New Blog Coming Soon

This is not a dead blog!!!  New posts to arrive August 1st!  

DDOW: Scarlet Barley; Black Bean Veg Salad

Another treat from Delivered Dish of the Week! This week is Scarlet Barley as well as a Black Bean Veg Salad.

From the site:

Scarlet Barley. Vegan, soy-free, no added sugars; contains gluten. A brilliantly hued beets & barley dish from Moskowitz’ Appetite for Reduction vegan cookbook. Factoid: beets have 6 times the iron of carrots. Women, eat your beets!

Black Bean Veg Salad. Vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, no added sugars. Spiked with citrus & crunchy veg to complement the earthy barley dish.

Verdict: Both are delicious! My only regret is that I didn't order more than a pint. I mixed both together and added a kale/spinach mix to make a super-healthy and tasty salad!

Lumberg Farms Organic Brown Rice Pasta w. Veggies and Sauce

Not the best photo, I know. I way overcooked this Lundberg Farms Brown Rice Pasta with Mushroom and Leek Sauce, so it turned into a bit of a gloopy mess, but it was still edible. I added a ton of spinach, mushrooms, peas, and baby heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe's.

I tried a different variety of this pasta and sauce mix a while back and enjoyed it. That time I was able to cook it perfectly and the pasta held together. Ah, well, live and learn - I am pretty hit or miss cooking gluten-free pasta, and this was a slight miss but only due to me, not the product.

Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers: Asian Potstickers

I stumbled upon these Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers and decided to try it out.

The "steamer" is a little steam basket that holds the potstickers, veggies, and rice above the sauce while the dish is microwaved. Then you mix the food with the sauce when done. It worked pretty well in my work microwave, but I could see the potential to overheat the potstickers.

I was disappointed that the rice was not brown rice - I rarely eat white rice and much prefer brown. The sauce was similar to a thick, gooey Americanized sweet & sour sauce. I added both soy sauce and sriracha to this dish.

Overall, this dish was not great, but not terrible. It was about $2.50 at Super Target, which is not a bad price, though I could get an Amy's frozen burrito for less than that and they would have a little better nutrition than this dish. However, if I just really need something quick and convenient and am in a different city or town, at least there is this option out there.

Vegan Cuts: March 2014

Here is the Vegan Cuts box I got for March! It came just in time - I was about to make a run to the corner store for snacks, and lo and behold, my doorstep was holding a box filled with yummy snacks.

Review:

The OCHO Mini Coconut Candy Bar was definitely the favorite of the box - so sad to only have one bite each for Mr. Coconut and me. But, oh, what a bite it was! Basically a vegan Mounds Bar. Yum!

We also enjoyed the Salt and Vinegar flavored Tortatos -- a corn/potato hybrid chip. The texture was really interesting - hard like a tortilla chip, but had some softness like a potato chip. Yum!

Vigilant Eats cereal was delicious and made for a really great, filling hot breakfast at work.

Explore Asian Soybean noodle soup sounded promising, but Mr. Coconut did not care for it at all. I thought the noodles themselves were pretty good, specially for being gluten-free. I didn't care for the broth too much, but would not be opposed to trying a different variety.

LOCA Diet Root Beer from oogave was actually pretty great for a diet soda.

Earnest Eats Granola Bar was pretty tasty - soft, sweet, and was a filling small snack.

This morning I tried the Raw Protein Powder from Garden of Life -- I put a handful of strawberries & 8-12 ounces (so... 230-340ml) of coconut water and the packet of the protein powder. It was fine, definitely filled me up and kept me from being hungry until lunchtime - a good 4-5 hours.

I have not tried the Roots Superfood Powder yet, but when I do, I'll post a review!

I also got a gift card for Vega -- I wound up getting one single packet each of: Chocolate, French Vanilla, Vanilla Chai, and a Vega Sport electrolyte booster. So far, I've tried the chocolate - just some ricemilk blended with the powder. It was tasty and pretty filling, not chalky like some powders can be. I will also review the other flavors after I tasted them.

Here is a photo of the Vega gifts I received:

Food for Your Face: Dry Winter Skin Edition

Faced with another avocado that went bad (I don't know why but lately I keep forgetting that we have avocado until it's too late) I hit up Google to see if there was another use for old avocados. Lo and behold, face and hair masks came up in more than one search result.

It has been a particularly rough winter - coldest in my lifetime for sure - which has been wreaking havoc on my face, hands, and other skin that gets exposed to the bitter wind chills. (Seriously, Minnesota has experienced 53 days at or below zero degrees F. Fifty-three. Yikes.)

I did a little more research with Google to see what else I can do to help my poor face. I wound up doing a sugar scrub - just sugar and a little water - to exfoliate first. Then I cracked open one of the avocados and spread a bunch of it on my face. I let it sit and absorb into my skin for 10 minutes or so, then gently wiped my face clean with a warm washcloth. I ended with spreading coconut oil all over my face as well. I've been using coconut oil as a hand/cuticle moisturizer for a while now and love it, and have used it on my face as well.

Result: fantastic! My face is soft and supple, not dry and irritated. I am totally going to continue to use up the avocado on my face!

I always wanted to use more food products as face cleansers, and look forward to making different masks I found online.

The Vegg Part 1: Chik'n Tofu

First thing is first: my Magic Bullet broke! NOOOOOoooo!

Second: has it really been four months since my last post. Yikes!

I was able to get a new Magic Bullet from Target, and I might be able to repair my old one. Whew. I finally opened my new bullet today to try out The Vegg - the vegan egg yolk product that has the vegan blogosphere excited. I was able to score a free sample from the kind folks at The Vegg, along with their cookbook. The Vegg is a powdery substance made of nutritional yeast and a few other ingredients that create an egg yolk liquid when blended with water.

Here is the package of the actual powdered Vegg:


And the cookbook:


I decided to try it out with some battered tofu triangles in a chik'n seasoned flour.

I blended up 1tsp of The Vegg powder with 1/4c water in the Magic Bullet. The Vegg transformed into a thick, egg yolk-like substance! Crazy! It tasted very egg-like as well, like a broken yolk on an over easy egg.

I pressed some tofu triangles to get the moisture out, then coated each piece in The Vegg mixture, and then coated in the seasoned flour. Put it all in the toaster oven until the outside was golden brown. I served with BBQ sauce, Goddess Dressing, and zesty steak sauce.

Verdict: The Vegg is fascinating, and I am excited to try it in more dishes. The chik'n tofu was a great snack, the coating of Vegg seemed to make a difference in texture, which is awesome.