I urge you all to run RUN and get you a pie maker. I LOVE these things. I made a...um...not quite chicken pot pie thing last night for dinner...SO SO yummy! I say not quite, because being a vegetarian, obviously I wouldn't be sticking chunks of dead chicken in my pie, right?? :p (Sorry, this is the picture that looked the least like it was from a 1970's Reader's Digest cookbook, lol!)



Anybody want a recipe..ish?


Not-Chicken Veggie Pie


Gluten flour
Bouillon seasoning (I used this mushroom seasoning ....very yummy stuff! Available in Asian shops. They also make an Aloe Vera seasoning that's pretty yummy too)
Nutritional yeast


Potatoes
Carrots
Frozen peas and Corn
Bell peppers
Cheese
Cream cheese
Salt
Pepper
Garlic

Pastry (I usually take the easy way out, and use frozen puff pastry, but you can make whatever you like)


Mix gluten flour with plenty of water...if you add too much and it's just mushy or soupy, just drain it or press it a little, to make it firm enough. Too firm, though, is pretty horrible, imo!

Bring water to a boil with seasoning and yeast in it....you want this strong and brothy, to flavor the gluten. Chop gluten into small pieces 1/2" or so, and drop them into the boiling water one by one, so they don't glue themselves together. Boil for 10 minutes or so, til the middle is cooked (no more rubber inside). You can also make bigger chunks, and just increase the cooking time a little. Drain.

Chop potatoes into 1/2" chunks, boil til mostly done, toss in the bell pepper cut into same size chunks, and the peas and corn. Finish cooking it all together. Drain.

Add cream cheese and grated cheese to taste, as well as the salt, pepper, and pressed garlic. Add in the precooked gluten chunks, mix altogether, and fill your pies!! I use my handy dandy mini pie maker but you can make it just as well in the oven, in any size you want. Enjoy! :D

Moving SUCKS!!

If anybody out there has been wondering why I dropped off the face of the earth, well, it was because I was in the middle of moving. And in this case, moving didn't just mean pack up one house and land in the next. Nope. It involved painting, sanding, floorsanding, repairing, etc etc etc. Ugh.

I'm only halfway finished. So far, we have ripped up the carpet and sanded the floors in all the main rooms, and painted most of them. We still need to paint all the trims, cupboards, extra rooms, re-lay a kitchen floor, and redecorate, cause we moved from a house a 3rd of the size of this one, and we don't have enough stuff to fill this one comfortably! Can't say I am crying too hard about the redecorating part, anyway. :D

Here's the preview, as you walk into the house. You can't tell, but all the walls inside have been painted a nice, subtle, creamy offwhite. That hideous, revolting yellow you can see on the sides is what the color USED to be, in most of the house!
























On the bright side, here's my new sewing room!! All to myself!! No sewing on the floor, or off the kitchen table, or down the side of the bed!! Woohoo!!