Work Travels, Vegan Finds, & Lucille Ball

I have been traveling around the region a lot more lately with my job.  In this weather - it's nice and I enjoy it.  I don't like it when it snows and since we are now officially into fall - I know that is right around the corner.  This photo was taken at a park in Lakewood, NY.  I've always liked this view!  Beautiful!

Before I share more views with you I figured I would also share some more vegan finds in the stores I frequent OR wish I could frequent.  A few posts ago I showed you the Ranch Dip.  Here is the Sour Cream from Good Karma!

Here is a new-to-me product from Sweet Earth.  I believe I grabbed it from Target.  I haven't tried it YET but I'm thinking it will be my dinner tonight.

Another roadside stop I took this past summer was this place!  This is part of Chautauqua Lake.  It's actually part of Lakewood Community Park.

And here is one of the docks!

I was super excited to try this product from Starlite Cuisine.  It was 'ok' but I don't think I would buy it again.  I found the texture of the pea protein filling to be a little too chewy.  The sauce was better than the filling texture that is for sure!

Road Snacks!  I've been grabbing them!  They are great for traveling in a small car.  These I found at Wegmans!  I enjoyed them!

During one of my Lakewood trips I stopped at a little bookstore and they had this Rawesomely Vegan book.  Of course, I HAD to buy it!  It was only a couple of bucks.

I also found these infused flavored peanuts.  I haven't opened them YET but I see that in my near future!

I found a purple pepper a while back at Wegmans and bought it.  It spoiled VERY quickly and I didn't get a chance to eat it!  YIKES!  

Check THIS STUFF out!  Tahini in a squeeze bottle?  YES, please!  I'm not completely sure where I spotted this but I knew I had to buy it at the time.

The last time I went to Trader Joe's I saw this Almond Dip and I was so glad I decided to follow thru with the purchase.  It was so yummy!  It wasn't over the top spicy but it had a slight kick to it!

I got these the same place I got the infused peanuts from!  Lakewood Apothecary!  These were on the clearance shelf so I got them for a deal!

Here are photos from Celeron Park and the Lucille Ball Memorial Park in Celeron, NY.  Here is the lighthouse on the one end of the park near the dock and water.

In another area of the park they have this beautiful memorial for those who served.

And finally here is the bronze statue of Lucy!  She was born and raised in the Celeron, NY, and Jamestown, NY areas.  They celebrate and remember her in our region not only for her impact on comedy but women in comedy and her connection to our area!

Many Vegan Aldi Finds...But Some Others, Too!

Over the summer I noticed yet another gas station chain that started carrying more random vegan things!  YAY!  This Willy's brand of salsa had 2 or 3 of them that I tried.  I have to say it's unlike other salsas and I truly believe it's because of their punchy-use of bold cilantro.  I know cilantro is one of those things that some people love and others hate.  I've always liked it but I can see in some cases where the over the top use of it could give certain things that soapy taste.  For some reason the loads of cilantro worked here.  They also seem to love garlic.  Lucky for them...I love garlic, too!

Here's a pic of the new, local Falafel that is being made in-house at Total Evolution.  It's also vegan and pretty wonderful!  This was a HUGE sandwich!  You can pick your own toppings for it, too!

Prior to August, this was our set-up for camping season.  Our new-to-us-but-gently-used 5th Wheel is on the left and my parents Jayco is on the right.  I don't especially like the specific spot we had this year or last year but I didn't complain too much either.

Here's another meal I grabbed at Total Evolution this past summer.  You can build your own wrap.  Most places that tends to be the vegan option around here but you basically get lettuce, tomato, and onion.  I then see if places have salsa or a balsamic for the dressing...BUT...with Total Evolution they have some really neat things to include.  This one contained their in-house hummus, carrots, greens, sprouts, celery, tomato.  I've done variations of this from time to time and I will certainly start sharing more of them with you!

At our local Tops I have fell in love with a new product but that love comes with a hefty price tag so when I see them on sale I will grab one.  It's the line of products from The Coconut Collaborative.  In this pic, here, you will see the Chocolate Ganache.  When I opened the first one I thought...gee...I could eat all 4 in one sitting!  But, you know what?  They are so rich I could only eat one!

Many of the products in this post are new or new-to-me products from Aldi and that includes this one!  It's the Vegan Vegetable Potstickers!  They are tasty!

Another find at Aldi are these Eggplant with Yellow Pepper Raviolis!  I LOVED these and hope I can find them again soon!  There is another kind, I hear, but I haven't seen those locally yet.

I finally spotted their Vegan Sour Cream.  I grabbed some.  It was ok.  It was certainly good enough for the price!  A nice, cheaper alternative.  I would probably buy it again!

