A few small but tasty discoveries

First - waffles taste wonderful and are softer if you add cascadian farms organic frozen blueberries that have been heated and cooled. (or fresh I am sure if you are so lucky) Nice to have the little blueberries embedded right in the whole wheat waffle (theirs are tiny, like the size of capers). Also, a new gravy discovery: I had frozen a box of the organic butternut soup and discovered the pulp had sunk to the bottom when it thawed. I mixed the pulp with raw cashews, a little water, and blended it up, and then added a little tamari sauce and blended a bit longer. Exceptional! going to put it on steamed red potatoes and carrots (if I don't nibble it all first ;-) . Try it! (made while watching a very good documentary on woodstock - what an event - mind blowing in many ways, espec. strong outspoken anti-war theme that has great meaning today.)

Easter Bun

An organic vanilla Easter Bunny cake with meyer lemon zest, coconut pudding filling ( that also made a great tail), and frosting with big shreds of coconut. The purple flowers are off the hong kong orchid tree and its the first time I have ever picked them and was delighted they are such an interesting flower up close. Hoping the sun will come out (its a little rain cloudy) for a walk among butterflies down at the shoreline ... the yellow sulphurs show up down there en masse this time of year for some reason ...

BTW - Since the bunny cake recipe / construction has been kept something of a family secret, I wondered why ... and think I may possibly have figured it out. In order to shape his shoulders and get his head to be the right porportion, it requires some carving down ... which leaves left overs! So maybe the master of the bunny cake has been secretly enjoying these samples all of these years and not telling anyone? Hmmmm ?? Possibly .... ;-)

And since we are not all together for Easter, here is what each daughter was sent to enjoy today ... note the serendipity of the individual color themes! Each of the cotton 'eggs' packed inside is what I used to get for Easter and something you each have mentioned missing not getting anymore. When I told this to my mom, she laughed and said I used to 'complain' about getting them for Easter! and now you all want them ... funny how things change yet somehow stay the same, over the generations. Hope you noted that we are new/renewed members of NRCD and Greenpeace, and enjoy the music ... and chocolate (which I think is vegan, as are the jellies). And take your vitamins!
Happy Spring 2007!

Sometimes a centerpiece makes the meal

This is a clear glass hurricane lamp that usually sits here with a candle and has become a beautiful way to put the angel trumpet flowers in water and - at night - to light the candle inside so it glows up through the flowers ... they are night scented so best in the evening ... very beautiful in person ... makes for heady dreams too ...

A Stab at a Scrambler sans package

Now that Fantastic Foods seems to have abandoned my staple, Tofu Scrambler, I am trying to find an alternative - ie a home made recipe - how daring !! I did use the tumeric AQ suggested, also added in garlic powder, fresh parsley / red onion / sweet peppers and it was tasty .. but still not the same. Want to figure out those mysterious flavors that made the packaged one so delicions. Suggestions?



The pictures to left and above are on the newly tiled back deck, and below is the new front deck that is reached by the kitchen door (and is now how we get in the house for the carved Bali doors too). That is a home grown papaya for the breakfast above, with starfruit, from the trees in the picture below, but the blueberries come from Chile (and are amazingly good somehow). Tomatoes are wild harvested from a bush up in the new upper garden - volunteer tastiness!



Speaking of tastiness, Julies Organics makes a light, low carb fudgecicle that I have discovered becomes even more delicious when fresh bluerries and almonds are pressed into one side of a popcicle and enjoyed with the chocolate base. Try it! They don't seem to freeze up real hard so its easy to press things into them. Or of course, some people have their own ice cream makers ...