A day in the life of a vegan

I Have Blog ADD

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:50:00 +0000

Hello friends!

I must have blogging ADD or something, because I've created (another) new blog!

I wanted a blog that incorporated living the good life (fun!) with food, frugality, and fashion (awesome vintage-ness, etc.) among other things. Would you care to take a look and leave a comment? Originally it was going to be only about frugality, hence the name - Cheap Thrills!

In other news, I've moved away from home and I now work for a rad vegan home meal delivery service/chocolate company!

I leave you now with a prerequisite food picture:

Coconut + Berry + Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding.
Loosely based off a recipe in Vegan Planet.
Loosely being the operative word.

I'm really into individual servings right now (although I actually made this in September), it's so nice for everyone to have their own little dish, you know?

Anyhoo, hope to see you at cheap thrills!

A Big Hello From Me + New Blog!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:35:00 +0000

Hey everyone! I know I've been MIA for a while, but I'm back with a new blog. I've moved from blogspot to wordpress, so go check out my new blog!

Yes, I'm Still Alive. Really.

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 01:21:00 +0000

So yeah, I haven't died or anything (although I did have a cold about a month ago). The past 4 months (has it really been that long since I've blogged?) have been super hectic because I was in a theater class and we were putting on a show, so that meant lots o' rehearsals. Plus, I'm working at the cafe full time now doing prep work, washing dishes, running to the bank, delivering to-go meals within walking distance, running around like a mad woman, and tidying up after we close. On top of that there have been guitar lessons, flamenco lessons, independent movies, contra and swing dances, music performances to see, etc. It was actually a little too much for me, and while I was still cooking, I just couldn't find the time or muster up the energy to blog. I made a kick-arse New Year's Eve meal, but sadly the lighting was horrible when I took the pictures, so I would be too ashamed to post them. The dessert did include an awesome tapioca pudding though. Mmm Hmm, vegan tapioca pudding. Who would'a thunk it? (I believe it was from The Millenium Cookbook, I'll have to double check if you really want to know.) Anyhoo, I hope you all had Happy Holidays!

Here's a catch-up of what's going on in my life:

* My aforementioned full-time job

* My guitar teacher's letting me record a CD at his studio, and I'm super excited about it!
Here are the song's I'm going to be recording (singing on most and playing the guitar on all):
1) The House Of The Rising Sun (rock/blues)
2) Texas Flood (blues)
3) Dust My Broom (slide guitar/blues)
4) A fusion combination we came up with (a morph of different fusion pieces)
5) A country picking piece
6) A country blues piece
7) Blowin' Down This Old Dusty Road (a Woody Guthrie folk song)
8) Blue Bossa (jazz)

*My mom left her job with a Hospice program and found another job

*Susan got a job working at a bank (she's starting out as a teller, but they told her since she has an MBA she'll move up rather quickly)

*Rachel's still working at the health food store, and yes, she's still bringing home veggies and other random stuff

*Dad's working in NYC and coming home on weekends, as he has been for a while

Life is content (except for those moments when we all want to kill each other).

What's new with everyone else?

Food P0rn Catch-up

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 01:08:00 +0000

I miss blogging and reading everyone else's blogs. How are things going with you all? I'm having a blast at work, and I don't mind doing schoolwork either. I've been making food, but I don't get time to blog about it, so I have a build up of food pictures. Enjoy them!

The lighting was bad for this one, so it's a little blurry, but it's a salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes*, and Sharp Classic Vinaigrette with a Bite (from The Passionate Vegetarian). I subbed hemp oil for the extra virgin olive oil it called, but Rachel and I didn't like it as much as we have in the past. Also, this was the first time I made it in the food processer (as opposed to the blender), and it was much thinner than all the other times I've made it. I still liked it a lot though, it was just different.

This picture is blurry because of bad lighting as well. It was Artichoke and Lima Bean Ragout in Lemon-Garlic Sauce, served over artichoke penne pasta*. It's from The Passionate Vegetarian. I loved this dish, but everyone else seemed to think it was too sour. I guess you can't win them all!

This is baby romaine lettuce*, golden tomatoes*, and Cumin-Lime Dressing from Ecological Cooking.

This is my version of The Zen Platter, a combination platter found at a vegetarian restaurant semi-close by me. It has steamed kale*, carrots, zucchini*, and summer squash*; arame, pink beans simmered with golden tomatoes* and parsley*; tofu* marinated in soy sauce, garlic powder, ground ginger, lemon juice and sesame oil and then baked; millet, and finally tahini sauce to pour over everything and anything. This meal was very satisfying.

West Indian Rundown from you guessed it, The Passionate Vegetarian. It's a Jamaican Curry, and it's yummy. It was actually a wee bit too spicy for me, but it was still yummy. It had oil, onion, garlic*, scallions*, curry powder, coconut milk, vegetable stock (homemade from vegetables brought home by Rachel), seitan*, carrots, potatoes, acorn squash*, allspice, thyme, half a habenero chile, and tomatoes, and I served it over brown basmati rice. Everyone really liked it.

Sliced Brisket of Seitan, Jewish-Style, (from The Passionate Vegetarian) right in time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah (even though I'm not Jewish). Oh my goodness, I don't even know how to start describing this! I made this about 2 years ago, but this time it was much better. (Maybe because I had all the right ingredients and didn't have to make any substitutions? Just a thought.) I also used the variation listed, adding steamed potatoes* and cabbage to make it a one dish meal. Even my dad liked it!

This is Horseradish Tofu Sour Cream (part of the brisket recipe). No one except for me ate any though. Boo.

Here's the brisket plated and ready to be eaten. Just thinking about it makes me salivate.

I love making homemade bread. This is Sweet and Sour Swedish-Style Rye-Buckwheat Bread from The Passionate Vegetarian. I had a little trouble with the dough being too sticky, but I worked things out by adding a cup more flour than the recipe called for. It made two loaves, but I demolished the one not shown in the picture by trying to take it out of the loaf pan too soon. Anyhoo, I made this 100% whole grain by using whole wheat pastry flour when it called for unbleached white flour. The flours used were: rye flour*, ww pastry flour, ww flour, and soy flour. It also had caraway seeds, orange rind, and buckwheat groats, besides other things. I've been eating a huge amount of this bread; it's heavenly when spread with Earth Balance.

So since no one ate any of the horseradish tofu sour cream, I thought I would make an Eastern European sort of meal and use the sour cream up. Well, things didn't exactly work out as planned. I made Beet-Root Soup and planned on putting the sour cream on top. I'm the only one who ate the soup though, since Rachel wasn't home. Everyone else was eating a certain food group that will not be named (hint: it rhymes with eat). I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I have an enormous amount of soup leftover. It will be going in the freezer tomorrow, so I can just defrost it and eat in on a busy night. On the side of the soup is the aforementioned bread spread with Earth Balance, and some slices of pickles*.

