jen: fine now, but damn near kicked my dr in his face

 me: The WORST

 Jen: it was implanted in the UPPER PART OF MY UTERUS!!

what the fuckity fuck fuck

 me: Ugh ... my butthole just puckered for you

 Jen: yeah, it was nasty

  me: Only date snipped men

  it can be the lithmus test to see if they scare easily

Jen: not bad... "hi, your cute, are you shooting blanks? ok lets go out"

 me: While rocking some cleavage, don't get me wrong  me: ugh, pinterest is being a whore

 Jen: it's a pinstitute

does it have a pinp

 me: ba-dum-chingggggg thanks folks she'll be here all week  And that my lovaaahhhhhhs is the awesomeness of my Jen.  You can't have her so find your own.  But you can read her blog here and get inspired by her super awesome fantabulousness.  Peace, Love, Pinterest & Pimps.