X-Mas 2012

Trying to win some sweet swag (and bragging rights) so I'm temporarily bringing the ol' blog out of hibernation for a little peek into our Classy Ass Texas Christmas. 

http://thepapermama.com/2012/11/2012-holiday-photo-challenge.html

And for kicks, here's last year's holiday hilarity:

Keepin' it real in Longbeach

Sean, Eddie and I took a little trip to Longbeach a couple weekends ago to celebrate our "three-year anniversary."
Sean and I take many trips together, but they usually include camping in a tent, sleeping in a car, or multiple days of driving (i.e. very little time for straight chillin'.)
The only other time we stayed in a hotel for over 12 hours was "Adventures in Lars' Vegas Wedding" two summers ago... but I feel like Vegas doesn't even count because "chillin'" in V-town consists of desperately fending off impending hangovers, lots of walking in the blazing hot sun, and little-to-no relaxation time, (unless laying by the pool surrounded by a million strangers with blasting dub-step counts...?)

AND we almost never get to bring Eddie with us (even when we're camping) because Eddie is an odd-ball and has dicey relationships with other dogs...  

THE POINT BEING, this trip was quite different than any other weekend getaway for us.

We booked an ocean-view condo, where we stayed - IN A BED - for three nights. There was a full kitchen. A fireplace. A deck. And a large, jetted tub. And Eddie got to come! It was perfection.

I realize that to most of the world, this probably doesn't sound like the most exciting vacation of all time (Longbeach in the middle of January is slightly ghost-townish) but for us it was precisely what we wanted.

We relaxed, cooked food, ate food, explored the sites, walked on the beach, read books, took naps, watched TV, and just simply enjoyed each others company without another care in the world.

And here are some pictures from our fairly scenic trip:

This is the view from the bathtub of our pimpin' condo. (I took a bath every day we were there.)

Sean and Eddie at the beach. Because of the aforementioned "dicey behavior" we kept Eddie in a muzzle when other off-leash dogs were roaming the beach nearby.

Crazy dogs need love too! I like to think of Eddie as the fun-loving, furry version of Hannibal Lector.

smooches, pooches!

Eddie very happily enjoying muzzle-free time.

Grey Whale Skeleton!

Buffy and I at Leadbetter State Park

Hazy afternoon at the Ilwaco Lighthouse

Eddie and  I at the Lighthouse. Zoom in to view Ed's hilarious facial expression.

Sean taking a pinhole shot.

More views from Ilwaco.

Ilwaco Lighthouse

Sunset view from our condo.

And, of course, some LOVE! (anniversary post has to have at least a bit of sap, right?)

THE END!

Thanksgiving!

Here's a quick and dirty post about my super awesome, luxuriously long, Thanksgiving weekend.

It started with a verrry verrry long drive- about 2 hours longer than usual because of damn holiday traffic.
But surprisingly, Sean and I didn't kill eachother on the trek to his family's cabin spot on Devils Lake (near Lincoln City, Ore.)
We actually had fun!
But I didn't take any pictures of that.
We got to the cabin late - about 11:30 p.m. the night before Tofurkey Day.

But, this is what we got to wake up to:

 Let me just say Sean's mom knows how to party ;) 

Here are the guys of the cabin, having a pre-dinner toast. From left to right - Sean's stepdad Jerry, Uncle Mark a.k.a. 'the lowrider,' cousin-in-law Jason, and Sean. 


Here's the rest of the gang, excluding Aunt Donna (taking picture) and little brother Avery (napping.)
The girls are cousin Emma (center), me, and Sean's mom Christine (the one who knows how to partay!)



The food was amazing! I got to make my very first Tofurkey Roast, and whipped up my signature gravy (which everyone loved, as always. Not trying to brag, just saying).

Sean made some tasty yam and apple dish, as well as a hippie-infused focaccia bread (I naively bought the "healthy" unbleached whole wheat flour over our usual all-purpose flour for this recipe not realizing it would drastically change the usual fluffy texture Sean takes so much pride in. But it was still pretty good.)

I will say I am a proud member of the completely clean plate club, which I actually photographed, but later decided not to post because I think you all know what a clean plate looks like.

 Sean's cousin Emma and her husband Jason. It was so fun getting to know these guys over the weekend! We had a blast. 

