It’s a Boy!!!

Some of you may have guessed from my extended recent absence that Baby H has made his debut!

He was born the morning of January 8, 2015, weighing a sturdy 8 pounds 5 ounces and measuring 21.5 inches long.  We have been home from the hospital a little over a week and it’s been quite a whirlwind!  He’s an amazing baby; really sweet and snuggly, and also alert and really strong!  We are quite taken with him.

I experienced some extensive blood loss following delivery and was severely anemic for a few days afterward, so I’m taking an iron supplement and have been trying to get lots of rest (the ultimate catch 22 with a newborn!) and eat as healthfully as possible.

Impossibly large bowls of oatmeal (also good for lactation!) and green smoothies have been lifesavers.

Plus a big batch of Becky’s Spinach Artichoke Dip with Garlic Cashew Cream is great for one-handed dipping 🙂

Blogging is definitely still something I intend to do, albeit with somewhat less frequency as I adjust to my new life as a mother.  My goal is going to be once a week but please don’t hold it against me if it turns out to be a bit less here and there.  I do have some fun posts pre-scheduled in the next few weeks so do look out for those!

Oh and I hope to be back to reading and commenting on all of your blogs soon too! Don’t be surprised if the majority of the comments are timestamped in the wee hours of the morning…

Vegan Snacking from a Prego Pro

Hey there! I’m still here…things have just been super-crazy. Does anyone else feel like time is just racing by? I can’t believe we’re only a week from Thanksgiving!

Aside from being crazy, things have been pretty great on my end. At 33+ weeks, Baby H is continuing to grow, and as s/he gets bigger and bigger, there is less and less room for other things…like, y’know, my lungs and stomach.

It will be at *least* another 3 weeks until s/he drops, so until then I have been taking it slow to try to avoid shortness of breath, and eating small meals and snacks throughout the day to avoid feeling too full.

Fortunately I just so happen to be a master of vegan snacking. Aside from obvious choices like fruit and nuts, here are some of my pregnancy-approved snacks:

Non-dairy yogurt with hemp seeds:

This was my first time trying So Delicious almond milk yogurt and it was pretty good, but didn’t taste much different to me than soy yogurt. It also suffers from the common yogurt pitfall of having way too much sugar, so this has only been an occasional one for me.

Sriracha popcorn:

This one is a bit more of a guilty pleasure. H and I bought a bag of this at the NYC Hot Sauce Expo earlier this year, and it had been hiding, unopened and forgotten, in our cabinet ever since. I remedied the problem pretty quickly.

Barbara’s peanut butter Puffins with almond-coconut milk [it won’t let me load my own photo for some reason so here’s a nice stock image from the Barbara’s website for ya]:

I have always loved Puffins but am now officially obsessed with them. The supermarket by my work almost always has them on sale at 2 boxes for $6, so I’ve been buying them up like mad. Plus, between this snack and my morning coffee, I’m now going through almost a gallon of almond-coconut milk each week. I’m not even sorry.

Carrots and hummus:

The tried and true classic. I grabbed a few of these little individual sized hummus cups at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival a couple of weeks ago, and love how convenient they are.

Also, has Cedar’s changed their recipe? I find myself *loooooving* their hummus recently, where previously I thought it was only okay.  It’s creamier or something.

I enjoyed it so much in the little travel packs that I went out and bought a giant 16 oz. container of it, which I’ve been using to enjoy…

Hummus and olive tapenade on crackers:

So…this is the one that I truly cannot get enough of. I buy the olive tapenade from Trader Joe’s and if you haven’t had it, I’m telling you it’s a must-try. So salty and delicious. Baby H approves.

Trader Joe’s roasted plantain chips:

These are cheap and great in a pinch. I keep a bag in my desk drawer to keep afternoon hunger pains at bay until I can get home and fix myself some hummus and tapenade 🙂

In the next few weeks as the countdown to Baby H’s arrival continues, I’ll be turning my attention to clearing out our freezer in the hope of restocking it with meals that will be easy for H and me to thaw and eat in our first few weeks as new parents. Hopefully I’ll come up with some fun concoctions to share with you all!

