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?

Vegan MoFo ~ Vegan Fried Green Tomatoes & Sauce, Sweet & Spicy Vegg Fried Rice, Chai Spices, & Furkids

Happy Monday!  I will have multiple posts today as it was a VERY busy weekend but quite fun as well!  Here is the first of a few posts! 

Friday Night after work I decided to go get some Avocados at Aldi's (the best place to buy Avocado where I live - the freshest and the best price!)  My sister wanted me to make Avocado Hummus for our Wildtree Event on Saturday.  So I did just that.  I also bought some white rice.  I didn't have any at home.  I usually use other rices - other than white rice - but once and a while I will use it - but didn't have any in my stash!  So...now I do!

After buying just those three items I decided to go to The Hatch Patch - a local produce stand here in town.  I ended up buying 2 nice sized Green Tomatoes!  I have to admit I didn't grow up on Green Tomatoes!  My parents were into various Red Tomatoes but not green.  My husband LOVES Green Tomatoes.  He grew up with them.  The funniest part is - Hubby wasn't home most of this weekend and I ended up making these for myself!  I think I have only ever had Fried Green Tomatoes maybe 2 or 3 times in my life.  I guess I was feeling adventurous!

Anyhow...I made these Vegan Fried Green Tomatoes!  Here is what I used to make them!

2 Green Tomatoes
Vegg - the equiv of 4 to 6 'eggs'
Vegan Bread Crumbs
About 4 T Wildtree Tzatziki Seasoning/Blend
Wildtree "Tuscan" Grapeseed Dipping Oil for pan frying

Many of you know I am a 'sauce' person so I wanted something to drizzle over top and/or use for dipping so I made this for them and it turned out pretty good - however - it made WAY too much - so I won't put the measurements here but will put the ingredients incase you would like to tinker with it a bit.

I used...
Vegan Mayo (like Veganese)
Frank's Hot Suace (or any other Hot Sauce)
Parsley

 Since I used slices of Green Tomatoes for the Fried Green Tomatoes I had some 'tops' left and didn't want them to go to waste so I decided to do a "leftovers" type of Vegg Fried Rice again. 

I did try and use the left over "Vegg" mixture and try and 'fluff it up' to mock 'scrambled eggs' but it didn't work so hot. 

So what I did was throw in the rest of the Green Tomatoes - diced - in with a half of green pepper, a half of a Scallion, some white Rice, and 2 Table spoons of Tomatoes soaked in Green Chilies. 

I then pan-fried until gently brown.  It turned out really good and I liked the sweet of the tomatoes and the spicy of the tomato/chili combo.

Speaking of SPICY...I received some Chico Chai Products I will be sampling and reviewing over at Sororitea Sisters at some point.  Here is a bit of their Original Chai.  I just really liked how it looked in the picture so I thought I would share it with you!

I've grown to LOVE Chai!  The spices are quite good for you and have healing and in some cause detoxifying properties.  But I will get into that another time.

I drink various types of tea thru-out the day! 

It's been a while since I posted a Furkid Photo.  Friday Night the 'kids' were sacked-out.  Paco and Suzie snuggled up with each other on my lap on the sofa.

Prior to taking this photo I cleaned Paco's eyes with Tear Wipes.  I'm trying to use the rest of the wipes I have and will NOT be buying them again.  I don't care for them.  Yes, they are gentle, and Paco doesn't seem to mind them but I think there is a better way and a better product out there.  I don't think the ones I am using are working very well.  There is a product I have had my eye on over at my local herb store - I am not sure on the name but I am thinking I might try that next time.  I believe it has a bit of Neem Oil in it.

I have lots more to share today so please visit back later as I will probably have another post or two up by then with more happenings from the weekend!  In the meantime...let me know how your weekend was!

Sloppy BUT Yummy!

 Remember the Dressing I Blogged about earlier this week - the one I thought about making into a soup?  Well, I sampled it warm and thought it was a little too lemony for a soup but it sure did have potential!  I might tweak it FOR a soup, soon, but in the meantime I ended up doing something else with it!

I think I will call this Citrus Avocado Taco Rice and Broccoli!

It was on the verge of a Spanish Rice with a lemony twist!  I literally just added a bit of the prepared 'dressing' to this brown rice and threw in some Broccoli!


Above you can see a close-up of the rice dish and here you can see the whole plate.  I know it looks a little sloppy but everything was quite good!  In addition to the Rice Dish I was craving some mashed potatoes and had some Vegan Cheesy Mashed Potatoes on hand for a while now...so I made those up!  And I don't think I have had Creamed Corn in YEARS so I had some of that too!  The Creamed Corn is just Corn, Water, and Potato Starch.

So...I have a secret!  I've been in talks with a few companies to do a few giveaways on my blog in the future!  I hope you will check back often and see what's going on!  I'm really excited about it!  I hope you will also help me spread the word when the time comes!

Participating Post...
Cool Clicks
Favorite Things Thursday
Frugal Food Thursdays
Full Plate Thursdays
Live Laugh Linky Thursday
Share The Joy Thursday
This or That Thursday
Thursdays Treasures
Transformation Thursday

All Good "Cheeze-E" Sauce and Gravy

I have two posts today but wanted to keep them separate as they are much different from each other as far as recipes go!

This is a tweaked version of a Veg*n All Good Sauce...I added Nutritional Yeast and liked it MUCH better...here's what I did...

1/3 C Grapeseed Oil

1/4 C Veggie Stock

2 T Lemon Juice

5 Cloves Garlic

1 tea minced Ginger

1 tea Red Pepper Flakes

2 tea Braggs Liquid Amino's

2 T Nutritional Yeast

In A Blender.

This was SUPER flavorful!  Very Garlic-E and a little kick of HOT!  I really liked it!  I am thinking of all sorts of things I can do with it like marinate tofu, use as a dressing or gravy, and a sauce for TONS of things!  So far I drizzled a bit over Tater Tots instead of dipping them in Ketchup!  I'm thinking of pouring the rest over rice soon!

Asparagus & Snow Pea Salad

Yesterday I had a fun trip around Warren and Chautauqua Counties in search of some great local produce!  Two of the items I found were these beauties!  The Asparagus is from The Hatch Patch and the Organic Snow Peas are from Aber's Acres.

Tonight I made a 'snack' or a 'taste test' of this and the rest I will be taking for my lunch tomorrow.

I'm rather excited about the way my 'sauce' or 'dressing' turned out!  I must say!  I started with a recipe from one of many Moosewood Cookbooks I have but tweaked it.

The sauce is made up of roughly 2 to 3 Tablespoons of Peanut 'Butter', 2 Tablespoons of Braggs Liquid Aminos, 1 to 2 Tablespoons of Seasame Oil, 3 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice, and 2 to 3 Tablespoons of Agave Nectar or Natural Honey.  I blended all of this into my Magic Bullet and drizzled over top of my salad.  I'm not a Blanching-Pro but it's the method I attempted with the 'greens'.  It kept them a vibrant green in color but also kept them crunchy!