My Own Form of Detox

I am honored to have been chosen by VegNews to receive a VegBloggy award for 2008! I am so excited to see who else has gotten one (here's some I know of right now: conscious kitchen, vegan talk, urban housewife, bittersweet, veganyumyum, get sconed, fatfree vegan kitchen). The July/August issue hits newstands on July 1 (earlier for subscibers), so be sure to pick up a copy! And I really wish this was one of those awards that you could also give to five other bloggers so we could spread the love to all vegan blogs. Because really, I think we all inspire each other and are all deserving of recognition in the vegan/vegetarian community. I'm also excited that this gives me an excuse to stop in San Francisco at the end of the month (on my way to Las Vegas) for the Music Issue Launch Party. Hope to see some of yall there!

Now, back to my regularly scheduled blog post.... looking back on recent posts, there has been a lot of dessert! And I've seen several of you blogging about all the raw food and cleanses and detoxes you have been doing, and this is a great season for it! Now I'm not really on a detox, just a blog post detox (yes, just last night I had a brownie, but it was low fat!). All healthy food in this post. First, a grilled vegetable salad with corn, asparagus, and portobello mushroom over a bed of spinach with heirloom tomato and sunflower seeds.

The mushroom was marinated in red wine, olive oil, and dried basil. The corn was just basted in some olive oil and placed right on the grill for about 15 minutes. As you can see, the grilling of the asparagus was a bit tricky... we lost a few to the doldrums of the charcoal fire! I've tried skewering them in the past, but was just too lazy to do it that particular evening.
For Memorial Day, we brought out the grill once again for more corn on the cob and some homemade burgers! This was my first attempt at a homemade burger and it was not really very successful. I spaced reading the instructions earlier, and discovered the burgers had to chill 4 hours, time that I didn't have. So our tempeh mushroom burgers (grated beet lending the red color) kinda fell apart. John showed some mad skillz with the grill by managing to get them off in one piece!
And finally, the Taco Salad from Yellow Rose Recipes. Romaine lettuce with cilantro topped with taco TVP, avocado, tomato. Joanna's spice mixes (this one for the tvp) are the best. And no oil! Okay, so there was a dallop of sour cream, but the rest of the dressing was just fresh lime juice. I've been making a few things from YRR lately for the review I submitted to our Society of PEACE newsletter.
I hope everyone has a great weekend. Tomorrow I am going blackberry picking!

Hot Faux Sausage!

Our grill hasn't gotten much use this summer, it's either been too rainy or just too damn hot! But on Sunday evening, John braved the sweltering heat and lit up the coals. We grilled some Field Roast Italian Sausage, a grain meat that also has eggplant, red bell pepper, and plenty of fennel seed to spice it up! Here they are with their beautiful grill marks....




At first I just put these on a whole wheat hot dog bun with some whole grain mustard, but once we took our first few bites, John made an excellent addition. I had leftover red wine tomato sauce from the past week that perfectly complimented the Italian flavors, plus we got rid of some leftovers (I'm trying to get better about that)! Sorry no picture of the finished product, I ate it too fast. On the side, I also utilized other leftover veggies (red pepper, cucumber) to make the Quinoa Spring Salad from Vive Le Vegan. Added some edamame as well, a delicious, refreshing salad. In fact I just finished up the rest for lunch today.