Coyote Not-So-Ugly…

The coyote is without a doubt the most famous desert animal, the very symbol of the west. He is prominently figured as the Trickster as well as the Wise One in Native American myths and legends. The coyote fascinates us with its intelligence and adapability. Coyotes are omnivores, which means they will eat or try to eat just about anything. In the Sonoran Desert coyotes vary their diet with the seasons. Cactus fruit, mesquite beans, flowers, insects, rodents, lizards, rabbits, birds, and snakes make up some of their dietary choices. It can survive eating anything from saguaro fruit to roadkills, and is able to live in any habitat from cactus forest to the city.
The coyote is not only intelligent, curious and playful, it has very keen senses that adapt it for survival—acute hearing, excellent vision, and an extremely sensitive sense of smell.
Coyotes are often mistaken for small to medium sized domestic dogs. They have a long, bushy black-tipped tail, pointed ears and a narrow pointed face. Their fur varies in color, from light brown to grayish. The fur on their belly is usually white.
A desert coyote usually weighs between 15 to 25 pounds. They stand about 25 inches tall and are 4 feet in length.
Coyotes “sing” as a way to communicate with other coyote families and as a way to keep track of their own family members.
Because coyotes are not picky eaters, they have even been known to eat domestic cats and small dogs.
(This is not my photo)

You REALLY know you’re in the wilds when you spot a coyote not 50 feet away from you.

We’ve started taking Winston out really early on a morning (between 4:30 and 5 AM) to beat the heat that starts as soon as the sun comes up. He’d been really starting to suffer the heat when we were taking him out at the usual time and was pulling towards any small amount of shade. Poor thing was panting up a storm and it usually made him rather out-of-sorts the rest of the day.

So I take him out this morning and it’s just getting light at 4:30 and I wonder why there were absolutely no rabbits around. I know it’s not too early for them because they’re out in the middle of the night and most mornings when we’re out and about… and they’re usually out in droves. But this morning there were absolutely none.

Then I get down to the doggie park which is right next to the goat pen and the goats were all out of their little house there and were standing right up at the fence looking outward past the doggie park. They usually do this when they’ve spotted Jack and are waiting for him to come let them out. But when they do that, they usually make quite a bit of a ruckus calling to him. This morning, they were dead silent and locked in place.

I was just about to let Winston off his leash when I saw the coyote right there… just about 50 feet away from me.

I decided to keep Winston on his leash because I didn’t want him to start going crazy barking and not sure if this coyote had seen me and/or if there was any danger there – rabid coyotes could attack I’ve been told.

So with nothing but a chain link fence and about 50 feet between us, I made myself quite known to this guy who was solely interested in the chicken coop. By “quite known”, I mean that I went and stood right in the open in the middle of the doggie park, and didn’t move. I was wearing all black from head-to-toe… The one time I wish I wasn’t looking so much like a ninja in stealth-mode.

The coyote kept looking over at me, then back at the coop but I reckon he knew with my being there, any attempt at a chook breakky was out of the question and finally took off. He was a bit skittish, and before he decided there was absolutely no way he was getting any breakfast at this place, stopped one more time just past the chicken coop and gave one last ditch look to see how he could get at the chooks. He looked at me one last time to make sure I hadn’t moved, and then trotted off down the lane.

After we were done at the park, I thought it would probably be best to not walk around the site as normal but to come right back home, but I did walk part way further past where we’d normally turn up to get home, where I have a good vantage point of the entry road, just to make sure he wasn’t still lingering around… all was clear. Just as I turned to walk up the way home, there was a rabbit sitting right there on the path ahead of me, and all was well in the world again. I figured that he must be gone as it was safe again for the rabbits to come out.

So I know you must be wondering what was the thought that ran through my head as I put myself between the goats and held Winston’s leash taut, and him behind me in a protective stance…? Nope, it was not “OMG! I hope I don’t look good enough to eat” but rather “SHIT! Why didn’t I bring my camera out with me?!” Urgh… this lady is never going on a walk again without her camera!

RV Vegan Cooking: The Compassionate BBQ

It’s Memorial Day weekend and with the site full of weekend campers, I decided that it was definitely time to BBQ along with all the other campers BBQ-ing this weekend. But what do vegans actually BBQ? Of course, the obvious comes to mind, but what about that which is not so obvious? How do vegans who had been avid carnivores and never stopped loving the taste of meat, but simply choose to not eat it for ethical reasons, BBQ and enjoy all the tastes that they used to enjoy in their pregan years satisfy the want without compromising values? Easy… Seitan!

I have been making seitan for two years now, and I can definitely admit that my early attempts were less than desirable, but as I’ve experimented I’ve been able to make seitan that is incredibly authentic to meat in taste and texture, and is very delicious. However, I have never BBQ’d seitan and had no idea how it would turn out. So tonight’s meal was as much an experimentation with absolute hope for the positive.

There is a church in the area which holds “Moving Markets” every so often, where they sell 60 lbs of vegetables for $10! It so happened that their last Saturday for these markets for the season (until November when they’ll restart up) was today. So Ben and I were up bright and early and under advisement from Jim over here at the site to get there early, were there before 7:30 (they start at 8am). We thought we’d have to wait around until 8, but were welcomed in that small town manner of open arms and we got our produce and were out of there long before 8am. This afforded us a lovely drive back through the back roads – gosh this is some beautiful country for the desert…

This is what 60 lbs of produce looks like in the fridge…

 

We picked up red bell peppers, tomatoes, two full grocery store bags of cherry tomatoes (you can see one of the bags on the bottom shelf above the drawers), organic cucumbers, zucchini, some strange looking squash that it supposed to be zucchini but had weird long necks to some of them and others are round like tennis balls. We got acorn squash, a ton of green beans, and two Mexican melons. I was worried it wouldn’t fit into the fridge, and actually had to put some things in the fridge door.

