Vegan caramel apple pecan bars...

More photos with my phone but they come out pretty good don't you think. So these are Vegan caramel apple bars. This is once again a variation on the macadamia nut blondies in Vegan with a Vengeance, This one is sort of a team effort. My daughter and I came up with this together and I think it is really good. This one involves co-co nut butter which makes really great caramel by the way. The recipe is as follows...

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup almond milk
1/3 cup canola oil
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 apple peeled and diced very fine
1/2 cup pecans

topping
3 apples peeled and sliced
1/2 cup pecans
4 TBSP co-co nut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
4 TBSP brown sugar
dash of salt

1.pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all wet ingredients.
3. Sift in all dry ingredients.
4. Stir.
5. Add apple cubes and pecans.
6. Cover the top with the slices from the 3 apples.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
8. Combine all caramel ingredients and heat on medium heat until it thickens slightly.
9. After 35 minutes pour caramel over bars, you may have to press down top a bit so as tp prevent over flow.
10. Bake another 20 minutes.
11. They will still be a little soft let them cool for a bit before eating.

Field roast sausage pasta...

I guess it is Vegan MoFo which stands for vegan month of food. So I will try to post more recipes then normal this month as well as other information about vegan food. This is what I had for dinner the other night. Well actually pretty much all last week because now it is just me here and everything I buy lasts a lot longer. This is really about the field roast sausages I like. Most of the time I try to make things from scratch but sometimes I just want to eat right away and I want to eat these because I like them. These are vegan field roast sausages which come in Italian, chipotle, and apple sage. So any way this is pretty much the easiest pasta dish there ever was. Most of the flavor in this dish comes from the olives and the sausage. This I made with the chipotle sausages. The recipe is as follows...

olive oil
1 red pepper
1 sausage
1/2 red onion
3 cloves garlic
fresh tomato
Garlic stuffed green olives
pasta to serve 4

1. Cook pasta to serve 4.
2. Heat olive oil, saute garlic, sliced peppers, and sliced onion until it gets soft. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Add sausages and sliced olives.
4. Add desired amount of pasta.
5. Throw in diced fresh tomatoes at the end.

Tales in ball point pen on lined paper...

Happy girl, happy creature in the background...

taking a little monster for a walk...

the little monster...

Sad creature and sad creature...

little girl

These are a bunch of doodles from a note book. I guess ball point pen is not a real art supply but, I think it looks kind of good some times. Sort of half way between a pen and a pencil.

Star Rain...

I got the idea for this picture from watching The Elegant Universe. I painted it and then filled in the details with ink. As I was looking at it I thought what would make this more interesting? That is why I made the rain connecting the stars. Then I thought...that looks nice but what would make the sky look like that? Searching my mind I came up with a phenomena I am calling star rain.
When I watched The Elegant Universe there was a section about quantum particles and how they can be in 2 places at once and move forward and backward in time. If I remember correctly they also can create tiny wormholes when they come in contact with each other.
So the idea behind star rain is that the people of this planet have come up with a way to rearrange quantum particles to open up giant wormholes that would allow ships to pass through. Star rain is a visual effect created as the wormhole collapses and the particles return to their places.
So here is a water color of a young woman watching star rain...

20 minute challenge revisited...

Love will rain...

A while ago I began a thing I called my 20 minute challenge. I wanted to make blank cards that were also originals. Most of the time I would get to involved in my card and it would take so long I couldn't really sell it for a reasonable price. But I still liked the idea of a blank card that was also an original piece of art. Either my daughter or  I came up with the idea that I should just set the timer for 20 minutes and see what I could do.
I have a had a lot of fun with this. Sometimes 20 minutes is a lot longer then you would think. Other times I feel like what? already I just started!! If only my darn pen wouldn't have kept messing up!!
Any way the point of this story is I recently added a link to my blog to a site which ultimately resulted in my finding a whole blog of 20 minute challenge art! Some of my cards are featured there but, also drawing and paintings from many talented artists and it is quite fun to look at. So here is the address if you are interested. http://twentyminutechallenge.blogspot.com/
The above card is called Love will rain which is supposed to have kind of a double meaning as in love will rain kind of like rain coming down and then returning to the clouds and also love will reign.

