Ray's 2006 Cooking Experience, MwM & Jazz

No, this is not a joke. Yes, this is real food being cooked! Welcome to Ray's 2006 cooking experience, most likely the one time this year he will be cooking in the kitchen. I decided to create evidence of this one! Let me say that he is super-enthusiastic about grilling foods, unlike me, and there will soon be some grilling photos posted. But, for now we have Ray in the kitchen actually cooking - and we ended up eating at 1:00am. This is also a rare occasion because he is wearing black. I'll start from the beginning: Ray had three gigs on Sunday, one of which didn't get finished until 11pm and he wasn't home until midnight. He called on a break and I exclaimed happily that I was making dinner and it would be all ready for him when he got back. Jordan and I were going to eat before him. Well, that didn't happen. I decided to make up my own recipe by throwing (not limited to) chickpeas, black beans, breadcrumbs, carrots, onion, garlic, tahini, parsely and a bunch of other stuff into the food processor to create patties to fry on the stove. The mixture looked and smelled good but dry. I let it chill in the fridge for an hour or so and it was still dry. I added more tahini, but I didn't really know what else to do. I decided to take the formed patties and just fry them up, but while on the stove they quickly crumbled and it almost looked like ground beef- but not. It smelled ok so I just went with it, trying to form them and press them together. No such luck. Finally, I just browned the whole mixture, crumbs and all, and poured a bunch of not-photo-worthy-crap onto a plate. It smelled good and Jordan walked into the room, looked at it and said, "I'm not eating that...". I convinced him to just try it and we both agreed to not eat it.

I was upset and frustrated that 3+ hours had gone by, food all wasted, and my energy drained and no dinner. I paced around and didn't even feel like boiling water for pasta or quinoa, even though my mind kept telling me to. Ray got home and the look on his face when I told him there was no dinner wasn't great. He had a long day and night and I confidently told him there'd be food, when there wasn't. In this rare occasion, he stayed dressed, black shirt, pants and all (which is unusual at home), and cooked up some penne with marinara sauce and sauteed veggies. The meal ended up being great, as Ray makes better red sauce than me, but it was a long night... for both of us.

Moving on... Now we have Midweek Munchies for this week as well as last week's combined. The * means organic, as always.

And now let me leave you with some jazz photos. This is more Ray in his element, polar opposite from the photos above in the kitchen. From left to right we have Bob on trumpet/guitar, Shea on sax and many other misc. instruments, Ben on drums, Ray on bass and Tom on guitar. Notice the empty chairs? It was the end of the night and many people go there to dine, not like a jazz club.
And Ray on the upright, with Ben again and Jesse on vibes.
Fin.

Mango Pops & More Awesomeness on a Stick

I am so happy that mangos (also spelled correctly mangoes) are in season right now. I was excited to see that the Sunflower Market had them organic for 88 cents each. For days, I was imagining biting into a juicy mango and having no cares in the world! Then the day came and the Sunflower Market had some sort of mango-shipment-problem and I was told to come back at a later time. I went the following day and they were still out. I was planning on checking out Henry's market anyway, which is owned by Wild Oats, and it turned out they had organic mangos for 79 cents each! Way better. So, I bought 4 and two of them quickly went into my belly straight-up, into smoothies, frozen, and into this wondeful Mango Ice Cream from The Everyday Vegan. This recipe is super-simple and easy and only calls for a few ingredients. The fruits are mostly mango with a bit of frozen banana, agave nectar and a few other secrets.

After I froze the ice cream (and of course, sampled some) I decided to utilize the containers that make popcicles and put some of the mango ice cream into the molds with my own sticks. What a great idea! Now I had 4 pops and still some ice cream for scooping leftover. Thanks Dreena!

