The return of "Lumpy Fart" chili
Mark cooked this weekend, which cut my kitchen time a bit (no dessert) but also provided a meal I didn't have to make. He only makes chili, and he had to make a huge pot of it for a potluck at the gardens. I won't be going, because potlucks are a) disgusting; b) not usually vegan friendly; c) disgusting. One less meal to cook is always a good thing from my perspective. I made the following:
- chickpeas-pressure cooked, packaged, frozen
- potato chips
- chana masala (sort of--maybe closer to aloo chole): I've made this dish before, and it's delicious, but I had some potatoes I wanted to use up this week, so I made a double batch of it, using 3.5 c. chickpeas and 3.5 c. diced tomatoes. It turned out really well, and Luce loves potatoes so much that she's giddy whenever I add them to a dish. :) I made way too much, so I sent some with Dej.
- shepherd's pie: Mark's favorite, but I fucked it up this time and am so unhappy with myself. I used unsweetened (good) vanilla (very bad) coconut milk instead of the original. The mashed potatoes had a decidedly vanilla twist to them which I did not at all enjoy. My family didn't complain, so I'm not sure if they were being really polite or truly didn't notice.
- cashew gravy (for the shepherd's pie)
Last Saturday morning I noticed a little sparrow fluffed up on the ground and became concerned when he didn't move with all the other sparrows when the dogs went running out by him. Then Damon circled back to sniff him, and the little guy scrambled under a container and tried to hide. I walked over and picked him right up. He was very cold, so I held him to my chest for quite a while. I know he was in bad shape, because he was totally relaxed on my chest (not a good sign with a wild animal!) while I warmed him up. I gave him some Pedialyte (more animals die in the winter due to dehydration than starvation) then put him in a cage with food, water, warm towels, etc. He hung out for quite a while, looking pretty docile. After a few hours, he started to move around, stand up straight and tall, and become frightened and try to hide when I approached the cage. There was nothing physically wrong with him, other than being weak and cold, and at this point he was doing great. I carried the cage back outside (it was fairly warm and sunny by this time), and he immediately got excited and started flying around the cage. I opened the door, and he flew perfectly over to the conifers in our back yard where he and his friends live (or at least hang out most of the time). He stayed in that spot for 15-20 minutes, and then all of his friends came back, and I lost track of him. I've been carefully monitoring that feeding station to see if he weakens again in this cold, but no problems so far.