Gnocchi and Ribz!

I have been somewhat stressed out with work and night classes this past week…so I have not cooked as much. Late last week I made Gnocchi from VwaV – I had been looking to try gnocchi (I’ve never had it) and this recipe was really easy and good. I will make this again for sure. I added some chopped rosemary to the dough and then topped with some basic tomato sauce and steamed broccoli. I also made some quickie garlic bread by mixing some earth balance, chopped raw garlic and paprika and spreading it on some sourdough bread…it was pretty good…but garlicky! It was hard to take a picture of the gnocchi!
This weekend Micah and I went to dinner at a friend’s house – where we had a wonderful vegetarian feast – country fried seitan, mushroom gravy, sweet potatoes, and avocado casserole. It was terrific – I wish I had taken a picture!
Last night I was inspired by all the BBQ action on Get Sconed Blog (thanks for the idea Jess!) and made BBQ Ribz…it was a pretty easy recipe – and I’ll try to post it here soon. Paired with some French fries, it made for a wonderful comfort food dinner! BTW, it was the first time I had bought BBQ sauce in about 3 years and I could not believe how many of the sauces have anchovies in it! Yuck!

Alien Takeover!

This weekend was a lot of fun, as myself and my-coworkers hosted a baby shower for our co-worker, Whitney. As Whitney is not your normal girl, we decided that a normal baby shower was not for her…thus became the Alien Shower! Everything at the party was green or black and decidedly alien. Including the cake! Since the party was at my house and I got to make the cake…I made it vegan. I used a basic vegan wedding and buttercream recipe from Bryanna’s cookbook…then I just added my own food coloring. The cake itself was bright green and cut into two layers. I then put raspberry preserves between the layers to look like “blood”. It turned out really good and it looked like an alien autopsy when Whitney was cutting into it. Lots of fun!

Take me to your leader!

The Great Book of Amber

I wanted to take the time and blog about something non-food related. At any given moment I’m usually reading something science fiction-y. Right now I’m reading The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny. The book is really a collection of 10 smaller books that are divided into two 5-book sections. All in all, it’s about 1250 pages long (which is good for me, as I read through books way too fast).
I’ve really enjoyed reading this series…especially the first 5 books. The series is a bit more fantasy oriented than I’m used to, but that’s ok. Zelazny’s writing style reminds me of Tolkien or LeGuin…it’s very epic-filled and full of vivid imagery. I would recommend this book to anyone who: a)likes a long, epic-length book that can get stuck in their head, and b) likes a type of speculative fiction that is somewhat a cross between science fiction and fantasy.

Fall is great!

Oklahoma, well…Oklahoma can be kind of boring sometimes. It’s also awfully flat and windy. But sometimes, you get to see the best stuff – hence the picture above. It was absolutely beautiful this past Saturday, so Micah and I took a drive to look at the fall foliage. We saw some wonderful colors and even better yard art.