WIAW #34 OR A Day of Favorites

   Hi Friends!

   Are you ready for another edition of WIAW? Me, too! This is actually Sunday's eats, not Wednesday's AND, they all just happen to be my favorite foods. So, without further ado, let's get on with the eats!

Breakfast...

Tofu Scramble with Avocado Toast

  Lately I've been obsessed with two weekend-type breakfasts: tofu scrambles, like the one above, and my new favorite Chickpea Omelette. I can't get enough of either lately!

Lunch...

Spring salad with lot's of veggies, hemp seeds and a homemade vinaigrette

I love salad! If salad were the only food I could eat for the rest of my life, I would be totally fine (and happy) about that!

Snack...

Organic Gala Apple and Earth Balance Coconut Peanut Butter

I thought about cutting the apple and plating it with a spoonful of the peanut butter, but I knew that if I did that then I would have gobbled it up before I could take the picture. If salad is my weakness then there is no word for what peanut butter is. If I allowed myself, I could finish a jar in less than a week! No joke.

Dinner...

Chili-Lime Lentil Tacos on  sprouted Corn Tortillas with Guacamole

I love tacos! This is another meal that I could eat every single day and not get sick of. And it's so versatile. You could pretty much turn anything into a taco, or taco-like food as I like to call it. I've been known to cook up a veggie burger, chop it up, and add it to a corn tortilla along with some peppers and salsa. I've also done that with a Field Roast sausage. Fast food but healthy and delicious!


In keeping with my Day of Favorites, I thought I would share my favorite songs of the moment. The ones that I hit the repeat button to three times before I let the playlist move on to the next song. Every.Single.Time.

Click to listen....















For some reason I could not find the original to this ^ song on SoundCloud so check it out here on YouTube (warning- explicit lyrics) if you haven't heard it yet... that's only if you've been living under a rock. The remix is only okay. It's missing the drums. Oh, the drums!

And, last but not least, this last song has been on repeat for a LONG time. I had to add it. I love running to this song so I listen to it a lot. It's also my morning alarm... so yes, I do listen to it on a daily basis! Haha! LOVE it.



I hope you enjoyed the little music break! You danced a little, didn't you? Me too!

Happy Hump Day!

Love,
Ves xx

Chickpea Omelette

   Hi Friends!

   I have a fun and simple recipe for your Monday. Maybe you're on holidays, or maybe you're at work, but either way, you're going to want to make this for dinner... and then again for breakfast tomorrow! This is a soy-free and gluten-free alternative to your usual tofu omelette or scramble. Not that there's anything wrong with a tofu scramble. I love them! But it's fun to mix things up a bit once in a while. This recipe uses chickpea flour (or garbanzo bean flour) which you can find at a Bulk Barn, or in stores (Bob's Red Mill makes one) and at Indian markets as Besan flour.

   I've tried making an omelette using chickpea flour once last year but I completely destroyed it. I don't even remember if it tasted good but I do know that I wasn't in a hurry to try again anytime soon. Then, chickpea omelettes started popping up on my instagram feed and the pictures would make me drool! I finally decided to try again. I took a few pointers from a couple of different users and I was so thrilled with how it turned out! Obviously, I had to share it with you guys!

Let's get on with the recipe...

Chickpea Omelette
Ingredients:
1/3 cup Chickpea Flour
1/2 tsp ground flax seed
1 scant tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dehydrated onion (or onion powder)
1 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional but yummy)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup water + 2tbsp
1-2 tsp Earth Balance butter, for greasing the pan

Directions: 

After you've gathered all of your ingredients, preheat your pan on medium heat. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

Add the water and whisk it all together. The consistency should be on the thinner side, like a beaten egg except a bit more watery. If it's too thin it will not cook properly (trust me).

Brush a bit of Earth Balance butter on the pan before pouring the mixture in. Swirl the mixture around until it's evenly distributed in the pan. Then leave it to cook for about 4 minutes. Don't fuss with it and NO flipping.

