May your holiday be bright and shiny,
and your ‘verse, filled with shindigs and thrilling heroics.
- Kaylee and Jayne
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Happy holidays, y’all! As I said the other day, I’ve been dying to do some holiday cosplay with Kaylee and Jayne ever since we adopted them five years ago, and this year I finally got to it! I decorated the entire tree with pirates in their honor (The crew of Serenity? Space pirates! Totally relevant to Pastafarianism, since doctrine holds that the decline in pirates is correlated with global warming – and thus in order to avert the apocalypse, we have to bring back piracy. Check and mate.), which was no small feat seeing as I made most of the ornaments by hand over a two-month period. I also hired someone to custom-make Kaylee Frye and Jayne Cobb outfits way back in August. Oh, the planning that went into this holiday card!

Unfortunately, my seamstress totally flaked, leaving me to cobble together costumes from off-the-rack pieces at the last minute. Instead of a green mechanic’s jumpsuit and floral blouse, Kaylee is wearing her shindig dress – that is, a Cotton Candy Dog Dress by East Side Collection. And while Jayne isn’t sporting a trademark brown Jayne Cobb ringer tee, she does look pretty badass in a green army jacket – really an Army Green Utility Jacket by Zack & Zoey.

Of course, the Jayne hat is the star of the ensemble; I actually had three custom-made for me by two different etsians: Sam’s Crochet (that would be the adorably floppy, Rasta-style hat Jayne and Peedee are wearing) and Whitaker Knits (the smaller hats with the orange tie, as seen on Ralphie and O-Ren, below). Rounding out Jayne’s look is a Browncoats logo pin I scored on Amazon. (It’s on her chest and not clearly visible in all the photos.) I also picked up some cute ID badges on eBay, but couldn’t find a place for them in the final outfits. Instead, they became ornaments for the tree.

Here’s a little character collage I put together for my family, who are not Firefly fans (THE HORRA!) and thus didn’t get the reference. Side-by-side comparison time! How do you think I did?

All’s shiny that ends shiny, I say.

Outtakes and extras after the jump!

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This year I’d really hoped to do a “31 Days of CriFSMas” series. There was to be tutorials for making ornaments by hand, decorating tips, diy greeting card ideas, menu suggestions – even a list of festive viewing options. (Actually, I’ve planned on doing this for several years now, but veganmofo always leaves me exhausted and burnt out.) This year seemed an especially opportune time, seeing as I’ve been planning it since July and created many of the ornaments on the tree from scratch. But since time cannot be rewritten – that is, unless you are a Timelord or happen to know one – I’ll just have to cram it all into one ginormous megapost. Sound good?

The Pirate Tree

What better place to start than the tree? Whereas in years past I’ve gone heavy on the pasta-themed ornaments, this year I decided to do a full-on pirate theme – with a special focus on Firefly. Space pirates are totally relevant when you’re a Pastafarian, yo! Also when you’re the guardian of two dogs who are named after characters on the show! I’ve been dying to do some holiday cosplay with Kaylee and Jayne ever since we adopted them five years ago, but this year I actually took the initiative and did it! (Hence the early planning.) I’ll post photos of the dogs later this week, but suffice to say that their costumes directly influenced the look of the tree. Since I’ve never done a pirate tree before, almost all of the ornaments and decorations are new this season.

The decorations are mix of re-purposed items (pirate toys from the Dollar Store; some cool and inexpensive pirate and nautical wood party favors from Jo-Anne Fabric; glass bottles that look as though they might hold messages from castaways, also from J-Anne Fabric; “gold” skull & crossbones metal charms found on eBay), Firefly merch (ID badges for Kaylee Frye and Jayne Cobb; a Serenity keychain), and diy ornaments made by gluing pirate stickers and photos onto bottle caps and card stock.

It’s this last group that I wanted to make a tutorial for but really, it’s all very simple. Throughout the summer I saved up whatever bottle caps and lids I could (the flatter, the better) and when I had a pretty good collection going, I laid them all out on the floor of the barn (on top of a drop cloth, natch) and spray-painted them black. Since you’re likely to have collected lids made of variety of materials – plastic and metal, mostly – make sure you buy a spray paint that’s suitable for each.

