Weird Kind of Morning

Usually when my alarm goes off I do not want to get out of bed. I consider myself mostly a morning person. I am definitely not a night person (I'm usually in bed by at least 10 every night), but I'd almost always rather stay in bed than get the day started. Today, not so much. I was out of bed with gusto when my alarm went off and as a result, I'm almost ready for work a full 30 minutes early. Your benefit I suppose. Here are some things I've been meaning to show you.

I bought a box of the Amy's Bistro Burgers and regardless of the fact that I had no buns and had to improvise with a pita, managed to make a fairly good recreation of a quarter pounder from my youth. Tofutti cheese singles are not the greatest thing ever, but in combination with other foods they make for some decent nostalgia.

 

Quarter pounders don't typically have tomato, but I did, so there. This was delicious by the way.

I went through a couple of weeks where I was making burritos like every other day. I developed this lovely technique of putting the burrito seam side down on a hot cast iron skillet to keep it from opening. Genius? You tell me.

Mostly I use refried or whole beans with rice, lettuce and salsa for the boyfriend and add in some avocado for myself, but these were tofu scramble, greens and potato burritos.

My boyfriend never really shops for food. He works in a grocery store 2 days a week and usually the only thing he'll buy is bananas but one day he bought a couple of things including some chocolate for me! And here's how I used it.

First I mixed some peanut butter with some oats and I think a few mini chocolate chips.

Then I added on the melted chocolate and it was almost like a lazy, more healthy resee's. Only more healthy in that it had oats. Delicious.

One day I was wandering the interwebs when I came across the idea for cinnamon roll pancakes. The recipe was not vegan so I just winged it the next morning, before work mind you. The cinnamon swirl kind of cooked into the pancake instead of staying clearly swirled, but topped with a drizzle of icing, these were unbelievable.

Not exactly every morning food.

And finally, I leave you with the tofu omelette that I made Sunday morning. My boyfriend was not a fan as they were a bit more mushy than he would have preferred, but I thought they were delicious!




Alright, that's enough from me as it is now almost time to leave. Thanks for keeping me company while I wasted time before work!

This Post Is About Muesli

Sometimes, typing the first few words is often the hardest. That simple transition from what you will be doing to what you are doing can sometimes be tough. I find often in life that the things I dread or procrastinate doing, are often made monumentally worse only in my head by putting them off. Today has been a day where this has been made clear on a number of occasions.  All day at work I didn't really want to go to the gym. It wasn't that I was super tired, or anything was wrong, I just didn't feel like exerting the energy to go to a class at the gym. In the end, I reached the end of my work day and told myself to suck it up and just go to the gym. I could always half ass it if I really didn't feel into it once there. But in the end I had one of the best work outs in a long time. Once home, I sat at my computer for a good hour and a half procrastinating blogging. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because it takes time and effort to edit pictures and think of something to say that doesn't sound like rambling. After my computer procrastination, I further procrastinated blogging by going to the kitchen to reheat pizza for dinner. While in the kitchen, I procrastinated doing the dishes in the sink for a few minutes until I finally decided to just put away a few of the dishes in the dish drainer. Once I started, I put everything away and washed everything in the sink in a matter of 15 minutes. Finally, as I sat down to eat my dinner, I decided to just download my pictures from my camera and see what I had to work with. Within minutes I had discarded the crappy ones, chosen some to edit and decided on a post. A few more minutes and I had edited them and that brought me to here. It is amazing how just a simple step towards the things you want/need to accomplish can snowball. But enough with the philosophical random musings...I have food to show you!

A couple weeks ago I was at a grocery store that I do not normally shop at. It is a Mediterranean shop with many foreign foods but also a fair number of mainstream products as well. I was taking extra time to peruse everything to see if I could find anything new and different, and while I did buy some not so normal items, that is not what this post is about. This post is about muesli. Bob's Red Mill muesli, specifically.

I had just seen some people posting about muesli days before this and I had never had it before so I decided to try it. I can't say where any of my inspiration for this meal came from as I tend to read through blogs that I don't normally follow and forget where I see things. I don't think the inspiration came from any one person though. Regardless, here's how I have been enjoying my muesli.

Thinly slice banana and add about a tablespoon of peanut butter

Microwave for about 30 seconds until banana is nice and mushy and then stir, stir, stir

Add in 1/4 to 1/3 cup dry muesli

Stir, stir, stir some more

Add in about as much soy milk as muesli

And stir, stir, stir some more

Mmm, banana, pb, muesli mush

  Don't let the mushy texture fool you into thinking this is not a delicious breakfast. I was amazed at how good this was considering that I added no maple syrup, no cinnamon, no chocolate...I have been eating it most mornings for breakfast before work and I am not tired of it after almost two weeks. Which reminds me, my boyfriend always ate a good amount of bananas but I never really did. Well, since I've been eating this breakfast and I have been making a few smoothies lately, we have been going through a lot of bananas and I may or may not have bought 9ish pounds of bananas from 3 different stores yesterday. The Mediterranean market is the only store in town I know that puts overripe bananas on sale and I got some for .49/lb!

