Healthy and Delicious Vegetable Soup

So, this past weekend I went up to Prescott and then Flagstaff to spend some time with my parents and to go skiing with my Dad. I hadn't gone skiing since I was very little so it was definitely interesting... I got up at 6 am (which is SO early for me... closer to my usual bedtime than the time I usually wake up!) and we got to the Flagstaff Snowbowl around 8. I was pretty unsure of my abilities and was basically downright terrified for the first bit. I could only go across the slope in an ever-so-slight decline (as opposed to going vertically down the slope) at a snail pace... and I was on the bunny hill (which toddlers were learning on!). BUT, we took a two hour lesson from 10-12 and it helped so much! I fell a few times, but after a couple tries I was able to stop myself, turn, speed up and slow down, and actually go down the slope in the direction intended. After the lesson, I was able to go down the entirety of the hill easily and even rode the ski lift to one of the higher starting points and managed to ski from there as well!

Unfortunately during the first half of the day I stupidly forgot to put on sunscreen... even though it was just a few morning hours, my face got SCORCHED! Having never really skied before I didn't know snow sunburn was such a serious thing. Basically you get double sunburn from the sun reflecting off the bright white snow. Anyways, by the next day my face was bright pink (aside from a few attractive pale sections from my hat... ugh) and blistered! The blisters turned to scabs and now for the past couple days my face has been dry, tight, flaky, and still bright red. I can't WAIT for it to heal and for my face to go back to normal. Working the counter at Brooklyn on Sunday and Monday was NOT fun.

That was really the only low of my weekend... the rest of the (short) time was spent with my aunt and uncle in Flagstaff and my parents in Prescott. I don't have the opportunity to come home all that often, but it's nice when I do because it's kind of like being a teenager again. I can sleep in my old (pink) room with all my old things, sit on an actual couch (not a futon!) and watch an actual tv (not a laptop!), and eat from a fridge full of food I didn't have to pay for (or cook!). The last thing is particularly nice because my parents eat very healthfully... and they have the money and skillz to do it right and make it super delicious!  I try to be very health conscious down here in Tucson, but it's expensive.. and between cooking from scratch every day (on top of school, work, and everything else), researching recipes, and meticulously calculating, counting, and recording calories... it is work. When I can open a fridge and have a ton of fresh, healthy stuff already there ready to eat, it makes me happy.

And that's where this vegetable soup comes in. My mom made some last week from a recipe loosely based on the 7 day diet 'wonder soup' (oh gee, another crash diet that has you eat practically no calories in order to lose 10 pounds in a week- miraculous!). This version bulks up the veggies, adds spices, vegetable broth, and tomatoes (and V8, if you like) for flavoring, and comes with no hyperbolic weight loss claims! At 60 calories a cup though, it doesn't really need to.

I ate this with a simple soup for lunch 2 of the 3 days I was out of town... it probably would have been 3 for 3 but I spent one of the days on the slopes! It is SO yummy and filling. I liked it so much that today, 3 days after being back in Tucson, I whipped up a batch for dinner tonight and lunch for the next few days. It was so easy too. If you're looking for a simple, low calorie, nutritious meal you can eat throughout the week, definitely try this one out! It's the perfect thing alongside a salad or sandwich.

I was going to take pictures while I was making this to go with the recipe... I took a picture of the veggies sauteing... and then put my camera down and forgot about it. Oops. I do have a picture of the finished product before I had it at my parents' house.

Simple Vegetable Soup 
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced
2 large celery stalks, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp  fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (omit if you do not like heat)
1 box (4 cups) vegetable broth (I used Safeway O Organics brand)
1 14.5 oz can diced italian stewed tomatoes (regular Safeway brand)
1/2 head cabbage, roughly chopped
2 cups baby spinach
4 cups water (or v8, if desired)

1. Heat olive oil in large pot.
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, and bell pepper. Sautee 5 minutes, or until slightly softened.
3. Add salt, pepper, spices, and garlic. Continue to cook until veggies begin to brown.
4. Add vegetable broth and tomatoes. Bring to a boil.
5. Add cabbage. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until beginning to soften.
6. Add spinach. Stir to incorporate until spinach has fully wilted.
7. Add water and/or v8 and boil to reach desired broth:veggie ratio. Taste and adjust  seasonings.

