what a busy weekend full of fun we had here! friday i visited my parents to help my momma celebrate mother’s day a little early. friday morning julie & i headed out to my parent’s home where mom & i went shopping for lots and lots of flowers for her many gardens. part of my mother’s day gift was to help her with gardening and so we needed lots of beauuuutiful annuals to make their gardens pop with lots of color and fun! julie loves to visit my parents ‘cause jasmine
(our family dog – she’s 17! can you believe it!?! you wouldn’t know it if you met her – she may have the cutest grey face, but she acts just like a young pup!) is her bff and she looooooves to hang out with her! they’re too cute & funny together!
friday evening mom, dad, and i went out for some mexican yummies at a local place not too far from where they live.
i was unsure if the tortillas were vegan so i had the vegetarian fajitas sans tortillas (and without butter, sour cream, or cheese) & on top of some vegetarian/vegan beans ‘n rice (oh yes, that’s guacamole salad – yay!)!
my meal was oh-so delicious!
saturday morning dad & i were up early for a suuuuper hilly run - we ran 5 miles together & had an absolute blast! the humidity made it a little tough on our lungs (and the monster hills didn’t help much either! ahahahahahaa!), but we pushed through and were quite proud of ourselves! my parents live out in “the country” so we saw lots of cows, the cutest little donkey, a snapping turtle, and we even saved a box turtle from becoming road kill on our run together! hooray! those hills kicked our ass, but luckily i was making us all some of
Bianca's heavenly
pecan waffles (for her upcoming southern cookbook) for breakfast (my momma’s favorite is waffles with strawberries & ice cream, and i just had to make her what she loves the most for mother’s day!) – complete with fresh strawberries & rice dream ice cream!
what a delicious way to start the day! my sister had driven up in the wee hours of the morning to be with momma & celebrate (and to lend an extra super-helping hand with the gardening) - after breakfast we all headed outside to move rocks into a swale mom & dad are creating, mulch the gardens, and plant lots and LOTS of beautiful flowers (and some pussy willow! my absolute favorite!).
it was pretty darn warm out so we cooled off & enjoyed salads topped with apple, cranberries, chickpeas, onion, carrots, and toasted almonds for lunch time yummiesnesses. mom, janine, and i played a game of scrabble (and chocolates were had)
and then it was back to richmond for some relaxing with dan saturday night. after a wee run sunday morning, dan and i rode our motorcycle out to
Ipanema (a local veggie & vegan restaurant) to enjoy some tasty brunch. Ipanema (or favorite dinner spot!) started offering brunch a few weeks ago & it was about darn time we checked it out.
dan ordered the spicy soyrizo wrap, and i had the tempeh benedict (citrusy vegan hollandaise on the side) – both were served with sweet potato hash & fresh fruit.
brunch was pretty good, but to be honest, we were both a little disappointed. it’s not that our brunch was bad – it’s just that it wasn’t all we hoped it would be. Ipanema’s dinner rocks so hard that we were expecting the same with brunch. vegan brunch can fo 'sho be difficult to pull off. dan’s wrap had a little too much going on, and it wasn't very spicy - my english muffin was a wee bit tough, and the tempeh was pretty bitter. it was pretty darn tasty though, just not gloriously good. i think we'll have to give it another try - but in the meantime we’re thinking of recreating these dishes and seeing if we can improve upon them for a super fun challenge - i’m up for it and i can’t wait! maybe towards the end of the pantry challenge we’ll give it a go, although most of the ingredients are in our pantry, i’m just gonna wait a few more weeks for the local tomatoes to start being offered by our csa. sunday afternoon dan and i worked our buns off around the home! he trimmed some trees, i planted flowers and herbs (basil, cilantro, and oregano), tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, and we painted our guest bathroom, too. whew! it felt great to be so productive! for dinner we treated ourselves & made
pierogies (stuffed with smashed potatoes & sauteed onions and csa scallions and green garlic), sauteed kale, and corn on the cob. don’t let that kale fool you – it was horribly bitter, but the pierogies ‘n corn were rock’n!
oh yeah – we just had to take a shot of our thursday night salads ‘cause they were so stellar!
Diann had posted about using raw beet greens in her salads and this rock’n
green smoothie dressing she created.
we didn’t have everything on hand that was needed for her dressing on hand (we didn't have a tomato, and part of the avocado had gone bad so we just cut around the bad spots and sliced up the little remaining bits to top our salads) so we kinda winged it and used her recipe as inspiration. the end result was the best dressing we’ve had to date! wowzers! thanks, Diann! here’s what we did: we chopped up 2 tiny csa carrots in our food processor and added in ¼ cup chopped parsley, juice from ½ a lime, a handful of csa spinach, a pinch of sea salt, 1 tsp miso, 1 tbsp tahini, 1 tbsp maple syrup, and ¼ cup of water. we ended up with one fresh, tangy, and complex dressing that our taste buds & tummies looooooved! our salads were comprised of the last ½ of a cucumber, ½ an avocado, some more carrots, raw beet greens, raw swiss chard, spinach, radishes, and arugula from our csa. i see a lot more salad ‘n dressing combinations like this in our future – it was all just so darn delicious!
that’s about it from here - we hope everyone had super stellar weekends full of fun & lots of tasty eatz! oh – i almost forgot: this week may be a little light on the posts ‘cause we’ve got a lot go’n on (lots of celebrating, that is!). tomorrow is my birthday and dan’s taking me out to celebrate! doubleandsuperexcitedface! there may not be a lot new recipes and cooking going on this week, but there will be yummies enjoyed – so i promise to try and remember the camera to take pictures of all the awesomenesses we eat! superw00t!
csa yummies: arugula, spinach, carrots, radishes, scallions, green onions, beet greens, swiss chard
pantry items: tahini, rice milk
tuesday night we used up a block of local tofu, the last of the frozen corn, and half of the frozen peas we had in our freezer for a super quick and very delicious meal. we simply sauteed the peas ‘n corn then we chopped up a little raw csa spinach and combined the veggies with the blackened tofu cubes (we used chef paul’s blackened seasoning to coat the tofu then baked it on 350 for a half an hour). this was one tasty veggie ‘n tofu bowl! mmmmmmmmm!
i got the idea for the broccoli ‘n black bean combination from the rock'n black bean ‘n broccoli rice that Bianca posted about last week – it looked & sounded like such an excellent combination it totally got stuck in my head! and oh yes, the broccoli + black beans combination = super yum! :)
