St. Patty’s Day salad

Spring sunshine keeping my plants warm

And yummy banana muffins that are “naturally” vegan (as in, original recipe)

Happy almost spring to all!

Thanks to Monica at Rural Vegan for this cool idea for a meme. It’s pretty self explanatory and if you haven’t done it yet, consider yourself tagged…

This is SO me

This is so NOT Me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

This is SO me

This is so NOT me

What about you…?

Due to the craziness that is grad school, I’ve recently spent far less time on this blog than I would like…therefore, I’ve decided to regroup. I absolutely refuse to cease existing in the blogosphere - I love the comradery, advice and general mayhem that one finds in our online veggie community. The only *slight* problem is my serious lack of cooking lately. I still eat delicious and nutritious vegan food, but it’s the kind of food that I can whip up while running out the door (pot of blackbeans and rice, baked potatoes, barbeque lentils, salad, peanut butter and jelly etc.) - not the kind of food that takes elegant photos or keeps you from falling asleep while you read its “recipe” (take two slices of bread and spread peanut butter on one half, then jelly on the other).

But why should I give up blogging because I don’t always have time to experiment in the kitchen? I mean, some blogs are about more than just food, right? Right! So if you’ll bear with me, oh gracious blogging buddies, I will do my best to participate (comment, post etc.) as a veg-head, while mixing it up from time to time with non-food posts. I hope this will work out okay…

That said, I have to bring up my new favorite vegan artist. I first discovered Michelle Cavigliano’s work after reading a post on Mihl’s blog, and proceeded to spend the next hour cruising Michelle’s website, esty shop, and blog. I’m totally hooked - just look at some of these images…

The absolute minute I have money again, I intend to buy some prints. Michelle’s art is whimsical, vibrant, and magical. I can’t look away!

In other non-food news, my sister (*in-law* in theory, but not in practice) has made a commitment this year not to purchase any new clothes for herself. She’s an accomplished seamstress and knitter, so she’s decided to take the year off from department store consumerism and use the heaps of fabric and yarn she has accumulated over the years to clothe herself and my brother. Cool idea, eh? Read more here.

And lastly, a few random pictures of my visit to a farm in Australia (I dare you not to swoon at the animal cuteness)…

Vive la weekend!

First off, happy holidays!!! Can you believe we’re about to celebrate another Christmas and New Year’s season?! Where has the time gone…?

I’m happy to say that Christmas so far has been a hot and sunny affair for me. I arrived in Newcastle, Australia last week (near Syndey) and have already done a TON of really cool things. I don’t have too much to share in the way of vegan eats and treats, since I’ve mostly been eating out (Thai, salads etc.), except that the fruit here is INCREDIBLE! As an Alaskan who endures the lame fruit selection all winter long, I have been pleasantly gorging myself on fresh mangoes, apricots, pineapple, avocadoes, tomatoes and more. This is the life!

I have a million more photos to upload, but the connection here is so slow that I’m putting it off until later. So, for now, I hope you and yours have a very merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving for me was a brief, but much needed, respite from the frenetic pace that usually accompanies all end of semester activities. I was blessed to spend the holiday with family and friends, who had a little trouble envisioning a vegan Thanksgiving feast, but were supportive nonetheless. The pictures from our day were not as amazing as I had hoped (you all know how that goes), but here’s a very short recap of the festivities.

For me, dinner consisted of mashed potatoes with horseradish (a delicious twist on the traditional variety), sweet potatoes with toasted coconut and ginger, steamed brussel sprouts in a light vinagrette, homemade pickled green beans, and maple-glazed tempeh with dijon mustard (served with cranberry sauce). The meal was SUPER tasty and downright easy to prepare.

The rest of the day was spent toasting various things/people we were grateful for, playing cards, napping and enjoying each other’s company…

To my wonderful blogging buddies:

Guess what? I’ve got a new address! I’m still working out the kinks on my new web page, but I hope you’ll come over and visit me at http://dabbleswithapples.com/

Not much will change in terms of content (yummy food recipes, pics etc.), but I wanted something that looked a little more “hip.” Special thanks to my cousin, Peter, for helping me with the graphics/technicalities of the new web page.

Much love to you all - and T.G.I.F!

Hi, All!

Welcome to my new blog. Fancy, huh? It’s still very much a work in progress (ie thanks for your patience), but MANY thanks to my cousin, Peter, for helping me put this together!

