Dad's Birthday (Menu: Valentine's Day For Two from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen)

Yesterday was my dad's birthday - happy birthday Dad! As always, I made a special dinner based on his request. He requested Italian (which he also requested last year), and like last year I turned to Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen (see my other posts about this book here). After presenting him with some options, he picked a pasta dish that belonged to the Valentine's Day For Two Menu, though obviously it can be made anytime and the recipes make enough for however many you wish. The one thing that we changed was the cake. The menu has a red wine chocolate cake, but he wanted an orange chocolate chip cake. And what the birthday person wants, the birthday person gets!

Paremsan Topping: This was the first thing I made, as it was a component of the vegetable side dish. This recipe is... weird. It is almonds, nutritional yeast, and salt processed up... fine. But then it has... maple syrup? As Food For Dissertating recently experienced with a maple syrup heavy mayo, maple syrup in parmesan doesn't belong. It was too weirdly sweet for me, but my mum really liked it!
Rating: :|



Paremsan Roasted Asparagus: The parmesan was to go on this. This recipe is simple and classic. Seasoned roasted asparagus topped with a squeeze of lemon and parmesan. Next time I would use a saltier parmesan!
Rating: :)



Pasta in Pink Sauce: This is a lovely pink sauce based on crushed tomatoes and cashew cream. I halved the recipe as I was cooking for three, using only 250g of bucatini. Because I had such a small amount of cashews and water to blend, and my blender is regular size, I did puree it with a bit of the crushed tomatoes so there would be some more liquid for the blender to work with (it is high powered, but itty bitty volumes in it don't go the best... I wish it had a mini jug as well!). This is really simple but really lovely, and I love the thickness of bucatini as well.
Rating: :)



Herbed Garlic Toast: I went a bit rogue with the bread on this one. Instead of using thinly sliced baguette, I used a thick slices of a mini wholemeal stone baked batard. I cut a slice for each of us, and I made a half batch of the topping which spread over this amount of bread nicely. Instead of raw garlic I used garlic powder, as my silly body can only deal with fresh garlic if it is well cooked. This also has some nutritional yeast in it. This is salty, cheesy, garlicky, herby goodness.
Rating: :D



And here it is, all plated up.



And now for the cake!

Orange-Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: This recipe calls for a 12-cup Bundt pan, but I only had a 6-cup ring pan. So I figured I'd halve the recipe so it didn't explode everywhere in the oven, which I did. But it ended up one very flat little doughnut looking cake. So I am guessing that I could have used the whole recipe with my cake tin and it would have ended up looking more like a cake, less like a cake-sized doughnut. Regardless, it pretty cute and tasted pretty amazing - a great orange flavour through the cake. To fancy it up a little as it was looking a little tiny, I added a quick marmalade glaze (just simmered some marmalade with a smidge of water for a few minutes and brushed it over the cake), and topped it with some grated orange-infused dark chocolate.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim would like to remind you that after several posts of non-Dim Sim photos, she is still here and wishes to be adored. Here she is enjoying a little rest out in the cat max yesterday morning.

VeganMoFo 2018 #24: Pot Luck Perfection

24th: Pot Luck Perfection – What would you bring to a pot luck?

Are you having a party? A food party? Can I come? I will bring food! Actually, I am not really one for large parties. More small gatherings. But I am serious about the food. Here are some things that I might bring to your pot luck.

Never underestimate the power of snacks at a potluck, and they don't have to be super fancy made yourself snacks (though that is always fun). If you are short on time, or spending your time making another dish, there are lots of fun snacks you can buy and bring. Here are a couple of things I have picked up recently. I have tried the cheddar snacks before, they are great and tasty and cheesy. Lots of fun. I haven't tried these cauliflower puffs yet, but I have heard good things from Hillary about them. Plus apparently they are probiotic, which always tickles my fancy.



I know a lot of recipe books have hot dishes as potluck dishes, but I always worry about reheating them at the place. I prefer to bring things that can be served at room temperature. Living in Brisbane, it this works pretty well as well. A sturdy salad is a great option.

