Kid food, and Cinammmmon rolls

Living with kids is fun, because we get to eat alot of yummy, yet gross, kid food. Case in point: chili dogs! We used Smart dogs, on Rudi's Organic buns, topped with Wheatsville's Tempeh chili, and FYH cheddar. I enjoyed mine with mustard and ketchup. Sweet potato fries on the side.

Stevie, the kid in question, enjoyed a few bites. Here is he taking the first one.

Amazed how similar they taste to "regular" hot dogs.

And for the sweet tooth in all of us, we had root beer floats for dessert. So Delicious vanilla, and organic root beer.

Speaking of sweet tooth, with all the talk of cinnamon rolls on the PPK, I decided I had to try my hand at them. At one time, I used to be shamelessly addicted to Cinnabons. Thankfully, that point in my life is behind me, although I have to admit I do miss the sweet, doughy, fatty ball of goodness melting in my mouth. Or, at least I DID. For, now I have found the perfect recreation of perfection in vegan cinnabons. MMmmm, the goodness. Can you believe we wiped out a pan of 12 in ONE day? That's what happens with hungry kids running around, and a visiting mom, and two really big sweet teeth. At least I snuck in some flax seed and applesauce. These will be a Sunday morning favorite.

Meme

I almost forgot. I was tagged for this meme a while back by Vegan Noodle. Since this is the first time I have ever been tagged I will go ahead and do it.

First, the rules:

#1 Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of your first or middle name.

#2 When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.

#3 At the end of your post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag. Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them, they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

#4 If I’ve tagged YOU (the bloggers that I've tagged are listed at the end), please join in on the fun!

I'll go with my first name.

K- Kooky. Although admittadley shy, I can be a bit kooky at times. When I get comfortable enough with someone, you never know what I will do next.

A- Ambitious. Even though I have been known to have a pretty big lazy bone (note: I have spent my entire day browsing the internet and watching TV), I can be ambitious, even when it sometimes isn't in my best interest. When I am working at something, it is hard for me to stop. And I have a tendancy to overdo things

Y- Yellow. Used to be my least favorite color. Growing up, my grandma decorated my room in yellow and clowns. For a long time I despised both. Now, I am beginning to see the beauty in a bright yellow lemon. And you can't have a rainbow without yellow.

L- Lazy. As stated above, I can be pretty lazy at times. I think it's important for people take time to be lazy. We are constantly keeping our lives so jam packed with things to do, places to go, and people to see. We hardly ever take time out to just sit and chill. Although, I am admittadely trying to turn my lazy time into something more beneficial, like reading, or meditating, instead of watching TV and browsing.

A- Artistc. Although I don't do nearly as many crafts, or paint or draw as much as I used to, I am still artistically minded. I am constantly finding inspiraton from a color, a design, or a fabric. But, due to my lazy bone, nothing ever gets made. As I said..working on that.

There you have it. I'm sure I could have come up with better tidbits about myself, but I didn't take alot of time on it. I just used the first words that came to me. So, now I have to tag someone. I don't know if there's anyone left who hasn't been tagged. So, if you're reading this, and you haven't been tagged yet...TAG. You're it!

By the way, no food in this post because I am having trouble with my computer. When I feel like messing with it, I have some fun things to post. We are doing so much here in Austin, I can hardly keep up.

Comfort, vegetables, and cobbler

I'm finally getting back into my cooking groove. It has been so easy to just pick up something at one of the many veg friendly restaurants around here, and not have to deal with cooking. Especially niceafter a long, laborious 9 hour work day. But, now that I don't have to deal with such a demanding job anymore, I can get back to cooking my own meals. Good thing, because I missed my cooking utensils, and the feel of heat emitting from a hot oven, plus I had some veggies in my fridge in major need of chopping and sauteeing.

Meals have still been kept pretty simple. One night I made some quick tomato soup- big can of crushed maters, vegetable boullion cube, herbs, spices, and olive oil. We had it with a black bean-FYH quesedilla and peppered kale. Best comfort food.


I got a little more adventurous last night and finally made the Quinoa Vegetable Paella I have been wanting to make for ages. It was fairly simple, and took no more than 45 minutes from chopping the onion, all the way to placing the choke hearts on top and plating. I added some Soyrizo that I picked up from Wheatsville. It added plenty of spice and some extra filling. I hope this freezes well.
Done just in time to get the fresh Peach Cobbler out of the oven. Amazing with Vanilla Soy Delicious for dessert. Another Paula Deen recipe, veganized of course. It makes me a happy vegan to know that we can make delicious vegan food with recipes that are notoriously known for being far from that. Next up, job hunting, and Cinnamon Rolls. Oooooh, I'm drooling just thinking about the warm, ooey, gooey goodness..

