May your holiday be bright and shiny,
and your ‘verse, filled with shindigs and thrilling heroics.
- Kaylee and Jayne
——————————

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!

Here’s the message label for the back of the card; I figured out ages ago that this is way easier than writing a message by hand (BY HAND! INTERNETS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PENMANSHIP!?!) on the back of each card. Also: safer and less messy. No bloody bleeding ink!

I also print out my own address labels, with a new design each holiday. The “to” labels have a shiny Browncoats logo,

while the image on the return labels is from the “Can’t Stop the Serenity” charity screenings.

Last but not least, I decorated the festive red envelopes with Alliance Postal and Blue Sun stamps from Ma Cobbe’s Hat Shoppe. Yeah, I totally geeked out this year. How could I not? BEST. THEME. EVER!

Now for the “outtakes”: one per animal – including Kaylee and Jayne, ’cause their outfits were so damn nice I had to do them twice – including one in memoriam for dear Ozzy, who passed away in June. Each card features a quote from Firefly or Serenity and, where possible, the animals are wearing a Jayne hat. (Since they’re new and don’t yet know their sits and stays, it was all I could do to snap a quick pic of Mags and Finnick in front of the tree – let alone in front of the tree AND wearing silly hats. I had to hold Fin in place by the backside and crop my hand out later. That one would rather be shot in the face than have his picture taken, I tell you what!) As for the cat, he cannot be contained. I had to bribe him into place with bits of dried cranberry, which he licks until they’re good and sticky and then just bats around the house.

Also, he really can kill you with his brain.

“I aim to misbehave.”
- Mal Reynolds, Serenity
——————————

“Yes, sir, Cap’n Tightpants.”
- Kaylee Frye, episode 4, “Shindig”
——————————

“Big Damn Heroes, sir.”
- Zoe Washburne, episode five, “Safe”
——————————

“Goin’ on a year now I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers weren’t run on batteries!”
- Kaylee Frye, Serenity
——————————

“She is starting to damage my calm.”
- Jayne Cobb, Serenity
——————————

“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
- Hoban “Wash” Washburne, “Serenity” (pilot)
——————————

“This must be what going mad feels like.”
- Simon Tam, episode seven, “Jaynestown”
——————————

“I can kill you with my brain.”
- River Tam, episode eleven, “Trash”
——————————

“I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.”
- Hoban “Wash” Washburne, Serenity
——————————

* Shepherd Book, episode two, “The Train Job”

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).

Another option is to pick up a book of cardstock paper and affix your photos to these instead of (or in addition to) caps and lids. For extra decoration, cut the paper an inch or two wider and taller than the photo, so that there’s a backdrop to frame it. The paper I picked up was one-sided (most is, if I’m not mistaken), so I glued two pieces together so that the backside of the decoration wouldn’t look so naked. If you have enough pictures, you can even affix one to each side of the paper so that there isn’t a backside. (This works well with images from the same series of artwork, e.g., the “Wanted” posters from Firefly, or the Art Nouveau posters, also from Firefly. I was not kidding about how hard Firefly artwork rocks!)

Since you can cut the paper to size, this method offers much more flexibility. On the other hand, these ornaments are much more one-dimensional than those made from lids. If you can, I recommend making some of each. Mix it up a bit!

To wit:

Of course, we just had to top the tree with a Jayne hat! Handmade Jayne hats are widely available in adult, children and even infant sizes on etsy, but I specially ordered three custom dog-sized hats for the occasion: one for Jayne, naturally, and then two smaller ones for the other dogs. (Even though they didn’t make it on this year’s card, I still had to photograph them for the outtakes! Also: just for general shits and giggles.) The one on the tree is from Sam’s Crochet (yup, that’s my Jayney in the listing!), and the two not pictured are from Whitaker Knits. You’ll see ‘em in the next post, so keep an eye peeled.

When not in use, the hats can double as decorations: in addition to tree toppers, you can put them on stuffed animals – either holiday or everyday ones – to make them more festive. Cookie jars, too!

