Italian Parsley Pesto, Dreaming of Spring!!!

Pushing the envelope, or rather, emptying the fridge is an ongoing challenge. The other night I was making White Bean Cassoulet for the Vegan Potluck and I thought that pesto would be a nice garnish. Well... I did not have any basil, so looked in the veggie drawer hoping to find some kale, but there was not any. DANG.... no pesto, then I remembered that I had purchased some lovely looking Italian parsley for the rabbits (yeah... the real live rabbits that live under my daughters bed). I have never considered making a pesto with parsley, so what the heck!!!
Here's what I did:

• 1 big bunch of Italian Parsley (cut off stems and feed to the rabbits)
• 3 teeth of garlic
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup raw walnuts
• 2 tablespoons of tahini
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 lemon juiced

Put it all in the vita mix/blender and blend until it looks right. The pesto actually turned out really intense in a good way, the pungency of the parsley combined with the citrus and the sharpness of the walnuts and tahini worked well.
My original intention was to pair the Pesto with the Cassoulet, but the other potluckers ate it straight up, with bread, veggies or whatever. None of the pesto came home with us, but the rabbits said I could make it again as long as they get to eat the leftover stems!!!

First Florida Corn

Growing up I always looked forward to the first corn of the summer and it usually disappointed. Growing up in South Eastern Idaho was not the first stop for the best produce, we were lucky to get iceberg lettuce, onions, and believe it or not we had more potatoes than you could shake a stick at!!!! When I moved to Boulder in the late 80's I started seeing Indian River sweet corn in high end restaurants. This corn was only available for a few weeks in the spring, but it was extremely crisp and sweet! I can remember one night after a busy shift the kitchen staff boiled up a whole case of the Indian River corn and we ate it all, man it was good. Well I have to say that the corn in these pictures was just as good. I did not see it advertised as Indian River and I picked it up at the local discount grocery, 3 ears for a dollar, it was awesome. I am usually a big proponent of eating local, but local corn is at least 2 months away, and it just looked too good.
I made Gimme Lean burgers, and sliced red new potatoes, that I baked with garlic and black pepper.
Carter really enjoyed his corn, finally getting a hang of the cob!!!!












Teaching Sofi(the Berner) how to eat corn on the cob, she got the hang of it pretty quickly. Tucker(the Lab) just wants to take it away and rub it all over the carpet.

Mac N Salad N Brussell Sprouts

Well I have like 50 meals photographed that need to be posted. I have been lucky to become very busy lately. I am starting to get my head back above water, which reminded me what a bad blogger I have been!!!
Like you have heard in so many acceptance speeches..... I could not have managed the past couple of months without the wonderful support of my wife, who has achieved super woman status in my opinion, my kids, animal companions, and friends!!!!! We have continued to live a rich and culinarily interesting vegan life!!!! We have on many occasions leaned on simple standards to make it through, some recipes have become even more refined(in simplicity, not in high standard) As an example, Carter was begging(AKA Grinding) for Mac n Cheese, I have been using the Veg News veganize it recipe with a few simple changes, but I did not have any fresh potatoes or canned potatoes. I USED INSTANT MASHED POTATOES!!!! Oh the humanity!!!!!!
DID YOU CATCH THAT CARTER WAS BEGGING FOR MAC N CHEESE.... He has been the model of a skeptic in the faux cheese department, he has come around to the cheese sauce and he likes Follow Your Heart cheese. I bought some Tofutti slices the other day just to see if they still produce the Kryptonite reaction!!!
But as is often the case it turned out very good, in the taste department, not the high quality, freshest-local-organic-nutrient dense kind of way. I will be working to post some of the highlights of the past couple of months while working on some new meals. If anyone has suggestions for meals in the next new months..... please share!!!!










Check out the roasted Brussel sprouts, they were very garlicky and tasty!!!!

Vegan Dogs Are Freaky!!!

A year after our family made the SHIFT vegan we decided that it was time to switch our dog to a vegan food. Even before becoming vegan the smell of dog food made my stomach turn, greasy nasty - stinky!!!!
We did all of the research to make sure that we were not putting Tucker in any jeopardy, and whether he would need supplements. We decide to give Natures Recipe a try because we could get it at Petco, locally. It was really nice making the switch because the dog food actually smells good, and I often joke that it would work well in a snack mix!!!



After Tucker's SHIFT vegan he began to start begging for some surprising things, carrots, lettuce, potato peels, basically anything besides citrus. He likes to stand in the kitchen and drool as we are chopping ingredients for our dinner. Turn up the sound, that is him groaning!!! I always used to assume that dogs begged for the non vegan stuff, but now know that they just like to beg for whatever they can get.