Vida Vegan Con

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I will be traveling to Portland, Oregon this Thursday with my good friend Dianne aka  VeggieGirl to attend Vida Vegan Con!

There are a lot of firsts for this trip:

  • my first time flying somewhere in the U.S. I’ve only flown to other countries, which I can’t complain about.
  • first time to the west coast of the U.S.
  • first time traveling without my husband and/or kids. I will miss them terribly.
  • first time traveling with a friend.
  • first conference I’ll ever attend and an all vegan one to boot!
  • I’ll be meeting some blogger friends for the first time. I feel like I’ve known some of them forever already.
  • etc…etc….

I expected to feel nervous now about the trip but I’m actually getting more and more excited as it gets closer.

I am nervous about what my family will be doing for food without me. I asked my husband last night if he wanted me to prepare anything food wise before I go and he said “no, we will just eat pizza every night.” That would be 5 nights of pizza! Luckily we live in a 2 family with my parents and my Maa has promised to feed them. They can get pizza one night and go to Veggie Heaven another but pizza every night? NO!

Are any of you going to Vida Vegan Con? Let me know and lets me up!

 

 

Speaking of side dishes

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Dinner: rice and beans, cashew cream, kale sautéed with almonds and apricots, chili powder sweet potato fries, guacamole. #vegan #glutenfree

My post yesterday reminded of this one day, a weekday no less, that I went crazy and made 3 side sides for our weekly Rice and Beans meal. I’m not sure what got into me that day. It took crazy long and made a complete mess but it was worth it. Here is what I made:

Rice and Beans with hidden zucchini and carrots.
Cashew Cream.
Sauteed Kale with Apricots and Almonds, this was amazing!
Sweet Potato Fries.
Guacamole.

Kale and Mushrooms

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Side Dish: mixed mushrooms, kale, red pepper flakes and garlic #vegan

Sauteed Mushrooms and Kale

Now that I’m feeding a family of four I’ve realized how important side dishes are. It used to be that a pound of pasta would be enough for us. That’s not the case anymore. Reno and Miles can easily eat more then 1/2 a pound combined, especially if there is pesto involved! My husband is also a big eater so the 1 pound isn’t cutting it anymore. There have been many nights where I haven’t made enough food!

I’ve never been a side dish maker. My dinners are generally a one pot meal type of thing. Its easier that way and less to clean up. But now I have to make more food for my always hungry family. One of my favorite, recent, side dishes was a Mushroom and Kale saute. It was a last minute type of thing and it was perfect. Garlic and red pepper flakes sauteed with mixed wild mushrooms and kale. That’s it. I even used pre cut and washed kale which saved time and even more dishes.

Dinner: brown rice pasta w. pesto. kale and mixed mushrooms with garlic and red pepper flakes. #vegan

It went perfectly with some brown rice pasta covered in homemade pesto. I never want to eat pesto pasta again without some kale and mushrooms on the side.

What are some of your favorite side dishes to make?

Last Night

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Dinner: #glutenfree #vegan chocolate chip pancakes and kale and tomato tofu scramble

Chocolate Chip Pancakes/Kale and Tomato Tofu Scramble

Why is it so much easier making breakfast for dinner then making breakfast for breakfast? Time I suppose has a lot to do with it. I don’t wake up well in the morning and when my kids wake up they want to eat immediately. Same with my husband. That’s probably why we eat bagels most mornings. I wouldn’t mind eating what I made for dinner last night most mornings though! The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed those pancakes. I alone enjoyed the tofu scramble. The idea was to have the kids eat it also but I grabbed the spicy/smokey paprika instead of the more mellow paprika by mistake. Too spicy for the kids little palates I’m afraid. Perfect for mine though. I ate the leftover scramble for second dinner while watching Netflix. (If you haven’t seen Safety Not Guaranteed yet I highly recommend it!)

The pancakes are gluten free and came from a box. They are our favorite. The scramble is just your basic scramble with a spice mixture of: cumin, thyme, paprika and red pepper flake along with some nooch. You’ll notice the tofu is cubed. I follow that party line when it comes to scrambles. I’ll smoosh some of it up but NO..I like the cubed scramble!

It will be worth throwing this together one weekend morning instead of eating our daily bagels.

Shells Broccoli and Nooch/Sage

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Homemade #vegan Shells and Cheese w. Broccoli

Shells, Broccoli and Nooch Sauce

This is the week that my husband is away. This is one of those meals, much like the nacho’s I made for lunch a while back, that I will only make when he isn’t around for dinner. If he’s reading this he is probably grossed out.

Its super simple. I cooked some rice pasta according to the package and added some fresh broccoli when there was 3 minutes cooking time left. Drained it. In a separate pan I melted some earth balance with olive oil. Added a whole bunch of nutritional yeast (nooch) with some flour, onion powder, garlic powder, mustard and salt. When it was all combined I cooked it for a minute or two and then thinned out with unsweetened almond milk.

I set aside some pasta and broccoli for Reno and mixed in some plain earth balance. Miles and I enjoyed the dish as is with the delicious cheesy sauce. I’m thinking I might have second dinner tonight and eat the leftovers while watching Netflix!

Sage from last year. It's huge! #gardening

Sage

The weather in NJ was absolutely gorgeous today. After school we spent most of the late afternoon/early evening in the yard. I planted some seedlings into pots: Thai Basil and Purple Basil. While looking at the herb pots from last year I was surprised to see this huge sage plant that came back to life this spring! The best part is that it isn’t our only surviving sage plant from last year. I don’t even know what to do with this much sage. I’ll definitely dry some. Some will be going to a friend who says she like to make sage and mint tea which I’m eager to try myself. I would love to make some pumpkin ravioli’s with the butternut squash I have and make a sage butter to dress it. So much sage!