Easy Homemade Frozen Fruit Bars

Hi there! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

With just over a week left of Vegan MoFo, I’m not sure whether I’ll actually meet the 20-post goal–it’d require me to post every day from here on out!–but I’m certainly going to try, as I have a lot more Simply Perfect goodness to share before the month’s end.

Today I want to tell you about a super-simple dessert (or snack, or even breakfast) that’s a cinch to prepare and is actually good for you!  Instead of spending lots of money on commercial frozen treats (many of them with questionable additives), try stocking your freezer with Homemade Frozen Fruit Bars.

Basically, you make a smoothie and freeze it.  SO EASY, and the flavor combinations are endless, making it a great way to use up produce that is nearing the end of its shelf life.  Less waste = more money in your pocket.

For these, I blended a cup of Trader Joe’s Orange-Peach-Mango juice that we had left over from a party with some fresh peaches and frozen strawberries (probably about 3/4 cup of each), then I stirred in little chunks of fresh strawberries that needed to be used up for good measure.

Water works fine in place of juice, and is actually what I would have used if I hadn’t just happened to have juice to use up.

I poured the mixture into these popsicle molds that I bought for like a buck at Target a few years ago and froze them overnight (and there was some leftover which I gladly ate with a spoon–yum!).

If you don’t have a mold like this you could use a standard ice cube tray instead and make mini fruit bars.  Simply pour in the mixture, let it freeze for an hour, then insert toothpicks or mini-popsicle sticks and continue to freeze overnight.

For my next batch, I’m thinking of blending orange juice with strawberries and then mixing in some chocolate chips…mmm…

More yummy frozen fruit bars: Creamsicle Frozen Yogurt Pops (from last year’s Vegan MoFo!)

Brussels Sprouts Chips: A Simply Perfect Snack

You guys, I’m obsessed. I found this recipe for Brussels Sprouts Chips by Maria Marlowe and had to wonder how in the hell I had never tried this before.

I now find myself cutting my sprouts a little more roughly than I ever did in the past, just so I can have more leaves fall off and make more of these incredible, crispy, salty snackables.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with the seasonings a bit.  A little sprinkle of curry powder is one of my favorite twists on this.

Make some this weekend!

Chili Lime Corn on the Cob: A Simply Perfect Snack or Side

I’m not sure why, but up until last year I had never cooked my own corn on the cob. I guess maybe I thought it was hard or took a long time, but boy was I wrong.

Bottom line: if you can boil water, you can cook corn on the cob.

Here are the steps:

• Bring a large pot of UNSALTED water to a boil.
• De-husk the corn cobs and place them in the water.
• Leave them there until the water starts to boil again (this takes maybe 2 minutes tops). [Note: if you want it a little softer and less al dente, give it an additional minute in the boiling water.]
• As soon as the water is boiling again, remove the corn with tongs.
• Season to taste and eat, typewriter-style.

[Source]

That’s it!

My absolute favorite flavor right now is Chili Lime Corn on the Cob. To make, just spread a pat of Earth Balance over the still-warm corn, then add a squeeze of fresh lime juice, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and a generous couple of dashes of mild chili powder (or for an incredible kick, try a spice mixture like Slap Ya Mama). Toss to coat evenly, and enjoy. My mouth is watering just thinking about it…

This is so quick and fail-proof that I’ve recently taken to eating a piece of corn as a snack when I get home from work. It also makes a fantastic side to pretty much any dinner entree. Right now is the time to enjoy sweet end-of-summer corn, so don’t delay!

I’m also sharing this delicious corn dish in this week’s Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck–check it out!

Simply Perfect Breakfast: Avocado Toast

Being pregnant has definitely affected my eating habits. For example, I’m not really one to eat breakfast first thing in the morning. I normally start with a some fruit or a smoothie around 10 a.m., well after I’ve arrived at work, and then follow it with more fruit or half a PB&J&B around 11:30.

Recently, however, I’ve been forced to get some food down first thing in the morning, as that’s when I take my prenatal vitamin, and I get really nauseated if I have it on an empty stomach.