Sweet and Sour Brown Rice Salad with Fresh Herbs from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: I LOVED this salad. But I changed it a lot, using the recipe more as a guide. First up, I changed the dressing. No way was I going to be using a whole cup of sweet chilli sauce, or any amount of sweet chilli sauce. Instead, I used a 150mL bottle of Chef's Choice pad thai sauce that I had got in a CFS mystery box, and adjusted the rest of the ingredients accordingly (I used 1 TBS of lime juice, but I did still use the whole amount of agave as the miso made it quite salty). I also changed the ingredients in the salad a bit, using a large bag of microwave brown rice as my base (about 3 cups, rather than 4). I left out the scallions, used roasted crushed peanuts instead of whole ones, and used a small tin of bean sprouts rather than fresh. I also added some Japanese marinated tofu (instead of the aduki beans), chopped celery, and grated carrots, and served it over some soft lettuce leaves. The fresh herbs were coriander and mint. This was so lovely, and had fantastic and fresh flavours. I only got about three and a half serves, so definitely scale up for a pot luck! I'd also suggest taking the leaves separately if going to a pot luck, so they don't go smooshy under the salad.
Rating: :D



I always like to bring something sweet as well. I love vegan baking!

Spring Fling Muffins from Vegan Desserts by Hannah Kaminsky: These muffins are studded with rhubarb and strawberries, spiced with cardamom, and topped with a crunchy oat and sugar mix. The rhubarb is chopped finely and added raw, so you don't need to fuss around with stewing it first, and it cooks through perfectly. When I first took these out of the muffin tins, they seems pretty soft and soggy on the bottom and I was worried that I didn't cook them long enough, but as they cool down they firmed up perfectly. A great, not-to-sweet treat.
Rating: :)



Of course there are many other things I can make and bring to pot lucks, including working to a theme! But these were a couple of things I made recently with this prompt in mind. Invitations can be directed to Dim Sim, who is my social events coordinator.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A blessed event, three kitties on the bed. Possum, Sahara, and Dim Sim. Possum didn't normally sleep on my bed, but he would when my parents were away (he wasn't shy about seeking out snuggles). This photo was taken after my sweet Gizmo had passed away, but when she was alive there were a few magical times when I had four cats on the bed with me! I don't care how weird and uncomfortable I have to sleep, I want them with me always.

Recipe Round-Up: Isa Does it

Isa Does It ties with Appetite For Reduction as my favourite book by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I just love it, and I have cooked from it extensively. Recently, I joined Jenny-Marie in her cookbook challenge, and dipped back into a month of making as much as I could! Some of the recipes you see today will be from that, and some will be from the large backlog of things I have made that I am yet to blog! I highly recommend this book. You can see other recipes that I have already blogged from this book here.

Farmer's Salad with Chive Vinaigrette and Garlicky Thyme Tempeh: This green salad, which is full of soft potatoes, crunchy snap peas, and juicy sauteed king oyster mushrooms, would be lovely on its own. But to take it up to dinner status, I added the suggested tempeh. For the salad, instead of using baby rocket (we are not rocket/arugula fans in our house), I used a mix of baby spinach and soft salad leaves. I only made a half batch of the beautiful green dressing, which was more than enough. For the tempeh, I only had 150g (rather than 350g), so I just made a half recipe of the marinade (I marinated it for 24 hours). It was a great savoury and juicy grilled tempeh wedge.
Rating: Salad :), Tempeh :)



Meaty Beany Chili and Cornbread Muffins: This is a large recipe, so I halved it and got 2 dinners and one lunch, served with the muffins and some spinach. The full recipe uses a mix of kidney beans and black beans, but as I halved it I just used the kidney beans. I let out the capsicum and jalapeno, added just the slightest sprinkle of chili powder, and used regular oregano (I have never seen the Mexican one here). I did need to add some extra water, about 1 1/2 cups, during the simmering process. The cornbread muffins were super easy, and were a nice addition. I made a half batch of 6, and made 4 in the regular fashion. For the remaining two, I took the suggestion to add some blueberries and lemon to make them into a sweet treat - which was lovely!
Rating: Chili :), Cornbread Muffins :), Blueberry Cornbread Muffins :)



