I ate a Muchas Gracias burrito in less than 3 minutes

It was 11 in the morning.

It was so awesome that I stared down at my wrapper in disappointment that it was all in my belly already. I only made it through 1.5 hot sauces.

But Gretchen!! Dude, you can't eat Muchas Gracias burritos. Those days are over!! They are all lardy and cheesy.

Not so, says I.

Get your burrito loving booty the awesome Muchas that used to be an A&W. They have the "Vegan Burrito" on their menu.

Whole wheat tortilla, whole pinto beans, guacamole, lettuce and pico de gallo. All for like $3. I paid a little more because the guy at the drive through flirted with me so much I tipped him.

Really. I tipped the drive-thru guy and then I ate my burrito in less than 3 minutes.

I am not even remotely ashamed.

This day rules.

Not Tuna Salad

I saw a recipe for Mock Tuna Salad in the Happy Herbivore cookbook and it totally inspired me to make my own using ingredients I love.

Her original was good so if you are looking for a standard recipe complete with pickles and celery, check out her website or buy her book!

Here is what I whipped up.

Greek Toona (or whatever way you want to show that it isn't really tuna by misspelling it) Salad

Gonna have to call this not a very appetizing picture. It was yummy, I swear.

• 1 can of Garbanzo Beans (aka Chickpeas) rinsed and roughly mashed
• 1 can of artichoke hearts drained very very well. I squeezed them. Shred them up.
• 8-10 kalamata olives finely diced
• 1/4 cup finely diced red onion
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 1 big ol' shake of garlic powder
• a couple teaspoons of roasted seaweed (I just chop it really finely or you can by the kelp flakes)
• a good splash of balsamic vinegar
• a couple scoops with a handy spoon of vegan mayonnaise
• salt and pepper

As you can see, not an exact science. Add as much or as little of the things you like.  Mix it all up and serve it on a bed of  microgreens. Also tasty as a wrap or on bread, anything you like salad on really - In a bowl is also good...

(Psssst - you can buy microgreens anywhere, especially farmers/urban growers markets. I got mine from Trader Joe's because they have totally made me their bitch.)

Pizza-dougha!

So have you played Dead Or Alive 2 (DOA2)? Well that's okay, it is a really awesome game. In it there is a character called Lei Fang and when she attacks it sorta sounds like she is an Italian stereotype yelling "pizza dough-ah" which is weird since she is clearly not Italian. As you can guess, we can't not say the word combination pizza dough without that inflection. Pizza Dougha!!

Totally not the point of this post but I know you are dying to hear my inner musings.

I made a pizza.

In a 3-foot-wide by 6-foot-tall shelf space, sandwiched between 500 kinds of hot dogs and 200 kinds of cheese, you will a bizarre space of pickles and pizza dough at Winco. They sell little bags of dough, all kneaded and ready for you to roll out for your dough needs. There is white and whole-wheat. And it is vegan.

So I picked that up with vegan pepperoni, Daiya (Mozzarella), tomato sauce and fresh basil. You will have to make a special trip for the Daiya.

Voila!

Now this isn't that cheap. So if you are feeling lazy you can just buy the Tofurky version at Fred Meyer or New Seasons or Whole Foods or whatever, but where is the fun in that.

And then you wouldn't get to yell "Pizza Dougha!" (I mean there isn't a law against you yelling it without actually having pizza dough on hand. But there should be.)

Date Night for 40$

For our 8th Anniversary this year Kris and I decided to go to Blossoming Lotus in Portland. We have heard great things about it but for some reason haven't made it there.

We hit up the Happy Hour.

Holy Freaking Tofu this shit was good. There is a ton of raw and live food if you are into that sort of thing. And a great selection of cocktails.

But what really blew our little minds were the tacos. The raw one in particular was excellent. We also ordered the White Bean Pesto and chips. That's it 3 tacos that we shared and some Chips and Dip and we were stuffed. Like didn't finish it all stuffed.

