Week Gone By

Well, the first week of summer break has flown by. Much of the time was spent at home doing stuff around the house. Norton and Pumpkin like to hang out on the deck when they have nothing else to do.

It was a busy week too though. Tuesday, I went with my dad to see Ringo Starr and the All-Star Band. They are amazing to see if you ever have the opportunity. Great, great show. I loved when they did Yellow Submarine!

Thursday, Eric and I had a two hour meeting with the dj down in Red Bank to finalize music choices for the wedding. After our meeting, we had lunch at No Joe's Cafe, a coffee house with a menu. I was a bit disappointed with what I ordered. I settled on the grilled veggie salad--the menu description reads an array of fresh, grilled vegetables served over greens with a sesame ginger vinaigrette. Well my salad was lettuce, grilled yellow squash and sprouts. It was fine, but I wouldn't call yellow squash an array of grilled vegetables. But it was okay, because I wanted to save my appetite for a smoothie anyway. We went to Smoothie King next and I had a fabulous smoothie with mango, papaya, soy protein and other fruits. It was delicious!

After smoothies, I headed up to David's Bridal for my first fitting. Woo hoo! The dress was huge! It needs to be taken in a whole size! I guess that is what happens when you lose 20 pounds before your wedding!

Wednesday night, I made Ethiopian lentils. We love our Ethiopian lentils! It's a cold lentil salad with a chopped jalapeño, onion, parsley and the dressing is dijon mustard and lemon juice (or vinegar). I love this salad and I ate it in wraps all week. Sorry, I took pictures but they didn't come out good for some reason.

Last night, my cousin came over for dinner with her baby. Vincent is now four months old and is getting so big. He's such a cutie! We had a yummy dinner--a big salad with miso-tahini dressing (dressing from VCon), buffalo tofu, zucchini chips and steak fries. I attempted to make the peach upside down cake from Fat Free Vegan with my huge supply of plums, but I sort of screwed up on little part and we ended up with a very tasty plum cake trifle.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Meme!

I've been seeing this meme on lots of blogs lately and after seeing it on Bianca's, I decided to do it. She tagged anybody who prefers cooking to baking, and though I enjoy baking, I'm definitely more of a cook than a baker! So here goes!

What were you doing five years ago?

I was getting ready to go on a cross-country 31 day road trip! I was living in a crappy apartment in Belleville with my ex and my cat, Pumpkin.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

1) Take a shower.
2) Go with my dad to my grandparents' graves.
3) Have dinner with my dad.
4) Go see Ringo Starr at Radio City Music Hall with my dad!
5) Play video games with Eric! (yeah, it's a good day.)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1) So Delicious Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches
2) Anything dark chocolate
3) Anything with hummus
4) Popcorn with cardamom, cinnamon and sugar with some Earth Balance--yum!
5) Pita chips

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?

1) Pay off debt.
2) Travel the world.
3) Start an animal sanctuary.
4) Buy a Vespa for me.
5) Buy a boat for Eric.

What are five of your bad habits?

1) I am very disorganized.
2) I've become very lazy and haven't been working out lately. That needs to change.
3) I spend too much time obsessing over food (just like Bianca).
4) I'm not good with money.
5) I have a bit of an addictive personality.

What are five places where you have lived?

1) Fords, NJ
2) South Plainfield, NJ
3) Long Branch, NJ
4) Montclair, NJ
5) Byram, NJ

(I know. I'm boring. I've never lived out of state.)

What are five jobs you’ve had?

1) File clerk for a doctor
2) Waitress at Red Lobster
3) Box office sales and concession cashier at movie theatre
4) Collector for disgraceful law firm that bought out people's debts and collected tons of interest
5) Teacher

Tag! You're it if you ...

1) Have a crazy mutt.
2) Have purple hair.
3) Actually like rodents.
4) Know what lychees are.
5) Drive a Vespa.

Just copy this survey into your blog if you meet the above criteria, and don't forget to link back to mine.

Fajitas, Margaritas and Chocolate Soft Ice Cream

It was a wonderful weekend. This was the first weekend in ages where we didn't have 500 things to do! Friday was my last day of school and it was a happy day! I will miss my third graders who "graduated" and will spend the next four years at the middle school. It's nice to see them grow up in front of my eyes--some of these kids I worked with since the beginning of first grade. But it's sad to see them go.

But now its summer. Saturday morning, Eric and I ran errands. I was eager to check out our local farmer's market now that the season has started. However, there was only one farm stand open. We bought some local blueberries for an astronomical price but did get a good deal on a humongous head of red leaf lettuce! After that, we did our weekly food shopping.