Enter avocado toast, my new favorite breakfast, and also anytime snack.

I’m never NOT in the mood for this.

All you need to create this plate of perfection is a ripe avocado and a piece or two of whole wheat toast.

I use one quarter of an avocado on each slice of toast; I find this to be a good ratio of fruit to bread, plus it’s economical because avocados are expensive, and this way you get four servings of toast out of each one.

Just scoop it out, spread it on, and season as desired. Cumin tastes great on this, but the combo I can’t get enough of is salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of Vesta:

MMM creamy, spicy heaven!

If you’ve never tried avocado toast, now is the time. Bonus points if your toast has team spirit:

GO PATS!!!

A Mini Cook in the Making

Okay so after only posting 16 total times in the last three months, as well as dropping off precipitously from reading and commenting on other blogs, I am finally ready to provide an explanation for my whereabouts.

H and I are having a baby!!!

Baby H is due January 6, 2015. We will not know the sex until then so you’ll have to stay tuned for that 🙂

I am 18 weeks and 1 day today, so well into the second trimester by this point.  I’ve been feeling great the past couple of weeks, although it was quite a bit rougher before that.  While I luckily didn’t have violent morning sickness, I was pretty much constantly queasy for about ten or eleven weeks there, and TIRED beyond all belief:

I miss you, Marty ❤
[Note: this picture was actually taken the night before we realized anything was up with me!]

Needless to say, it was sometimes necessary to stay away from reading some of my favorite blogs, because even the most beautiful recipes had the tendency to inspire bad feelings in my tummy (sorry!).

Thank the LORD for no coffee aversion!

As for eating, well…let’s just say I haven’t exactly been a paragon of vegan eating recently.  I’ve tried hard to walk the straight and narrow but there were times when it was almost impossible to think of anything that sounded good to eat.  My meals have ranged from very healthy:

Biggest salad of all time, constructed from the greens in my fridge + goodies from the WF salad bar

To decidedly un-:

Grilled Daiya (Swiss slices used) with tomato and tater tots…call it a craving?

Same with snacks. Thumbs up:

To thumbs…sideways:


^These are magical for nausea, however.

In general I’ve just been trying to get lots of rest and a moderate amount of exercise in between my regular work schedule and planning for baby.

Work has begun on the nursery!  Step one: painting, is complete.

In the past few weeks we’ve “come out” to everyone we see on a regular basis, which is fortunate because it’s becoming tough to hide!

Resting with my boys

Anyway, I hope you can all forgive my absence (from here and from your blogs) as well as my delay in announcing this news–this is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to us and I wanted to make sure I could do it some justice!

Before I sign off, let me just say that by no means is my blog going to be all about pregnancy for the next few months.  However, hopefully now some of the weirder crap I’m eating can be put into context 🙂

Happy Hump Bump Day!

Mojito Stone Fruit Salad

Today I am sharing my current obsession: a stone fruit salad with hints of mint and lime reminiscent of a delicious mojito!

Tangy, sweet, and insanely refreshing, this fruit salad is a perfect way to take advantage of summer’s amazing bounty. It makes a delicious breakfast or snack and is easily multiplied for a party, picnic, or bbq.

Mojito Stone Fruit Salad
Serves 2 as a snack or side, or 1 as a big bodacious breakfast
Vegan, raw, gluten-free

Ingredients
1 nectarine (or peach), pitted and diced
1 plum, pitted and diced
10 cherries, pitted and quartered
1 tsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 tsp grated lime zest
1 tsp finely chopped fresh mint

Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well, stirring gently to avoid bruising the fruit.

Enjoy as is or top with coconut whipped cream for a little decadence! (I like this method by Angela of Oh She Glows).

Recipe notes:
1) Conventionally grown stone fruits tend to carry a lot of pesticides on their skin. In this one you’ll be eating all the skins, including that of the lime, making this one recipe for which you may want to consider using organic ingredients if available.
2) If your fruit is underripe or you find the salad comes out more tangy than you’d prefer, go ahead and add a little bit of sweetener. Agave nectar or some cane or turbinado sugar would work beautifully.
3) If you are making this to serve at a gathering I would suggest waiting to toss it all together until you are just about ready to serve. This will prevent those sassy cherries from staining the whole thing red!

