I’m on a [Zucchini] Boat!

/ Kelly / 1 Comment

The late-summer zucchini lovin’ continues! Inspired by a couple of fantastic-looking recipes I’ve seen floating around the blogworld recently, I made some zucchini boats of my own for dinner a few nights ago.

Using recipes as a vessel for a delicious stuffing is always genius in my book, but somehow I’d never thought of using zucchini in this capacity. How stupid! They make perfectly charming and delicious boats, and you can improvise the stuffing based on whatever veggies/leftovers/grains strike your fancy on a given night. When I served them, I only had two zucchini in the fridge, so I ended up serving quite a bit of the stuffing as a side dish. With a couple of slices of rye bread, this made an excellent dinner.

Zucchini looove.
(Mom photographed the meal again… hehe.)

Although I basically opened the fridge and pulled out random bits of food, I’m going to post a really rough recipe anyway. :)

Zucchini Boats Stuffed with Israeli Cous Cous
Ingredients
3/4 cup Israeli cous cous
A few zucchini
Veggies for stuffing – I used grated carrot, chopped mushrooms, fresh corn, chopped olives, and chopped onions
Spices – I think I used oregano, thyme, a bit of cayenne, and herbes de Provence
Tomato sauce, if you have a jar you want to finish
Whole wheat breadcrumbs

First, preheat your oven to ~375. Next, make your cous cous or grain of choice; I’ve seen rice and quinoa used in different recipes. As your grain is cooking, start choppin’ your veggies and and heat a bit of oil in a pan. Cut your zucchini in half and use a teaspoon to scoop out their innards. Throw all your veggies (including the zucchini innards) into the pan and let them saute up a bit; spice as desired. When they seem properly softened, add them to your grain and combine. Then add tomato sauce (or chopped tomatoes or a bit of tomato paste) and flavor with some nutritional yeast if desired. Add breadcrumbs if you feel like it.

Next, stuff your zucchini boats with the grain and veggie mixture; heap the mixture as high as it’ll go without causing your boats to capsize when you put them on a lightly oiled baking pan or dish. Liberally douse the boats with bread crumbs for a nice crunchy top, put ’em on the pan, and pop the pan in the oven. Cook until the zucchini is soft and the bread crumbs are crunchy.

…I told you it’d be a rough recipe. :) If you do try it out, I’d recommend maybe using a higher oven temperature and adjusting as needed during the cooking process.

And this concludes my latest zucchini lovefest. Have a fantastic night, folks!

Chana, Chana, Chana Masala! (+ a recipe, yo)

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

When I had a small army of visitors last week, we ate out fairly often, and although I didn’t appreciate the strain on my wallet, I did enjoy discovering a few new restaurants. The vegan paella I found hidden at the bottom of the menu at a restaurant that focused on seafood was a surprising treat. When I placed my order, I had no idea that I was about to receive what was probably somewhere around a pound of a deliciously seasoned paella, spiced with saffron and brimming with meaty mushrooms. I barely finished a quarter of it; the bowl looked like I’d barely nibbled on a few grains of rice! I got at least three more meals out of those leftovers. We also ate at a few Asian-inspired restaurants, and I enjoyed one of my favorite dishes ever, pad thai. On girls’ night, my best friend and I had some delicious mooshu and spring rolls. But one thing we didn’t have was Indian food.

So I decided to remedy that a few nights ago. I’ve recently taken over dinner duty for my parents and myself three nights a week, since they’re both educators and are therefore back to work. Since I am mostly unemployed, I figured it was the least I could do to stop feeling like a financial drain. :) I now get to do most of the grocery shopping and can exercise my culinary prowess on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I decided that Indian food had to be on the menu for my first Monday in the kitchen.

Deciding what to make was simple. I’ve been craving chana masala lately, so I whipped up a batch based loosely on this recipe from VegWeb. Since I was cooking for three, I augmented the recipe by adding extra chickpeas, and I added lots of garam masala, curry powder, and crushed red pepper flakes because my family likes it hot. ;) The result was a fragrant, spicy dish that tasted delicious over brown rice.

Yum.
(My mama was so impressed with my meal that she photographed it! Silly mommy. Doesn’t it look like a funny little open-mouthed face, though?)