That's it!

This recipe (made with water) makes about 9.5 cups with a 1 cup serving equaling about 60 calories.
The total calories for the recipe is only 557! Crazy, right? It will be about 200 more if you use 4 cups of v8 as opposed to water... so then it would be about 80 calories a cup. Still fantastic.

The salad is a mix of spinach, arugula, and kale with cucumber, carrot, cherry tomatoes, onion, celery, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for dressing.

Fall Fix-Up: Nutrition

This week is going to be a double fall fix up, because I didn't have time to post last week! To be honest I haven't really had time to post ever, and it makes me sad. Between school, work, homework, trips to prescott to visit linn/friends/parents, housekeeping, and maintaining a wee bit of a social life, I've found I really have no time at all. I look forward to the day when I don't have to work AND go to school. just one or the other is fine with me. Anyways, I hope that one of these days I will not have so much work to do and have enough free time to blog regularly like my heart desires :)

Today I'm going to be talking about nutrition, and tomorrow, since I have my personal finance and family planning midterm, I will be talking about money.

Nutrition is something I care about a lot. I've been a vegetarian since I was 13 years old, although I've flipflopped quite a bit- sometimes going to one end of the spectrum and eating a vegan/raw diet, and sometimes "cheating" frequently, as I did in Greece over the summer. There are a few rules I always try to stick to though, and I'd like to share them with you.

1. Eat Food. If you've read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, you've heard this one before. Actually, that book has a lot of good tips and you should check it out. It's a quick read- took me an hour while lounging on the beach in mexico last winter. anyways, this isn't as simple as it seems. It rules out a lot of the things you find at the supermarket. Read the ingredients on the things you eat, and if you can't picture in your mind one of the ingredients, it's not food. If your grandmother wouldn't know what it is, it probably isn't food. This can be expanded upon by saying "eat whole food". as in, things that are one ingredient. fresh fruits and vegetables are best. The fewer ingredients listed, the better usually.

2. Don't eat until you're full. Eat until you aren't hungry anymore. In french, one says "J'ai faim", which means "I have hunger". There is no way to say "I'm full", rather, you say "Je n'ai pas faim", meaning, 'I do not have hunger". Eat with this mentality. It takes 20 minutes for the brain to process a full stomach, so if you stop eating when you're full, you're already 20 minutes too late. Something that goes along with this tip is "drink your food and chew your drink", meaning take the time to chew your food thoroughly and enjoy it, and keep your drink in your mouth long enough to fully appreciate it. Not only does this make eating more enjoyable, it slows down your pace and keeps you from scarfing everything down before your brain can process it.

3. In my experience, counting calories is the best way to lose weight. I like to think of it as science. a pound is about 3500 calories, which means if you want to lose one pound you have to burn 3500 calories more than you consume. If you figure out approximately how many calories you burn in a day just from the processes of living, you can figure out how many calories you can eat (without exercise) to maintain your current weight. Then it's just a matter of reducing that number and/or adding exercise to your daily routine. Eat like you normally do, but count your calories for a day. You will probably be amazed at how much you actually consume. This website has been very helpful to me, and a lot of restaurant websites now carry nutritional information as well. I like to keep a food diary or use the My Fitness app on my droid in order to keep track of my daily calories- it really helps to be knowledgeable about just what you're consuming each day.