Buffy and I in our matching red hoodies...  at the ocean, btw.

     More shots of the ocean at the very nearby Road's End state park. Our cabin was actually on the  lake, but we were so close to the Pacific you could actually hear the ocean from the deck!

  Sean, Christine and Avery.

After spending the morning at the ocean and briefly touring Lincoln City, Sean and I headed back home, where we were greeted with yet another Thanksgiving!
Since my mom always works Thursdays (aka always works Thanksgiving) and my sister was unhappy with her leftover ratio, she suggested we have another dinner Sunday night in honor of Thanksgiving as well as my upcoming birthday! (Which means I got to invite friends!!!)

I didn't take as many pictures this time around, but we had another amazing meal (where everyone loved the vegan stuff, yet again), and a super fun time laughing with literally (most of) my favorite people in the world.

My sister Rachel and her husband Chris, the fucking cook.
(Not sure if he actually cooked anything but whatevs).

Three of my best girls: Kat, Court and Tay. 

Also in attendance, but not pictured, Janis, Jim, Justin, Julian, Grace and Camden. 

Yipeee! 

Chickpea Tacos!

I came across this simple recipe while perusing Happy Heribvore's blog this week.
She said it was hands-down her husband's favorite recipe ever, so I knew I had to give it a try.
And since I had prepped a buttload of chickpeas over the weekend and still had a bunch leftover, it was a super easy recipe to whip up for a Wednesday night fiesta!

Historically, we've always gone with TVP to make our trusty and delicious taco filling, but these hearty, super flavorful Mexican-style chickpeas will definitely be making their way into my regular rotation!

 They were a cinch to make and they're super healthy, which is pretty much an unbeatable combo.

Check out the recipe here.

Just another pizza...

Pictured above: Pre-made pizza crust, generous layer of Isa Chandra's Romesco sauce, a sprinkling of vegan Mozz (very optional) sliced green almond-stuffed olives, diced onion, and crumbled scratch-made Italian sausages (one batch has fed us for four meals and counting btw...), quick-made pizza ranch dip.


This pizza was so good and rich with flavors that seemed to complement eachother perfectly.
I highly recommend trying the Romesco red pepper sauce for your next pizza - it hits your basic tomato spread out of the park!

Lunch!

Not only is lunch my favorite meal of the day, it is also the second most important meal of the day. Especially on workdays.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of anything worse than getting halfway through a boring day at work, only to be greeted with a super lame lunch.
Lunch needs to be a satisfying half-point that says "way to go slugger! we're half way to dinner!" not a humongous let down that says "I could have been the high point of your workday... but I'm not because YOU suck."

Now, part of the reason I love lunch so much is because I love going out to lunch, especially with good company.
But, that can get pricey and can tend to be on the unhealthy side, so I typically brown-bag it to work. (Although I don't actually use a brown bag. I tend to use no bag, and then end up cramming my purse with non-spillables and juggling my spillables with my keys as I exit house/enter car/exit car/enter office. It's stupid really. I almost always drop my fork.)

The key to not letting you let yourself down at lunch is planning.
Some days, when the fridge is stocked/there's leftovers from dinner, packing a good, effortless lunch is, well, effortless.

Other days, you don't think about lunch at all until you're running late on your way to work and you open the fridge and you realize there is NOTHING there waiting for you.

Those days are ususally when going out to eat is in order, or you're delusional enough to think that grabbing something lame like an apple and a Clif bar is really going to make your mid-way meal a winner.
It's not. At least it never is for me.

So something I have been working on lately is prepping food in advance, so that I always have a good option for lunch that takes relateively no time to prepare in the morning.

This week, I marinated tofu over the weekend (in some random marinade that included soy sauce, vegan Worcester, garlic, tomato paste, liquid smoke, cinnamon and red wine vinegar... I think...), and then baked it up last night while a rice-cooker full of millet cooked.
Pair that with some sort of veggie (I used fresh broccoli) and you'll be good to go for a nutritious and delicious meal that will spread out over at least a couple of days, with little to no work on your part!

For the record, I've recently solved my "fork dropping" problem by keeping an "office fork" at my desk. Genius, I know.

What's your usual lunch routine? Any favorites or planning tips?

Green goodness

Here's a simple green smoothie recipe to start off Week 2 of Vegan Mofo!