These are the lovely Carrot-Raisin Muffins from Vegan With A Vengeance. I used spelt flour and turbinado sugar, and they came out so light and fluffy you never would have guessed it was spelt flour. I'll be making these again soon.

Pepper Steak. The peppers and seitan were free, as was the steamed broccoli shown on the side. The recipe for pepper steak is really easy to make, and it's so tasty. It's actually one of my favorite meals.

Okay, you may be asking yourself two things.
1. Why is Veronica using The Passionate Vegetarian so much?
2. Geez, why is Veronica eating so much seitan? I bet she's going to develop a wheat intolerance or something.

There are plausible explanations for everything. The answer to # 1 is that I'm trying to go through my cookbooks so that I can remember what I have. Whilst I was going through my cookbooks, I happened upon my beloved The Passionate Vegetarian. It's one of my favorite cookbooks, and for a good reason. This book is huge, and it's jam-packed with awesome, flavorful recipes. Anyway, I haven't been using it as much, but when I looked at it, I saw a ton of recipes I hadn't made yet, so I marked them and I'm trying to work my way through them.
As for # 2, I hit the jackpot (so to speak) last week! Rachel works at a health food store, so she brings home a lot of produce and other foods, but we also go to another health food store, and they give us free food as well. So last week, I got home from work and was told by mom that the other health food story (not the one Rachel works at), gave us some tofu and seitan. I was not expecting to see 2 lbs. of seitan and 4 lbs. of tofu. Imagine my delight! How glorious free food is. So yeah, we ate a lot of seitan recently, but hopefully not enough that we become gluten intolerant. :)

So there you go, the answers to your questions.

Lots of pictures, some food some not

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:40:00 +0000

It's been a while, hasn't it? My blogging will most likely be sporadic for a while, between work and schoolwork I don't know if I can fit it in. I'm going to be working Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, unless they call me and need me to come in. I had thought I was going to be bussing, but they hired a busser, so I'm doing dishes and prep work. Anyhoo, over the weekend I made Susan a belated graduation dinner, because she recently finished up her MBA. We had:

50's Style Onion Dip Redux and Crunchy Toast.......

Roasted Red Pepper Soup (without the cilantro jalapeno swirl that is an optional part of the recipe-Susan hates Cilantro)....

Outrageously Good Pan Crisped Millet Vegetable Cakes over steamed kale with Mushroom Sauce Veronese over top, also shown is mashed butternut squash. In the cakes were millet, beets, carrots*, garlic*, and other stuff. You can't really tell in the picture, but I made them heart shaped. (I didn't crisp the cakes in a pan, instead I broiled them.) All the recipes were from The Passionate Vegetarian except......

Chocolate Clementine Cake!!!!!! I used the recipe for Raspberry Blackout Cake from Vegan With A Vengeance, using the applesauce conversion in the book to make it lower in fat. I also subbed this super fancy, super expensive clementine marmalade in place of the raspberry jam, and I used all whole wheat pastry flour. It was so out of this world, and rich, and my dad was like, "This cake is vegan?". Haha.

This is a Chickpea-Arame Salad Sammich (from Vegan With A Vengeance). It's supposed to be a Chickpea-Hijiki Salad Sammich, but I couldn't find any hijiki. On the side are some steamed green beans. This was so delicious! We all loved it so much I made it twice this week.

Rachel brought this home from work the other day. It's a shopping list. Isn't it awesome?

This is a bad picture, but it's the Alfreda sauce from Vegan With A Vengeance served over whole wheat mini shells, steamed broccoli*, sauteed mushrooms*, and roasted red peppers.

Let's see. This was something we had last week: breakfast for dinner. VWaV tofu scramble with salsa, avocado*, and black beans added in; VWaV tempeh sausage crumbles over roasted potatoes*, carrots*, and onions; sprouted grain bread with Earth Balance and Grape Jelly*, and grapes. Mmm, I love having breakfast food for dinner.

This was our table setting when we had our breakfast for dinner.

OMG, aren't the butlers the cutest things ever? (They're jam spreaders.)

Mmm, coffee with agave nectar and almond milk.

Soy Delicious Purely Decadent Cherry Nirvana ice cream with fresh pineapple* and chocolate syrup. I didn't really like the cherry nirvana one plain, but it was awesome with the other stuff. My favorite flavor (of the ones I've tried) is the Mint Chocolate Chip kind. So yum.

This was sprouted grain pasta with Pumpkin Seed Avocado* spread (from How It All Vegan-it uses sunflower seeds, but I switched it up a little). On the side is sauteed baby arugala* with cherry tomatoes* and parsley, and also some honeydew. The honeydew was fermented, so I actually didn't eat it.

This was Papadini Lentil Rotini, tomato sauce made from sauteed carrots*, mushrooms*, yellow bell peppers*, onions, celery*, garlic*, and sausage crumbles from Vegan Vittles. Sprinkeled over the top is Tasty Topping from Ecological Cooking. I love the bowls we were eating out of!

Finally, on Friday Rachel brought home 3 big bags of beauty products. We still haven't had a chance to go through them yet, they're sitting in our hallway waiting to be sorted.

That's all.

My Visit To The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:23:00 +0000

Okay. Before you look at the picures, I just want to tell you that I took a lot more pictures than this, but the digital camera we have is bizarre and so some of the pictures have disappeared from the camera. I have no idea where they went, but this isn't the first time that this has happened. A while ago (right when I started my blog, I believe) I took photos of one of our dinners, and they disappeared before I could scan them into the computer. About 2 months later, I accidentally dropped the camera and the batteries came out, and when I put them back in, the picures that had vanished were on there like nothing had happened. So that's what I'm hoping will happen with these new lost ones. Anyway, I had a nice time at the opening! The Woodstock crowd is kind of weird (this isn't anything I just learned, I've been to Woodstock many times) and we don't really fit in with the Woodstockians, but other than that it was fun. I had a good time with the animals:

The sheep seemed to be scared of people, so they kept skittering away. I did manage to take this photo before this one ran away. I really like this picture!

The goats were so cute! Some of them were kind of skitterish, but I got to pet a few of them.

Just a random picture

This goat was a ham for the camera! It knew I was taking a picture so it turned it's head for a side profile.

A cute black goat eating

Aww, adorable!

Here's a picture of me with one of the goats

Hmm

Hee hee, isn't this one too cute?

Me again!

I think this is the goat that's a ham for the camera

I didn't realize that their necks were so flexible

Some turkeys. After I took this picture they had a little fight. Some little boy (I think his parents run the sanctuary?) had to come and stop it.

