Summer and So Forth

In June, we roadtripped it back to Arkansas to visit family and friends. Ryan had to work while we were there, but it's nice that he can just work in Little Rock without having to use vacation days. We were gone for 15 days. We spent time with my parents, sisters, niece and nephew, and some of our friends. The kids and I also drove to Missouri to stay with my brother and his family for a few days. It was good to be "home."  

 

spinach, kalamata olives, roasted garlic, and artichoke

with olive oil instead of red sauce at ZaZa's...

one of my favorite pizza topping combos

 

On the subject of vegan: we met my youngest sister one day at Mellow Mushroom in Little Rock, which opened RIGHT AFTER we moved, good grief. We were also happy (and also bummed that it happened AFTER we left) to discover that ZaZa's Pizza in Conway now carries Daiya. (We always brought our package of Daiya with us for them to use.)

 

We have missed our old Whole Foods! It's a lovely location for a Whole Foods. We just loved everyone there and were always treated so nicely (despite the fact we are a lot of people and we do things like lick the sample tongs). We actually found out they are planning to move locations soon, which will be weird. (I also worked here for a short time many years ago.) I will say...as happy as I was to return to our home away from home, I quickly realized how much better the selection is in Tampa. So there's that. (And it wasn't me that licked them, by the way, and I gave them to an employee.)

 

He fell right over to sleep against my chest while we were shopping.

 

In Missouri, the kids and I had lunch one day with my parents' best friends from my childhood. We ate at The Grotto in Springfield, which is vegan-friendly. I enjoyed my salad (which was a fulfilling greek-style salad), and the kids enjoyed their hummus, etc. Our friends chose this place to eat after googling vegan restaurants in Springfield. And I love that they did that because even though we rarely see each other, they know me. And that was pretty much the theme of this trip...it was really nice to be around familiar people again. To watch my nephews play baseball. To reminisce and catch up with four of my best friends from high school.To see my kids giggle with their cousins. To eat cucumbers out of my aunt's garden and tomatoes out of my dad's. To cry along with relatives who were happy to see us and sad to see us go.

 

I write all of that to say: I'm in a bit of a weird phase right now. We love Tampa. I like Florida better than I like Arkansas and Missouri for enough reasons that Florida probably wins. However, if we choose to stay here, we are choosing a life without the people we love in it. So if I live there, I'm not 100% content, and if I live here, I'm not 100% content. I know that's the way life is, and you just have to find a way to be content, regardless. Maybe most people aren't 100% content? I'm a restless person, in general, so I have that against me. These are just some of my thoughts right now.

 

 My parents also decided to put in a saltwater pool upon our departure. Seriously, y'all.

Another big event of the summer (ok, not so big - but it happened) was my birthday this week. Ryan wasn't even here - he was on a business trip, and some other dumb stuff happened the night before that ended up taking up most of my day. But I did make myself a chocolate pie because it's always a good time to have chocolate pie. I let the kids decorate it themselves with strawberries, ground up chocolate chips, and candles. 5 candles seemed like a better number than 39, apparently.

 

HAPPY birthday.

 

It had been a dilemma: chocolate pie or pumpkin pie? I was going to pick pumpkin since I don't have it as often but didn't have enough time for it to set. So since we had to buy pie crust and Soyatoo anyway, we made a pumpkin pie the next day.

 

And then I'm going to eat salad today.

 

Arkansas Gets a Vegan Restaurant!

With my posting unpredictability lately, I know you weren't expecting another post from me so soon! But I have had a strange surge of energy this week.

Hot Springs Visitors' Center

A few Sundays ago, my family and I spent the day in Hot Springs, which is a little over an hour away from our house. The occasion: Arkansas now has a vegan restaurant called Garden Secrets!!! Squeals! You know I rarely go out to eat; this is great news for us.

I'm always a little nervous about trying a new, independent vegan place because there are those vegan restaurants that mean well - but are a little underwhelming with food that is not worth going out for. We were really happy with it, though! Everything we ordered tasted great and looked nice.

We started out with a couple of orders of regular and sweet potato fries. I'd strangely been craving fries ever since I watched Crazy, Stupid Love (my favorite movie at the moment which is so funny and heartwarming that I saw it twice in one week). There was a random scene or two with Ryan Gosling eating fries at a bar, and I couldn't stop thinking about wanting fries (which I rarely have because of the not going out to eat thing). I don't know if it was the fries or Ryan Gosling. Probably both. I went home the first night I watched it and made oven-baked tater tots, which was a temporary fix. But it wasn't the same as having actual restaurant fried fries.

I ordered Eggplant Parmesan ($10.95), which came with a big side of spaghetti and garlic bread on the side. (Had to scrape off the burnt part of the toast.) I thought it was really good! I thought they were generous with the portion size.

Ryan ordered the Cheeseburger. Good!

