Hummus x2

With the beginning of our Spend Nothing for 7 Days challenge, we decided to make a large amount of hummus to have for snacks and lunches.  We generally eat quite a bit of hummus in the summer months because it is cool and refreshing while still getting us in the kitchen.  Too often, spending a Georgia summer afternoon in a hot kitchen is one of the last things I want to do.

We decided to make two hummus flavors and allowed Kaleigh to pick them.  She wanted a roasted jalapeno hummus again as well as trying a sun-dried tomato hummus.  The sun-dried tomato hummus came out slightly runnier than expected but was still great.  The jalapeno was my favorite, it had a nice heat to it.

We stored them in sealed jars to make sure they last the week.  We can grab some whenever we want and have a healthy refreshing snack!

Spend nothing for 7 days

We have been working on some expensive projects and I have been spending far to much money.  I decided that I needed to get a better handle on my expenses.  After a comprehensive grocery shopping trip and a fill at the gas station, I will not spend any money for 7 days.

I have done this challenge before but this time, Ashley is taking it with me.  It should allow us to save a little more during that time but more importantly, it will allow us to get better control over the finances in the house.

After the massive grocery stop, we decided to make a fancy(ish) dinner.  We made coconut rice with a pinch of lime and coconut tempeh with green peppers and lime.  I really like this dish, although I do not make it nearly enough.

This time we made the sauce a little more soupy which was actually an improvement since we were able to soak on some with the rice.  It was a great dish!

Rice Crispy Treats!

Kaleigh and I made rice crispy treats!  We have made them several time before but not recently.  The most recent time was when we filmed the Cooking with Kaleigh video around Halloween.

These came out perfectly and Kaleigh did most of the work.  She had so much fun spinning the marshmallows and watching them melt in the pan.  She wanted to use some food coloring and make them look fun and excited but I nixed that idea.  I was looking for something more traditional.

For dinner, we had another dish that has been featured on Cooking with Kaleigh, BBQ Portobello mushroom burgers.  It is one of our favorite and something we often eat when Ashley is not home.  Ashley is not the biggest fan of mushrooms so it is perfect for Kaleigh and I.

Seitan Chickin Sandwiches!

Ashley, Kaleigh, and I have been using my new deep fryer for just about everything.  We use it several times a week.  One of the big hits is the seitan chickin I have made for years but the deep fryer adds another level.

This time, we took that same recipe, cut the chickin into slices and added them to sandwiches with my homemade vegan ranch sauce.  We combined it with my homemade fries and Ashley's cole slaw.  It was an amazing meal!

Kaleigh has been out of school for over a week now.  It has been a lot of fun spending more time with her.  We have been cooking a lot more together.  In fact, Ashley even took a day off from work last week and we all spend some quality time together.  We ate a lot of donuts, went to a movie, went to the bookstore, it was great.  I am looking forward to a time when we are not always on the grind and we can all spend quality time together more frequently.

Cooking with Kaleigh; Part 17: Hummus!

Part 17 of Cooking with Kaleigh was a spur in the moment decision.  We were trying to come up with an afternoon snack idea when we decided on hummus filled sweet peppers.  I asked Kaleigh if she wanted to help with the hummus, she eagerly agreed.  Then I asked her is she wanted to film, she was excited to do it and we were off to the kitchen!

Deep Fried Tofu!

Since getting a deep fryer back in March, we have deep fried a lot of different things.  It occurred to Kaleigh and I the other day that we had yet to deep fry tofu.  That had to change.

I was slightly worried that the tofu would stick to the basket but it came off quite nicely.  We pressed it and marinated it for a short time in soy sauce.  After a few minutes in the deep fryer, we pan fried it for a minute in a traditional brown sauce we made.

Kaleigh and I combined the tofu with a load of shiitake mushrooms and green beans, plated over rice, a side of baby bok choy and ate it up.  It was really good.  As a 7 year old, Kaleigh generally only eats her tofu in a scramble but she destroyed the deep fried chunks we made. They were perfect!

Strawberry Picking!

We almost missed the Georgia strawberry season!  We caught the tail end of it and picked 2 amazing buckets of strawberries.  It was pretty muggy out but we still had a great time.

Kaleigh and I made a little mischief and gobbled a few strawberries while we picked, for us, its part of the fun.  When we got home, we chopped them up and frozen them.  Ashley has been making a lot of smoothies recently and since the strawberries were at the end of the season, they were pretty mushy.  Great for smoothies!

Wordless Wednesday

creamy chicpeas

pizza

caesar salad

balsamic roasted beet with drumsticks and potatoes

chicpea quesadilla

tofu taco filling

black bean and corn soup

cheezy shells and wraps

toasted panini

Vegan snake killer

I killed a snake.

While mowing the lawn, I encountered some critters.  I was in the back of the house, near the tree line, when I saw an Eastern Kingsnake about 3 feet long.  At the time, it was moving fast enough that I could not tell what kind of snake it was, all I knew is that is was coming toward me.  I quickly moved away from the woods to try to get out of its way.  It changed its direction and headed right for me again.

Although it was not going at full speed, it was coming toward me at a quick pace.  I backed up further and it still came toward me.  Feeling like I was going to be attacked, I pushed the lawn mower forward and jumped backward.  The lawn mower made quick work of the snake.

Feeling badly and wishing the snake had just gone into the woods, I disposed of the snake.  Slightly nervous, I finished the back yard and moved onto the side yard.  Another snake!  This one was slightly larger at nearly 4 feet.  With more room to maneuver, I was able to encourage this snake to head back into the woods.

These types of situations are tough to deal with as a vegan.  I feel that may folks in the vegan community would be critical of my decisions but I feel strongly that killing when feeling threatened is a natural occurrence.  While my life may not have literally been in danger, in the seconds the situation transpired, I felt threatened and did not know if the snake was poisonous or interested in attacking me.

For me, veganism is a branch of who I am.  Veganism is a step toward being bio-diverse.  Animals kill when threatened in the natural world.  While I am sad that I killed the snake, I do not feel like I did anything wrong or against my vegan beliefs.

This is a polarizing topic within the vegan community and I wanted to use this story to tell my position on the issue.  Killing animals (human and non-human) is not inherently in-opposition to veganism.  Things are simply not that binary.

To make it up to the vegan blog world, here my new smokey lentil and veggie soup!

Yum

Raven Cliff Falls trip

Recently, the girls and I took a nice late spring hike.  We hi-jacked Kaleigh from school.  We feel pretty strongly that some time in the woods experiencing nature is worth far more than the grind of academia.  We do not keep her out of school often but we do feel she gets a lot out of our family hiking trips.

This time we took her a couple hours north to Raven Cliff Falls.  Its about 5 miles round trip but not a difficult hike.  With Ashley and Kaleigh's little legs, it was still an all day event.  I got to use my new tri-pod and I think I got some great pictures.

We have lunch while sitting at the top of a waterfall and used out new water-filled pack to stay hydrated.  It was nice to be so hands free.