Well, that's it for me tonight. Hopefully I'll be back sooner next time, I just need to remember to take that first step.

Home Made Chocolates

 


When I went to All Vegan a few weeks ago you may remember that I picked up some vegan marshmallows.  Ever since then I had been dreaming of recreating my favorite See's candy:

Scotchmallow

Last weekend I went to Micheal's and bought this brownie candy mold:

 

Then I failed to have the ingredients necessary to make caramel and decided that it wasn't really worth it to try.  So I put away the mold and decided to use it later to make peanut butter cups.

Well, yesterday was later.  First I lined the molds with melted dark chocolate.

 

I then stuck them in the freezer to harden up.  

 

Once the shells were hard I filled half of them with my marshmallows and the other half with my crunchy peanut butter that I ground myself at the People's market last weekend.  I stuck these back in the freezer for a few minutes to harden up the peanut butter.

 

Then I covered them to the top with more melted chocolate and returned them to the freezer one last time.

They turned out fabulous!  Apart from a few of the shells not being thick enough and cracking upon removal from the mold this was a major success.

 

I toyed with the idea of wrapping them individually in foil and bringing them to work to give as samples and then trying to sell them later on, but the amount of work and the cost of the raw materials that went into them was not so very cost effective and also the chocolate has a tendency to melt a bit.  I am going to tinker with it another time and see if I can get it more stable.  Meanwhile, here is what they would have looked like.

Perhaps I will try again if a special occasion arises.  I also made some larger, more traditional peanut butter cups using my silicone cupcake molds.

These are the definition of decadence and I don't condone eating a whole one in one sitting.  Next time I might try to fill the cups less to make them smaller. I also did six of these using almond butter which was a bit runny and they didn't set up quite right.  They all cracked when I took them out of the cups.  They are still delicious but a bit messy.  As for the chocolate covered marshmallows?  Oh my god.  I am keeping these frozen in an attempt to ration them.  The marshmallows themselves are delicious but when combined with dark chocolate, I take it back, that is the definition of decadence.

One more idea I thought of but decided to leave for another day, is to replace the peanut butter and marshmallows in the chocolate shells with ice cream.  Particularly this ice cream from Purely Decadent (notice a trend here?):

Imagine chocolate covered vegan ice cream.  Nom.

Shopping Day

Last Saturday I started my day with a big smoothie filled with banana, blueberries, pineapple and almond milk before I set off to do what I am dubbing to be a month or two's worth of grocery shopping.

After first running around town doing non food related errands, I went to the People's Market co-op in Ocean Beach where I became a card carrying member.  My first purchase was salad from their restaurant upstairs which I took to the beach to enjoy for lunch to fuel myself before the marathon of shopping I was about to embark on.

 

On the left is a pesto veggie salad, in the middle a raw seaweed salad and on the right is a marinated kale salad.  These were all really good.  I even ate all the mushrooms in the pesto salad even though I usually can't stand the texture of mushrooms.

When I returned to the market to commence my shopping I had a lot of fun looking through the aisles of a store that is completely vegetarian and so vegan friendly.  I bought a lot of bulk flours, grains, chocolate chips, raw cacao powder, nuts and seeds as well as some peanut butter that I ground fresh into my own reusable jar from home!

It is interesting because this chunky peanut butter is slightly dry but their is no oil separation and the taste is incredible!  They also sell bulk honey, canola oil, olive oil, agave and I think maple syrup.

Since I was already going budget crazy I decided to indulge in a couple of products I otherwise might not have.  I have a tendency to think that buying premade products is a waste of money since I can make things myself but I forget that sometimes that leads me to miss out on the expertise of other artisans.

 

This spread is sold at the farmer's market I go to and a few months back my friend had turned me onto it.  I was amazed at how great it tasted considering that garlic is the first ingredient.  I bought some to dilute and use as salad dressing.  It is long gone!

Refried beans are another purchase that I find difficult.  I love these beans.

 

But they have a fairly long ingredient list.  Generally I like my beans to be beans and water (making them not technically refried, but they do the job).  Recently though my boyfriend and I have fallen so in love with these beans that we don't want any others.  I guess it's not the worst thing we could be eating.  And at least they don't have lard in them like the ones from Costco which I didn't realize until after I had gotten the entire 15 cans home.  Le sigh.