Since I was on a "fruit-on-a-stick" kick, I decided to take some fresh bananas and cut them in half and dip them into goodness. I made the same chocolate mixture as I have in previous posts, and topped it with the following: First, we have one banana dipped in chocolate and rolled in "Let's Do Organics" colored sprinkles, colored with spinach, beet and turmeric instead of crap. Then I dipped 2 bananas in chopped raw pecans and one of them in shredded coconut. How wonderful.
I decided to cut up a few chunks of banana as well as take out the organic frozen strawberries (in a fresh container) and dip those in the leftover chocolate. I still had some leftover chocolate and my friend Bob was sitting across the counter from me while I was dipping and he decided the bag of pecans and bowl of leftover chocolate sounded good (and it did) and he pretty much finished the rest of it by then.

This is a close up of 4/6 strawberries I dipped. Guess where the other 2 are?!
And what you see above is my own take on Catherine's Hippie Bars. Yes, the first test-batch is gone. Come on, the recipe was for a "Party of One" and there are 2 of us (plus occasional guests) here. This time I didn't follow her recipe, or any recipe by that matter. I took about 20 dates, some agave nectar, walnuts, oats, cinnamon, cashews, sunflower seeds and mixed it all together. You can see I started to cut into bars, but wanted to show the whole slab at once.
And here's some sun tea I spontaniously made today. It's a bit cooler (yeah, 97 degrees still) and at around 3pm I decided to brew up some cranberry apple tea with mulling spices (alspice, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc.). It only needed to be out there for about an hour (laugh) because the sun was at it's peak, I think. I almost regretted making this so late in the day but then I remembered where I live. I took it down from the infamous "AZ brick wall", and it was hot to the touch. I took out the bags and now it's chillin' in the fridge. I know it tastes good, as it smells good and I should really do this more often...
Fin.

Hippie Bars and Weirdness

I tested another recipe from Catherine the other day. These are raw Hippie Bars, which consist of dates, agave nectar, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, flax and hemp seeds. That's it! They were super-fast and easy to make, all you need is a bowl and a fork and a fridge (oh, and some Dead playin' in the background). In this case, I had to measure exactly, but from now on I plan on going with what I know best- throwing a bunch of ingredients together and coming up with something great. Thanks for a wonderful recipe Catherine, the rest of the world will soon get to taste how fabulous and lightly sweet these are...

I cut the bars in half to make more, smaller bars. I plan on making some in different varieties soon, apple-cinnamon, cocoa, etc. Even though I think LaraBar has great products, these Hippie Bars put them to shame, especially since they are homemade and taste incredibly fresh - since they are.

Now can someone please tell me what's up with these onions I've got? They seem to have sprouted and I took this photo yesterday, now the sprouts are super-long. Is it still ok to eat these? I only purchased them a few days ago. They are local and organic so I know they won't last rediculously long like conventional foods and processed foods, but this is weird. I need some help in this department please!

Tabouli, Hummus & Recipe Testing

I have the privilege of testing some recipes for Catherine and her new cookbook. I had planned on making tabouli for about three days, and it just so happened that she sent me a tabouli recipe to try. The only thing I had to go out and buy for it was the green onion, since it's not something I normally buy at home. I got some local organic green onions. I decided to make hummus to go along with the tabouli as well as some Ezekiel 4:9 pita bread and blue corn chips. Ezekiel pita bread consists of: organic 100% whole wheat flour, water, organic fresh carrots, organic barley flour, organic millet flour, organic lentil flour, organic spelt flour, organic soya flour, fresh yeast and sea salt. The website is www.foodforlife.com.

I normally make hummus by setting up the food processor and dumping chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, garlic, cumin, paprikia, sea salt and lemon juice and mushing it all together. Once in a while I'll add those already roasted peppers from a jar and I decided to do that on Sunday. I guess I had forgotten how long the peppers were already opened in there, and I made the hummus and it looked and smelled bad. I knew it was the peppers so I dumped it (ugh) and decided to actually follow a recipe! I made Dreena's "Creamy Hummus" from Vive le Vegan and it came out wonderful. I love how there's toasted sesame oil and that lingering flavor. Yum.

