how this girl eats vegan

so I'm trying to eat vegan. don't get me wrong, i love a good steak and when placed in front of me i will not say no. but i try to stay away from any meat/dairy during normal meals. my biggest issue with this is that i'm not a creative cook, nor do i like cooking. i've found some really great meals in the Skinny Bitch Cookbook, but sometimes i just want something simple with very few ingredients.
enter The Vegan Stoner. i was introduced to The Vegan Stoner at christmas, when mom got meg and i a copy and continued the howe girls food themed christmas presents. it was love at first sight. all of their recipes are simple and contain less ingredients than any other vegan cookbook i have seen. "so easy a stoner could make it!"
so when i walked out of the gym and into the gorgeous, sunny, non-winter weather, i turned to the Vegan Stoner for my lunch options. (Big props to their site design, which pulls up fast/easily on my droid!)
as i swiped through their recipes, one ingredient stood out to me: vegan sour cream. i had recently bought said ingredient thinking it could top my fajitas, only to realize it wasn't close enough to the real thing to make it worth the calories.  but strawberry soup!! perfect match! so without further ado, here is my strawberry soup....

my only non-vegan ingredient is honey, which i used instead of agave. i'm ok with this as this honey is brought to you by my daddio, and i love my honey bear jar.  

i hope you are enjoying your gorgeous presidents day!!

knitting for friends...

So i have some of the greatest friends ever. not just because they're legit good friends, but because they don't make fun of me for knitting. or for bringing my knitting with me everywhere i go. all the time. when you invite jess, you invite the knitting. which is why it was no surprise when they wanted a piece of the knitting goodness. at the time, i was carting fingerless owl mitts everywhere, so a couple of them asked for a pair. but then i was thrown a monkey wrench. one of the girls asked for a pair of fingerless mitts WITH A CONVERTIBLE FLIP TOP. whoa. challenge accepted.

Matchy, matchy green.

Matchy green!

so first things first, i made the owl mitts that i could probably make in my sleep. picking the colors was kind of a pain, because i couldn't really find any yarn that was bright enough for my liking. but a greens a greens a green (???). anyway. i still have to add the label and weave in all the ends, but they're basically done and i just need to hand them off to my lovely ladies.
so my next task was to make the convertible fingerless mitts. my original idea was to just make another set of owls and add the top. but after really looking at the design, i figured it wouldn't work as well as i wanted and the flap would cover the owl, so that work wasn't necessary. the mitts i choose are kind of loose and scrunchy looking, but plain, so the flap will work perfectly while still being comfy.

the best part about these gloves was that they were super quick to knit up. the only issue was the flap, because i didn't have a pattern for them that matched the glove pattern. but i was able to finagle something to fit, albeit a tad bit too big. my fav part was being able to go through moms button stash and find some really cool brown buttons.
So now i just need to finish the second glove. which should be easier since i already have the patterns. my to-do list keeps getting smaller, and then keeps getting bigger! so right now I'm working on this glove, a scarf that was a Christmas present, a blanket, and a boob hat (Karen's grandbaby cant go boobless!!!). thank goodness the bf got me these cute espresso cups so i can have my daily fix!!

just sip and pretend you're in Rome!

Howe Girls Drink Scotch - Marmie and JJ, that is!

So this Howe girl has decided to do stuff in 2012!  All kinds of stuff, since I was a dismal failure with the 2011 cooking goal.  Let's kick this off by celebrating the spirits of Scotland.

This weekend, JJ and I attended a single malt scotch tasting at E-ville Spirits.  What a fun and educational experience!  There were about 25 in attendance - a bit squished, so we made friends fast!  I believe there were only 5 women out of the bunch.  I have the feeling that this minority will be changing as women continue to increase their appreciation for the brown spirits.  Bust Magazine just had a great article about this in the Dec/Jan issue called "Raising the Bar".

It was enhanced by the incredible knowledge of Jean from Pernod Ricard.  As a former "whiskey ambassador", she brought an incredible amount of knowledge to the tasting in addition to this:

Glenlivet 18, Aberlour 18, Glenlivet 21, Glenlivet 16 nadurra, Longmorn 16, Bowmore 18

JJ is an experience scotch drinker and I am becoming a fan of the "gold watch" myself.  Jean has taught me to add just enough water to a neat whisky to find my own sweet spot.  This varied, for me, from a drop to a splash to a full glunk of water, depending on the specific scotch.

So what did I come home with? 

The absolute winner of the tasting!  A 21 year old Glenlivet that is incredibly yummy with just the slightest addition of pure spring water.  Do you know that the 21 year old designation means that the very youngest of the whisky in this bottle is 21, but there can be much older?  Single malts are really blends of various years to maintain the specific taste.