4. Ignore the food pyramid. 6-11 servings of bread/grains a day? Are they kidding? when was the last time you you ate 9 slices of bread or servings of rice or pasta in one day? It was evident to me early on that this model of nutrition was not going to work for me- find something that works for you. I prefer to eat mostly fruits and vegetables, maybe 2-3 servings of grains a day, and 1-2 servings of dairy/protein. It's different for every body though and as long as you are getting the vitamins you need and are minimizing fatty, sugary, starchy foods, you should be fine.

5. "easy" doesn't mean "healthy". I'm astounded every time I look on pinterest and I see a slew of pins of "Easy weeknight meals!". They usually are some combination of chicken, cream cheese, pasta, and a crockpot. and various other dairy products. these are the kinds of meals I see as comfort food that I would make for myself while wallowing in a boatload of self pity or spending a night in with sappy movies and a snowstorm. They are not things I would ever feed my hypothetical children on a regular weeknight as a regular nutritious supper. So don't fall for quick and easy recipes that also happen to be starchy and fattening. There are plenty of almost as quick and easy recipes out these that are actually nutritious and chock full of good stuff like veggies and whole grains :)

6. If any slight part of you has ever lightly considered eating vegetarian or vegan, look into it further. I recommend the book skinny bitch, especially for younger adult women. It's a lifestyle that is so rewarding both to you and to the animals you save, and there are so many wonderful substitutes out there that you will never miss meat, dairy, eggs, etc. Of course this is not to say that you have to be a vegetarian or a vegan to be healthy. It's just one way to do it :)

7. Eat whatever you want. This is the most important tip. Yes, I count calories and try to eat vegan and look for whole, healthy foods, but if I want to eat a giant bowl of fettucini alfredo or 7 chocolate chip cookies I let myself, and I don't feel guilty. Yes, I want to be healthy so that I can look good, feel good, and live a long, healthy life, but I also want to have a good time while I'm here. Food is fun, and a lot of food that isn't very good for us is freakin' delicious. As long as you don't eat it very often, it's ok to say to hell with nutrition and let yourself eat it every once in a while. That's what life is about. The little pleasures. In general, be healthy and do what's best for your body- but don't let that stop you from enjoying life and enjoying food :)

Those are my nutrition tips for today. I will try to be back a little later in the week with a few calorie controlled recipes, and I will do my best to be here tomorrow with my fall fix up- finance post.

have a happy, healthy thursday!

<3
Em

my new(ish) favorite way to start the day

This summer, I have found the secret to bright-eyed mornings, refreshing and healthy yet delicious food, easy weight-loss, and general happiness and well-being. I've also found the meaning of life. Excited yet? Perhaps I exaggerate a bit... but seriously, I've found a breakfast to end all breakfasts. In my opinion. Of course... I kind of detest breakfast so I guess my opinion isn't much to go on.

I'm sure half of you are gasping in shock and clicking the unfollow button- for how could one not like breakfast? People are serious about their breakfast, man... some people even eat it for dinner. I don't know. I can't explain it. I've never really been into eating mountains of doughy or bready stuff sopping with sugary syrup that early in the morning... and eggs have always kind of been meh. As for sausage and bacon... I just never really fell in love with it the way the rest of the world seemed to. maybe it's the vegetarian thing. I can appreciate a good eggs benedict though, provided the meat is substituted with sauteed greens or grilled tomatoes or artichoke hearts or something and they use real hollandaise sauce. Because seriously, how can anyone dislike something that's smothered in hollandaise sauce?

I'm getting off topic. Not liking the typical breakfast food can be difficult in a grand-slam kind of world. I did oatmeal for a while, then chocolate protein shakes, then cereal, then fruit and granola and yogurt, and then just fruit. I like eating fruit for breakfast because it's refreshing, delicious, and low calorie, but it still wakes my body up and gets my metabolism going. This summer though, I decided to mix it up. Enter my parents' blender.

Yep. That's my super awesome secret to everything wonderful. Breakfast smoothies. You're free to go.

