3 Vegan Dipping Sauces & Other Tidbits!

I finally bought some potatoes last week.  I know that doesn't sound extremely exciting or out of the ordinary but it's been a while since I last purchased fresh, whole potatoes.  The ones I bought were VERY juicy, too!  Next comes a confession.  Since then...I have made oven fries and wedges 3 days in a row!  What made these special are the vegan dipping sauces I paired with them!  This first one is a Vegan Garlic Tahini Aioli...

1 C Vegan Mayo
2 T Tahini
3 t Garlic, Minced
4 Drops (or more) Orangic Liquid Smoke
1 T (or more) Lemon Juice
Sea Salt (to taste)

Next up is Spicy Paprika Dip...

1 C Cashews
1/2 C Almond Milk
3 T Lemon Juice
2 T Grapeseed Oil
1 T Dried Onion, Minced
1 T (or more) Smoked Paprika
1/2 t (or more) Sea Salt
1 Squirt Sriracha

I enjoyed BOTH of these quite a bit.  I did notice the first one with the Tahini in it was even better the 2nd day after being refrigerated for a while.

Creamy Avocado Dip is the final one of the trio!

2 Avocadoes
2 t Garlic Tahini (or 2 t Garlic, 2 t Tahini)
2 T Lemon Juice
Splash of Grapeseed Oil (optional)
Sea Salt (optional and to taste)
Parsely (optional and to taste)

This one was pretty YUMMY, too!  Of course, I have been craving Avocadoes more than usual lately and was FINALLY able to find a decent price for them.  They were $4.98 for 5 of them.  Not great but still lower than I have seen in MONTHS!


In other news...

A shout out to some of my newest visitors to My Blissful Journey in both Bangladesh and Latvia.  Last night I also had someone stop by from Greece!  I LOVE seeing all of these wonderful neighbors from other countries stopping by!  I will now be doing some research on more vegan recipes from those countries and hope to try more of those foods (and recipes) out soon!  If you have any suggestions I would love to hear about them in comments!

A few things I have been trying to catch up on lately are...

The Walking Dead and the current season.  I'm only into episode 4, I think, but I hope to get caught up this week.

I'm also in the process of thumbing thru the following eBooks...

Get Up and Green: Nourishing Recipes for Abundant Energy & Glowing Skin by Elisa Museles of Kale & Chocolate, Live Vegan Vibrantly presents A Delicious, Healthy, & Nutritious Holiday, Forks Over Knives "A Forks Thanksgiving, and The Everyday Guide to...Mindful Eating from Trish M. Ward.

 What have you been up to?

Surprising Snack & Vegan Memes

Here's another 'Eating From Your Pantry' sort of post.

A while back I had bought some canned peaches.  Then - when I bought more from The Raw Food World - I used to buy some of their Living Intentions 'Cereals' which were basically granola.  I found an unopened bag of one of them in my cabinet.

I decided to pour some over the peaches and have it as a snack the one night.  It was pretty darn good!  The Granola was Ginger Chia.  It also had other superfoods - and as you can see - shredded coconut.

In our backyard we have a cemented area and above it an overhang (kind of like a porch but not really).  It has a spot light which you can see part of here in the upper left hand side.  Near the rafters you can see 2 nest side-by-side!  The one on the left is from last year and the one on the right is from this year!  I don't know if I have ever seen 2 different nests that close to each other - naturally!

Nature is COOL isn't it?

One thing that I haven't talked about much here on my blog is that I am a fan of 'The Walking Dead'.  Then again...MANY...people are!  I was joking with a friend about how NEGAN sounded a lot like VEGAN and what do you know...I started seeing Vegan Meme's on Instagram shortly after.  In case you don't follow the series,,,NEGAN was FINALLY introduced in the season finale a few weeks ago.  In the comics - from which the series is based - the character is known for being a villain and carries a barbed-wired bat that he named Lucille and uses it as a weapon.  Here...the bat is replaced with celery!

Here's another Negan Vegan Meme I recently came across!  How funny!

SPOILERS below & possibly in comments...

So...who do you think 'met Lucille' if you know what I mean?  Post in comments!  I will let you know my thoughts there as well (in the near future.)

The actor who plays Negan is Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  I have been a fan of his for a while.  Eventho he's a 'bad guy' in this - I am looking forward to seeing what he does with the role.

In the comics (which I haven't read but have heard a lot about) Glenn is the one that 'meets Lucille' but the TV series doesn't necessarily follow the comics verbatim.

REMINDER!!!!  MWM (MidWeek Munchies) is BACK!  Clickable link and Link-up on the upper right hand side of my navigation bar!  Looking forward to your posts!!!

Wheels, Turkeys, The Walking Dead, and Steam From the Fountain Show!

This photo I posted over at my Travel Blog but the next 3 pics you won't find over there.  These photos are from our trip to Pigeon Forge, TN, last week.  Inside Pigeon Forge there is a new(er) destination called The Island.  You can read more about that and see more photos here. 

This first photo is of their Wheel.  The Island has LOTS of shops, restaurants, attractions, games, rides, and things to do with more on the way.  They are currently working on their 2nd phase adding more restaurants, tasting rooms, hotels, and shops.

This place is already neat but I think when it's complete it will be really special.

Just like everything else in Pigeon Forge - they are decked out for fall.  Harvest Time is BIG down there.  Outside of the Wheel they had this place where you could pose for photos - so I did.  Yup!  Just us 3 turkeys!  (teehee)

The layout out was amazing and the whole Island was incredibly clean and everyone was very friendly.  More on that at the link above if you are interested in hearing more.

Sometimes when I travel and see something that reminds me of a friend or family member I will snap a pic just for them.  I remember one time I saw  friend of mine on Facebook that took a photo of herself drinking beer thru a straw while in Vegas so the next time I went to Vegas I did the same thing and took a photo of me doing it and posted it and tagged it just for her.

In this case...a good friend of mine has a thing for "Darryl" on The Walking Dead so when I saw this cut out I HAD to take a pic for her and text it over right away!  I'm looking forward to the season premiere of The Walking Dead this coming month and I do like his character but I can't say that I'm obsessed with him like many other women I know.

And this photo I intentionally took, too, but for different reasons. 

I took LOTS of pictures at The Island - and many of them were of the fountains and water show - but this one I took because I wanted to get the fountains moving, the steam rolling, the rocks glistening, the sun shining, and the surrounding landscape with a little bit of the buildings showing in the back ground.  I think I was able to accomplish most - if not ALL of that.

For those of you wanting FOOD posts...stayed tuned I will have another blog post later today!