Indonesian Coconut Rice and Tofu Teriyaki

Tonight's dinner was simply amazing. I wish I had a better photo for you but Eric borrowed my digital camera today. I made the coconut rice from Vegan.com's top ten list and a simple tofu teriyaki recipe that I found at Whole Food's website and some microwave-steamed broccoli. I'm not sure that I'd make the rice again on a weeknight; it was a little time-consuming throwing all the spices together, but was well worth it! I used jasmine rice instead of the brown rice that the recipe calls for and it came out fabulous.

Last night, we had Vcon's sauteed chickpea cutlets. With it, I thinly sliced half of my giant sweet potato for sweet potato "chips." I had my cutlet with a drizzle of fresh lemon juice; Eric had his on an onion roll with some salad dressing. We enjoyed the cutlets and would certainly make them again!

For those readers who were commenting on the size of my sweet potato, there is nothing wrong with "big and beautiful," however the immense size of the thing makes it a bit too awkward to handle!

On my way back to the kitchen to make more jelly donut cupcakes for work tomorrow.

Saturday in Baltimore

So Saturday started off kind of sucky. I had to go to the doctor's office for some routine bloodwork. It was not fun. I do not like shots. But the nurse did give me a juice box which was nice!

Then back home for some Mario Kart--I heart Mario Kart! And, then on to our Baltimore outing! Eric got me tickets to see The Swell Season. The Swell Season is really Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova, the musicians who wrote and starred in the movie Once.

So after making the four hour trip to Baltimore, Eric and I had dinner at The Yabba Pot, an international vegan cafe near Johns Hopkins University. The menu features specials, which change daily, sandwiches, salads, and smoothies, etc. We both opted to have the royal platter. Between the two of us we had barbequed tofu, amazing brown rice, cabbage stir fry, queen's greens (which was kale, onions, tomatoes and spices), some other spinach curry and black bean chili. The food was delicious and we saved room to split a vegan snickerdoodle cookie afterwards.

The actual concert was held at The Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, an absolutely gorgeous venue with perfect acoustics. Glen and Marketa were amazing together live. Some of Glen's Frames bandmates performed as the back-up band, too.

Long drive home. Stopped a couple times for gas, caffeine, and to fetch Norton from my parents', where he spent the day. We made it home at 4:30 am.

(The photo was not from last night but was of another live show. Photo by Joel Didriksen for kingpinphoto.com)

One Big Sweet Potato!

So today was my organic produce pick up day from Purple Dragon. In our box of goodies was a sweet potato. Have you ever seen a sweet potato this large???

Amazing Cupcakes

I decided to bake the jelly donut cupcakes out of Veganomicon to bring to my parents' house on Mother's Day.  They were simply amazing!!!  And easy to make too!

Norton cuddles!

This weekend, Norton decided to sit on my lap for a good cuddle.  In some photos, Norton doesn't look that big but I think he looks like the big dog that he is in this photo!

Spy King?

Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser wrote a piece for the New York Times on Wednesday titled "Burger with a Side of Fries." Apparently, the Burger King Corporation hired a private security firm to spy on the Student/Farmworker Alliance in Florida. The aim of the Student/Farmworker Alliance is to improve the lives of migrant farmworkers by eliminating sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields. This group uses peaceful methods of protest--such as their recent petition to ask Burger King to pay these farmworkers a fair wage. Read more here..

Top 10 Vegan Recipes

Today I came across Vegan.com's collection of top 10 vegan recipes for 2008. The recipes come from this year's top vegan cookbooks. I'm eager to try some of these for myself! The Indonesian Coconut Rice and Root Beer Float Cupcakes sound especially delightful! Enjoy!

What a Week!

Monday evening, I attempted to upload some photographs from my camera onto my computer. It wasn't working so I decided to restart. This was a bad idea because my trusty Mac wouldn't go past the startup screen! Ugh!!!! Last time this happened, Eric reinstalled my operating system and that seemed to work at fixing the problem. Well this time, that didn't help. So yesterday, I left my Mac in the hands of the genius at the Apple store. It's still under warranty and they can probably fix it. Unfortunately, I didn't back anything up though! Supposedly, they will back everything up for me before zeroing out the hard drive! I am so stressed about this and hope it works!

Tuesday evening, my allergies started acting up...and badly! Sore throat, stuffy nose, sneezing fits, the works. This morning, when I woke up with a pounding headache, I decided it was finally time to whip out the neti pot and allergy meds.

I wish I had some more fun and exciting things to write about right now!

Busy Week!

I have several blog posts in the works--I haven't had the time to post them or upload the pics but I'll get to it, I promise.

It's been a crazy week! I spent all last week working on wedding details every day after school. Saturday, I had my hair and makeup trial. Sunday, we went to a bbq at my aunt and uncle's house.

