Featured Etsy Blogger: Made By Melissa

The Etsy Blogger featured member of the month is Made By Melissa who creates handmade jewelry and crochet goodness! Meet Jolly Joey the Jellyfish, a cute crocheted jellyfish who likes to hang out!

Made By Melissa also has lots of beautiful earrings and necklaces that would be great to give as a gift or keep for yourself! She also makes blankets & afghans, scarves, pot holders, and other crochet goodies.

You can also check out the Made By Melissa Blog!

EtsyVeg World Veg Day Cookbook - Get Your Copy!

To celebrate World Vegetarian Day and month (October), the EtsyVeg Team has compiled members' recipes into this awesome little ebook for your gustatory delight and to help a worthy cause- Farm Sanctuary!

This illustrated & colorful digital cookzine was created by the fabulous Nubbycakes, and includes 26 yummy vegan and vegetarian/easily-made-vegan recipes (most are original)! All proceeds from the sale of the ebook will benefit Farm Sanctuary (http://farmsanctuary.org), a rescue for abused and neglected farm animals victimized by factory farming.

You will receive a PDF file of the ebook for your person use. Included in the cookbook is my Chickpea Masala recipe that I posted earlier this month to celebrate World Vegetarian Day and Month. To learn more about EtsyVeg, be sure to check out the team blog! Thank you for supporting EtsyVeg and Farm Sanctuary!

To purchase the cookbook, please visit the EtsyVeg Team Etsy Shop!

Halloween is Fast Approaching!

For the Etsy Bloggers bi-weekly blog carnival, one of the topics is all about Halloween and your Halloween plans. This year (similar to the past two years), I have to work on Halloween night...well, that's just no fun, is it! I'm not even in a work environment where you can dress up for Halloween. The best that I can do is a hoodie that I own that has cat ears sewn into it...I wear that hoodie each Halloween to work as my "costume" since it is something that I would wear on a regular occasion.

I used to remember getting so excited for Halloween when I was a kid. Halloween was almost as good as Christmas morning! Getting dressed up in a costume to go to school and then going trick-or-treating, trying to get more candy each year as compared to the year before. I would get SO much candy, an entire pillow case full and then some! My mom used to sew all of our (mine and my sister's) Halloween costumes by hand. I remember dressing up as a witch, a devil, a clown, a cheerleader, a cat, plus more. Those were the days!

Nowadays, I guess this is just part of being a "grown-up" and going to work, even if it means on Halloween night. Next year, I'm going to do the responsible thing and book the day off! I think I owe it to myself! :) And then costume parties...here I come!

(As for the picture posted above, I just grabbed an image of some awesome Tetris Halloween costumes!)

Hurry Up Alfredo by Vegan Yum Yum

Today I tried the "Hurry Up Alfredo" recipe originally posted at the fabulous Vegan Yum Yum Blog. I was a little bit skeptical to try it out as I wasn't sure how good a vegan alfredo sauce could taste, as an original alfredo sauce has so much milk, butter, and cheese (if I remember correctly). I decided to prepare the sauce with some multigrain spaghetti.

Making the sauce was a breeze and it tastes delicious! You basically throw all of the sauce ingredients into a blender and once it is finished blending, you transfer it to the cooked spaghetti, and cook through on medium. When I made it, I didn't read the original instructions correctly and cooked the sauce on its own until it got a bit thicker and bubbled through - this method totally worked for me, so you can try either way. The sauce has a wonderfully nutty flavor from the cashews and is a wonderful creamy sauce that even vegans can enjoy!

I also like the fact that the recipe calls for nutritional yeast - I'm always looking for extra ways to use nutritional yeast in my cooking since it is a valuable source of vitamin B12. Also, since my blender isn't the greatest, my sauce ended up having some chunks of cashews that didn't get fully blended, but I actually enjoyed some bits here and there of whole cashew!

