Weekend Update

What I did this past weekend:

Tried to finish some knitting projects, but did not succeed. The yarn I am using is cotton based, no wool for me!

Went to a vegan bake sale. A lot of stuff had sold before we got there, but we got to see Neal’s work on a postcard/flyer and still came home with some goodies (they melted a little because we were on bikes).

Went to the co-op to get some stuff from bulk and ended up trying this new popcorn from Earth Balance (it’s good!) and rehydrating with coconut water.

Rode bikes everywhere.

Had to do some work. Boo.

And ate some food:

Left over Mellow Mushroom pizza (vegan) with some ginger ale.

Homemade vegan Ethiopian food from a student…one of the few perks of being a teacher!

Game of Thrones night meal…mock chicken wings, mashed taters and asparagus.We also went to a raw restaurant over the weekend, but I’ll blog about that in a separate post because I am tired and have to get ready for the grind tomorrow. The grind is work and tomorrow is today since I am not posting this until tomorrow which will actually be today if you read this Monday. Ya follow?

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Salt ‘n’ peppa’s here!

Sometimes, fruits and vegetables just need a little salt and pepper to bring out their natural goodness.  For this “dish”, I mixed up a bunch of halved grape tomatoes with diced avocados and then sprinkled it with some flavored salt and pepper.

The flavored salt I used (a gift from Neal’s sis) is a mix of salt, parsley, rosemary, sage, garlic, thyme and Arbol chili. Flavored salt isn’t the only way to give this simple salad pizzazz.  Jennie at She’s Vegging Out mixes in olive oil, lemon juice and cilantro.

Either way, it doesn’t take much to make these fruits and veggies sexy-good! Aww yeah…”p-push it real good!”  (if you’re a child of the 80′s, you know what I’m talkin’ about!).

The Last Weekend

As you read this, I am probably back at work answering a question that I answered five times already. This past weekend was the last weekend of my spring break. Cue the violins please. Here’s some random stuff I did on…”The Last Weekend”.

1. Caught up on blogs in the early morning. Since Google reader is going away soon, I transferred to Feedly. So far I like it a lot because it has a nice, interface. I set mine to show thumbnails of my feed.

2. Spent time with puppies. Miles is waiting for his sister to come back up after their morning pee.

3. Strolled through the neighborhood. I picked up an Arden’s Garden green smoothie with pineapple juice, banana, strawberry and mango.

4. Hung out at an art festival.

5. Ate a good brunch. Neal made the peanut butter swirl pancakes from Oh She Glows and I made my own chocolate raspberry sauce to go with it. Pure decadence.

6. Spent a lot of a rainy day in bed. I’m drinking peach tea, reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63,

and eating this.

7. Made a snack. This is a raw cashew cheese dip with sundried tomatoes from vegreviews. It was pretty good!

8. Piled fresh out the dryer clothes on Nikko. She likes the warmth.

9. Watched Neal be weird. He was laying flat on the floor and then tried to get up without using his arms to prop himself up while holding one leg completely straight. He said it was impossible. I tried it. It was.

What kind of shenanigans did you get into this past weekend ?

It’s Natto Bad

Despite Because of the countless YouTube videos I watched of people retching and dry heaving when they ate natto for the first time, I wanted to try it. Perhaps I wanted to tap into some weird Anthony Bourdain-esque side of myself. The first time I tried it, I lightly touched my tongue on one bean before I finally worked up the courage to stick the whole thing in my mouth. Now, I can’t imagine natto having natto in my life!

I’ve only been able to find it at my local asian market for just shy of $2 a pack. It comes frozen and I stick it in the fridge overnight to thaw.

Each little packet comes with 2 sauces: hot mustard and another sauce that is not vegan because it has bonito (aka fish) extract. I discard the non-vegan sauce.

Peeling back the plastic wrap immediately reveals the stringy, fermented soybeans.

I squeeze the whole mustard packet on them.

Then I pour some thin soy sauce on them, or as my mom calls it “tin sauce”. I pick on her accent because it’s cute and I love her. Thin soy sauce is exactly as it sounds, thinner than regular soy sauce and slightly saltier. We use it in place of fish sauce in recipes.

Next, I stir it all up with a pair of chopsticks to “activate” all the natto slime. Every bean is then covered with a slimy, boogery goo..appetizing, eh?

I stir in some chopped green onions,

pour it on some jasmine rice and sprinkle it with more green onions. This day I also ate it with some grape tomatoes.

This is my favorite way to eat natto but I’ll also eat it without the rice. I eat it for breakfast and for a light snack. In my opinion natto tastes nutty, savory and slightly salty. It never stank to me from the get-go and I didn’t have to “grow into” liking the taste. This leads me to wonder if I got a variety that has been deodorized. I don’t think I did though because N says it smells like stinky feet and/or his B.O. Perhaps my sense of smell is off or maybe I like stinky smells now *shrugs*.

It seems like people either hate natto or love it and I am definitely the latter which makes me happy because it supposedly has a lot of health benefits. Now if I only had the courage to try durian…

Are there any stinky vegan foods you like to eat?

Cheese is my weakness

Just like kale, cashews will always have a special place in my kitchen.

As of late, I’ve been experimenting with making cashew cheese without rejuvelac, and have found a recipe I like. This came from the fabulous Mighty Vegan. The recipe is simple, it just takes planning ahead because you have to soak the cashews, then blend it up, let it sit, bake and then chill. Most of the work (as the Mighty Vegan points out) is “inactive” and the time commitment is sooooo worth it!

I let mine sit in the fridge for a full 24 hours to firm up after baking and then rolled one in dill and the other in a combo of paprika and pepper. I also found that mine had the best consistency if I let it sit in the fridge for another couple hours after rolling them around in the herbs. This is a sampling of what I’ve been eating it on.

Seriously, this is an incredibly tasty sliceable and spreadable cheese! I have no more adjectives to describe how awesome and amazing this is. This will be one of those recipes I make over and over again. Thanks Mighty Vegan!

Kale yeah!

I’ve made kale chips before, but never of the cheesy variety. So with two bunches of kale in the fridge and plenty of nooch in the pantry, I decided what the kale? Let’s do this.

I followed the fabulous recipe from Pride and Vegudice, however I didn’t have a red bell pepper on hand so I used a ripe tomato instead. I don’t know if the sauce is supposed to be this thick after blending, but this is what mine looked like before massaging and roasting took place:

This is what the final product looked like out of the oven.

These were amazing! My mouth is watering just thinking about them. A crispy, cheesy snack that’s actually *gasp* good for me?

Photo courtesy of the Vegan Ryan Gosling tumblr, which sadly, is no longer around

Why thank you Ryan Gosling, thank you. I will use this to make more cheesy kale.

In other kale-yeah news, I was pleasantly surprised to be nominated for the inspiring blogger award by the Veggiewitch and the Liebster award from the Vegan Kat. Thank you!!

I’m supposed to share seven things about myself, but I’m gonna bend the rules a bit and share with you the top 7 artists that I have most recently listened to on Spotify:

1. Sigur Ros
2. Electric President
3. Seabear
4. Olafur Arnalds
5. M83
6. The Postal Service (Don’t hate)
7. Stars

In turn, I pass the award on to some very inspiring vegan bloggers who give me hope for the future b/c of the vegan families they are raising. Inspiring indeed:

1. Two Vegan Boys
2. Don’t Fear the Vegan
3. Live.Learn.Love.Eat
4. Making a vegan baby
5. Growing a Vegan

Vegan babies take over the world, heck kale yeah!