Seriously, though! Breakfast smoothies are freaking amazing. The ones I make range from 150-250 cals each and fill pint sized glasses with some usually left in the blender. They are soooo delicious, take a while to consume since you sip it slowly (usually while doing something else, like blogging for instance...), give you an awesome boost of energy, fill you up for hours, AND they're super duper healthy, being low fat, low cal, and chock full of fresh fruit and vegetables and all.

I've been drinking these every day this summer... except for when I went to Greece for 5 weeks. Breakfast in Greece, by the way, made me pine for a big ol' stack of that bready syrupy nastiness. It's bad. Like really, really, really bad. Most times it consisted of shitty coffee, one type of cereal which was the same at every place, room temperature milk, and about 9 types of breads and random pound cakes on which to spread unsalted butter and individually packaged jams. If you were lucky there might be some hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt, or sliced cheese and processed bologna like meat. But fresh fruit? Oh hell no. You're going to eat bread and bologna for breakfast and you're gonna like it.

I hated it.

But now I'm back, and the age of smoothies has begun again!

also, not to like, toot my own horn or anything, but I've lost about 12 pounds this summer. Not saying that it's all to do with drinking smoothies in the morning, but yeah, it totally is.

so whip one up and have it for breakfast tomorrow. It will give you super powers and you will feel like the most amazing person on earth!

Here's what I've been drinking lately:

1 cup frozen blueberries (get the giant bag of them at costco, they will last FOREVER)
1 cup spinach or kale (you can't even taste or see it in the final product, but it's so good for you!)
1/2 a banana
1/2 a fuji apple
1/2 cup water, or soymilk if you're feeling frisky.

dump it all in a blender, turn the blender on. done. total cals: 169, or 214 if you use soymilk.

here's what I'm drinking right now:

1 cup frozen blueberries
2 cups diced watermelon
1 cup spinach
1/2 cup soymilk

total cals: 217. It's so creamy and sweet and light and delicious. and a kajillion times healthier than jamba or robeks!

Tomorrow I'm going to start posting greece pictures. Prepare to be wowed! Or bored. we'll see :)

love you all! happy monday, by the way :)

<3
Ems

Tasty Tuesdays: Ratatouille

 I've got a file in my photos section on my computer titles 'blog photos'. within this file there are several other files, one of them being 'food'. Within that file there is a slew of recipe photos i snapped eons ago but never had the time or motivation to post. Every once in a while, like today, i decide to peek in that file and debate whether or not to post any of the recipes... and i always decide against it. This time, however, I noticed a recipe that I couldn't believe I hadn't already posted. In fact, I did a google search through my blog just to make sure I hadn't because I couldn't really understand why I wouldn't have posted it. Apparently I didn't, though, so now it gets to be this week's tasty tuesday feature.

Ratatouille is a wonderful dish. It's light, flavorful, and full of delicious summery vegetables like squash, zucchini, and eggplant. It's also incredibly beautiful while maintaining a simplicity and ease that makes it appropriate for a weeknight meal.

Also there's a cute little rat movie named after it so um, yeah... irresistible.

btw, excuse the flash-ified pics. I made this months and months ago at the old apartment down in tucson which had the worst lighting in history. the fact that i didn't get out of class till after night fall and did most of my blog cooking for dinner didn't help with that either.

Ratatouille
Ingredients
1/2 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small, thin eggplant
1 small, long zucchini
1 small, long yellow squash
1 long red pepper
fresh or dried thyme
salt and pepper
rice, couscous, or quinoa for serving
italian parsley and/or goats cheese for serving- opt

Ratatouille starts with a simple tomato sauce base that the rest of the veggies cook in. Who doesn't love things cooked in tomato sauce? so good.

Preheat the oven to 375. In a shallow baking dish, combine the tomato paste and water. A good way to make sure you get all the tomato paste out of a can is to open it at both ends and then use one end to push the tomato-ey goodness out. like a push pop!

 mix well so that a thick-ish sauce is formed. add the onion, garlic, and 1 tbsp of the olive oil and stir well. season generously with salt and pepper. 