Finally, since we can’t put “real” presents under the tree (lest the dogs chew them to bits), we opt for “fake” presents instead. Usually this means x-mas themed cookie tins (empty, obvs!), but since our tins didn’t really fit with the tree’s color scheme, we wrapped some boxes with brown paper. Very care package-y. (Back to the Jayne hat!) To snazz them up a little, I decorated the paper with Allied Postal and Blue Sun stamps from Ma Cobbe’s Hat Shoppe on etsy (A wise investment! I wish I’d bought every Firefly stamp in her store instead of just these two!) and finished it off with some ribbons and bows. And my domestic terrorist vegan pirate bear, who’s guarding the stash ’till CriFSMas!

Flying Spaghetti Monsters

My favorite part of CriFSMas decorating is the flying spaghtti monsters, noodles-down! They’re just so cute, what with their sparkly appendages and plush soy balls and huge googly eyes. (Yeah, it’s the googly eyes that do it for me, most definitely. They look awesome on anything!) Every year I make a few more spaghetti monsters and yet I never seem to have enough. You can put them pretty much anywhere, which means that they’re everywhere in my house: hanging from ceiling fans, hovering in the windows, chilling on shelves, looking down on you from soffits, crawling out of stockings, resting on lamps. EVER-Y-WHERE. Since they’re made mostly of pipe cleaners, you can create most any type of hook, loop, strap, or string you need, and yet it still looks like part of the decoration. AND THEY’RE SO SPARKLY!

“TAKE MY NOODLE IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!”

Most of my monsters were born of shiny, metallic red, green, gold, and silver pipe cleaners, which are readily available at dollar stores this time of year; you can also find them in craft stores such as Michaels. Others are made of more subdued, plush beige, red, white and black (etc.) pipe cleaners, which you can find in craft stores year-round. These pipe cleaners tend to be a bit sturdier and thus harder to work with. Plus they’re not as sparkly! But they are nice if you’d like a monster or two for other occasions, such as Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and the like. I’ve even seen ginormous, 1+ foot long fuzzy pipe cleaners, which I just may make into a giant flying spaghetti monster outfit for the dogs next year. I’m picturing a FSM riding on O-Ren’s back, with his noodles spiraling forward and encompassing her body, massive googly eyes extending overhead. It will be ADORABLE and NOTHING WILL HURT. Except for O-Ren’s pride, that is. But hey, I’m good to her the other 364 days of the year!

Anyhow, if you’d like to make your own little spaghetti monsters, I posted a tutorial a few years back. Check it here.

Eye patches for everyone!

If you’re going with a pirate theme, eye patches are a must. Most of mine are from the dollar store – as well as a few online pirate shops and party stores – but some came packaged with pirate-themed dog costumes, too. Use them to dress up stuffed animals – again, either holiday or everyday stuffed animals – as well as stockings that feature animals, cookie jars, and any other appropriately-sized, animal-shaped decorations you may have. Ditto: pirate hats, pirate bandannas, and pirate dog outfits.

If you have any extras, hang them from the tree!

The Wall of Cards

This past summer we installed a special rail along the ceiling over our marble fireplace so that we could hang artwork on that wall without drilling into the grout or damaging the bricks. So far there’s just one very large, two-piece Kill Bill poster over the fireplace; the rest of the wall is pretty barren. Actually, I prefer to think of it as clean and uncluttered, at least 11 months out of the year. But next to the sparkly ribbons and shiny garland that lines the rest of the living room, the wall did look rather dull and cold. So I decided to dress it up with ribbon and holiday cards! It’s a simple if tedious process: punch a hole in the corner of a card, string some ribbon through it, and then hang it from the picture rail using a regular old picture hook. (The rail comes with special hooks and wire for hanging large/heavy items, but cheap picture hooks proved a nice substitution for cards.) You can use new cards, or old ones that you’ve saved up; and remove the cover, recycling the back, or use the entire card. I went with a combination of the two.

No picture rail? No problem! String a length of ribbon, garland, or string from one end of the room to another and use that instead. Or use them to make a mobile.

Bows on ALL the things!

Much like flying spaghetti monsters, ribbons look lovely almost anywhere. This year I picked up a dozen big red and gold bows for a few bucks a pop at a local mega-store and used them to decorate some stationary, non-holiday items around the house: posters, cabinets, doorknobs and baby gates, mostly. Shiny, yes?

