Garbanzo Bean Burgers

I set my smoothie down as I was leaving, and Panther showed up at the window. He didn't want me to leave :'( This is a smoothie I made about twice a week, because it's not my favorite. I drink it for the nutrition, not the taste. I mean, it's not horrible, but I don't like raw hemp seeds.

1 cup organic blueberries

1/2 cup almond milk

1 apple banana

1/2 scoop raw protein powder

1 scoop chia

1 Tbsp hemp seeds

2 dates

I try to take both of these everyday, but seem to forget often.

My lunch from Phuket Thai, spring rolls with lettuce, cucumber and mint.

This recipe is good to make when you don't have much else in the cupboard or fridge. Oh, and it is so yummy!

Garbonzo bean burgers:

Olive oil, enough to saute

1/2 cup purple onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon parsely, fresh is best but dried is fine

sea salt, just a little

1/2 cup walnuts, other nuts if you have to substitute

1 can organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

3 Tbsp flour

1 Tbsp arrowroot

Saute the onions, garlic, cumin, celery seed, and salt over medium heat until the onions are cooked well. Food process the nuts until they are a coarse meal. Put garbanzo beans in the processor and process the same way as the nuts. Mix together all ingredients in a bowl. Form the mixture into four burgers. Fry them on a frying pan until lightly brown. Then follow my recipe below to make the burger sauce.

Tahini Dill Veganese

3-4 Tbsp Veganese

1 Tbsp tahini

1 Tbsp fresh dill, less if you're not into dill

1 clove garlic, miced

Mix all ingredients together well and serve on your garbanzo burgers.

Tea & Chocolate

Sun tea! I just used a regular Lipton tea bag with some fresh peppermint leaves and brewed it outside in the sun.

Fresh kale & apple juice with half a scoop of chia.

Spinach Pasta

Blend together all the following ingredients:

2 handfuls of spinach

3 garlic cloves

zest of one lemon

half a can of coconut milk

nutmeg

sea salt

thai sweet basil (just a little)

pohnpei pepper (regular is fine)

nutritional yeast (to taste)

Boil pasta until cooked .

Saute 1/2 mushrooms in olive oil, then add all above ingredients until warm. Eat!

I'm kind of PMSing right now, so I am eating chocolate like it's no ones business! I made some awesome hot chocolate, because the ice cream sandwich wasn't enough. This is only enough for one serving, so double if it's for two.

Coconut Hot Chocolate

1/2 can coconut milk

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

2 Tbsp agave

1 Tbsp raw sugar

(less sugar or agave if you want less)

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

1 vanilla bean

cocoa nibs (added last)

Boil it all together and drink! Using coconut milk to make hot chocolate is amazing. If you have not tried it, you really need to.

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

For breakfast, I had some rose tea with some "sausage" patties and daiya chedder.

I've been craving chocolate milk, so on my lunch break I ran to the store to get some chocolate silk. Mmmm...

Can you guys tell I love avocado yet? I had an everything bagel with avocado and nutritional yeast. My coworker was thoroughly weirded out by the nutritional yeast.

I think I finally have mojitos down. I have made my share of bad ones too, let me tell you. Here is the recipe for what I did.

Basic Mojito Recipe

15 mint leaves
1/2 ouce fresh lime juice (or bottled is fine)
1/2 ounce mint syrup
2 ounce rum (light rum is best)
1 ounce club soda
Ice

Muddle leaves with lime juice and mint syrup. Add ice & rum. Shake well. Top with club soda & mint sprig. Every time I make this recipe it uses up all my spearmint in my garden!

Mint Syrup Recipe

1/2 cup heated simple syrup (simple syrup is just 1 part sugar to 1 part water melted together)
1 cup mint leaves, chopped

Pour both into glass and refigerate overnight. Lasts up to a week.

Yesterday was my friend Roper's birthday. Luckily for me, I was in charge of putting together the kabobs. I was happy because I got to make my own with mushrooms, red, green, and yellow bell pepper, onions, and cherry tomatoes. Normally when I go to these BBQ's I have nothing to eat, so I totally lucked out this time! I was prepared though. I brought my own mushrooms, bell pepper, and daiya cheese just in case.

This is his precious dog Maggie.

And one of my precious guinea pigs, Pancake.

Review: Amy's Pizza

About a week ago, the wonderful people at Amy's sent me a few coupons to try out some of their products. Ever since I became a vegan, I was really bummed and felt like I was never going to get to have pizza again. Until now that is! Amy's makes a large variety of vegan products like pizzas, burgers, pot pies, enchiladas, soups, and more!

All Amy's products are vegetarian. They also offer various tree nut free, gluten free, diary free, and soy free products. I chose the Soy Cheeze Pizza made with organic tomatoes & flour. This pizza is lactose free and non GMO. It was amazing! It tastes like restaurant quality. It doesn't have veggies, so you can add whatever you want for toppings or just eat it plain. I ate it just as it was made and loved it. I am not normally a fan of soy based cheeses, but this was so good! Amy's pizza is my new favorite pizza!