Then hit the internets and gather up as many pirate-y pictures as you can: google Firefly/Serenity (the art produced by this fandom is both plentiful and delightful!), Pirates of the Caribbean, pirate Amy Pond, women pirates (girl power!), etc. (Though that last search term turns up some rather depressing results. To cut down on the number of sexy pirates, search for historical woman pirates. You won’t get many results, but the hits you do get will be awesome!) Next, resize ‘em so that the portions of the photos that you’d like to use are similar in size to your caps and lids, then copy and paste them onto 4×6, 5×7, and/or 8×10 canvases (depending on the size, you’ll be able to fit between one and five images on each), and either print them up at home or order them online at Sam’s Club or similar.

The hardest part is cutting the images to fit snugly inside the lids. Cutting a circle freehand is pretty much impossible, as I quickly learned. Instead, try to find a circular item – a cup or bottle, for example, or even another, slightly smaller lid – and use it to trace a circle on the image. Though still difficult, the guide will help you to cut a much rounder circle. (Just go slowly!) When done, simply glue the photo into the lid. (A heavy-duty, acid-free glue stick works well for this.)

If you can find circular stickers – I happened to have some 1.5″ round skull & crossbones stickers left over from last year – these are a nice option too. While they don’t offer a whole lot of variety, they do come pre-cut. Score!

For hanging, you can either glue a jump ring (used in jewelry making and available at craft stores) to the back of the lid or, if it’s made of plastic and thick enough, drill a small hole into the “lip” of the lid. Either way, string some curling ribbon or a pipe cleaner through the ring or hole to make a loop that can then be used to hang the ornament from the tree. (Curling ribbon is much easier to work with, imho.) We stuck with black to match the tree’s color scheme (namely, black and gold).

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Okay, so this is a pretty simple recipe that’s based on the AMAZEBALLS! pancakes and sausage on a stick that I made for veganmofo. Upon our success with the pancakes and sausage – the batter for which is baked in the oven in canoe pans – I thought it might be fun to try out a baked pancake dish. So I got to searching the internets. Many of the bake-able pancake recipes I found online are for thicker, denser, almost pastry-like pancakes. I tried one and, alas, it was a complete and utter failure. I never could get the damn things to bake all the way through. Plus I was really craving a more traditional, American style pancake anyway. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to stick with the original batter recipe. Voilà! Sweet, sugary, syrupy success!

These pancakes aren’t quite as light and fluffy as those baked on the griddle, but they’re awfully close. Plus they have the advantage of simplicity: just make the batter, divide it evenly between two cake pans, and pop ‘em in the oven for twenty minutes or so. No hovering over a hot griddle! No flipping pancakes! No doughy mess! A great go-to recipe for slackers and stoners, in other words.

“Protect your friends. You only have one hometown.
If you think you’ve had a bad date, remember, it can always get worse.
And it’s okay to eat breakfast for dinner.”
- Amy Poehler in New York Magazine on what she’s learned from Leslie Knope (via)
——————————

 
Ginormous Oven-Baked Pancakes

(Make two very large, 9″ round pancakes. Serves two to three people.)

Ingredients

2 cups Bisquick
1 1/2 cup soy milk
Egg substitute equivalent to two eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)
Spices to taste (I used a tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice)
Toppings to taste (I used maple syrup and powdered sugar)
Vegan meaty sides (I had two links of Lightlife Smart Links, Breakfast Sausage styley)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine the Bisquick, soy milk and egg substitute and mix well. (A whisk might come in handy here!) Add spices to taste.

2. Spray two 9″ round cake pans with cooking spray and pour equal amounts of batter into each pan. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the pancakes from the pan and serve immediately!

…made by Natalie at Bake and Destroy! I won these bad girls in a contest and yes, they are every bit as delish as they look.

Better still: Natalie was nice enough to share the recipe, so you can make them your own self. AND SEND THEM ALL TO MEEEEE!!!!

This is a slight reworking of my go-to zucchini bread recipe, which I shared many years ago. (In internet time, that means three!) Since the recipe makes two loaves, I decided to split the batter in half and make two different flavors. (I know, GENIUS!) The original recipe calls for raisins, but here I made a loaf each of cranberry and chocolate chip zucchini bread. Both flavors were yummy, but. Since this is a rather fluffy sweet bread, I think the cranberries worked out better than the chocolate chips; the dried, sliced cranberries seem to better match the lightness of the grated zucchini, whereas the chocolate chips weighed the loaf down a bit. But try both and be your own decider person! Or sub in your own favorite secret ingredient! It’s your kitchen, do what you want!