While I was holiday shopping at that same chain store, I couldn’t help but pick up three large bags of gift bows at about $3 a piece. Since them, I’ve been putting them everywhere I’m not afraid to stick tape: on tv sets, my pencil and pen mug, the side of the fridge, the washer and dryer, poster frames, stuffed animals; pinned to my cork bulletin board; in windows opposite spaghetti monsters; just resting on piles of books and cabinet shelves and such. Anywhere that could use a little extra sparkle. EVERYTHING MUST SPARKLE! Next to pirates, gaudiness is the work of the day.

How shiny is that pirate in the window?

Speaking of gaudiness, our front window “pirate altar” is a perfect example of everything discussed thus far: sparkles, pirates, bows, flying spaghetti monsters, ribbons, garland, and oh yeah, more sparkles. As per usual, an x-mas red teddy bear pirate sits atop a pile of vegan cookbooks and pirate tomes (my entire Firefly/Serenity collection included). The open shelf is lined with gold doubloons and gold tinsel (so much treasure!), and additional book piles, pirate accessories, and images of Her Noodliness (in frames decorated with macaroni!) round the main display out. The upper half of this built-in is open display shelving with glass sliding doors, which I made more festive with the addition of tinsel, garland, more pirate items, and (new this year) decorative glass beads (like for aquariums) that look a little like jewels, a la The Goonies. (Another dollar store score.)

(James Randi, looking good!)

Not too much different from last year, but I had to include it anyway. PIRATES!

Various and Sundry

I tried my best to organize these photos into like groups, but some just defy categorization!

My laundry room, decorated with leftover garland, some holiday stuffed animals – and bows, of course!

More garland and stuffed animal pirates, this time atop the stove in the kitchen. (Like the stove would be located anywhere else, silly me.)

Homemade magnets on the fridge…

…as well as the filing cabinet in the office. And yes, there’s a tutorial for that!

Dinosaurs on the fireplace mantle. YES, DINOSAURS ARE RELEVANT! Also, I scored a bag of them for less than $10 at a party store. Win-win.

My scrappy sad Charlie Brown tree, courtesy of mum.

A last-minute addition: a wreath on the front door. I’ve always wanted a wreath but for some strange reason, only got one last week. This is a cheap +/- $3 artificial one from a box store; a $4 ribbon and heart-shaped ornament I already had on hand dress it up quite nicely, don’t you think?

Anyway, I’m sure there’s a ton I’m forgetting – I am seriously fighting the urge to caption every single photo in this post – but the day is getting late and I have a few batches of holiday cookies that won’t make themselves. (The 2-hour power outage earlier today sure didn’t help matters any!) And I’m baking in part for our omni neighbors, so I need to bring my A game.

Wish me luck, people!

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.)

My Thanksliving Day eats, in all their carbalicious glory! The Thanksgiving Pizza came out smashingly; I’m super-glad we decided to do a test run, since this gave us a chance to tweak the recipe. The assembly was still a little messy, but not the hot mess of last week.

Anywho, this pizza features a layer of garlic and chive mashed potatoes mixed with gravy, followed by hickory smoked Tofurky slices, more gravy, and carrots, sweet corn and green beans. As much as I would have loved to have thrown some stuffing directly on the pizza, Shane and I couldn’t figure out how to properly cook it together with the pizza – since the breadcrumbs need to marinate in vegetable broth and all – so instead we gave the crust a hint of stuffinf flavor by infusing it with veggie broth. And, for bonus points, we served stuffing on the side, along with extra gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes and mixed veggies (both left over pizza toppings). For dessert, we dined on razzleberry pie topped with vanilla ice cream. Both store-bought, since we were exhausted enough after cooking the main course to even think about making the sweets by hand!

You can find recipes for all of the homemade items (PIZZA INCLUDED!) here.

 

Two slices down, six to go!

 

Shane’s plate; he slathered his stuffing in cranberry sauce.

 

Personally, cranberry sauce – being sweet and sugary and all – strikes me as more of dessert item. Which is why I enjoyed a few spoonfuls with a bowl of vanilla ice cream while waiting for the dough to rise! But I digress…

 

My plate! “Gravy” is the word of the day, dontchknow.

 

The only time it’s acceptable to eat a pizza with a fork is when it’s
a) covered in mashed potatoes or b) a deep dish pie of some kind.

 

Licking my plate clean!

 

Bring out the pie!

 

Pizza & ice cream, could a more perfect pairing exist?

