Carnival Noshing for Everyone

The carnival is in my hometown, folks, and we love it just as much as the next person!  OK, well, maybe not as much as I used to, but my kids and family love it all the same.  So that means I will be pushing my way through hundreds of people as they stand in lines for rides and games and, of course, food.  What can a good vegan do?  There are not always a lot of vegan options (duh) at the carnival, but with patience and a little research, you can enjoy at least some of what this summer tradition has to offer!  Try these:

• Cotton candy...it's just sugar!
• French fries...they have all kinds and shapes!  Look for sweet potato fries, they are SUPER!
• Popcorn...believe it or not, the butter flavor is usually artificial...get brave and ask!
• Sno-cones...again, just ice and sugar!
• Candy Apples...NOT caramel apples, of course, there is a big difference.  Eat red, not brown :)
• Onion Rings and the Bloomin' Onion...mmmm...ask to make sure the batter doesn't have eggs or milk, though!
• Roasted Nuts...our carnival has cinnamon ones!
• Asian food stands...usually have rice and spring rolls, sometimes tofu!
• Smoothie stands...our carnival always has one!
• Giant soft pretzels...kids give it TWO thumbs up!
• Wash it all down with a soda or fresh-squeezed lemonade if you can handle all that sugar...

I think my teeth are rotting just from writing this!  Isn't it great?  I love the carnival! If you are looking for healthy options, you should eat before you go...

Skip the Circus, Please!

This is a touchy subject for many folks out there, but I am mentioning it because the circus is back in my town.  Now, I think we are all aware of the fact that the animals in the circus are not treated very well.  In fact, many would call it downright abusive, especially since the animals do not have a choice.  I lean more toward the obvious abuse that occurs as the animals endure cramped conditions, long road trips that last all year, and hour after hour of grueling training.  Plus, many are beaten into submission, much like slaves are.  I am hoping that many will start to realize that there are, really, better things we can be spending our hard-earned money on!  Picnics, hikes, movies...why, there are even circuses that do not have ANY animals at all.  It might be a tradition for some, but it's a miserable life for others.  I have not supported the circus for many years, and do not plan on ever starting to.  Please reconsider your trip to the circus this year and look at it as another step toward a more compassionate existence!  You don't even have to talk to your kids or relatives about it if you don't want to, just don't go.  Try this link for more information: Animals in Entertainment

South of the Border - FAST!

 OK, raise your hand if you work full time or are a full-time parent.  Alright, we are mostly on the same page here!  I went back to work this week after being on spring break for nine days.  Wow, have I been feeling it...every day I am exhausted.  Today I had a lot of extra work to do, so I was at school longer than usual and then I had my 30-45-minutes-depending-on-the-traffic-commute.  So of course, the last thing I want to do is think about dinner.  But I know as soon as I walk in the door there is going to be a small mob cornering me and asking, "What's for dinner?  We're HUNGRY!"  Yup...so I start thinking about it as I am

sitting in traffic.  Cooking vegan meals is easy when you know how to "veganize" the stuff that it used to take you a few easy minutes to prepare  before you went veg.  Tonight I did tacos!!  There's nothing to it, but you have to have the right ingredients on-hand. 

Vegan Taco Night

1.  Buy the following NO MATTER WHAT:  some kind of taco kit, (watch the ingredients to make sure it's all vegan, I like Old El Paso) Boca crumbles or something crumbly like tempeh, veggies like tomatoes, onions, and olives, some nice avacado, salsa, vegan sour cream.

2.  Buy the rest of this stuff if you want to:  can of black beans, can of green chilies, tomatillos, saffron rice (it's so good!).

3.  Put your Boca crumbles or crumble your tempeh into a skillet and add a little olive oil, water, and the taco seasoning packet that came with your taco kit.  Heat until the liquid is gone, on medium.

4.  Chop up veggies and put in little bowls or leave on the cutting board.  Sometimes the grocery has already chopped up veggies, which is nice if you are pressed for time.  Sometimes I cheat and just get stuff like chopped tomatoes, peppers, and onions from the salad bar!

5.  Heat your oven to 350 degrees and then bake your taco shells for a few minutes.  If you are starving, you do not have to wait to do this, but I think you should because they get crunchier and taste better.  

6.  OPTIONAL:  Cook the rice, follow the directions on the packet.  Mix the chilies with the beans and a little salt and pepper and heat that separately.  Once these things are cooked, put in bowls and set out as sides.

7.  Put everything out on the counter or table and tell you family to assemble their own.  They can make tacos the old fashioned way or put everything in the middle of the plate and make a "taco salad" like I do.  Picky kids (or spouses) will love this, and you will be a hero (even if it's for one night only).  This is also a great meal to impress a date, ladies and gentleman.  Well, it would impress me!  Serve with some good Mexican beer and a movie!  Bravo! 

A Rare Dish

My husband has brought home two bags of morels this week.  Morels are odd-looking mushrooms with fairly good texture and taste.  Some people rave about them and they say that they are quite a delicacy.  A local man hit the jackpot and found about 30 pounds of them and sold them for $100-150 a POUND.  Lunacy!  I thought they were yummy, though, and I was very glad that he found them and had not BOUGHT them!!!  The first time he brought them home he breaded and fried them.  Now, I have been vegan for around four years, but ate meat for my entire life before that.  And I am telling you that they reminded me of fried chicken livers, which left me a little unsettled.  Leave it to a man to fry food till it's unrecognizable (wink!).  The second time I lightly sauteed them with fresh bell peppers and served them with angel hair pasta, olives, oregano, and ground pepper.  Lots of good olive oil, too.  My husband, in true form, doused the entire thing (not mine, HIS!) with red sauce.  To each their own, right?  So my pasta with morels was very, very good, and I highly recommend it!  If you cannot find (or afford!) morels, try oyster mushrooms!  They are so delish and inexpensive and often available at the grocery store.  If you live in the country and do not have good mushrooms at your supermarket, then GO mushroom hunting!  It's a good excuse to poke around the woods with your sweetie on a nice day (wink, wink!).  Happy hunting, joyful eating!