I ate the whole pizza on my own! This pizza goes great with a bottle or two of beer. I put hot sauce on mine, because I like spicy. If you have not tried Amy's products yet, then you need to get on it! They use quality ingredients and try to use organic as much as possible, which is very important to me. I found this on their site, "We have earned a reputation in the farming community as the company with the most rigid standards for quality and consistency. This is as it should be. Just imagine if you were planning a special meal for your closest friends. Wouldn’t you take the time to select the best of everything? Bright green broccoli, perfect potatoes, sweet tomatoes and tangy onions? Sure you would, and because we think of every customer as a guest in our home, you deserve the very best that nature provides."

That makes me very happy to hear!

Please note, Amy's donated these coupons to me. I was not paid for this review. Subscribe to their newsletter to be up to date on their newest products HERE.

Random Things I Ate Recently

My husband bought me a huge bag of carrots from Costco. I used a few and then kind of forgot about them. I took the bag out today because they were starting to go bad. I didn't want to waste them, so I ended up juicing almost a whole bag of carrots. I think it was around 5 lb of carrots. So this morning I had carrot juice instead of my normal kale/apple blend. It was funny because my husband said, where's the apple juice this morning? Sorry babe, but there's just carrot juice today. For my carrot juice, I like to add a few spices to change it up a little.

My Carrot Juice

2 cups fresh organic carrot juice

dash of ground cinnamon

dash of ground cardamom (be careful with this spice, it's strong)

dash of grated nutmeg

less than 1/8 tsp ground cloves

Ice

Pour all into glass and drink! I was thinking about the flavor of this juice with the added spices, and it kind of resembles carrot cake! So, I am thinking that if you were to add a creamy milk to it like hemp or hazelnut, it would be like carrot cake! It's just a thought.

I love antique stores, so last time I went to Nebraska I stopped in quite a few. I bought this old wooden bread box with this cute warming tile inside for $1 I think. I love it!

Sun-dried Tomato Focaccia

3 cups unbleached white flour

2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 tsp agave

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp fresh rosemary

1 Tbsp fresh oregano

pinch of black pepper

1 to 2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup sundried tomatoes

I threw all this in the breadmaker and put it on the dough setting. That look about an hour and a half. Then, I put it on the bake setting, because I had to go to breakfast with someone. Normally, I put the mixture in the oven to make the dough, because I like how it turns out better.

And...

...Junk food!

I had "sausage" patties with Daiya cheese for breakfast yesterday. Today's lunch was a fresco bean burrito and a 7 layor burrito minus the sour cream and cheese with a side of guacamole.

Lychee Cupcakes

Before I start with this recipe, I would just like to say something. I think that it is so funny how there are some blogs out there that I have commented on multiple times and asked questions, and never got a response. Some how, they found time to answer EVERYONE elses comments...except mine. It's funny to me how people get all these followers and then all the sudden think they are celebrities or something, and they are now too good for small time bloggers like me. YOU WRITE A FREAKING BLOG! Get over yourself! And, you know what else? We all have this common interest for the most part of being vegan, vegetarian, or health conscious. So I would think that you would want to help out fellow vegans or vegetarians with their journey. It's a good thing that I didn't rely on other people as a support system or I would have quit a long time ago! Ok, I am done.

Moving on...so as you guys know, my friend gave me a bunch of lychee the other day. I have been trying to figure out what to do with them. So here is my experimental cupcakes.

Lychee Cupcakes

2 cups flour (white or coconut works)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/3 cup raw sugar

pinch of salt

1/3 cup coconut oil

4 Tbsp chia seeds soaked in 6 Tbsp water

1/4 cup Kai lychee vodka

3/4 cup coconut milk

1 1/2 cups fresh lychee, chopped

2 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredient separately. Mix everything together. Bakeat 350 for 25 minutes.

Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

2 Tbsp coconut butter

1/4 cup coconut milk

Put the frosting on once the cupcakes are cool.

This was right out the oven bare...

...and this is with frosting. The frosting was pretty runny, but I am way more about taste than presentation. These were so tasty! They came out really dense and heavy, definitely not your light and fluffy cupcake. They were packed with flavor though! If you like lychee, you'll LOVE these!

Half day at work

This was my breakfast at work with a little coffee. My friend sent me this pumpkin butter from the Missouri farmers market near her house. She sent it to me in my "hippy pack" :) ! It was soooo good! It tastes like pumpkin pie!

I made some nachos with pita chips, Daiya cheese, avocado, tomato, onion, and garlic.

I had a sandwich with hummus, pimentos, pepper, and avocado on sprouted bread. Yum! Oh, and the beer is a new one I am into called LandShark. It's a light beer and goes good with an orange slice if you have one.