Yay for Moms and a Vegan Food Photo Montage

Happy Mother's Day to all (especially my wonderful mom)!! Last night my parents came over to our place for a mom's birthday/mom's day dinner. Dinner was wonderful and filling (we had mom's homemade bread, sweet potatoes, sauteed squash medley with pesto, spinach salad with mango, strawberry, and blueberries, and pecan crusted seitan), and we barely had room to try my first Vegan Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake, recipe courtesy of Urban Vegan. Although I don't think it would fool any omnivores, it was creamy and light and delicious! Plus I discovered the joys of using a springform pan....what fun!

Earlier on Saturday we went to the farmer's market and picked up plenty of fresh veggies, fruit, and some locally grown flowers for the dinner table. Here is a photo of the spread including: eggplant, cucumber, pattypan, zucchini, and yellow squash, peaches, green bell peppers, green beans, and blueberries.

And here's some more food photos from the past two weeks.....

Seitan and Mushroom Stroganoff from VWAV. I usually put in way more mushrooms and peas than the recipe calls for. It is creamy and way better than the stroganoff I remember from childhood (sorry mom!). My first time eating broccolini, very tasty!

Here's our quick dinner night (ironically we had this on a Sunday, when I actually do have time and energy to cook....) Gardenburger Grilled Chikn Burger with whole grain mustard and avocado. Sauteed some oyster mushrooms with parsley alongside my favorite spring-time vegetable, roasted asparagus (I could eat this every day, really).

This was a quick and tasty salad....Tantalizing Thai Slaw from Compassionate Cooks. Loved the crunchyness of the peanuts and cabbage. Quick and easy to make too. I left out the onions because I don't like raw onion breath.

And finally a Rainbow Vegetable Curry, modified from Vegan Chef, served over brown rice. I added kale and some red lentils, as well as a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes. Usually we don't eat our curries with coconut milk, but this time we splurged (with the light variety of course).

Spring Cleaning and a Spring Salad

Since becoming a vegan, I have made every effort to eliminate the use of all animal products wherever possible (supposedly tires for your car and even books aren't truly vegan due to the glue they use in the binding!). The food has been the easiest part, I can't even count how many new recipes I've tried over the past 9 months since going vegan!
One thing that I have held on to a bit longer from my previously not-animal friendly life, are non-vegan clothing, shoes, and other random accessories. I only recently (~2 years) joined the business dress workforce, and when I did I went a little bit nuts on shopping. It was one of those times where I thought clothes would make me happier in what I thought to be a less than ideal situation (moving from Boulder, CO to Houston , TX was heartbreaking). Turns out I found my place here in Houston after all, but the result was a closet full of wool and silk pants and knit tops and plenty of leather pointed-toe heels, which now sadden me to think about the animals that had to suffer and die to produce them. After making the move to veganism, I tried to wear these clothes less and less and have slowly been trying to replace them. All the while though, they have been sitting in my closet.
Since it is "spring cleaning" season, and work was having a clothes drive today, I figured it was time to finally get rid of them. So, last night I packed up a few boxes of about 15 pairs of shoes, 25 tops, 10 pairs of pants, 4 skirts, and 2 handbags (the closet photo shows non-vegan work clothes separated on the right, please don't laugh at my fashion choices!). At times I was a little nostalgic, folding up my first real suit, or packing a pair of heels that I had especially loved. It's strange how you can get attached to your clothing (maybe this is more of a girl trait?). My more practical side also was a little frustrated at the money I had poured into purchasing these things, only to get rid of them a year or two later. But after the boxes were packed, sealed, and labeled, I started to feel really good. I know these clothes won't be going to waste, they will be distributed to a women's center and maybe give someone else the confidence to land their first job. For me, it was a form of catharsis. I am not fully there yet, I held onto to a few pairs of shoes (some more sensible flats) and a few wool sweaters that have some sentimental value. Eventually I'd like to get rid of my leather couch as well, but this was a good step. And after all, this gives me a reason to treat myself to a little something new, vegan of course!

On an unrelated note, my food obsession lately has been with mangoes....I think I've had them every day this week. Last night for dinner we dined on a Mango Tomato Salad modified from the Vegetarian Times cookbook. My boyfriend continuously begs for salads, so I was happy to appease him with this one. I added avocado and toasted pepitas, as well as replaced some olive oil in the dressing with flax oil. To share, we also gave the Gardenburger BBQ Riblets a try for the first time. I though the texture was nice and the bbq sauce was quite tasty. A quick and easy way to get some additional protein (since we vegans are sooooo deprived of it....ha!). This weekend I am planning on posting a food log from the past week or two, plus my first attempt at vegan cheesecake for mother's day!