But with this wonderful “score” today, I knew what I was going to make; and quite frankly, after 3 1/2 weeks of crockpot cooking, I was SO ready for a change, and BBQ was the perfect reprieve… BBQ kebabs…! Oh yeah! And holy crap the seitan tasted just like meat after being on the BBQ! Ben was in complete heaven eating in complete silence in his enjoyment.

I made two kinds of kebabs, one had the “meat” in it, but then I ran out of “meat” so made four skewers with just red pepper, cherry tomato, and onions. Oh and skewers… of course I didn’t have any skewers in the house and my lovely metal ones with wooden handles… seems like I left them behind in the apartment. URGH! SO unhappy about that. 😦  BUT… what did I have in the house which made a perfect substitute? Disposable bamboo chopsticks – not the kind that are stuck together at one end which you have to pull apart, but these are individual bamboo sticks. Without a sharper point, you do have to be careful working your veg and seitan onto the skewers, but they do work perfectly. Oh and you do need to soak them in water for about 1 hour before you use them – this prevents the wood from burning.

To make the seitan, look at my recipe earlier on this blog for my Seitan Pot Roast for the recipe for the seitan – although for this particular recipe, I did not use Diet Coke, I used 2 1/2 cups of vital wheat gluten, 1 cup plain flour, 2 cups water – you do not want the mixture wet in the least, so if you need to add more vital wheat gluten to get a firm texture then do so. I cooked it in the crock pot with 1 cup cold water, 3 TBSP Tamari, 3 cloves garlic (sliced) and 1 onion (sliced). I set it to HIGH and cooked it for approximately 5 hours. Half way through, I turned the seitan over in the liquid. After it cooked, I let it sit in the liquid until it was cool and then moved to the fridge. Keep it (at least 24 hours) in the liquid you cook it in. Wait until it has sat in the fridge for at least 24 hours before using it as meat.

For the marinade on the kebabs (I marinated the vegetables (except tomatoes) and the seitan in this for about 2 hours):

3 cloves garlic
3 TBSP Tamari
3 TBSP vegetable oil (can substitute olive oil)
1/2 cup cold water
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1 TBSP garlic powder
1 TBSP onion powder
1 TBSP cumin powder
1 TBSP coriander powder
1 TBSP Middle Eastern Seven Spice powder

Place all ingredients into the food processor and blend until completely smooth.

I also cooked the green beans on the BBQ. I cut the tips off the green beans, put them in a sheet of aluminium foil, added salt pepper, garlic and onion powder, a little smoked paprika, and vegan butter. Wrap it all up and pop the parcel onto the BBQ.

Now it did not end there because I also made a dessert… I took two apples and chopped them into small cubes. In a bowl, I added raisins to the apples, some cinnamon and sugar. Stir it together well.

On a piece of foil, place a large flour tortilla. Add half the apple and raisin mixture onto the center of the tortilla, and put some globs of vegan butter on top. Roll the flour tortilla and then roll the whole thing in the aluminium foil – repeat with the other tortilla shell and other half of the apple raisin mixture. Place on BBQ and cook while the kebabs are cooking.

The kebabs will cook for approximately 25-30 minutes. Baste them with the marinade as they cook. I cooked them while the rice was cooking and as soon as the rice was cooked, took everything off the BBQ.

You would think that starting a BBQ would be an easy thing to do… Had you watched us two trying to get this BBQ going… there were probably a few campers having a right laugh at us. It involved rolled up paper (which started as kindling), 70% rubbing alcohol… some twigs, dried up pine cones, pine needles and whatever else I could find around the site… a hell of a lot of smoke and finally… Ben went over to our Rollin Green Project neighbours for some liquid fire starter… Note to selves… buy quick start charcoal (we’re using what was left in the RV when we bought it – for all we know, it’s 10 years old!) and fire starter liquid… Oh… and a thermal fire proof  apron so that I don’t burn my boobs! Yep… each time I went close to the BBQ to turn the kebabs, my boobs were on fire – I have mentioned before how short I am yes? Apparently, my boobs are at hot charcoal level… ouch!

But… dinner was great and new lessons learned on how to start a BBQ. Now thinking what I’m going to make on the BBQ tomorrow night.

In other news this week, my birkini (swimsuit) which my good friend Donna bought for me for my birthday earlier this month finally arrived on Thursday. Must say, we had to file an official complaint with DHL… The delivery person came round on Wednesday, and couldn’t be bothered to find our lot or walk the 50 feet to the main office building and instead dropped it off at one of the cabins under the door mat to it. Jack (the owner here) found it on his morning rounds on Thursday. URGH! Stress over regarding that, but yaay! It’s here and I finally got to go swimming for the first time in years. What a wonderful time that was too.

Earlier, I took Winston out and spotted a vulture flying overhead. Grabbed some good pics of it too. SO love my camera and the zoom it gets (I’ve a Nikon Coolpix L110).

Here are a few more photos of the vulture soaring overhead… It is just so peaceful to sit and watch.