Purging Drafts

Did you ever see someone’s inbox and realize that maybe you’re a bit neurotic about clearing your inbox? I don’t like when I have drafts just sitting around. So here, a blog post that has no theme or elaboration that fizzles out text-wise but still captures some of the yumminess I’m experiencing in between crazy work days. So here it goes:

No matter how widespread vegan foods have come, most remain a bit in the dark (chocolate) about it. “Chocolate is vegan?!” is something I have been hearing for many, many years. Yes, for the millionth time, chocolate is vegan. Good chocolate, like the chocolate sauce at Van Leeuwen. This place is my new favorite treat after a hard day of work. They have airy, delicious, vanilla bean-speckled vegan whip cream that is not Soyatoo. Have you ever bought that stuff? I feel like it never works. (P.S. It was Red, White & Blue Day at work, hence the socks.)

Vegan pesto is one of the first foods I experimented with when I was clueless about cooking. It was a discovery that helped build my confidence. I, like many children of the Baby Boomer generation, grew up with “instant” boxes of food products–then, after the microwave was welcomed into kitchens, a wide range of microwavable snacks and meals. I learned food slowly, simple dish by simple dish at first. I feel like I’ve perfected pesto at this point. Here’s my V.V. tip: pick the basil leaves from the bottom of the stems, where they wrap the rubber bands. These leaves are great for pesto because they’re blended away, leaving the fresh leaves for garnishing and looking pretty. 

You know what they say about bad apples? Sometimes it’s a bad orange. We had a bunch in the fruit bowl that were softening up. So I juiced them all and made them into a bundt cake, this great recipe. 

I subbed the Earth Balance in the icing with coconut oil. So delicious!

Weekly lunch stuff: eggplant discs, that pesto I talked about earlier, and some roasted veggies and Israeli cous cous.