On a different note, the semester is almost over (hallelujah)! Soon I will actually have time to visit all of your amazing blogs again (yippee)! I’ve also got some Thanksgiving pics to upload before heading off to Australia in nine days (!!!). I hope everybody was just as blessed as I was to celebrate Thanksgiving with such great food and family/friends.

I owe a HUGE thank you to those of you who recently helped me out with a vegan blogger survey. Your answers were all invaluable - thanks for being so helpful and honest!

Okay, I’ve got to get back to the homework, but I just couldn’t wait to share my new space with you!

Ciao,

Monika

P.S. I don’t have a lot of content here yet, but check out my previous blog to get an idea of what this one will look like: http://appledabbler.blogspot.com/

So, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t exactly been “susie-on-the-spot” with my blog posting, lately. It isn’t because I haven’t been cooking fun vegan meals (I’ve made various vegan cupcakes and dishes for university social functions), it’s just that I’ve been mostly writing multiple essays and working on what seems to be a never ending mountain of homework (I thought getting my Masters was supposed to be easy! I want my money back…).

Anyway, I’m VERY excited about Thanksgiving break, because even though I must continue plugging away at that mountain of work over the weekend, I’ll at least get to take a day off to relax and celebrate with family and friends. Although the mostly omni gathering will offer various non-vegan dishes, I am currently planning to make the following dishes as my own vegan Thanksgiving contribution:

1. Nikki’s Sweet Potatoes (with toasted coconut and fresh ginger!)
2. Maple-glazed Tempeh (using a combination of multiple recipes)
3. Garlicky Greens or Green Beans
4. Apple/Fruit Crisp of some kind…

And here are a few other things that sound delicious: Fig and Wild Rice Seitan Roulade, or Beets and their Greens with a Lemony Dill Vinaigrette, or Autumn Coleslaw, or Vegan Green Bean Casserole or Ooey, Gooey Apple Crisp

I can’t wait to see what everyone else comes up with - isn’t this just the greatest time of year?!

I also have a quick, non-food related request to make for those of you who are looking to kill a little time and help me out in a MAJOR way. I’m writing about the vegan blogging community for one of my classes (World and Internet Englishes), and how membership in the community is established and maintained. I’ve created a survey and need a few of you AWESOME vegan bloggers to fill it out for me, if you’d be willing to answer a few questions (all answers remain completely anonymous). If it sounds like something you wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes on, send me your email address (or drop me an email at mknorthern@gmail.com), and I’ll email you the survey. There is absolutely no obligation for you to participate, but I’d be super grateful if anyone is interested…I’d owe you big time!

Okay, I’ll have recipes and pictures galore after Thanksgiving. In the meantime, Happy Holidays to you and yours!

The last two weeks have been CRAZY busy, what with loads of homework, English club meetings, conferences, work, my 25th birthday (shameless plug) and various other projects. But, I’m back and I’m baking! Last night I spent the evening destressifying (no, it’s not a word, but I’m an English grad student and therefore have the power to create new words…[insert evil laugh here]), and baking Halloween cupcakes. Unfortunately, my evening hit a real snag when I discovered that candy corn is not vegan. In fact, the candy corn at my local grocers had egg whites. Darn and blast! So, being the ultimate Halloween cupcake arteest that I am, I used Marzipan to make my own candy corn. Bwahahaha! (I haven’t slept much lately, so please forgive the occasional evil laugh…) Several hours later (this project ended up taking a LITTLE bit longer than I intended), I had two plates full of beautiful vegan cupcakes sporting totally vegan candy corn. Triumphant! Now if only my kitchen weren’t quite so messy…

Happy Halloween, All! …Bwahahahaha!!

What could be better than watching brightly colored leaves (or snowflakes) float through the crisp, autumn air? Why, watching those leaves fall with a cookie in your hand, of course! But not just any cookie - no, you need the BEST fall cookie. Introducing…dum dada dum…the pumpkin cookie! Okay, not really “introducing” since I’ve blogged about these favorite fall treats before, but I can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone who has tried my pumpkin cookies and said, “Boo! These are lame!” In fact, I have strangers asking me for the recipe, and friends demanding them for birthday treats. And they don’t even suspect that these cookies are totally vegan…bwahahaha! [Sigh.] I may be a little bit (a lot) sleep deprived, so I think I’ll just end here before I embarrass myself any further. But seriously, try these cookies. It will definitely be the start of a new fall tradition…

Pumpkin + sugary frosting = yes, please!

« Older Entries