Birthday Dinner #1

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As I see it a good start the morning can usually result in a good start to the day and what better way to start the day than with toast and tofu scramble?

We have to improvise a bit lately since we no longer have a toaster but it can be fun using our $2 camping toaster for fun.  We had left over cheezy tofu scramble with lots of broccoli which was delicious before our crazy days started.

After a getting a cracked tooth filled and crazy day at work and prepping for another crazy day tomorrow I met up with my mom for a drink and a snack.

After we finished our drinks we met up with this guy:

C.V.L. Dad! (cook.vegan.lover. dad)

Then we did a little shopping and headed to A Single Pebble for dinner.

Double Garlic Broccoli

Dry Fried Green Beans

Vegetarian Pot Sticker

Vegan Ants Climbing a Tree

Buddha's Sesame Beef

Also if you heckle the food blogger for photographing the food  you suffer the consequences. Welcome to the blog post hall of shame:

Meet C.V.L. Mom who on the evening of August 25, 2010 who knowing the consequences decided to heckle the food blogger regarding her photographing the meal. Welcome to the hall of shame. XO MAMA just j/k all in good fun.

Meet the Hubz who decided to join in the heckling fun. love you lots but welcome to the hall of shame.

Disclaimer: the blog post hall of shame is all in good fun don’t worry.

How Do You Like Your Almond Butter?

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Over the last few years I have becoming an almond butter addict.  It is amazing on so many things such as:

Between Bread with Jam

In My Overnight Oats

In My Banana Soft Serve

On top of My Oatmeal

In My Raw Cookies

And the Best way to eat Almond Butter is Straight out of the JAR!

As you probably saw earlier this week launched the OpenSky Lunch Box Project where a dollar from select items will go to help this charity. “The Lunch Box provides schools with free, tangible tools to transform school lunch from highly processed foods to made-from-scratch meals using nutritious, fresh ingredients. It contains tools for real change including school-tested recipes with nutritionals and training tips, financial modeling guides, budget templates, downloadable, customizable calendars, and training videos.” Source

In honor of this amazing charity and my love for almond butter you can now find Artisana Almond Butter in my OpenSky shop and  for every jar sold from now until September 7th  $1 will be donated by OpenSky and I will also be making a donation for every jar sold as well to The Lunch Box Project.
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GREENLICIOUS

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I am so excited to show off my new Greenlicious t-shirt to you all! This green t-shirt is eco-friendly and has a wonderful vintage feel and great fit.  I am always nervous about ordering clothes before trying them on but I was assured that the shirts fit true to size and they really do. The shirt is soft and fits nicely against the body.

To tell you a little more about the HUMANWEAR, the company behind this shirt, I interviewed the Jellie Stanton the founder:

Q: Why did you choose to partner up with OpenSky?

I believe that OpenSky is a great new e-commerce platform for introducing innovative products to those who follow bloggers that they share common interests with and respect.  I’ve bought products myself based on recommendations from bloggers I follow.

Q: What is the inspiration behind the different shirts that you offer?

It all started after watching the documentary “Go Further” where Woody Harrelson and a group of friends take a road trip to demonstrate ways to be environmentally responsible.   I decided that I was going to become really involved in the green movement, just like they were hoping to inspire.

My desire was to form a company that would create the “greenest” t-shirt possible, that met the conditions of being stylish, really appealing colors that could be found in nature, with light-hearted yet thought-provoking messages, and was affordable.

Q: Besides making green t-shirts what other environmentally responsible practices does your company do?

We use recycled paper for our hangtags and gift cards and offer really cool recycled wrapping paper.  We also ship in recyclable boxes and buy carbon offsets so all shipments are made carbon-neutral.

Q: Tell me what is your favorite shirt?

My favorite t-shirt is COMMUNAL EVOLUTION-a collective push towards a higher state.  Woody talks about this concept in the movie and to me, it really sums up the idea that we must come together as a world-wide community to effect the change needed to preserve our planet.                  I also love HUMAN BEING because it says so much without you having to say anything.

Disclaimer: HUMANWEAR provided me with a discount to purchase this shirt of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway or add this to my OpenSky shop in return for a discount on this product.

Dining Out VT: Daily Planet

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The other night the Hubz and I decided that we wanted to have a date night out on the town with drinks and a fun meal at a restaurant neither of us had been to, Daily Planet. We have walked past here a number of times and have always wanted to stop in so we decided to branch out and try something new. We inquired first to find out if there were going to be any vegan options for us and they had a few so we decided to try.

Maura’s Salad  $9 with baby greens, roasted garlic, red grapes, toasted pecans, balsamic and grilled tofu

Summer Vegetable Crepe  $16 with grilled tofu, baby arugula and balsamic

Dirty Martini

Overall the Hubz and I weren’t too impressed with things although the Hubz just kept telling me how much he loved the pancake. That’s right pancake! The “crepe” was this big fluffy pancake and it really changed the dish completely. The best part of the “crepe” dish was the massive amount of chanterelles that were on top of it the “crepe”; however it was otherwise expensive for what it was. As for the salad it was pretty blah. I really didn’t enjoy that the greens had become super wilted and it was small for the $10 it cost me. Neil had a beer which was great and I had a dirty martini which was pretty awful. We haven’t totally written the place off because we did enjoy the atmosphere but it is a one more chance type of place.