Aww, this goats name was Olivia. (I have no idea whose legs those are.) She thinks she's a cow because when she first got there she was friends with a calf. After the calf got older they had to separate them, but she doesn't go near the other goats because as I said, she thinks she's a cow.

Cute little piggies! (I went into their area to pet them, but those pictures are MIA.)

This is Olivia again

A lone rooster

This is where there should have been more pictures.

I got food there! They had a grill going, so they were selling grilled tofurky sausages. I got a Beer Brat on a bun (the one thing that was kind of weird was that the buns may or may not have been vegan, but I ate it anyway), and on the side I got a black bean and avocado salad and some vegetable skewers. The food was quite good! Mom also bought some chipotle potato salad, and that was yummy as well. For dessert, they had two different kinds of cakes (one chocolate and one vanilla) as well as some cupcakes (insert lost pictures here). They looked really good, so mom and I got chocolate cake and Rachel got a cupcake (Rachel and I shared our desserts). Lets just say they looked a lot better than they tasted. Since I started eating whole, unrefined foods, I can't handle too much processed food, and so the cake didn't taste good at all (it tasted like a cake mix). Rachel and I felt lethargic the whole evening.

The dessert was basically the only negative thing about the whole event. Mom bought me a copy of Meat Market by Eric Markus, and I got two free issues of Satya magazine, plus a free Satya pin. Oh, I almost forgot! Arm Of The Sea Theater was there with their puppets. I got pictures of them but guess where they are? I also got a Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary hoody that's really, really nice, plus a pin from Arm Of The Sea.

I guess that just about sums up my visit.

Today's lunch and dinner

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 23:02:00 +0000

As the title says, here's today's lunch and dinner:

Lunch: Guacamole Grillers from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. All it has in it is avocado*, nutritional yeast, garlic powder*, and umeboshi vinegar. It was served on sourdough spelt bread*. On the side is cucumber wedges*, tomato wedges*, orange wedges*, grapefruit wedges*, and a strawberry spritzer (in the glass, obviously). The problem with getting free food is sometimes it's a little weird. The textures were a little off on the tomatoes and cucumbers as well as the oranges, and I had to cut a whole lot of mold off the bread, but at the end of the day I'm just glad to have food.

Dinner: Romaine lettuce*, yellow/orange cherry tomatoes*, grated carrot, sliced cucumber*, chickpeas, nutritional yeast, kalamata olives, and Caesar salad dressing from La Dolce Vegan. Yum!

I'm going to see a concert tonight, and tomorrow I'm going to (drumroll please)...........

The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary's Grand Opening!!! Yeah! I'm psyched. If your want more info about them, here's their home page.

Have a good weekend everybody!

A yummy tempeh meal

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:58:00 +0000

I forgot how much I love tempeh! I haven't had marinated tempeh in a while (however, I've had tempeh bacon, but that's not as satisfying as marinated tempeh). I was planning on making 5-spice marinated tempeh tonight, but they don't sell 5-spice powder where Rachel works, so I had to make a different kind. Pooh. Here's what we had for dinner tonight:

Mostly freegan: Baked butternut squash* with a wedge of lime* to make it look fancy shmancy, sauteed kale* with garlic*, tempeh marinated in tamari, brown rice vinegar, minced ginger*, minced garlic*, apricot marmalade, ground coriander, and black pepper, and then wasabi smashed purple potatoes* with scallions*. So almost everything was free (the asterisks are what Rachel brought home), and one (of the two) tempeh packages was super cheap at 80 cents (including Rachel's 20% discount), reduced because it was expiring soon. The tempeh was the best part of the meal; I didn't put enough wasabi in the potatoes, the butternut squash was old so it wasn't very sweet, and the garlic in the kale was very pungent because I got kind of side tracked when I was making it and I wasn't thinking so I put in the garlic after the kale was done and didn't cook the garlic. Garlic breath anyone?

This is a kind of crummy picture but it's a picture of Pomegranate sorbet found in the Millenium Cookbook. All it calls for is pomegranate juice and maple syrup. It was so delicious! We like to make fun of Susan because she has what we call an over-developed sour taste bud (a long time ago Rachel and I used to get sour patch kids, and once we gave one to Susan and her eye started twitching, haha). Anyway, she thought the sorbet was too sour, so she couldn't eat all of hers. More for us is what I say.

This was the first thing I made out of the Millenium cookbook, and I hadn't really taken a good look at it until today. My goodness, the recipes are exquisite! I can't wait to make more stuff from this book.

P.S. Dilip, if you're reading this, I can't comment on your blog now that I've switched over to Beta and you don't allow anonymous comments, but I think your top 5 is fabulous!

Attack of the food pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:50:00 +0000

I'm not sure if it's because I'm switched over to Blogger Beta or not, but I uploaded 17 pictures for this post! Woo hoo!

These are all food pictures of what we've been eating over the past few weeks:

Rachel made these pancakes; they're the Apple Pie Pancakes found in La Dolce Vegan. They were just okay because 1) I have a love-hate relationship with raisins, and right now I can't stand them. These had a little too many raisins for me, and 2) they were too salty because of the Earth Balance Rachel used for oiling the frying pan. We agreed that whoever makes them next time should cut down the amount of raisins and also cut down on the amount of salt in the recipe (if Earth Balance is the grease of choice).

This is a completely freegan sandwhich: Organic sourdough bread*, peanut butter*, and an organic tomato*. I had heard of this sandwhich combination before, so I wanted to try it. It was just alright, nothing to write home about though.

Yum, this was so good! Starting from the top right and moving clockwise we have: sauteed kale* with garlic*; mac and cheeze casserole, steamed cauliflower*, and sliced garden tomatoes from our neighbor. The mac and cheeze casserole I made up. It had Tinkyada brown rice elbows, homemade faux ham (made from seitan), frozen peas, Wolffie's Nutritional Yeast "Cheese" Sauce from La Dolce Vegan, and then I topped it with (homemade) breadcrumbs that had garlic* and minced parsley* mixed in. Then it was baked for about 30 min. till the breadcrumbs were crispy. Delicious!

These were Jelly dot spice cookies. They were divine! I had some trouble with the cookie dough though, so if you make it just be prepared you might have to make some minor adjustments.

Short grain brown rice, canned adzuki beans*, grated carrot, sauteed kale* and garlic*, soy sauce, and lemon juice.

This is Amma's Stove-top Bread Masala Pudding from The Passionate Vegetarian. Very simple and very good.

This is original foolproof flaky pie dough from Great Good Desserts Naturally. It called for ww pastry flour and unrefined white flour, but I used all ww pastry flour and it came out heavenly. I used to hate the crusts on pies, but my tastes have changed and I love them now. This was so good I'm tempted to make another one and eat it plain.

I filled it with peaches that were simmered on the stove till they softened, then pureed in the blender, then simmered again to thicken.