Chicky Tuna Salad Sandwiches: I love chickpea tuna salads, this one was OK. Not bad, but not one of my favourites. It has sunflower seeds in it, which was an new addition for me! Tragically, I discovered that my celery was off. I love celery in tuna salad, and I definitely missed its crunch. I also added some grated carrot, and left out the raw onion. I used the hand chopped method rather than the food processor, which was a bit more effort, but not too hard. The recipe says it makes 6 sandwiches, but I only got 3!
Rating: :|



Ancho-Lentil Tacos: These were SO GOOD! I love Isa's way of making the meaty lentils, it is so easy and they are so delicious. I haven't ever seen ancho chili powder here, and to be honest I wouldn't be using 2 teaspoons worth if I did. Instead I used some regular paprika with pinch of chili powder to add into the spice mix. I also left out the hot sauce! I served mine in crunchy taco shells, and they took me back to the taco nights of my youth. I also stuffed mine with some shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, avocado, coriander, and salsa.
Rating: :D



Pesto Risotto with Roasted Zucchini: This is a lovely green risotto, very savoury and satisfying. Isa's Bestest Pesto recipe includes walnuts, pine nuts, basil, coriander, and thyme, among other ingredients, which was really nice. The full pesto recipe said it makes 2 cups, and I only needed 3/4 cup for the risotto. I halved the recipe, but ended up with only 1/2 cup! It still worked. I had to add extra stock to my risotto to get it to cook up creamy, but my aborio rice was admittedly pretty old. My zucchini took forever to brown in the oven, but eventually they came to the party. This says it serves 6, but I got 4 servings over some baby spinach.
Rating: Risotto :), Pesto :)



Acorn Squash Risotto: Acorn Squash is not something I have found here, so I used some butternut instead. One of them had some slimy seeds, so I ended up with a bit less butternut than called for. Whichever squash you use, it is roasted first for extra flavour. This risotto is made creamy by the addition of some coconut milk, and I found it made it pretty soup. I followed the option to add a touch of maple syrup, though I found this made it quite sweet, so I added a fair bit of salt. On its own I found it a little too sweet, even served over spinach, but I think some nice marinated tofu would round it out nicely. I must also admit to sprinkling a fair bit of nooch on, which was great.
Rating: :)



Seitan & Wild Mushroom Stew: This is thick, satisfying, and savoury - perfect for a wintery day. Though living in Brisbane, I just have to imagine a wintery day! This says it serves 6-8, but I got 4 decent serves. Do I have an unusually large appetite? I used dried chanterelle mushrooms, but I also had a few swiss browns kicking around. I chopped and added them after the onions, for an extra mushroom boost. Can't have too many mushrooms. I enjoyed that the vegetables didn't get too mushy, they were perfectly cooked.
Rating: :)



Lentil-Quinoa Stew: Lentils, quinoa, and kale... almost as vegan as you can get! This stew is absolutely delicious! Though after cooking down all the kale (which took quite a while, the chopped leaves of two bunches to get 1lb), the stew became pretty thick, with not much liquid. Again, this said it serves 6, but I got 4 serves... granted I loved it so much that I wanted to eat as much as I could in a sitting!
Rating: :D



Dilly Stew with Rosemary Dumplings: I have never heard anything other than rave reviews about this stew, and with good reason - it is amazing! The stew is thick with vegetables, navy beans, and lots of dill (it calls for 2T, but I am a dill fiend so I always add more). I found the dumpling dough to be quite sticky, not really wet as the recipe describes. You are meant to get 14 dumplings, I accidentally made them a bit small and got 18. Serves 6-8? More like 4!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I am quite taken with this gorgeous photo I took of Dim Sim and her reflection, enjoying some sunshine. How perfect is she?

Dinners for Dad (Birthday 2016 and 2014)

I shared what I had made for my mum last year in a previous post, but what about my dad? I already shared the meal I made for Father's Day last year, it was the Indian Menu from 1000 Vegan Recipes and you can see my write up here. But he also had a birthday! My Dad loves Indian, so almost all his meals seem to have some sort of Indian component to them. Sometimes, I will make a specific menu from a book (like this), and other times I will mix and match from different books.

Last year, I picked a couple of different recipes.