  • Value: 1/5
  • Food: 2/5
  • Atmosphere: 3.5/5
  • Vegan Friendly: 2/5

Tamales and a Sunset

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Tonight’s local menu challenge is based on Grace’s Tamales from the Waitsfield Farmers Market.  Grace’s has delicious vegan tamales but from where we live now it would take over and hour to buy them as well as the fact we can only get them on Saturday’s.  Now the Hubz has been bugging me to make a vegan tamale recipe and I have been putting it off trying to figure out a way to make the tamales without all of the fat.

Traditionally tamales are made with a lot of lard or oil or vegetable shortening and it just wasn’t going to happen for me.

Low-Fat Black Bean & Corn Tamales

Ingredients:

14 dried corn husks, plus extra husks to make ties

2.5 cups frozen corn kernels, thawed
2 cups masa harina
1/2 cup warm vegetable broth
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons canola oil

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 small red onion, diced small
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
1t chili powder
salt and pepper

Directions:
 Place the corn husks in a bowl of water to soften for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse well. Pat dry and set aside.

In a food processor, process the 2.5 cups of corn kernels until pureed.

In a large bowl, combine the pureed corn, masa harina, lukewarm water, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and oil and use your hands to combine into a dough.

Spray a medium pan with cooking oil and place over medium-high heat. Add the onion, black beans, corn chili powder and salt and pepper and saute until the onions are soft and lightly browned; remove from the heat.

To assemble a tamale, place about 3 tablespoons of masa mixture in the center of corn husk. Flatten with your hand until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Place 1 tablespoon of the black beans on the masa mixture. Fold the long side of the corn husk over the filling to cover, then fold over the ends, overlapping them. Tie with a thin strip torn from an extra soaked husk. Repeat to make 14 tamales in all.

Layer the wrapped tamales in the steamer. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and steam until the filling becomes firm and the tamales are heated through, 50 to 60 minutes.

After dinner the Hubz and I went for a walk down the bridge behind our house to watch the sunset and we got to see this guy fly in:

Now off to relax with the Hubz!

P.S. Don’t forget that Almond Butter is for sale in my OpenSky Shop from now until September 7th.  A $1 from each jar sold will be donated to The Lunch Box by OpenSky as well I will make a donation for every jar sold.

Rain Crashed Our Camping Trip

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This Charming Couple Joined Us Friday Night

Sauteed Veggies

Fire Up the Grill Fajitas

Gucacamole

Tortillas

Delicious Organic and Vegan Beer

Nicobella Truffles - So delicious

The Best Coffee Of Your LIfe

The boys getting things working

Rise and Shine!

Morning!

Morning walk on Stowe Mountain Ski Resort before the rain and heading home a night early

Birthday Week of Madness

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I woke up bright and early this morning ready to seize the day however I ended up sitting on my computer planning out my life for the next 7+ days and I’m wondering when I am going to be able to take time to celebrate this birthday week.  It seems crazy that I have to schedule time off on the day of my birthday but when you are an assistant, a housekeeper, a cook, a student, a health counselor, a fur baby mama, an asipring runner, a blogger and an entrepreneur, scheduling time for fun things like my own birthday party is necessary.

For my own sanity I try not to have more than 10 items on my “To Do” list each day and one of those items is always just for me because I know that even with all the crazy and exciting (and not so exciting) things going on in my life that I still need to make time for me. I also have learned to delegate things to others like my husband so that I don’t have too many things going on.  For example he wanted BBQ Seitan this week so rather than me slave in the kitchen to make the entire meal and the seitan ahead of time he has been hired to make the seitan and BBQ sauce tomorrow night for Wednesday dinner which gives me more time for my studies.  I also have learned that it’s okay to say no.  You don’t have to constantly have your hands in everything and if it doesn’t fit into your schedule don’t force it otherwise you’ll burn yourself out.

My last “words of wisdom” are to evaluate what time of the day you are most productive and do top priority things during those times.  On the flip side of that take into account when you are the least focused and productive and don’t schedule anything after that time.  For me it’s generally around 9pm that I start to feel like I’m ready to end my day and basically nothing else is going to be done so that’s when I make time for reading blogs, catching up on shows, reading a good book or sometimes I just head to bed.  By doing this I can wake up the next morning and be ready for another day.

Top 5 Tips:

  • Make a list each morning or night of 10 things you need to do that day/following day; make sure that there are only 10 and that 1 of them is something for you (i.e. reading, exercise, massage, shopping, meditating, ect).
  • Delegate! You don’t have to be super woman/man; if your list starts to creep past 10 things then ask others for help.
  • Say No once in awhile.
  • Take time to evaluate when you are most productive; are you a morning person? or a night person?
  • BREATHE! Yes that’s right take time to breathe and center yourself.  Whenever you are feeling overwhelmed take a break and take 10 slow, deep breathes.