It's nothing crazy or super special, but it is a staple part of my diet, and a generally great way to start off your day! Especially your Mondays. (And especially especially after a late night of karaoke and Sunday hi-jinx in general)...


My personal favorite recipe doesn't really change much from day to day - I either use a big old handful of kale or spinach (depending on what I have in my fridge), a banana, about a half cup of almond milk, some flax seeds and sometimes I throw in a tablespoon or so of agave, just to sweeten the deal even more.

Put everything in a blender, like so, and put it to work.

You'll end up having something that looks like this:

For all you green smoothie virgins out there, you're probably thinking:
"No way in hell am I drinking something that looks like it came out of Swamp Thing's ass!" 

But trust me. You will soon become addicted to the frothy and refreshing beverage that, dare I say, "packs a punch" nutrition-wise.

Obviously, this is just the beginning of more than a bazillion nutrition-infused smoothie combinations.

As my good friend Dawn at Vegan Moxie eloquently put it in her recent post about smoothies:
"Smoothies are like snowflakes, guys!"

All that means is that anything can be added, altered or removed making a beverage perfectly customizable to your tastes.

Sometimes I get crazy and add frozen berries, cinnamon or even powdered ginger for kicks, but what I love about this recipe is its simplicity. I always have these ingredients on hand, it takes less than 2 minutes to make and I know it tastes great, so it's fool proof.
I have no excuse not to get my Popeye on before I even get dressed in the morning.

So give it a try and let me know what you think!

Chickpea Curry salad

I loooove me a good chickpea salad.

Simply mixed with Vegenaise (one of the best factory-made 'vegan alternatives' known to man. Nasoya's Nayonaise ain't got nothing on Follow Your Heart's mayo recipe... sorry Nasoya!), salt and pepper and a little chopped celery and carrot, it's perfectly satisfying sandwiched between bread, in a wrap, on lettuce - or on its own.
It's fresh, light and filing and it tastes unbelievably good (I say this because I was so surprised myself the first time I whipped up a batch of this stuff and tasted its simple delectableness).

Anyways, I cooked up a big ol' pot of chickpeas (or Ce Ce beans, as we call them at my house) the other night to make a variety of recipes with; all of which I will be featuring throughout Vegan MOFO!

But first off, I needed some lunch, so chickpea  salad it was!

I wanted to make it a little more special than the staple recipe I had become accustomed to, so took a bite out of my mom's style, and recreated a curried apple chicken salad she had made for me years ago as a child.

This recipe includes about 1 cup of slightly mashed chickpeas, a shredded carrot, one segment of celery, about one-half of a small apple, and about 1/4 cup Vegenaise mixed with a few dashes of celery salt, black pepper, a tablespoon (or more) of curry powder, a bit of cinnamon and another bit of red pepper flakes.



Mix it all together and let it sit for a bit before you eat it, so the flavors make friends. I usually make it the night before, or in the morning, then eat it for lunch, either in a sandwich or over greens like so:

Quick disclaimer:
If you use another version of vegan mayo and are disappointed with the results, please don't come complaining to me that "vegan mayo" sucks. Vegenaise is the ONLY WAY TO GO. I repeat Vegenaise = ONLY WAY TO GO.)

GUAC ON PASTA!

Here it is!

An actual post of an actual recipe that I actually made during the actual official time frame of Vegan MOFO!

It is also a recipe I had never made before, but have wanted to for a long time.
And last night, the stars aligned, and it was my time to finally whip-up some avocado-alfredo -  a.k.a guac on pasta.

Now, before I dive in, let me just toot-my-own horn here for a second and say that I've been putting basil in my guacamole since long before ever reading an avocado-alfredo recipe on the web.

(Just sayin'.)

However, when I did read about avo-fredo a few months ago, I was like:

"Hey! That sounds amazing! Why didn't I ever think of that?"

I mean, guac is good, but you can only eat chips and dip for so many meals before people start to wonder.

So I welcomed the idea of being able to top my pasta with guac, but under the clever guise of a fancy/inspired/vegan answer to alfredo.

But, like I said before, I read a recipe months ago, but didn't actually jump in and make it until last night.

And the reason why I decided to do so was because I had finally gone to the grocery store to stock up, and they had a great deal on avocados. Then I walked by the chip aisle and thought:

"mmm....guac..."