Indian-Spiced Tomato Soup with Curry Cashew Savoury Granola from Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester: The soup recipe says it serves four, but made three small starter size serves. It is made creamy by the addition of oats, and has a lovely spiced flavour. But be careful as it did start to burn on the bottom of the pan as I was simmering, so make sure to stir those oats occasionally! The addition of the granola was great. I only made a half batch, which gave me just over a cup. I used sultanas as I did not have any golden raisins. As well as being nice as a soup topping, it is also very snackable.
Rating: Soup :), Granola :)



Kofta Curry from Vegan Without Borders by Robin Robertson: Koftas are pretty fun, though these were very fragile. You need to be especially careful with the peas, as they did tend to make it falla part a little. But treat them with care, and you will be rewarded. The tomato and coconut spiced gravy is very nice. Served with rice and spinach.
Rating: :)



Coconut Sambal: This is quite tart, but makes a nice topping. I used dried coconut flakes (rather than grated fresh coconut) and some light coconut milk.
Rating: :)



German Chocolate Cake from Chloe's Vegan Desserts by Chloe Coscarelli: A very non-Indian cake. This cake is the reason why I scale everything down to just one layer these days. This two layer cake, stuffed with coconut pecan frosting, was HUGE. Far too big for three people to work their way through. It was a bit too sweet for me all up, but my parents loved it. I did need to bake things for about 25 extra minutes. I also added a bit of chocolate extract to the batter, and used a mix of coconut and oat milk for the liquid. Definitely could just have done with a single layer!
Rating: :| for me (due to sweetness), but :) from my parents



So that was last year, which I then realised was very similar to his birthday dinner from two years earlier. I realised that I had already shared the cream of mushroom soup I made in this post, but hadn't put up the rest yet.

Chandra Malai Kofta from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: Having some deja vu? This recipe is similar, though the sauce has cashews as well as coconut milk and tomatoes in it, and was a lot saucier as well. The koftas themselves were very cute. There was a lot of sauce, which was perfect to serve over basmati rice and some broccoli as well.
Rating: :)



Just Chocolate Cake with Gooey Ganache from Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: This is a basic chocolate cake recipe, nothing fancy, using standard cake ingredients. It was a lovely chocolate cake, though was quite soft. I only made a half recipe of the ganache, which I found to be just enough for one cake. Classic chocolate cake goodness.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This little cutie is one of our adoption kittens. His name is Hobbes!

Recipe Round-Up: Isa Does It

I am such a huge fan of the cookbook Isa Does It by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I know Vegan With A Vengeance will always be the essential Isa cookbook (it opened up my eyes to vegan cooking!), but Isa Does It comes in a very close second in my opinion. I love it! I've blogged about some recipes from it before, though I still have a HUGE pile of recipes still to share.

Dragon Noodle Salad: I made this salad one hot summer day. It is a refreshing mix of cold rice noodles, radishes, cucumbers, greens and a peanut dragon dressing. I liked the salad, but the sauce itself was way too hot for me, I foolishly forgot to decrease the amount of sriracha. I had to dilute mine out a little.
Rating: :)



Edamame Hummus & Tofu Wraps: This is a simple wrap, with the tofu just sauteed in sesame oil and salt (I loved it, but my omnivore Dad thought it was a bit plain). The hummus was quite runny and hard to really spread, it was more like a dressing (leftovers were great on salad). The recipe does call for water, but next time I would not add this and only add a little in if it looked too thick.
Rating: :)



Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Penne with Broccoli: This was so delicious! The sun-dried tomato and cashew cream was spot on, and everything else just came together so nicely. I got three and a half serves, rather than four, for this recipe. It was so good it didn't even top it with nooch! Coming from me, that is saying a lot!
Rating: :D



Eggplant and Bread Crumb Fettuccine: Another winning pasta dish. It says it serves four, I made a half batch and managed to eat through the whole thing... though it was a big serving. It took me a little bit longer to get the bread crumbs toasty that the recipe states. Also, I used the leftover breadcrumbs from the next recipe I will talk about here. So good!
Rating: :D



Pesto-Cauliflower Pasta with Breaded Tofu: Cauliflower and Bestest Oil-Free Pesto are tossed through pasta (I used spinach fettuccine here) and served with seasoned, breaded tofu cubes I added some peas to the left overs as well, which was nice. The recipe saus to cut the tofu into 1/2 inch cubes, but next time I would make them a bit bigger.
Rating: :), Pesto :)



