Big Fat Burrito Bowl

Surprisingly, living in Texas as a vegan was pretty fab most of the time. Lots of natural food stores, exclusively vegetarian restaurants and if you played your cards right-amazing Mexican food! I miss a lot of the conveniences at my fingertips; in particular dining on the fly at Chipotle. Chipotle is a great place to eat as a vegan with lots of super tasty options. I was feeling a bit nostalgic, so recreated a burrito bowl (minus just a bit of the "I didn't have to make this myself" awesomeness) for lunch. The hardest part is making the burrito filling bit, but don't let all the steps scare you off, this shit is easy. You might have to work on your multitasking skills or bribe someone into helping you with prep work.

Big Fat Burrito Bowl

Cook two cups brown rice according to package instructions.
Wash and rip enough greens for however many bowls you're making.

Burrito Filling-
2 tbs coconut oil
1.5 cups sliced mushrooms, portobellos are best but other types work just fine.
1/2 a bell pepper, sliced
1 onion, cut in half and sliced
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup white wine if you have it. Water if you don't
1 tbs of tamari/braggs/soy sauce
Juice of one lime
1-2 tsp of some sort of mesquite seasoning. If you don't have that, cumin, chili or Cayenne taste nice in here

I feel like I can just copy and paste this part from every other recipe I ever post. Melt coconut oil, add onions and cook until translucent and a little brown. Add garlic and peppers and cook for approx. 5 more minutes. Add your mushrooms, cook until marginally soft. Add your wine and other ingredients. Cook down until liquid is reduced and ingredients are soft. Taste for awesomeness.

Chipotle Cashew Sour Creme-
1 big fat chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
1/4 cup cashews
1/4 cup water
juice of 1/2 lime
Blend all ingredients into sweet oblivion in your vitamix. If you're not so lucky, soak your cashews for a few hours before hand and cross your fingers that your blender gives you satisfactory results :D
Ingredients that are nice to add but not mandatory:
Roasted corn
Salsa of all types
Diced Avocado
Black beans

So now to make burrito bowl magic. Layers go as follows. Greens. Rice. Burrito filling. Toppings of your choice. Finish with cashew creme.Yum! Now you get to spend the rest of the day complaining about how full you are and rubbing your food baby belly.

What the Kale?

This post was supposed to be a chronicle of the most amazing veg themed road trip of all time, but instead I'm following through on a promise to my awesome cousin Leslie. (Recipe at bottom as promised :)

Carol J Adams wrote a book titled "Living Among Meat Eaters" that revolutionized the way I functioned in a very non vegetarian culture. It came to me at a time when I desperately wanted to change my life to align with my values, but couldn't wrap my head around how on earth to function in social situations-they all focus on food! This book was invaluable, but I'll gush more about Carol J Adams in another post as we happened to meet her on our epic trip. So to make a point here, the book she wrote had lots of great tips for decreasing the awkwardness of social situations. Things like: don't discuss why you don't eat meat when people are currently eating a piece of meat. Along the way, I've come up with my own unofficial rules-most of which pertain to the kinds of food I serve omnis. There are a few on the no fly list. For people not used to vegan cuisine-no tempeh, tofu, leafy greens and for the love of god no nutritional yeast. This summer, during a big family reunion I broke one of my own rules. I was introduced earlier this year to the most amazing, fantastical, flavor bursting Kale salad. Kale? What the hell is that? Kale is a dark leafy green (you know that crap they always tell you to eat more of but you never do?) that is bursting with nutritive properties. Most of the time when I eat leafy greens, I saute it with my old buddies garlic, lemon, sesame oil and soy sauce to mask the healthy taste-so I was sure that I would hate this salad. Moral of the story is don't be afraid to try new things! This is about as healthy as it gets, and I could eat it for every meal! I'll probably talk more about why raw fooding is awesome at a later date-we're currently still getting acquinted. I can't claim this recipe as my own, but after countless interwebular searches I can't find the origin. So you can credit "random poster X" on www.vegweb.com if you feel the need to thank someone!

Rawsome Kale Salad

2 Bunches of organic Kale

1 Ripe Avacado

1/2 Red Onion Chopped

1 Apple Chopped

2 Tsp Minced Ginger

2 Tsp Minced Garlic

2 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Tbs Fresh Lemon Juice

2 Tsp Soy Sauce/Tamari/Braggs Liquid Aminos

1/2 Cup Raw Cashews, roughly chopped

To prepare Kale, wash well and use a pairing knife to cut the leaves away from the tough stem. This often leaves them in nicely sized pieces, but if they are larger than bite sized-feel free to take care of that. Cut your avocado and scoop the fruit(meat, green part, flesh, whatever you want to call it) into the bowl with your kale. At this point you want to love up your kale and avocado, and you're going to do this by giving the kale a nice deep tissue massage. Get your hands in there and make sure the avocado gets into all the nooks and crannies of the greens. In a separate bowl, mix the ginger, garlic, oil, lemon and soy sauce together. You can now add that to your loved up salad, and love it up just a little bit more to coat everything. At this point, add all your other chopped ingredients. Mix and serve. Voila! Now you can sit back and let the compliment start a comin!