New Italian Charms ~ Rising Signs

We just expanded our Zodiac line of Italian charms with Rising Signs. It's a cool color symbol for each sign on an "Earthrise" background. http://search.ebay.com/_Charms-Charm-Bracelets_W0QQcatrefZC12QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQsacatZ3835QQsassZabbeyrd73069

These are really cool. You can do a three-piece set of Sun, Moon and Rising to get your entire "big 3" on your bracelet.

I'm also finishing up creating a whole new Flower Faerie line. There will be 33 new Faerie charms added soon!!

Thanks to all of our customers for your support! I'll be doing FREE one-page birthcharts and personal hand-created astrological interpretations of your chart if you mention that you saw this on our site in your payment comments when you order 2 or more charms!!!

Hey, somebody should tag me...

Wine Review: Dark Star Cellars

A couple of months ago, we had the fortune of doing a little wine tasting excursion while driving back from the Bay area. One of the wineries we stopped by was Dark Star Cellars.

We liked what we tasted there, and ended up taking home a couple of bottles. Night before last, we tried Celebration:

"A celebration of Harvest! To make this wine, we remove 100 gals of juice from each lot of grapes that comes to the winery during harvest. We place all the juice in one tank and slowly ferment it at forty degrees during the entire harvest, adding juice each time we harvest a vineyard. At the end of Harvest we celebrate by warming the tank and finishing the wine. This wine was fermented over a two month period."

This is a sweet blush. It's a great desert wine. We had it post pizza as I was craving something light and refreshing. We ended up downing the whole bottle and getting quite tipsy. Well, that was fun. :-) This wine is delicious ice cold. It is a lot like drinking a *very* refined wine cooler. Definitely worth a try.

Last night we indulged in the Ricordati:

"Ricordati (always remember) Is a complex Bordeaux style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (63%), Merlot (30%), and Cabernet Franc (7%). This wine in its ten year history has won 18 Gold Medals and a Best In Class at International Wine Competitions. Deep, Dark, Cherry, Plum, Raspberry, Maple. Excellent with Pastas, Red Sauces and Meats.
Only 750 cases produced."

Now this wine was deep and complex. It's a great red dinner wine. Very leggy and a bit spicy. Give it breathing room and sip it slowly. We're waiting to finish off the bottle with some pasta and crusty bread. At the winery, we were told that Ricordati was named to remember those that had lived before us. Very cool. I give it 4.5 stars out of 5 compared to my favorite reds.

A note to the Vegan Police: I had an email exchange with the winemaker and they do not use any animal products during any process. Most better wines don't these days. I checked for isinglass, etc. I routinely check and I want to encourage vegans and vegetarians to not forego wine due to the widespread notion in the vegan community that 99.9% of wines use animal products. It's just not true and you don't have to restrict yourself to something marked organic coming out of a soy field in some backcountry. Just do your research (and stay away from the boxed stuff :-))

Vegan Mozzarella for Pizza - NEW!!!

Ok, so this is the BEST vegan cheese alternative ever! I just had to say that. This tastes so good and it really does melt. Really.

This cheese was very moist and it grated very nicely. It took some coaxing to melt but it did melt. The best thing though is that it tastes incredible. Better than any other cheese alternative we've tried. I'm sold!

Incredible! Go to this website and see if you can find it near you: http://www.imearthkind.com/index.html I think you can also order online.

Here's our killer pizza tonight:

Awesome Pizza Crust from "Poolish" Recipe
Rich & Red Pizza Sauce
Shredded Vegan Mozarella from "Follow Your Heart" (Vegan Gourmet Cheese Alternative)
Yves Canadian Bacon (soy, vegan)
Mushrooms
Sliced red bell pepper
Marinated artichoke hearts
Sundried tomatoes
Capers
Sliced Pepperocini peppers (no sulfites)
Sliced Kalamata olives

Baked for 10 minutes at 450, then another 10 at 500.

Rich & Red Pizza Sauce

Here's a quick and awesome pizza sauce that goes wonderfully on top of the Vegan Pizza Dough from my earlier post.

2 Tbsp. Light Olive Oil
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
4-5 fresh basil leaaves, torn
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves only (remove the leaves from the twigs)
1 Tbsp. fresh oregano
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme
1 6 oz. can organic tomato paste
6 oz. (use the can) water
sea salt (optional) to taste
2 Tbsp. red wine (optional)
crushed dried red chile pepper (optional) to taste

Heat the olive oil in a small saute pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and herbs and saute until the garlic is translucent and the herbs are wilted and slightly crunchy around the edges. (Go get fresh herbs. I see you reaching for the spice rack. I'm gonna reach out of this monitor and slap your hand away. Take your lazy butt to the store and get the real thing. It makes a 1000% difference. [aside: to the 0.002% of you who are about to write to me about the splendors of your spice garden and growing your own organic herbs, I'm not talking to you.])

Add the tomato paste and slowly stir in the water. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the salt, wine and pepper if desired and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. (It works out great if you start this while the pizza dough is on its last stage of rising).

This makes enough sauce for the 16" super pizza. I just scrape it all out of the saute pan and onto the dough then spread it out with the back of the wooden spoon that I used to stir it.

Article on vegan cheese results coming up soon...

Fix your Google Ads for Traffic Exchanges

Did you know that when your page appears in a frame, google takes the keywords from the parent frame by default? So when your page is in a frame in a traffic exchange surf (like blog explosion surf for traffic), google pulls up ads for the keyword "surf". You've probably not seen this on your own site since you don't typically see your site when you surf an ad exchange but maybe you have noticed it (or the unauthorized message) where the google ads should be on other people's blogs. To fix this, you just add a line of code to your google ad in your blog tempate:

google_page_url = document.location;

Just put it in there with the other google lines on a line by itself.

