make this: hummamole

Hi, blog! Right now it's a bit difficult for me to pull my head out of the book I'm reading, Abarat: Absolute Midnight. (It's the third installation in a really fun series by Clive Barker, one of my favorite authors, and I waited seven long years to read it! It does not disappoint and I want to do nothing but read it. Whoops!) But I reluctantly left its pages to drop by the blog and share this awesome recipe with you guys.


(see, told you I can't leave the book alone.)

Hummamole! If you are anything like me and you obsessively love hummus and guacamole and make them all the time, you will not be disappointed by this recipe, which is from Quick-fix Vegan and can be found here. It may sound weird but it's actually a great combination. Hopefully you're luckier than me and possess an actual food processor instead of a blender and a magic bullet, the combined efforts of which are nearly futile with making hummus. I didn't have the pinch of cayenne but it did fine without. I also think next time I'll substitute lime juice for the lemon to play up the taste of the avocado a little more. I made pita chips (easy: bake lightly oiled pita bread in the oven at 400 for fiveish minutes) to eat it with, but I think it would taste really great with plantain chips, too.

So make this tasty dip and enjoy!

lonely lunch: agavemustard & a dessert smoothie

Hans left bright and early this morning for New Orleans. That's quite a haul from Georgia and he's going to be gone for five days. It's day one and I already miss him. Silly! He's off to some science convention to present the research he's been doing. He's such a fancy pants, and I love it. Eating without him is lonely business (we're obsessed with food), but I'm trying not to miss him too much and instead eat to my heart's content like always.

So today I threw together almost every random scrap of food we had in the refrigerator, and I was impressed with my results.


I have always been a honey mustard lover. But, I also love bees, so now I choose to refrain from eating honey. I've switched to agave nectar when I need that sweet, syrupy fix (and even to replace sugar, the stuff's a miracle). Today it dawned on me that I could probably make something very like honey mustard if I used agave nectar, and this recipe was born.


I don't like to rely on mock-meats very often, but when I do Gardein is my jam. It's the tastiest stuff out there. So I had a few of these beefless tips (hate that name!) left over from quesadillas a few nights ago, and I decided they would taste great with an agave mustard glaze.

So! Do it up like this:
Mix equal parts agave and mustard (I prefer raw agave and organic mustard, but use what you will).
Fry up Gardein tips in a pan with some oil, and when they are almost-almost done, pour the agave mustard glaze over them to finish them up (but save some glaze for dipping!)
And you're done!

And in my household, no meal is complete without a smoothie, so I whipped this one up, inspired by the tasty treat I had at The Loving Hut last night (Hans took me out for dinner before he left for his trip. My boy is a sweetheart♥)

For this one I prefer to use peanut butter without any nasty hydrogenated oils in it, and of course vegan chocolate chips. I also added a hint of agave nectar for sweetness but I think it may have been unnecessary. Now, Hans swears chocolate chips are pointless in a smoothie but I can totally taste them and I don't know what he's talking about. But if you want to take the healthier route, nix the chocolate chips and feel good about this protein-rich and tasty treat.


I heated up some frozen veggies and stirred some Earth Balance and pepper in with them and called this meal complete. This was delicious friends. I highly recommend you try it out.

foodz: easy as heck pasta salad

This is an old favorite of my family's. It's really simple and easily altered to suit individual tastes. We used to do it up with feta cheese and such but now I do it vegan style and my family does, too. So here it is, the easiest pasta salad ever.


Shorten or lengthen the ingredient list as you wish. My mom always adds tomatoes but I'm a tomato hater so you'll find none in this dish I cooked up for lunch the other day. Also, not pictured are the noodles! I used angel hair this time but I've used anything from bow-tie to fettuccine.

To make it, easy peasy: boil water to cook noodles. Rinse cooked noodles with cold water to chill. Add italian dressing (a little bit goes a long way) and set aside to cool (or refrigerate to speed things up!). Chop up two stems green onions. Peel cucumber and then cut into chunky cubes. Add the cucumber, olives, and green onions to italiany noodle mix, and tada! Tasty lunch time pasta.



Yum!

cat snip

Today I took Kenya to be spayed. We were able to afford this on our tight budget thanks to Project CatSnip, which is a traveling clinic offering vaccines, spay and neuter procedures, and other health care to cats at very discounted rates. If anyone in the Atlanta area needs affordable treatment for a feline pal, I definitely recommend CatSnip (kind of an cringe-worthy pun, huh?).

