Cherry Lemonade Popsicles

Hi everyone! This week I made cherry lemonade popsicles, and they turned out great! 

Ingredients:
2 cups cherries (pitted & diced)
½ cup sugar
½ cup lemon juice
½ cup water

Directions:
Bring ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, then switch to low-medium heat, stirring every now and then for ~10 minutes. Turn off heat, cover, and wait until cooled before pouring into popsicle molds to freeze.

I also made the tofu bacon (another marinated tofu) from Vegan Vittles and used some in a bagel BLT; it was pretty good! 

After Leela fell asleep on the bed, Daisy settled in nearby...

I did some more sketches, some with text, some without. Here are several of them…

dandelion (original photo)

aloe (original photo)

aster (original photo)

geranium (original photo)

columbine (original photo)

Peace. :)

March MiniMoFo

Hi everyone! “Go green!” is the theme for the March MiniMoFo, and all the new recipes I’ve tried so far this month have included spinach – Brown Rice With Lentils, Mushrooms, and Spinach Stir Fry (AfroVeganChick); Marinated Tofu with White Rice and Spinach; and Creamy Raw Spinach Sauce (Vegan Vittles). This week I tried making the creamy spinach dip from Vegan Vittles, but it didn’t quite work out (*shakes fist at my food processor*), so I gave up and just threw all the ingredients into a saucepan with a bit of water, heating it up and mashing the beans as I stirred, ultimately mixing it in with some fettuccine. So, both a recipe fail (didn’t work as the dip it was supposed to be) and a recipe redemption (was very tasty mixed with pasta). 

Cringer loves using her sister as a pillow…

Peace. :)

Creamy Raw Spinach Sauce (Vegan Vittles)

Hi everyone! The creamy raw spinach sauce from Vegan Vittles was a very simple recipe to prepare, especially since I soaked the cashews overnight, which made blending a lot quicker. (After blending, I warmed the sauce for a bit on the stovetop since I’m not the biggest fan of raw foods, haha!) I poured ½ cup of the sauce over a serving of fettuccine and stirred them together. It was very tasty, and the leftovers have been great, too!

Bonus food: My sister Alena visited earlier this week and we made two different pasta dishes; both were delicious!

mac & cheese

peanut butter pasta

Leela says hello!

Peace. :)

Better Burgers (Vegan Vittles)

Hi everyone, and happy Vegan Month of Food! Today's prompt is "Re-inventing the veggie option," so I made veggie burgers using the "Better Burgers" recipe from Vegan Vittles by Jo Stepaniak. 

Veggie burger with a Rudi's hamburger bun, lettuce, a slice of Chao cheese (creamy original), and ketchup.

It was a pretty simple recipe, and the only change I made was to bake the patties instead of cooking them in a skillet.

The veggie burger was really tasty, and I'll definitely make this recipe again. 

Served with Alexia waffle fries and homemade pickles.

Here's my quick sharpie sketch of the veggie burger for Inktober...

And here's a close-up of a graceful Buttons cat-nap...

Peace. :)

March MiniMoFo: Baked Stuffed Shells (Vegan Vittles)

Hi everyone! March's MiniMoFo theme is "stuffed and filled foods" -- aka, the prompting I needed to finally make vegan stuffed shells! I used the recipe in Vegan Vittles, halving it, with some further modifications: using Chipotle Vegenaise instead of a plain vegan mayonnaise, Italian seasoning (which included basil) instead of just basil, only 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce, and some FYH vegan mozzarella (shredded) instead of vegan Parmesan. The stuffed shells turned out great, but definitely spicy due to the Chipotle Vegenaise haha! Zach liked them, too, so I'll definitely make these again for us! (They are also great as leftovers.)

In other news, the PAN Vegan Pledge is going well! There are 22 people taking the pledge -- so many that some mentors, myself included, were assigned two people to mentor! On Saturday, we're having a first week celebration dinner at Thai L'Elephant, a restaurant in town with a vegan section in their menu.

I've been continuing to attend the Tuesday protests in Phoenixville; this week, I made a new, double-sided sign using the cardboard of a cereal box (it was raining at the start & I didn't want my bigger sign to get wet -- this one was small enough for me to hold safely under my umbrella).

Here are Leela and Buttons being sunshine kitties ...

Peace. :)

Homemade Meatballs

Hi everyone! I finally made homemade vegan meatballs! The new recipe I tried this week was the “Meaty Balls” from Vegan Vittles by Jo Stepaniak.

They were really easy to make and definitely tasty! Zach gave them a try, but he wasn't as much of a fan (but to be fair, he pointed out that he didn't like non-vegan meatballs, either). 

leftovers

Here's a photoset of Daisy being cuddle-squished by Cringer; Daisy didn't seem to mind too much. 

Peace. :)