Spring?

©2013 R.L. Delight, Neahkahnie Mist

As much as I would love to share a picture of the meal I am about to discuss, my food photography skills are not that great. Other's do a far better job so I won't attempt it but will post this one of where I live instead. I took this one while painting on the beach a few weeks ago.
It has been a bit of a stressful winter for me and my mate. These times come to all of us. While most of the time we eat very healthfully, occasionally a dose of comfort food is called for. Today was one of these occasions. I have been meaning to try out a new recipe I found for gluten free and vegan Tofu Popcorn Chick'n. The recipe is from a wonderful site I found called The Vedge. Shea's picture of her recipe is far nicer than one I could produce.
This was really easy to make. I pressed the tofu in my tofu press and broke it into chunks. I had to freeze it as I wasn't sure when I would be able to make the recipe. Since I already had the tofu prepared (after thawing)  it was a simple step to whisk up the rest of the ingredients and cook them up. I used Cajun spice seasoning to spice them up a bit and have to say, these were absolutely delicious. I made a batch of oven roasted garlic potato fries and a huge green salad served with a homemade lemon tahini dressing (recipe from the book Becoming Raw). Yum! A welcome break from beans.
The spring weather here on the coast has been cold and a bit stormy with sun breaks in between. We are starting to get spring break vacationers in our little town and there is Japan tsunami debris starting to wash ashore up and down the coast. I am waiting for the weather to settle just a tad before heading out to paint again. While I don't mind getting caught in occasional squalls and hail storms, deliberately heading out into the teeth of a series of hail storms is another thing altogether.
Walking the dog has become interesting too. We have had to run a few times to get undercover.
Go check out The Vedge. Shae has put together a wonderful site complete with great recipes and information for us gluten free vegans!
-Renee

Spring Greens!!!

The root contribution in our CSA box. Fire Cider Vinegar and Sea Sprinkles from Tallwoman Tonics.

Hello again! I am excited because today I was able to pick up a special CSA box of spring greens. There will be a feast tonight!

There are a lot of hidden and not-so-hidden gems on this part of the coast. My mate and I have enjoyed the community and the variety of skills that people bring to this area. I believe this is the key to surviving and thriving on the coast.
I had the pleasure recently of attending a local Herbal Skills Share group. I have long had an interest in herbs, wildcrafting, and natural dyeing. I had a strong feeling that I needed to get back to that practice and immediately found the Herbal Skills Share group. We spent the meeting talking about coltsfoot and enjoyed a cup of nettle tea and a sampling of coltsfoot tea. I have a new plant to add to my knowledge-base now, and a couple of new people.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting with Vivi of Tallwoman Tonics. Our local herbalist. We discussed the wonderful internet potential of sharing herbal lore and I was treated to a cup of homegrown Tulsi tea while sitting in front of a large window overlooking one of the beautifully stunning views our area has to offer.
I am putting a link to Vivi's blog on the local resources list on my side-bar. She is excited about the blogging potential. I am looking forward to seeing what she adds to it.
Tonight we will be having left over homemade pizza, vegan and gluten free, a huge salad of fresh spring greens, and a quick saute of kale and beet greens with red onion and seasoned with Tallwoman Tonics Fire Cider Vinegar. Yum!!!
Yours in veggies, -Renee

Starving for Veggies

Let's try this again. As anyone reading this blog can tell, I have had a challenging time finding a good focus for this blog. There are so very many excellent vegan blogs out there to read and I have neither the time nor interest to compete with them so I will stay focused on my little niche of being vegan on the Northern Oregon Coast.
To add to the challenge of being vegan, I have also gone gluten free for over a year now. Going vegan was easy for me, going gluten free has been...painful and unfortunately necessary. I love my bread and I have had to kiss good bye any of the quick and easy vegan meat substitutes. I didn't eat many of them but it was nice having a quick and tasty meal available for those days when cooking time was short.
I have given up on the restaurants around here. They are not plentiful to begin with and the only two that had vegan and gluten free options made me ill. Food poisoning. My guess is the lack of demand for vegan and gluten free menu items may have led to less than fresh ingredients and cross contamination with animal products.
So, having accepted that, I have embarked on making my own in spite of a very, very busy life. Thankfully this book came out and I purchased it as soon as it did:

I made my own rejuvelac from quinoa and made my first cheese, a chevre from cashews. It was a success! I made another batch of rejuvelac to make another cheese but I let it ferment too long so I will have to start over. I would like to try one from millet.
The only drawback to making my own is the time. You have to sprout the grains, ferment them, and then ferment the cheese. It doesn't take a lot of effort, just time. I will start another batch and report.
I also have this book:

Sourdough bread has always been my favorite, a nice rich whole grain organic sourdough bread. I miss it the most. I made one loaf that was heavenly a while ago. I used kefir (water kefir) as specified in the book. However, I don't like kefir, it is too sweet for me and my grains languished because I didn't use it up fast enough. I thought I would try the rejuvelac instead of kefir. I don't need to purchase special grains for rejuvelac. This will be another report.
So, here we are in winter, soon to be spring. Those of you who live in more populated areas have no idea how hard it can be to find good winter veggies in small isolated communities. I am hoping one day to have enough space and land to grow all my own veggies. In the mean time, my greens and veggie eating gets cut back further than I would like. I will have to try sprouts but a salad made solely of sprouts is not appealing to me.
Here is what we eat at the moment: A lot of beans and grains, some tofu, root vegetables (mostly potatoes), basic fruit, and whatever greens I can get ahold of. I would like to triple the amount we get at the moment. I also make flat bread from chickpea flour and spices. It is OK for now.
I will sign up for the spring CSA session. Last year we signed up for all four seasons. I found there was too much waste on my part. There seemed to be an over abundance of veggies I really don't like (very few, but still) and not enough of those I do like. I still have squash sitting around. I like squash in moderation but not out the wazoo.
That is my progress report from now. I will be posting about the cheese and bread making as well as other vegan, gluten free, plastic free, environmental things as they come up. Promise!
-Renee