Hopefully future apricots!

This little bee is going above and beyond — and upside down — to help make our apricots.

Someday, I'll get a post done.  

Dark chocolate molasses cookies

I've been wanting to make these cookies or a slightly lightened version of these bars for a while now. I totally planned to make them over the holiday break -- it went zooming by. Alas.  I finally got these made.  I made the first recipe because I forgot about the second.  Now the two recipes are documented in this post together and with pictures!  I hope to make them again soon.

Thanks Natalie for helping!

 

On another note, Nick and I went back to our bodypump class after 3 weeks off.  YOWCH is all I can say.  I love doing cardio and dance, but I don't enjoy weights.  I hope to get to that class 2x a week.  I need to do more weights.  Natalie is old enough (on Tuesday) to go with me to the gym and do the class.  Maybe she'll help me achieve my 2x a week goal.  I can see it happening over summer, but not sure it will happen before then.  
 

yum vegan lasagna

Oh, this poor blog!  It's so sad and neglected. I haven't posted much since the Summer.  I will make it a goal to do better for this coming year.  I have a fun recipe for Peanut Butter Pie!  For Christmas, I made this:  

https://www.hummusapien.com/easy-vegan-lasagna/

I didn't get any pictures, and I changed it up (of course). We took out the tofu and made it with cashew cream and hummus.  I also skipped the nutritional yeast and did miso and lemon instead.  Next time I'll probably add a little bit of nutritional yeast, but it was pretty darn tasty.  And instead of spinach I used kale.

I'll post pictures the next time I make it.  I've never been a fan of making lasagna -- I think either Mom or Dad thought it was too much work.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and it was tasty and fun.  Nat and Audrey were part of the process too and cooking with friends and family is always more fun.  More coming soon!

Fried Rice

Only the vegetable loving vegans in our house like this, but we do like it!

https://runningonrealfood.com/healthy-vegan-cauliflower-fried-rice/

I food processed the cauliflower.  I started chopping the small head by hand, but my arms were really sore from body pump so I got out the food processor.  I'm glad I did.  It took less than 14 seconds to make the rice (my food processor has a timer on it).  If I'd chopped by hand, I'd probably still be standing there chopping instead of having already devoured this.

I did pretty much what she suggested at the above link, heated the pan with the sesame oil, poured in peas and carrots (I didn't measure, but about 1/3 of a bag -- mine were frozen and the carrots are match strip cuts so they cooked super quickly).

I stuck the corn in (probably also about 1/3 of a small bag of roasted corn), some garlic 1 teaspoon of chopped dried, and the cauliflower with 3/8ths of a cup of soy sauce. I also put in some onion powder 'cause I didn't have green or regular onions, and the red pepper flakes.  I added a few shakes of Bragg's Amino Acids -- I didn't count, but quite a few with some squirts... probably about 1/2 - 1 teaspoon.

We ate it as soon as it had cooked for about 6 minutes and we love it!  File under another recipe we'll make again!

I was going to make this, but I didn't have all the ingredients.  Hopefully I'll make this next weekend, but I don't know.  It's going to be hard to NOT make this fried rice.

(And I forgot to take a picture.  We devoured quickly!  Next time!)

Philly

I'm a little over a month behind on many things...

We went to Philly in June and who knew there was such good VEGAN food there?

https://puresweets.com/

This was dinner one night.  OMG, so good.  I would go back in a heartbeat to eat there again.  They had a super fun "cheese" board as a starter, awesome pizza, good burgers (the buns weren't my favorite, but that is my only mild complaint).  Amazing desserts--brownies, tiramisu, ice cream sandwiches on delicious cookies.

And then there was

http://hipcityveg.com/

Fast food vegan, with all compostable wrappers/plastic ware.  So tasty -- we ate there twice.  They had fun milkshakes!  I loved the Philly "cheesesteak" wrap and the curry wrap ... I had a bite of the Bistro Bell....YUM!  I could have eaten there a few more times, but we were only there for 3 days.

I am hopeful that when I go to DC for work I'll get to go to the Hip City Veg there.

We also had dinner at my nephew's house and he made is what I am now calling "the Philly burrito."  I'll share what I've done with it since I've come home.

I didn't get pictures of food 'cause I was too busy shoving the food in my face... Here's a picture of the girls with their cousin at the Ben Franklin Science Museum.  We enjoyed Philly!

 

Vegan sushi

 

Nori

Cucumber

Avocado

Tomato

Sushi rice (grown in CA)

Roll

Here are the spices in the tomatoes...1/2 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari,  1/2 teaspoon minced ginger,  1/2 tablespoon sriracha, 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil, 1/2 tablespoon kelp powder

For the rice (at the end of the cooking cycle) 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt

See http://www.carrotsandflowers.com/vegan-sushi-tomato-spicy-tuna/ for the full recipe, the beautiful pictures, and the directions.  

I was intimidated, but it really was pretty easy.  

Oh, you need a SUPER sharp knife for cutting you sushi.  Fortunately, Nick got me new ones for Mother's Day.  (I need to blog about them.)  Natalie, Tia, and I loved this and can't wait to make it again!

 

Watermelon!

 

little one

 

~29 hours later! 

 

A bigger one.

 

 A very little one.

So excited!