Unfortunately, it didn't thicken. This is what a slice looked like after it was baked and chilled. This was just an experiment, so next time I'll add some kind of thickener to it.

I had a wee bit of dough leftover after I rolled it out, so I shaped a peach out of it. I think it looks more like an apple.

Okey dokey. In the bowl we have Carrot Bisque from Vegan With A Vengeance. The bisque was the first thing I made out of the cookbook, and it was nummy. On the side is falafel (from a Moosewood cookbook) stuffed into a sprouted grain pita with steamed swiss chard*, tomatoes from our neighbor, and tahini sauce. I used organic bottled lemon juice for the tahini sauce, but it had a really weird aftertaste, so it kind of ruined it. (I thought since it was a higher quality product it would be better, but I won't ever buy it again). Also shown is some more steamed swiss chard and tomato, since you can't really stuff to much into pitas or they'll break.

Canteloup sorbet. All it had in it was canteloupe*, agave nectar, and lime rind and juice. Very delicious.

Rachel brought home the eggplants (aren't they beautiful?) and the cilantro. What are all these ingredients for?

Masala Stuffed Eggplant from The Passionate Vegetarian. Oh, how I love Indian food.

Curried Split Pea Soup from Vegan With A Vengeance. I forgot how much I loved split peas! I don't use them nearly enough.

A modified version of Abruzzi Celery Soup. I was going to use tempeh bacon, but I didn't have time to make any so I decided to add a can of white beans to the soup for protein. I basically followed the recipe- I even used white rice! (I'm trying to clean out foods from our pantry and we still have a lot of parboiled rice, so I figured what the heck, once in a while it won't kill you.) It was really good.

Last but certainly not least:

Homemade pizza! I made pizza dough (100% whole wheat) in the food processor. It was so simple to make! The toppings were organic tomato paste, pesto, tomatoes*, Buffalo Mostarella cheese from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, and sliced black olives. It was so good, and very satisfying that indeed, I had made pizza completly from scratch.

Blogger Beta......................

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:01:00 +0000

Rocks!!

Yes, I was uploaded to Blogger Beta. It's so much nicer and also much easier to organize. I am loving it! I'm making some changes to my blog (as everyone seems to be doing these days), and right now it's a work in progress. I still am adding on some lists and such, but what do you think so far? I'm very interested in your feedback!

*Edit* Apparently Blogger Beta still has some kinks that they're trying to work out. Darn. It won't let me add html/javascript, it keeps saying "we're sorry but we cannot complete your request" or something like that. Hmmph. Maybe if I keep trying I can add what I want.

Just bear with me!

My top 5 foods

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 16:17:00 +0000

I was tagged by Jennifer C. over at Muddling Towards Frugality for a meme that's going around (it started over at The Traveler's Lunchbox- you can see the original post here). You have to pick 5 things you think everyone should eat before they die, so I thought for a long time about what my top 5 foods would be, and here's what I came up with:

(In no particular order)

1. Pesto-There is nothing as wonderful as the scent of fresh basil, and when you combine basil with garlic and nuts (my personal favorite is walnuts) and oil you wind up with quite a bit of heaven on earth. My favorite recipe for pesto can be found here. (When I make it, I substitute hemp oil for the olive oil, and instead of processing the garlic and oil first I just buzz everything together.)

2. Garlic-Maybe this is my Italian ancestry, but I think even if I wasn't part Italian I would love garlic. Anyway you eat garlic, it is delicious (I'm curious, am I the only person to eat roasted garlic plain?). I'm lucky because each year there's a garlic festival a few towns over from me, and there's always loads and loads of different varieties of garlic to smell and buy. Okay, I lied. When I said anyway you eat garlic it's delicious, I was not including the garlic ice cream they sell at the garlic festival.

3. Fruit sorbet, preferably grapefruit-There is nothing more refreshing on a hot summer day than eating some fruit sorbet. Don't you agree? During the summer I enjoy eating Jane's sorbets.

4. Fresh from the garden, big, juicy tomatoes. I have a very hard time eating under-ripe tomatoes. That's right, only the biggest, juiciest, look-at-me-I've-never-been-refridgerated summer tomato will do for me.

5. Peanut Sauce- Peanut butter, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, maybe a few other ingredients, that's what it's all about. Peanut sauce can make anything taste better (well, maybe not everything, but you know what I mean). I adore it over noodles or over broccoli or over rice.

I'll have you know that it was very hard for me to come to my decision. Runners-up included cornbread, focaccia, and freshly baked apple pie, among other things. However, I did make up my mind, and that's what matters. Now I pass on the agonizing to 5 other bloggers:

1. Spice Island Vegan
2. Rae over at Bunnyfoot
3. Dilip over at Dinner with Dilip
4. Brokevegan
5. Vegan Cyclist

I'm very curious to see what's on their lists.

Goodbye all!

Cookie Swap

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:41:00 +0000

I am taking part in a cookie swap over at . Nikki over at I Love Heeze was paired up with me, and she sent me the most amazing cookies. They're called Mathildes, and they're so delicious. Here are some pictures:

It was a long, busy day at work and I was so happy to come home to the cookies. Here they are packaged up. I loved how they were packaged up, they came wrapped in a Trader Joe's bag! How cool is that?

The money shot! She put little stickers on each side of the containers, and I wanted to take pictures of each one of them but my camera batteries were too low.

Oh wait, this would be the money shot.

Rachel's hand going "me want cookie".

These were my cookies I sent her. The lighting wasn't very good when I took the picture, so they're very blurry. They're Gold Chip Cookies, and they're from The Healthiest Diet In The World.

Here is the recipe for Mathildes:

Dry ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Wet ingredients
1 cup orange marmalade
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 banana (pureed)
1 tsp vanilla

1 cup vegan chocolate chips

Sift together dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients in separate bowl and mix well with dry. Add chocolate chips and mix until well incorporated. Drop by teaspoon on cookie sheet at least 1" apart. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until brown.

Now here's the recipe for Gold Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped almonds, hazelnuts, or filberts (I can't eat nuts because of my braces, so I use the same amount of ground flaxseeds)
3/4 cup chocolate or carob chips (I sent Nikki carob)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a blender or food processor, grind the oats to a coarse flour. In a large bowl, combine the oat flour, whole wheat flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix well. Add the nuts and chips and mix again. In a separate bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, applesauce, oil, and vanilla extracat. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing until thoroughly moistened.
Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto oiled baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between cookies. Flatten gently with your hands or the prongs of a fork (I usually wet my hand and roll them into balls, then flatten them between my two palms). Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned on the bottom. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Have a good holiday weekend everybody!

