Church Heiku

You've all been to the South at some point, right? I know most of you have come to visit me at least once since I moved down to Savannah.  So, I have to assume you are all familiar with the church sign boards; those grammatically erroneous attempts to encourage members and lure in people off the street with enticing messages of hope and sometimes the unabashed fear of God.  "Church heiku" is how my father refers to them.  I passed this one during our long run this past Saturday, "Friends are God's apology for relatives."  Actually, it was spelled "relativies," because these signs just aren't complete unless they fail the English language at least once.  The message seemed a little inappropriate for a church to announce, especially because they're supposed to be supporting the church "family,"...or maybe those are the "relativies" to which they are referring.  It certainly doesn't want to make me attend.  But that's all that I am going to say on that issue in case any of my "relativies" are actually reading this blog.  I would love to hear your thoughts, though.

I guess I should probably live up to the title of this blog and actually feature something vegan.  I don't have much time to play in the kitchen during the week, but I did make these no-bake energy balls last night.  Not a very appetizing name, I should probably come up with something more mouth-watering...how do Sweet Power Bites sound?  I didn't really measure, so the following recipe is rough at best.  My food processor is one of those tiny apartment-size models so I just packed it with ingredients and called it good.

So load your processor with approximately:

1/2 cup rolled oats
5 - 6 dates
1/4 cup chickpeas
1 Tbs agave nectar
1 Tbs peanut butter
4 tsp vanilla

Pulse until all the ingredients are combined and voila!  You're done!  Spoon out little balls and they're ready to eat.  I put mine in the freezer to make them easier to handle, but the mixture was surprisingly not sticky.  I made mine quarter size for a bite-size energy boost, but you could probably make them larger for more of a protein bar effect. 

One more thing and I promise I will sign off for the day...

We have puppies in the cemetery!  A stray has made her nest in the hollow of one of the old trees marked for removal.  She's hidden her litter of 8 inside the stump.  It's actually quite roomy in there!  (I crawled in to play with the pups while she was out scavaging for food this morning).  They're so cute and a lot chubbier than I would have expected from a stary family.  Georgia mutts for sure, but they look like they are some sort of a retriever, chow, rottweiler mix.