While it's cooking, prepare your filling. Don't be shy, choose whatever you want. I chose asparagus this time. I marinated it for a couple of minutes using my vinaigrette and then I quickly grilled it on the stove while the omelette was cooking.

You'll know the omelette is done when it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and the edges begin to lift up a bit. Ease it onto a plate using a spatula for support. Then, add your filling to the omelette before folding it in half.

Easy, right? And the best part is that you can play around with the spices to suit whatever filling you want to add. I've added a bit of cumin and chili powder to the base and then warmed some salsa to fill the inside with along with some greens. So good! FYI: There's 13 grams of protein in this omelette from the chickpea flour, flax seed and nutritional yeast!

Enjoy and have a Happy Monday!

Love,
Ves xx

Raw Pad Thai

Hi Friends!

I hope you're keeping cool! I think the temperature in my neck of the woods reached 39C or something crazy like that. I'm definitely thankful that I have central air conditioning in my home. Especially for Patchie, I don't think that old girl can take too much heat and humidity!

See what I mean? She's too used to living in the lap of luxury. But, enough about her, let's get on with my super easy recipe!

Since summer is in full swing and the temperature will only continue to rise, who actually feels like turning on the oven? Or even the stove for that matter? Not me, that's for sure! My summer menu is always filled with an abundance of raw food; from smoothies in the morning, to salads in the afternoon, to some sort of veggie dish at night, and fruit in between. I love to eat the rainbow and it's so much easier in the summer! Which brings me to my super yummy recipe. I know there are many different Raw Pad Thai recipes on the interweb and I encourage you to have fun and experiment. I've been making this one on and off for a couple of years and I make it slightly different each time. Usually I use some sort of nut butter in the dressing, but not this time. I think this was my favorite way which is why I wanted to share it with you guys.

Raw Pad Thai
Ingredients:
1/2 cucumber or 1 zucchini cut into thin strips
1 carrot, peeled & julienned
1/2 bell pepper (orange, red or yellow), julienned 
1 green onion, finely chopped
1/4 red onion, finely chopped or sliced into thin strips
handful of parsley, chopped
small handful sprouts 
1 tbsp hemp seeds or sesame seeds (optional)
1/2 lime, juiced
2 tablespoons coconut aminos

Pad Thai Dressing
1/2 - 1 avocado (I used 1)
1 clove garlic
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tablespoon coconut aminos 
1/2 lime, juiced
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon agave nectar

Directions:
I used my mandoline to help everything come together quickly but you can use a vegetable peeler if you don't have one. Cut away the top and bottom of the zucchini and then slice it on the mandoline or with your peeler. Stack the strips together and slice them lengthwise 2 or 3 times depending on how wide your zucchini is. *Hint* This is also how you make "zucchini linguine". :-) Place the zuchini and the rest of the veggies in a bowl. Add the parsley, lime juice, and tamari to the veggies and give it a toss with your hands. Let this marinade anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. I let mine hang out in the fridge for about an hour because I like the carrots to get a bit soft. While the veggies are marinating, make the Pad Thai Dressing.

For the dressing, add all of the ingredients to a blender and process until smooth and creamy. Take your veggies out, drain the marinade and squeeze some of the excess liquid from the veggies. Place them in a new bowl, or use the same one (and save yourself from washing more dishes!) and take about 2 tablespoons of the dressing and mix it in with your hands, ensuring that all the veggies are coated. Garnish with sprouts and hemp/sesame seeds, serve and enjoy!

** The extra Pad Thai Dressing will last in the fridge for a couple of days. Use it as a dip for veggies!

If you do feel like turning the oven on, feel free to add some baked tofu...

Yum!

Happy Monday everyone! Stay cool!

Love,
Ves xx

WIAW #33 & Roasted Golden Beet & Citrus Salad

   Hi Friends!

