Faith, Hope and VeggiesI can do everything through him who gives me strength – Philippians 4:13

This is my new favorite way to eat kale.  I have always cooked it, but it is so much better raw.   I thought the kale would be more bitter, but it really has a great flavor when its raw.  My son just wants it raw now too.  He ate 3 huge servings of this salad.

I have been trying to eat more raw foods lately in an attempt to detox after the holidays.  Some things, like kale, are great raw.  Other things, like sweet potatoes, not so much.  I have also greatly reduced my coffee consumption, which was really scary for a family for a few days, and given up refined sugar.   I am feeling much better already, so hopefully I can stay on track this time.

       Print This!    

Who doesn’t love mac and cheese?  My kids are always asking for it and it is one of those things that I don’t like to give them on a regular basis just because it is not very nutritious.  I have found a way to make all of us happy.  The base of this cheese sauce is cauliflower.  It comes out super creamy and cheesy tasting.  I feel a lot better about the kids eating this version of mac and cheese and the kids are happy because I let me have it a lot more.

       Print This!    

Normally going to a fast food restaurant is not an option for my family.  There really are days though that I would just love to be able to go to a drive thru for a quick meal that I don’t have to cook.  I found the perfect place in Asheville, NC.  It is VegHeads Drive Thru.  The food was amazing and the prices were reasonable.  It is probably good that we live over and hour away or I amy go there more than I should.

This is the mountain Burger that my husband had.  It was delicious!  He had seaweed cucumber salad on the side.  Kind of a weird combo, but he was happy.

My daughter has the mini mountain burger from the kids menu.  It was really cute.

I had a baked falafel wrap, which was unbelievable, with tabbouleh on the side.  The falafel was baked instead of fried, so it wasn’t greasy at all.

This is the Veggie Stack that my Mom had.  It is not actually vegan because of the feta cheese and the bread, but my Mom said it was delicious.

Earth Day is April 22nd and it is a great time to think about ways we can be kind to our planet.  My kids decided that they want to pick up all the trash around our house for Earth Day.  Even though we live in the mountains, there is an unbelievable amount of trash left on the roads near our home.   Here are a few things that you can do on a daily basis to help conserve our resources.

Following a plant based diet makes a huge positive impact on the environment.  Raising livestock creates a lot of pollution and meat production uses a huge amount of water.  It takes about 2500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat.  Eating plants uses only a fraction of the water.

Recycle what ever you can.  Most of us are really good about recycling our trash, but try to find ways to recycle or upcycle all your unwanted items.  Donate all your old clothes, electronics, sports equipment and other useable household items.  Reuse as much as you can.  Also, try to buy products that contain recycled materials.

Buy used whenever you can.  Buying something used saves resources and saves you a lot of money as well.  There are tons of great consignment shops and thrift stores everywhere now.

All the little things we do each day really add up, so just making small changes makes a big impact and creates hope for our future!

For our 9th Anniversary my husband and I spent a few days in Asheville.  It is such a beautiful, cool city and super veggie friendly.  There are so many restaurants in Asheville that are all vegetarian and even a few that are totally vegan.  It is so great to be able to order almost anything on the menu instead of having limited choices.  One of our Favorite restaurants is The Laughing Seed, which is where we had dinner.   We also went to Rosetta’s Kitchen and had some not so healthy snacks, which included chili cheese fries.  Breakfast was at the Green Sage where we had some really yummy fresh juice.  Asheville is definitely a city worth visiting and is where I would love to live.  I was so happy to have some time with my husband.  The few years have been so stressful for our family and he has been my rock.  I thank God for him everyday and for the way he leads our family.  We have had some tough times lately, but we have made our marriage and our faith a priority and both have been strengthened.

Here are the pictures of what we ate:

Bloody Mary at The Laughing Seed

This was Mike’s dinner.  It is brown rice risotto with mushrooms, sweet potatoes and tempeh.

This was my dinner.  It is the Indian plate with vegetable curry, lentils and naan.  It was so spicy and good!

Coconut Cream pie for dessert!

This is the Red Planet juice at the Green Sage where we had breakfast.  It is beet, carrot, apple and ginger.  After all the decadent food the night before this was just what I needed.

With the tight budget that my family is on, I have to save money where ever I can.  I have started to make my own laundry detergent, which saves so much money.  This recipe makes 5 gallons of detergent and costs less than 3 dollars for me to make.  It is actually really easy to do and the ingredients can all be found at the grocery store.  This detergent does a great job of cleaning the cloths and leaves them with a nice clean smell.  I like to add lavender oil to mine, but you could use whatever fragrance that you like.

       Print This!    

Laundry Detergent

I am finally home from Florida and my Mom is all settled in her new house here in North Carolina.  This last week has been so crazy, but it has been worth it to get my parents close by.  It is such a blessing to have family close to us again.

Before leaving Ft Myers I had to go to my favorite restaurant there, Chef Brooke’s Natural Cafe.  She always has the most beautiful, delicious food and the best vegan cupcakes.   My favorite are the raw nori rolls with sesame dressing.  I order them every time I go.  This time my husband and I shared the coconut mung bean dahl, nori rolls and the tofu platter.  Normally I am not a fan of tofu, but hers was so good.  My kids took a bite and kept begging for more.

Nori Rolls

Tofu Platter

Coconut Dahl

Vegan Cupcakes

Last night we had dinner at the Legend’s Country Club in Ft Myers, Fl.  We had called ahead to see if the chef could make a vegan dinner for our family and they were very happy to work with us.  The Chef made us the most delicious dinner.  We had a acorn squash soup for a starter  and  vegetable purses for our main course, which were absolutly wonderful.  For the purses he filled phyllo dough with squash, tomatoes and a great sauce.  I think that should be on the menu all the time.  For dessert we had raspberry sorbet.  The whole dinner was so good and we were very grateful to the chef and the staff for the wonderful experience.

Yesterday we came down to Ft Myers, FL to visit family and help my Mom move.  I am not sure how much cooking I will get to do in the next few weeks, but I hopefully be able to do a few posts.  I also get to see my very best friend who has recently become vegetarian.  I am so proud of her. She is a mother of 4 and a full time engineering student.  Despite her super busy schedule she is trying to totally change her diet to improve her health and that of her family.  She is such an inspiration to me.

Today is another rainy day here.  For homeschool today we decided to make patterns out of leaves.  Super messy, but so much fun!  Since we can’t go outside today, I see baking in my future.