Another purchase that I made that I am quite excited about is raw tahini!

Miss Katie has been talking a lot about this brand (though mostly in regard to their coconut products) and this was the best looking tahini they had at the store.  I really would like to try some more of the Artisana brand products but they are a little bit on the expensive side to go crazy buying all at once.

After I had purchased just about everything in the store, I loaded my canvas bags into my car and headed off to Costco.  A friend at work had told me about these vegan paties that they sold and I wanted to see what they were. 

These things are pretty much vegetables and a little flour.  I haven't tried them yet as I have so much fresh food in my fridge, but I am looking forward to the day when I need something quick and easy and I am all out of fresh food (gasp).

I also wanted to try out their giant bag of spinach.

I ended up giving about a third of this bag to my friend who helped my wash it all.  I used some in green smoothies, some in salads, some in a tofu scramble I made this morning and the rest is about to get steamed and frozen as I am getting my first CSA box tomorrow (more on this in a minute).

I also wanted to stock up on spaghetti since I had found really good deals on Muir Glen spaghetti sauce at Henry's and People's.  I am not the biggest fan of the nutrient quality of spaghetti but it is a fairly decent dinner on nights when I just don't feel like being creative.  Plus it is something my boyfriend can make if I really don't feel like being in the kitchen (like that ever happens).

Costco carries this organic whole wheat spaghetti that I find quite decent.

Oooh, I also got to witness a Vitamix demonstration while I was at Costco from a very enthusiastic salesman.  He told me that he always says if you don't think you can afford a vitamixer, put $1.50 in an envelope everyday and before you know it you will have enough to get one.  I have yet to start this envelope but I have definitely begun to analyze if I could ever justify the money.

After Costco I made 2 more stops but one of them resulted in nothing picture worthy.  A middle eastern grocery store near my house had recently been reopened after renovations.  I stopped by there thinking that it was an asian grocery store and hoping to get some agar flakes.  I was disappointed to not find agar but I did manage to find these:

I haven't quite figured out what I am going to stuff them with, or when, but I have high hopes.

After all this shopping I spent 3.5 hours with my sous chef my friend cleaning produce, baking cookies, cooking rice and beans, making hummus, a casserole and puppy chow.  Here you can see his payment (plus a thing of puppy chow and rice/broccoli casserole):

It was quite a day!  Sunday I joined JR Organics CSA and tomorrow I get my first bucket!  I am very excited but also a little worried because I have a ton of produce in my fridge currently.  Hopefully I can get some of it steamed and frozen tonight so I don't have to worry about any of it going bad.

Plenty more to show you so stay tuned!

Peanut Butter Cups

The first of many posts I have let pile up.

I do not know where this month went, or how it's almost Christmas!

Mostly pictures:

Dark chocolate, chia seeds, flax seeds, peanut butter with a tiny bit of nutritional yeast.  Inspiration from Green & Crunchy.  While these were tasty, there was definite room for improvement.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

Ever year for as long as I can remember, my mom has made peanut butter balls, toffee and peanut brittle to give as gifts for Christmas.  A couple of years ago she taught me how to make them and I began to carry on the tradition.  I don't really have a yearning to continue on with toffee and peanut brittle as they really contain a whole lot of sugar along with high temperatures I am not so comfortable with.  But peanut butter balls?  That's a whole different story.   Sometime this last year I had made some pb granola bars for my boyfriend but had been out of chocolate chips at the time.  I decided to remedy this by dipping the granola bars in melted chocolate at a later time.  I then discovered that any time I have melted chocolate is a good time to make peanut butter balls.

The recipe for peanut butter balls only contains a few ingredients.  My mom uses skippy peanut butter, rice crispies, powdered sugar and butter with a coating of melted chocolate and paraffin wax.  I follow her recipe but replace the skippy with some all natural (non-hydrogenated) peanut butter and some crisp brown rice rather than rice crispies which I haven't read the ingredients on in so long, but I am pretty sure would have high fructose corns syrup.  And of course I used vegan butter.

Peanut butter balls are pretty easy.

1 lb powdered sugar
3 cups crisp rice
2 cups peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1/2 cup vegan butter (I used earth balance)

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.
Take a small spoonful and roll it into a ball.
Place on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.
Repeat until they are all rolled.

Melt 12 oz of chocolate along with 1/4 bar of paraffin wax and dip each ball.
Place on wax paper.  Repeat and then put the cookie sheet in the fridge to harden.

I didn't use enough paraffin wax this time and so mine have a tendency to melt in your hand.  I need to do some research though on what goes into paraffin wax...scary thought just entered my head that it might not be vegan.