Some Troubles

Check http://www.livingvegan.blogspot.com or http://livingveganblog.com for updates, I'm working out a few kinks....

Soya Too!

I've had several people ask about the whipped cream in the Trifle I made last week -
It's a box of whipped Soya Too, available via mail order from Food Fight Grocery!

It's SOOOOO easy to make, you just whip it with a stand mixer for about 20 minutes on medium (or 4 if you have a Kitchen Aid). You can add some confectioner's sugar or Splenda to make it a little sweeter, but I usually don't do that unless I'm using it for something like a Trifle.

Grilled Sheese

I love Food Fight. I seriously don't know what I would do without their mail-order business...If you haven't been to their site lately (or heaven-forbid haven't been there at all!) you HAVE to check it out, they have everything under the sun including Sheese, the best fake cheese available.

Here are our Grilled Sheese sandwiches, we used Mild Cheddar:



In the background are some vegan Dorritos, though when this bag is done I think we'll be 'over' it, I thought I missed the processed goodness of Dorritos, but I didn't...eating them again is just kind of gross...we've had the same bag for weeks now, I think we're used to eating so much healthier that eating Dorritos just seems weird!

Kitchens

I like the colors of this kitchen. Los isn't that into it, but something about it appeals to me!

Local Finds

There are farms all over my area, the grocery stores also carry tons of local produce, and there's a weekend Farmer's Market nearby where you can score some delicious goodies.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of organic farms. That said, below is my most recent score - the cucumbers are from my dad's garden, they're organic (and awesome!), the cherry tomatoes and corn are from a local farm, the tomatoes are the sweetest I've had in a very long time.

The strawberry-rhubarb jam is from another local farm, she makes an amazing array of home-canned items such as pickles, jams, 'salads' (like 3-bean salads), etc. She had a lot of delicious sounding varieties such as peach-thyme, melon-mint, cantelope, jalepeno, etc.

I could not resist making a tomato-cucumber salad - I added 1.5 Tbs olive oil, 1 Tbs 3-leaf balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp sea salt, and a large handful of fresh chopped basil.

Yum!!

The best part about shopping local is that you know the ingredients are fresh. When I bought the corn, the farmer actually went out to the field and picked a dozen ears for me, he then told me to eat them within 8 hours as he said that around 8 hours after being picked, the sugars would begin to break down. How cool is that! We ate the corn within about 4 hours, and he was right, it was incredible sweet and crispy!

Lace Cookies

I whipped up a batch of lace cookies, they tasted amazing but fell apart almost instantly, I lined the pan with parchment paper for the second batch and that worked a little better, but they were still extremely brittle, I'll post the recipe once I perfect it...For now I'll just say the secret ingredient is lemon zest!

Restaurant Review: Cali Burrito

Cali Burrito is a California-style burrito joint. It's fresh fast food. They have smoked tofu, which is awesome. They also have tofu scrambler burritos and SOMETIMES have smoked seitan as well.

I opted for the taco salad with smoked tofu.


You have to bring your own Tofutti Sour Supreme which is kind of a bummer since otherwise they're pretty vegan-friendly.

Cali Burrito
3104 Hamilton Blvd. (across from Dorney Park)
Allentown, PA
610-351-1791

Woohoo!!!!

My awesome friend Dave totally hooked me up -- you can now see my blog at it's new address

http://www.livingveganblog.com

Add it to your RSS readers, yo!

Try It Out Tuesdays: Raw Revolution Bars

I tried the Chocolate and Cashew Raw Revolution Bar.

I'm into the packaging and the name:


It says 'with sprouted flax seeds' so I thought, this bar is going to be gross, I couldn't imagine the texture of a sprouted seed in a bar - I was skeptical to say the least!

When I opened it, my hopes were raised, it looks like a chocolate bar!

Overall I was very impressed. It is definitely more tasty than Larabars and while there were some 'bits' in it, the texture was really good, the cashews were slightly crispy and the chocolate was very flavorful.

My only complaint was that I would have liked it to be just a tad sweeter, but I guess that really isn't what they are going for.

Overall I would purchase this item and try other flavors as well!


*If you have a product you would like me to review, please send an email to j88nny@hotmail.com.