I cannot give out any recipes, but first off all, if you don't have Vive le Vegan, buy it. All great recipes are in there including this fast simple hummus. Catherine's tabouli was rated an A by me and a B by Ray, but he doesn't really like tabouli in the first place. We did end up making mini sandwiches out of the pita, hummus and tabouli and we were both diggin into that! I know I added more lemon juice than she called for but that's because for an unknown reason I was squeezing (and measuring) the lemons right over the actual bowl. Big mistake. Besides it being on the lemon-y side, the tabouli was great especially with yellow vine tomatoes and I did like/eat the green onions. The dinner was an overall success and I know Catherine's first cookbook and Dreena's 3rd cookbook (both coming out in the "near" future) will be a success. I am looking forward to cooking out of both of them! I am also excited for that cupcake cookbook to come out. Maybe that will inspire me to do something about the oven.
Out of the series of recipes Catherine gave me, a fruit smoothie was included. How convienent that I just so happened to have 2 leftover brownish bananas and popped them in the freezer. I cannot give too much info here (as this is the testing stage), but it was a mostly blueberry-banana-flax smoothie and the most wonderful creamy consistency and nothing needs to be changed. Blueberry was my fruit of choice and usually is. Amazingly, there was no ice cream in here. I wasn't allowed to tamper/substitute in the testing, ha.
And this was my wonderful treat last night. I started out just having ice cream. Then Ray took out the last of his nasty Hershey's syrup from the fridge that was probably old and gone anyway and finally (for the first time) read the ingredients and decided not to eat it. I couldn't believe my ears! It was so wonderful that he was conscious of the ingredients/crap in there and I offered to whip up a quick chocolate sauce for him (20 seconds or less!). I did the same but less amount of chocolate as the chocolate covered bananas recipe. I poured this mixture over our ice creams and it was wonderful! Harmonia, this is some Hip Whip for you to see. You can go to Hip Whip's Website and take a look at the vegan products. This was a super treat and especially with the whip cream on top. I haven't had whip cream in about 7 years and I recently tried making my own and it was a disaster! This tasted wonderful (Ray agreed) but it was really really sweet. I still ate the whole thing!

Fin.

Chocolate Covered Bananas & More

What a simple snack! I am not big on bananas, but I love banana bread and certain other banana-like snacks. Maybe I just like bananas with sweet stuff and chocolate, but I certainly will not just take more than a bite out of one. It was nearing midnight and I decided that the bananas we had (for smoothies, cereal, plain-eating for Ray) were going to get brown soon and since I'm not using the oven, my awesome (and dearly missed) banana bread was not going to happen. I decided that I could easily make chocolate covered bananas, and boy, was I right!

To make this simple snack in a matter of minutes, take 2 bananas and cut them into chunks. Then I grabbed a handful of chocolate chips (which my small hand is equivalent to about 1/3c) and tossed them in a bowl with a splash of agave nectar (eqiv. to about a teaspoon) and a splash of water (equiv. to about 1/4c water) and put it in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds. I took it out right away, stirred and started dipping the chunks of bananas (with a fork) into the chocolate mixture. I placed the covered bananas on a cookie tray with parchment paper and froze it overnight. I did eat one after about an hour of freezing, but it wasn't right. Freeze completely and store in an airtight container. They'll probably be gone before it's time to worry on how long they'll last in the freezer. So simple and quick! Ray suggested I need to start dipping all fruits in chocolate, which seems to be a great idea! Next is my Midweek Munchies post, which should really be re-titled Weekend Munchies. This list consists of shopping from the last 10 days (2 week munchie-post). As you will see, three stores had me for a visit and we certainly stocked up. I decided to type it all on Word and take a photo of it (is there another better way?) so I didn't have to have you all scrolling for a long time. Just click the photo (or any photo) to enlarge the list. The * means organic, as always.
I have a few questions:
As many of you know already, I don't like faux meats. I don't care for an item that is made (even from veggies and grains) to taste like the taste of a dead animal prepared as food. I have no desire to eat animals, nor to taste what one should taste like cooked up with a lot of seasonings. In that case, I have only had a few veggie burgers (don't care for them) and the only thing close to that I will eat is some sort of "patty". It can't be like a burger. As for Ray (who's not vegetarian, born and raised in Kansas, but has more open views and opinions of a healthy diet now), he wants to start eating fake meats. Fine by me. I just won't eat them, but I now will certainly grab some fries or veggies off of his plate because it will be "fake blood" not real blood dripping from the flesh. I am also happily willing to cook/prepare these faux meats, but what's out there?