Cocktail - I had the Ginger Fizz. If you don't like Ginger, don't get this. But if you do, get ready to find a designated driver. Kris is drinking the Vaporizer from Double Mountain Brewery. It rocks if you like beers hoppy.

Eats -

Total spent - 25 dollars (Including tip)

Then we scooted to the Kennedy School. We got a pitcher of the Copper Moon seasonal beer and saw Men in Black 3 because we are really super cool. And shut up, so what if we cried at the end. Don't judge.

Kris decided to pull a face. That'll teach him. This shit is on the internet now honey.

Total spent - 15 dollars. (two tickets and pitcher of beer)

That brought our whopping total to 40$!!! Now that is a date night I can get excited about.

(A good thing to not is that we had to do this pretty early in the evening to cash in on these kinds of deals. But that left plenty of time to come home and watch movies with swear words, which is a pretty novel thing when you have an almost 5-year-old hanging around your house.)

Hostess HoHos Are a No Go

Kris and I were perusing the prepacked donuts on Saturday morning. Sometimes you get a hankering for an Old-Fashioned that is kinda waxy and artificial tasting. I don't know why but stranger things have happened to us all.

So, as is tradition, we were reading the back of the packaging to see if any of them are vegan. They aren't. We wen't down to the Hostess section. Not only are they not vegan, they aren't vegetarian.

There in the list of ingredients - BEEF FAT. It actually says beef fat. Not even trying to dress it up as lard.

Now when something savory contains beef fat, sure, it's gross animal fat that is destroying your organs but when your snack cake has it that is down right gagtastic.

Lazy Vegan - Salad for Slackers

This salad falls under the "It's-too-muggy-too-cook-and-I-don't-want-to-think-but-it-needs-to-taste-good" category.

Here is how to make a salad - 

1. Take some greens - (I really like a big thing of baby spinach)
2. Dump the greens in a bowl.
3. Take some Trader Joe's Chicken-less Strips
4. Dump them in the bowl with the greens
5. Add some Follow Your Heart Vegan Ranch to the bowl
6. Toss it up with Edward and Son's Organic Onion Garlic Croutons (only eat these if you like garlic breath)

All of these can be purchased at your one stop shop Food Fight!!

It is tasty, it takes about 4 minutes to make and if you don't go crazy on the croutons on dressing it is damn good for you. Now you could do this the hard way. Season some seitan, make a cashew cream ranch, twice bake some Dave's Killer Bread, and go to your garden or local urban grower for greens. But remember, it is too muggy, and you are in no position to think about dinner. So grab these four ingredients, grab a beer, or a or a People magazine, or a "bodice ripper" and indulge. You now have the time. You are welcome. 

(Don't even think about doing the laundry with your free time...I see you, put the basket down.)

Camping and Scramble

Our first camping experience not eating animal products has just passed. Pretty successfully I might add, with maybe only a little dairy involvement. 

Normally camping food consists of bologna/lunch meat sandwiches with cheese and mayo. And of course obscene amounts of hot dogs.

Ours was no different  - just ya know way better and far less gross!!  We also prepared this ass-kickin' scramble so we could have an awesome breakfast!

Check it out!

 Meat without meat

Cheese without Cheese

Scramble without Eggs!!

Here is the Breakfast Scramble Recipe-

2  14oz packages of Extra Firm Tofu

1 Yellow Pepper -diced

1 Orange Pepper -diced

1 Large Yellow Onion -diced

2 gloves of garlic - minced

Seasoning -

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cracked pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/2 teaspoon cumin

In a separate pan start cooking your veggies. Make them nice and soft and yummy. Use as much oil as you feel necessary.

In the other pan (I would use a dutch oven or something large like that). Pour a little oil and then crumble your tofu into little crumple bits and add it. (Medium Heat) Then sprinkle the seasoning over it and mix it all up. Add the softened vegetable and continue to mix and heat until it looks and smells good! 

Pretty easy right? Great with tortilla and hot sauce (Tapatio or Aardvark are the faves here!!) We just dumped it in a massive container and packed it in the cooler to heat up for breakfast.