For a side dish, I consulted my growing list of “Crap I Want to Make,” a Pages document of recipes I will try at some point in the vague future. I immediately zeroed in on the Potato Vada from The Voracious Vegan. But then I realized that these tasty-looking morsels are deep fried, and I’m not really a fan of frying (read: large amounts of hot oil frighten me) and I’m trying to keep things healthy. So I decided to create my own vada-like dish. Thus, Potato-Corn Vada were born! These are a healthier, baked variation on the potato vada recipe that looked so good. I took a few ideas from a few sources, combined them with the local corn my dad had picked up, and came up with a yummy side dish for any Indian meal.

These are a delicious counterpart to a spicy main dish. The corn provides a burst of fresh sweetness that helped temper the spice of the chana masala. Because they’re baked, you can eat two or three without feeling uncomfortably full.

I will note that this recipe is a work in progress. I’d recommend making the vada thinner than the 3/4 inch patties I created, which is why I say 1/2 inch in the recipe. Also, even after baking for 20 minutes and broiling for ~2, they didn’t quite stay together. I might try using a slightly higher oven temperature. With that said, here’s my recipe!

Baked Potato-Corn Vada
Ingredients
2 large potatoes
1 1/2 ears corn, raw (yields just over a cup)
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
1/4 cup onion, chopped
2 T chickpea powder
1/4 t turmeric
1/4 t salt
1/2 t garam masala

First, you’re going to boil your potatoes. Start the potatoes ahead of time, because the rest of the recipe doesn’t require very much prep time at all. Heat up some water in a medium saucepan, chop your potatoes into medium pieces, and throw ‘em in the boiling water.

While your potatoes are cooking, de-kernelize your corn. Stand it up lengthwise and use a sharp knife to remove all kernels. This can get messy, so keep a towel underneath your cob to catch errant kernels. Once you’ve got your corn removed from the ear, place the kernels in a small food processor and pulse it a few times. It’s okay to have some kernels that are still whole; you just want to get some variety and have some that are in smaller pieces.

Next, chop up your onion and cilantro. You can adjust these measurements to taste or even omit the cilantro if you’re not a fan. Now’s probably a good time to start preheating your oven to 350˚F and to spray a nonstick pan with oil.

By now, hopefully your potatoes are cooked through. Dump ‘em into a strainer, and once they’ve cooled a bit, transfer them to a large bowl and mash those babies! Next, add the corn, onion, and cilantro to your taters. Now comes the fun part – it’s time to get your hands dirty! Mix up the big ol’ mess until it’s well combined. Then add the chickpea flour and spices (again, adjust as necessary) and stir these in with a large spoon.

Now start forming your patties. Take a decent sized ball of the mixture (about 1/3 cup, I’d guess) and form it into a ball. Flatten it a bit (about 1/2 inch thick) and then place it on your pan. Continue until you finish up the mixture. You can lightly brush the tops with a bit of oil if you’d like, but that’s probably not necessary. Now pop the pain in the oven for about 20 minutes until they’re slightly browned on the top.

You could also make thinner patties, bake ‘em for ~15 minutes, and then put them under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp them up. Or you could certainly shallow-fry thinner patties. The possibilities are endless!

Confessions & Contemplations

/ Kelly / 1 Comment

Confession time: ever since my guests left, I’ve been in a bit of a funk. My siblings are back at their respective colleges, my parents are (mostly) back to work, and I’m a bit lonesome. At least I’ve got a few high school friends around and I’m now working (very) part-time as an office assistant at my uncle’s store. But other than that, I’m feeling a bit adrift. And with this mild case of the blues has come a certain lack of inclination towards exercise. I’ve been going to bed late, getting up late, and I can’t seem to get up the motivation to go for a walk/run.

Today, however, I made a concerted effort to fight the ennui. It’s a gorgeous fall day, crisp and cool and brightly sunny, so I decided that a nice, leisurely bike ride was in order. I hopped on my sister’s trendy Schwinn (my bike was in the back of the shed and I didn’t feel like digging it out!) and set off.

