Simple Tacos

And finally some really simple tacos and an easy salad.  These tacos are so delicious and they are just refried beans and rice warmed in a corn tortilla and filled with avocado.  I expected them to be sort of bland since we were out of salsa, but they were delicious.

The salad was even easier.  Spinach, shredded carrots and radishes, kalamata olives and peperoncinis.   No dressing necessary.

There are also some date nut balls and some broccoli to round out the dinner.  Nom nom.

That's it for now.  I need to upload the pictures I took today.  Brownies.  Coconut milk vanilla ice cream.  Chocolate sauce.  Dinner solved.

 

After Thanksgiving

After Thanksgiving I was really wanting to make some gravy so I decided to do a sort of "My Thanksgiving".

I made Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance, mashed potatoes, garlicky greens and brocolli.

This was pretty good, but I have to say the recipe for the gravy, makes a ton of gravy.  I wasn't sure what to do with it all (boyfriend hates gravy of course, and greens...).  I decided to try to throw together a casseroley shepherds pie.

 

This ended up being far more delicious than I could have imagined.

I tossed some green beans and spinach in with the greens, gravy and potatoes.  Wowzer.  I wish I still had some of this too...

Thanksgiving

Not going to get into too many details, but in the end I got to have homemade, vegan mashed potatoes, stuffing and cooked carrots (the butter version having been my favorite part of Thanksgiving for the past ?25? years...)

Here is a picture of the leftovers with a salad for lunch the next day.

Yum.  I wish I had some of that right now.  I'm kinda hungry.

And here is a different take on leftovers

I love this picture!

Vegan Pumpkin Pie!

I was so excited this year when my mom said that she was going to make me some vegan side dishes for Thanksgiving.  That post is coming next, but meanwhile here is my vegan pumpkin pie which turned out fabulous.  I used the recipe from the Joy of Vegan Baking and it was incredible.  I had a couple of issues with the crust and really disliked using vegetable shorting (eew!) but sacrifices had to be made.

Look at that beautiful crust.  Like I'd been doing this for years!

 I was quite disappointed though because I bought some vegan whipped topping that was made out of rice milk and had some high expectations.  Sadly, the product did not deliver.  Good thing the pie was delicious on its own.  No one else had any except my boyfriend had a slice.  I cut the whole thing into slices and froze them in tupperware.  I defrosted a slice whenever I wanted one.  Another post about leftover pie to follow.

Repeat Cookies and My Nifty Mug

The same cookies I made here only a little smaller and under-baked but with my awesome mug I got for free at the 2009 Comic-Con.  The mug is filled with Pumpkin Soy Chai.  A decent indulgence.

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.

A Chocolate Giveaway and A Good Cause

Wow, I cannot even believe the whirlwind I have been in since I last posted.  Since then I have moved, cleaned the hell out of my old apartment, been to a concert, been to the ER for my boyfriend being sick, and am currently sick myself.  I had almost forgotten the stress that comes with being busy.  It really makes me appreciate my normal routine of calm evenings at home when I have time to prepare fresh foods and my weekends of leisurely grocery shopping and prepping foods.  These past few weeks I have been eating so many pre prepared foods and I think my body is starting to cry out for better nutrition.   I am still not completely unpacked or settled, but I cooked my first meal on Sunday night that wasn't spaghetti, soup from a can or a burrito.  It didn't turn out spectacularly brilliant, as I was making a tofu scramble and instead of pouring in a handful of nutritional yeast I poured about a cup and a half.  I scraped out what I could and it was decent.  Meanwhile, I have discovered through Shelby that Trader Joe's carries an amazing assortment of vegan products.  Last night I got these mini spinach cheeseless pizzas.

I combined them with some falafel and hummus lettuce wraps and a pickle for dinner last night.  They were incredibly delicious.  My main reason for going though was to see if they had the pizza dough Shelby had blogged about.  Indeed they did.  Hopefully some yummy pizza will be made this weekend.

But, what this post is really about is that Chocolate Covered Katie is giving away chocolate!  To enter, go to this page.  I don't know how many people actually read this blog, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone did.  And while you are on Katie's blog, you might as well take a look around.  She is one of my favorite bloggers around and she is doing an awesomely thoughtful charity fundraiser right now, where you have to do nothing more than read her amazing site.  To read more about it, check out this page.

And I will leave you with the one decent picture I managed to snap during the past few crazy weeks.  This was a simple combination of apples, bananas and cinnamon.  I cannot remember at this point who suggested apples with cinnamon, but it was a great combo!