Raw Dinner

I made this Wakame Hemp Power Salad from Ani's book. I was hesitant to try kale raw, but it worked and the dressing was quite good.


With dinner, I had a young Thai coconut to drink. I've recently been turned on to these and I love them! A very refreshing beverage...and totally worth the effort it takes to crack them open.


For dessert I made the frozen banana soft serve that everybody has been blogging about. I topped it with a bit of chocolate sauce (the only non-raw item for the night!), and some chopped up peanuts. The texture is great...but it tastes pretty much like banana soft serve. Of course I feel much better eating something like this as opposed to a more typical kind of ice cream.

Spinach and "chicken" Enchiladas

I wanted to try something else out with my lovely container of Daiya vegan cheese. This time it was enchiladas. I've been missing cheesy enchiladas ever since going vegan. These were amazing. Corn tortillas filled with spinach, Daiya, fake chicken, and enchilada sauce. This tasted just how I remembered them, and the "cheese" melted perfectly!

Quesadilla

Made these quesidillas with mountain bread instead of a tortilla. The filling consists of Amy's refried beans and Daiya vegan cheese (the new product that many vegan bloggers have been raving about). I'm so glad that my local Whole Foods has started carrying this stuff.

Wrap

Had these wraps for lunch: tofurky, dijon mustard, veganaise, soybeans, and lettuce on mounatain bread.

Italian

I made my vegan version of Chicken Parmigiana again.

Yummy Asian Salad and Berry Dessert

The inspiration for this salad came from "The Soy Zone" by Barry Sears. I bought this book used a long time ago when I was transitioning into becoming a vegetarian. I haven't looked at it in awhile, but this weekend I saw that there are some great salad ideas in this book...perfect meals for summer.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly (I never do), but the book gave a good guide. To make the dressing, I combined veganaise, tamari, dijon mustard, flax oil, dulse flakes, and minced ginger.

Here's the massive ingredient list for the salad...you can't even see some of this stuff because the salad's so huge: mixed salad greens, cucumber, radishes, blanched broccoli and cauliflower, edemame, garbanzo beans, scallions, baby tomatoes, yellow bell pepper, and home-sprouted mung beans. What a salad! Loved it!

For dessert I wanted to make this "cream" that I came across on the Choosing Raw blog last week. My result wasn't as creamy as I would have liked because I don't have a Vitamix (yet!), but the flavor was amazing. I love that this was so simple to make, and it definitely satisfied my sweet tooth!

Microwave Brownie - Take 2

1/4 cup flour
scant 1/4 cup sugar (I used less)
pinch finely ground salt
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa (to taste)
2 tablespoons soy milk
1 tablespoon melted vegan margarine
1 tablespoon chopped toasted walnuts
2 tablespoon vegan chocolate chips/chunks (optional)

This one was much better than the first, but I still have some tweaking to do.

Tofu Pups and Mustard Greens

Just what the title says...quick and good.

Quick Pizza

I was in the mood for pizza, but I was also super hungry. My solution: this awesomeness. I put some of my spicy hemp seed pesto on some bread, topped it with vegan mozzarella, vegan pepperoni, and baby tomatoes and broiled it in my toaster oven. The result was so good I made it again the next day!

"Chicken" Parmigiana

I used to love Chicken Parmigiana, and I wanted to try to recreate this dish so that I can eat it as a vegan. This was really easy to throw together. I just made a marinara sauce, put it on top of a cooked pre-made breaded "chicken" patty, and topped that with some vegan mozzarella cheese. I broiled it to make the cheese get melty and toasty. It was good, but someday I'd like to try making the patty myself. For now, this will definitely do!

Camping in the Sierras

I headed up to the Sierras for the 4th of July weekend. It was incredibly beautiful and I can't wait to go back. Seriously...take a look at this amazing shot...you can basically just point the camera anywhere and take a great picture.

It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive, and here's the lunch we had at a picnic table when we got there. A tofurky and hummus sandwich with some of my homegrown sprouts, Terra Chips, carrots, celery, and a nectarine really hit the spot. I'm not sure if it was the location, but this was such a tasty lunch. It was also my first time trying Kombucha. I really wished that I liked it more, but it tastes way too vinegary for me. I'm still drinking it some to try and get myself used to the taste since it's so good for you.

For the first dinner, we grilled some veggie dogs over the fire along with corn and a can of Amy's baked beans (yea...I know I made this at my last camping trip...it's good!)

Here's the first breakfast in the mountains. Italian Veggie Sausage (very good), orange, and some pull apart bread from a bakery at the last real town before we left civilization.

Look...it's totally vegan and oh so delicious!

Took a hike up into the mountains, and stopped by this lake for lunch. Just beautiful.

Another simple lunch...and the view was spectacular.

This little chipmunk circled around the whole time trying to catch a stray piece of food. After this trip, I now call chipmunks the "squirrels of the Sierras."

Dinner #2: foil packets of more Italian Sausage with zucchini, onions, squash, bell peppers, potatoes, carrots and seasonings.

Dinner #3: Amy's chili and Garden of Eaten corn chips topped with vegan cream cheese. Kale on the side. My favorite dinner of the three.

We had one of those little sandwich/pie maker things and came up with this concotion: bread, cherry pie filling, walnuts, vegan cream cheese...

...cooked in the fire = pie heaven!


It was a terrific trip and I'm already itching to get back there. Next time I'd like to try a long backpacking trip in the mountains. It's a bit more difficult since you have to carry everything on your back, including food! This typically includes freeze dried dinners, beef jerky and the like. I'm already brainstorming on ways to bring balanced, vegan, and easy to carry meals on the trip!

Wheel of Life

I picked up some food from one of my favorite Vegan restaurants. Wheel of Life is an Asian/Thai place that I go to pretty much once a week. Pictured below are the glass noodles that I always try to make, a "drumstick," sesame chicken, and some spinach that I cooked myself and topped with a bit of sesame seeds and vegetarian oyster sauce.