VeganMoFo: Conan and Jalapeno Poppers

Meet Conan. This dapper young fellow will wallop you at a game of chess, without blinking an eye, but will also lend a sympathetic listening ear for all of his dear friends. That Conan, he's a swell guy. 

Conan is for sale here

Medium: Watercolor on heavy Arches paper
Size: Approximately 8"x8" (image size is 7"x7")
Will fit in 8"x8" frame! Signed on back.

I was going for a Pomeranian puppy here, but he's kinda foxy too!

Note: I am doing a painting-a-day challenge for VeganMoFo, and will be creating a new painting of rescue animals or vegan food throughout the month of October, and placing them for sale. All proceeds (minus shipping) will be donated to For the Animals Sanctuary, because they are a pretty super-great non-profit animal rescue and sanctuary, in Blairstown NJ, and are vegan owned and operated. Feeding, housing, and taking care of these animals costs a lot of money, and as a non-profit organization, they rely entirely on donations. Hopefully (with your help!), I'll be able to make a size-able donation at the end of the month!

So Nik has had this idea for awhile, that we need to have a double-header night watching both of the old Conan movies (Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer).  I resisted for a really long time, but finally gave in to appease the masses (and by masses, I mean Nik.)  I decided to make a fun dinner to go along with it, to make it interesting for myself.  Jalapeno poppers have been in the back of my head for awhile on the "must make soon" list, and when we scored a whole punch of jalapenos in our CSA recently, it was a no-brainer.  I upped the yum-factor, by pickling the jalapeno about a week before I was going to use them for poppers.  I didn't really follow a recipe to pickle them, but just kept it basic with equal parts vinegar and water, plus salt and peppercorns.  For the filling, most vegan recipes on the old internet suggest tofutti cream cheese, which I usually think is pretty gross so I nixed that idea.  I love the cashew cheese from Veganomicon, so I made a batch of that and added in a bunch of the pepperjack Daiya to the mix.  I cut the pickled jalapenos in half, filled each side, and rolled the tops in some panko for some added crunchiness.  I sprayed them with some olive oil and baked for about 20 minutes (flipping half way through) on 400 degrees F.   I had onions and potatoes laying around, so I went for the fried gold medal and made onion rings and baked potatoes too (new fave method, slicing potatoes and drizzling olive oil on top and baking.)  We had fresh sweet corn and some cantaloupe to balance out the breaded extravaganza. 

Oh, and Conan the Barbarian was terrible.  Our copy actually stopped working about 3/4 of the way through, and I was so relieved.  Unfortunately, Nik is master downloader and had a new copy about 20 minutes later.  I refused to watch the second one!