An Apple a Day, Vegan Potlucks, and More!

Woo hoo, it’s Friday!!  Gotta love a shortened work week.  I’ve also been extremely productive this week, both in the office and out, which for me always makes time go by more quickly.

Also I have lots of fun stuff coming up!  Tomorrow is the Virtual Vegan Potluck and I am bringing an appetizer which incorporates the featured ingredient, beets!  Be sure to check in tomorrow to see what I made, and to check out all of the other incredible vegan goodness being brought by bloggers all over the world.

On Sunday, H and I are going to a real-life potluck at Sunny Meadow Sanctuary, an animal sanctuary in Central Mass.  It’s actually a “work day” and potluck, which means that we will be going over in the early afternoon to volunteer around the farm as needed for a few hours, followed by feasting.  I have been wanting to do this for SO long but something always comes up.  As for this weekend, the stars aligned: H and I are not out of town for the first time in months, and the Patriots aren’t playing on Sunday, so I’m finally going and am super-excited!!  I’ll try to get some good pictures while I’m there.  Now I just have to figure out what to bring…

I have a few other projects in the works that I’ll reveal in the next week or two.  But for now I just wanted to share a confession, which is that I’ve recently been eating an unholy amount of apples.

We may not be able to have avocados growing in our backyards (SoCal = SoJealous), but Massachusetts does manage produce apples that are absurdly delicious and plentiful all autumn long.  On the last day of our local farmer’s market, October 29, I bought around 20 lbs. of them.  My original intent was to wait until early December, then slow-cook them down into apple butter (Vanilla Rum Apple Butter, to be exact) to give to neighbors and co-workers as holiday gifts.  But…now I’m not sure that’s going to happen, because I’ve already eaten like half of them.

Mostly at breakfast time as Apple Butterballs (as I call them):

This involves slicing open an apple, scooping out the seeds, and then filling the remaining little well with raw almond butter (or any other kind of nut/seed butter).  Then you sprinkle it with cinnamon, put the apple back together, and wrap it in tin foil to bring to work for breakfast.

Sometimes when you unwrap the apple, you’ll find that the almond butter got a little gooey and melted out the end, but I don’t mind this.  I just scoop it off the tin foil and put it back on the apple when eating it. 🙂

I find the apple butterballs very filling, but for something even heartier, I go for an Apple Breakfast Sandwich:

You’ve got a toasted whole wheat English muffin, spread with raw almond butter and topped with hemp seeds and apple slices.

Sprinkle on cinnamon (always cinnamon. Always.):

And add a drizzle of agave, if you dare:

Try to tell me there’s something wrong with this and I’ll call you a liar!  At least I know I’m getting my apple a day. 🙂

Pile on the Miles Update: I hit my goal of 10 miles this week, but at this point I’m below where I should be at the halfway mark of the month (goal is 43 miles during this 30-day month and I’m at 17.25 as of the 15th), so I’ll probably try to get another 4-5 miles in tomorrow.  Yay for having a weekend where I’m not traveling and can stay home and actually do stuff I want to do!!!

Also, by some miracle, my running fitness has returned relatively quickly.  I did a really fun four-miler last night and it felt great the entire time.  That’s not to say I didn’t have some precarious moments.  As with many small New England towns founded in the 17th century, mine has a lot of trees.  Old trees.  With big roots that grow underneath and ripple the sidewalks.  Being accustomed to running and training in the spring/summer (read: with daylight), I didn’t realize how dark and poorly-lit parts of my town actually are, and how difficult that makes it to avoid the tree roots!  I might have to start wearing one of those silly-looking head lanterns, Ragnar-style:

(Just now realizing I wore that exact white longsleeve and reflective vest combo last night.  The headlamp would just totally complete the look.)

What should I bring to the Sunny Meadow potluck on Sunday? Any fun plans for the weekend?? Let me know in the comments!

Autumn Breakfast Bounty

Over the summer I dedicated an entire post to smoothies and salads, but now that it’s fall my appetite is running toward the warmer end of the breakfast spectrum.  This means that oatmeal is back in the rotation (how 2009, I know), as well as a number of baked goods (which I at least try to keep on the healthy side).

Over the weekend, I made the Lower Fat Banana Bread (with chocolate chips, OBVIOUSLY) from Veganomicon for a football tailgate.

I was really motivated to make this because whenever I tailgate with a bunch of dudes I notice that there is a distinct lack of any food that is not either meat or a piece of bread on which to transfer the meat from hand to mouth.  I got up early that morning to bake it so that it would be warm and delicious for the tailgate.  It was a big hit and I had only 2-3 slices left over.  Here’s what I did with those:

Portable workday breakfast: slice of chocolate chip banana bread with raw almond butter.  Perfection.

I also baked a batch of Chocolate Spice Muffins from Everyday Happy Herbivore so that H and I could have a quick, low-cal, grab-and-go breakfast every day this week.

As with the banana bread, I like to cut these in half and spread a little raw almond butter on them.  Obviously this ups the calories considerably, but I am the kind of person who is ravenous by 10:30 a.m. if I don’t bulk up my breakfast a little.

^Pretty hard to argue with.

As to that oatmeal, and sticking with another recurring theme of pumpkin everything, check this out:

Chocolate Pumpkin Pecan Oatmeal
Serves 1

Ingredients
1 serving of cooked oatmeal (cooked according to package instructions)
1 tbsp. pumpkin puree
1 tbsp. vegan chocolate chips
1 tbsp. chopped pecans
A sprinkle of pink salt
[optional] 1 tsp. maple syrup

Directions
Simply cook the oatmeal, then stir in remaining ingredients and enjoy!

Oatmeal never did photograph nicely.

Oh and just in case you didn’t already know, the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival is coming up in less than two weeks!!!

I can’t wait!!

P.S. – Happy 2 Year Anniversary to my H!!! 🙂