Salvaged Dinner for Three!

Over the weekend I went to see my pals at crack the plates for dinner and conversations.  We brainstormed some wild ideas about the Atlanta vegan community.  I will share more on that at a later date.  We ate a great salvaged meal.  It was something that was a lunch or some sort and all leftovers to be thrown away.  Nate grabbed them up, Adrienne made them edible, and I ate them.

It was a nice beans and rice meal with a side salad.  Adrianne went out of her way to make some amazing cup cakes for dessert, despite feeling ill.  It was a fun night of heated conversations and inspiring ideas.  Horry for great people and great food!

Halloween and an Ocobter recap.

October was a strange month.  I had a long vacation, some major financial ventures, significant relationship alternations, and have been re-united with an old nemesis / friend.  It has been odd and none of it had much to do with the kitchen.

The month ended with something that I have not done in years.  Maybe even 20 years.  I went trick-or-treating.  Ashley, her sister, her sisters boyfriend and I took Ashley's daughter Kaleigh out.  Kaleigh had a great dragon costume.  Everyone seemed to think she was a boy, apparently dragons are gender specific.  I never knew.

I had a little costume of my own.  Inspired by some old punk rock song lyrics and my long hours spent at the jobby job.


Strange month.

Paprika Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I have been feeling under the weather recently.  It has been a drag and even resulted in me using a sick day at the jobby job.  I always feel guilty when I call out sick but I try and remember that I am given my sick days for a reason and I should be able to use them when I need.  I am feeling better now and should be 100% again soon.

Ashley and her daughter. Kaleigh, brought over the pumpkin that we picked a few weeks ago, for the Halloween carving.  As a child, I do not have many memories of pumpkin carving.  It was either not something we did often or it did not seem as significant as some others.  This time, we used a pattern.  I have never done used a pattern for pumpkin carving.  It came out nice but felt unimaginative.  Kaleigh liked it so I suppose that is what counts.

The best part of the pumpkin carving was fishing out the seeds and roasting them.  My mum roasted a few pumpkin seeds when I was a child but I have never done it.

Paprika Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

1 cup of pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon of oil
3/4 tablespoon of smoked paprika
1/2 tablespoon of salt
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees.

Rise the seeds and separate from the pumpkin strings.  There is no need to dry overnight.  Simply rinse well and pat dry with a towel.

In a bowl, add all other ingredients and fold in the seeds.  Pour the seeds on a baking sheet lined with foil.  Bake for 1 hour.  Every 20 minutes, take the seeds out and flip them to avoid sticking and burning.

Halloween Childhood

As a kid, one of the special times of the year was Halloween.  I attribute most of this to my father.  He loves the holiday.  As a child, I can recall elaborate Freddy Kruger costumes for myself and massive costume parties for he and his friends.  It was always an exciting time of the year.

One year, he and I spent long hours making a creep haunted house in the crawl space of the old farm house we lived in.  I had a party and invited my friends to come and they all loved it.  Other times I can recall trick-or-treating near my nana's house farm house and getting candy apples and all sorts of other treats.  It seems like Halloween has changed a lot since I was a child.  I hope dad does something fun this year.  He deserves it for all the years he made this time of the year special for me.

In Atlanta, the big event for me around Halloween is Netherworld.  Netherworld is one of the top ranked haunted house in the country.  They have amazing costumes and an elaborate maze of horror each year.  It is one of the highlights of the year for me.  I really enjoy it.  This year, I even got jumped a few times!

A week of foods

Ashley came over the other day.  We watched a movie and she wanted to make burritos.  I am not one to object to burritos so we tore it up.  It was a nice time.

I also have been making hummus wraps for work.  They have been a wonderful food to simply grab and go.  It has been a stress filled week and it has been nice to have a simple and health meal for work each day.

Smoothies have still been a regular work event as well.  My co-workers curiosity has peaked quite a bit around the smoothies.  There is rarely a day that someone does not ask what kind I am having today or how I made it or if they can try it.

A tale of a cake gone whacky.

Over the weekend, I realized I did not have a bedtime snack.  After watching a movie with Ashley, where they were eating cake, I knew what I had to do.  Pull out the bake ware and try my hand at another cake.  Always a risk in my house.

I was whipping up the batter when I spotted some green food coloring I had laying around.  Without a second thought I dumped a bit in and vigorously whipped it up.  It was that nice obnoxious green.  I tossed the cake in the oven and began to look for icing ideas.  An old store acquired can of bright pink strawberry icing, tucked far back in the cabinet, caught my eye.  Goldmine.

A couple hours later, I had frosted the green cake with pink icing and to be honest it looked like a carebear had exploded in my baking dish.  It was interesting.  The icing was suspect at best but who can complain about a bedtime snack this colorful?

Ratatouille and the Autumn

In addition to my bucket of black beans, I have been eating some Ratatouille.  I made a sizable batch to accompany me on my long week at work.  It is a really great meal to prepare in advance because as it sits, the flavors meld even more.  It has been a nice healthy and hearty meal for the jobby job.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year.  The leaves are changing, it is getting cooler, there are all sorts of fun Halloween events, and the food is always heavy and roasted!  There is nothing like the autumn.

I also want to give a huge shout out to my fellow Atlanta blogger, Czech Vegan.  She has really helped to promote my blog and she does some amazing dishes of her own and runs her own business.  She is an inspirational lady and I am not sure how she does it.  Please go check her blog out!

Black Beans and Tato!

It seems pretty standard for me that when I return to the jobby job from a vacation, I end up working a silly amount of hours.  This time I was mildly pre-pared.  I soaked some black beans and made a hue bucket of them to take to work for several days.  It was something I rarely do.  I am generally (as awful as it is) a quick, canned beans guy.  I went all out and these were fantastic.

I have been keeping pretty busy over the last week back to work and I have even had one of my favorite house guests!  Tato has been here since Monday!  Despite him waking me up each morning with head-butts to the face at 8:30am, he is a great guest.  Black beans and Tato, it has made an otherwise hectic week not so bad.

Liebster Award

“Liebster” is German and means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’.
The idea behind this award is to bring attention to bloggers who have less than 200 followers and show your support during Vegan Mofo!

The rules of winning this award are as follows:

1.       Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2.       Reveal 5 of your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3.       Post the award on your blog.

4.       Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the www!

I think these awards are a great way to get new followers and share followers with other great blogs.  I encourage any blogger in the blog world to participate, they are great networking.

Drumroll, please...and the Liebster goes to:

 

Crack the Plates

Heathen Vegan

Manifest Vegan

Alessandra Zecchini

Nuestra Cena-American & Latin Vegan Cuisine

Enjoy these great blogs as much as I have!  Thank you so much too Vegan Fazool for giving me this wonderful award, make sure you check out her blog as well.

14 days and nearly nothing to show

I spend my first day back at the jobby job after 14 days off.  Suprisingly I was in a good mood, the first day back is generally brutal.  Interestingly, I typically have some wild stories to share with my co-workers when I return but not this time.  In fact, in my 14 days off, I did very little.  It was truly a vacation, there were even a few days that the only time I left the house was to get the mail.  It felt nice.  Relaxing.

During my time off, I barely cooked any food (aside from the single night I had company) and I rarely ate.  This was not my intention.  I had some grandiose plans for my time off but opted to spend it just enjoying the time as it floated into the past.

A few things I ate, mainly quick foods:

popcorn no vacation is complete without it

soy chicken bbq sandwiches

mashed potatoes again, never too many

slumming with some frozen waffles

It was a great vacation.