Canine Cake & Sunday Brunch

The first recipe I made from My Sweet Vegan was the Canine Cake, of course. After Luckie's health challenges in this, his 14th year, I figured he deserved a cake. He hasn't touched commercial pet food in well over 10 years and he has certainly had his fair share of baked goods passed his way from the table to floor but he's never had an entire cake made for him.

The cake is simple and wholesome--nothing but flour, baking soda, shredded carrots, peanut butter, canola oil and applesauce. It's a cinch to make--just briefly mix all the ingredients together until you have a consistency more akin to cookie dough than cake batter, place into two small ramekins (or a small baking dish), and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.



Although it's not very sweet, the end result is incredibly moist and like a mildly nutty carrot cake. Add some sugar or even just serve with some jam and I'm sure even the human dessert craving will be sated. In fact, Brian stole a generous chunk from Luckie this morning. But Brian said that is only fair since Luckie has helped himself to our meals more than once.

Oh, the dog seemed to like it too.

On a recent epidsode of Animal Voices, Isa Chandra Moskowitz said that Portlanders really love their brunch, particularly biscuits and gravy. Brian and I found this to be true when we were in Portland a few weeks ago. We had tofu scramble, smoky kale, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, and a berry crumble at Sweet Pea Baking Company's weekly Sunday brunch. Sweet Pea does not need to do brunch because their marionberry muffin was the best muffin I've ever had in my entire life and the Elvis cake (bananas and peanut butter and chocolate oh my) completely silenced Brian and I as we sat in the rental car in an Oregon state park eating it instead of hiking. That's more than enough. But they do brunch too because they care and because they are vegan angels.

Inspired by their brunch, Brian and I cooked up the tofu scramble from The New Becoming Vegetarian, which features nutritional yeast. I must be earning more and more vegan stripes every day because now I like the stuff and can't wait to use it again. Instead of potatoes, I sliced up a green plantain and fried it in a small amount of canola oil before blotting and lightly salting them. Add some Amy's meatless grain and vegetable-based sausages and you are good to go.

Canine Cake photos by Brian & Joselle; Brunch photo by Brian

Random Fridays: Guess Who Is Going to School?

Congratulations, Brian, on your admittance into Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology! Please allow me to disagree with your modest claims that this is really no big deal. Yes, it is! Not everyone is admitted into graduate school and not everyone takes the time and effort to go through the various steps of choosing and applying to a program while working full-time, taking care of a house, and doing the whole long-distance relationship dance with their girlfriends, not to mention eating, sleeping, and showering. I know you will succeed in school, make lots of genuine connections (‘cause that’s just what you do), and go on to be a top-notch archivist. You will probably invent a new, cutting-edge archiving system that will blow Mr. Dewey out of the water. Have fun and I love you.

(Picture is of the Library of Congress, Washington DC, where the Storycorps Brian and I recorded in Grand Central Terminal last year is archived. Maybe he'll be able to find it there after he's done with school.)

Feeding Philly's Veggies: Miss Rachel's Traveling Fare

While perusing uwishnu's feed today, I came across this entry on Miss Rachel's Traveling Fare, a vegetarian and vegan personal food service based in Philadelphia and owned and operated by Rachel Klein. From her MySpace page:

Miss Rachel's Traveling Fare is a personal chef, catering and consulting service in Philadelphia, Pa, offering menu-planning and delicious homestyle vegan and vegetarian cuisine...

Whether you're craving comfort food, want a few meals made for you (and delivered) to enjoy throughout the week, want to please your vegan sweetie, need healthy veg food to take in a cooler to the beach (yes! the beach!), have been on the road and are tired of Taco Bell and peanut butter straight out of the jar, or have a soiree (that's French) to host, Miss Rachel is your gal.

By the looks of the sample vegan four-course and sample gluten-free three-course menus on MySpace and the scrumptious picture of sweet and sour tofu served over coconut and lemongrass jasmine rice posted on uwishunu, Miss Rachel is definitely barking up my tree. According to Miss Rachel herself, she does most of the cooking in her kitchen now and delivers it instead of cooking in clients' homes, so the prices are a lower than what is listed in the uwishnu post.

For more information:
Miss Rachel's Traveling Fare MySpace
themostesshostess@gmail.com and tourmommy@gmail.com

Luckie. With Bone.

luckie with bone, originally uploaded by joselle.

Luckie with a greenie-type bone in his mouth. It is unusual for him to just let it sit in his mouth but since he had a second seizure, he's on a med that makes him a little more loopy and sedate. This is why I could take this picture. Otherwise, he would never let me get this close to him during bone time.

So, yes. He's still doing okay.

Links to Discussions on Veganism and Animal Rights

I am unable to post now due to work responsibilities, Luckie's continuing health issues, and my RSI. But I have been keeping my eyes and ears open to vegan happenings on the internets and wanted to share some interesting links I've come across in the last week or so:

* "So the point i am getting at is that we need to be careful not to view ourselves, vegans, as standing upon an ethical pedestal. Just because we don’t consume animal products does not give us moral high ground. If we wish veganism as a movement to grow, then veganism must become informed by all movements for justice, compassion, and non-violence. Rather than limiting ourselves to non-humyn animal suffering, we must also critically approach ability, gender, class, race, age, size, sexuality, and other categorizations that have been used to create violent hierarchies. To do this, we must put a great deal of effort on our own persynal growth and awareness." from "Getting to the Core Principles of Veganism" by vegankid.

* A discussion on the convergence of animals, work and class on this Animal Voices interview with Jason Hribal entitled, "Animals Are Part of the Working Class."

* Vegan and animal abolitionist scholar Gary Francione on VeganFreak Radio, parts 1 and 2.

* I had the pleasure of listening to and briefly speaking with lauren Ornelas at the Let Live Conference in Portland when Brian and I were there a few weeks ago. I want to write about that experience here and on Vegans of Color but until then, The Food Empowerment Project is one lauren Ornelas' endeavors. Here's an interview with her from Satya magazine.

* On a more lighthearted note, I just ordered this adorable passport case from the tinymeat shop on etsy. I love bears (and Brian thinks I am a bear...one of those sillysecretcouplesthings) and the case pictures a bear who travels. That is so me.

Coming Soon: PDX & SFO. But First, a Picture & Poem

One of my best meals in Portland, Black Dragon Noodle Bowl from The Red and Black Cafe

Brian and I are home
Back from Portland and hillsides
But work awaits me

(so here is a teaser picture along with an unorthodox and bad haiku)

Three Days Until Portland and San Francisco

It's been quiet on the blogging front, what with Luckie having a tumor and then a seizure (by the way, he seems really great lately, very alert and always up for eating) and Brian and I heading off to Portland and San Francisco this Thursday. I've been trying to tie up loose ends at work so I come back to only 5000 emails as opposed to 10,000 of them. Brian and I have also been trying to come up with a loose itinerary for our vacation. Mainly, I've planned where we're going to eat. Brian as a veteran vegan and me as the newbie will be in vegan heaven in these two cities. It will be so nice to go to a restaurant and be able to order ANYTHING. Other than that, though, I'm leaving it up to fate. I just want to relax and get away from my ever-present to-do list: bike ride, hike, walk around, laze in bookstores, eat, not touch a computer for 10 days, and spend time with my boyfriend for more than 24 hours in a row. It will be so nice to be in the same city with him for over a week. We'll also be seeing some friends, including Sky. We'll be back with lots of pictures and restaurant reviews sometime after the fourth of July. Until then, if you have any recommendations for Portland and San Francisco--food-related or not--please leave some comments.

* San Francisco postcard found on Flickr.