   Welcome to another edition of WIAW. This post was actually all set to go for last Wednesday but because I'm so brilliant I totally forgot to schedule the post Tuesday night. And Wednesday was a bit of a write off because I had a late night at work. So, I didn't even really look at a computer. That being said, the only thing the same about this post is the food pictures. It's funny when I reread some of my past posts that I've started but never finished, I can never manage to put myself back in the same frame of mind or mood that I was in when I started writing it. Does that ever happen to you guys? So, I scrapped the post, kept the photos and added a recipe. Enjoy!

Let's get started with the food...

First things first: Water! Not pictured, but you know the drill... water + lemon = a happy Vesna in the morning; Coffee! You can't see inside the mug but it's always organic and always black... I don't mess around. Breakfast: Another Strawberry Mango Smoothie... I'm obsessed! Snack: 1/2 a Grapefruit... this was quite possibly the size of my head and super juicy! After I was done eating the wedges I totally squeezed all the juices into my mouth. I know, I'm so lady-like... Lunch: Way later I had a simple Open-faced Sandwich on sprouted grain bread with, tomatoes, lettuce, sprouts, dijon mustard and a bit of hummus. Dinner: A Giant Salad with sweet potatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, sprouts and a citrus vinaigrette. Yum! Snack: I had a gorgeous bowl of organic cherries before heading off to bed. Oh man were these good and the perfect thing for my sweet tooth!

So, I promised you a recipe...

This salad was the bomb-diggity (do people say that anymore?) but it almost didn't happen. Thank goodness I decided to root around in my veggie crisper or I wouldn't have found the golden beets that I had bought the previous week. Hooray for small miracles!

Onto the recipe...

Roasted Golden Beet & Citrus Salad
Serves 1 as a meal
OR
Serves 2 as a side salad

Ingredients:

Salad:
2 medium golden beets, tops and bottoms trimmed
1/2 grapefruit, sectioned, juices reserved
1/2 - 1 small head romaine lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces
1/4 small red onion, chopped
handful parsley, finely chopped
small handful alfalfa sprouts

Vinaigrette:
(feel free to double, triple, or even quadruple 
this recipe. I only made enough for the salad)
1 tbsp grapefruit juice
1-2 tsp white balsamic vinegar
1-2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1-2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp agave nectar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 415F. Wash the beets and trim the tops and bottoms but don't peel. Wrap them together in foil and place them directly in the center oven rack or on a shallow baking pan. Bake for about an hour or until fork tender. When the beets are ready, remove them from the oven and allow to cool before handling them. Once cooled, carefully peel the skin and slice them into wedges. Layer the romaine, beets, grapefruit, onion, sprouts and parsley on a plate. In a small bowl whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients and drizzle on top of the salad. Serve with a fork and a smile.

Happy Middle-of-the-Week Day!
Love,
Ves xx

And of course, I can't forget a photo of this little trouble maker!

Hamilton Veggie Fest: Recap

Hi Friends!

I went to the Veggie Fest in Hamilton this weekend and it always makes me happy to share fun vegan products, food, etc with you guys. Here is a recap of Saturday:

Source

Clockwise from top left: 1. NingXia Red If you're anything like me you'll want to pronounce the 'X'. Don't. It's pronounced Ninja, which I guess is obvious, but I just really want to say it phonetically. Ha! The woman at the booth was very passionate about this antioxidant drink and mentioned many benefits to consuming it daily, one of them being improved vision. I found it very fascinating, not that I have any kind of issue with vision or eye health, but I'm always interested in improving health through nutrition rather than medicine. 2. Young Living Essential Oils. She was also very passionate about the essential oils. I learned the benefits of some of them but the one that stuck was Lemon. I'm a huge fan of having lemon water in the morning and go through lemons like crazy. Using a few drops of lemon oil in your water has the same benefits multiplied by a thousand. Oh, and it also purifies your water. Crazy, huh? 3. 3 Teas This was a gorgeous display of tea. I tried the Organic Strawberry Green Tea. I'm not a fan of most green teas but this was really good. 4. Nature's Roots Wheatgrass! Wheatgrass just always makes me happy. They were offering shots for $3 but I had my eye on something else so I didn't get one.

