Vegan MoFo ~ Lunch on the Go!

Happy Saturday!  Today's Vegan MoFo 'starter' is Lunch on the Go!  Well, I do PLENTY of these because I'm often on the go during the week for work!  Usually I will have a sandwich, pita pocket, wrap, salad, or veggies/nuts/seeds/fruits to munch on.  Another thing I have done many times is any kind of veggie with various flavors of hummus!  

Here you will see the last hummus I made at home and ate...Shriracha Hummus!

Here's the recipe:

2 C Chickpeas

1/2 t Cumin

1 Mini Red Bell Pepper

2 Cloves Garlic

2 T Tahini

1 T Lemon Juice

1 T Shriracha

Water if needed

Cayenne Pepper, Pink Himalayan Sea Salt to taste

Top with more Shriracha to taste

I eat a lot of salads.  For Lunches and Dinner.  Sometimes because it's all the restaurants offer that is vegan and sometimes its by choice because I really do love them regardless!  What makes a great salad is 'eating the rainbow' but also a good dressing!  I make a lot of my own.  I'm sure we all do!  Here's on that I made with carrots as the base a while back.

Because I have been making a lot of these Vegan MoFo posts based on what I have on hand in my pantry and cupboards I wanted to share with you this extremely simple, fun, and flavorful tip/trick I came up with the other night!  Now that I know just how much I LOVE this I will be making it often so I have some on hand at all times!

I introduce to you...Pine Nut Parmesan!  

I've done other vegan parm's before but this one 'takes the cake'!  Here's what I did...

1 C Pine Nuts (Ground in a coffee or spice grinder)

3 T Nutritional Yeast

1/2 t Garlic Powder

1/2 t Black Sea Salt

That's IT and it really IS that AMAZING!

In case you were wondering what to do with this yummy sprinkle...here's an idea...

1 Small Sweet Onion

1 Small to Medium Zucchini

pan fried and topped with the Pine Nut Parm!  YUMMO! 

Vegan MoFo ~ Rare Breakfast & Raw Vegan Cheese Sauce

For today's Vegan MoFo Post I wanted to blog about these two photos and NO I didn't eat them together! First - I have a breakfast bowl from the weekend.  I had crackers, figs, and sprouted and flavored nuts.  The reason this is rare for me is because it's very unusual for me to find FRESH figs in a store in my region.  I actually found them a few weeks ago at Orchard Fresh in Orchard Park, NY.  They were still FRESH because of my Berry Breeze.  I will be blogging about my Berry Breeze often because it works and I LOVE it!  So...I was super excited about this fresh figs and have been snacking on them since I bought them but also savoring them because I don't get them often.

As for this photo of the Raw Vegan Cheese Sauce I made I have to tell you I adore it!  The base recipe was from one of Philip McCluskey's books.  I posted it on Instagram and tagged Philip and he responded.  He's so nice!  Very encouraging!  Since I stayed quite close to his recipe and didn't stray much I won't put the exact recipe here on my blog but I will tell you that I used the following ingredients it in...Nutritional Yeast, Hemp Butter, Lemon Juice, Basil, Garlic, and Turmeric.

Again...I will be blogging throughout the day today and I encourage you to visit again!  This is my 2nd blog post of the day so far so please scroll down, too!  Thanks so much!

RAW WEEK - Tuesday!

Hello Lovelies!

It's day 2 of my RAW WEEK!  After posting yesterday I went home and made this CRAZY HUGE Salad!  But not before a mini outing!  I had to swing by and drop off a cat carrier that I borrowed from my parents neighbor and then I went to Aldi's.  Early yesterday morning when I went to a nearby Grocery Store most of their daily produce was WAY TOO Expensive.  Average Every Day NON-Organic Cauliflower was $3.99 a head, their tomatoes were $3.49 per pound and most of them HUGE so I bet they were well over a pound a piece, even their grapefruit was $1.29 each...their avocados were over $2 each, etc.  So I really wanted to stock up and got a bunch of stuff at Aldi's and only spent $22.  I wish I would have taken a photo of my haul before putting everything in their places in my kitchen/frig/pantry.