My cookbook list: a work in progress

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:45:00 +0000

As I've said before, I have a ton of cookbooks. It's kind of sad, but one of my favorite past times is reading cookbooks. I know other bloggers read cookbooks too, so that makes me feel a lot better. Anyway, some of the cookbooks I own are definitely not vegan or even vegetarian, but I like modifying the recipes to be vegan (I'm always up for a challenge!). I'm not going to list the unvegan ones, because if I did this list would be about 50 pages, but I am going to list the vegetarian and/or vegan cookbooks that I own (although I'm not going to go into descriptions). If you own any of the ones on my list, I'm curious about your opinions. I know that the books by Sarah Kramer, either by herself or with Tanya Bernard, have very mixed reviews, but of course I'm talking about all of the books on my list. Please note that this is a work in progress, so I'll be adding others on to it as I A) get more or B) find them (because as you cookbook junkies know having a lot of cookbooks is not so orderly. Or wait, is that just me?). Also, the ones with the asterisk next to them are ones I own but haven't yet used. Since this is already a long list, I don't want to make it longer by adding descriptions, so I'll do individual posts about each book in the future.

My list:

*American Macrobiotic Cuisine by Meredith McCarty

*A Vegan Taste Of North Africa by Linda Majzlik

Cooking With The Right Side Of The Brain by Vicki Rae Chelf

Ecological Cooking by Joanne Stepaniak and Kathy Hecker

*Everyday Vegan by Jeani-Rose Atchison

*Dairy-Free and Delicious with Brenda Davis, Bryanna Clark Grogan, and Joanne Stepaniak

*Fast Vegetarian Feasts by Martha Rose Shulman

Flavors Of The Southwest by Robert Oser

*Flax The Super Food! by Barb Bloomfield, Judy Brown, and Siegfried Gursche

*Fresh From A Vegetarian Kitchen by Meredith McCarty

*From The Tables Of Lebanon by Dalal A. Holmin and Maher A. Abbas

Good Time Eatin' In Cajun Country by Donna Simon

Great Good Desserts Naturally by Fran Costigan

*Hemp Nut Cookbook by Richard Rose and Brigitte Mars

How It All Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer

La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer

*Lenore's Natural Cuisine by Lenore Baum

Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen (by uh, let's see, Lorna Sass)

*Lorna Sass' Short-Cut Vegetarian (ditto)

*Made with Love (stories, recipes, and crafts from Greatful Dead Fans) by Elizabeth Peace Zipern

*Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian (who could that be by? Oh yes, Madhur Jaffrey!)

Meatless Burgers by Louise Hagler

*Miso Cookery by Louise Hagler

Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

*Of These Ye May Freely Eat by JoAnn Rachor

Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon

*Raising Vegetarian Children (not a cookbook, but there are recipes in it) by Joanne Stepaniak and Vesanto Melina

*Sea Vegetable Celebration by Shep Erhart and Leslie Cerier

*Sicilian Vegetarian Cooking by John Penza

*Simple Treats by Ellen Abraham

Steven Raichlen's High-Flavor Low-Fat Vegetarian Cooking (By Steven Raichlen)

*Sublime Soups by Lenore Baum

*The Accidental Vegan by Devra Gartenstein

*The Artful Vegan (from the Millenium restaraurant) by Eric Tucker, Bruce Enloe, and Amy Pearce

*The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook By Jack Bishop

The Convenient Vegetarian By Virginia Messina and Kate Shumann

The Deaf Smith Country Cookbook by Marjorie Winn Ford, Susan Hillyard, and Mary Faulk Koock

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen

*The Everyday Vegan by Dreena Burton

The Garden Of Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer

The Healthiest Diet In The World by Nikki and David Goldbeck (not all recipes, there is some nutritional info in it)

*The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen by Donna Klein

*The Millennium Cookbook by Eric Tucker, John Westerdahl, and Sascha Weiss

*The Real Food Daily Cookbook by Ann Gentry

*The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook by Judy Krizmanic

The Ultimate Uncheese Book by Joanne Stepaniak

The Vegan Kitchen by Freya Dinshah

*The Vegetarian Lunchbasket by Linda Haynes

*The Voluptous Vegan by Myra Kornfeld and George Minot

Vegan Deli by Joanne Stepaniak

Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson

Vegan Vittles by Joanne Stepaniak

Vegan With A Vengeance by Isa Charndra Moskowitz

Vice Cream by Jeff Rogers

Vive Le Vegan! by Dreena Burton

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons

3 Bowls (vegetarian recipes from an American Zen buddhist monk) by Seppo Ed Farrey with Myochi Nancy O'Hara

*366 Healthful Ways to Cook Tofu by Robin Robertson

Fin.

Wow, typing that list up let me see how many cookbooks I haven't used. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go read them.

Vegnic Food Pictures!!!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:14:00 +0000

I dedicate this post entirely to food porn from the vegnic:

In the round container is some kind of salad thingy (I didn't care for it), and behind it is potato salad. I'm not sure what's on the far right.

Another take on potato salad (there was lots of potato salads there)

This was really good. It was beans, avocado, tomato, and sour cream (possibly more stuff but I don't really know).

Mmm, this was really good! It was some kind of Caesar salad with lots of avocado in it.

My contribution to the vegnic: pesto pasta and carrot salad with cumin. To the right of the carrots is some kind of "tuna" salad (not mine).

Oh my lord, vegan donuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The recipe is from Randomgirl.com. Soooo good. There was I think three different kinds: mocha buttercream, jelly filled, and regular creme filled. I will be dreaming of these for a long, long time.

My first taste of vegan cupcakes. I don't know what kind these were because I didn't have any of them. Instead.......

I had two of these. I forget what kind they were though. So good.

More cupcakes

More cupcakes and some awesome peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

All right, I lied. This isn't all about the vegnic. Today Rachel brought home a big load of expired food, so we are now the proud owners of 10 hazelnut milks, 15 grape jellies, and more stuff. I am very excited about the grape jelly! I'm thinking peanut butter and jelly muffins, jelly tarts, popovers with jelly, etc. Also, I was off from work today, and I'll be off tomorrow and Wednesday as well. I'm planning on giving our house a fall cleaning, since I like to clean. I am rambling so I'll say goodnight!

Oops

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:21:00 +0000

Well, I just typed up a whole big post complete with food from the vegnic, but somehow I managed to delete it and now I'm too tired to start all over again, so you'll have to wait till tomorrow. Believe me though, it will all be worth it! I will show you some pictures I took in Prospect Park (where the vegnic was held). It was gorgeous!

Rachel took this one of me. I'm wearing my dad's hat, and as you can see it's way too big for me, but I really like this picture.

That's all for now!

My hectic schedule and then fun!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:15:00 +0000

I know my blogging has been a bit sporadic lately, but that's also how my schedule has been. I started work this week, and while I love it (and am doing fairly well money wise), I do need to adjust my schedule and find time for my priorities, which I'm working on doing. As an example, I give you my schedule for this week:

Monday: Work, then home. Thankfully a quite day with nothing on the agenda.