I saw 2 movies this week--during the week, I watched Sicko and on Saturday evening, we saw Juno. In my opinion, they are both must-see's! I wouldn't say Sicko is enjoyable in the way that Juno is. But it is a Michael Moore documentary. Draw your own conclusions...

Pizza!

Over the weekend, I was thinking about the fact that I hadn't had pizza in at least a month. I kept thinking about it and thinking about it.

So on Sunday, on my way home from Omega (which I still must blog about), I made a stop at Whole Foods. I picked up a few staples for the week, including Follow Your Heart soy mozzarella and some pizza dough.

When I got home, I made a pizza! I used some jarred tomato sauce with roasted garlic, onions, vegan pepperoni, fresh basil and parsley. It was so yummy! I found the cheese to be very tasty as well.

It was so good that I wish we had some more pizza left. But we finished it for lunch today. I guess I'll have to just make it again!

My New Water Bottle

I'd been planning on buying of these aluminum water bottles anyway, because the #7 hard water bottles leech chemicals into water. Ewww, gross. The reusable water bottle I have now is a #5 plastic one. Supposedly safe, but I'm not taking a chance! As I posted last week, Eric and I received coupons for free Sigg water bottles through their website. Today I ordered mine. Here's the one I chose.

Roasted Zucchini

A few years ago, my mom gave me a mandolin (not that one exactly but you get the idea). At the time, I didn't think I needed it. I gave it to my grandmother--or so I thought. Well, I guess I didn't because the other day I found it in my kitchen cabinet. Older and wiser, I now know that every kitchen needs one of these things!

So tonight, I decided to make roasted zucchini chips (along with these Ethiopian lentils and a big salad). Eric swore he didn't like zucchini. I was pretty much convinced that if I cooked zucchini in the right way, I could get him to eat it. So using my found mandolin, I sliced the zucchini paper thin, tossed it with a teaspoon of olive oil, some thyme and salt and pepper. I then roasted the zucchini slices in my toaster oven for about 25 minutes at 425 degrees. They came out crispy and delicious. Not only did Eric eat a serving of the zucchini...I caught him having seconds! Pretty amazing, I think!

Sprouts!

Thanks to Michelle, I decided to make my very own bean sprouts! They were so easy to do! I soaked some lentils overnight then drained and rinsed them in the morning. I put them in a plastic container and covered them, rinsing them once or twice a day. In just a couple days, we had fresh sprouts for our salad! So easy and so tasty!

Day at the Shore

This morning, Eric and I headed down to the Point Pleasant Boardwalk to play some skeeball, ride the rides--and take our engagement photos! We met our wedding photographer, Josh Lynn, down there--and we had a blast taking the photos! I am so excited because Josh posted a few of them on his blog already! Look here!

While we were down there, we had lunch at Kaya's Kitchen in Belmar. Kaya's is a vegetarian eatery which used to be Veggie Works. I had eaten there often while I was in college and it was a real treat to be back today. We had the most delicious vegan buffalo wings (karma wings)!

Thanks, Eric, for letting me choose vegan restaurants two days in a row!!!!

A Very Martha Earth Day

I hope everybody had a super Earth Day and did one thing to make a positive impact on our planet. Here's how Eric and I celebrated our Earth Day...

We woke up bright and early--5:30 AM. Yes, I'm on Spring Break this week, and no we weren't going to work. Why were we up so early? To head into New York! I requested tickets for The Martha Stewart Show and we were given tickets for Earth Day! So we left at 6:30 and by 8:15 AM, Eric and I were in the line for audience members.




It turns out that it was a special live Earth Day episode! We couldn't have gotten any luckier than that! Well, maybe if we won the eco-friendly washer and dryer that another audience member did win (and she's from the same Sussex County town as us)!

Seeing Martha in person was awesome! Seeing the studio in person was amazing as well. Though it wasn't my first screening of a television show, it's always fascinating to see how many crew members it takes to keep the show going. It's constant motion. Here are just a few of the show highlights...

Jaime Pressly, from My Name is Earl was on the show. She and Martha stamped reusable totes with fabric paint and potatoes to make them a bit funkier.

Simran Sethi, host of Sundance's "The Green," shared some important information about our drinking water and the use of plastic drinking bottles.

Martha also shared some tips for washing and folding towels. She has a new line of towels available at Macy's.

After the taping of the Earth Day episode, we stayed for the taping of some Memorial Day segments which will be airing on May 23rd. Not only did we enjoy watching the taping of the shows, we got free stuff to boot! We each got a three piece set of towels, a magazine, a big book of flags, a coupon for a Sigg water bottle, an outdoor flag-hanging kit, and two free tote bags!

We walked the mile and a half to a vegan eatery in the Village that I was curious about trying for lunch. I'd read about Sacred Chow on Disease Proof and we were not disappointed! I had the shiitake mushroom and spinach salad with South Indian dressing along with the Korean tofu slices. Eric has a tempeh reuben. Everything was delicious and I highly recommend this place if you're so inclined to try it!