The one vegan food that gets me hot and hungry – even after all these years – is the very first batch of Ronald’s Donuts ever to grace my lips. So incredibly satisfying were they that I polished off half the batch before I even thought to take a picture of all the fried sugary sweeteness in all its sugar coma-inducing glory:

(Note the teeth marks.)

SO GOOD, Y’ALL. WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE.

Shane and I were visiting Las Vegas for a week – neither of us had ever been before, so we were both Ronald’s virgins – and these were by far the highlight of our trip. And oh yeah, did I mention that we were in town to get married?

We even got a box to go. They fared surprisingly well on a June flight from Nevada to New York; some of the donuts came through a bit squished, but still yummy as all get out.

This was back in 2006. Since then, we’ve refined our doughnut-shipping technique: each doughnut fits almost perfectly in an empty Tofutti Sour Cream container, and the packaging minimizes the pancake effect caused by airplane descent (as does pre-freezing them). This is totally relevant because Shane now travels to Vegas once a year for The Amazing Meeting, and always (ALWAYS!) brings me back an order of doughnuts from Ronald’s. This past July, we got super-serious about it and packed a few Styrofoam coolers in an extra suitcase so that my precious goodies would be extra-protected.

Alas, there is a sad ending to this story: I only have three doughnuts left in the freezer! (Yes, the freezer! They keep fairly well for a few months, and then the cream/jelly starts to congeal a bit. But still, delicious!) So sad. But their rarity is probably why I love them so; now that I know how to make vegan peanut butter cups, for example, they’ve lost that special…well, specialness that only enhances their appeal. Ah, the pull of the forbidden! Well, hard-to-get. Close enough.

So, dear vegans, pray tell: what vegan food do you fantasize about night and day?

Speaking of bananas, I’ve thrown in a few Doctor Who pics for extra-geeky measure. DOCTOR WHO IS ALWAYS RELEVANT. Happy Friday, Whovegans! (See what I did there? Whovian + vegans = Whovegans!)

Since marzipan ice cream is a more unusual flavor, I decided to try my hand at making my own concoction. Plan A was to use a standard vanilla ice cream recipe as a base, and then mix marzipan blended with (vegan) heavy cream (for a creamy effect) in with the ice cream after it was processed through an ice cream machine, à la this recipe for Marzipan Swirl Ice Cream (veganized, of course). For the marzipan, I used this recipe (also veganized!) for Almond Paste at food.com. Epic disaster!

I’m not sure what (if anything) I did wrong, but the end result was less like paste and more like soup. Even after I doubled the dry ingredients, the almond “paste” had at best the consistency of caramel sauce – not even close to paste-like. Just as I was on the brink of despair, it hit me: I was planning on liquefying the marzipan anyhow, so what’s the diff? If anything, this saved me the extra steps of making vegan heavy cream and then heating it with the marzipan to make the “cream” for the swirl. Score!

So here’s Plan B, the result of a happy accident which saved me at least a half hour of extra work and a quarter sink of dirty dishes. May this little taste of the sweet stuff bring you a fraction of the wisdom and fortune that it did to Mary Malone – and, by extension, Lyra, Will, and all the animals of all the worlds, human and non.

Go forth and play the serpent, my friends.

FIND THE GIRL AND THE BOY. WASTE NO MORE TIME.
But why?
YOU MUST PLAY THE SERPENT.

- Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (The Subtle Knife)
——————————

“Playing the Serpent” Marzipan Ice Cream

Ingredients

for the marzipan:

1 1/3 cups dried blanched almonds or almond meal
1 1/3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon almond extract
1/2 cup water

for the ice cream batter:

1 cup soy or almond milk, divided
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 cups soy creamer
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

Make the marzipan!

1. Combine the water, white sugar and agave nectar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat.

2. Place the almonds into a food processor and process them into a fine powder. (Skip this step if working with almond meal.)

3. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the ground almonds/almond meal with the powdered sugar and mix well. Add in the agave “syrup” (while still warm – careful!) and almond extract and mix as well as you can by hand. Switch to a hand mixer and mix on high for about five minutes, or until all the almond flour lumps have vanished. The end result should be thick and syrupy, similar in consistency to caramel sauce. Tansfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge until ready for use.

Make the ice cream batter!

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

5. In a saucepan, combine the remaining 3/4 cup of the soy (almond) milk with all of the soy creamer and sugar. Bring to a slow boil, stirring constantly.