One of the one pot meals I did in the camper this year was squash with vegan margarine, vegan pepper jack cheese, and topped it with tortilla strips!  It know it doesn't look like much but it was VERY yummy!  I would categorize it as a vegan comfort food for sure!

I don't really have time to do a blog post YET re-capping fair week but I thought I would give you a little teaser for now.  These were our new work banners that were at our broadcast booth!

Moving on to a thing or two from Wegman's!  I did grab this to have the camper during fair week.  Let's just say...it lasted about a day!

I can't remember which place I spotted these at since there were about 2 to 3 weeks I seemed to travel all over the country-side grocery shopping at various places.  I'm not sure if I grabbed them at Wegman's or Mustard Seed.  I don't think I went to Whole Foods Market, Whole Foods Co-Op, or Trader Joes during that specific time so it might have been Wegman's or Tops.  I'm leaning more towards Wegman's as the possibility.  They were easy to do in the microwave and for a nuke-able meal it was tasty!  I recommend vegan mayo and ketchup on them!

One thing I know I found at Tops was THIS!  Mango Sorbet!  I thought I would try it but didn't really have a WOW pre-judgement, however, when I had my first taste...I was blown away!  This was one of the BEST naturally-tasting mango flavored treats I think I have ever had!  YUM!

Also at Tops - right around the same time - I found these gorgeous watermelon radishes!  I knew I had to buy them since we don't usually see them available for purchase in our area!  I really enjoyed them.  I share them with my mom, dad, and 2 ladies at work and all for of them thought they didn't have much taste.  They were a sweeter flavor and not a spicier flavor like regular radishes usually are and I think that threw everyone off.  I think most people go for your 'standard' fruit or veggie and then when you ask them to try something new they already have a pre-judgement that they aren't going to like it.

When I saw this at Aldi this summer I knew I had to buy it because my local Aldi isn't consistent with what they carry so when you see it you should buy it because you don't know if or when it will be back.  I still have yet to open this but it sits nicely in my freezer until then!

And finally, another find at Aldi!  The first go around with these - that everyone was talking about - I didn't have them at my local store - but - I was able to find them this summer and tried them.  They were pretty good!  Next time I would like to try and top them like they did on the box...with mushrooms and onions...and greens, oh my!

  

Reads, Recent Kitchen Experiments, & Build-Your-Own-Wrap

WARNING!  This is going to be a lengthy post!  And most likely one to jump around a lot, too!

First I want to share with you a new-to-me-vegan-cheese that I found at Wegman's this past weekend on my mini haul!  It's from Parmela Creamery and it's an aged nut cheese that is on the sharper side and made with cashew milk.

I used these shreds in the recipe/meal idea below, too!  The verdict is still out on this one.  I liked it but I have had others that were more tasty.  It doesn't melt as good as some of the other ones I have worked with but it does have it's perks, too!  The aroma is much like an artisan aged cheese.  Tonight I tried it in a wrap (which I will get to a little bit later in this post) and I really enjoyed it in a wrap situation.  There were a couple of other flavors for sale but I wanted to try this one first.

The other night I was trying to throw together a bowl of sorts and it ended up turning in to something completely different.  Let me explain.  

THIS photo is of the bowl mixture which was pretty tasty in its own right but it made me left wanting.  I will go on to show you what I did with it shortly, but first, the ingredients for this include: 1 C Multi-color Couscous, About a pound of roasted veggies I found at Trader Joe's a while back that I heated up and put into a blender on pulse, and then I made a simple creamy sauce made of Cashews, Almond Milk, Sea Salt, Garlic, Onion Flakes, Dill, Nutritional Yeast, and a splash of Balsamic.  Everything was eye-balled so sorry I don't have the exact measurements.

So here is what I ended up doing with the mixture.  It was holding together pretty good on its own so I made them into little balls and pressed them down into a muffin pan.  As you can see I used the plant-based shreds on top of all of them.  On half of those I squirted some Sriracha on top.  Both were tasty.  I think I liked the ones with Sriracha on top better.  I then made another Vegan Ranch type sauce for dipping. 

Here's a close-up of the dressing/dip/sauce.  Because I was out of cashews I decided to use Sunflower Seeds for this one.  Below is that recipe...

1 C Sunflower Seeds
About 1 C Almond Milk
2 t Lemon Juice
2 Cloves Garlic
2 t Dill

1 t Smoked Paprika

1 t Black Sea Salt
2 t Dijon Mustard

2 t Onion Flakes

Here's a closer look of the little Couscous Bites I made.  I have to say for me just throwing something together I was pretty proud of these lil guys!  The roasted veggies in the frozen package I got at TJ's was made up of Eggplant, Red Peppers, Onions, and had a bit of Balsamic for flavor in them, too!

