Dinner

I thought I'd share some of my favorite meals since a lot of people always have a million and one questions about vegans and food.

Tonight I made some Lentil Spinach Soup.

I'm not sure where I got this recipe from but it is simple and quite tasty.

1 tablespoon oil

1 onion chopped

5 cups water (or veggie broth if you prefer)

1/3 cup dry rice

2 cups dry lentils

2 garlic cloves minced

1 pound spinach coarsely chopped

juice of 1 lemon

cumin & allspice for garnish

Heat oil in pot add onion and saute until tender

Add water and bring to a boil

Stir in rice and lentils and bring to a boil

Cover reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes or until rice and lentil are soft (add more liquid if needed)

Add garlic, spinach, and lemon juice

Cover and cook about 5 minutes, until thoroughly heated

Garnish servings with cumin and allspice

A few of my personal tweaks to the recipe.

I up the amount of rice because I love rice and I also add sliced mushrooms (with the rice and lentils). Because I add more rice I have to add more liquid, I just check on it and make sure there is enough and it ends up more like a stew than a true liquidy soup. I personally prefer it that way. I also flavor it with some season salt (Simply Organic Season Salt is my personal favorite) and a bit of nutritional yeast (it's like adding a sprinkle of parmesan cheese).

Last night I ate just this as a late meal. If I have more time I usually make some rolls to go with it.

I love recipes like this that are simple and are made with fresh ingredients, or mostly fresh since lentils and rice aren't something I get fresh, but I do buy them both in bulk so for me there is practically zero waste associated with the meal as well.

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

I'm still here

For anyone who doesn't keep up with me elsewhere I'm still here and all is good enough that I can't complain much.

What have I been up to? That's a very good question.

• I got another tattoo, the week after the last one. October 1st to be specific.
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• That same day Rich got a tattoo as well. Something he kinda surprised me with, the idea that is. He said that's what he wanted to get about a week or so beforehand.
  
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• Funny story about him choosing the font. He was looking through fonts and found a Star Wars font, which would be especially funny because I was getting a Star Trek tattoo. There was Bladerunner font and other movie and things themed fonts. The next thing he said had us both almost peeing our pants we laughed so hard. "Hey I could get the Crown Royal font that way at least I am incorporating something I love." Yeah he said that about getting my name tattooed on his arm, it was perhaps the funniest thing he has ever said!!!!
• I took a long weekend trip to Disneyland. Spent 2 days at the park, had a dayhopper pass that allowed me to go to Disneyland and California Adventure. Spent most of the time at Disneyland. Rich loves Mr. Toads Wild Ride if you wondering. Went to California Adventure for a bit, didn't do a thing there. Not that it wasn't appealing but we didn't make it there until the middle of the second day and were a bit exhausted. I wasn't in the best of mindsets by then because the first thing we did on day 2 was Splash Mountain and I have never seen someone get more wet than me!!! I had a dry patch on one of my thighs and one on my calf, the rest of me SOAKED. I guess that's what happens when tiny me sits in the front of a full log!! California Adventure has a lot of stuff for younger kids from what I saw but we didn't explore it all that much really.
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• I made some yummy Halloween desserts and things. Made them for our Disney trip which was 2 weeks before Halloween and had intentions of sharing pictures and recipes for those who might wanna try them for their own Halloween fun. Obviously I never got to that. I made some pumpkin cookies, a cake, and some blood slide candies. The blood slide candies didn't make it up to Anaheim unfortunately. I also made some peanut butter frosting for the cake and it went well with the cookies as well. Peanut Butter frosting, by the way, was AMAZING!!!!! I used fresh pumpkin for everything. It is beyond simple to make your own cooked pumpkin. Get a pumpkin, cut it in half, cut the stem off, scoop out the insides, save the seeds to roast as well they make a GREAT snack. Put pumpkin halves on a baking sheet, or pan because it gets liquidy sometimes and bake until soft at 350 time will depend on size of pumpkin. Let cool a bit, peel the skin off, and mash/blend it into a consistency that works best for what you are doing. Recipe for pumpkin cookies.
• One of the most fun things I made was blood slide candies. Directions/recipe here. Here are some pictures of the fun I had with them. Boiling up water and sugary stuff.

This is what I ended up with.

It's a good thing I was just making candy blood slides because I had "evidence" left on my hand.

• Recipe for the vanilla cake I made. I haven't perfected vegan cakes yet. They always seem to be a bit gooey still, almost like they aren't quite cooked but the outsides start to burn. It could very easily be my oven or something other than the vegan issue but it really annoys me. I've never been a great baker so it's probably just me. To make the cake more festive I got my inspiration here. Here's what I ended up with.

What made the cake was the peanut butter frosting. Best idea I ever had, and thanks to Condo Blues for agreeing that it was the best idea ever on twitter, otherwise I would have went with the store bought white frosting. Frosting is beyond simple to make, here's the recipe I used. I made the frosting vegan by using vegan butter and rice milk. You would NEVER know it was vegan, probably because of all the sugar, I mean look at all the sugar!

• I still had some left over pumpkin so I made this soup.

• I made the roasted pumpkin seeds (directions for them here) from the pumpkin too. It is beyond simple and you should never throw away pumpkin seeds, they are one of my favorite snacks and they are good for you too! I still have a bit of pumpkin left and am thinking of making some pumpkin bread for Rich, probably this recipe.
• So that's pretty much what I have been up to. The past 2 weeks or so have been pretty uneventful in a just life moving on kinda way. Hopefully I won't be ignoring this blog as much in the future. I will try and make some sort of updates no matter how random. Hope to talk to you all again soon.