Here is the recipe - you can also find it posted originally at Vegan Yum Yum.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup soymilk
1/3 cup raw, unsalted cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3 tbsp low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
2 tbsp Earth Balance margarine
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp paprika
1 pinch nutmeg
2-4 cloves garlic
black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Blend all ingredients in a blender. Cook pasta, drain, put back into the pot and stir the sauce in. Place on medium heat and stir through. You can also add steamed veggies to it, such as broccoli.

Testing, testing!

Testing...this is only a test! I just got a shiny new Blackberry and wanted to test it out by typing a blog post. It has been a pretty crazy past week or so, so I apologize for not posting very much lately. Unfortunately, no time for writing blog posts!

I am addicted to my Blackberry - how awesome is it to have your email, internet, twitter, Facebook, and texts right by your side! I can see why they call it a Crackberry. I have a plan (keep in mind that Canadian cell phone plans are inferior to many around the world!) with 500mb of data... After having this for 3 days, I have almost used it all up! Tomorrow morning I will be switching to an unlimited plan.

I am currently posting from the Blogger website because I can't get the mobile blogging to set up properly. Anyone have any success with this? You can basically post a blog via email from your cell. I have tried to set it up but received error messages so if anyone could help me out, it would be much appreciated!

Yay for Blackberries!

Maru the Cat - Cute & Funny Blog

Of course, my favorite cats in the world are my own cats, who currently live with my sister at her house. Since I am unable to own a cat at the moment, I visit Maru's blog each and every day to get my daily cat fix (I sound like some sort of cat addict; the truth of the matter is that I grew up always having a cat, and I really miss having one! They're my fave.) Maru is a super funny and adorable cat from Japan who has his own blog. The blog is in Japanese with English translations. We are able to follow the life of Maru, who does many funny things - his curiosity gets him into a bit of trouble sometimes, and he is quite cute!

Maru just had his very own book published that comes with a DVD of unseen moments! You can purchase it from Amazon in Japan at the moment.

Many of his funny videos can be viewed from the blog as they are posted, or also from the Youtube channel. I will post one of Maru's funniest moments below for you to watch, but if you love cats like me, you'll want to head over to the blog and the Youtube page to see more!

Dragon Quest Slime Perler Bead Coasters

Here are four (4) Nintendo Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior Slime coasters handmade from Perler beads.

Each coaster is a different colored slime from the games - one in green, red, blue and gray. They are square and they measure 3 1/2" by 3 1/2". These would fit any size of glass.

World Vegetarian Day! A Sale and a Recipe!

October 1st is World Vegetarian Day! It is the kickoff to October being Vegetarian Awareness Month. As a vegetarian, I urge you to try to go meat-free for today. There are so many options out there for complete meals, and if you're looking for recipes, you can check out all of the delicious ones that have been posted today by EtsyVeg members! I will post a recipe for a favorite around our house, an Indian-inspired Chickpea Masala recipe.

In addition to making some delicious vegetarian recipes, I will be having a 1-day sale in my shop today to celebrate World Vegetarian Day! Just mention "World Veg Day" in the comments at checkout, and I will give you 20% off all merchandise in my shop! I will send you the 20% back in the form of a Paypal refund. This sale at Lost Mitten will end at Midnight, so now would be a great chance to grab some of my handmade goodies at a reduced price!

Here's the Recipe!

Chickpea Masala:

Ingredients:
2tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp all spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp ginger (from fresh or ground)
1 can tomato paste (small can)
1 can chickpeas

Also, cook some rice of your choice (we use long grain brown rice) at the same time to serve the chickpeas over top of the rice.

Directions:

1. Saute the onion and the cumin in the olive oil for 5 minutes.
2. Stir in the spices (allspice, cinnamon, coriander, cayenne, salt) and cook for an additional minute.
3. Add garlic, ginger, tomato paste and cook for 4 more minutes to dry out the mixture.
4. Stir in the chickpeas and add 1/4 cup of water. Cook for another 5-8 minutes until the water evaporates.

Serve the chickpea mixture over top of rice. Serve with naan bread if you have it, or it is good just by itself!