I think this was just what I needed to reset my brain. Cycling around my neighborhood gave me the perfect opportunity to just sort of contemplate all sorts of things, from job possibilities to what I’d make for dinner tonight. As I pedaled past one house, I heard the unmistakable sound of kids playing outdoors, and I was momentarily confused – it’s back-to-school time; had I stumbled across a group of naughty children playing hooky? But I quickly realized that I was hearing the sound of recess – my old elementary school and its playground were just visible through a little patch of oak trees, and I could just barely see kids running around playing jump rope and kickball and all those fun games.

Honestly, this inspired a mix of nostalgia and longing. Sometimes I miss being a kid and not having to think about crap like student loans, the GRE, and jobs. It’s easy to say that things were “so simple” when you were young and that you wish you could go back. But when all is said and done, I guess you have to just look back with a certain bittersweet remembrance and take all your past experiences and let them influence your future decisions. And guess what – neither mourning the past nor worrying about the future does any good in the present! So, despite the temptation to fall into the depths of despair about my big question mark of a future, I returned home with a determination to focus on the present, to live in the moment, and not to waste my time moping around and raiding the pantry while watching guilty pleasure TV shows on Hulu at midnight. ;)

And then, as a reward for my newfound sense of perspective, I tried something decadent and delicious for dessert after lunch. I picked up a plantain the other day, something I’d never previously eaten. This afternoon I sauteed half of my new acquisition in a little Earth Balance, brown sugar, and orange juice. The brown sugar almost caramelized, and the plantain slices were sweet, soft, and generally fantastic. Although I’d been a little skeptical at first, I’m totally sold.

Sticky sweet.

How do you enjoy plantains, if at all? Do share your ideas!

Zucchini for You, Zucchini for Me…

/ Kelly / 4 Comments

Given the fact that spiralizers are also known as “saladaccos,” I’ve christened my brand new spiralizer “Sallie.” A few days ago, I tested Sallie’s capabilities by making perhaps the most obvious spiralizer dish possible – zucchini “pasta” noodles.

My spiralizer test started off with a minor hitch. I thought we had a zucchini in the vegetable crisper, but apparently cucumbers are easily confused with zucchinis when viewed through plastic refrigerator drawers, and I got a nasty surprise when I attempted to remove my “zucchini” from the fridge. This minor setback was remedied by an impromptu trip to the grocery store, where I was pleased to discover locally grown zucchinis on sale. Score! I picked up a few lovely specimens and headed home.

The poor little zucchini didn’t know what hit him – Sallie’s blades made fast work of the little devil and reduced the sucker into a surprisingly large pile of gorgeous green noodles. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with the results. Although I’d wanted to make a raw marinara sauce to top my pasta, necessity (and a lack of certain ingredients) proved once again to be the mother of invention and I instead came up with a fairly tame broccoli pesto-type topping for my pasta. Mixed with some fresh cherry tomatoes straight outta the garden, this was one of the tastiest and simplest lunches I’ve had in a while.

Zucchini loveliness.

Holy delicious vegetables, Batman! Doesn’t this look so pretty? And the broccoli-basil pesto was super simple to make. I love having basil plants sitting on the backyard deck; I can go harvest basil whenever the need strikes! :) I’m going to include the “recipe” for this pesto, but it’s super simple and could definitely benefit from any sort of spice you’d like to add.

Super Simple Broccoli-Basil Pesto (makes a large batch, more than enough for one bowl of zucchini noodles!)
Ingredients:
2 heads broccoli
1 large handful basil (adjust to taste)
~1 T olive oil (again, adjust to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

First, steam your broccoli for about a minute or two, just to soften it up a bit and to give it that lovely bright green color. To keep this recipe 100% raw, I’m sure you could skip this step and still have it turn out just fine. Then put your broccoli in a food processor and give it a few whirls until it’s in noticeably smaller pieces. Add your olive oil and basil and process it ’til everything’s pretty finely chopped. Add spices to taste and pulse the whole shebang a few more times to mix it up. And that’s it. Super simple!

Now, you’d think I would’ve gotten my fill of zucchini at lunch time. But oh no, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, especially with those gorgeous local zucchinis sitting pretty in my fridge. So that night I whipped up a batch of the St. Patrick’s Day Zucchini Muffins from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

Muffin love.

Susan never steers me wrong. These were moist, flavorful, and delicious. They’re completely fat free since I didn’t include the crumb topping; I just sprinkled them with a little bit of cinnamon sugar. I also used a flax “egg” in place of the Ener-G, since I don’t have any egg replacer.

