Vegan Chronicles -- Day 1

So my (lovely) husband bet our vegan friend that he would beat him at fantasy football this past week.  If he won our friend would eat a burger; if he lost my husband would have to go vegan for 3 weeks.  I’m fine going without meat and most dairy.  My husband, on the other hand, is very picky and needs to have meat with pretty much every meal.  So this would not be easy.

Well obviously he lost the bet…. So here we are exploring veganism for the next 3 weeks.  I look at it as an exciting challenge.  He’s not thrilled about it.  But, hey, he should have thought about that before he made the bet!

Today I went to Costco and Trader Joe’s without a list.  I just went through the aisles trying to find anything vegan I thought my family would eat.   

I’ll be sure to share any interesting recipes and findings from our culinary vegan adventures.

If all else fails he can live off PB&J ;)

Day 1:

I have never made tofu before.  It looks utterly unappealing in most cases, and therefore I’ve never eaten very much of it.  But I decided to take the plunge and buy a giant box of it for about $5 at Costco.  I figured if it’s bland there has to be some way to make it taste delicious.

Tonight, for our first vegan dinner, I decided to make tacos.

I chopped some sweet potatoes and cooked them in coconut oil in one pan.  In the other pan I put some drained and diced tofu also with a little oil.  On both I put some taco seasonings: garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder.  To the sweet potatoes I added some cooked brown rice and black beans I had in the fridge.  (See my previous post for a simple way to cook black beans.) 

I heated some corn tortillas in a pan with a tad bit of oil for crispiness.  Then I just spooned the tofu and sweet potato mixture into the tortillas.  I added some avocado and salsa to my tacos.  Here’s the finished product.

Notes:

• I use coconut oil for almost everything so I don’t mind the flavor, but you could easily substitute with your oil of choice.
• You could totally leave out the tofu if your intimidated by it or just don’t like it.
• I would definitely add cheese if I wasn’t trying to be a good vegan!

Dye Fabric with Kool-Aid

I am now a nursing mama as I had a precious baby girl 2 months ago.  My go-to outfit for nursing on the go in this hot summer weather is a maxi skirt and crop top.  While I was pregnant I bought a pack of men's regular Hanes t-shirts.  So I decided to turn them in to crop-tops.

Cut them up however you like.  I like the hi-low look, but this particular one I cut in a semi-circle pattern so it is shorter in the middle and longer on the sides.  I cut off the collar and the hem of the sleeves.

I didn't want to go out and buy fabric dye so I decided to try Kool-Aid since I had some in the pantry I had gotten free with coupons some time ago.

1) Boil water in a pot
2) add Kool-Aid packets (I used 2 packets of red for about 2 quarts of water)
3) add clothing/ fabric to pot
4) remove from heat; let cool
5) rinse in cold water
6) hang to dry

Here are my results:

3 Easy Meals (Freezer/ Crock-Pot)

I've always been intimidated by Indian food, but recently I tried it at a few different places and became obsessed with the chicken masala!

I saw this recipe for crockpot butter chicken and decided to try it out.  (Bonus recipe for homemade Naan bread!  Seriously so easy and delicious!  I will never buy naan at the store again!)

My misshapen naan... I made an extra batch and put it in the freezer as well!

There were a couple things I had to buy that I don't usually have on hand like fresh ginger, curry powder, curry paste, and garam masala.
I normally go to Whole Foods for one thing: raw local honey. (If you buy in bulk it's much cheaper than buying any of the jarred honey.)  And this week I wanted to try out some of this amazing looking Thai curry paste.  I decided to get the red curry paste (they also sell yellow and green)  so I could use it in the butter chicken recipe.
I wasn't able to find garam masala at the store so I used this simple recipe to make my own.  I happened to have everything on hand. I did find curry powder at Whole Foods and realized they sell many spices in bulk so you can buy as little or as much as you like.  I just got a little baggy of it.

I bought a pack of 6 chicken breasts (about 4 lbs total) so when I got it out to make the butter chicken I decided to portion it out to make a couple other recipes to put in the freezer.

I used 2 chicken breasts for each recipe.
I chose to make this Thai chicken soup and this Honey sesame chicken recipe.  For the Thai chicken soup I already had the curry paste.  I didn't have the coconut milk, but I can get that before I decide to cook it.  I used only 1 of the 2 cups chicken stock, the other I will add when I cook it.  I just put everything else, aside from the peas and garnishments, into the freezer bag with the chicken.  (I omitted the fish sauce since I didn't have it and my husband doesn't like it anyway.) Then I double-bagged the whole thing and slipped the recipe inside so I'll know what I need to add when I make it.

I did the same thing for the Honey sesame chicken.  All 3 recipes called for fresh ginger so I was glad to be able to use up a big chunk of what I'd bought.  And I had my raw local honey on hand.  For this recipe you don't even have to chop the chicken since it will shred in the crock pot.. So simple!

Now I have a couple easy dinners in my freezer for a busy, or lazy, day!

Baby #3 -- Gender Reveal!