Tuesday: Work, then I had a flamenco lesson. Then after I got home, we saw our new neighbor pushing his 1 year old girl in a stroller, so we stopped and chatted for a while. Then I put groceries away.

Wednesday: Work, then a doctors appointment, then a guitar lesson, than we went to see Thumbsucker. I've been wanting to see Thumbsucker for a while, but I was disappointed with it. I didn't think it was put together very well, and it wasn't as funny as the coming attractions made it seem.

Thursday: Work, then a little later mom and I went down to see an open mike night at a music in the park series. I have to say, it was torture listening to some of the people. Ugh, I can't even think about it. I don't mean to be all snobby, but almost everybody (including the band that was hosting it) was horrible and off pitch and just bad. We're talking really, really bad. I don't think it's normal to cringe when people sing. Do you? We stayed for the whole thing, because we kept hoping someone good would go on, and finally the last group to go up was soooo good! They're going to be performing at a local restaurant/cafe soon, so maybe we'll go see them there.

Friday: Work, then I came home and made food for......................................................

................................... Saturday: Brooklyn Vegnic! Isa and some others from the Post Punk Kitchen Forums (I'm on the boards, are you?) got together and we had ourselves a little vegnic! (Picnic with all vegan food). It was really fun meeting people from the boards, plus everybody there got to see a sneak peak of the new cupcake cookbook! Have you pre-ordered it yet? Well, I was going to show pictures but blogger doesn't seem to be uploading any at this time. I'll get back to you on that.

In other exciting news, I'm going to save my money I earn and split the cost of a Fender guitar with mom! I can't wait! I'm also going to be getting a laptop soon, so then I can blog whenever, wherever. Anyway, I guess that's all for now.

I'm back, complete with food pictures

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:45:00 +0000

Ugh, on Friday morning I woke up with a sore throat and a really croupy cough and a runny nose, so I couldn't go in to work. Basically I just drank lots of Throat Coat, Echinacea, and Breath Easy tea and rested on Friday, although I did get a chance to clean up the bathroom a little bit. Yeah, I'm kind of weird, I like to clean. I was really bummed though, because I couldn't go see a theater performance I really wanted to see. On Saturday my sore throat was gone, but my voice had that annoying stuffed up sound that drives me insane, and I had a couple of pretty yucky coughing fits. I did feel well enough to go see a performance with Dar Williams and Katie Curtis, and I'm glad I went because I really loved both of them. Though perhaps Katie Curtis just a wee bit more. It was really icky weather though, quite rainy and damp, and the performance was in a tent! Certain parts of the tent were really muddy, but luckily we weren't in that part. On Saturday afternoon, I didn't really want to cook, so Rachel made something!

Rachel made: ramen noodles* simmered in homemade vegetable broth powder (from in upcoming cookbook review) with baby spinach*, scallions*, and some powdered ginger (she wanted to put fresh ginger in it, but we didn't have any). Isn't the garnish of little carrots so cute? Yummy, just the right thing for a sick person.

This was a quick meal that I threw together: long grain brown rice, Amy's spicy chili*, baby spinach*, and Follow Your Heart Monterey Jack Cheese that actually melted!!! (It's very pricey, so it's just going to be a once in a while treat.)

Cranberry* Pumpkin Muffins. Since I'm trying to clean our pantry up a bit, I'm trying to use stuff up, so these have canned pumpkin in them. They were an experiment, but they aren't that good. Of course, if you spread almond butter on them, they taste better, but doesn't everything taste better with almond butter?

Easy French Bread from La Dolce Vegan. I love making bread! I omitted the seeds the recipe called for, because I was using the bread in another recipe. What is it, you may ask? Well, you'll just have to see!

Faux Ham: I used the flavoring found in La Dolce Vegan, but for the actual seitan recipe I used the recipe found in Good Time Eatin' In Cajun Country. It was good, but I may have messed the amounts up, because it was really salty due to the tamari in it.

Pizza frittata (sauteed onion*, pepper*, and potato*, white beans, tofu, fresh tomato*, whole wheat flour, nutritional yeast, arrowroot, dried basil, black pepper, and tumeric). After the frittata was done I shredded the last of the FYH Monterey Jack cheese on top and broiled it for a few minutes. Deliciousness!

That is all.

I really don't have a title for this post

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 01:20:00 +0000

Last night I went to see 9 Lives and I got home just in time to watch Project Runway. I don't watch TV but I make an exception for Project Runway. I love fashion, and it's really entertaining to watch. Does anyone else watch it?
So anyway, I was planning on blogging after the movie but we met some friends and we were talking for a while, so I didn't get a chance to blog. You don't really want my ramblings though, do you? Onto the food:

This was based on the recipe for Salsa Scramble found in La Dolce Vegan. I switched it up a little because I didn't have the avocado it called for. It consisted of: red onions*, extra-virgin olive oil, tofu, salsa, cilantro*, tumeric, Follow Your Heart Monterey Jack Cheese, black beans, and nutritional yeast. I just took a picture of it by itself, but I had it with OJ and brown rice. Yum! It was my first time trying FYH cheese, but it got mixed in with everything so I don't really know how it is yet.

This was last night's dinner: Bean Burritos from Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. I love this book so much! Everything I've had from it has been amazing so far, and this was no exception. Dee-licious! On the side we had steamed broccoli*, steamed baby carrots*, and some frozen organic corn.

Now for the last picture:

From left to right: Rachel, our friend Esther who just went back to college in California, and me!

This picture was taken the night before Esther left, after we had a little adventure. We live right next door to Esther and her mom Debbie, so Rachel was over at their house talking to them. After a while she came home and told Susan and I that we had a serious situation. Debbie's declawed housecat Taz had escaped. We all ran outside and we were calling her name, but we couldn't find her. Debbie's flashlight was dying, so I ran back to our house to grab one of our flashlights. While we were outside looking for her, I got like five mosquito bites, including one right on my forehead. It was all itchy and it kind of hurt. Grr. Anyhoo, we kept calling her name, and finally Rachel and Esther heard something moving in a bush and Debbie had to climb through all this greenery to get her. So in the end we managed to get her back inside alright, with only a few scrapes, scratches, bruises, and bites. It's a good thing we got her inside when we did, because a little while later two neighborhood cats were growling and hissing at each other and maybe even fighting.

That's all for now!

Birdies!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:32:00 +0000

Today for dinner we just had leftovers from yesterday.

Leftovers=Pepper-Flecked Potato-Lentil Medley.

Our neighbors planted a big garden this year and it seems to attract loads of birds, so last week when I was eating my dinner outside I took a few pictures of the little birdies.

On our lawn.........

