Summer Side Dishes

My friend Shannon is awesome! Not only is she one of the sweetest, prettiest and funniest people I know, she is an amazing graphic designer - she designed our wedding invitations!

And she's tough! She She picked up and moved herself from San Diego to Tuscon a few years ago - all by herself! And just when I thought she couldn't get any cooler - she surprised me by making one of my recipes!!

A Sandwich Even I Could Love

After a long day at work, I wasn't feeling like a very creative cook ... until I looked in the fridge and remembered the big bag of yellow squash from my CSA box!

We also had a bag of wheat hamburger buns. So I decided to grill the squash and make a sandwich. It may not sound that exciting, but I can't get over how good it turned out! And I'm not usually a big fan of sandwiches.

Fresh and Delicious MarinaRAW

It's been a few weeks since I've tried any new raw recipes, or even tried to eat raw. I just kind of lost interest with all the effort.

But tonight was the perfect night for a raw meal. It was still pretty warm when I got home and I'm trying to eat lighter after an over-indulgent weekend.

I had a bunch of roma tomatoes and some seaweed noodles so I decided to try and make a raw marinara. There are two different recipes in my raw book, so I made up my own based on the ingredients I had and what sounded good.

I've tried to make cooked marinara with fresh tomatoes in the past and failed. But I think the secret is the addition of sun-dried tomatoes. It adds the depth of flavor you'd get from canned tomato paste - without the BPAs (the resin in the cans that gets broken down by the acidity of the tomatoes).

So, here's how I did it:

Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed in the Kitchen

I don't think I'm necessarily a clumsy person, but for some reason I'm always doing dumb stuff in the kitchen. And since I've been spending a lot more time in there, my list of recent mishaps is long!

Very Vegan Vegas Vacation

This week we packed up the dog and headed off to Pat's parents' condo in Las Vegas. We got there on Wednesday afternoon, stepped out of the car and our faces almost melted off. It was 111 degrees!

Thank goodness for the condo's air conditioning, the pool and cold beer.

We both took the week off from work, but a big project kept me working every day. So, I didn't have much time to look for places to eat. I was so excited when Pat surprised me on Wednesday night by finding a vegan/vegetarian restaurant in the area. He's such a good sport!

Cauliflower is the New Chickpea

My raw eating efforts have been few and far between lately, but I'm still trying to eat as many fruits and vegetables as possible and I've still been experimenting in the kitchen to keep myself entertained!

In fact, I made up a new hummus recipe and it was really good! And, it just happens to be raw... :)

I got the idea from the raw zucchini hummus. I had bought a whole head of
cauliflower because I wanted to try and make the raw mock mashed potato recipe, but then I
decided that sounded kind of gross. So, I decided to try and find a more creative way to use it.

Yummy Spicy 'Peanut' Raw Noodle Dish

Not only did my dear friend Kate get me started on this raw journey, by lending me her raw diet book, she also gave me tons of helpful tips. One of them was to get some kelp noodles - stat!

I found them at Jimbos a few weeks ago and first tried them with pesto. When Kate said they were kind of crunchy, I wasn't sure what she meant until I tasted them. It was great to have noodles that weren't zucchini and didn't taste like part of a salad. But, the crunchiness was kind of weird.

This time, I tried them with a spicy "peanut" sauce, which was a perfect combo! I also soaked the noodles in warm water for about 10 minutes and I think that softened them up a little. This is one of my favorite raw dishes so far!

Living the Raw-ish, Vegan-ish Life

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to find some balance with my new way of eating. I've managed to do another few days in a row of eating all raw, but that's as far as I've been able to go so far.

But otherwise, I've still been eating vegan - except for a few times lately where I broke down and ate some cheese. I've had to lighten up about that a little. Once was at a work event where the only non-meat option was a veggie sandwich with goat cheese spread all over the veggies. The other time was a veggie burger I ordered and started eating when I realized it had cheese in the patty. Oh well, I've come to the conclusion that a little cheese here and there isn't going to kill me! Though I do want to try and avoid it as much as I can. 

So, on the raw front, I've made a few more fun things - chips and two different kinds of hummus.