Oh how I love vegan treats, especially when there's samples! Giddy YoYo is probably one of my favorite raw vegan companies. I LOVE their chocolate and can honestly say that every one of the flavors are delicious. I've also purchased their cacao powder and am currently using their spirulina powder - love them both. At the festival I purchased their sea salt and I can't wait to start using it as well. Live On Chocolate power puddings! Have you had these before? They are the ultimate healthy treat! You feel like you are indulging but there is absolutely nothing bad in them, only good REAL ingredients. My favorite is the coconut lime flavor which they turned into frozen pops for the festival. It's also what I chose to buy instead of the wheatgrass shot. Oh man, it was SO good and totally the right choice! Everything Nice (bottom right corner and the photo above it) is what I like to call a healthy "fast food" company. They package a variety of meal kits that take most of the prep work out of cooking. You may have to chop an onion but that's as far as your prep goes. Just add water and simmer for about an hour. I love this idea for families who are too busy with extra-curricular's to get a healthy meal on the table during the week. We got to sample the Canadian Pea Soup which was really yummy.

Clockwise from top left: Fun "bean" spaghetti's from Upaya Naturals made from black beans, adzuki beans, and mung beans. Raw Pumpkin Seed oil from Styrian Gold. They made a quick 2-ingredient salad dressing using the pumpkin seed oil and a few squirts of an ice wine syrup. I swear it tasted like peanut butter and jam, in a good way. Richardo’s Ontario Hemp Hearts - Locally grown hemp seeds... yes, that's right, LOCAL as in Ontario! The Mustard Seed Co-op had a table full of products that they offer in-store. I had no idea they were already open for business so I'm excited to visit their store in the very near future. Rallis Ice Pressed Olive oil and Soap in the Raw. The lavender soap smelled like heaven but was too pricey for me.

Just a few of the products, samples and brochures that I brought home from the festival. Vegan dog food from V-Dog. I can't wait to send this sample to my parent's so they can give it to their dog Lexi. New Moon Kitchen's Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, Ultimate Kale Chips pink salt flavor, and Giddy Yoyo's Mountain salt. I also finally bought my first glass straw from the Upaya Naturals table - you can't really tell in the photo, but it's pink, obviously. I bought my vegan key chain from the Cedar Row Farm Sanctuary table, and I got buttons from the Oliver's Garden Project table and the Fur Bearer Defenders table.

It was a great festival and I wish I had remembered to take more pictures of all the wonderful offerings. But, I was too busy sampling goodies and chatting with some pretty amazing people! My highlight was chatting with Victoria Moran, who I was first "introduced" to through IIN as one of our speakers. She was so inspirational that I googled her as soon as the lecture was over. I'm so happy that I was able to connect with her in person even if it was only for a few minutes.

Last but not least...

You can't have a Veggie Fest without a vegan food truck! There were many different vegan food offerings at the festival but I was holding out for Karma Chamealeon. I love their food. We split the Bourbon BBQ Burger and the Philly "Cheeze" Steak. Both were delish but the bourbon bbq burger was my favourite. Next time I absolutely have to try the coconut onion rings!

I hope you enjoyed my Veggie Fest recap! I had so much fun and can't wait for next year's festival!

Happy Monday!

Love,
Ves xx

WIAW #32 OR Weekend Eats

   Hi Friends!

   It's Wednesday and you know what that means! I'm linking up again with Jenn over at Peas and Crayons for more WIAW shenanigans. Oh, and if it's all right with you I'm going to keep this post light and breezy after Monday's slightly heavier post.