6. Once the mix begins to boil, remove from heat and add the arrowroot “slurry.” This will cause the batter to thicken noticeably. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. Chill in the fridge for four to six hours or more. (Usually I prefer to let the batter chill overnight.)

Make the ice cream!

7. Combine the ice cream batter and marzipan “sauce”; whisk until well blended. Pour the batter into your ice cream machine and process according to he manufacturer’s instructions.

8. When done, transfer your ice cream into an airtight container. Enjoy immediately as soft serve or chill in the fridge for an hour or so for a thicker, more frozen dessert.

Optional: Instead of mixing the marzipan sauce with the ice cream before it’s processed, blend it by hand afterward, while it’s still soft. This will give the ice cream more of a marzipan “swirl” effect.

Also optional: Mix in a quarter cup or so of chocolate chips or chocolate bark after the ice cream’s processed for an extra flavor kick! (Ritter Sport Marzipan, holla!)
 

(Yes, that is a stainless steel, rubber-rimmed dog food bowl from Wal-Mart. What of it? We let the dogs lick the human bowls ’round these parts, too. Keep moving, nothing to see here.)

omnomnomnom, all gone!

Now birthday girl Kaylee gets a crack at it:

Note how I must distract Mags with the spoon. She was hell-bent on getting a taste of the marzipan, to wit:

Her begging-by-barking is crazy adorable, but would probably be less so if she were, say, a Labrador retriever or St. Bernard as opposed to a ten-pound rat terrier. Then we’d have a problem! You should see her when the pizza comes out. No really, I’m still trying to get video of it. It’s hard to defend my pie whilst avoiding dripping cheese and operating a hand held camera, all at once. But if it can be done, dognabbit, it will be done!

The constant demands for table scraps, coupled with her loose skin flaps, make me think that she used to be a fat girl. A fat girl unwittingly stuck in a skinny girl’s body. The polar opposite of Rennie, in other words.
 

Ralphie! Everyone’s favorite one-eyed wiener dog turns fourteen years old today! FOURTEEN! He’s not old, he’s distinguished. Doubly so with all these surgical scars and skin tags and patches of missing fur. His motto? “Bitches dig scars.”

Hey, Rennie can’t get enough.

(Note peeping Peedee off in the background. Pervert! Nevermind that I’m photographing their intimate moment.)

Rolling with the weather, we celebrated his birthday a wee bit early this year. On Friday, I baked him a batch of Apple Cinnamon Muffins

and made him dress up in a silly hat -

but not before he got the first taste of his pre-birthday treat.

(The other six canines were pitching a fit, locked in the house away from mom and her nomz. I think Ralphie enjoyed that as well – almost as much as the muffins!)

The recipe, as (almost) always, is by Molly at Vegan Flower (formerly known as It’s A Vegan Dog’s Life). I especially enjoy her dog treat recipes because she gives variations for muffins, biscuits and bagels (!). Okay, so I rarely stray from muffins (so easy and no-hassle!), but it’s nice to have options! (ETA: She’s participating in veganmofo this year, so you should totes go show her some love!)

The batter proved a little dry for me – perhaps because I used my own homemade applesauce, which is thicker and chunkier than the store-bought stuff? – so I just added some extra applesauce and omitted the fresh apples entirely. If you want to make muffins but don’t have a mini pan, you can just drop the batter on a cookie sheet and bake as you would normally. This is also a nice option if your dog friends are smaller and can’t handle muffins (even miniaturized ones). Think: 10-pound Mags. I served these outside and had to let her back into the house so that she could eat her “ginormous” treat in peace, without the other dogs trying to thieve the crumbs. Tiny girl, tiny mouth. All sass.

But back to Ralphie, since this is supposed to be his mofo post!

Continuing with the birthday weekend festivities, we spent most of Saturday outside, basking in the ridiculously gorgeous weather. (83 and sunny! I like to think that it’s repayment for the 100-degree temps we suffered through in July and August.)

Sunday afternoon I unleashed him in the field behind our house, so he could dig his little heart out.

We have 20 acres of mixed pasture and forested land; the open fields are perfect for digging-slash-hunting, with plenty of stinky little critters burrowing through the dirt. (Don’t worry, Ralphie never catches anyone! At least, not when he intends to, and not in four years or more.) He can literally go for hours. On hotter days I bring a container of water and have to remind him to drink! Ralphie has even been known to hold up walks while he stops to play in the dirt.