After I got home, just as I was about to crack open the bag of tortilla chips I thought:

"Wait a minute! This is Vegan Mofo! I need to do something different. Chips and dip is 'boring!' Plus, it's not summer anymore. Who the hell can justify guac in fall - for dinner?"

Then it came to me.
Make that guac, put it on pasta, and call it fancy.

BAM!

So then I Googled a few quick avocado alfredo recipes and found that all I needed was avocado, garlic, oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and fresh basil.

I was stocked on the 'cados, lemon juice (albeit, not fresh), and seasonings, but no fresh basil.
However, I had just picked up a container of vegan "garlic galore" pesto, so I figured that would do the trick.

So, I put a pot of water on, threw in some fettuccine noodles (you can use whatever noodles you like, but I happened to have some fettuccine laying around. They aren't my favorite, but I figured no better  time to use them than with a 'fredo).

As they were cooking, I took 1.5 (fairly small) avocados, a couple dollops of the pesto, some lemon juice and salt/pepper and made 'em dance in my blendah. I adjusted to taste, and even got a wild hair to throw in a couple sun dried tomatoes (and a little extra garlic).

I drained the noodles, put em in a bowl and put a spoonful of "alfredo" on top.

Then I mixed it up and sprinkled a bit of nutritional yeast on top, just for kicks. 

Fresh. Creamy. Delicious.

The thing about this sauce is a little goes a long way - it doesn't take much to evenly coat all your noodles, which is a good thing. Because avocados are a little on the fatty side. AND that means I had leftovers for lunch!

*LEFTOVER TIP: Keep remaining sauce separate from noodles - you do not want to have to reheat the noodles if they're covered in 'cado.

Taco Tuesday!

So, my impromptu/unofficial participation in Vegan Mofo! has gotten off to a somewhat rocky start.

I can attribute this to not having an adequately stocked kitchen at the moment, and a SINKFULL of dishes that I have been putting off washing since Sunday, for no good reason (other than the fact that my dishwasher is broken and I am damn sick of doing dished by hand.)

Anywhoo, these two things together have put my usual cooking routine on hiatus, which is pretty annoying timing considering I'm attempting to blog about food every day (or so) for the rest of the month.

Now, I could show you a picture of the Clif bars I have eaten for breakfast today and yesterday due to my lack of smoothie fixings. OR upload a quick shot of my leftover Sunday soup (the last meal I cooked) which has lasted us through several meals Monday, Tuesday into Wednesday as well.
But for some reason, that just seems boring.

So, instead, I will tell you about an impromptu taste-test I encountered last night, after unintentionally going to two local bars which both happened to serve $2 tacos as part of Tacoma's sweeping Taco Tuesday movement.

For the record, I do not usually go out on Tuesdays, especially to two bars. But when a friend who you haven't seen in over a year calls and wants to meet for drinks at the last minute, you do it.
And  then, when another friend invites you out for tacos, and you are already three beers and a taco deep, you do that as well.

Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to realize that a "Tacoma veggie taco-off" would make a great topic for a MOFO post, so I did not take pictures.

I did, however, whip up a couple "artistic renditions" of each taco plate, in order to give readers a true visual understanding of what I ate last night.

O'Malley's:

So first of all, I had the O'Malley's Taco. I was having beers with the aforementioned old friend, and all of a sudden realized it was "Taco Tuesday."

Once I got over my regret of not ordering the $2 Dos Equis on special instead of my boring old PBR, I realized the special board also listed "veggie" tacos as an option.

My stomach immediately started growling, and I ordered the veggie taco - hold the cheese and sour cream. (Bonus kudos to O'Malley's cook for coming out to the bar and personally asking if I wanted Ranch on my taco, since I guess that's what usually comes on it. I said "no dairy whatsoever please" and thanked him for being thoughtful/considerate enough to ask.)

The O'Malley's veggie taco was actually more like a burrito. Large, flour tortilla wrapped in foil, and stuffed with deliciously spiced grilled peppers and onions, along with the staple shredded iceberg and diced tomatoes. 

It included a surprisingly spicy, fruity (mango perhaps?) salsa, and a side of salty tortilla chips and more salsa for dipping. 

It really hit the spot, was a great amount of food for the low price, and definitely didn't feel like a "random veggie taco" afterthought.