In other news...
I had to break down and buy my lunch the other day and didn't want to go too far from the office so I stopped in at Total Evolution.  I opted for the Build-Your-Own-Wrap.  I decided to go with Sprouts, Avocado, Shredded Carrots, Hummus, Tomatoes, and they make their own Vegan BBQ Marinated Chickpeas.  They also make their own Vegan Cilantro Ranch Dressing so I went with that, too!

I have a lot of things I will be thumbing thru over the next couple of days including the following...

Raw Healthy & Delicious Recipes from Norbu (Australia)
Maranda Pleasant's Mantra Yoga & Health
Raw Food Lifestyle - back issues from March/April & May/June 2014
Rawmazing Easy Raw Food by Susan Powers

I've also recently found a website for those with Dyslexia.  They have resources for children but they also have a section for adults so I decided to subscribe to their newsletter and got my first issue today.  I will continue to locate resources for adults and try and report back here.

What do you think about the experiments in the kitchen?  Or about the little Build-Your-Own I found in my small town?  Or about the currently reading list?  I will be featuring more mini hauls over the next week or so!  A few other things I'm wondering about are...what do you think about the changes to my site so far?  The FurKid Section/Tab?  The Into description and photo in the upper right hand corner of my nav bar?  And what do you think about the links section?  There are over 100 links there, now!  YAY!  I can't wait to visit and comment more frequently on both old and new friends sites!  Please let me know if I don't have your link listed and I will add it ASAP!  CHEERS!!!

3 Vegan Store Bought Nice Cream Finds!

I'm still trying to catch up on blog posts so I decided to do a post highlighting 3 Vegan Ice Cream Alternative I have found over the last 3 months. 

I'm starting with my most recent find first but it's totally worth it!  When I did eat dairy one of my favorites was B&J's, Cherry Garcia.  So when I recently found the vegan version I was thrilled!

I was able to find this one at my local Tops Market.

I can't remember if I found this next one at my local tops a couple of months ago or if it was somewhere else but I totally forgot to blog about it. 

B&J's P.B. & Cookies!  The Peanut Butter was stellar!  The cookies were a nice added treat, too!  I remember not being able to overeat either one of these which might be a good thing in more ways than one.  They were both VERY filling!

Not all of the vegan ice cream alternatives are Ben & Jerry's on this list...I also had an amazing one from So Delicious!  This normally isn't one I would reach for first because I'm not much of a salt person but I'm glad I grabbed in 3 (or more) months ago when I saw it at Wegman's in Lakewood.  It was wonderfully tasty!  The sweet and salty - yin and yang - were perfectly done. 

All 3 of these I would buy again!  I know they aren't really new offerings but they were new finds for me.

3 New-To-Me Products I've Enjoyed Lately

I still have LOTS to catch up on but wanted to hurry up and post about 3 products that I have enjoyed lately.

The first being this Organic Cranberry Spiced Apple Kombucha from Trader Joe's in Rochester.

It was pretty strong for a nice kick in the pants! BAM!

Next up...

So Delicious Cheddar Shreds!  Yes!  So Delicious!  I found them at the Whole Foods Market in Buffalo!  And OMG I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE it!  It smells more cheddary than anything else I have ever smelled vegan-cheese-wise.  There is more of a TANG to it than other vegan cheeses, too!  I do LOVE Daiya Shreds - but - dare I say I enjoy THESE shreds more?  Possibly.  I'm upset that I only bought 1 bag because I know I won't be able to find any anywhere near me.  I've been Googling this and any online announcements only date back to mid-August and Mid September so this HAS to be a NEW product!

And speaking of Daiya...OMG...I'm in LOVE with their new Alfredo Sauce!  This is so creamy and so rich and so YUM!  I found it at Wegman's in Lakewood a few months ago and just got rid of the box last week because I was going thru my kitchen and pitching it.  It's not unusual for me to keep a label or box of something I enjoy to remind myself to pick it up again the next time I see it but I will NOT be forgetting about this little gem anytime soon so I figured it was safe to part ways with the box!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...what are the last 3 new-to-you-productions that have been memorable for you?

More Vegan Options From Mainstream Candy Shows & Back To Basics!

I have more to share with you from a not-so-long-ago Candy Show.

Eventho I wasn't the person to attend 'said Candy Show' I was lucky enough to get my hands on some of the vegan products thanks to my lovely parents!

First up - today - are these wonderful Matcha Snakaroons from Laughing Giraffe.  I have had a half dozen flavors from this company before and am a fan but I have to tell you these top my list!  YUM!  Since they are a Matcha product I might even review them for the Sororitea Sisters Blog, too!