These muffins went fast. My decidedly non-veg*n brother was home for the weekend, and when I caught him munching on a muffin after lunch, he told me that he actually prefers my vegan muffins to “regular” muffins! I’m not gonna lie; that made me feel a little melty inside. Three cheers for delicious vegan baking!

Deliveries & Delicacies

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

Yesterday, the UPS truck drove up to my house. As my little doggies reached epic levels of barking frenzy, the delivery man deposited this innocent-looking package on my front step.

A mystery!

Hmm, what could it be?

Aha!

Aha! Of course – it’s the spiralizer I won from Katie‘s contest a few weeks ago! Just look at this lovely little lady.

Pretty girl.

Ain’t she a beaut’?

Alas, I haven’t yet broken in my new friend yet. She arrived yesterday just before dinnertime, and as my dear daddy was already making a delicious dinner feast, I didn’t want to usurp his role as top chef for the night. But rest assured that some super spiralized meals while be making their way onto my little blog in the very near future!

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a quick photo from this morning’s breakfast. After spending a wonderful week with my boyfriend, best friend, and another close friend from college, I’m in a bit of a funk now that they’ve left. What better way to cheer myself up than by making french toast and dousing them in locally-made maple syrup?!

French yum!

Yum. While this tasty breakfast didn’t quite salve my saddened heart, it definitely helped to ease my woes. My visiting aunt and uncle – who are both vegan! – have never made vegan french toast before and were amazed by how “real” it looked. I’ll have to share the VWaV recipe with them in the future. :)

Absence Apologies

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

Hello, friends! I apologize for the silence this weekend – my parents, sister, and I drove to upstate New York to help my sister move into college, so we were extremely busy! I can’t quite articulate how strange it felt to see my little baby sister getting ready to start college. She was a big bundle of nerves, but I felt so proud and excited for her! And I’m a little envious that she’s just beginning her four years at college. I’ll admit it – I am a little disappointed not to be returning to school this year! It feels so strange to know that, until grad school at least, I have no academic obligations. I’ve always loved school, so I feel a little lost now that it’s September and I’ve nothing to do but apply for jobs and study for the GRE. I guess I’ll have to live vicariously through my little sister! :)

Anyway, I had very few chances to get online this weekend, and honestly, I didn’t miss it. Sometimes I like to take little technology breaks; knowing that I’m constantly connected in one way or another sometimes makes me feel obligated to keep up on Facebook/email/blogs/Twitter/everything, which stresses me out a bit. So I enjoyed the mini break.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to eat at my first vegan restaurant this weekend! My sister’s college is in Syracuse (it’s not SU, though!), so my family and I journeyed to Strong Hearts Cafe for lunch on Sunday. I’m so thankful to have a very veg-friendly family; my mom is mostly vegetarian (she eats fish occasionally), my sister used to be vegetarian (grr), and my dad (who is an awesome cook) is more than happy to cook vegan meals for the whole family, since he knows it helps his tendency toward high cholesterol. My brother is the most omnivorous of all of us, but he was home tending to the dogs this weekend and thus couldn’t complain about going to a vegan restaurant. ;) We did take my sister’s boyfriend, though, and although he loves his meat and spent a good portion of our meal making jokes about “vegan water” and such, he pronounced his french toast “delicious.” Victory!

My dad also enjoyed his spicy tofu scramble, mostly because anything spicy is automatically good in his book. Mom loved her chickpea sandwich and “Dreamsicle” milkshake; I had a few sips of that and it was indeed a dreamy, creamy delight! My sister and I both got the BLT, and although I was really excited about it because I used to love BLTs but haven’t had anything remotely like one in ages, I was a little disappointed. I didn’t realize they’d use quite so much Teese and vegan mayo, and I really wasn’t keen on that addition. It would have been much tastier without all that extra crap. Once I scraped it off the bread, though, the taste improved considerably. VeggaSis, however, didn’t really care for the sandwich at all and only ate half. We wrapped up the rest so my dad could have a snack later for the 5 1/2 hour drive home, but it ended up getting a little soggy in the cooler and thus went to waste. :( Ah well. Overall, I really enjoyed the restaurant and can’t wait to return next time we’re in Syracuse visiting my sister! Oh, and I apologize for the lack of photos – I’m still a little shy about taking food photographs in public. ;)

I do have a couple of photos for you, though. On the night before she left, my lovely little sister and I made vegan sugar cookies. I doubt many of you are familiar with the Mighty Boosh, but we made Boosh themed cookies!