Let's get to it!

Breakfast...

Tofu scramble with steamed kale, leftover tomato and cucumber salad, and sprouts by yours truly. I'm obsessed with sprouting and always have some in the fridge plus some seeds in a jar sprouting away on the counter.

Lunch...

Since breakfast was kind of huge, I went with a strawberry mango smoothie for lunch. It may not sound like much but this baby was jam-packed with fruit and then thinned out with some coconut water and a splash of lemon juice. De-lish!

Snack...

One super delicious organic apple with dijon mustard for dipping. Wait, you don't eat apples dipped in mustard? Ha! Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. The children at my work are obsessed with apples and mustard thanks to my influence. You'll love it too, I promise!

Dinner...

Homemade Black Bean Burgers with Boston lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, sprouts, peppers and homemade polenta fries. I've made this burger plate like three days in a row. I love open-faced burgers with no bun. It's so much more fun!

Bevies...

Water! I drink water all day long and I absolutely love to infuse my water with lemons, limes, cucumbers, etc. But my absolute obsession is mixing coconut water with filtered water and adding a ton of lemon wedges plus lemon juice to it. It's so hydrating, refreshing and tasty.

I told you I was obsessed with coconut water. I can't get enough of this stuff!

And of course, there's always time for a glass of wine at the end of the day. I never really understood how people unwind without a glass or two... Or maybe that's just me?
And obviously I drink a lot of coffee... it just doesn't always last long enough for me to actually remember to take a photo!

And last but not least...

I think it should be a kind of tradition, finishing off a WIAW post with a photo of Patchie. Here she is sitting pretty and looking like the princess she is! FYI she never sits in those chairs unless I was sitting there first. Go figure, she always has to take my spot!

Happy Hump Day, everyone!

Love,

Ves xx

WIAW #31 and An Obsessed Cat

   Hi Friends!

   I'm so excited to be linking up with Jenn over at Peas and Crayons for another WIAW post. I'd say, "it's been a long time" but you can just scroll down through past posts and see that for yourselves. Ha! Anyway, funny story: as I was uploading the pictures for this post I couldn't help but chuckle- my meals never seem to change! I'm a creature of habit and if you follow me on Instagram you'll see that there is a certain theme to all of my food. What can I say? I know what I like.

**Warning: awful cell phone pics below.**

Breakfast...

Green Smoothie!

   Like I said, some things never change, and my smoothie-for-breakfast habit is one of them. If it's not a smoothie, it's a juice, but either way I seem to love to drink my breakfast. That bad boy up there has coconut water, spinach, mango, frozen banana, lemon, spirulina, and a sprinkling of cinnamon. After I took that photo, and tried to take a sip, I scooped it into a bowl and ate it with a spoon. I may have made it a tad too thick! That's okay, I like eating my smoothies with a spoon.

Lunch...

Salad!

   What else? Salad! I love my salads and sometimes I like them to be uncomplicated. Especially when we have days where it feels like it's 100 degrees outside and I have zero appetite. This salad was exactly what I was craving: crisp, fresh and light! I mixed together some spinach and arugula, added chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions and 1/2 an avocado, and dressed it with some fresh squeezed lemon juice and nutritional yeast. Simple and delicious.

Dinner...

Tacos!

   Mmm... Tacos! I.Love.Tacos. I can throw just about anything into a corn tortilla and call it a taco. I'm obsessed. These particular corn tortillas are layered with greens, salsa, tomatoes, avocado slices, sriracha, and for the "meat" I used TVP. I'm sure you've heard of TVP before and may have even tried it, but if you haven't, I'll tell you a little bit about it. TVP (textured vegetable protein OR textured soy protein) is made from soy flour after the soy bean oil has been extracted. It's dry and flavorless in the package but once it's been reconstituted and spices have been added it's super yummy and has the same texture as other soy crumbles. That being said, it's still a highly processed food so I would definitely not eat it all the time. For this meal, I mixed cumin, chili powder, spanish paprika, and garlic powder in a bowl with the dried TVP and then added some boiling water to it. After stirring, I let it sit for about 5 minutes or so. Once all of the liquid was absorbed, the crumbles were ready to party with the rest of the taco toppings. Yum!