Anyhow, I would like some ideas as for pre-made faux meat items that taste "good", and brand names and specifics are greatly appreciated. I won't make these too often, as even though these aren't loaded with flesh, cholesterol, saturated fat, carcinogens, etc, there are a lot of chemicals and forms of soy (soy protein isolate for example), high sodium content and other products that aren't too healthy either. In moderation is ok, as is anything. Ray is interested in some bratworst (is that the same as sausage?) and he is also interested in faux bacon, veggie "hot dogs" and seitan. I need help and ideas and suggestions and recommendations on the best items (to you) out there. I see a ton of all of this at the store, but I want to buy good stuff that is backed by personal opinions from many of you. Thanks in advance!

Quinoa Spring Salad & Marinated Tofu

It was time to make some more quinoa so I can finish off my container and refresh the jar with more organic goodness. Maybe because it's been 104 degrees (and will be +), I've been wanting cold salads, but not necessarily leafy green salads. The pasta salad the other day was a success, as well as a great leftovers.

Sadly, it's been a bit too long since I have cooked anything from Dreena's "Vive le Vegan" cookbook, one of my fav's, and I decided that the quinoa spring salad was way worth a try! Vicki (Vegetarian Family), has a wonderful post dedicated to this salad and it has been calling my name since April. Of course, I didn't have all ingredients on hand. At the store I asked Ray, "would you rather have no bell peppers or conventional bells?". He responded while I nodded in agreement that we should just skip the bells. Plus, I have some frozen, which isn't good with this meal, but I was not about to spend $6.99/lb on organic red bell peppers. Instead, I chopped up the huge-ass bag of carrots I have, half of a large cucumber, pistashios, and peas. I added some basil and cilantro as well as Dreena's (same book) "Simple Cider Vinegarette" which was great. The ingredients were simple and I can use some simplicity in my life (at least in the food department). I did add the lemon juice on top of everything, which was a must!

The tofu was marinated for about 2 hours in a mixture of too much tamari sauce, agave nectar, brown rice vinegar and hoisin sauce. The tofu was really easy to make as I just heated it super quick at the end of everything else. I must say that even though the tofu had one flavor (from one end of the spectrum) and the cold quinoa salad had a light other flavor, it was interesting and pleasantly tasteful to eat!

But what would I do without something sweet? I would say "unhealthy", but that's NOT the case! This pudding/mousse is made from a random mixture (if you are new here, I don't measure much, I am a better cook when it comes to tossing and throwing ingredients together). The ingredients are as follows (and not limited to)... soft silken tofu, cocoa, hot water, vanilla, maple syrup and agave nectar. Just a splash of the sweeteners, not much is needed. I love pudding/mousse with fruit (see some other posts, I have mini phyllo mixed-fruit pudding pies, and the photos are wonderful!).

To the Midweek Munchies group: I'll either have a late-week munchies post again or combine this week with next week.

I did eat a bit more soy than I would normally desire today. I had (an unusual circumstance) bowl of cereal... yes... for breakfast... this morning. I love the Koala Crispies (cocoa crispies) and something that was like corn puffs but super-healthy. Oh, and Optimum Powerbreakfast and hemp seeds mixed in, as always. So, a splash of milk in my coffee does that count?; cereal with milk; ice cream with blueberries- somewhere thrown in the middle of the day is that lunch?; tofu (firm bricks and silken pudding) and finally, tamari sauce... I'd say that's enough soy for today. And tomorrow.
Fin.

