My Boys

Here are my boys. The one on the left is 15yo, the one on the right is 16.
This is a pic of them at the hospital we volunteer at every Tuesday.
They sometimes balk at the few hours per week I require them to donate their time, but after 2+ years, they are still going in, doing their job, helping others. Sometimes one of them slips and says, "I kinda look forward to Tuesdays." Then catch themselves and rush back into teen-mode.

I know they do a good job, because everyone has nice, positive things to say about them. I only have my babies for such a short time. 15 and 16 already! How did that happen?! I hope I've done enough to send them out into the world.....to be kind, compassionate, thoughtful and wise citizens of the universe.
Oh, how I LOVE these kids!

My Sweet, Goofy Girl

What to say about my 13 yo girl. She is sweet, funny, and marches to the beat of a different band. Above all, she is kind. Here is said 13 yo with her new hairdo/color.

Great giveaway at What's For Dinner.

Check out What's For Dinner for a great giveaway! Not to mention some yummy recipes for non-vegans.

Miso Soup

Another thing I have enjoyed lately is Miso Soup. I make mine with spinach, mushrooms, green onions, roasted garlic, sauted in some sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce or teryaki sauce. When the spinach is wilted, I add about 4 cups of water mixed with about 3 tablespoons of miso paste (I prefer light yellow, or mellow white). I let that simmer for a few minutes, then add some cubed tofu. Yum!

Wow, it's been a while!

I am such a blog slacker. So, ok, we'll try this again. I'll start this year off with a pic of my go-to meal for the last couple of weeks. Scrambled tofu. I have had this every day for 2 weeks straight.



This is made with a block of tofu, *rinsed, pressed, cubed* then fried up in a dry skillet (or sometimes with just a spray of olive oil).
When browned, I add some chopped mushrooms, green onions, roasted garlic, chopped spinach, sometimes a bit of jalepeno pepper, and let that cook for a few minutes.

Then I add some soy sauce, turmeric, dry mustard, thyme, pepper, and nutritional yeast flakes and let that cook in for a bit.

It's not the most appealing looking meal, but it sure is tasty!

Shrek Smoothie!

In a lovely Shrek glass.



Shrek Smoothie

1/2- 3/4 c. liquid (I used soy milk and water)
1 medium banana
1/2 c. fresh pineapple chunks
1 Tbsp flax seed
1/2 of an orange
1 wedge of a lemon
2 handfuls spinach
1/2 c. ice cubes

MP3 of the Day

Here are a few more freebies!

SXSW 2009 Preview

Check this out. You can download 40+ songs HERE at Spinner.com . I haven't listened to them all, I'm sure some are great and others......eh, but who can turn down lots of free and new workout music?

WARNING: I have listened to a about 4 so far that are explicit. Do with that info what you will ;) .

Win a Juicer @ Hangrypants.com!

Here are the rules, copied from HP's blog:

The Lexen Healthy Juicer Contest
877MyJuicer.com and Lexen Healthy Juicer are giving away one Lexen Healthy Juicer to a Hangry Pants reader. Both bloggers and non-bloggers will have several opportunities to win. Here are the ways:

(1) Comment: Leave a comment, any comment, on this post.

(2) Have a Blog? Earn Two Additional Entries by posting about the contest on your blog.

(3) No Blog? Earn an extra entry by emailing us at HangryPants@gmail.com with the subject line: Healthy Juicer.

(4) Referral: Get someone new to enter the contest and list you as the referrer in his/her comment.

The contest will run until March 30th when we will randomly choose a winner. Good luck!

Edited To Add: The contest is for U.S. residents only, but we forgot to say that, so if a non-U.S. resident is chosen, we will send you something else fun.

Hurry on over to Hangrypants.com to enter!

Hummus.........

Tonight's dinner: Hummus and Veggies. Although I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, my Vita-Mix, hummus is a definite NAY, NAY. It pulverizes it, and I like my hummus with actual texture. I usually use (and will continue to use) my little Braun hand mixer:



There are a million Hummus recipes floating around out there , and here's another one:

Hummus

1 can Garbanzo beans (S & W Organic)
1/4 c. liquid (water, veggie broth, the bean water from the can, what-have-you)
1/8 c. olive oil
1/8 c. FRESH lemon juice
sea salt to taste
California Style Garlic Powder to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp. Tahini (organic, roasted, MaraNatha if you can find it)

Method:
Throw all ingredients in your food processor and blend to desired consistency.