Using a mandoline or a very, very sharp knife, thinly slice the eggplant, zucchini, squash, and pepper. exclude the ends, obviously. Try to get as thin of slices as possible.

Starting from an outside edge, begin layering slices of veggies over the tomato sauce in a pretty pattern. Go around in a spiral until you get to the center and there is no more room for veggies. You will probably have quite a bit left over, depending on the size of your baking dish.

Drizzle the remaining tbsp of olive oil over the veggies and then season them with salt, pepper, and a couple pinches of fresh or dried thyme. Grab a sheet of foil or parchment paper and cut it so that it fits over the veggies- this will trap in the steam and keep the veggies moist while they bake.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until veggies are tender and cooked but not limp. They should retain their color and structure and the tomato sauce should be bubbling up around them.

Serve on top of couscous, rice, or quinoa and garnish with italian parsley or goats cheese.

 p.s., this meal is vegan. don't you just love vegan-by-accident dishes? i know i do.

happy eating!

food on the mind

so, i just realized that yesterday I posted a whole thing about how I have no motivation and then this morning I posted motivation tips. Hah! The latter was scheduled so I kind of just forgot when it was going to be posted... but still. ridiculous.

anyways, i've got food on my mind- even more than it usually is! I know i keep slipping it in here and there that I'm nervous/excited for this summer, but I've avoided really saying why. Now that the time is getting closer though, I'm gonna lay it out for you all :)

Every summer in mid-july my sis and I attend a sufi youth retreat for ages 16-29. It's 5 days long and always a total blast, and for the most part it's run by the youths that attend it. This year, my sis and I have picked up the baton from the wonderful people who have been leading things the last few years. Jenny has the real big job of being co-camp director and spiritual leader, while I have the less-crazy job of being head chef.

It's seriously a dream come true- I've been going to this camp and the family camp the follows it since I was 3 years old and the food is always one of the best things about it. Wholesome, organic, diverse, delicious. Cooking is one of my favorite things to do, especially when it's for other people... and the idea of getting paid for it suits me real nice! haha.

At the same time though, terrifying! I've helped cook at these camps before, but going from that to being head chef is a huge step to take. Luckily I've worked in restaurants and I've trained people so working in a high-pressure environment and having to tell people what to do shouldn't be too difficult. I've also already begun working on and testing out recipes- something my boyfriend has been very appreciative of while my bank account has not :) The thing that really terrifies me is the execution- I'm going to be heading to the camp literally hours after touching down in San Francisco from Greece. I'm depending on Stewart and a couple other people to transport a lot of the food to the campsite. I don't have the time or the money to make the volumes of these dishes that will be used at the camp ahead of time... so I'm just hoping my measurements work out. I hope everyone likes the food... I hope I don't crash and burn, basically.

Anyways, enough of that doubt! Here's the part where it gets fun for you guys... I have been revamping a lot of recipes I already cook often and that's led to some awesome discoveries. For example, last night I made a giant pan full of vegan paneer masala. It tasted just like the high-dairy high-fat version that I made on this a few months ago- only it was completely animal product free and way healthier! If you want to try it out, here are the changes to make to the recipe:
- instead of butter/ghee, use melted earth balance
- instead of making paneer, press all the water out of a block of extra firm tofu and cut it into cubes. While baking it (after it has marinaded) space the cubes out so they can brown nicely.
- use plain soy yogurt instead of regular yogurt (you can find it at whole foods and other natural food stores)
- Use plain, sugar free soymilk (on the ingredients it should just say soybeans and water. trader joes has a good kind that's only like 2 dollars a carton) instead of half and half

also, I made some sushi- yes, there is going to be sushi at camp! I'm only using veggies and smoked salmon though to avoid the whole raw fish danger. Also, there will be a vegetable sesame chow mein available for those weird people who don't like sushi. I don't want to give up all my recipes, but I will give you a kinda fun and different one that I wont be serving anyways! I wanted to make a spicy salmon roll, but I didn't have any sriracha for the spicy factor. The only hot sauce I had was tapatillo. So I ended up with a really yummy and definitely different mexican-flavored sushi roll! For instructions on how to make sushi rice/roll sushi check out my previous post here.