Spring Rolls & Vinaigrette Pasta

Let me first give myself an award for posting something different. And this time it's totally different, not just a variation of something I have previously made. This dinner took most of the late afternoon and evening to make, including internet searching. I decided that we haven't had any type of pasta besides couscous or rice noodles in a while, so I decided to make a pasta salad with vinegar. This pasta salad consists of spinach noodles (semolina and dried spinach), carrots, cucumber, olive oil, red wine vinegar, tamari, garlic, basil and dill. I just tossed everything together and let it hang out in the fridge for hours. Every so often I'd go in there and steal a bite to see how well the flavors have married and absorbed. I did have to keep adding soy and vinegar throughout the next few hours. It ended up tasting wonderful and very refreshing. Ray said it was "bold". That's a compliment to me!
I had the vinaigrette salad made and cooling in the fridge for a long time while I thought of what else to make with this meal (based on random ingredients in the house). I've been thinking of making spring rolls for a while (well, I've had the wrappers for 9 months now). This doesn't really go with the pasta salad theme, but I am quite random. I also kept going back and forth, and didn't really want anything super-heavy with the pasta.

As I was making these I was sort of unhappy with my choices of ingredients, but kept thinking that I needed some tofu in it. I used the last of the tofu for the quinoa stir-fry, which bummed me. My ideal spring rolls would consist of cabbage or lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, sprouts, tofu, and mung beans. I didn't have a few of those (most) ingredients, so I went with what I had.
Ingredients: rice paper, carrots, cucumber, avocado, red kale, basil and cashews.
As you can see, these aren't pretty. It was my first time rolling (spring rolls, at least) and it was very hard to keep the cashew pieces inside, plus they made the rice paper tear quite a bit. I think what made me not care for these was not the lack of ingredients, but the kale. It really wasn't good in this. I did make one roll all raw at first, and then I decided to saute the carrots and cucumber, but I regret not adding the kale to heat up and blend flavors. The kale was too pungent for me in the rolls.

I took Dori's (The Bakehouse) advice and sort-of followed her spring roll recipe (based on the ingredients I had on hand). It was quite a challenge at first to soak the rice papers and then carefully place it on the damp towel for rolling. I messed up a few times, but then sort-of got the hang of it. I came out with 5 rolls total. I am just glad that Ray ate most of these (I had almost one, but started pulling out the kale, I'm picky!), and that next time I know how to do the whole method, I will just change the ingredients around.

One great part about the spring rolls was this sauce. It is also Dori's recipe and it consisted of peanut butter, brown rice vinegar, tamari, chili flakes, sesame oil, and probably more stuff I'm forgetting. It was super-good but I will use a tad less peanut butter next time, as it was thicker than my desires even after whisking. This sauce was soooo good, I probably ate more plain with my fingers than with the spring rolls.
Verdict: The cold pasta vinaigrette was awesome. I have a few leftovers and I am liking the idea that they are already cold and it is supposed to be cold. How easy! I rate the pasta salad a 9.5 (nothing's perfect!). As for the spring rolls, I will rate my efforts and learning experience also a 9.5 (again, nothing's perfect!). I will rate the outcome and the taste just a 5. It was so-so and most likely based on my choices of fillings. As for the chili peanut sauce, that was an amazing 9, but to give it a few more decimal points, I will have to use less p.b. next time. This was a fun and different meal for me, and more of a learning experience, that's why I didn't get frustrated that I didn't care for the rolls. I am now more excited to see what I can really do with wanted-ingredients next time!

Return of the Quinoa

Quinoa is making a big return in this house. I have been tired of eating brown rice, white rice, wild rice (which is niether wild nor rice, thanks Ms. Dixon!). I wasn't feeling like much of an experiment and I am saving another quinoa recipe that's cold for a lunch meal, not dinner. I decided that since my stir-fry's consist of throwing a bunch of on-hand ingredients into a wok, heating it up, and calling it "dinner", I would do the same as I normally do, but with quinoa.
This meal was jam-packed with complete protiens, as quinoa is the only grain with whole complete protiens. This quinoa stir-fry tasted like many others I make, but I had to toss the remaining onion that I had since it went bad. One thing you know about organic produce as that it doesn't last as long as the contaminated "conventional" ones. I'd rather have organic than conventional any day. My quinoa is even organic, as is the tofu, woo hoo!

