Vegan Nom Nom: Squash with Maple Sugar

Locally grown, organic baby red potatoes and green beans.

After halving the squash, I removed the seeds and strings. My half was stuffed with soy butter and brown sugar, my husband's with butter and brown sugar. Halves were next placed in a covered dish with about 1/2" of water and baked in the over for 30 minutes at 475 degrees.

On a recent trip to New England my mom brought us some Vermont maple sugar which we applied liberally to our squashes before eating.

Baby X's Manly Punkin Fighting Suit

Baby Jonas Xavier's mother requested a manly pumpkin themed fighting suit. Aren't pumpkins inherently manly? I made this pattern from a drawing I created.

The orange fabric making the body of the pumpkin is from Home Ec Workshop, and the leaf and stem fabrics are from vintage scraps. This was the first time I used an embroidery hoop on a onesie and it worked like a dream. Baby X may be the envy of all the pumpkins in the patch!

Vegan Nom Nom: Caribbean Rice 'n' Beans + Avocado/Tomato Salad

Another successful vegan meal from Linda McCarthy's "On Tour" cookbook. This evening I made Caribbean Rice 'n' Beans and a avocado/tomato salad with classic vinaigrette. My meat-chawing hubby really liked this dish and I really liked that it was easy and used only one pot. I did substitute lite coconut milk and used lime in the vinaigrette (as suggested by the author).

Rice 'n' Beans

Rice 'n' Beans

serves 4

1 medium onion, chopped finely

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 pound vegetarian burgers, cubed

1 small chili pepper, trimmed and seeded

3 tomatoes, chopped small

2 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 1/2 cups long grain rice

1 cup canned black-eyed peas or kidney beans, drained

sea salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, saute the onion in the olive oil, then add the burger cubes and toss until they are lightly browned.

Add the remaining ingredients, except the beans, and stir well. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for ten minutes. Stir in the beans and cook for a further ten minutes until the rice is tender, adding water if necessary. Season to taste.

Avocado and Tomato Salad with Classic Vinaigrette

Classic Vinaigrette

serves 4

1-2 teaspoons fine or grainy mustard

2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice, or 2 tablespoons wine, balsamic or cider vinegar

6 tablespoons olive oil

crushed garlic to taste (optional)

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Handmade Halloween Lino-Cut Cards

Halloween – the very bestest, gruesomest, ghouliest time of year! These are prints from a series of Halloween themed linoleum blocks I created. The cards are available for purchase in my etsy shop - http://www.heatherlucille.etsy.com/

Little Punkin Widecrotch is a child (and skeeredy-cat) friendly design. Is he running from a bogey or too candy? Either way he has on fabu stripey tights.
Any self respecting fan of the spooking season knows all about The Raven. Birds in general = horrifying. Ravens in particular = pants pooping horror. Here you can see the carved lino block - and the printed card.
Dioes de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) also happens to be my birthday! This design was based on the colorful, delicate tissue paper flags hung in Mexico as part of the celebration.
Witchy Pooh-pie and her black cat fly in front of the full moon on an errand of mischief!

Mr. Beelzy loves to torment the souls of the damned with his pitchfork. Prick, prick, prick!

The Colossal

My new obsession? Maybeline's "The Colossal" mascara. Admittedly mascaras usually over-promise and under-deliver then leave me grumbling about my poorly spent money. Trust me, The Colossal delivers. It even made my scraggly lashes look like I was wearing falsies. And I still have two small gaps of eyelashes missing from an unfortunate curler incident earlier this Summer.

Yeah, that's right - my eyelashes are THE COLOSSAL.

The Cutest Sweater Ever Knit

I found this j'adorable hand knit child's sweater at the thrift store for $1.00. Can you even believe how cute and disapproving little McBunnersons is in her stripey widdle shirt?

If cute could kill, I would be dead on the floor. Can someone please shrink me down "Innerspace" style so I can fit into this gem and wear it every single day and be cremated in it?

Support Your Local Gunfighter

I am never taking my new gunfighter outfit off. Straw cowgirl hat with Sheriff badge (red plastic goes very will with gingham), two silver cap guns with black holsters. Bad. Ass.

BANG! BANG!

Soundtrack = Marty Robbins "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs"

Vegan Nom Nom: Cowpie Cookies

Making these Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies was my first attempt at vegan baking and I think they turned out very well indeed. You can get the recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=111

The batter got so thick that my poor little 70's hand mixer literally started to smoke! Since the batter was so deliciously ooey-gooey thick and sticky I used two table spoons to extricate and from the dough balls onto the cookie sheet.

They do look like cow pies, but they are so delightfully chocolatey, who cares?