I had some help on this one from baby cat. I was taking pictures from different angles with only a few seconds between each one, when the little one jumped up just as I was hitting the capture button:
Luckily she only sniffed the Thai sweet chili sauce! :) We have three cats, and all of them were rescued. Our oldest, who is 7, was dumped with his brothers and sisters in a tied garbage bag on the highway. Luckily someone finally noticed the bag was moving and took them to the nearest veterinarian who was able to save a few of the kittens. The middle cat, who is 2, was adopted from the Canadian Humane Society. And baby cat who is making her Internet debut in the above picture was rescued by Colony Cats Rescue. She is the sweetest cat ever and melts into an adorable boneless mass whenever you hold her, which she demands quite often.
A couple of kitty things before moving onto the food. Please, if you are a Canadian Voter in Ontario (I'm not yet, unfortunately) visit the Canadian Humane Society's website to learn about the new proposed Bill 50, the Provincial Animal Welfare Act. This Bill will not protect many animals from cruelty including farm animals, zoo animals, performing animals, etc. Please visit the site or Google the Bill to educate yourself on this issue! (yes I know I'm begging and sounding preachy)
Secondly, having animals puts me in the dilemma a lot of Vegans with animal companions have. Cats are made to eat meat, but I wondered if they can adapt like humans. I came across a blog [broken link] blog where this [broken link] explains how she is feeding her cats Vegan food. There was only one visitor comment on the blog, so if any of you reading this has experience with changing a cat's food to Vegan fare, please let me know! Also on that article was a link claiming this is what PETA says about feeding your companion animal a Vegan diet. I'm going to talk to the Spouse tonight concerning this.
Oh, and I have a job interview this afternoon for a position that is paying big bucks. I hope to dazzle them. :)
Ok, onto the food! Here are what I've lamely titled "Not-Ribz Two Wayz". Hey, no ribbing, I don't get paid to think of cool sounding names. :)
I made Seitan last week and it turned out pretty good. I'm not thrilled with the results, but satisfied. I basically used a combination of two of Bryanna's Seitan recipes and a mix of my own spices. I believe that just about any standard Seitan recipe would produce similar results, so I won't post the recipe until I tweak it a bit. However here's what I made with part of the roast (I still have about 2 pounds of Seitan in the freezer).
The Seitan on the left is tossed with salt and pepper and the one on the right is coated with BBQ sauce. There isn't really a recipe for this, but just a method to put it together: I cut the Seitan into chunks, coated them with flour, added salt and pepper and fried them in oil until crispy and brown. I halved the batch and immediately after frying and tossed half with salt & pepper. The other half went back on the stove with some store bought (yeah I was lazy) BBQ sauce until it was bubbly and sticky. I thought the Salt & Pepper chunks were tasty dipped in Thai Sweet Pepper Chili Sauce (store bought again). The remainder of the BBQ chunks made a reappearance with some Vegan cheddar cheese in a pita the next day. I nuked it and boy did that add a nice chewiness!
The verdict? The BBQ chunks were a HUGE hit by all! BOOYAH! In fact upon finding I ate the leftovers the Teen Daughter was quite disappointed. She would like these as part of our regular family meal options. I almost did a happy dance! :) I can't wait to try Seitan in other recipes.