Hell's Kitchen:

Once we decided to venture down to Hell's Kitchen to meet some more friends for tacos, I was excited to make the comparison.
First of all, I was glad to find out that the Kitchen also had veg-tacos on the menu, and were happy to serve them up without any animal products.
Again, the price was $2 for an order of tacos, which actually includes two tacos, with an option for soft or hard shells.
 I ordered soft and was most surprised by the amount of food that came out to my table.  Two large soft taco shells filled with sauteed onions, olives and mushrooms, again topped with iceberg and diced tomatoes.
Considering I was a little full from O'Malley's already, I only ate one of the tacos. And they were pretty good. They lacked a little on the seasoning side, but HK has a wide variety of salsas/sauces to add yourself. Another complaint was that the mushies were on the thick chewy/side, borderline rubbery, which was odd and makes the HK taco loose a few points.
But defintely a good value, and not a bad meal overall.

....anndd the winner for the night goes to O'Malley's for their sweet and spicy sauce, side of chips and close attention to detail for the Ranch follow up!

Maybe next Tuesday I'll round out my taco tour with the rest of Tacoma's taco-Tuesday offerings.
AND maybe I'll actually take pictures...

until then... just suck it up and enjoy my drawrings.

VEGAN MOFO!

So I've decided to unofficially participate in a month of Vegan Food blogging with the 700 or so other vegans in the world who blog as part of Vegan Mofo!

I'm excited, because since going vegan in April, writing/talking/blogging about bombass vegan eats has  become one of my favorite things to do. And Vegan Mofo will encourage me to do it pretty much daily throughout October.

My first post includes a photo of breakfast at our house on Saturday. You may notice that it bears an extremely strong resemblance to Dawn at Vegan Moxie's first official Vegan Mofo post, and that is probably because we are both awesome and share a common love for b&g (duh).

 
Anyways - this meal included quick and easy simple Bisquick biscuits (with garlic and agave added for some extra zip), white bean gravy from "Vegan with a Vengeance," and an adaptation of scratch-made pinto bean sausages Sean pulled from Vegan Dad (which Vegan Dad pulled from the PPK).
We made the sausages last Sunday for Sean's famous "Italian stuffed fennel" recipe, which is always freakin delicious.
In the past, we used Tofurky's Italian style sausages, but I now will swear by the scratch recipe.
They are super easy, and the texture was even better than Tofurky's.
Plus, you have full control of the flavors/seasonings. (We added sun dried tomatoes to our version which was ingenious, I  must say.)

We froze the rest and I crumbled up two links/got them crispy in the frying pan before adding them to the gravy for breakfast on Saturday, and I could not have been happier about the outcome...

Deeelllicccioouusss!

  Thanks for stopping by! 

Wild West roadtrip recap!

Out on the wide open road!

(fig. 1)

This is my friend Courtnay and I about halfway through Montana... and about halfway through our "Wild West" road trip.

Court, a traveling nurse who decided to leave the East Cost via car to head back to the Pacific Northwest for a month (before taking up her next assignment in, oh, i don't know, wherever the hell she wants...) was looking for a little company on her excursion, so naturally, I hopped on the first plane to Sioux Falls South Dakota to meet her half way.

Before you say "Sioux Falls?!? Why would you ever fly there?!!??" (Just like a handful of people during my layover in Minneapolis horrifyingly asked) it was simply a natural stopping point for me to meet up with Courtnay, and we were there only long enough to get gas and a crappy tasting 20 oz black coffee.

After that, we starting flying through the vast countryside of South Dakota, stopping for scenic photo ops at such geographical wonders as a) the Badlands and b) Mount Rushmore.

A) the Badlands

Jagged striped rockage as far as the eye can see! (Which is far in South Dakota.)

Token "cute flower" shot. Made all the rattlers seem much less scary.

Love the sharp cuts through the crisp blue sky (quick disclaimer- all these shots are naked.)

 

Rainbow rocks!

 

Court and I loved these rocks so much we had to stick our heads out the sunroof and take a picture to capture our true excitement! (Really not being sarcastic here...)

Seriously, we were stoked about our drive through these immensely beautiful rock formations.
Not into beautiful rock formations? Then don't go to South Dakota.