Come with us now on a journey through time and space!

I won’t explain all of the cookies; just ask if you’re curious! And you should definitely check out the show if you like surrealistic, dark, British comedy. They’ve just released their DVDs in the US, so I know what I want for Christmas!

I also have to admit that my posts will be few and far between in the next week or so. My boyfriend is flying in for a visit, another friend from Carleton will be starting grad school nearby, and my BFF is also visiting! It’s going to be a mini Carleton reunion and I think I’m going to be quite busy. :) Apologies!

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll leave you with a close-up of a few cookies – this is a bottle of Baileys (“Have you ever drunk Baileys from a shoe?”) and Vince Noir’s glam red boot.

Creamy beige...

The Great Cake Debacle (and some raspberry-chocolate goodness)

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

Fun fact about me: I hate failure. Obviously nobody likes it much, but it seriously grates at me. As a perfectionist with OCD, I can’t stand when things don’t work out correctly. Failure is like a festering wound into which I keep pouring salt in the form of continually obsessing about what went wrong and why things didn’t turn out perfectly. I feel the compulsive need to fix my problem, to make it right. Bear that in mind as I spin the following tail of woe.

On Wednesday evening, my family had a little get-together because my darling baby sister is going away to college in a few days, and we wanted to send her off properly. I found myself in charge of providing sustenance in the form of desserts of my sister’s choosing. First she decided that the Raspberry-Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars from Vegan with a Vengeance sounded mighty fine, so that went on the list, and after procuring a few choice items, we threw together the blondies with no problem. They came out perfectly; the Lindt dark chocolate bits we used in place of chocolate chips contrasted most deliciously with the raspberry filling. These were a huge hit – and they didn’t look too shabby, either.

Chocolate and raspberry delight.

Tantalizing, no? But we had to make something else, because a proper dessert gathering is all about having options. So, after much hemming and hawing, Sister Dearest decided she wanted something lemony. A lemon cake, perhaps.

But where to look for a sophisticated, lightly lemony cake recipe? It was obvious to me. I headed over to Have Cake, Will Travel to see what Celine could offer. I found perfection in the form of her Lemony French Cake. You all need to go check out Celine’s gorgeous photos of this cake to understand why I was so enamored with it. It’s truly a thing of beauty, understated in its elegance yet clearly sophisticated. Wildly eager to recreate this statuesque stunner, I followed Celine’s gentle hint to bake the cake a day ahead of time in order to to “let the flavors develop.” After successfully and easily pulling together the blondies, I imagined that this next endeavor would be – pardon the expression – a piece of cake. With only eight ingredients, I anticipated a surefire success. So imagine my dismay, friends, when ding of the oven’s timer revealed this to me:

Pancake-cakes!

Oh, the horror! I’m exaggerating, though; the baking of this cake was fraught with adversity and halfway through I knew with dreadful certainty that no good would come of it. First, my poor, helpful, little sister zested her finger instead of a lemon and was out of commission. Next, because of my local grocery stores’ lack of plain or even vanilla non-dairy yogurt, I had to resort to this “recipe” instead.* I’d used it successfully in the blondies, and it never fails in the muffins from Vegan Brunch I’ve made a few times, but I think that for this cake recipe, it’s just not right. Because I sort of eyeball the amount of cornstarch, I often tend to add a little too much, thus creating a quite thick “yogurt.” I also sometimes neglect to add the splash of lemon juice or vinegar the recipe includes, which in this case was a punch in the gut since I had lemons right there – this is, after all, a lemon cake. Then, because the soy yogurt was so thick, my cake batter was very, very thick. So I added a few squeezes of lemon juice (I was replacing the lemon extract with extra zest, by the by) and a dash of soy milk, and had to keep stirring to mix everything together. Only after I had thoroughly stirred my batter did I notice Celine’s note to “stir until just combined;” it was then that a 1000-watt lightbulb flashed on in my brain and I realized that this was a delicate cake, one that required a light touch and definitely not extra mixing.