I didn't remember to take pictures of my beverages or snacks... oops. I'll do better next time, I promise! Instead, I leave you with this (slightly blurry) photo:

Give me paw...

   What's Patchie doing, you ask? Well, she's begging me for some coconut oil, of course. She is absolutely obsessed with it and knows exactly when I'm about to use it. She follows me into the bathroom first thing in the morning and again at night and demands that I give her some after I've used it. Who am I to say no? After all, it's good for her for the same reasons it's good for me. I don't mind sharing! Side note: I have no idea why Patchie always looks so angry in photos? I swear, she's actually a very sweet cat!

Happy middle-of-the-work-week day!

Love,
Ves xx

WIAW #30 Round Up

Hi Friends!

It's been so long since I've done a What I Ate Wednesday post. I mean I'm always sharing my yummy eats but I miss joining the party and linking it up over at Peas and Crayons. Time to change that! I've got lot's of yummy photos to show you so let's get started!
I took a week off of work while my mom was in town so that we could spend more time together.  My mom spent the weekdays at my brother and sister-in-law's house watching my niece and nephew.  So, during that time, I would come over every day with some yummy food for us to enjoy over lunch.  Once or twice we would take my niece in the stroller (when my nephew was at school) and walk over to the store to pick up some veggie ingredients. Here's a look at the delicious food we enjoyed over that week (or rather, the food I remembered to take pictures of!):

Lunches...

Salad, salad, salad!  Clockwise from top left: We used yummy greens, made croutons from a baguette, and added a veggie burger to make a fab Salad Plate.  By the way, you can never use to much sriracha!;  Seven grain salad medley on top of arugula, cherry tomatoes, avocado and topped with homemade dressing;  Leftover pakoras and samosos added some yummy texture and flavor to the arugula, cherry tomatoes, sprouts and pepperoncini's;  Dessert from Sweets From the Earth!  Peppermint nanaimo bar and a brownie.  So yummy!;  My mom's famous Bread Salad.  I love it!  Chopped baguette with multicolored tomatoes, parsley, green onions and dressing.  Delish!

Dinner when my mom stayed over at my place...

Clockwise from top left:  Tacos!  Veggie ground round with lot's of spices added,  Daiya shreds, sprouts, avocado, green salsa, sriracha and of course, nutritional yeast; Portobella Burger... read all about it here; Veggie Burger, sweet potato fries and a green salad from a pub we ate at during a visit to Niagara-on-the-Lake; Bruschetta appetizer from the same pub, no cheese; Farmer's Market Dinner!  Kale salad, sweet potato English muffins, mixed greens salad and a sweet potato salad.  All from the farmers market.

Food Truck Food!

We went to Holy Food Truck Tuesday again while my mom was here and brought along my sister, sister-in-law and the little ones.  My mom and I split the meals you see above from the vegan food truck karma chaMEALeon. From the top: Jackfruit Tacos with a mango salsa (I added sriracha after I took the photo); Philly Cheeze Steak with fried onions and a side of coleslaw.  Both were pretty tasty but my mom preferred the Philly Cheeze Steak.


I hope you guys enjoyed the food porn.  I'm drooling over the photos and can hardly wait to publish this so I can go and make dinner!  This will certainly teach me to write a post on an empty stomach. Ha!

Happy WIAW everyone!
Love,
Ves xx

Vegan MoFo #9: Cheezy Kale Salad

   Well my friends, you are super lucky today because I am posting twice!  That's right, two posts in one day and this one is a recipe post.
  I'm really doing this for my mom at her request.  She loves this kale salad that I make, and asks for it anytime that I buy kale.  So, here's the recipe... I hope you guys love it as much as she does.  Oh, and if you've ever read Kim Snyder's Beauty Detox Solution you'll notice that this salad is similar to one that she makes.  It's the bomb.