Our Vegan Easter Baskets

 

  Thanks again to the wonderful folks at Pangea Vegan Store in Rockville, MD!!!  You have made our Easter very memorable!  Check out Pangea!

A Week of Cupcakes

This week was not only my spring break, but it was also my son's 6th birthday!  Both of these events couldn't have come at a better time, because I was both in the mood to relax and try some new things AND I was thinking that I wanted to do more cupcakes instead of sheet cakes.  Cupcakes are great because they are portable and portion-controlled.  For someone who likes to pig-out like I do, you can't go wrong with a cute little cupcake!  I wanted to make something from scratch, since I had the time.  I went out and bought the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  Wow, there were so many cupcake recipes that I didn't really know where to start at first.  I finally decided on a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting that I added cocoa and ginger to.  I also tried to make the espresso creme, and this turned out terribly.  Working with agar (make a jelly-like texture) is not the easiest thing ever and my filling tasted too much like arrowroot because I put in, well, too much arrowroot.  Luckily, my kids thought that was the way they were SUPPOSED to be!  Score!  That was on my son's actual birthday.  We just had another party for friends and family today at a local children's museum.  It was a great party, but this time I decided to make plain old vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting...and they were GREAT!!!  The best cupcakes I have ever made, and the recipe was super-easy.  I was very proud to show up at my kids' birthday party with 2 dozen freshly homemade cupcakes...it looked like I worked very hard, but I did not...I should have sprinkled a little flour on my face.  I plan on trying many more varieties, especially since I purchased a super-cool pump thing to "shoot" out frostings and fillings.  It rocks my world, and I now have a passion for cupcakes!
PRACTICAL TIP: Make a bunch of cupcakes when you do...more than you need.  Individually wrap the ones that you don't scarf up that day, and then freeze them.  Having individual cupcakes around is perfect for when you take your kids to a birthday party and they cannot eat the cake (maybe next time offer to make cupcakes for the whole party?).

Vegan Babies

It's not too hard to raise vegan kiddos!

There is so much that I can post about nutrition for vegan babies and toddlers!  If you go back in the posts on this blog, there is plenty of information scattered throughout, and all of this information contributes to an overall wealth of information about feeding kids a plant-based diet.  I was trying to think back to some of the resources that I used when I was first contemplating veganism for myself and my kids, who were 2 and 4 at the time.  I will post a lot more on this subject soon (can we say SPRING BREAK!?!?!), but in the meantime read this article: Feeding Vegan Kids.  It is a great one and answers many burning questions, including what to do about that elusive B12! 

Still Talking About Cheese!

I feel like I have been posting a LOT about vegan cheese lately...sorry.  It's just that, like I said, for most people, cheese is one of the hardest things to give up!  My husband recently started making his OWN homemade vegan cheddar.  I have to admit that I was very, very skeptical.  So far we have tried just about every vegan cheese under the sun.  Vegan Gourmet is very good when shredded, and Daiya is just about the best "melty" vegan cheese I have come across.  And if you love nachos, you cannot go wrong with Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso (see previous post).  But he actually found a good recipe, and far be it from me to discourage my husband from doing ANYTHING productive around this house (translation: he would typically rather lay around and do nothing...sound familiar?).  When finished, this cheese is very yummy on crackers or sandwiches!  The only problem is that the ingredients are honestly a bit pricey...uh, pricier than just buying the stuff already made.  But hey, if you are feeling industrious and you want to experience the novelty of making your own cheese, I am sharing this recipe via YouTube!  Enjoy!

Nacho Mama's cheese!

My shipment of vegan Easter candy came in only TWO days after I ordered it...I plan on visiting the store in person very soon, but ordering from Pangea has been a dream come true.  Tucked away under chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks was the coveted jar of Nacho Mom's Vegan Queso dip.  It was worth it, because I haven't have nachos like that in years!  It was a little spicy, which made it even better.  We happened to have some omni (translation: they eat meat, milk, and eggs) friends over and they sampled the queso dip.  One said that even though it was good, it was weird because she expected it to taste just like regular cow's milk cheese, which of course it does not.  I hear that a lot from omnis...they expect vegan stuff to taste exactly like the real thing...mock chicken, veggie burgers, soy ice cream...you name it.  I think that we just shouldn't compare, because they are made out of two different things.  If you have this problem, just let them know that it will not taste exactly the same as the original because it is BETTER than the original.  That ought to produce a few smiles.  Anyhow, Nacho Mom's was a great buy and I am looking forward to getting more in the future...they say it makes a killer quesadilla...yum!  Very versatile, great taste, ships easily...how could you go wrong?  Give the kids a bit before you eat the whole jar yourself.

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Here Comes Peter Cottontail....

I just finished ordering a GREAT selection of Easter candy for the Easter bunny to bring to our house this year!  Usually we do the best we can with Nerds and whatever vegan candy bars are available at the grocery store.  But in the 4 years since we went vegan, I have been meaning to order some very nice vegan chocolate candy EVERY YEAR and haven't.  Well, this is the year!!!!  I purchased vegan peeps (can't have marshmallow with gelatin in it, that's not even vegetarian!), chocolate eggs and bunnies, peanut-butter eggs, jelly beans, truffles (for me, haha!), and a jar of Nacho Mama's vegan queso (ok, not really for Easter, but I have been DYING to try this stuff!).  So after Easter I will review all this candy.  If you are feeling adventurous and want to order your own, go to Pangea Vegan Store's Website.  The pretty much have it all.