Beach Walk, Sangria, and Freezer Soup

On a beautiful winter day, we decided to explore a local beach that we had never been to before.

Lots of tide pools to explore.  Bonus - I didn't fall once while climbing over all of those rocks!  I had a rough landing or two, that Ryan politely pretended he didn't see.

The striated pattern in the top left was a house!  

After a long, hot day we thought sangria and crosswords on our porch was an excellent idea.  We stopped at a new grocery store that Ryan has been eyeing, Lazy Acres, and were pretty impressed with the selection of products.  They had a giant bulk section, which is the biggest thing we were hoping for, and even purchased tea towel bags for future bulk purchases.  Their produce selection was awesome, thus making Lazy Acres a great replacement for our usual Whole Foods shopping trips.

For the sangria, we mixed one bottle of red wine with one bottle of sparkling lemonade.  We added strawberries, blueberries, sliced apples, and ice.  It was super simple and delish.

We both enjoyed it, and Tune was thrilled for cuddle time on the porch.

Maybe a little too thrilled....

We then decided to make a large batch of soup so we could have leftovers.  

Start by washing an assortment of greens.  Here we used one bunch of collards, one bunch of kale, and one bunch of spinach.  We forgot to use the brussel sprouts on the right side of the photo, but don't worry, they will make an appearance in a later post.

Chiffonade greens and set aside.

Slice a couple large onions and one to two cups of sun-dried tomatoes.

Slice any other veggies you like.  We added carrots as well, and steamed yams would be great, too.

Rinse lentils and wild or brown rice (rice not pictured).  You could also use beans, but they should be cooked first.

In each tupperware, we started by adding some lentils and rice.  Then added the non-green chopped veggies (carrot, onion, sun-dried tomatoes, whatever else you are using), then topped with greens. 

Ooops, forgot about garlic.  Add that to each tupperware also.

Cover each tupperware with water and freeze.

You may be wondering why we haven't actually cooked the soup.  Feel free to cook your soup, let cool, then add to tupperware and freeze.  For me, I just feel like it takes too much time to cook, cool, and freeze so I add ingredients that will cook quickly when the soup is heated.  (That's why I recommended using cooked beans and cooked potatoes instead of raw.)  When I need a quick dinner, I dump the frozen block of soup in a pot, cover, and turn on low to medium.  Once the lentils and rice are cooked, it's ready!  Experiment with flavors.  Flavor-wise, this recipe is pretty bare bones.  In ours, we had some frozen cubed of pesto so we added a couple of those in each tupperware.  Get creative and enjoy!

Garden, Green Smoothie & Dinner

For my birthday last year, R made me a garden.  It's seen several planting cycles, but the most notable has got to be the tomato plant that was taller than our house!  Fortunately, we now have the garden under control again.

We are growing red leaf lettuce, curly kale, rainbow chard, spinach, habaneros, mint, lemon verbena, thyme, celery, and chives.  I've been going into the garden and picking off the baby green leaves - remember to pick no more than 1/3 of your plant at a time - and using them in my green smoothies.  This green smoothie has an entire grapefruit, banana, coconut oil, apple, a large basket of mixed greens, mint, and water.  I've really been on a kick with mint in my smoothies - yum!

And the finished product

The taste was very tart.  I think it's because I didn't remove all the pith - white stuff - from the grapefruit and because I didn't segment the grapefruit.  I really like tart flavors and drank this immediately, while R was hoping for something sweeter.  For him, I blended some oranges, carrots, and water to make an orange carrot smoothie.  This had a sweeter taste.  If the thick texture isn't your thing, you could strain this so you remove most of the orange and carrot pulp.

For dinner we kept it simple.  I roasted an acorn squash and two garnet yams.  I mashed them with salt and honey.  R made steamed kale with homemade preserved lemons and sauerkraut.  He used Mark Bittman's Quick Preserved Lemons a try.  I had a grilled shitake tofu burger patty that I got from Whole Foods, and R had some salmon.  The kitties were very happy about the salmon :)

New Orleans and Superbowl Sunday

The hubby and went to New Orleans for a work thing a few weekends ago. 

He was excited about the food there, and I was suspicious about what I would eat there.  Boy, was I wrong!  Anyone ever tried a vegan po'boy?  Ah-mazing!  We found them at a bar called Erin Rose Bar in the French Quarter.  The veggies were grilled, and there were two homemade sauces on the sandwich.

We ordered our po'boys to-go and walked to a nearby street where we found some live music.  I was continually impressed with the quality of music all over the city.  Very talented musicians everywhere!  The French Quarter was beautiful.

At night, however, it got a little crazy seeing that it was almost time for Mardi Gras.

I don't have a picture, but for my birthday dinner we ate at The Wandering Buddha.  This was really, really good vegan Korean food.  They have temporarily closed while they are relocating, but are planning on opening soon.  We got homemade Chai, scallion pancakes, tofu stirfry, and homemade sesame ice cream over something like Korean french toast.  The meal was awesome!  We ate with a very nice couple that informed us of a New Orleans birthday tradition.  When it's your birthday, you pin a dollar to your shirt.  Everyone you walk past then wishes you a happy birthday and some pin more money to your shirt.  It made for a very fun night!  We also enjoyed a meal at Carmo while we were there.  The food was delicious and we would highly recommend it.

On our last day, we went to Whole Foods to grab snacks and drinks, and had a picnic in the park near the Audubon Zoo.  Our snacks consisted of carrot cake, my favorite, and a cantaloupe stuffed with fresh raspberries and mint.  The cantaloupe was so simple, delicious, and pretty!  Would definitely bring this on a picnic again.  

Fast forward 2 weekends to Superbowl Sunday.  While we were busy most of the day, we did make it home in time for R to watch the tail end.  In an effort to make something for dinner that was Superbowl-esque, I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches and soup.  For the sandwich, I spread cashew cheese and dijon mustard on the bread.  I sprinkled a little nutritional yeast, and added a generous layer of sauerkraut.  You could sub marinated artichoke hearts for the sauerkraut. I then toasted the sandwiches in my cast iron skillet with a spray of olive oil.  They looked burned and unappetizing, but were delicious!  R approved :)  It was a perfect balance of toasted outside with a moist and flavorful inside.  Instead of soup, I felt like something a little more refreshing and ended up making a veggie drink instead.  I blended tomatoes, cucumber, cilantro, onion, and water.  This got a mediocre rating from R, but I liked it.