The kids ordered Garden Quesadillas with "cheese," spinach, and mushrooms (no mushrooms for the youngest two) on spinach tortillas. Good!

I was super, duper excited about dessert, knowing I was going to order the Turtle Cheesecake and hoping someone else would order the Strawberry Cheesecake so I could try it. But tragically, they only had one or two desserts that day, not including cheesecake.

I went without dessert (although tried one bite for blogging review purposes, of course), but the others shared two orders of Brownie Madness.

After lunch, we spent some time walking along the main downtown street. (The row of historic bath houses are on the left.) We went in a few shops, walked along a trail that looks out over the city, and dipped our fingers into the "hot springs," which are REALLY hot.

Arlington Hotel

Here is the facebook page for Garden Secrets. They seem to be getting good reviews, so far. The only downsides: 1) They are closed on Saturdays. 2) The menu in the restaurant was a bit smaller than the one online (and not sure if that is always the case). We always look at online menus ahead of time, so that was a little disappointing.

I hope this place sticks around!

What's Been Going On Lately

A few random, fun happenings in my life lately:

I got to meet a blogger friend! Heather from Where's the Beach? and I had lunch together (the Friday before last). She blogged about it here. Since we live near one another, we had been talking for many months about getting together, and I'm glad we finally got the chance. She's fun, and I enjoyed our lunch (although it was much too short!).

This was my first time to eat at the relatively new 4 Square Gifts, which is a gift shop plus vegetarian deli (including vegan and gluten-free options) in Downtown Little Rock. I ordered the Hummus & Tofu Wrap, which was tasty, especially due to the lemon garlic hummus and kalamata olives.

We traveled up to Missouri that weekend to watch my niece in the Branson Community Theater production of Oliver! So cute and fun!

It usually only snows once or twice a year here, but it feels like it has been snowing every week.

where we live

The kids love the snow, obviously. And I love getting a call while still in bed that says, "The Public School System is closed today due to weather...". I bet my parents wish they had automated announcements when we were growing up. Of course, they didn't have cell phones or even phones on their nightstands, so I guess it wouldn't have made a difference.

We celebrated Ryan's birthday Friday night. (Unfortunately, he was out of town on business all week, including on his actual birthdate.) I asked him to choose anything he wanted for supper. I thought he might say a big Mexican meal or mashed potatoes and "meat"loaf, etc., but instead he picked Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with homemade cheese sauce. Normally, I use the grilled cheese recipe out of Ultimate Uncheese. I used Veganomicon's cheese sauce recipe this time, since I was out of tahini. On dark, seedy French Meadow Bakery Hemp Bread.

I also made Butternut Squash Soup. From scratch. Not really. I used Pacific's Organic Creamy Butternut Squash Soup.

He also requested a Delicious Choices Cheesecake. Delicious Choices was a company that would ship vegan cheesecakes to your door. Did anyone ever buy one? We bought several back in the day (always the sampler - every gigantic piece was a different flavor), and when they stopped selling them, they sold the recipes (that apparently can be found here).

I usually make the crust from scratch, but for sake of time, I just crumbled up two Wholly Wholesome Graham Cracker Crusts mixed with just enough melted Earth Balance.

I used a mixture of organic frozen strawberries, organic strawberry fruit spread, lemon juice, and a tiny bit of sugar for the topping.

Happy birthday, Ryan! Please don't go away on week-long business trips anymore!

This isn't the healthiest cheesecake recipe, but they are as delicious as their name indicates.

Vegan MoFo: Day 5, Eating Out in Little Rock and Making Brownies

Today, the two youngest ones and I went to the library for books, audiobooks, DVD's, and CD's for our upcoming road trip. (We're going to NYC!!!) Then we headed over to Boulevard Bread Company in The Heights for lunch. It's a busy, happenin' place (and has the word "vegan" written on the menu, which wins me over). My (vegan) sister Tracy works there. We ordered hummus and bread...

...fruit cups, a Naked Juice, and 1 1/2 Vegan Hummus sandwiches. The sandwich consists of something like tomato slices, lettuce, onions, avocado, hummus, and peppadew spread.

Tracy came over to join us on her break. She'd made herself a grilled sandwich with tomato sauce, hot sauce, and vegetables. It was also very tasty.

So...speaking of Little Rock restaurants...

Earlier this week, Shen asked me why Pei Wei is one of the only restaurants I'll eat at in Little Rock. There aren't any vegetarian restaurants in LR, so in that case, I'd generally rather eat at home. (If we're in town, we usually just eat at Whole Foods. And there are a few other places I'll go: Star of India, P.F. Chang's, Cafe Bossanova, etc.) I'm just sort of skeptical and uptight about the whole thing. I know that isn't the best way to be...but I sort of can't help it; it's a mental issue (I don't mean "mental," as in "I'm crazy." I just think about things too much). When I don't know EXACTLY what is in my food, it's hard for me to enjoy it. This bugs my husband, who does like to eat out occasionally. He thinks I'm doing an injustice to veganism - making it look too restrictive and difficult. I mostly agree with him, and I sort of wish I could be as carefree and easygoing as I am in the other areas of my life. Anyway, hopefully that all makes sense.