"Cheezy" Kale Salad
Serves 2-4
Ingredients
1 head kale
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tomato, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 avocado, sliced
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 - 2 tbsp hemp seeds
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions:
Wash the kale thoroughly and tear it away from the stems.  Add it to a salad bowl along with the lemon juice and sea salt.  (You can save the stems and juice them later.) Using your hands, massage the kale while simultaneously tearing it into bite size pieces.  Continue massaging until the kale is soft and slightly wilted (about a minute or two). Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the hemp seeds) and continue to mix until everything is incorporated.  Garnish with the hemp seeds, serve and enjoy!
The best part about this salad?  You can save the leftovers for the next day without worrying about wilted lettuce!

Stay tuned tomorrow for an amazing cheese sauce recipe.  You won't believe how amazing it is until you see it and try it for yourself!

And last but not least, I leave you with a video that my brother sent me a few days ago.  It's actually a haunting preview of a game called Chipotle Scarecrow.  I really hope this game (or even just the preview) reaches millions of people.  Check it out:

 
By the way, I may have cried while watching this video... and it may be because I watched it at 6am OR it could be Fiona Apple's rendition of "Pure Imagination" OR it could just be that I am Miss Sensitive... either way... you have been warned.

Love,
Ves xx

Vegan MoFo #8: I'll Try Anything Once!

Hi Friends!

   I hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday! It's a little dreary over here by me although it's supposed to be a scorcher today. We'll see about that. For now, I want to share with you something that I recently tried. If you know me personally, and if you've been following my blog for a while, you know how much I dislike mushrooms. And by "dislike" I mean hate. With a passion. I can't stand them. The smell, the taste, the texture. Eeew. You'll also know how much my dislike for mushrooms bugs me.  I mean, what kind of a vegan hates mushrooms?

   Aren't they usually the star ingredient in "meat-based" dishes? It's annoying seeing all of these delicious looking recipes and then realizing that they have tons of mushrooms in them. I automatically turn the page or click on something else if I see a picture of a mushroom. You can't pull one over on me either. I can smell them from a mile away. So unless you've chopped them up into a marinara sauce, I know that they're there. That being said, lately I've been trying to be tolerant towards mushrooms. Before ultimately picking them out of my food, I'll try them first to see if by some miracle my palate has changed.  It hasn't.

   That being said, for some reason I've had this crazy urge to try a portobello burger.  I have no clue why except that I've been seeing them everywhere and I'm super curious.  I had to try them at least once in my life, right?!  So... I convinced my mom (who's still in town, by the way!) to try one with me.  She loves mushrooms but isn't a huge fan of portobello's so this was going to be a first for both of us.  We decided to marinate them in a Thai dressing that my mom makes and is super delish.  My mom whipped up the dressing while I prepped some tomatoes and onions for roasting. 

   We added the leftover dressing on top of the veggies before placing them in the oven.  Since I don't have a grill, we cooked the burgers on the stove.

   When the veggies were done I added some Daiya shreds on our buns and set them under the broiler for a couple of minutes.  I also whipped up a quick guac for the burgers.  I was terrified that the burgers would have an overwhelming mushroom flavor so I was basically trying to mask it with all the other ingredients.

   We assembled the burgers by layering the tomatoes and onions and then the portobellos on top.  Guacamole and sriracha (so obsessed with sriracha) were added to round out the flavor and then it was time to taste it.  I loved the flavors in this burger so much and I actually ate a few bites of the whole thing before removing the mushroom.  I was so proud of myself for that.  And although I will probably never have another portobello burger again, at least I can say that I tried it!

When was the last time you tried something you didn't like?

Love,
Ves xx