Variations:

I will sometimes add cilantro, or fresh garlic instead of powder, or a dash of chipotle sauce.

Sorbet!

What yummy sorbet this thing makes. I really want to come up with a Lemon Ice (like those MinuteMaid Frozen Lemonaide treats). That is my favorite summer/ballpark treat.
But for now, this will totally do.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World...........

Yeah, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero are GODDESSES among women. Really.

This afternoon dd and I made the "Your Basic Chocolate Cupcake" paired with "Coconut Pecan Fudge Frosting".

DS and DD don't like coconut, so they had theirs plain. Hubby, ds and I enjoyed the frosted ones.

German Chocolate Cake is dh's favorite cake and he only gets it when he goes to visit his mom. He's soooooo excited that he liked these and he now can have GCC a little more often.

CCK's Better-n-Rice Pudding/Snickerdoodle Oatmeal

For my next entry in CCK's Jocalat give-away, I have made this tasty Pudding/Oatmeal.
I'm going to try it as-is, but will probably have to add the customary dollop of almond butter as well.

Chocolate Covered Katie (formerly CCV)................

is having a give-away....... a case of LaraBars!

Here are her contest rules (copied from her blog):

There are two ways to enter your name into the drawing:

1. Mention the giveaway on your own blog, with a link back to this post. Then leave me a comment on this post to let me know you’ve done so, and I’ll enter your name into the drawing. If you don’t have a blog, just leave me a comment on this post saying you don’t have a blog but would still like to be entered into the drawing.

2. I wanted to do something to celebrate the fact that—finally—my recipes are all in order (a big feat for a scatterbrain like me). So… if you make a CCV recipe and blog about it, then leave me a comment telling me you did so, your name will go into the drawing THREE more times!

Entries must be in by March 19th. I’ll pick a random winner and announce it April 2nd. The contest is open to ALL readers, all over the world (as long as you have an address to which I can ship the box). I’d never want to leave out my foreign friends!!

Good luck, and happy chocolate-ing!



So hurry and enter HERE

Happy Anniversary to Me!!

I'm so excited about my anniversary gift! So far I've made fruit smoothies, that everyone drank (this is HUGE as my 14yo son isn't big on fruits and veggies and my hubby is even worse), and mango ice cream and strawberry ice cream. No pics though, we wolfed it down to quickly.

I can't wait to try the tortilla soup tomorrow. Oh, and a nut butter or two.



This is going to be such a great gadget to have come next month. I asked my kids what they wanted to do in honor of Earth Day next month, and after much deliberation they decided to go vegetarian for the whole month. Currently they are meat-free for the first 2 meals of the day, but then the boys will eat meat with hubby for dinner (dd isn't a big meat anyway). Yay!!

*************************************************************************************
I had to edit to add a pic of the lovely plant hubby gave me as well. Happy 16th Hon!!

That's Why We Don't Eat Animals

This sweet book is available for pre-order at amazon.com .

My kids are all older, but I'm still buying it!

Happy Valentine's Day

What a sweet family I have. For V'day, my kiddos bought me my own copy of the Vegan Bible; Veganomicon. I had been scrounging recipes off blogs, and checking it out at the library until now. :) Hubby bought me some beautiful flowers also. Hope I can keep the orchid alive!

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Yeah, the ultimate rainy-day-comfort-food.

Mashed Potatoes and some leftover gravy from yesterday. Awesome!

OMG! Chickpea Cutlets..... you're my new boyfriend!

I just made these:



from the Chickpea Cutlet recipe in the vegan bible:



paired with the gravy recipe here I subbed earth balance for the margarine, and arrowroot as a thickener.

I took so long trying to decide just how I was going to eat these babies......over rice, noodles, on a bun, with a side of spuds...... that I gave up and just ate one plain. Even my 14yo son likes these.

This is a keeper!

Veggie Potstickers

I made the best potstickers yesterday. They were filled with leftover stir-fry (broccoli, carrots, water chestnuts, spinach, garlic, onions, ginger), and dipped in Garlic Teriyaki/Soy Sauce. I'll probably be making these daily for the rest of this week.