On our cheap plastic chairs...........

From another angle............

On the wire.................

And that was my humble blog offering for the day.

Food, Glorious Food!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:06:00 +0000

I know my posts have been a bit lacking in the food department lately, so now I shall bombard you with food pictures. First though, two more movies I've seen lately: V for Vendetta, which I really liked, and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, which I loved. (And for the vegans who read my blog, our very own Woody Harrelson was in it!)

All right, now onto the food!

I made this a while ago, and I was going through my pictures file and realized I hadn't posted about it yet. It was quinoa with scallions*, tomatoes*, corn, and cilantro vinagrette over shredded lettuce, and instant black beans. Simple, but clean and nourishing.

Quinoa Almond Muffins. The recipe is here, you have to scroll down, it's the second recipe. I tasted a sample at the co-op a while ago, and I knew it was love at first bite. These muffins are gluten free, but they hold together wonderfully due to the arrowroot. The only change I made was I added dried tart cherries instead of frozen ones.

Cajun Tempeh Burgers with sweet potato fries. This meal was something I through together a while ago when I had some tempeh* I needed to use up (and also some sweet potatoes*). It was just okay, and I didn't measure anything so there's no recipe. It was served on sprouted grain bread with veganaise, tomato, lettuce, and ketchup.

Red Beans and Chicos from Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen, served as per suggestion in corn tortillas slathered with mustard. (Also starring steamed broccoli and baby carrots.) This was definitely not my favorite recipe, but I think that's my fault because the corn tortillas I served it on were kind of freezer burnt so they had a weird taste.

Orange Marmalade Muffins from Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. These were scrumptious! I loved the taste of them!

Yes, my friends, vegan cheez-its are possible. I used this recipe, using all whole wheat pastry flour. I don't think I rolled the dough out thin enough, because they weren't crispy, but the flavor was still amazing. Yummy!

Pesto Pasta Salad with white beans and tomatoes. I should have left the tomatoes out because they ruined the salad, but I was trying to get rid of them before they went bad.

Pepper-Flecked Potato-Lentil Medley, again from Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen. The recipe called for some kind of quick cooking greens, but the swiss chard Rachel brought home today was beyond using, so instead I used frozen asparagus*.

All right, so this isn't food porn, but aren't my nails fabulous? My friend Laura painted them, but at work today they got all chipped, so after I finish this post I'm taking the polish off.

That's all for now!

More Pictures!

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:29:00 +0000

Alright, here are some more pictures for your entertainment!

Me, Rachel, and our friend Esther on my 6th Birthday

Me in Long Island at my family's house, right when my mom was getting ready to sell her share to her brother. That is one creepy looking doll, is it not?

Hmm, not quite sure what I'm doing in this picture.

Rachel and I (wearing my favorite shirt again!) at my parent's antique store.

A random dance picture. Haha, look at my droopy hand! Now that I look at this picture, my whole body looks kind of droopy. I think I was sick that year. Notice my friend Kirsten behind me.

And last but not least............

Me eating my foot (not vegan, lol). You can see my grandmother's head on the left. Uh, just ignore the cold cuts and fresh mozzarella from Arthur Avenue (in NYC). My grandpa must have come up from the Big Apple that day (each time he came up he would always bring food from Arthur Avenue with him).

That's all the pictures I found, but mayhaps I'll find more.

I'm working on a cookbook review right now, so bare with me whilst I try recipes.

Tomorrow I won't get a chance to blog, as I'm going to a good-bye party for Esther. (She's going back to school in California.)

That's all for now!

Me as a kiddo

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:25:00 +0000

Yes, this post is the much promised little kiddie pictures of me. I'll be posting a few more pics, since blogger seems to have a limit as to how many photos can be on a post. Enjoy!

Karate Kid! This is me on my first day of karate. It was taken on August 5th, 1996, when I was 6.

This was my first dance recital. Somewhere I have a video of 4 year old me onstage telling all the kids in my class what to do, because I was the only one who knew the dance. I remember that it was some kind of flower dance.

Aw, this was my favorite outfit for a while. Those pants were my first pair of bell bottoms, before they came back into style. I searched high and low for a pair of bell bottoms, and Rachel finally found me a pair at a second-hand shop for like, 50 cents!

Man, I was one stylish kid! I always loved (and still love) fashion, and I would refuse to wear the outfits mom picked out for me, choosing to style my own outfits. This is Easter '96.

This is my neighbor Kai holding little itty bitty baby me.

Ballet! Wow, I have long legs. I love how my tights are dirty at the feet. :O

This is a picture of my grandma and me, taken at my great aunt's house. Uh, this said great aunt once tried to kill us (not really, it was an honest mistake-I think) by serving us under-cooked pork. Yet another reason to go veg, no worrying about under cooked pork. Again, if I do say so myself, I look so stylish!

Just a random picture of lil' ol' me, wearing a shirt I made.

Me and my friend Kirsten.

Tippity Tap!

What I've been up to lately

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:38:00 +0000

So what have I been up to?

I've seen two more movies: The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, and Art School Confidential. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till was really sad, but I felt I needed to see it. Since I wasn't alive during that era, I can't say I really know what people went through. I've read about it, of course, but I had no idea how bad the south was during that period. I have to say, Mamie Till-Mobley was quite a lady, and she's now one of my heroes. Moving on to Art School Confidential... Well, I have to say I didn't like this movie. I was really looking forward to seeing it, but it was just dumb. Some parts of it were funny, but for the most part it was just blah. That's all I have to say about that.

On Saturday I decided to make some cookies, because the weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold. I made the recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies found in Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Cooking, except I didn't have enough raisins so I followed the variation and added some carob chips. They turned out superb!

On Saturday evening we went up to the Catskill Mountain Foundation to see a cello performance. (The cello player was Paul Tobias.) Since Susan's boss Pam is lactose intolerant, I thought I'd bring some of the cookies up for Susan and Pam to share. Well, it was kind of busy, so Susan didn't even tell Pam that there was cookies (perhaps subconsciously she didn't really wasnt Pam to know? Susan's a little possesive of her sweets, as some of you might already know). After the concert, Susan was just going to give Pam two cookies, but we said she should give her the whole bag (about 8). Pam was ecstatic; she kept saying oh, they're vegan, they're vegan! Haha, the piano player who was accompanying the cellist said, oh, they're vegan, that's good. (Between you and me I don't think he knew what vegan meant.)