As we were on our walk back to the car, I couldn't resist stopping at Sabon, my favorite all-natural luxury bath and body shop to pick up some mud-from-the-Dead-Sea soap! Our last stop was at Whole Body to try some organic Aubrey shampoo--and we got another free tote in honor of Earth Day! Woo hoo!

(On another note, we stopped at Bleeker Records to peruse the basement full of vinyl and happened to stumble upon the filming of a commercial of sorts. A British female musician named Kate Nash was being filmed to seemingly promote herself and the record store. At least that's what I had gotten out of it. We had never heard of her but googled her tonight. She reminds me of Lily Allen.)

Happy Passover!

Happy Passover to my readers who celebrate! Saturday afternoon, I packed all of our crackers, cereals, pastas and other Passover-no-no's into shopping bags and closed them up in our office closet. I'll do my best to keep Passover (and Eric too) but we're not super strict about it. In our home, it'll be okay to eat rice, beans and tofu, as the Sephardic Jews do. (Traditional Ashkenazic Jews would disagree with us, but that's okay. Many Vegetarians follow the Sephardic way during Passover.)

Anyway, Saturday evening we spent with Eric's parents at a Passover seder at good friends of the family. The food was delicious and we had a fabulous time. Afterwards, Eric's parents came back for the night.

Sunday, we were having my family (and Eric's parents, too) for a Passover dinner. I was sort of panic stricken. What was I, a nearly-vegan thinking aiming to cook a Passover meal for my meat and potato lovin' parents? After much deliberation, this is the menu I settled on.

Not Chicken Soup with Matzah balls (made from mix)
The not chicken soup comes from Mollie Katzen's cookbook Still Life with Menu.

Quinoa Tabouli
Sweet Potato and Carrot Tzimmes (I forget where I found this one--someplace online)
Roasted Green Beans with Garlic
Potato Kugel (Mom cooked)

Italian Ices (complements of supermarket)
Various kinds of boxed Passover candies, cake, macaroons--all supplied by Mom
Strawberries

So that was our Passover meal. Having Eric's parents spend the night before worked out perfectly. Eric's mom was a huge help in the kitchen that morning! Everything came out delicious and I don't think that anybody left our home that evening hungry!

Sooo Delicious!

So I've been pretty good about eating vegan at home--I'm finding it harder to do while out, but I'm doing my best.

On Friday, while perusing the local health foods store, I decided to buy some soy ice cream. Some of the labels were horrifying though! 230 calories and 13 or 17 g of fat! Might as well have the Ben and Jerry's in that case!

But then I found this stuff: Soy Delicious Awesome Chocolate. It's sweetened with fruit and only has 115 calories and 1.5 g of fat. And it's yummy!

Can you live like Ed?

Have you seen the HGTV show "Living with Ed?" I haven't caught it yet(not sure if it's currently airing) but I have heard a lot about Ed Begley, Jr. lately. What an amazing guy. Ed is a real environmentalist. He retrofitted his VW Rabbit to run as an electric car. He rides his bicycle to Hollywood events. Ed and his wife Rachelle co-star in their living-green reality show.

Ed also has a book out called Living like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life. Check out the website for Living with Ed here. Also check out the website he created with two partners--Fixing the Planet. His websites and book offer tons of ideas for sustainable living.

Ed will be speaking at the global green Expo in Jersey City next weekend but I'll be here instead...oh, well.

Organic Fruits and Veggies Coming Soon!

Thursday, to be specific! I'm joining a Glen Ridge, NJ based organic fruits and veggies co-op called Purple Dragon. I tried it out about 4 years ago and really liked it but for one reason or another, never stuck with it.

Purple Dragon is a great way to support local and organic farmers if you live in New Jersey or New York. There are groups all over. If you're lucky enough to find out in your area that has an opening, join! Deliveries are made biweekly and you'll get a 15--30 pound supply of organic produce. It's always a surprise to find out what's in your bag! I find the price to be extremely reasonable for organic produce--roughly $46, every other week. And, because it's a co-op, everybody volunteers to help sort through the deliveries every so often.

Although the produce is not always exactly local, they do buy local whenever possible. According to the website, Purple Dragon shops "up and down the East Coast, Eastern Canada, the rest of the US, Europe, New Zealand, and certain farms in Central and South America and the Caribbean."

I think it's a great way to support small, organic farms throughout the year when it's not always possible to buy locally.

What's in YOUR processed fruit drink?

Processed stuff is bad for you. I know that. You probably do too. Read this feature about how the additives in fruit drinks and candies are linked to Attention Deficit Disorder. In a recent study, "normal" children turn hyperactive after ingesting small amounts of these additives. Scary stuff.