Friday, May 20, 2011

Your hippie-tastic tip for the day!

I came upon this tip on Alicia Silverstone's blog, and I think it's pretty freakin genius. Green=Check. Free=Check. Money saving=Check. So do it y'all!


"All you have to do is save a 20 oz. water bottle, remove any plastic or paper from the outside of it and then fill it partially with sand, dirt, pebbles or gravel (if you can’t find any of those materials around your house, just fill the bottle partially with water!). Make sure to seal the bottle tightly before placing it in your toilet tank. Then carefully lower the bottle into the tank and put the lid of the toilet back on. Pretty easy, right? HERE is a New York Times article about reducing water in your home. According to this article "A sealed half-gallon water container installed in the tank will save a half gallon of water per flush...a family of five that flushes five times a day each -- the national average -- will save 350 gallons of water each month." That's a lot of water!"

And while you're greening up your bathroom, start buying recycled toilet paper already! You're wiping your ass with it and then flushing it down the toilet. Lets not kill any more trees that we have too.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

I want to marry this sandwich.

*sigh* I love Field Roast. In my opinion, the very best analog (and soy free) products out there. Analog simply refers to a product that resembles meat in texture and flavor. I often get asked why a vegetarian or vegan would want to eat something that pretends to be meat. First, not all of us do. Second, because meat tastes good-duh. I don't know many veggies who stopped eating meat because of flavor. This product is nice because it has a short ingredient list (all of which are real food) and amazing flavor and texture.
Unfortunately, I can no longer get Field Roast products at a store anywhere near me. We will be reunited again soon. When that day comes, I will be making this Vietnamese sandwich while crying tears of happiness. Image: Field Roast
In the mean time if you could just make this for yourself, and tell me about it detail by painful detail-that would be awesome.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Best video eva! Pad Thai, yum!

Today I share with you possibly the most amazing cooking show you've ever seen. I present to you "Vegan Black Metal Chef". Brilliant!

Monday, May 2, 2011

The day I discovered my Vitamix made ice cream

Image: Kawaii

Also known as the fourth best day of my life. I've made no secret about my obsession with my beloved Vitamix. Over the three years that we've been together, we've had some fun times, sweet times, bittersweet times, saucy times, and some explosive times. We've had boozy times, crepe-y times and blendy times. But until today, we've never had ice cream-y times. For those of you that have never eaten vegan ice cream, I'm going to tell you something. It's both insanely delicious and stupid expensive. For that reason, it's rare in this house (someone also told me that it's metabolic suicide-and I have a hard time forgetting that). So today when Biggest was sent home with a raging fever, it called for some serious TLC. Our family shares one car and after a walk home in the rain I wasn't expecting that TLC to come in frozen form. But there he was, begging for ice cream and me not having any. Then I remembered the Vitamix Costco demo that sold me on it in the first place. How had I not tried this until now? Into my Vitamix I threw

Mango Lychee Soft Serve
1 cup ice
1/2 cup organic soy milk
1/2 cup cashews
5 dates
1/4 cup frozen mangos
1/4 cup frozen lychees

Using the plunger, keep forcing the ingredients towards the blade until it's relatively smooth. I was really careful to blend it just enough, as the Vitamix will quickly melt that ice. I used an ice cream scoop to dish it out and we all thought we went to heaven. Seriously. No sugar, check. Healthy ingredients, check. No metabolic suicide, check. Not $7.99 a pint, double check. Amazing! I have had a soft serve maker all this time?!? Le sigh. Though that just means that I have to make up for lost time. So for my dinner ice cream I made: (keep in mind with measurements that I'm guesstimating)

Raspberry Chocolate chip Soft Ice Cream
1/4 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup organic soy milk
1 cup ice
2 handfuls cashews
6 dates
1 small handful vegan mini chocolate chips

Repeat same process as above. Except keep chocolate chips out until the last few seconds. I loved this one! The raspberry was really tart with a little sweet, reminiscent of frozen yogurt. Biggest had two cones of this-it's nice when I can say "yes" to more treats sometimes. Stay tuned-I'm already planning tomorrow's ice cream binge. Dear Vitamix, thank you for giving me a reason to wake up tomorrow. Ice cream for breakfast.