100th Post! A Memorable Memorial Day

Memorial Day in Austin is a day of rain. It ALWAYS rains on Memorial Day here. At 6:00 a.m. the storms began and my power went off. By 10:00 a.m. we had 2 inches of rain. It has rained every day for the past six days, over 7 inches this month. My yard can’t hold any more water!







Memorial Day 1981 was one of our worst floods. 10 inches of rain fell in four hours. Shoal Creek, which runs from midtown to downtown and normally flows at 90 gallons per minute, peaked at 6 million gallons per minute. Needless to say it overflowed its banks. 500 cars were swept into the creek, 13 people died, and there was $36 million in property damages. One of the hardest hit was Whole Foods. It was just a small storefront and completely ruined. Mr. Mackey and friends were going to have to give up their dream, but the community rallied and private donations rebuilt the little hippy store with great produce we had come to love. The rest, as they say, is history.





The plan for this Memorial Day was to pick up Chase in the morning at his new apartment, assess what furnishings he needs, then shop at IKEA. And then while Chase put his new things together, I would fix a dinner to celebrate his new apartment and my 100th post.

Well, we couldn’t get out in the morning storms, so I ruined a cake while waiting for the rain to stop. (My sister had a hard time on her flight home.) The rain finally stopped at noon. First stop, Chase’s apartment. Here’s the view from his balcony.

He just loves his new place. He also loves his laundry room.

It’s his new pet rabbit, Smokey!

Shhh! The apartment manager doesn’t know. He’s just 8 weeks old and so sweet. Chase swears he researched excessively on how to properly care for him. He’s wanted a pet for so long, so I hope this one works out.

IKEA was a madhouse! We spent 3 hours there and got most of the things on our list. I was tired when I got home, but ready to cook. On the menu was VWAV BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and Coconut Rice, Veggie Chickpea Cobbler, broccoli, and cake, which didn’t happen. Chase proclaimed this one of the best meals I’ve ever made, so – YAY! The BBQ sauce for the tofu is really, really good. It was unlike any recipe I’d used before, so I was pleasantly surprised. I added some cumin seeds and mustard seeds to the rice and used lemon instead of lime. It was excellent.

The cobbler was also really delicious, which is a good thing because I made a huge pan of it. I sautéed all my veggies – sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, green beans, cauliflower, and corn – until softened, then added in a can of tomatoes, a big can of chickpeas, and a mix of spices I didn’t write down, but included cumin, coriander, and oregano.

While the veggies simmered I made a baking powder biscuit dough with sunflower seeds and nutritional yeast, rolled it out, and cut it into star shapes. The stars went on top and it baked for about 12 minutes.

We had extra biscuit dough. Luckily, I found my Man in the Moon cookie cutter and we made more biscuits.

Here’s my plate. I had to have a half piece of BBQ tofu.

So about the cake…. I wanted to make a strawberry ice cream cake roll. Let’s blame the humidity for the cake cracking instead of rolling. I saw the crack, but continued anyway, thinking maybe everything would just freeze back together. Nope. In a panic I scraped as much of the melting ice cream and fresh sliced strawberries into a store bought graham cracker crust. I couldn’t bear to throw a 15 x 11 inch cake into the trash, so I picked up pieces of the ice cream soaked cake and put them into a bowl. Quite a few strawberries were still stuck to it. It looked good in that bowl. I took a bite. I had bread – or rather, cake pudding – a vanilla ice cream soaked vanilla cake with strawberries! Oh boy, it was rich tasting and so deserving of a bowl instead of a trash bin.

I also had a half filled graham cracker crust. Plan B – stop at the store for more Tofutti and make Strawberry Ice Cream Pie. Of course it’s yummy. It’s got ice cream and fresh strawberries!

This is already a lengthy post, but I’ll take this opportunity to say how fun it is to be a part of the vegan blogger community. I enjoy immensely all the knowledge and recipes we exchange. I actually GET a lot more than I GIVE. I can’t imagine ever tiring of cooking or blogging. Some bloggers have reflected on their favorite posts when they reach a milestone. I looked back on mine and thought “Why did I post that? It looks like crap!” Even if my food didn’t turn out perfectly, my favorite posts are ones where Chase and friends were involved in the preparation of the dinner. Cooking and eating should be fun and enjoyed regularly with family and friends. That’s when food tastes the best.

By the way, here’s what today looks like…..