Have a wonderful, happy, healthy 4th!!!

UPDATE: I have entered this recipe in today’s Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck!

 

Review: Vegan Cuts May Snack Box

Many of you are probably familiar with Vegan Cuts, a fantastic company that operates sort of like a Groupon or LivingSocial for vegans (meaning that you can get great deals and discounts on all sorts of fun foods, beauty products, and other fun vegan stuff).

Maybe you also know that Vegan Cuts also offers a monthly subscription service for both snacks and beauty products.  Basically, each month, you receive a treasure chest of surprise goodies delivered right to your front door–how cool is that?!

Recently I was offered the opportunity to review the Vegan Cuts May Snack Box, which I enthusiastically accepted!

Long story short: the Snack Box service is AWESOME.  Here is the low-down on each of the items that came in my box:

Nature’s Bakery Lemon Fig Bar

LOVE.  Lightly sweet, very subtle but lovely lemon flavor, like a Fig Newton but WAY better.

SuperEats Kale + Chia Chips


These were pretty good.  The taste reminds me a little of spanakopita (weird, right? But tasty!).  Nice crunch, not too salty.  Definitely good enough to satisfy a chip craving, but way healthier.  One bag has 180 calories, 6g fiber, 6g protein, 105% Vitamin A and 120% Vitamin C.

Beanfields Ranch Chips

I had heard a lot about these prior to trying them, and I can tell you they live up to the hype.  They have everything you could want in a chip: crunch, body, saltiness, and tons of flavor.

At the Table Together Easy Make Pizza Dough
Unfortunately this one was a complete and utter fail.  In theory it’s an incredibly easy and quick way to get homemade pizza dough (just add seltzer and olive oil to the mix and let it rise for up to 10 hours, then roll it and bake!).  Well, I followed the directions, and the dough did rise, but somehow it was far too sticky to handle.  I could barely get it off my fingers, so rolling it into a ball was out of the question.  Total waste 😦

Meatless Select Vegetarian Taco Filling

Yum–this was excellent!  Great texture, extremely easy to prepare, and very well-seasoned.  Usually I expect to add seasonings to something like this, but there was no need. [P.S. – This is the meat substitute I used in my delicious, lazy Taco Salad last week!]

Bonelli Simply Sesame spread


Oh goodness, I LOVED this. It was creamy and sweet (but not too sweet) and made a perfect afternoon snack (with staying power!) on a piece of Ezekiel toast. I also love the fun, portable little packet it comes in! I can see so many more fun uses for this, and if I see it in a store I am going to snatch it right up.

Jyoti Appeteasers Indian Savory Snack Mix

This was a really interesting and tasty snack! Lots of different textures and distinct flavors.  It definitely has a sweet element to accompany the savory, and is mildly spicy.  I enjoyed it; my only qualm was that the minuscule size and irregular shape of the pieces made it hard to pick them out of the bag to eat.  Instead I had to sort of pour some out into my palm and eat it by the handful. Fortunately no one was around to frown at my poor manners 🙂

Saffron Road Rogan Josh Simmer Sauce

Saffron Road is not a vegan company but the majority of their premade simmer sauces are vegan.  I chose not to snap a photo for you of the package for the Rogan Josh because it contains a picture of a meat dish.  Shame, because the sauce is absolutely PERFECT for veggies!  I made an extremely delicious curry out of it, using half of a red onion, two cloves of garlic, half a head of cauliflower, a can of chickpeas, and one bunch of fresh spinach.  The sauce has lots of flavor so I didn’t need to add any additional seasonings, however it is not very spicy so I did throw in a generous helping of Vesta to liven it up.  With the cooking laziness I’ve been experiencing lately, I could see myself using this or other Saffron Road simmer sauces frequently for their convenience and great taste.

Pearls black pitted Olives to Go!

What a cute and convenient snack this one is!  If you like black olives you can’t go wrong with this one.  The only thing that’s kind of weird is that the package says there’s 2.5 servings (each serving being 4 olives) inside…why not just make the serving size 1?  It’s 10 olives (40 calories)!