It was a BIT of an ordeal, but overall I was satisfied with the care Kenya received. I had to arrive at the clinic (the "clinic" is literally a traveling clinic: a bus in a parking lot) promptly at 7:30 am. So we were up and crating Kenya at 6 this morning. Once I arrived the veterinarian on site gave everyone the run down of protocol and the different options for treatments. This was great and informative, but unfortunately the vet was very brisk and borderline rude. When I went to turn in my paperwork to her, I had to warn that Kenya was feral when we adopted her and that she's a mean little kitty. I tried to make a joke about it but couldn't even get half a smile out of the vet. I can understand being stern when instructing people, but one-on-one? C'mon, be friendly.

I was supposed to pick Kenya up at 3:30 pm but the clinic called and said I could pick her up early at 1. I had been hanging around at my parents' house since it was close by, and my mom and my sister accompanied me to go pick Kenya up so we could do a little thrift shopping on the way. When we arrived to get Kenya, the vet opened the door, thrusted a crated Kenya at me and said "she was very bad" in a rather rude manner and retreated back into the clinic. This irked me a little but I let it go without saying I told you so. I mean, I DID warn them. Meanies.

Despite the rudeness, I think Project CatSnip is a great service, especially when so many cats are never spayed or neutered because their humans simply cannot afford it. I am definitely going to be spreading the word about CatSnip to do what I can to help reduce kitty overpopulation.

And I am going to close this on a completely unrelated note, which is this

HOMEMADE LIMEADE SWEETENED WITH AGAVE NECTAR.

I am drinking it right now and it tastes like PERFECT. Fill a cup halfway with water, then juice two limes and add the juice, then add copious amounts of delicious gift-from-heaven agave nectar and stir. And if you want to be fancy, throw in lime halves to make it look pretty! Yay delicious limeade!

smoothie criminal

I make smoothies. Lots of smoothies. Hans and I have smoothies for breakfast, smoothies for lunch, smoothies for dinner. Sometimes we accompany them with other food, but sometimes just a big ol' glass of delicious smoothie is enough. I never make the same smoothie twice, and I never follow a recipe. I just throw a lot of complimentary fruits together and add some coconut milk and blend away. Here's one I whipped up the other day!


Coconut milk, mango, banana, orange, and canned pineapple because I don't have the patience for the real deal. (I always make sure I get cubed pineapples canned in pineapple juice, not that sugary syrup crap).


Juice the orange!


Slice the mango!


(Hans has peculiar decorating sense. Thus, a sword above our sink)
I added the orange juice, mango slices, and a whole banana, along with about half the can of pineapples (and a little of the juice) with a bit of coconut milk and a few cubes of ice, then blend!


And done! Beautiful, tasty smoothies, served the classy way in Hans's SweetWater glasses.

a mostly successful endeavor in plantain frying

Hans and I mostly buy fruits and veggies from the grocery store. We live off of smoothies, really. But the other day we decided to buy plantains, knowing we both loved them. I had never cooked them myself, though. I decided to go the easiest route and fried them up with some vegetable oil in a pan.



First I peeled them, which I thought would be like peeling bananas and which turned out to be nothing like peeling bananas. I had to slice them down the sides with a knife and then wrench off the peels. A tricky, slightly slimy task. Then I attempted to slice them lengthwise, like a pickle, so we'd have nice big tasty pieces. This was tough but manageable. Plantains are also harder to cut than bananas! Next I threw the pieces into a heated pan with vegetable oil, and kept them on low heat, turning them until both sides were golden brown. I sprinkled a little sea salt over them so they wouldn't be bland, and that was it. Pretty easy!


They looked pretty but didn't taste quite as awesome as fried plantains I've had before. I think I sliced them just a little too thick and they didn't cook all the way through. Over all though, they were quite good and I'll definitely be making more (and slicing them better!).


The plantains were the appetizer to our big Friday lunch. I also heated up some veggies (frozen, we're busy bees (and poor bees, too)) and covered them in random tasty spices and a little earth balance. He ate a veggie burger and I had a spinachy salad smothered in Goddness dressing (totally my fav right now). I was too busy stuffing my guts to snap pictures of the entire meal, though. Oops!