Hope this helps!

F DUBYA

You have to check out this Ebay auction. This guy is auctioning off a Washington State license plate that says "F DUBYA"!! Apparently, it was revoked by the state for being offensive after he drove around with it for 4 months!

In Search of the Perfect Vegan Pizza...

I WILL perfect a vegan pizza.

I was 99.9% there with my last try. I'm hoping this new cheese will seal the deal.

First, I must rave about this pizza dough recipe from the book "Entertaining for a Veggie Planet" by Didi Emmons. Here is a gratuitous link to Amazon:




The key to this recipe is to start it the night before you want to make pizza and double it, triple it, or quadruple it so you can freeze some dough for later!!! This is such excellent pizza dough. It is delicious and well worth the 2 days of rising, punch, rolling and hair-pulling. Trust me!

This recipe is based on a "poolish" sour-dough starter (which means Polish, but it's a lot tastier than the San Francisco way IMHO). You start by mixing some dry yeast with warm water and flour, then let it sit in a warm place for 6-8 hours to create the starter. Then you mix and knead the dough and let it rise again. (This is why I say start the night before :-) )

Here is the recipe modified for my practical usage - doubled so that once you go through all this trouble you can freeze some for later. The unmodified recipe claims that it makes enough for six 8-inch pizzas. In my own experience, I have found that it makes enough for one 16-inch jumbo pizza. My inner math geek says that is really only 64(pi) square inches versus the claim of 96(pi) square inches of covered surface area. Maybe I just like my crust a little thicker or perhaps the author was confused about how long 8 inches really is. (I used the ruler that was handed out as a promo at the Kinsey movie premier.)

1/2 packet of active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups white flour (organic, unbleached preferred in our house)

In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Add the flour and mix until fully combined. Cover with a dishtowel or plastic wrap and let stand in a mildly warm place for 5 to 6 hours or until tripled in size and bubbly. (I usually cover it with a dishtowel and put it in the bathroom with the heat lamp turned on. You'll know it's working when it's getting bubbly and smells like a brewery.) After 5-6 hours, mix this into the dough recipe below.


Dough

6 1/2 cups white flour (organic unbleached, and I like to use half spelt flour, plus extra for rolling)
1 cup whole wheat flour (organic)
1/2 cup semolina, plus extra for stacking. (I like to use masa meal here)
2 Tablespoons salt
the other 1/2 package active dry yeast
2 cups warm water
2 Tabelspoons olive oil

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (except the yeast). Mix well. In another large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and stir to dissolve. Add the Poolish from the above recipe and the olive oil and stir until the poolish is broken up. Add the flour mixture and stir with a big wooden spoon or spatula. Use a cutting motion to bring the dowl together. You can also use a dough hook on an electric mixer, but I like to do it old school and give my arms a work-out. It's more interesting in texture as well.

Now, cover it again with the trusty dishtowel and return it to the warm place for 45 minutes to an hour or until it rises and doubles in size.

Take the big fluffy dough and turn it out onto a large floured surface. Beat the crap out of it for a while then give it a good massage. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it bounces back easily.

Guess what now? Back to the bowl. Cover and return to the warm place. If you are done for the evening, you can let it rise for an hour and then refrigerate it as is in the bowl overnight. If you're an early bird and it's just now breaking noon or you don't expect to eat this pizza 'til after midnight, let it rise for another 5 hours.

Are you ready to roll out the dough yet? Divide the dough in half. If you are only making one super pizza, freeze half of the dough. I just stick it in a ziplock freezer bag and throw it in there. When you are ready to use it, just take it out the night before, throw it in the fridge and then pick up here the next night.

On a large floured surface, roll the ball out to a round large enough to exceed your pizza pan by about 1/2" around. Use a lightly floured rolling pin. Sprinkle the top and bottom with semolina. Lay it in the pizza pan, roll the edged inward to make an edge and press down. Send it to the warm place again to rise, this time for only 30 minutes.

Top and bake!! For a thinly topped pizza 10-15 minutes at 500 degrees is superb. For a heavily topped veggie lover you can do 20 minutes at 450.

World Vegetarian And Vegan News

World Vegetarian And Vegan News

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This is a great website. Tony needs to add BlogRoll so we can all link to him with ease.

GreenZap - it's up and running

Yes, it really is there and the money is there. Join now while they are still doing the $25.00 free money promo!!

White Buffalo ~ Poem by Eros

White Buffalo

"I see you in the infinite pattern of the stars reflected -
Life upon life in a rolling thunder clap across the plains -"
This is what White Buffalo told me at our chance encounter.
Lolling his huge shaggy head to the left, he regarded me with his lively blue
eye.
"Eagle has seen from the sky, Gila has heard in the ground, salmon feels in the
river that the end is soon at hand."
I pondered on this a moment.
"Why?" I asked of my giant, alabaster-haired companion.
"The pale-face has destroyed the Human Beings and the Buffalo tribes; the Kiowa
woman, she saw the buffalo go.
I stayed behind to warn you,
And now I must be off..."
With that, the last of the living totems
Tore off into the mists of time, fire dancing at his hooves,
Cracking the opals of infinity,
To join his clans in the mountain; an exaltation of larks took wing.
His Medicine lost to the world of the White Man forever.

The woman who begat the world
Opened her mouth and Death jumped out.