So back to Pei Wei...I like it because the meal I get seems so fresh and innocuous. Another random reason: my kids are very well-behaved in restaurants now, but not long ago (when my 5 year old was a bit more immature), that wasn't the case. It's sort of noisy in Pei Wei, and it was just one of the places we got used to taking them.

After lunch, we bought groceries. We saw a new kind of brownie mix we hadn't tried.

They're pretty good. Rather plain-tasting, which was puzzling until I realized they are gluten-free. I will say they are good for being gluten-free. Ryan pointed out they would be even better with frosting, and I agreed.

And, of course, it's always hard to review a product accurately when there were 4 extra hands involved in the process.

MoFo Day 3: Pei Wei

Since you were all so sweet about reading my very long post yesterday and commenting, I thought I'd give you a reading break today. This was a recent trip to one of the only restaurants we ever eat at in Little Rock: Pei Wei. I wrote more about our trip and how we tied it into our Asia homeschooling studies on my homeschool family blog.

This is what I always order at Pei Wei: the Japanese Teriyaki bowl with Tofu and Vegetables. I order it with rice noodles instead of rice...

...and no sauce. I think the Teriyaki sauce might contain honey (or at least sugar)? I just like the way it tastes plain, though. It feels healthier that way, and I love how firm all of the vegetables are. I'm not absolutely sure if the tofu is marinated in a sauce or anything, but I have talked to a manager on the phone who has told me it is only cooked in oil.

Reminder if you haven't been by yet: my CSN stores $40 giveaway is going on right now until November 11!

A Take-Out Day, Tennis, and A Girl Can Dream

Last night, Ryan and I had a date night (thanks, Mom!). He brought home take-out from P.F. Chang's. He ordered the Vegetable Chow Fun, and I chose the lettuce wraps. I always get the lettuce wraps.

Then we headed out for a little action on the court. Ryan was a totally rockin' player back in the day. It has been years since we've played together. It felt really good to get out there and sweat. I don't sweat enough, quite frankly. Even when I'm at the air-conditioned fitness center, it's hard for me to really sweat.

It's funny because I was out there doing pretty well, if I can say that. I was thinking, wow, I could really DO this. Maybe I'll even be on a TEAM. Then Ryan serves a few at his actual speed, not the "being easy on his wife" speed...and I realize...maybe I have a little ways to go before I sign up. ha! :)

*********************

Earlier that day, the kids and I had to "go into town" for an appointment. We stopped by Drug Emporium first because my sister Tracy had been telling me I need to check it out. (I think there are a few Drug Emporiums scattered here and there across the U.S. - don't know if they all have health food.) They have a huge selection of natural food products. It's like a mini-health food store in there. In fact, I'd say there's just as much - if not more - than some small health food stores. The prices were good, too. I can't say everything was cheaper than Whole Foods, but there were many, many things that were. They have a big refrigerated/frozen section. Amy's meals were definitely cheaper than at W.F.

at Whole Foods

my mock chicken salad on a bed of lettuce, spinach, sprouts, and garbanzo beans,

with a few Multi-Grain chips on the side

We still had to stop by Whole Foods for some produce. And I had to feed my starving children. They were subsiding on trail mix and...ahem...a small pack of Nutter Butters from the doctor's building gift shop. Ryan had met us there to watch the kids while I went into my appointment. Later, the kids said, "We ate Nutter Butters!" I said, laughing, "Ohhh, I see. Daddy let you have junk food." My 5 year old very defensively said, "Whaaat? Nutter Butters aren't junk food!" I guess the peanut butter aspect threw him off. (For the record, Nutter Butters, with all of their icky ingredients, are technically animal-product free. Very occasionally, Ryan has the kids in a "gas station food" type environment, and getting a pack of 4 Nutter Butters for the kids to share is his go-to.)

Since my subscription expired, I also picked up the latest copy of VegNews. Obviously, I love it; it's the only magazine I read from cover to cover (even the advertisements). But one of the first places I turn: the New Products pages.

This is the product I'm most looking forward to trying. Hopefully, it will be at W.F. soon. Earlier this year, when I was shopping and happened to see Daiya sitting in the "cheese" section for the first time, I gasped. I think people two aisles over heard me gasp. I may gasp again when I see Tofurky Pepperoni Pizza behind the glass.

I really am trying to move farther away from all of the packaged food. I do want the major bulk of my diet to be whole & fresh with a lot of raw. However, I just can't shun the aisles of the grocery store completely. I have 3 kids, and I'm tired...I can't cook every single thing from scratch. Plus, it's just fun when new products come out on the market.

