Farmer’s Market Haul.

Tuesday = Farmer’s Market Day. There are other days and other markets, but this is the one that is a two minute walk from my house. And I have my buds there who talk to me in Dutch and forgive me when I either speak to them in English or in completely broken and at times probably unintelligible Dutch.

Although one booth there will be the death of me. Dried fruit and banana chips and sugar-coated peanuts, and I can’t say no to any of them. And sure, I could attempt to walk right past his stall, but I need dates! When I make raw desserts (for no reason other than fascination), dates are my main sweetener.

But I’m announcing it here. Next week, I will stop there to purchase dates and only dates.

But other than dates (both fresh and dried) and sugar-coated peanuts (so naughty), I also bought:
walnuts (I will be using these to make my own version of cruelty-free parmesan cheese)
blood oranges (so pretty!)
clementines
apples
plums
bok choy
ginger
peppers (both bell and chili)
sweet potatoes
mushrooms (continuing my attempt to become a Master Mushroom Eater, of course)
onions
celery
carrots
strawberries

Yesterday’s meal plan mentioned that I’d be choosing tonight’s vegetable side based on the farmer’s market, so I’ll be using the bok choy. It’s pretty much the perfect side to sweet and sour tofu.

There was no fresh corn to be found though (for tomorrow night’s kale and corn side), so I stepped into the store for that. Otherwise, I was pretty pleased.

How can I not be? Especially with the strawberries and blood oranges. They just scream spring!
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*Jacked that photo from Wikipedia btw…

Adventures in Hippiehood.

One of my favorite blogs to visit is Bonzai Aphrodite, the story of Sayward, a Portlandian who just seems to be one of the kindest people I’ve ever come across. I really started paying attention to her when I fell in love with the way she discusses veganism, with omnivores, vegetarians, and other vegans. She just cares so much about all three categories of humans AND the animals that reading her compassionate words makes me feel really proud to be a fellow vegan.

Oh! And she has pet chickens. And she doesn’t even eat their eggs.

So I read her blog regularly and I have this tutorial on making your own deodorant bookmarked so that once I find all the ingredients, I can do exactly that.

Earlier this week, I decided to go ahead and take a different, easier jump to all-natural living: abandon commercially purchased shampoo and conditioer to switch to baking soda and apple cider vinegar.

What.

A.

Disaster.

It was disgusting when I applied it to my hair, it was disgusting after I rinsed it out of my hair, it was disgusting for the next day and a half until I finally washed my hair THREE TIMES with my trusty, commercially purchased shampoo and I was able to rejoice because my hair wasn’t gross anymore.

I decided to not feel guilty about returning to my normal shampoo and conditioner because it’s natural and organic and free of sodium lauryl sulfate and free of animal products and didn’t get tested on animals, and maybe I’ll go ahead and try to replace my conditioner with black tea because I’m curious enough to at least try other options, but yeah. Baking soda is not for me. Not for my hair. Not anytime soon.

I still love Sayward and will continue to play along with her other Monday Monthly Missions, but I’m gonna have to admit that when it comes to no-poo, I’m a failure.

In otherrrrrrrrr news, news in which I am not a failure, I invented my very first recipe! Excitement. I was at the health food store last Wednesday and saw some vegan pesto and I remembered that I had recently bookmarked a pesto and white bean recipe, so I grabbed it. Sat down at the computer last night to find the recipe, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had completely made up this memory. Instead, I found a recently bookmarked white bean, celery, and quinoa dish, and remembered I had made a mental note when bookmarking it that I needed to get quinoa at the health food store, so I guess that’s where the confusion originated.

Back to the point. I still wanted to eat pesto and white beans, so I did some poking around the internet to see other people’s ideas online, and what a pain that was. Because apparently it’s a favorite of everyone out there to make White Bean Pesto. So all recommendations seemed to be to puree the white beans into the pesto. I wasn’t interested.

So I searched for quinoa and pesto to get other ideas. And then I just winged it. Wang it? Wung it? Winged it.

Here’s what I did. And you don’t get amounts because I’m not a cookbook.

White Bean and Pesto Quinoa

Ingredients
1 c quinoa, soaked and rinsed
2 c vegetable broth
Olive oil
Shallots, minced
Garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
White beans, drained and rinsed
Spinach
Vegan pesto, storebought or homemade
Tomato, chopped
Cucumber, sliced and cut in half (half moon shapes)
Nutritional yeast
Avocado, chopped

Directions
1. Cook the quinoa in the broth.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet with sides. As large as you’ve got. Throw in the shallots and garlic and saute till clear. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Add quinoa. Add white beans. Mix well.
4. Add spinach. It’s up to you to decide how wilted you want the spinach. It’ll wilt a bit more even off the heat, so you might want to cook it a little less than you think you want it to be done.
5. Remove from heat. Stir in pesto. Mix well.
6. Add tomatoes, cucumber, nutritional yeast. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I needed to add a bit of pepper here, but there was definitely enough salt for me as I had used both storebought broth and pesto.)
7. Serve warm, and top with chopped avocado.

Ta-da!

What a proud moment.

And just to close out, here are the lovely flowers my husband brought home for me. If only I had paid attention and lined up the placemats so they weren’t jarringly uneven. But you get the picture:

Leave No Trace.

Look how fun! The Incredible Veggie Show!

I’m going.

On Saturday, I went to three separate bookstores looking for either Becoming Vegan or The Vegan Sourcebook, and came up dry at each. When I asked staff members for help locating books on a vegan lifestyle, they all tried to direct me towards the cooking section. I explained that I wasn’t in need of recipes but in need of information on nutrition and on incorporating the vegan philosophy into all aspects of your life. No one really seemed to understand. Although at the last store, the girl looked at me blankly for only a second until her face lit up and she said, “Our health and nutrition section has a lot of books by…you know, like, gurus or whatever.” Just what I need! A vegan guru!

But their health and nutrition section did not actually have any books by vegan gurus.

So I came home empty-handed and prepared to purchase the book on Amazon, only to find out that Amazon removed LGBT literature from its sales rankings, which they claim was due to a “glitch” and will soon be corrected. Uh huh.

It sure is hard being an ethical consumer these days, lol.

Ways in which I am trying:
* grabbing my staples such as brown rice, coffee beans, and vegan chocolate at RISC’s fair trade World Shop (that’s right; chocolate is a staple in my world)
* stocking up on bulk items, such as nuts, lentils, and dried fruit at True Food Co-op
* using Faith in Nature health and beauty products
* buying my produce at the local Farmer’s Market (there’s another one that pops up multiple times a week that I shop at more often, but that one has no website)

Back in October, when I first moved here, I had high hopes on composting, but that’s turning out to be a bust. It’s pretty grody. But I suppose, soon enough, I must try, try again.