It was a great experience that I would highly recommend.

Come on now - step away from your Sex in the City fruit drink and boldly order a Glenlivet neat with water on the side the next time you sidle up to a bar!

love,

marmie



CORRECTION: All She Does is Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit, Knit

I was very excited to see that Meg liked her etch-a-sketch laptop case. When she first asked me to make one, I wasn't sure what to do so it was a nice little ego boost to hear that. I was even more excited when she left me a voice mail telling me that a friend of hers wanted one as well!! woo hoo!! I was hanging my mission accomplished banner above the kitchen table. Alas, it was not meant to be. Her jiggy little Irish friend really just wanted something to keep his beer cold. In other words...game on.



I still don't consider myself a very accomplished knitter, but I have definitely been liking the challenges it has been giving me. The laptop case alone was a trip, as I didn't have a pattern, just a number of stitches that others had cast on to make cases that size.  It was much harder, as the picture below shows. My main problem was that i didn't have 2 balls of red yarn, so I decided to carry the red behind the entire screen. Had I placed a quick call to mom i would have found out that, no, that was not going to work. Lesson learned.

busted original laptop case

 

Anyways.  When I found out he didn't actually want a laptop case I was kind of bummed. i was also in the early stages of knitting a cable scarf that was taking a while. So I decided to take a "quick" break and knit up a beer coozie. Well, at least I thought it would be quick. After frogging a couple of times and wanting to drink my model, I finally finished the coozie. I will be the first to admit that its not the best and definitely needs some changes to the pattern, but I'm still proud of my lil etch-a-sketch coozie!!

So while I might be "win, win, winning," I'm also "knit, knit, knitting!" (I'm not even going to get into the 4 pairs of mittens I've made this week or the quilt I started!!!)

All She Does is Win, Win, Win, Win, Win

My sister...rocks.  If she were in the Super Bowl of knitting, she just threw the winning touchdown pass and caught it herself to get the touchdown in the last 10 seconds. Or something.  Ok, gimme a break...I'm new at the whole watching sports thingy.

I came home today to find a package waiting at my door.  A lovely creation by j. howe.  I suggest you all get your orders in early cuz this shit is about to blow up.

Etch-A-Sketch Laptop Cover

Made just for me by J.Howe

It fits perfectly next to my Slinky and Magic 8 Ball!

Oh, and back to the Super Bowl for one more second.  (Sorry, only the 2nd one I've seen in the last 8 years!)  I loved the M&M commercial best. Yeah, this one.

what time is the super bowl?

true story- i'm not excited to watch the big game tonight. but i am excited to sit on the couch and knit! so get your needles ready- game time is 6.30!!

go bills!!!

homemade christmas

so i realized something in 2011. i don't like cooking. and i definitely don't like blogging about cooking. oy vey was that a terrible blog topic. but kudos to meg for sticking with it and being the lone blogger!!! that howe girl did stuff!!

what i did realize in 2011 was that i love knitting. and not in a normal human-hobby kind of way. this sh*t is real. at first i was eh about it, but then i really started liking it. but then it got all "i was just a stupid bet" with me and tried to make me cable and read charts and i tried to walk away. i thought i knew what i wanted. but in the end, i was able to overcome all our differences and make it work. call up kate hudson, cause we have a fan-fucking-tastic romcom on our hands.

i love knitting so much that i made a lot of my christmas presents this year, which i was very excited about. i pulled a grandma cully and made marmie and meg the same thing, and even made them open their presents at the same time!! they both got a cowl based on something completely overpriced from the gap, and a pair of fingerless mitts. btw, my mom is a fox. and can you tell meg moved to la?? i think it was around 80 when she took the pic for me.

my favorite present, however, was what i made for my dad. after much searching, i realized i wouldn't find a pattern for a sabres hat, so i kind of made up my own based on a couple of others. in the end, i'm super excited with the end product! the only problem was that its a tad big for my daddio's head. oh well. he rocks it like were a winning team! LETS GO BUFFALO!!


since i was having such a great time knitting, i didn't stop with just the presents. i made an owl hat with a pom pom!!

and mustaches (elephant not included)!!!
so while the 2011 resolution may have been a bust, im hoping 2012 is much better. i made a ton of resolutions, including knitting more and possibly starting my own site to sell some stuff (who really needs 6 pair of owl mitts?!?). i've also resolved to learn a foreign language (spanish), learn basic web coding, pretend to go to the gym, and yes, cook. so far so good on each resolution, but its still january!!


happy knitting!!