Presentiments of failure began to stir in my head at this point, but I pushed them aside for the time. The final piece of kindling in this fire of failure was my lack of a 6″ x 4″ round cake pan; we only have the small 9″ x 1″ ones, so after doing some hasty math, my sister and I thought we might just make two of those size and layer them. But by the time I halved my batter and poured it into the two pans, it was too late to save the cakes. A few minutes in the oven revealed that they were obstinately refusing to rise; I’d overmixed them and allowed the flour to glutenize. And the shallower pans surely didn’t help matters; in retrospect, after seeing how little they’d risen, I realized that just one 9″ x 1″ pan would’ve worked fine. Anyway, 25 minutes later, I ended up with two very, very flat lemon cakes… they were more like pancakes, really. I felt irritated with myself because the failure was my fault; I should have intuited what sort of cake this was and not taken it for granted. There was no way I could show these cakes to my family the following night, but by then it was too late to do anything; I’d have to wait until the following day. I went to bed, and visions of tiny, mocking lemon cakes danced in my head.

I awoke the next morning with a few possible solutions. I could save the cakes for “personal eating” and make something totally new, or I could try again and work to perfect the same cakes. But neither of those possibilities satisfied the frugal penny-pincher that lives inside of me; it seemed like a waste to make something entirely new. So I decided that if the cakes at least tasted okay, they might be salvageable.

A tiny taste revealed to me that – hallelujah! – despite their refusal to rise and dense appearance, the cakes still tasted mighty fine! The way was clear for a salvaging mission. After a little quick thinking, I decided to stack the cakes and make mock-petit fours with a layer of raspberry jam in the middle, thus turning VeggaSis’s going-away gathering into a vaguely raspberry-themed event. I covered my faux petit fours with a simple glaze, and guess what? They didn’t turn out half bad.

SUCCESS.

These sweet squares looked charming and had a delicate lemon flavor that was complemented nicely by the raspberry filling. So even though my inner perfectionist is still bothered by my initial failure, I’m happy that I managed to save the cakes and turn them into something presentable. I’ll try the recipe again soon, armed with a little extra experience under my belt. ;)

I’ll leave you with another gratuitous blondie shot, because these babies were amazing. My one tiny criticism of the recipe is that the actual blondie layer is much more cake-like than blondie-esque, even if the flavor is spot-on. I might tinker with it some day and try to give it a denser, chewier texture. But even if I don’t, I’m definitely adding this recipe to my arsenal of no-fail favorites!

Yum.

* I found this recipe while Googling for a quick homemade soy yogurt recipe, and I do believe that this must be an older blog of Celine’s, which I didn’t realize until now. Interesting!

Odds ‘n Ends

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

Buon giorno, friends! I have a photo-heavy, sugary-sweet post waiting to go up this afternoon, but first I just want to mention a few odds ‘n ends.

First, I want to thank Katie for featuring a couple of my CCK-inspired breakfasts! It was so fun to see some of my photos on her wonderful blog.

On a similar note, my contribution to Operation Beautiful went up yesterday! It’s basically a condensed version of my Operation Beautiful post from a couple of weeks ago. Between this and Katie’s post, I’ve felt like such a rock star this week! And being featured on both websites didn’t hurt my blog traffic, either. ;)

Next, I want to clue you all in to the wonder that is a Twitter contest. Earlier this summer, I was lucky enough to win not one but two cookbook giveaways from Da Capo Cookingon Twitter. Because I check my Twitter fairly regularly, I saw their contest Tweets right away and won a copy of Ani’s Raw Food Desserts and a signed copy of Vegan Brunch. Amazing, right?! And somehow I was lucky enough to be the 15th person to link to this CrazySexyLife post in a Tweet, and now I’ve won a copy of Kristen Suzanne’s Easy Raw Desserts! Love it.