You have probably seen Nature's Bakery's FIG BARS nearby.  This is the FIRST time I have seen their Brownie Bars and WOWZA are they TASTY!  As you can see I was lucky enough to try their NEW Double Chocolate Brownie!  Yippeee Skippy...these are VEGAN!

My parents said that this year was WONDERFUL for vegan products and many of them shined bright during the show!  This is a annual, national candy show that he's attended for YEARS, too!

Up next are a few different flavors of breakfast and/or snack bars from Orchard Bar.

These are a mix of fruit and seeds but the thing I want to point out right away is that these are MOIST.  The fruit "jelly" surrounding the whole bar is quite gooey and fresh!

I can't say as I have had another bar quite like it!  It was memorable for that fact.  Secondly - the fruity flavors never failed to pack a powerful tarty punch and blast of flavor in your mouth!

Here's one of the other flavors I had recently.  I can't tell you which one I liked better.  They were both good!

I'm also liking that more and more companies are stating that the product is vegan.  Regardless I am still a label reader - but - it's great to have it identified right away and SEE the word VEGAN if you know what I mean!?

This next product I am hot and cold about.  I'm happy that it clearly states Maple Bacon Flavored Almonds VEGAN on the label.  And the label itself is pretty cool if you are into label EYE CANDY like I am.

BUT...I didn't think these really tasted like bacon.  Not that I ever liked bacon even before going veg.  Therefore, I personally don't care that they weren't closely bacon-esque anyways.  However, if you are a 'bacon person' and looking for a TWIN of bacon-with-out-the-bacon...I don't know if this would fit the bill.  Having said that...a co-worker who is NOT veg in anyway really liked these so I guess that is all that really matters!

That about does it for the Candy Show wrap-up!  But I have more to share with you in today's post...so here goes...This next photo is my new Positively Posh Easy Peasy Big Bath Chunk Bar.  I realized eventho they aren't a vegan company they do have many vegan beauty care product options!  That I am thankful for!  This Sweet Mint Lemonade flavor smells AMAZING!  It certainly lives up to it's name, too, it's so large of a bath bar that you might need two hands to hold it.  The retail price for this specific bar is $9.  Yes...that IS pricey...but I didn't make any other purchases this past weekend and haven't bought any pampering products as of late so I thought I would treat myself!

Monday I stopped in a Wegmans while traveling to have some lunch - which I will show in the next photo - but - also spotted these two 'rays of light'.  That's RIGHT...I was FINALLY able to get my hands of Daiya Dressings locally!  I bought Home Style Ranch and Blue Cheeze.  I will already say I am a fan of BOTH.  I have made my own vegan ranches at home before and some where better than others but this VEGAN Blue Cheese...OMG!  Winner!  Winner!  Tofu Dinner!!!!  It's out of this WORLD!  Yum!  Because these are priced at $3.99 each this was another 'once in a blue moon' type of purchase for me but I will certainly be buying them again I just have to pace myself!

And finally this last photo of this post...my lunch that day!  It included: corn, watermelon, roasted yams, raw mushrooms, HUGE Blackberries, celery, and I think that is about it!

It was a solid lunch!

I have a confession to make...not so much in the last month...but..prior to that for a few months I was being LAZY.  I was consuming beer on a weekend sometimes.  I was falling back on pastas and had a little bit too much bread, I think.

Well, I think the beer, bread, and pasta caught up with me.  Eventho I was rather bloated this past week I can FEEL that I have gained a notable amount of weight back and just seemed to realize it.  Therefore, I think it might be time for a reboot!  I've already started this reboot and plan on continuing with it for a while...at least a month...maybe more.  What I am doing is this...MOSTLY juicing, smoothies, salads.  I will fill in holes from time to time with other things such as raw veggies, fruit, nuts, seeds.  I think my cheats for the most part will be with my dressings.  The dressing may or may not be store bought...and/or if I make them at home may or may not be higher in fat.  But with me cutting back on so many other foods I shouldn't be that concerned about the higher fat in a dressing once a day.  Another thing I may do once or twice a week is include blended soups I make at home, myself, too!  Years ago I did this in the summer months...June, July, August...I believe...and for the most part this worked well.  What non-veg people might not understand is that - when I do a salad - I do a salad!  I throw all sorts of stuff on my salads!  I hope to post most of them here!  Stay tuned for some REALLY FUNKY salads, and salad dressings...not to mention dips and/or spreads.

These are the type of recipes you will be seeing from me in the very near future!  So it's Back To Basics for me!!!

Also...I don't have a code for MIDWEEK MUNCHIES but let me know if you participated this week in comments!  I would LOVE to see them!