Panda With Cookie at Athens Indie Craftstravaganza

Panda With Cookie will be at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganza in Athens, GA, this Saturday, December 3, from 10-6pm. The fair is located at 670 West Broad Street at the corner of Broad and North Pope in the parking lit behind Ben's Bikes Stop by and say hello! If you see something you want from my shop, let me know and I'll be happy to hold an item for you.

Personalized Cat Ornaments at Panda With Cookie

I'm making custom cat ornaments for the holidays! Head over to Panda With Cookie to find out how to get your own cat immortalized in eco felt.  Taking orders now!

Quick Fix Vegan Up in My House

I was very pleased to win a copy of Robin Robetson's Quick Fix Vegan during Vegan Mofo. I still haven't completely gotten through reading the book but the Indian Shepherd's Pie caught my eye right away and I happened to have almost everything on hand to bake it up yesterday. The picture is less than stellar, but I don't think shepherd's pie ever photographs well anyway. It doesn't matter. This was absolutely delicious! I had fire roasted tomatoes on hand which added a nice kick and the combination of potato and cauliflower topping was perfect without being too heavy. I have plans for another recipe or two in the coming week and will have a more thorough review up later. But for now I am completely happy to have a whole pie to work my way through this week. 

Panda Makes Mofo: Rye Biscuits

One of my fall and winter projects is to blog some of the recipes I found and bookmarked during Vegan Mofo. I made these oaty chocolate chip flapjacks a couple of weeks ago, substituting brown rice syrup for the golden syrup and they were quite good. They were eaten before the camera could capture them.  This week I went for Johnp's rye biscuits, which he blogged on the final day of mofo. Mine didn't turn out quite as fluffy as his look, but you can't go wrong with a good rye and cornmeal bread product.

Happy Halloween: The Klaus Nomi Lime Tart

How fitting to end my Vegan Mofo with a subpar food photo. But the inspiration was magnificent.

Halloween has long been my favorite holiday. I love the costumes, the jack-o-lanterns, the freedom (once upon my childhood) of traipsing around to strange doors for candy. It is a strange holiday. I wanted to come up with something fun for my Mofo Halloween but was lacking in ideas. I made the oatmeal cream pie cookies from the Sunny Days in Texas zine for my post over at Vegans on the Move.  But inspiration was failing me here.

In some odd sequence of events I had posted my vinegar pie recipe around the same time I posted  a Klaus Nomi video on my Facebookery page as the soundtrack to some cookie baking. Which led to a discussion with the wonderful Johnp over at I-40 Vegan about Klaus being a pastry chef and making tarts back in the day. And what with my successful vinegar pie, why not attempt to veganize the Klaus Nomi lime tart?


Nomi epitomizes what I love about Halloween, a combination of the strange and beautiful. So I got my lime on and tarted it up.

You will need
1 1/4 c graham crumbs
1/3 c brown sugar
1/4 c melted margarine

Mix all together and press into a 9 inch pie plate or tart pan. I went with only 2 T of sugar so my crust wouldn't be too sweet.

4 eggs (I used a combo of soy yogurt and clear jel)
1 can sweetened condensed milk (I made my own using this recipe.)
1/2 c lime juice
some lime zest

What with all the egg separating and whipping that went on in this recipe, I decided to just hope for an edible tart like pie. I mixed the condensed milk with 1/2 c vanilla soy yogurt, the lime juice and zest. I then used 2T instant clear jel and sprinkled it in and mixed like mad. Clear jel is usually added to sugar or other dry ingredient to keep it form clumping, so I added it slowly over about 20 minutes.
Then I poured into the crust and refrigerated.

The result? Mostly good. My crust was a bit crumbly but the filling maintained its shape for the most part and was quite tasty.  But the real beauty was simply in the idea to do something ridiculous.
Happy Halloween and Happy Mofo kids!

Vegan Companies I Like

My final vegan company I like is not one company but rather a collection of small etsy shops that I am part of. The Vegan Etsy Team is a group of etsy sellers who are both vegan themselves and also maintain all vegan goods in their shops. Sellers range from paper goods from My Zoetrope to Art by Susmitha jewelry to baked goods from Sweet V Confections and plush toys by yours truly at Panda With Cookie. If you search for Veganetsy Team on etsy you'll get an entire list of shops and items that are vegan, made with love just for you.

I Like Cats

During a recent west coast tour I took a lot of pictures with me with various cats. I just fucking love cats. They are great. So each Saturday I will have a photo of me with a cat. Because I can.
The tiny yet wily Ms. J.