This video is from last month, but it shows Ralphie rooting around in his favorite spots.

Shane cleaned up a bunch of the scrub around the fence line last weekend so that Ralphie would have a nice, open place to dig. I guess that was his present to the Ralphster. (And me, since there’s a bunch of poison ivy growing behind the mulch pile. I am crazy sensitive to plant life.)

Naturally, Ralphie chose an entirely different area in which to dig yesterday:

As soon as the rain lets up, I’ll take him for another walk/dig this afternoon. At least the ground will be a little softer for him. (Notice how he bites into the soil and rips it up with his teeth? That can’t be good for his pearly whites.)

Anyway, let’s close this thing out with more Ralphie. YOU CAN NEVER POST TOO MANY PICTURES OF A ONE-EYED WIENER DOG, amirite people?

Dumbo!
——————————

“Daddy, look at meeeeeeee!!!!”
——————————

Smiley Ralphie is smiley.
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“Nomz for me?”
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“Surely, there must be a catch?”
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Ralphie doesn’t trust me or the ceramic dinnerware.
“Treats shouldn’t be so damn noisy!”
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“Muffins are nice, but where’s my ice cream cake!?!”
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Happy birthday, Ralphie. We ♥ you!
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An Addendum

Dear Ralph,

Thanks so much for the “present” you left me in the bathroom this morning! And here I thought I was supposed to get you a gift!

xoxox

- Mom

Frugal vegans don’t waste food! Food waste on both the personal and institutional levels is a distressing problem: a 1995 estimate put our food waste at 27% of all edible food, while a more recent 2003 study found that the average American household throws out 14% of all food brought into the house. Among the many strategies I outlined for avoiding food waste during last year’s veganmofo – freezing extra baked goods, sharing with others and dumpster diving, to name a few – was freezing surplus or soon-to-spoil fruits and veggies. Banana ice cream – made from overly ripe, frozen bananas – is a delicious subset of this tip that deserves further exploration, especially given its popularity this year!

As fruit ripens, its sugar content changes; it becomes sweeter, softer, and less green:

The process of ripening is controlled by the plant hormone called ethylene, which is a gas created by plants from the amino acid called methionine. A plant hormone is a chemical that regulates growth and other processes. Storing fruit in a closed container keeps the ethylene from drifting away and can increase the rate at which the fruit ripens. Ethylene increases the intracellular levels of certain enzymes in fruit. Enzymes are proteins that make certain chemical reactions occur faster than they normally would. The key enzymes involved in fruit ripening are amylase and pectinase. Amylase breaks down starch to produce simple sugars, so is responsible for the increasing sweetness of a ripening fruit. Pectinase breaks down pectin, a substance that keeps fruit hard, so is responsible for the increasing softness of ripening fruit. Other enzymes cause the color of the fruit to change by breaking down chlorophyll (which is green) and replacing it with pigments that are yellow, red, or other colors.

This process is evident in bananas, which turn from bitter to sweet as their peels change in color from greenish-yellow to yellow, and then gradually develop brown spots. Wait too long to crack the peel, and you’ll be greeted with a mushy, sugary mess (and possibly a swarm of fruit flies, to boot!). While many a banana has been tossed due to over-ripeness, because of their sugar content – as well as the way in which freezing alters their texture – brown bananas make the perfect base for nondairy ice cream. Better yet, this frozen treat can be made in a blender or food processor, no ice cream machine required! (Though I do love my ice cream maker like a member of the family.)

Banana ice cream is a great way to use up “accidentally spoiled” bananas – but if you’re anything like me, you’ll soon find yourself buying yellow bananas and allowing them to turn brown, just so you can make another batch of banana ice cream! However you come across them, preparing your over-ripe bananas for ice cream is simple: simply peel and slice them, then transfer them to an airtight container and store in the freezer until ready for use. Next, you’ll need a recipe; here are a few of my favorites to get you started!

Banana Bread Soft Serve Ice Cream – Like chocolate chip banana bread, but frozen! My most favorite of the bunch, hands down.

Chocolate Almond Banana Soft Serve Ice Cream – Inspired by these Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from the PPK.

Blueberry Banana Ice Cream – Flavored with blueberry sauce, which was made using (wait for it!) soon-to-spoil blueberries!