to make a spicy salmon roll with mexican flair, use 1-2 smoked salmon fillets. mince them until they are kind of a textured mush... but in a good way, you know? haha. mince up one clove of garlic and mix it in with the salmon. Grab some tapatillo, tobasco, cholulah, or your own favorite mexican hot sauce, and drizzle it all over the garlic/salmon mixture. use your knife to kind of chop the sauce into the salmon, until the whole thing is a brilliant red. taste and add more sauce if it isn't spicy enough. use the whole mixture to make one uber delicious sushi roll!

The spicy salmon rolls are the orange-ish ones. I also made a philly roll and a 'flagstaff' roll, which is what one of my fave local restaurants calls their vegetarian roll.

This week I've also made a fantastic vegan taco meat, vegan chili, and a couple other things... but those recipes are sticking with me for now :)

I'm sure as the april and may progress I'll have lots more fun photos and recipes to share with you guys :) Happy humpday!

St Paddy's Countdown Day 2

Today was SUCH an epic day of cooking. Seriously, like 6 hours of it. But you guys are in for some awesome irish fare! I made some delish vegan corned beef and cabbage as well as 4 rounds of irish soda bread. I also made my fave colcannon, which you can find here- I just now added the pics to that post though! On a whim I also decided to make some old fashioned sugar cookies with green 7 minute frosting. In the end, my fam and I had practically a thanksgiving feast in front of us for dinner- and there is tons left for me to take on our st paddy's camping trip tomorrow! yay.

Alright, it's late, so let's dive right in to the good stuff.

First, Irish soda bread!
My dad used to make this from time to time, and my grandma made it when he was a kid (and sometimes for me as well!). They make it with caraway seeds, so I wanted to be sure to do the same. I also found a yummy recipe for soda bread made with browned butter, rosemary, and black pepper, though- so I decided to double the batch and do half with rosemary and half with caraway seeds. They both turned out fantastic! I did figure out a bit too late though that the recipe already made two rounds of bread- so i ended up with four. No big deal though ;)

Start by preheating the oven to 375 and mixing together 3.5 cups of flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 cup oats, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp black pepper, and 1 tbsp caraway seeds or fresh, chopped rosemary. as you can see from the pic I didn't add caraway seeds or rosemary at this point, but rather waited until the dough was formed so I could easily halve it.

Next, melt 1/4 cup of butter in a small saucepan and allow it to brown quite a bit. Once melted, pour into the dry ingredients along with 1.75 cups buttermilk (I used milk and a few tbsp vinegar set out at room temp for a few minutes)

Mix well and then turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Divide in half.

At the point I added 1 tbsp caraway seeds to one half and 1 tbsp rosemary another half. I then divided those halves in half.

Form into round loaves and score the top.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 45 minutes or until a knife stuck all the way through the middle comes out clean.

yummy! serve hot with butter- whipped with honey or herbs if you like!

Now for the vegan corned beef and cabbage. This is so simple, so delicious, and quite healthy!

Begin by cutting two medium yellow onions into wedges. Sautee in a large pot with 1 tbsp of olive oil for about ten mins, or until just beginning to turn brown.

Then chop up 4 carrots into two inch, quartered pieces. I used about 50 baby carrots instead because walmart didn't have any regular carrots. can you believe that? ridiculous. Also thickly slice two stalks of celery and finely slice half a head of cabbage.

When the onions are slightly brown, add the other veggies to the pot along with four cups of vegetable broth, 1 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp rubbed sage, 1 tsp mustard seeds (or dry mustard), 1 tsp vegan horseradish, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp black pepper.