While at Aldi's I found a super huge awesome hard plastic bowl for $4 - I went home, washed it, and threw this salad in it!

This Salad Contains the following...Romaine Hearts, Cherry Tomatoes, Mini Cucumbers, Orange Sweet Bell Peppers, and Hemp Seeds.  I think it worked out to be between 4 and 6 cups of greens.  I made a dressing last night as you can see in this 2nd photo but silly me I forgot to jot down everything in it...so...here's a guess...I know there was at least 1 C of Mango along with about 2 T Tahini.  I think I added some Lemon Juice and Garlic Sea Salt.

This 3rd photo is a pic of the Salad Dressing I made prior to pouring on the salad.  OH!  Yes...I think I also put about 2 T Dijon in there, too!

I really enjoyed this dressing but think next time I would use less Mango and more Dijon for the extra ZING!

Later in the evening - last night - I had the munchies.  I decided to cut up 2 more Mini Cucumbers and treat them like Raw "Chips".  I made a Raw Vegan Cheese Dip to go along with it. 

In this Raw Vegan Cheese Dip and/or sauce here is what I used...

1 C Pine Nuts
1 C Cashews
3 Cloves Garlic
2 Mini Sweet Red Bell Peppers
2 T Lemon Juice
1/2 C Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 C Nutritional Yeast

I get Raw Cashews and Pine Nuts at my local herb store in bulk.  Mostly when I buy in bulk the prices are better.  When it comes to nuts - especially raw nuts - that isn't usually the case. 

I realize Nutritional Yeast isn't necessarily raw but I do know a lot of Raw Foodists that consume it.

Next up...I made some Raw Vegan Chia Crackers or Chips last night.  They kind of remind me of Blue Corn Chips/Tortillas.

For the crackers/chips I did about 1 C of Chia into 2 C Water for about an hour.  I stirred in about 1 T Garlic Powder - maybe a little less - for the whole batch - and then spread it out on a Dehydrator Sheet and flipped every 2 hours or so until crisp.

I was pretty impressed with myself, actually.  I ended up doing quite a bit last night around the house as well as food prep.

Now...I only had one of these this morning as a Taste Test and I really liked them.  I'm probably going to have them with dinner or as a snack tonight.  And LOOK - I used that Raw Vegan Cheese as a dip since there was SO MUCH in the batch that I made.  I also noticed it thickened up pretty nice over night in the frig.

This will last me a few days.

I felt like I literally ate all day long yesterday.  But I think I did a good job of getting a variety of foods. 

As for today...I started my day with another smoothie which you can see in the following photos. 

For this smoothie I used 2 C Strawberries, 4 Handfuls of Spinach, 2 inch chunk of frozen banana. 

It's not the most beautiful color but it tasted good!

I've been putting my Vitamix to the test as well as my Excalibur!  This REALLY excites me!

Yesterday I was up from about 4am until about 11-ish last night. 

Not Bad. 

Best part?  No afternoon energy crash! 

I, did, however, sleep in longer this morning - but - not as long as I usually do - so that's good!

I've also been able to use more of my cute Mason Jar Glasses with the handles and more consistently.

So far - TODAY - I had the smoothie listed above along with 3 Apples and 1 Nectarine.

For Lunch I had some GREENS from the Container Garden...a mix of both the Sweet AND the Spicy Mesclun Mixes...so up to 8 different lettuces altho I think there is only about 5 in what I picked today.  On top of the Greens I threw in about a tablespoon or two of Hemp Seeds and about 1 C of Grapefruit.  For the "dressing" I just used Apple Cider Vinegar to taste.  I also had about 1/4 of a Watermelon on the side.  I'm looking forward to Dinner tonight!