Freaky Fruits!!!!

I eat oatmeal at least 5 out of the 7 mornings in a week. I used to despise oatmeal. That was before I knew how to make it good =) Here is something I just tried for the first time and I can't wait to finish off the next nut butter jar to do it again. I got this idea from Kath, and I knew I just had to try it! See this basically empty jar of peanut butter?? Well, don't throw it into recycling just yet!...

It is a great container for oatmeal!

This oatmeal mix has a little bit of brown sugar and that may or may not be a few melty chocolate chips for good measure. It was so yummy and allowed me to get good use out of all of that peanut butter just clinging to the bottom and sides of the jar.

Referring to the post title, while in Food Lion over the weekend hunting down Purely Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream (the best!!!), we were perusing down the cereal aisle and I saw this silly cereal and hubby thought it was a good photo-op! I didn't buy it, didn't even check the ingredients, but I picked it up because it was just so random.

Do you know of any silly names for store-brand cereals that you have run across?

Have a great fourth of July weekend guys!

Food is Good

Another long absence but let's get right to the food, shall we?

Smore's Cake made from the recipe out of VCTOTW. Delicious!

Veganomicon Ceasar Salad! Why didn't I try this sooner?!

Cinnamon Rolls from Vegan Brunch! These are really good but I used a tofuitti cream cheese icing instead of the recipe provided. Served with tofu scramble and fruit.

Tofu Dill Sandwich filling from Vegan with a Vengeance. I used fresh dill from my backyard and served with barbecue chips. You can't go wrong with an Isa recipe, you just can't.

Lemon Poppy Seed muffins from Vegan Brunch. I made mine mini-size because they are just more fun that way.
Lastly, raw Corn Chowder by Ani Phyo. I really can't remember the name of her cookbook and I am too lazy to look it up but the recipe can be found through google even if you don't have the book! I think this was the first raw recipe I ever tried and I have made it a few times already.

So far I really like Vegan Brunch. I have made coffee chip muffins, cinnamon rolls, lemon poppy seed muffins, poppy seed pull-apart rolls, tofu scramble, mom's morning casserole...I think that's it. Everything has been nothing short of what I expected: brilliance. What should I try next???

i am still here!

Here are the cornmeal crusted tofu po'boys from Veganomicon. They ended up being just "okay" for me...(summoning my inner Randy Jackson). I have had the tofu on it's own and it was pretty good with some salsa and vegan sour cream but in this sandwich it was just sort of bland..even with the sauce. We probably won't make these again.

I finally dug into Vegan Brunch and the first recipe made was the Coffee Chip Muffins. These were really good but SWEET and very fattening. Basically they tasted like a huge bakery cookie in muffin form. I plugged in the numbers and each muffin was over 12 grams of fat. My husband actually baked these and he doesn't know how to alter recipes, but next time they are made I am cutting down the sugar and replacing half of the oil with applesauce.

Fresh Garden Peas.


Donut Peach. So cute! Doesn't taste as sweet as regular peaches to me, or maybe it just wasn't ripe yet?

Homemade Pizza Margerita. I have dissed on Follow Your Heart cheese in the past but in a pinch, I bought the mozzarrella flavor over the weekend and was very pleased! I actually got it to melt (500 degree oven is the trick!) and it tasted very much like I remember mozzarella tasting. The basil is fresh picked from our deck. I love fresh basil and need to plant some more so I can make a lot of pesto to freeze for the winter!

I am going to try to catch up on blog commenting because I fear I am very far behind!

20 days!

It has been like 20 days since I have blogged! Wow, time flies! I have lots of excuses such as a) I haven't been feeling the whole blogging thing lately, b) it is warmer so I haven't felt like cooking a whole lot besides simple throw together and get out of the kitchen fast meals, and c) I was having a lovely break from school and working on other projects (reading, watching LOST, video games..) and I didn't want to spend my time worrying about the blog. School has started again for the summer semester (sucks!) so I can't say how frequent I will be blogging but this did come in the mail today....

I am off to go flip through it now! I can't wait to get started dissecting this book!

A Foodie Trip

So, last Sunday went a little like this:

Me: "So, it is Sunday, what should we do today?"
Hubby: "I dunno, what do you want to do?"
Me: How about we pack the kids in the car, steal the neighbor's cooler, and drive 90 minutes to Whole Foods??" (really half-joking...)
Hubby: "Sure!"

So this is what led to my first Whole Foods experience! It was great, I felt like a kid in a candy store!

I didn't take a whole lot of pics because I was self-conscious of my dorkiness but they had a huge food bar where about 50 percent of everything was vegan, vegan "crab" cakes and they had vegan cupcakes and vegan cookies! I know to some of you this is no big deal, but where I am from, this is unheard of! I know I can make my own vegan cupcakes and cookies but to be able to have the convienence of going into a grocery store and just buying them was just an amazing concept to me. You guys that have a Whole Foods are so lucky! I was also amazed at the food selections. I saw every vegan yogurt, cheese, faux meat product, soy ice cream that I have ever heard of but only dreamed about all under one roof! It was really amazing.

We ate lunch there from the huge food bar, but I forgot to take a pic. I did however snag a pic of the two vegan cupcakes that we bought to eat for dessert! The kids shared the chocolate and hubby and I shared the vanilla. They were really good!

Here are the kids enjoying their cupcakes: (yes, my son's future is so bright he has to wear shades...)

I bought 3 vegan cookies to take home (chocolate chip, peanut butter, and almond). I also bought like 6 So Delicious yogurts, Cluckphrey chicken patties (which are not good, btw), Cluckphrey chicken nuggets (also not good!), packaged seitan strips, faux canadian bacon, Whole Foods brand "sausages", sweet potato chips, 2 peanut butter larabars (which I am now kicking myself for not buying 20 because they are the BEST flavor and I can not get them where I live!), nutritional yeast, hummus....I can't even remember everything else right now.

I always hear people complain about the prices at Whole Foods and for me, I found that normal everyday stuff IS more expensive than say if you went to your normal everyday store but for the specialty items (which is the whole reason I wanted to go) they are CHEAPER, for me anyway. For instance, if I go to my local Kroger or natural food store (which are my only options for vegan products), I might pay like 5.50 for a box of veggie burgers or something of the sort..at Whole Foods, these same products were only 3.99. The money saved doesn't justify the 90 minutes driven to get there, but we went because I wanted to see what they had and to try some products out that I can't buy where I live. We will definately make the trip again.

Balsamic Strawberries

Have you guys tried this? It is probably my favorite way to enjoy ripe strawberries. Basically, you take your strawberries, cut them up in bite size pieces, put them in a bowl with some sugar, a few pinches of black pepper, and some splashes of good balsamic vinegar. Let this sit out for a few hours and macerate. The longer, the better. Serve over non-dairy yogurt or non-dairy ice cream. I love this summer treat.