My Lately

Kitty in the window

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here lately; I've had my head down in my work lately, trying to get all my holiday stuff together (I know! Holiday!) Working on my calendars (yes, calendarS, meaning there will be multiple ones this year!) and contemplating holiday cards and whatnot. My goal is to have the calendars done before I head to Renegade Chicago (Sept. 8 + 9th). I think I can do it! Speaking of Renegade Chicago, I'm driving solo there this year, which is a little intimidating. I mean, the part where I have to entertain and navigate myself in a car for 14-ish hours is the intimidating part. There will be lots and lots of podcasts...

Pups!

Kitties!

Pretty patterns on my cup

It said Spectacular! It disappeared so quickly!

Peach Basil Pie

I made this on Sunday, and can you believe I still haven't gotten to try it yet? I made a Peach Basil Pie, from Vegan Pie in the Sky, and then promptly came down with some sort of stomach bug that I'm just recovering from. Hmpf. Nik said it was really good though! I made him guess the secret ingredient, but he couldn't figure it out. I received ten million doughnut peaches and a few sprigs of basil in my CSA, so the stars were aligned on making this. Well, except the stars that included me eating it. Soon though!

xo,
Michelle

You Are So Loved

Happy Friday! I wanted to share this adorable little book, You Are So Loved, that Chronicle Books recently published. I have the honor of having one of my paintings included, along with some other amazing artists. Super-psyched to be included! 

1. Me! /// 2.  Dominique Falla

1. Will Bryant /// 2. Gemma Correll

1. Dallas Clayton

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

xo,
Michelle

Pflaumenkuchen

Sometimes my CSA gives me waaay too much of one thing, which is not a bad problem to have, a non-problem basically. There's just the part where I have to figure out what to do with that one thing before they go bad. Challenge accepted! We recently had soo many little yellow plums in the CSA, and neither Nik nor I are much on just eating plums straight up. I knew I had made some sort of plum cake previously, so I had to search my own blog (ha!) for what recipe I used. Found it and it turns out that I apparently liked it, so I went with that same recipe again. I did make a few changes this time around, mainly replacing the self-rising flour with a 50/50 mix of whole wheat and spelt flour (it's what I had.) The cardamom is especially awesome in this. The recipe is also a little unclear when you add the plums to the dough, saying to cover them, but then later to brush them with the leftover earth balance (I didn't cover them, I just left them sticking up a little, and the cake ends up rising around them and creating those cool holes in the cake.)

I STILL had leftover plums after trying to fit as many as I could into the cake, so I threw them in a pan and reduced them down, with a bit of sugar to cut the tartness, to a jam of sorts. This was so yummy spread on top of the cake! Not gonna lie; I totally had this for breakfast. 

Mythology is weird!

The Mythical Unicorn

New stuff! OMG! I've been working on this series for a few months now, and I have finally gotten around to photographing them and getting them listed in the shop. Woo! Mythology is weird and super-fun and have I mentioned it is weird? Seriously, you can get lost down the interweb-hole reading different myths. I decided to start a continuous series on this theme, and started out with some of the more well-known ones. I hope to do many more (of the lesser-known, insanely weird ones too!) 

King Cyclops

Teumessian fox

Nessie

Phoenix Fire Bird

The Siren

Kitty Diabetes

So back at the beginning of the year, my little dude was diagnosed with Kitty Diabetes. It was scary at the time, as he's my baby and has been with me for ten years (4th of July baby!) Over the last few months I have made some pretty drastic changes to his diet and started giving him shots of insulin 2x a day. I am VERY happy to report that he has been in the "normal" blood sugar range for the last few weeks and hopefully I can help put him into remission soon and wean him off the insulin completely. To give you a sense of how high his blood glucose levels were when this all started, they were in the 500-600 range, which is INSANELY high. Now we are in the 70-100 range, which is drastically better. I switched him to a grain-free wet food (Wellness Core, if you were curious), and I think that has really helped him a lot. Hopefully, in the future, his diabetes can be managed by diet alone, rather than insulin shots. Unlike humans or dogs, cats can actually go into remission with diabetes sometimes (but not all the time), so I'm realllly hoping that will be our situation. He loves the wet food, has lost some weight, and doesn't really mind the shots (or notice them really.) It's amazing how much his coat has improved over the last month or two, shinier and less dandruff and so soft. Happy kitties make me happy! 


Look, he even started doing yoga:

Lazy Summer

I can't stop eating blueberries and cherries! Summer fruits are the best. And I basically just want to curl up with my kitty and a good book for the rest of the summer...

xoxo,

Michelle

Fava Beans

Last Saturday, in my CSA, I received some Fava Beans. I don't recall ever having them before, much less making anything with them, so I had to do a little research into how to prepare them. They're so weird! They're kinda lumpy pods with black blemishes all over them and quite large. You have to snap off one tip, and it becomes a string that you can pull to split in half. When you open it, there is a white, spongey interior, with 3-4 (sometimes just one, which seemed like a rip-off.) little smooth beans attached. 

 I thought I had a lot of beans, but once I opened them all up, there weren't that many ACTUAL beans. They're still not ready for consumption though, once you pluck them out of their pods. You have to steam them to remove them from ANOTHER shell. Yep, these are kinda time-consuming.

So I steamed them for 10 minutes, and they pop right out of their plastic-y shell. The actual bean is kinda mushy, so be careful smooshing them out of their shell. 

They basically taste like peas, not beans, but I did a little research and they are actually part of the pea family. They're pretty good for you, nutritionally-speaking, too.  Also, tasty! I threw them into a stir-fry I made, at the end since they were already steamed. I don't know if I would go out of my way to buy them, since they take a bit of prep for such a small amount, but it's fun to try new things!