Nutty Pasta Toss

Ryan and I had this for dinner tonight and it was delicious!!! It's called "Nutty Pasta Toss" and the recipe is adapted from The Garden of Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer.

The recipe is for 2 people, so just be sure to multiply the ingredients for the number you are serving.

dry pasta for 2 (I used whole wheat penne)
1/4 cup of nuts (your choice, but I used peanuts)
2 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley
2 cloves garlic
1 cup vegetable stock
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 small zucchini sliced, then cut the slices in half (recipe calls for half, but we love zucchini)
12 cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp flax oil

Boil the pasta. While it's boiling, in a blender or food processor, blend the nuts, parsley, and garlic. Add the stock, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and blend again. In a large saucepan on medium-high heat, cook the zucchini, tomatoes, and nutty sauce until zucchini is cooked through. Drain pasta and toss with the sauce and flax oil.

If we would change anything at all, we might throw in some canned artichoke. Otherwise it was extremely tasty and very filling! Enjoy!

24 States and 1 District Down, 26 States to Go!

As of the last two weekends, I have been to 24 U.S. states and the District of Columbia! Last weekend I was able to attend a Collegiate Leadership Seminar hosted by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where I learned all about the amazing things St. Jude is doing to eradicate catastrophic diseases and the wonderful way they treat their patients while they work toward developing ways to prevent and cure these diseases and how to help my students put on top-notch fundraisers to provide the funds to treat the patients, house them and their families, and fund research. It very easily became my second favorite philanthropy! (The Ronald McDonald House partners with St. Jude and will always be my number one!) As a bonus to being in Memphis, my student leader (Amanda), and I took a quick tour of Graceland and ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the presence of Elvis' greatness. Fabulous!

This weekend, I took a much needed mental health holiday and visited Jacque (and Jeff) and Jenn (and Ryan) in Miami!!! That will require a separate blog with accompanying pics! Stay tuned!

Fear of Beans

I've never been a big bean fan. I love soy beans! I mean chowing down on edamame when you wait for your sushi order is definitely a benefit of eating at a Japanese restaurant! Chickpeas are a bean I enjoy, especially as hummus. I also enjoy the things you make with soy: milk, tofu, ice cream... but I have never eaten any other beans! It's a texture thing! To me they feel like balls of mush with little granules in them and that's just not appealing! Well, as a vegan, beans will have to be one of my staples and I must adjust my taste buds and overcome my fear of beans... and onions. Yeah, onions too. My bland palate and sweet tooth are an odd combination that has always steered me away from foods with strong flavors, spices, and mush! But now, I'm on an adventure and I have to learn to love new things! I can't just sprinkle cheese on a dish to mask the flavor and if I eat the same things every day I'll miss out on vital nutrition!

Today, I pounced on an opportunity to order something out of my comfort zone when my office ordered lunch for a colleague's birthday. I ordered vegetable fajitas with zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, green peppers, and Spanish onions with homemade tortillas, guacamole, Mexican rice, and kidney beans! I loved it! Every bite! I put the beans and rice right into the tortilla with the veggies and neither the beans nor the onions stood out, even with the onion slices being bigger than the zucchini slices! I was really excited!

Something else to be excited about: Ryan and I got to enjoy a free Depeche Mode concert last night! It was pretty awesome!! I really enjoy listening to live music outdoors. With Coldplay, Rascal Flatts, and now Depeche Mode, it has been a pretty musical summer for us!

Strawberry Tofutti Sandwich

This was my lunch today and I am certain it will be one of my favorites:

2 slices of whole wheat bread (I used multiseed bread from Whole Foods)
Strawberry Jam
Tofutti Cream Cheese
Halved Cashews

Spread cream cheese on one slice of bread. Top with a layer of strawberry jam. Top that with a layer of halved cashews. Top that with the other slice of bread.

Delicious vegan sandwich!

The Last Ice Cream

It was so delicious! It had to be the most delicious Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche I have ever had. Probably tasted sweeter because it was my last.

As you can tell, I have been chosen to be in the vegan group for the acne study! Beginning tomorrow and for the next four months, I will be on a low fat vegan diet. I met with a dietician today to make sure I have a good understanding of what I'm about to do and tomorrow we will have our first group nutrition class. No more meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey plus minimal nuts, peanut butter and avocados because they're fatty. I'm looking forward to learning a lot more about good-for-me food and to try things I might not ordinarily try! It's going to be an exciting time! I hope the study is a success and the health of my skin improves! I know my overall health will improve! Ryan's too! He's excited for me to make lots of healthy dinners for him!

As I get all experimenty, I'll post the most delicious recipes so you can try them too!

Giving My Body to Science...

So, the day of the red line train crash a couple of weeks ago, I spent more time in the metro station waiting for my train after work than I ordinarily do. It turned out to be a good thing because I saw an advertisement for an acne study which sounded intriguing. A side effect of my hormone imbalance is acne that I can't control no matter what I put on my face and I am sooooo tired of having oily, blemished, unbalanced skin. I signed up to see if I qualify and I do!! I had to meet a lot of criteria to qualify and the biggest one was have at least 20 blemishes... well, the dermatologist counted 46 on my chin alone! Gross! Ick! Yuck! In two weeks, I'll go in for my pre-study lab work and to find out if I will be in the control group or the experiment group. If I'm in the control group, I will continue to eat as I normally do and go in for lab work and to see the dermatologist once per month for four months. If I am in the experiment group, I will be a vegan for four months! No meat, dairy products, or eggs! I'll see a nutritionist for classes every week and do the lab work and see the dermatologist monthly like the control group. They are trying to determine if there is a direct correlation between a low fat vegan diet and acne presence. I would love to be in the vegan group to see if the diet would improve my hormone imbalance as well as my skin. This could be so helpful to people like me who just can't do anything about their nasty skin! I'm excited to see what happens! We shall see!