Finally, I’ve got a question. I’ve read a bit about food combining in the past, but I’ve never really given it too much thought. This morning, though, I ate a small banana with a rather substantial amount of peanut butter, and immediately after doing so my stomach began to feel quite unpleasant. I recalled that in Lindsay‘s Examiner article about food combining she mentions that mixing legumes with fresh fruits can cause digestive unease, so I’m wondering if that’s the problem. The thing is, I eat bananas and peanut butter at least a couple of times a month, and I’ve never experienced this previously. Might it be because I used a rather disproportionate amount of peanut butter? Do you guys follow food combining rules or notice that certain combinations bother you? I’d love to know!

Okay, those are all the odds ‘n ends I have for today! I’ll leave you with another Operation Beautiful-inspired photo. I left this note in a young adult-type book when I returned it to the library so that the next young woman who reads it can feel a little boost of self-confidence. And don’t judge my reading material – girl’s gotta take a break from GRE studying somehow! Plus I’ve moved on to a Salman Rushdie novel now. ;)

Raw Wednesday

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

I suppose it’s not technically Wednesday anymore, but better late than never, right? I meant to post earlier, but I got tied up with family and friend type activities and you know how it goes. Anyway, I’ve got a doozy of a post planned for tomorrow, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet. And that’s fitting, really, because my eats today were simple and unassuming yet undeniably satisfying.

In the spirit of Raw Wednesday, I put together a magnificent raw lunch that filled my tummy and made me smile thanks to its colorful appearance. Check it out:

Raw delight.

Lovely, no? My lunch was comprised of two dishes. First, I decided to try a recipe from Choosing Raw that I’ve had my eye on for a while now. Although I’ve never been a huge tomato soup fan, Gena’s chilled Basic Tomato Soup looked like the perfect way to use some delicious tomatoes from my dad’s garden. And it performed that function perfectly.

Avocado and tomato goodness.

Although it ended up being a little avocado heavy (and thus turned a borderline unappetizing green-brown color), the tomatoes fought back and let their garden fresh flavor shine through. The result was a delightful mix of creamy avocado and sweet tomato goodness. My only problem with the soup was the slight tangy balsamic vinegar aftertaste I noticed with each spoonful, but that’s just because I seriously dislike being able to taste or smell any type of vinegar in my food. Even though I did cut down on the amount called for in the recipe and added the smallest of splashes, I should have left it out entirely to tailor the soup to my personal tastes. Other than that, however, it was a perfect summer soup, and it paired so well with the more substantial part of my lunch.

Lovely lettuce wraps.

These lettuce wraps were filled with matchstick zucchini slices and generous scoops of the Sunflower Pate I made a few days ago, and they were fantastic! Although Romaine lettuce may not be optimal for wrapping, it was the only type we had in the house and worked fairly well. I had another helping of pate on the side with more zucchini for dipping, and I also enjoyed three delicious heirloom Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes. I love these little guys; they’re so amazingly sweet and smooth and rich. They’re truly a treasure and I love popping them in my mouth right off the vine. They complemented the meal perfectly, and I washed everything down with some Santa Cruz Mango Lemonade. It was a wonderfully refreshing lunch on a hot summer day.

Although I planned on enjoying a big ol’ massaged kale salad for dinner, my wonderful father ended up making a potato-leek-mushroom hash and I just can’t resist his cooking. There’s always tomorrow, right?
:)

Giveaway Madness

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

Hey folks!

I wish I had some yummy food photos to share today, but unfortunately the batch of Orange Glazed Scones I baked last night didn’t last long enough for that. The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, and overall I was quite pleased with the results. The scones were quite fluffy and cakelike, and I appreciated just how much they rose during the baking process. I thought the glaze tasted a little too Earth Balance-y, but nobody else had any complaints so maybe I’m just strange.

So in lieu of food photos, I’m just going to mention a couple of fantastic giveaways going on in the blog world right now. Leslie of Leslie Loves Veggies is teaming up with Nature’s Path to give away a generous gift package of Nature’s Path products. Check it out here.

If you’re in more of a dessert mood, check out Gina’s Love Force giveaway at Vegan Strong. She’s offering up five Love Force bars to one lucky winner, so go enter thyself!

And if those weren’t tempting enough, Jessie is giving away – wait for it – a Vita-Mix! I know that many of you are already happy Vita-Mix owners, but I can’t yet count myself amongst your numbers. So I’m crossing my fingers and toes and hoping to win this contest!

Good luck to all of you! I’ll be back tomorrow for Raw Wednesday. Ciao!