Mixed Berry Smoothie, Ups & Downs of LightLife, Butternut Vegan Mac & Cheese

Time has been flying by!  I do have things to share but haven't had time to share it.  I almost forgot it was my birthday today, too!  But then again - it's just another day!  So, this will be a mishmash of a blog entry - yet again!

Kicking things off with a smoothie I had the other night!  I've been pretty bad about eating fruit lately.  I mean...technically...Tomatoes, Avocadoes are fruits, yes, but other fruits I have been passing over lately.  I think it's just because I find them too sweet lately.  My sensitive teeth have been avoiding the naturally sugary jolt.  I think a way around this is smoothies and I've going to try and work on this!  Having said that - what do you think about the photo above?  I have been trying to take some better pictures and have been tinkering with lighting a bit.

The Smoothie contains:

1 c Coconut Milk
1 T Flax Meal
1 T Hemp Seeds
1 T Chia Seeds
2 C Frozen Mixed Berries

This next photo is from Monday.  It was our League of Women Voters 2nd Annual Sunshine Event.  I blogged about it last year a little bit so I figured I would mention it again this year.  This time around we took a tour of the City/Municipal Building and had about 5 speakers including our Mayor, City Manager, Chief of Police, Freedom of Information Officer, and a couple of Council Members.  I think the event was a success and it was something that has been in the works for a couple of months!

Here's a new-to-me-product.  I found them a while back on one of our weekend grocery shopping adventures.  It's been a couple of weeks since I actually ate them but wanted to share it.  They were quite tasty.  It's been a long time since I have tried anything from LightLife because I'm not into fake meats and I found a bunch of their items salty (years ago) but I see they are coming out with a bunch of new products so I'm happy to see them kicking it up a notch!  I made a simple homemade Thousand Island type dressing/dip for them.  It was a complete meal and quite filling, too!

This was a completely thrown together meal one day while working.  I went to a grocery store nearby and grabbed 3 items...frozen cauliflower rice, Daiya cheese sauce, and LightLife Vegan Dogs.  I only bought them because they were 2 for $5 and then there was a dollar off coupon on top of that so far $1.50 I thought I would revisit them.  I still didn't care for them.  I ate a few of them in this dish and then picked around it and just ate the cheesy cauliflower rice!  

The weather has still been awful here but I was able to visit my parents and brought Cricket along for a playdate with their dog Lexi.  They surprised me with Amy's Vegan Curry for dinner last night!

As for this double photo...it was a Butternut Squash based Vegan Mac and Cheese dish I made earlier this week.  The recipe is below - all in a blender:

1 Can Organic Butternut Squash Puree
2 T Tahini
3 T Nutritional Yeast
1 t Minced Garlic
1 t Smoked Paprika

1 t Turmeric

To Taste: Yellow Mustard, Lemon Juice, Balsamic, Braggs Liquid Aminos, Almond or Coconut Milk

Sunshine Week & Snow Storms

Sorry I didn't post twice yesterday like I originally planned!  TODAY I will be posting at least twice so please check back soon!  

This week is Sunshine Week and as a new member of my local League of Women Voters I asked the local board members if they wanted to hold a Sunshine Week event for the first time this year.  I volunteered to head it up and they said YES!  I'm so VERY grateful for this wonderful group of ladies!  The LWV has truly changed my life for the better!  Women aren't the only members of the league - we have men that are members, too!

Anyways...back to Sunshine Week...

Sunshine Week is a national initiative spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors to educate the public about the importance of open government and the dangers of excessive and unnecessary secrecy. It was established in March 2005 with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  Sunshine Week occurs each year in mid-March, coinciding with James Madison's birthday and National Freedom of Information Day on the 16th.

During Sunshine Week, hundreds of media organizations, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and other participants engage public discussion on the importance of open government through news and feature articles and opinion columns; special Web pages and blogs; infographics; editorial cartoons; public service advertising; public seminars and forums. The purpose of the week is to highlight the fact that "government functions best when it operates in the open." Unfortunately, in many states legislatures exempt themselves from public-records laws, claiming "legislative immunity." Source: Wiki

What we did for our Sunshine Week Event was visit our court house.  Our Judge spoke with us - as did 2 of our Commissioners.  We then went on a tour of our historic Court House.

Even with the horrible snow storms we had going on this week - we had a completely engaged group of 14.  For it being the first time we've held anything like this AND with the weather I was pleased with the attendance.

February in our snow belt was AWESOME it was like SPRING!  I remember it being 70 degrees towards the end of the month.  March is another story!  It was about 6 degrees this morning when I looked.  And we got about a foot to a foot and a half in some areas.  The wind has been wicked.  There is a lot of ice and black ice on the side of the roads still.

So eventho it was Sunshine Week - we had Snow Storms!  OYE!