Anyhoo, on Sunday we went to Woodstock to see a performance that's part of the Maverick Concerts series. We saw the St. Lawrence String Quartet. On the way home we stopped at New World Home Cooking. (I brought the camera, but it was too dark to take a decent picture.) In the past, they have been very vegetarian and vegan friendly, but I have to say, I was quite disappointed with my meal. They always start out by giving each table (vegan) white bean dip and bread, but they seemed to have cut down on the amount of bean dip they gave out, and so we had to ask for more. I decided to get the prix fixe special they had. I started out with a bowl of miso soup (I made sure it was a vegan first), and I must say it was quite delicious. But then I had my entree of brown rice, black beans, and vegetables of the day, and I was really, really disappointed. First off, they cut down on the amount of rice and beans they give you, so it wasn't that much food at all, and secondly, the vegetables were not seasoned at all. Well, except for one of the veggies, but that's coming up in a little while. The kale was just steamed, which is fine, but that's never how it came in the past. It always came sauteed with onions and garlic and seasoned perfectly. The grilled squash didn't have any flavor on it either, it was just grilled. And the only other vegetable on my plate that I could (desired to) eat was grilled scallions, which were very stringy and difficult to eat. Also, I was asking if the bean dip and soup was vegan, so I figured the waitress knew I was a vegan, but the only seasoned vegetable on my plate was mashed sweet potatoes that contained butter. (I know that because I have his cookbook and the recipe's in it.) I do admit that's my fault though. (I just scooped it onto Rachel and Susan's plates.) For dessert I had Jane's lime sorbet. It was served in a fancy glass, and was delicous, but, come on, you can never go wrong with sorbet. Also, to add to the semi-annoyance, our waitress was really annoying and every 5 minutes she kept coming over and asking if we wanted anything else.
Please don't think I'm nit-picking, all of us are very displeased with Ric Orlando (the owner), starting from about this time last year when his food quality started going down. It's really sad for me because New World was just about the only place I could go eat at and be really confident that I was getting a vegan meal.

I guess I'll have to open a restaurant (just kidding).

On a more positive note, we went to the co-op today! Besides other things I got cute little purple potatoes, cherry nirvana soy delicious, mint chocolate chip soy delicious, and a huge bunch of basil (you know what that means!), as part of my bounty. For dinner tonight I had a hummus sandwich we bought there:

Yum, I love the hummus they make, it's so good.

Dessert: some kind of melon Rachel brought home, a nectarine, some grapes*, and organic blueberries from the co-op.

Uh-oh, someone (mom) was eating outside on the porch and dropped some food. I know the photo's kind of blurry, but there's a lot of ants and also a lone fly crawling about the food. I guess mom was just doing her part to help feed them. :)

P.S. coming soon..... Pictures I found from my younger years. If I do say so myself, I was quite adorable, but you'll just have to wait and decide for yourself.

Pesto is the Besto

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 11:54:00 +0000

I know, I know, my title is corny, but isn't pesto really the besto?

Pesto with 8 whole grain penne pasta, steamed greenbeans*, and leaf lettuce* with olives and caesar dressing from La Dolce Vegan. So good!

For the pesto, I used this recipe, using hemp oil in place of the olive oil. The basil was bought at my town's farmers and artisans market. I should probably just be glad my town has a farmers market, but it's really lame. Every year I go down thinking it will get better, but it never is. There are only two places selling produce! The rest of the people are selling meat, cheese, arts and crafts, jewelry or baked goods. It's kind of annoying because the arts and crafts and jewelry aren't that good. Anway, I went down last Saturday, and it was kind of depressing, just looking around at everything. We only went to see the band that was playing, so I have a feeling we won't be going down again.

Moving on.......
The pasta is so cool! It has whole wheat, whole grain rye, whole grain buckwheat, whole grain kamut, whole grain spelt, whole grain millet, whole grain barley, and whole grain brown rice. The brand is Racconto if anybody is wondering. It's supposed to take 9 minutes to cook, but it took me a little longer (maybe 12 minutes), but that's my only complaint.

That's all!

Random Thoughts + Pictures + Links

noreply@blogger.com (primaryconsumer) — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 23:30:00 +0000

In case anyone was wondering, Rachel is still working at the health food store. In fact, today was her one year anniversary working for the store. Go Rachel! I'm just not blogging about what she brings home, although I'm still using the produce and other foods she brings home.As an example of a normal meal I bring you my breakfast and dinner. Today for breakfast I had scrambled tofu made from onions, extra virgin olive oil, organic extra firm tofu*, nooch (nutritional yeast), organic garlic*, shoyu, mustard, spices and seasoning, and organic baby spinach*. To go with the tofu scramble, there was organic sourdough toast* drizzled with hemp oil, OJ, and organic grapes*, organic cherries*, and an organic plum* (the organic plum* tasted funny (read: was rotten) so I wound up not eating it. My dinner was a hummus wrap and a side salad of mixed herb salad*. The hummus wrap was made out of: a whole wheat tortilla, organic lemon hummus*, organic avocado*, organic cucumber*, organic green leaf lettuce*, and organic red onion*. So you see, we're spending less and less money on food as the weeks go on. I did take pictures, but the camera is being dumb and the pictures didn't show up on the disk. (I swear I took them.)

Here are some examples of what we've been eating lately:

Remember that I got tomatillos at Honest Weight? Well I made this sauce (scroll down to the bottom for the recipe, or just read about tomatillos till you get to it), which was quite yummy, and spooned it on top of shredded lettuce*, grated carrots, cilantro*, scallions*, black olives, seitan, black beans, and brown rice. The whole concoction was really good, but as I've written about before, I tend to get a little carried away at times, adding this and that until I have one huge mish-mosh of food, and then we can't eat it all and it goes to waste. (In this case not that much went to waste.)

Here it is dished up in a shallow bowl

This, my friends, is what organic corn looks like (I know it's kind of blurry, but I really wanted to put this pic up)

Last Friday Rachel brought home lots of fresh fruit (honeydew, canteloupe, strawberries, etc.). I was just browsing recipes over at the Cat-Tea Corner, and I stumbled upon a recipe for Chilled Strawberry Melon Soup. So perfect, because I had all the fruit it called for and I had an open bottle of apple juice in the fridge, and I knew if I opened pineapple juice my dad would have some, because he likes pineapple juice. The garnish was mint provided from our very overgrown garden, which leads me to the next picture:

Wow, look at all the coneflowers (echinachea)! It's sad that we're all too busy to have taken care of our garden this year, but that's the way life goes I guess.

Pattypan squash. Aren't they gorgeous, especially on the cool plate?

For the next two weeks, during the mornings I'm helping my flamenco teacher with a program called Sprouts. (The link is old, but that's the best I could find.) It's alright helping out, but I do have some stories about it.
After Sprouts is over, I start my job, so my summer is basically over. *sigh* Wow, I start my job in 13 days.

If you would like to see me dancing flamenco, follow this link and scroll down until you see SBC 2004 Dance Presentation. I'm number 15 on the program; the dance is fandangos. I have pictures somewhere, but I couldn't find them.

I suppose that's it, goodbye all!