Vegan Creamed Spinach Empty Nest Pasta...

Vegan  creamed spinach empty nest pasta...

Well my daughter went off to college and truthfully I was pretty depressed, but I 'm a little better now. Also, she took the camera. So, until I can get one for myself all my photos are going to be taken with my very fancy i-phone.  I really like my i-phone, sometimes I can't believe how many things it does. When I was young movies about the future often included video phones. I never thought I would be carrying one around in my pocket. Not only do I carry it in my pocket but, I carry it around in my pocket at the farmer's market. Kind of an interesting future as it turns out. I have a video phone in my pocket but food is not materialized in a little box on the wall like Star Trek. Thank goodness! because I like gardening, cooking, and grocery shopping.
Another thing that has changed since my daughter has moved out is I can eat spinach which she did not like but I do. So yesterday my Mom came over. I made pasta and we watched Glee. This pasta is very easy but it is pretty good. The recipe is as follows...

1/2 lb spinach
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup flour
3 cups almond milk
salt and pepper to taste
5 cloves garlic
white wine
pasta
2 medium fresh tomatoes
1/2 a red onion
5 large button mushrooms

1. Boil water for pasta which you can cook while you are making everything else. About 4 servings of the pasta of your choice would be good.
2. Make a roux with olive oil and flour. I don't know if it is officially a roux with olive oil but I prefer olive oil to  margarine because I feel that it tastes better, is classier and healthier.
3. Add minced garlic to heated flour and olive oil.
4. Add sliced mushrooms saute briefly. Add salt and pepper.
5. Add spinach, when it is starting to wilt add a splash of white wine.
6. Add 3 cups of almond milk. I guess you could use some other milk substitute if you want. I like almond milk because it tastes good and I think is also a little bit classy. I mean you might make a cream soup with almond milk even if you weren't vegan. And the flavor is very versatile.
7. At the end if you want throw in the 2 fresh medium tomatoes diced and cook until it is a little bit thick.
8. Pour over pasta which is probably done by now. In fact the whole thing is done in about the time that it takes to make the pasta.

* A note about this recipe I planned to use white wine in it but, unfortunately the wine that I bought turned out to be broken so I couldn't use it. When I made this it was good but not as good as I think it would have been if I could have used the wine. The reason I am writing this disclaimer is because even though I wanted to make it with the wine I didn't so it is possible that it won't be good with wine.

Loveliest Blog Awards...

A few weeks ago I checked the comment on my blog and discovered that I had won an award. Yay! This award is called the loveliest blog award which originated in Germany. The purpose is to share blogs that you admire with other people. People who receive the award can then pass it on to 5 more bloggers who have less then 200 followers. You are not obligated to pass it on. The person who gave me this award is Sheryl McClure Pitler at http://smacart-quitmydayjob.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-other-love.html.

So I am giving this award to GiGi at Veganville http://gigi-2boomers.blogspot.com/2011/09/bobs-dread-mill-and-autumn-recipe-too.html . Her blog is very humorous and has what looks like some good recipes on it. I haven't tried any of them yet, however I really want to try the vegan blue cheese dressing.

Also Jenny Oldknow at http://jennyoldknow.blogspot.com/2011/09/st-ives-paintings.html . I really like her paintings and writing. I really like the water colors of animals that she does.

Elisabeth at http://czechvegan.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-random-eats.html . Her blog is full of comfort food that also looks good to me.

Nutmeg naturals http://nutmegnaturals.blogspot.com/2011/08/cut-soaps-from-yesterdays-soapmaking.html once again I haven't tried any of these things yet, how ever the soap that they make looks and sounds delicious.

Also Eastwitching http://eastwitching.blogspot.com/2011/08/spooky-enough-for-ya.html because I think her animal paintings are great and she does a lot to help animals.