Stir to combine and then cover the pot and allow the contents to cook for 15 minutes. Then add one pkg (about 8-9 oz) of beef substitute- I typically use morningstar steak strips, but there are many other yummy brands as well. You can also use seitan. Cover and cook for another 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. Once the 15 minutes are up, use a slotted spoon to remove the veggies and meat from the remaining juices in the pot.

In a small bowl, combine 1 tbsp red wine, 1/4 cup water, and 2 tbsp flour. slowly add this mixture to the remaining juices and  stir well. Cook until the gravy reaches desired consistency, and then pour over the veggies and meat. Serve and enjoy!

yummmm. admittedly not the prettiest dish I've ever seen, but it is very tasty. definitely something every vegetarian should have on their st patrick's day menu!

I also made some cookies, which weren't too exciting, but photographed well.

yikes, total sugar bombs! haha. don't forget to check out last year's colcannon post to see the pretty new pictures that go along with the recipe!

hooray! tomorrow I am driving a few miles out of town with some friends to spend the day out in nature camping and having a blast- but i'll try to get that last blog post up anyhow!

Love,
Em

Lemony Greek Pasta

I've begun to post this recipe three or four separate times, but I always get stumped on what really to say about it. Basically, I took my very favorite potato recipe which I have yet to post and swapped the potatoes for farfalle pasta. The results were intense.

An Outlook on Food

There is so much information and research out there about what is good for you, what type of eating lifestyle is the healthiest, and what type of standards you should have when buying food. It can all be pretty confusing. I have personally been an omnivore, vegetarian, and a vegan at different points in my life, and each lifestyle has valid points defending it's healthiness. This blog started out primarily vegan, but you may have noticed that recently some things have been decidedly non-vegan. Over the years, I've shaped what I think is a healthy outlook on food that minimizes harm to animals and maximized flavor. Now, I'm going to elaborate on this outlook so it's a little more clear what goes into the planning for my recipes and food choices.

Grilled Tofu Steaks with Cilantro-Basil Pesto and Lemony Asparagus

Didn't I promise you a summery recipe? What's more summery that grilled asparagus, fresh squeezed lemon, zingy pesto, and crusty blackened tofu? This is something I made with my mom for the Fourth of July and it's been hanging out in my big folder of "Blog Photos" ever since. Finally, on the last day of summer when most people have probably closed up their grills for good, I'm posting it.

Zucchini Pasta Salad

I just got back from my annual retreat in the lovely Mendocino woodlands of Northern California. Stewie came with me this time and it was a lot of fun! We got to meet up with my sister, her boyfriend, and some of her other friends... as well as visit our wonderful friend Marby! We got to go to the beach, eat on the pier, chill in the hotel jacuzzi, and drive all over L.A. I can't wait for the next road trip :)

Anyways, I'm back now and I've got a bunch of recipes! I basically did no cooking on my 12 day vacation, but I've got a couple from right before I left and right after I got back. I finally took pictures of my favorite Potato recipe! But that's for another day... Today is a bit more healthy.

For July Fourth weekend, my Mom invited me over to help her make some food for dinner. My rents have been on a vegan/vegetarian health kick for the past few months which I think is really great! Every time I go over for dinner we always make really interesting and filling meals in which fresh vegetables dominate. When I came over on the Fourth, we weren't really sure what we were going to make but we had a ton of fresh basil, squash, and zucchini. One of the recipes we came up with was one I had been thinking about for a long time because it's on tons of different vegan and raw websites. Zucchini Pasta!