Puttanesca Pomodoro: I really like puttanesca. This comes together super quick and easy, but was a bit dry, I felt it needed a bit of something else to really tie it together. However I will grant that the only tomatoes I could get were not the greatest.
Rating: :|



Tempeh-Mushroom Straganoff: Another great dish! This was so good, though I found the servings to be quite small. I accidentally sliced my tofu a bit too thin, but that was OK. The creaminess of course comes from cashews, because this book is all about cashews!
Rating: :D



Olive Angel Hair with Seared Brussels Sprouts: This is another quick pasta dish, with really nice flavours. I loved the seared Brussels sprouts with this. I only got about three serves from it.
Rating: :)



Lentil-A-Roni: A full recipe of this makes 8 serves, so I made a half batch and got 4 perfect serves from it. This is simple, lentils and macaroni in a tomato sauce thickened with cashew cream, but it is tasty. Mine didn't end up looking quite as saucy as the one in the photo, but that was OK. I served it over kale.
Rating: :)



Goddess Noodles with Tempeh and Broccoli: This is a super simple but yummy recipe, with tempeh and greens and noodles in a garlic-lemon sauce. It is meant to have 6 cups of broccoli in it, however one of my heads of broccoli had gone bad, so I added some peas and baby spinach to make up the greens. I used garlic chives, which I heard are stronger than regular chives so I only used half the required quantity, but they weren't particularly strong.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Does anyone else here play Neko Atsume? I have been playing for the last few months. When I started playing it was only available in Japanese, though it is now available in English. I still play in Japanese though because I am trying to learn the language. This funny guy is a kitty I call Inari, and he is wearing a hat!

Christmas eats

Happy everything everyone! I hope you all had a great last couple of weeks, however you celebrate or not. I had a reasonable christmas (it is always sad without Gizmo, and this year we were also missing Possum and Spock), but there was some good food involved to make things brighter. I'm breaking my Christmas posts into two, otherwise it would be very long.

This year I was feeling a little in the spirit, so I did some holiday baking before to share around.

Hilarious Fudge: I had a bag of old Dandies to use up and Panda Without Cookies suggested making fudge with them. I didn't have any recipes in my books for this, so I Googled around and found this recipe. I didn't have any frozen rhubarb, so I used frozen raspberries, which was probably a mistake as this fudge never really set very well and having sloppy raspberries in it made it even sloppier! I took this to a picnic and it totally melted, so I ended up reshaping it and freezing it. It was delicious, but a complete disaster in terms of presentation! I also used almonds instead of cashews.
Rating: :)



Norah's Lemon-Lemon Cookies from Isa Does It: I made these for a friend, and of course sampled a few. To be honest, I would prefer this as a single lemon cookie - the extra lemon comes from a coconut-oil containing glaze that does not float my boat. But as I was giving these to a friend I made them as is. I left a naked cookie for me and this was great. I would make these again but decorate just with some sugar crystals and lemon zest, I think. The recipe says to scoop out 2 tablespoons (about 30mL) of dough per cookie, but I used a 20mL Australian tablespoon for each one and didn't get as many as the recipe stated. I made a half batch and with 20mL scoops it made 9 cookies instead of 12. I used Nuttelex in the dough instead of icky coconut oil. I also only made 1/4 batch of the glaze for 1/2 recipe of cookies and it was more than enough.
Rating: :) for cookies, :/ for glaze



Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies with Chocolate Chips from Isa Does it: This recipe is meant to have white chocolate chips in it but I hate white chocolate so I used regular semi-sweet. This was a really yummy recipe! It is meant to make 24 cookies and says to use walnut sized scoops of dough. I clearly still do not know how big a walnut is because I got 37 cookies instead. But as I was giving them out as gifts to work colleagues that meant there was lots to go around. These are great.
Rating: :)



