july thrift finds.

so here is the dress i'll be wearing as a bridesmaid in my friends' wedding. obviously this dress needs to be worn with turquoise heels. what else would go? i was actually able to get this dress on ebay for only $35. i have extremely bad luck winning auctions and the buy it now was so cheap that i went ahead and bought it as soon as i saw it. i'm also be looking for a white belt to go wear with it. hopefully i can find the shoes and belt this weekend while in chicago for my (26th!) birthday. i'm not really sure why this font is underlined now or how to turn it off.

formatting aside, here's some pictures of some of cute stuff i've picked up from this thrift store near my parents house on the other side of the state. i always find something good whenever i get a chance to stop there.

teacups for my chicago friends, sixty-nine cents each.

orange hat box in perfect condition, dollar ninety-nine.
set of four napkins, dollar ninety-nine.

ikat-like print cotton dress, two dollars and ninety-nine cents.

thick cotton shirt dress, four dollars and ninety-nine cents.

i'm working on the photography quality. i know it's pretty rough right now, but i do think the teacups turned out pretty nice.

busy and two hundred cookies.

quick post before i head to bed. j and i are booked every weekend through the end of august. meaning we are busy, busy, busy. we had another wedding shower this weekend (for the same friends) hosted by the bride's family in the town where i went to high school and my parents still live. i saw so many people i haven't seen since high school graduation which was eight years ago. weird... but fun and a little awkward too. there was a whole lot of "sooo.... what have you been up to?" i can only imagine what the ten year reunion will be like, provided that i attend.

over the course of this past week i somehow volunteered myself to make two hundred cookies as favors for my friends' wedding. finding favors was one of the last things on her list that she was dreading and she had already bought these cute little glassine and stickers from etsy. i am excited and a little afeared. however, i'm pretty sure that i came close to the two hundred cookie mark this past holiday season. i think i'm going to go with a basic chocolate chip. because really, who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies? i just saw this recipe via orangette and i think i'll be attempting to veganize it. i'm pretty impatient though i don't know about this waiting thirty-six hours business.

and lastly, i want these hot shoes to wear to this friend's wedding (which i first saw here). i'll post the dress i'm going to wear later so you can see how adorable the pairing would be.

weekend madness

our saturday plans started off pretty rocky when we awoke to find our pitbull's, ruby, body covered in large mysterious itchy welts. thankfully the vet was open and able to squeeze us in that morning. apparently she either a) rolled in something (unlikely because our boston terrier, ziggy, is her constant companion and he was welt-free) or b) was bit by a bug (likely as i once found this dog laying on an ant hill, totally oblivious to the ants swarming her and leaving red bites all over her stomach). our vet gave her a shot and the hives gradually disappeared over the next couple of hours. we were glad it was nothing too serious. she has pretty sensitive skin so we figured it was some kind of allergic reaction.

because we ended up at the vet that morning we had to scramble to get everything done before our friend's bbq. i ended up making the lemon cupcakes from vctotw with lemon buttercream frosting. since i was crunched for time i, being the genius i am, decided to double the recipe, ended up running out of margarine. i decided then that it was a good idea to sub a stick of vegetable shortening for the second stick of margarine in the batter. bad idea. i ended up with extra fluffy batter that made about six cupcakes more than the recipe makes and the cupcakes sank a little because of the extra fat. they still tasted good though so i just layered on the frosting to give the cupcake a nice rounded top.
i added some fresh blueberries that we picked up at the farmer's market that morning to fance them up a bit and then made it over to the bbq two hours late. i'm the bad bridesmaid. the cupcakes were a success though and no one knew they were vegan until i told them. ha!

at the market yesterday we picked up a big bunch of organic collards for $2 (!) and some baby zucchini and summer squash so i decided to make this black-eyed pea stew recipe from cooking light that i had made last fall for some friends. i veganized it and halved it since the original recipe makes eight. it's a nice, slightly spicy dish that makes a thick stew you can eat alone or over rice. it's be good with cornbread, but j and i were too lazy to get that involved with dinner tonight.

here's my version, but if i made it with canned peas again i think i would use only one cup of broth since the peas were kind of mushy.

Black-Eyed Pea Stew (adapted from Cooking Light Oct. 2007)
1 can black-eyed peas
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup chopped yellow onion
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 (16-ounce) can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 bunch collard greens chopped (with stems removed)
5 baby (3-4" long) zucchini chopped
5 baby (3-4" long) summer squash chopped

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, zucchini and summer squash and cook until tender.

Stir in broth and bring to a simmer. Add peas, salt, peppers, and bay leaf. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Uncover and cook another 15 minutes or until liquid begins to thicken.

Stir in vinegar, tomatoes, and collard greens; simmer 10 minutes or until greens are tender, stirring occasionally. Discard bay leaves.

ribz

a couple of weekends ago we made these seitan ribz from the fatfree vegan kitchen which i had eyed this past winter, bookmarked them for summer, and then forgot about until some one recently posted about how awesome they are (i can't remember who, sorry dudes). the recipe was really easy to whip up. we were able to use the leftover bbq sauce from here (which had originally been a little too sweet for our tastes in the tempeh recipe we had made it for). the only trouble we had was in locating the liquid smoke. it took stops at trader joes, whole foods, the co-op, and the natural food store down the street before we found it at this little gourmet market by our house. well worth all the running around. i didn't have tahini so i subbed garlic hummus, same thing, right? just be sure that your grilling partner doesn't get distracted by scooter projects in the garage because these ribz cook fast. j thought he had some time to start working on getting the engine from our allstate back together and left the ribz on the grill unmanned for an undetermined amount of time. as you can see from the picture ours ended up "well done", but still yum. these will be making many more appearances on our grill before the summer is over. i think these will be really good in a sub roll with a vinegary cole slaw.

i have a friend's co-ed bbq wedding shower to attend tomorrow so i'm going to whip up some cupcakes from vctotw and hopefully some cute toppers tomorrow morning after we hit the market.

first post!

ta da! i was finally able to come up with a name for this blog that hadn't already been claimed by some other blogger in 2005. seriously, every name i picked out was taken long, long ago.

but then, i had a flashback to my undergrad produce slinging days. we would get boxes of 'lemons by the sea' lemons that i would stack neatly in to pyramids each morning on the produce floor. i like the idea of lemons swaying in treetops by the sea.

i hope to be posting often with my adventures in cooking, scooting, thrifting and more...