Leslie's Quinoa Stir-Fry:
quinoa (rinsed, drained and cooked like rice but for only 15 minutes), tofu, carrots, broccoli, red yellow and green bell peppers, fresh ginger, garlic, tamari, hoisin sauce, peanut butter, chili flakes, splash of oilve oil, cashews and gamashio (sea veggies) for appealing toppings.

For those out there who don't know what quinoa is or looks like, well, here's what it look like once it's cooked. It is deceiving like rice as it plumps up quite a bit from when it's dry. With quinoa, you want to use 1 cup of water for every 1/2 cup dry quinoa and you must remember to rinse the bitter saponens off before cooking. Quinoa is a bit nutty plain, and is pretty comprable to rice (usage-wise). And like Dreena, I love those little "tails" on them. That's it, nothing exciting, really just a variation on what I always do. I promise you all good stuff coming up. I was going to make a guac dish or something with avocado (hint hint, Miriam!), but I decided that I'm going to mash the avocado and put it on my face/skin instead for a super-mask-treatment. Plus, I want to freak Ray out!

Rhubarb Results & Late-Week Munchies

First let's start with the rhubarb that I got for $1.99/lb a few days ago. I was completely stumped at what to do with it, and since I don't use the oven pie was out of the question (and many other ideas, thanks everyone). Someone suggested the rhubarb flummery recipe in the new Vegetarian Times magazine, but I had let my boss borrow it all week before I even looked at it. I do have the recipe back in my hands and I am deeply regretting not making this awesome coconut/oat/rhubarb/strawberry-goodness from the VT mag. Next time I must make it.
For now, I made a simple sauce. I boiled some water, washed and cut up the rhubarb, added some strawberries, a bit of raw sugar and even more agave nectar to sweeten the tartness.
I was super-creeped-out by the stringiness of the rhubarb while cutting as it resembles celery and I don't care for plain-celery, only mixed with other foods. Then everything started melting together and the stringiness freaked me out even more. I decided to just go with it, and I am sure glad I did, because after I took the mixture off the flame, it cooled and firmed a bit into a nice sauce that I hope to soon eat with pancakes. I am also glad I added the agave nectar because rhubarb is super-tart. I would rate this rhubarb experiment a 4/10. I need some creativity and practice (oh, and the flummery).

How 'bout Late-Week Munchies:Let me pretense this by explaining that I am planning on renting a kitchen and selling my treats (hopefully! and Local people lookout!). I bought about a pound or 1/2 pound of many treat ingredients to do recipe testing, measuring, costing, etc. I also bought items for dinner.

*organic
carrots*
red kale*
onion*garlic*
ginger*
pack of 2 Silk Soymilks ($1 off coupon)
rice puff cereal*
pasta sauce*
unsweetened cocoa
brown rice syrup
tomato paste*
vanilla creme soda (Ray)
walnuts*
raisins*
sunflower seeds*
pecan halves
cashew piece
sraw almonds*
red lentils
rolled oats*
almond butter
shredded coconut
sorbet
seduction bread
tea(s)

I plan on cooking a whole lot more in the upcoming days and weeks. It's officially getting warm (many would say "hot") and I have been craving lots of fruits and of course, ice cream. I can eat ice cream no matter how cold I am though!