Lemon Biscotti from Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats: On Boxing Day I was going over to my friend Sarah's house for dinner and to watch the Christmas episode of Doctor Who (I really enjoyed the episode). Sarah makes amazing dinners, and I offered to bring the sweets. She is gluten free, so I thought I'd finally try my hand at these biscotti. They were very easy to make. I made a half batch, so I just had one log to shape, bake, cut and bake again. I got a bit confused about cutting the loaf on the diagonal, so I ended up cutting them a little too thick. But a few minutes longer in the oven and they went nice a crunchy. The recipe says that it is best to eat these a few hours after cooling, so I made them that morning. I would agree with this, because by the time dinner was done and we were eating them they had started to go a little soft again.
Rating: :)



For Christmas Eve my parents traditionally get some poor dead prawns to eat, but they delayed that this year until my brother gets home (he gets home tomorrow!), so I made dinner for everyone. I had planned to make some vegan crab cakes and some salad, but for some reason we were so full still at dinner time that I just made the salad.

Corn, Red Bean, and Blueberry Salad with Mango Dressing from Quick-Fix Vegan: This super refreshing salad was so tasty! The only thing would be next time I would use more mango - mango chunks in salad are the best! For the dressing I squeezed the mid-section of the mango after slicing off the cheeks to get the juice and puree required. I served this with some very yummy baked potato and chive bread from the supermarket.
Rating: :)



Christmas Day dawned and I went for a walk and had a green smoothie for breakfast, which maybe isn't totally in the spirit but was what I felt like. Afterwards we opened presents (I got some new DVDs, books, cookbooks and a Cruelty Free Shop Gourmet Feast Hamper), and then it was on to making lunch.



Warm Mushroom Salad with Cranberries from Appetite for Reduction: I have been wanting to make this for a holiday dish for a couple of years, and this was the year. I have never seen fresh chanterelle mushrooms here, so I ended up using a blend of swiss brown and oyster. I also couldn't find mache greens, so I used a small bag of green leaf lettuces and a few handfuls of baby spinach (Isa suggests rocket, but I prefer spinach). The greens are tossed with a lovely, tangy Creamy Horseradish Dressing and sweetened dried cranberries, which was a great combination.
Rating: Salad :), Dressing :)



Roasted Rainbow Carrots with Cumin-Coriander Tahini from Oh She Glows: Oh She Glows in a new book for me, but one I have been enjoying. I love roasted carrots at Christmas, and this sounded like a good one. I couldn't find rainbow carrots, and I was a little confused about how big the carrots were meant to be. She said you can use regular carrots but there is no way they would have cooked through in the time. I used two bunches of cute orange Dutch Carrots and two full-sized purple carrots cut into quarters for some colour. The sauce was great, but thickens up very quickly, so I tried to thin it before drizzling with some hot water but it might have been a bit too hot and it separated. Still tasted great though!
Rating: :)



I went super simple for the roast this year, and just got a little Sanitarium Vegie Roast. It's nothing fancy, but still pretty good. I didn't use the horrible orange rosemary-mint glaze, but just rubbed with some olive oil and tamari. Served with cranberry sauce of course. I have recently found a new source of frozen cranberries, but I had a jar of cranberry sauce in the cupboard that needed using.



And I always make Dreena Burton's Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan, I've blogged about them a few times before. Christmas nearly got cancelled after my dad got big potatoes instead of small potatoes, but I ended up cutting them in half and baking cut side down and then continuing with the recipe. They were still good, but not quite as awesome as they were missing the second crispy side.



Group shots!





I had for dinner what I was planning on having for breakfast before my green smoothie urge struck. Ideal Crumb is a new business in Brisbane that has started supplying vegan croissants to The Green Edge. I had been in the week before to buy some as my family normally eats croissants for breakfast on Christmas Day, and popped them in the freezer. They defrosted and reheated great! I sliced them, filled them with slices of Tofurkey Smoked Ham and Tofutti Cheese Slices and reheated them in the oven for about ten minutes. Amazing!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The only time I subject my cats to dress ups is at Christmas (though I do have some inflatable unicorn horns that will one day be adorable!). Dim Sim cunningly spent the day lying in front of the window in the sun room, so her photos this year have a very glaring background! I couldn't close the blinds without her running off.



Sahara was a little more in the spirit, mainly because I snuck up on her while she was having a serious post-prandial snooze after lunch. Look at that cheeky little face.