I'm still waiting on a few things...

1) Vegan canned biscuits (I think maybe there are technically some that are vegan already, but I'm waiting for the organic, non-hydrogenated, non-sugar kind to come out.)

2) Vegan canned crescent rolls (again, a healthier variety)

3) Squeezey cheese in a can!

I mentioned squeezey cheese once on a vegan message board, and the great Jo Stepaniak suggested I make a batch of her Uncheese, then put it in a frosting piper. I thought this was a fabulous idea.

It doesn't completely fulfill the convenience aspect I am looking for, but it's yummy, fun, and looks cute. (Tornado was all too happy to eat my sample here and ask for many more samples to follow.) You could stick the frosting piper in your cooler for a road trip.

So...what vegan convenience foods do you dream about?

Blackened Tofu, It's Good to Have You Back

When I got married and moved to Little Rock, I had only been a vegan for a few years. And those were poor-in-college years. I survived on cold cereal, spaghetti with jar sauce, and Subway Sandwiches. I barely knew what tofu was, and I had to use that soymilk powder mixed with water in a mason jar for my mini-fridge.

That's me, my junior year of college...notice how it looks like Brad is looking at me?

Did anyone else feel like they fell in love with him while watching Legends of the Fall?

The year that I ate in the cafeteria, my favorite night was taco night. I got taco shells filled with lettuce and tomato (maybe I added olives from the salad bar). But they wouldn't let us have more than 2 or 3 at a time. I'd ask, "Can I please have a few more? I'm a vegetarian, and this is all I can eat." No,they made me wait in line again for a few more, which I had to do so that I wouldn't starve from only eating 2 taco shells filled with lettuce and tomato.

Wow, now that I'm thinking about it, I barely recognize this person I'm talking about. When Ryan and I were engaged, we thought we were really BIG TIME when we discovered we could microwave a bag of frozen vegetables and put them on a tortilla with salsa. THAT was a great meal to us.

It was those experiences that probably contributed to my Blackened Tofu obsession. It was so fun to be married/out on our own , and while we didn't have a lot of money (My paycheck was around $400 every two weeks as a private school teacher.), it still felt like a lot to us. And it was OUR money. We didn't have to ask our parents for money anymore.

Most Saturday mornings, we drove over to Whole Foods (It was Wild Oats then.) and stocked up. We went overboard choosing things from the deli and bakery (and lots of other stuff to cook throughout the week). Then we would rent a few movies (We didn't watch a lot of movies in college; we had a lot of catching up to do!), lie in bed all day, and eat out of our plastic deli containers. Awww...the life of newlyweds. We look back on this time with the utmost longing...usually when our kids are all fighting and interrupting us and jumping on the couch.

Just for fun, let's look back at that time...we were so young...sigh...and thin.

This was on our honeymoon at Tupelo, Mississippi...birthplace to Elvis.

Blackened Tofu with my FAVORITE salad:

romaine with caesar dressing from Post Punk Kitchen

Anyway, I always went straight to the deli to get a container full of Blackened Tofu. I've never been the biggest fan of spicy food...but I couldn't get enough of this. I continued getting this for several years...until...they STOPPED making it. (For the record, our Whole Foods could be A LOT more vegan-friendly than they are.) I actually worked at this Whole Foods for about 6 months, and I tried to pull up my vague memory in order to replicate the recipe. I have made this once before, I think, but the other day, I decided to get serious about it.

Blackened Tofu, eaten on my Food for Life gluten free tortilla with greens, sprouts, avocado, and tomatoes

I squeezed the water out of 3 tubs of tofu, then froze it.

After it thawed, I cut it into strips.

I carefully rolled the tofu in enough olive oil to help the spices stick...and then rolled it in the spices. Then I baked it. Maybe 25 minutes at 350? (That part is a little fuzzy; I'll go back and do it again, then edit this.)

I used this seasoning (which is what the used in the deli):

Chef Paul Prudhomme's Blackened Redfish Magic Seasoning Blends

(Salt, Herbs and Spices, Dehydrated Garlic, Paprika and Dehydrated Onion)

Since I did not think my kids could handle the massiveness of this spiciness, I also made them plenty rolled in just olive oil and cornmeal. It was definitely a hit for their little mouths.

Let's talk about how spicy the Blackened Tofu is...it hurts, it's so spicy. Like you have to drink something after you take a bite. Like hurts so good spicy. Again, I'm not a fan of jalapenos - and barely even onions, but I just love these for some reason. Ryan does, too.

It was a bit of a game with the kids - take a bite, yell, "Aaa! It's spicy!" and take a drink. And repeat.

Cornmeal dusted tofu: 10 thumbs up

Blackened tofu: 4 adult thumbs up