B) Mount Rushmore

Another beautiful, though not entirely natural, rock formation.

Those are four of our "founding" fathers: Washington, Jefferson (?), Roosevelt (Google which one if you need to) and Lincoln.

In all honestly, it was a little underwhelming. We stayed there all of 15 minutes before making a pit stop at Crazy Horse monument (I'll return in 50 years when there's more than a forehead and nose sticking out of the side of  huge-assed rock) and hurrying to what we had hoped would be the "cracking" city of Sturgis.

For those of you who don't know, Sturgis is a destination biker-city that hosts thousands of leather-clad Harley enthusiasts every year for one of the biggest HOG events in North America.

Sounds pretty cool right?

That's what we thought, and why we chose to stay there instead of our other option of Rapid City.

We got into town about 9:30 p.m. and had to race to even get a bite to eat before everything shut down.

Moral of the story?

Sturgis is a snoozer any time the rally isn't going on.

NEXT.

Deadwood.

We didn't realize that this historic gem of a gambling oasis was just a stone's throw away from our Super 8 lodge in Sturgis when we arrived (otherwise, we definitely would have stayed here.) But we made a pit stop in the morning to tour the few blocks of the city which feels like it hasn't changed a bit since the good old cowboy heyday of the Western expansion - other than the hum of hundreds of electrically powered slot machines.

We had drinks, played a few rounds on the Buffalo machine, got some coffee, and hit the road once again. 

 (fig. 2)

After leaving South Dakota, we began to weave in and out of Montana and Wyoming before taking a jaunt into Yellowstone.

Both countrysides were scenic and serene. There's not much there in the way of civilization, but the untouched landscapes of these states are (for lack of a better word) awe-inspiring.

At one point during the drive, we decided to take advantage of the nothingness of our surroundings and set up some self-timer pix along the expanse of long open road (see fig. 1 and 2 above, as well as the one of us rioght hurr in front of the green fence.)

After hours of driving, we finally made it into the gates of Yellowstone, via the freaking terrifying mountain pass called "Beartooth Loop."

Don't get me wrong, the drive was absolutely gorgeous, but there's just something damn unsettling about getting higher and higher onto a mountain along a very narrow and very windy ridge with little more than a foot-tall "guardrail,"  with a driver who is sweating profusely through her extremely vocal anxiety attack.

Me (who kept offering to drive but was secretly SO GLAD she never took me up on my offer) tried to remain calm, and take her mind off her fear by asking her things like "So... what's your favorite food?"

Her response "Um.. well... I don't know. I like a lot of things.'
Me: "Well what's you're favorite? Just pick one... humor me."

Her (suddenly sounding much more tense): "OK.. like pick one? Like my favorite food I would eat for my last meal? LIKE IF I WERE GOING TO DIE?!"

....

 

Needless to say, that portion of the drive wasn't exactly relaxing. And our suffering  probably lasted much longer than the average visitors' because we stayed a steady 25 mph on the 70 mph winding road.

But, like I said before, it was a beautiful site to see and it led us directly into what I had been hoping to see the entire trip:

An ass load of wild bison!

As you can see, this portion of our trip took the stress level down immensely.

(NOT!)

Before we got to Yellowstone, I was starting to get nervous that we wouldn't be driving through the "right part" of the park to "really get to see" the wildlife, particularly the bison.

Apparently, I was wrong! 

These big hairy beings literally take over portions of roads in the park-  blocking traffic, rolling in brush, kicking up dirt, grunting, staring menacingly into your car...

you know, all the normal stuff you would expect from thousand pound wild  animals with a tendency to gore unsupervised travelers.



So... I'm going to pull the "gorgeous" card again.
And the "we made it out alive" card, is always a plus, too.

We wearily made it into Bozeman that night, about four hours past schedule due to all the unforeseen, slowing-down circumstances, and slept hard.
We woke the next morning and made our way to Coeur D'Alane, Idaho early enough to finally enjoy some fun in the sun!

YE-HAW!

 Us on the beach with our matching hats (in case you didn't notice them earlier.)

 View of the lake from our lovely room, thanks to the sweetest lady ever - Doris "Grams" Weaver, who certainly helped show us girls a good time.
Thanks, Doris!


And that pretty much wraps up our Wild West roadtrip - 
now mosey on, lil' doggies!