We already have a girl and a boy so with my third pregnancy (I'm 22 weeks) we decided to do a gender reveal.  I was excited because we've never had a co-ed baby shower, and this would be the first time we got to find out what we're having at the same time as our families.

I found these adorable invitations on etsy.

But I was able to make something very similar using Word.

Our ultrasound was on a Tuesday and we planned for our families to come for the gender reveal on Saturday so we had to be very patient!  We had the ultrasound tech put the results into an envelope, and immediately dropped it off with our trustworthy baker friend. She baked cupcakes, half with blue frosting on top, half with pink.  But in the middle they would all be the same: either pink or blue.

On Saturday we had our whole family over and everyone cast their vote for boy or girl.  It was fun to see what everyone thought.  I had made the kids shirts that said "Team Girl" and "Team Boy" with a pink bow and blue mustache respectively.

Kids' tables

Our ultrasound pics and baby pics of me and the husband

Our cute cupcakes, and I made lollipops with mustache and bow molds

Naomi was in charge of getting everyone to write their vote on the white board

Once everyone had arrived my husband, my 2 kiddos, and I each got our cupcake and bit in while everyone watched.  I took the biggest bite possible to make sure I got some of the middle frosting.  I had thought it would be a boy so I was surprised to see pink frosting!   My daughter was so excited that she's going to have a sister.  She jumped up and down and said "team girl won!"

I was trying to chew the giant bite I took, and Pete was saying "I told you!!" 

This was such a fun experience for our family and me, I'm so glad we did it!

Superhero capes/ Masks

In November the kids were invited to a superhero theme birthday party.  Judah already had a batman shirt with a velcro attached cape, so I wanted to make him a matching mask.  And Naomi had nothing so I decided to make her a cape and mask.  I found this great blog tutorial for superhero masks!  So I used that.  And I found this tutorial for the cape.

Here's how they came out!

Cutting out my patterns

Naomi's finished cape...

The kids before the party!

Kindergarten Word Bingo!

I've been using a wonderful curriculum for writing for the past few weeks.  It's called Spell to Write and Read (SWR), and I am totally obsessed with it.  My kindergartener, on the other hand, is not as thrilled about learning to spell to write and read 20 words per week.  She's doing great, but I try to give her a break and make it fun while still meeting our weekly goals.  I get her to do the tough part by promising a fun game or activity afterward.

Today I put together a bingo game using the 4 lists of words we've had so far.  I found this template and decided to make my own so I could use the words I wanted.

Since I only have one student I played against her.  I printed all the words and cut them out.  We took turns drawing a word and reading it then trying to find it on our card.  We used coins as bingo markers and played until the whole card was filled up.  It was fun!

If you want to make your own I can email my template.  :)

Recipe Share

This is how I feel a lot of times... But this week was a good one for dinner recipes so I thought I'd share!

We went camping last weekend, and I came home with a few left over hotdogs.  I didn't feel like eating hot dogs again, but I wanted to use them.  So I found this mini corn dog recipe on Pinterest.  It's pretty simple, and the kids (and I) loved it!

I got the idea from a friend to make chicken skewers for camping, so I've been doing that the past few years.  This year though I didn't make enough, and all the teenagers wanted them so Pete didn't get any, and I only got one.  So I decided to make them again this week.
I just cut the chicken breast into chunks and marinate with whatever I have on hand.  For camping I used BBQ sauce and beer.  This week I used TJ's Soyaki sauce.  Then just skewer the chunks of meat (you can add veggies if you want) and throw them on the grill.  So easy and delicious!
I also tried this ramen salad from Pinterest with a little modification.  I made a half recipe, and it was a plenty!  Here's my version:
SALAD:
1 package ramen noodles (calls for beef but I used Ichiban original)
1 12 oz package broccoli slaw
1/2 cu. slivered almonds
1/2 cu. sunflower seeds
2-3 green onions, chopped
DRESSING:
1/4 (or less) honey or agave
1/3 cu. oil (I used olive and a dash of sesame)
1/4 cu. white rice vinegar
dash of soy sauce
flavor packets

Just put the salad ingredients in a bowl.  In a separate bowl mix the dressing ingredients.  Pour the dressing over the salad and toss it all together.
I will definitely be making this again!

I've been wanting to try a recipe using soda for a long time... My husband had bought a 2 liter of root beer, we drank maybe 1 glass each, and I knew we weren't ever going to drink the rest so I decided to try this bbq pork stuffed sweet potato recipe I saw on (you guessed it... ) Pinterest!  I obviously used rootbeer instead of coke, and it came out great!  But I wanted a little extra topping so I decided to make shoestring fried onions.  Here is the recipe I used.  I didn't even tell the kids they were onions, and they were none the wiser... Everyone loved it!  I was a little worried that I was crowding the onions too much in the oil, but they came out perfect.

 And last but not least was last night's amazing dinner... Fish taco bowls.  I used tilapia rather than cod simply because it was cheaper.  Any my husband doesn't eat fish so I made his with chicken breast.

Can you tell I love cilantro?