vegan chicken pot pie

this is a recipe based on one from earth heart, the vegan restaurant i worked at. it is good, and if you cheat with frozen veggies, it is pretty easy. you can top it with mashed potatoes if you want to, or some of those croissants in a tube (the super cheater way to make this). sometimes i make biscuit dough and put it on top. you don’t have to cook the biscuits first, just “spread” the dough across the pan. or don’t top it at all, but i reccomend making some mashed potatoes for the side then.

1/2 onion
2+ cloves garlic
handful of button mushrooms

2-3 potatoes

1 cup frozen corn
1 cup frozen (cut) green beans
1 cup frozen peas
1 tspn salt
1/2 tspn pepper
1 pkg seitan, cut into bite-size pieces (the “chicken” style kind from white wave works well, and if you use that kind, save the broth to use in a minute)

1 cup water (add the broth here – 1 cup total liquid)
1 tblspn chicken gravy powder
2 tspn arrowroot powder
2 tblspns tamari
3 tblspns nutritional yeast

saute onion in olive oil, when clearish, add garlic (feel free to use tons more – i do) and saute a couple minutes. add mushrooms, saute ~5 min more.

add potatoes and cook with cover on until they are tender.

add the next group (veggies, s&p, seitan) and let that cook while you mix the last group together. add the liquids and cook until the gravy is starting to get thick.

pour into a casserole-type dish. (about 9×9 or 9×13 works well.) top with what you choose, and bake at 350 for about 30min.

serves 6ish

potato leek soup (the easiest ever)

it is winter, and well, that means warm bowls of soup. at least it does to me. tonight it’s potato leek – yum-o. potato is one of my favorite kinds of soup, mild and smooth. and with a recipe that calls for only three ingredients, how can you go wrong?

3-4 leeks (3 biggies or 4 smallies)
6-8-10 red potatoes**
2-3 cups water**
2 cups veg broth
salt, pepper (potatoes usually need lots of salt, but i like to use less while cooking to allow the eaters to decide how salty they want it)

**again, depending on size, if you use more potatoes, add more water. i use about 2 1/2 pounds

for those new to leeks: only use the white and light green parts, slice it length-wise and rinse (sometimes dirt gets stuck down in there, like lettuce)

cut leeks length-wise once more and chop, then saute in margarine/butter (i use new balance tub marge), but don’t brown them, just saute them nicely, about 10-ish minutes.

then add the potatoes, salt, pepper, water, broth and cook until potatoes are easily sliced through. 10-15-20 minutes

blend the soup in a blender or use one of those immersion blenders that are so fun. i like to leave a bit un-blended, just so there is some sort of lumpiness, but that’s up to you. careful you don’t fill your blender too full, because it seems blending hot stuff takes up more space somehow.

i’d guess this serves about 5. but that depends on who’s hungry.

makes sense to me

“The Internet may be the world’s greatest library, but let’s face it – all the books are scattered on the floor.”  –   D.C. Denison

Bad news for libraries?

the HR just passed a bill that says that (i quote from from cnet)

“anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.”

i’m not a big fan of restrictions on what we can provide.

here, read this, ugh.

a cool alphabet book? could it be true?

leave it to steve martin to create a funny ABC book for kids. The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z
NPR has an interview with mr. martin and roz chast, a cartoonist often featured in The New Yorker, that did the illustrations.

now i just need to have more kids that would be interested in abc books…

usability video

from the guys at etre, a group of web developers focused on making the web easier for the people – those that actually use the web, not just create it.

coolest election-related site

from a fellow librarianna – a very cool site where you rank snipets of candidates’ issue policy statements without knowing whose is whose.

makes me want the real election to be run this way. force people to actually vote on the issues. what a concept.

take it here: http://www.myelectiondecision.org/

it was made by people at Lawrence University and UC-Irvine. go them.

random things you never knew you needed to know

i found a list of seemingly random fact, mostly having to do with words, but other animal-ish things. how very librarianish.

an excerpt:

The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is “screeched.”

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

…i found myself unable to stop reading the list until i got to the end, so here is the whole list: http://www.chrishedgecock.com/blog/2007/10/17/stuff-you-didnt-know/

very cool building

just searching around, i found these neat pictures of the Kansas City public library’s parking ramp – weird, right? well, here are the steps…

check out the rest of the pictures, go to the Kansas City Public Library page and click on “Virtual Tour” or go to this other blog i found with some casual shots of the parking ramp and parts of the library. neat, just neat. i love it when people preserve old buildings (and make dull structures like parking ramps beautiful and interesting).

The library is in an old bank building, and they’ve kept some of the “bank” features and have really made the library amazing. and they even have a coffee shop inside, hmmm. maybe they are hiring..

ridiculous on top of ridiculousness

so i found a bookmark with the top 100 most frequently banned books listed on it today. cool. for fun, i went through the list to see how many i’ve read (about half-ish).

BUT

now, first of all, i think banning books is pretty ridiculous. but one of the books on the list just went a little to far – the book? Where’s Waldo? and i’m not even kidding.

apparently there is a drawing (in amongst the thousands of people) of a topless woman at the beach. oh no, not a topless woman!

someone wrote an article about it too. i wasn’t the only one shocked.