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.