Quinoa Goes Sloppy

This is my special version of "Sloppy Lenties" aka "Sloppy Lentils". It is special because quinoa is the secret super-awesome ingredient. This is the standard recipe of Sloppy Lenties but I added about a quarter cup more tomato sauce and increased the amount of garlic and spices used.
I was contemplating all day long whether I was going to cook the quinoa into the regular dish (as it's all a one-pot meal), but I decided that knowing me, something would happen and I would mess up and ruin a lot of food. Instead, I gathered a small pot, boiled some water and added quinoa. It's nice because it only has to cook for 15-20 minutes. But you *must* rinse it well before cooking. I rinse and pick through the lentils well, but I seem to rinse quinoa for longer (or even a small soaking). I made the lenties like I normally would, but when I added the quinoa at the end (see photo above), I realized that it was going to add a lot of bulk to the meal, hence each part having less flavor. That's where I made some flavorful adjustments.
And this was the end result, Sloppy Quinoa/Lentils with even more protein, plus complete proteins which are essential. This meal made me stuffed, especially since I ate it with the infamous Seduction Bread. I think I may just have to add quinoa to Sloppy Lentils each time for added flavor, texture and nutrition, but I will add less to the lentil dish than a whole cooked cup of it. I think this is making me want to branch out and try Sloppy Lentils with some other grains, even as simple as rice (which I've been thinkin' about since the bread-bowl post). Better yet, I should probably remember what lentils taste like with other spices and sauces!

Any ideas for rhubarb, people? I have a few stalks ($1.99 per pound) and I don't want to make a pie. That's the only idea I know of and I don't really feel like picking out a random recipe and risking it. I'd like one that's been tried and tested before and then confidently passed on to me.

First a Fruitshake, then Midweek Munchies.

I haven't cooked anything super-exciting in a while now. Throwing a bunch of things in a wok and calling it stir-fry has been the most exquisite, if you will, meal. Now that's pretty sad. I will cook some awesome stuff once again within a few weeks, but last night I was in my pajamas pretty early and didn't want to do much about dinner. So instead of throwing a bunch of things in a wok or pot and heating them, I decided to grab a bunch of stuff from the freezer and throw it in a blender.

In the middle of the 3rd quarter of the Suns vs. Lakers game (5) I hopped off the couch and took out some awesome frozen fruits. Then I reminded myself that hemp seeds are a must in all milkshakes (see a few previous posts) and so is soymilk. I threw the following ingredients in the blender and came out with a wonderful, tasty, healthy, what-I-like-to-call "a Fruitshake".

*Leslie's Fruitshake"
Soy Delicious Cookies n Cream ice cream (my favorite one, but any ice cream will still be awesome)
Silk soymilk
hemp-seeds, shelled
mangos
blueberries
strawberries
raspberries
cherries
blackberries
boysenberry
(*all items organic except for the hemp seeds and they may even be too, but I get them in bulk so I don't have a label)
Let me explain something about the abundance of fruits. I like to keep frozen fruits in the house because of instances like this (Fruitshakes), pancakes, emergency snacks, etc. I get them on sale or buy them even fresh on sale and freeze them. I had the mango all in one bag, as well as the blueberries which I keep ALL the time in a plastic container in the freezer, and I had a bag of strawberries and a small container of boysenberries from maybe too long ago. The rest on the list (cherries, raspberries, more blueberries, blackberries) were all in a bag that Ray threw in the cart one day. For some reason "Cherries" is written huge on the outside of the bag and for about a month now I have thought it was just a bag of cherries and never cared for it. Upon request, cherries were going into the Fruitshake, and when I opened the bag I was super-happy to have a wonderful surprise of an array of fruits! I've really been missing out all month...

I'm running out of straws... Oh, and the Suns kicked ass!

And now it's time for Midweek Munchies (5-3-06). No code once again, it will ruin the above formatting.
The following is from WFM and this * means "organic". And yes, Catherine, it's so hard to tell what food items are on the receipts.
mixture of canteloupe and grapes
Silk soymilk*
baked tofu*
Koala crisp cereal*
Optimum Power Breakfast cereal (the best cereal)*
apple juice (super-small one)*
small acaji (sp? it's gone now) juice, and the receipt is crap
gorilla munch cereal* (healthy cocoa crispies)
Heritage bites cereal* (yeah, we stocked up on 4 cereals since I haven't cooked much and spared you all of my non-uploaded cereal photos!)
vanilla cream soda
raspberry ginger brew (the last two items are Ray's)
bulk vanilla granola* (more cereal items)
2 small gelatos (FROM THE NEW AWESOME GELATO BAR). It's costly so this was a treat!
2 bag refunds (not organic).
($32.66 + $0.59 tax) 15 items