Changing days

I have to confess that I haven't been in much of a cooking mood lately. I have basically been putting various things together in a somewhat satisfying fashion, in an attempt to clean out my fridge before I move. I did get a few good outcomes, helped out mostly by my last weekly farmers market trip, which was bursting with summer goodies.

I picked up some local tomatoes (it is tomato season afterall), a funny shaped eggplant, a sweet yellow pepper, a mystery squash, and the juciest blackberries I have ever eaten.

A couple of weeks ago, I made the pistachio-arugula pesto I found at Vegan Yum Yum. I wanted to make some kind of napoleon with the eggplant and squash and a tomato based sauce. When I cut open the squash, it seemed more like an acorn squash than the summer squash I was expecting, but not as hard. I decided to roughly follow the recipe in VwaV, subbing the artichoke for squash. I had it with some roasted long beans, which I picked up at the market (but forgot to include in the picture-whoops!) It was tasty, a bit messy, and a great compliment for the pesto, which should always be the showcase of any meal it is included in.


I put together this yummy fruit salad for breakfast one morning. It is a prime summer meal, cool, light, and refreshing. It has those scrumptious blackberries, organic kiwi, and orange, and a fresh picked peach from the tree growing right on the sidewalk at T'afia.

This is a dish inspired by a recipe I found somewhere for potato, broccoli, and chickpeas tossed with a vinagrette. I don't remember where it comes from, but this is my spin on it. Steamed red potatoes, edamame, and chickpeas, tossed with T'afia's Sherry Vinagrette and thyme. The thyme was a last minute thing I had lurking in my fridge, and was a really nice addition. Simple summer salad, would have been good on some crisp lettuce, but none was to be found. I put it on half of a hemp tortilla.

I'm not a big fan of fake meats, but they do come in handy. I was pleasantly suprised with this dish. I followed the recipe on the Garden burger box for these lettuce rolls, putting my own spin on it, using what I had. Garden burger strips, green onion, red cabbage, a soy sauce/ginger/red pepper mix, dotted with sesame oil, topped with peanuts. I didn't have whole lettuce leaves, but some chopped romaine. Pretty tasty, but didn't much remind me of the lettuce wraps I loved pre-vegan. Maybe one day I will find a good substitute.

My posts will be more sparse than usual for a while. So sorry to all of my (3 or so) readers. I will update every now and then to track my journeys. I will be leaving next weekend to spend a week or so at my friend's house in Austin. I'm sure I will have plenty of fun experiences to share, and free internet access. The pride parade is also coming up this weekend. We will have a Go Veg float (the Best lil Veggie House in Texas) in it, which I will be on, loud and proud. Many fun pictures are sure to come out of that. See you around!