Excuse the dreadful pictures, allright. I managed to butcher both loaves while removing them from their respective bread pans (and thus didn’t have much to work with, photo wise), but that’s okay! Still delish!

Zucchini Bread for Two

Ingredients

2 cups zucchini, grated (1 medium-sized zucchini should do it!)
Egg replacer equivalent to 3 eggs (I used 3 tablespoons of ground flax seeds and 9 tablespoons of water, mixed well in a blender for 30 seconds.)
1 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup “extras” per loaf (this recipe makes two loaves): cranberries, chocolate chips, raisins, etc.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine the grated zucchini, egg replacer, sugar, oil, and vanilla and mix until well blended. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking powder; stir well. Gradually stir the dry ingredients in with wet mixture. Stir well.

2. If making two different types of zucchini bread, equally divide the batter between the two bowls. Stir in a half a cup of “extras” per loaf: cranberries, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts – whatever your heart desires! Cranberries are my personal favorite; for this batch, I made a loaf each of cranberry and chocolate chip zucchini bread.

3. Spray two loaf pans with cooking spray. Pour each batch of batter into its respective pan and bake at 350F for 40 to 60 minutes. (Mine was nicely browned after 40 minutes, so keep an eye on it starting at 30 minutes!) Be sure to rotate the pans at the halfway mark!

4. Enjoy warm and often!

I don’t usually make vanilla ice cream from scratch – why bother when you can buy it somewhat inexpensively by the quart? and at your local Wal-Mart even! – but I had some soy creamer and vanilla beans that needed to be used up simultaneously, and there you go. With both vanilla beans and vanilla extract, this is a doubly rich, doubly vanilla dessert that’s sure to please the vegan vanilla lover in your life. And really, who doesn’t like vanilla?

Fwiw, I had to hit the internets to figure out how in the ‘verse to use a vanilla bean. Yes it was my first time! (Honestly, I’m not even sure where they came from. It’s like vanilla beans just appeared in my cabinet, yo!) This tutorial at Zoe Bakes was somewhat useful, though I wasn’t clear on whether I was supposed to toss the emptied bean pod in with the ice cream batter while it was simmering on the stove, or simply set it aside for later use. I cooked it with the batter and discarded it when I was done, with no adverse reaction. So I guess that’s one way to use a bean pod?
 

Very Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 cup vanilla soy milk, divided
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 cups vanilla soy creamer
3/4 cup sugar
1 or 2 vanilla beans
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a small bowl or mug, combine 1/4 cup of the soy milk with the arrowroot powder. Whisk briskly and set aside.

2. In a saucepan, combine the remaining 3/4 cup of the soy milk with all of the soy creamer and sugar. Heat on medium.

3. While the batter is warming up, slice a vanilla bean(s) lengthwise and carefully scrape out all the seeds. Add them to the batter and whisk well. If you’d like, toss the emptied bean pod(s) in as well. Bring to a slow boil, stirring constantly.

4. Once the mix begins to boil, remove from heat. Remove the bean pod and add the arrowroot “slurry” immediately. This will cause the batter to thicken noticeably. Add the vanilla extract and mix well. Chill in the fridge for four to six hours or more. (Usually I prefer to let the batter chill overnight.) Process according to your ice cream machine’s instructions.

YOU OTHER READERS CAN’T DENY
WHEN A BOOK WALKS IN WITH A GOOD PLOT BASE
AND A BIG SPINE IN YOUR FACE YOU GET SPRUNG
WANNA PULL OUT YOUR PENS
‘CAUSE YOU NOTICED THAT BOOK WAS DENSE
READING, HALF-RIMS I’M WEARING
I’M HOOKED AND I CAN’T CARING
OH BABY I WANT AN E-READER
AND A MEANINGFUL METER
MY TEACHERS TRIED TO TRAIN ME
THAT BOOK YOU GOT MAKE ME SO BRAINY.

(Photo via The Daily What; lyrics by Seven Points.)

Hey people! I’m giving away a copy of Jo Stepaniak’s The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook over on fuck yeah vegan pizza. Enter here! The contest closes Thursday night, so get to it!* This is the first of many giveaways I have planned in the next few months, so follow me over there if you aren’t already. (Clearly I’m not above bribery, nosiree.)

* A tumblr account is a bonus, but not necessary – you can enter via email as well. The more you know!