Pasta and muffins, but not together

I made Celine's Pumpkin-Almond sauce with spagetti and spinach for our first real home-made dinner. Although my picture really does no justice to how good the dish was, I wanted to show you none the less, I guess to prove I actually made and ate something at home. We enjoyed the pasta it with a side salad with more Cashew-Tamari dressing. I told you..major addiction. I think I eat it at least twice a day. I kind of messed with the sauce, and used vanilla Silk and almond butter, instead of soy creamer and almond meal. It's what I had on hand, and it worked out.

We made super-awesome-fantastaramic banana-chocolate chip muffins for breakfast this morning. My girlfriend used her kitchen aid to mix them up, and I am a firm believer that this improves the quality ten fold. The super rotten bananas, extra sugar, and chocolate chips also helped. They came out super duper moist, with huge muffin tops. Something I have never been able to achieve. I am so proud, and so addicted.


Made using a veganized version of Paula Deen's recipe. I know, there has been some controversy about Paula among vegans, and omnis alike due to her high fat, high sugar, and all around high grossness volume (can we say krispie kreme bread pudding with butter rum sauce?) But, I must admit I do love her. She is crazy, and funny, and sweet. Just like Martha Stewart, you've just got to admire her balls.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes in Austin. I am really enjoying it here, and I'm sure I will enjoy it even more once we get more settled in, and get to go out and have some fun. It's a great little place, and I'm happy to be here.

Takeout time

Since we are still in the process of unpacking and I have been working my butt off cooking people breakfast and cleaning their rooms, I haven't been doing much cooking at home. But, we have been eating. Our first homemade meal was something we called slosh- a bunch of yellow split peas with herbs thrown into a crockpot and cooked too long. Tasty, but not very picture worthy.

Saturday night, Candy and I decided to have a date night. The Paramount Theater was playing Gone With the Wind. We decided to have dinner at Thai Passion across the street beforehand. We shared an order of spring rolls, and a yellow curry dish. Both were pretty good. The curry dish was full of yummy veggies like eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers, plus some really nice tofu. It was pretty spicy, but the iced thia tea helped mellow it out. We lingered over dinner so long that we ended up being late to the movie. All fine by me, since it's a 4 hour movie. The theater was beautiful, though. They really helped capture it's established history through the architecture. It was a perfect way to spend our 1 month anniversary :)


Sunday night we decided to stay in and chill. We ordered pizza to go at Mellow Mushroom. Ours was a veggie with no cheese, which had spinach, sundried tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, and artichoke hearts. We grabbed some FYH Mozz, and cream sodas from Wheatsville. Holy soy, why have I never tried FYH before now?! I tasted it right out of the package, and it tasted like string cheese (which I used to love). But on the pizza, it was divine. I think I may feel an addiction coming on..

We enjoyed it with a salad on the side, which had veggies from Wheatsville, and the BEST dressing ever- Cashew Tamari Garlic. Another major addiction.


For dessert, we had a love cake that I picked up for Candy at Dhaba Joy after work. Aww, how sweet. So cute, and chocolatey. It had a little bit of cream filling, and was kind of similar to a Hostess.

We have not been having much luck with our transportation lately. We thought it would be simple enough to get around using the bus. But, if we want to go anywhere in downtown, or the north side, it takes at least 45 minutes one-way. When you are on a time limit (like when I'm going to work), this can be a major pain. Also, there are times when you miss the bus (like when I'm going to work..) and you have to pay to take a taxi. I'm hoping to sell my car in Houston soon so that I can get myself a scooter!


Bonus shot: the biggest strawberry I have ever seen. It became part of the fruit plate for breakfast at work.

Finally here, and happy 1 year

We're finally in Austin. We spent 10 hours packing on Saturday, and got in to town at midnight. I woke up Sunday morning at 6am, went to work, got off at 4, then spent the rest of the night unloading. I worked again Monday morning, and then came home and unpacked. I am covered in bruises and my muscles are aching..but we're here! Today and tomorrow are my days off. I am spending the day resting and rejuvinating. Tomorrow we get to go grocery shopping! It is really exciting to be able to fill a completely empty fridge. Even though my girlfriend and I don't have our days off together, we will have half days to spend together. Hopefully after a week or two of getting settled in we will get to explore the town and find some neat things to do. Right now I'm looking forward to getting unpacked, and start decorating.

On another exciting note, I discovered that yesterday was my 1 year blogaversary! That is pretty exciting, considering I thought I wouldn't stick with it longer than a week (I have a tendancy for those things). But, I suprised myself and now I feel like an official blogger. I do real blogger things, like spend time plating my food nicely and taking pictures even when we're hungry, have a list of over 100 bloggers in my bookmarks that I look at almost daily, spend about 70% of my day thinking about food I want to make, and draft blog entries in my head while I should be thinking about other things- just to name a few. So, thanks everyone who takes time to read my little blog. I hope to have more years of blogging ahead of me, it's been fun. I know this post was pretty boring, but I assure you that once I get settled in, I will have plenty to post about and share with you all!