Saturday night, we decided to go with a Mexican theme. I tried out my new cast-iron skillet and made portobello mushroom fajitas. They were yummy! First I marinated the mushrooms, onions, and peppers with a spice marinade that I found here. In our fajitas were mushrooms, onions, peppers, avocado slices, tofutti sour cream, and salsa. With our fajitas, we had some brown rice and deliciously spicy pinto beans. I found the recipe on Fat Free Vegan, though I modified it some...the beans came out too liquidy, so I drained some of the liquid, added some cornstarch and extra spices.



After dinner, we had margaritas. I combined fresh lime juice, agave, water, tequila, and shook. Then we drank. Then we drank some more later that evening--wine for me and Bailey's for Eric. We decided to walk over to our friends' home a couple blocks away to play some board games after their four children had gone to bed.



Sunday morning, we met with the rabbi for a final meeting before the wedding, then picked up a couple wedding-related items at the Judaica store, and got Eric fit for his tux. Fun stuff! Then we got to the spend the rest of the day at home--organizing, relaxing, and playing video games. Oh and chasing a mouse. We have a bit of a mouse problem. This was the 6th mouse we've found in over a month. Pumpkin killed the first three. We chased the last three out of the house. Not an easy task, mind you.

Dinner was some of Veganomicon bbq tofu (I cheated and used store bought sauce cause we already had it) and a big salad. Then we decided to use Eric's favorite shower gift that he begged his mother to buy me--a soft ice cream maker. We made some soy chocolate ice cream. It was pretty darn good!

Six weeks and six days

Yup, that's how long it is until Eric and I tie the knot. We had a very productive weekend as far as the wedding checklist goes. We ordered groomsmen gifts. Check! Ordered yarmulkes for ceremony. Check! Picked up toasting flutes and cake cutting set. Check!

Saturday, I spent the afternoon with my mom and sister. We had lunch at Chipotle, which was very good. Similar to Baja Fresh or Q'doba but everything is fresh! Then we went to see Sex and the City which we all enjoyed.

Saturday night, I made some raviolis I picked up at Whole Foods not too long ago. The brand is Rising Moon organics and we had the artichoke olive flavor, which was also vegan. However, they also have regular cheese ones too. They were delicious and pretty low in calories!

Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day with our families. Eric and I took our parents' out to lunch to Krogh's, a local bar and grille with yummy food! They have an awesome bean taco salad, which I love! Plus, its right across from Lake Mohawk, so we enjoyed a beautiful walk after lunch.

After our delicious lunch, we weren't very hungry for dinner Sunday night. So I made the marinated home fries from the Made From Scratch cookbook. I wrote more about that cookbook here. Sorry, no pic but they were delicious. Diced the potatoes, then boiled, then marinated with tamari-oil-mixture with onions, then sauteed with lots of garlic and onions and peppers, topped with FYH soy cheddar. Delicious!

Hummus

I should first mention that in my previous post, I was being sarcastic when I stated that I love the near 100 degree heat. However, it was nice getting out of school early yesterday because of the intense heat. Today, it was in the upper 80s, hot, but much nicer compared to the last four days!

A couple hours ago, I was contemplating what to bring to work for lunch tomorrow. I decided on a whole wheat bagel out of the freezer. A perfect accompaniment to that bagel would be some hummus. So I pressure-cooked some chickpeas and made Veganomicon's simple and easy hummus recipe.

I have to say that my simple homemade hummus I think totally beats any of the store bought varieties. And, trust me, I've probably tried just about every kind.

Sorry for the lack of photos the last couple posts. I'm lazy!

Hot Hot Hot

I just love the near 100 degree heat, especially when we've got no air conditioning at home or at school. (Technically, we do have window air conditioners for the bedrooms, but we haven't had time to put them in yet. And, where we live, by the time we go to bed at night, the heat isn't quite as unbearable.) This is the third day of this horrendous heat wave.

On Friday, I decided to try out the indoor grill we got as an engagement gift several months ago. It was easy to use and great fun! I grilled up some chili lime corn, portobello mushrooms, and yellow squash. I will definately be using the grill some more this week!

Note: The photo of the grill came from the Williams-Sonoma website and I doubt those are vegan sausages!

Dog v. Mama Deer

So Norton was out in the woods doing his business. I was a few yards away keeping an eye on him when I noticed the mama deer and her baby close by.

Well, guess who noticed them at the same time?

Norton decided to go run after the baby fawn.

Mama Deer decided to kick his ass.

I heard a scuffle and some yelps and Norton came back to me running, dirty and disheveled but otherwise okay. I hope he learned his lesson.