Jiva Hot Chocolate


Inside the adorable little packet is a compressed cube (well, more of a rectangle) of hot chocolate mix!  You simply boil some milk, drop it in, let it sit for a minute, then stir, and you have a delicious, creamy mug of vegan hot chocolate!  Love this!  I could totally see myself popping a few of these into my purse to enjoy when I’m on the go.

The Bottom Line
The overall experience of a Vegan Cuts Snack Box is outstanding.  I consider myself an adventurous vegan and I tend to enthusiastically buy and try new products whenever I see them (case in point).  However, every last thing in this box was totally new to me!  And, with the exception of one unfortunate failure, I enjoyed every last one.

In sum, this is a fun and innovative way to expand your horizons, try some new things, and find some new favorites each month.  I would recommend it to both newbie vegans as a way of discovering joy and variety in vegan eating, as well as to seasoned vegan vets who love trying new things.  If you’re like me, anyway, you derive a lot of pleasure from watching the universe of vegan options continue to expand and prosper!

Whole Foods Finds: So Delicious Cococcino and Kite Hill Ricotta

I have a confession to make: I no longer have any self-control when I go into Whole Foods.

Today I felt like they could have used a video of me doing my shopping in there as a training exercise for advertisers, entitled “How to Make the Customer Want to Buy EVERYthing.”  The secret?  Put a vegan label on it and This Girl will buy it.

Like seriously, I was waiting in the express line, which is bordered on either side by a 5 foot wall of snack products, and as I moved down that aisle my arms would just shoot out left and right, grabbing whatever was nearby.  So many amazing products, both familiar and new, were just staring at me, waiting to join the heap in my basket.

Included among my haul were some Primal Strips (one of my guiltiest pleasures and something I always have in my purse for emergencies) and some chocolate chip cookie dough Larabars (can’t ever have enough of those, right?  Plus they were on sale for only $1!).  I did manage to resist the bags of Kale Krunch, because even in my weakest moments I can’t justify paying $5 for what is essentially two bites of food.  [As always, these are not affiliate links.  I simply link to the products’ webpages in case anyone is curious as to what I’m talking about.]

And then I turned the corner and saw this:

Oh ye shining beacon of beauty.  I think I actually stopped dead in my tracks and simply stared at it for a moment.

Quick back-story is that I first started drinking coffee during my sophomore year of college at NYU, when I would grab one of those bottled Starbucks sugar-bombs frappuccinos before my late afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from the cafe across the street (which accepted Declining Dollars, natch).

I guess I never thought I’d live to see the day when there would be a commercially available vegan equivalent.  And this thing is amazingly delicious.  With 22 grams of sugar (cough), it is definitely sweet, but less so than the Starbucks one, which has 31 grams.  It’s not something I am going to buy every day (neither my waistline nor my wallet can afford that), but I figured it was worth trying as a special treat and as something to share with you all.  I guess I’m just really happy it exists, and that more and more vegan products are coming out every day that are every bit as good, if not better, than their non-vegan counterparts.

Case-in-point: Kite Hill’s vegan Ricotta cheese, which I finally spotted in my local Whole Foods last week (and immediately purchased of course.  Have you been reading along this whole time?) 🙂
This stuff is a creamy, salty dream.  Since we’re all about confessions today, I’ll tell you that I ate about a quarter of the contents straight out of the container upon opening it.  I think my brain had to process how delicious it was before I could start coming up with ways to use it.

My favorite application so far is to make it into a yummy, satisfying snack with cucumbers and slivered raw soaked almonds, with a little cracked pepper on top.
Obviously it would also be beautiful in pasta.  I don’t have enough left from this container to do a lasagna, but I have grand plans for one of those next time around.

If your Whole Foods has started carrying this cheese, I highly, highly recommend it.   You can find it in the fancy cheese case.  Yup, right next to the dairy cheeses.  It’s partially off-putting and partially awesome, really.

Are you a sucker for Whole Foods too?  What are your favorite new vegan finds?