Ma and Pa's Blog

Too gloomy here today for good pictures, so here’s one from Honda.

After much investigation, deliberation and angst, we went out and bought a 2008 Honda Civic today!  Although the idea was planted by that little brake incident in Hocking Hills, we ditched the Focus and kept the Taurus Death Sedan, because, when all is said and done, iffy brakes still trump no air conditioning.  (And the brakes have been fine–but Dad & I would still be uneasy taking any more long trips in the white beast.)   So we are now the proud owners of a Galaxy Grey Civic LX Sedan, and very happy!  Excuse me now while I go out, sit in the driver’s seat of the Civic, and inhale that sweet, sweet new-car smell!

I’ve been concerned about Cali for the last couple months: she’s been increasingly lethargic, not begging at dinnertime (!), and panting incessantly in spite of the air conditioning. Sigh. It looked like her Cushing’s disease was making its move and ramping things up for our poor old girl. In an effort to make her a little more comfortable, I scheduled a haircut for her on Thursday. And brought home a new dog. After her post-grooming nap, we had our girl back. At twelve years old, she’s no longer the lunatic that bounced off the walls and made us crazy for years, but now she’s prancing around, tail held high, and even INITIATING PLAYTIME–something she hasn’t done in months. Unbelievable. Now I know that when her coat exceeds one inch, it’s time to call the groomer. I just wish my own haircut last week had had the same salubrious effect on me…

And, it still doesn’t eliminate the need for anti-virus, and anti-spyware, and anti-spam program add-ons!    Aargh!

For those of you who liked the Vegan Ribz we had at Hocking Hills, you are gonna LOVE seitan sausage! I’d been wanting to try the recipe for awhile, and finally got off my butt to try it tonight. Dad had been asking for Moroccan Stew * so I figured the sausage could be a nice accompaniment to the dish, but if we didn’t like the sausage, the stew is still great on its own. But, man, it was SO good!

I followed the recipe from Vegan Dad, for a very tasty Italian sausage that is incredibly easy to prepare. I did the mixing in the food processor, pulsing the garlic cloves and beans ’til smooth, adding all liquids and seasonings and pulsing once or twice, then adding the gluten and nutritional yeast and mixing until it was a rubbery mass around the blade. I didn’t even try to shape the mass into sausage shapes, but divided the stuff into sixths and plunked each blob onto its aluminum foil sheet, rolling it up as directed. I steamed them for 40 minutes while the stew was cooking, then unwrapped them onto a cooling rack. I grilled two of them for dinner tonight and I’m looking forward to using the other four sausages later this week. The sausages exceeded our expectations, and the recipe could easily be modified to mimic breakfast sausage (addition of sage, omitting fennel) or even Hungarian (more paprika, garlic and pepper flakes). I think grilling them outside is a brilliant idea and that’s probably how I’ll use them next, but a saute with onions and peppers would be nice–or in spaghetti sauce!

Vegan Dad is a favorite site of mine–very readable with easy to follow recipes and interesting menu ideas–a great go-to resource for dinner ideas for the vegans among us–and some great ideas for us omnivores as well!

Sadly, just a while ago, we succumbed to another stupid blog temptation and blew the hell out of our healthy dinner–five minute microwave cupcakes. They’re also good. Not healthy, just good.

*I can let you know of my (minor) modifications to the stew recipe if you’re interested.

We took a brief walk in the Metro Parks Nature Realm this morning.   It was a perfect day, and we plan to go back soon.