Honey-Glazed 'Chicken' Enchiladas

Ok. It's been a while. I know. I have no excuses. Well, I do, but none that can explain away over a month of silence. What can I say? I'm just busy! I've been in Arizona for almost a month and a half now, and I've been trying to squeeze as much out of the gorgeous desert summer as I can. I even managed to find an awesome summer job, working as a server/counter girl for an super-cool pizza joint downtown. When I'm not there, I'm camping, swimming, seeing old friends, or cooking... and forgetting to take pictures of it so I can post it. Thing is... the apartment kitchen is a little cramped for all the stunning food photography that I feel a proper blog post is worthy of. But there I go making excuses again. Honestly though, how do those famous food bloggers do it? I feel like they all live in their own perfect world where it's always spring time, there are farmers markets everyday, no one has to work and everyone has endless funds. Maybe I'll get there someday, but for now I'll just have to cope with my minimum wage job, tiny apartment, and elusive free-time.

Busy busy... and a Cinco de Mayo recipe!

It's been a couple weeks since my last post. This has been for a few reasons, mostly the crazy business I've been experiencing what with finals and projects and packing up EVERYTHING I own here and getting it back to Arizona. It's been... intense. But now the storm has passed! Everything I still have here- except for my pjs, an outfit for tomorrow, and my comforter- is packed into three suitcases, a shoulder bag, and one last box to be shipped first thing in the morning. My four crazy projects are completed, three out of four finals have been attended, the choir's performance of Carmina Burana went off without a hitch, and tomorrow I will go to my last final (a Biology poster symposium) and then hop in a cab to make my 1:50 flight. It's pretty crazy that twenty-four hours separate me from the end of my freshman year of college in Portland and the beginning of a four month summer in Arizona. I don't think it's hit me yet.

Anyways, that's why I've taken so long to post anything- the blog kind of got put on the back burner when I realized how much I had to do before leaving. During the elapsed time, though, my Mom came to visit me and not only did I get a camera cord (so I can upload pictures again!), we had the time/facilities/money to go out to eat, and do some cooking ourselves! I was soooo happy to actually eat well for four days. I mean, really, Bon (the dining hall here at Lewis and Clark)? Curry bars every other day? Vinegar-soaked parsnips? Spinach-apple pie? I get the whole "international" and "interesting" thing you're going for, but cut it out, please.

Microwave Brownies

I said before that my "kitchen" consists of nothing more than a mini fridge and a microwave in a dorm room. This isn't entirely true- my residence hall has one small kitchen on the first floor that anyone can use. I've used it twice, and both times vowed never to use it again. The first time was the first weekend of the fall semester, when my roommate K and I made vegan ginger-molasses cookies. Many months passed before the second time I ventured back down there, which was this year's Superbowl Sunday. It wasn't to make vegan hot wings or pizza (although those are both awesome), but to make Smitten Kitchen's Homemade Oreos to send to my boyfriend S in Arizona for Valentine's Day. It was out of pure fondness for this hallmark holiday and adoration for S that I sucked it up and carried my heaping pile of ingredients, mixing bowl, and single cookie sheet down into that dingy kitchen for the afternoon. The experience could only be described as catastrophic.

Stocking a Vegan Kitchen

True, I am a mere dorm-residing college student, bound to a required meal plan and without much more than a mini-fridge and a microwave for a kitchen. The microwave doubles as a table for my printer, and the mini-fridge is usually stocked with fruit I "liberate" from the dining hall and really not a whole lot else. However, in my dream world I would have a big kitchen and it would be full of all the wonderful wholesome necessities of a vegan diet.

Luckily, the caterers for my school take vegan-ism into account, so I don't have to scrounge very hard to find decent things to eat. I still keep a few of my favorite things on hand though, for those times when I can't stomach another cube of poorly roasted tofu or slice of gelatinous berry pie. Following is a list of not only my favorites, but also pretty much everything else that is essential for a vegan or vegetarian kitchen- for all you who have to go grocery shopping on a regular basis.

Here We Go...

So! I've decided at long last to jump on this whole blog bandwagon thing before it gets so popular EVERYONE has one, and then fizzles out (ahem, myspace...). I've thought blogs are a pretty interesting new outlet for information and creativity for a while now, and being a communications major/art minor, I figure I should fit right in.