My Gas Station Thanksgiving

I volunteered to work on Thanksgiving, not only to let my co-workers have the day off to be with their families if they wanted, but because I wanted to get paid time-and-a-half. (Hell yeah!) I’ve been working so much that I haven’t had time to do much, including grocery shopping. I have literally been eating rice or oatmeal for lunch for days because I don’t feel like walking to the grocery store. Last night it dawned on me that everything would be closed today, so I stopped at a gas station on my way home from work out of desperation. I ended up with a couple packages of ramen noodles, a box of elbow macaroni, a can of Manwich Sauce, and a bottle of wine.

So, my thanksgiving lunch:

Macaroni noodles with doctored-up Manwich sauce. I sauteed some onion and garlic, and added cumin and Adobo seasoning. I also added some Mexican-style hot sauce. Not at all Thanksgiving-y, but it was edible. Poverty diet prevails!

I also made Chocolate Covered Katie‘s No-Bake Coconut Crack Bars. I was searching through a bunch of recipes I’ve been saving, and realized I had all the ingredients. I love coconut, and these were delicious. I ended up with eight bite-sized bars, and I ate two for my lunch dessert. I love Katie’s recipes, mainly because they’re healthier than your typical desserts, but also because her recipes aren’t overly sweet.

What are you eating today?

Snow, cake, and more jerk seitan

Asheville got another couple of inches of snow this week. Coming from the Outer Banks, even a tiny bit of snow excites me! Here’s a couple pictures of the snow:

Of course, after the 12 inches we got in mid-December, 2 inches isn’t much. But it’s still beautiful.

As long as I’ve had Veganomicon, for some reason I never noticed the Pumpkin Crumb Cake with Pecan Streusel. When it comes to sweets, I’m seriously lacking a sweet tooth. I just don’t care much for candy/cookies/etc., although I looovve baking (luckily I have a boyfriend who will eat all of my treats!). This recipe didn’t seem as if it would be overly sweet though, so I bought a can of pumpkin and made it.

It was great. Not too sweet, perfectly moist, exquisite smell. I would make this again, especially for thanksgiving. The pecan streusel topping was crunchy, and the pecan-pumpkin combination was really tasty.

Remember the jerk seitan I made a few days ago? Well, it was so good I decided to make it again, this time for two. For some reason, it tasted even better the second time around, and looked better.

jerk seitan, mashed sweet potatoes, and brown rice

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Via the EasyVegan blog, I became aware of a great interview with Ph.D and author Dr. Melanie Joy. In the interview, she discusses “Carnism.” It’s fascinating stuff. Part One/Part Two

Raw Banana Ice Cream

I’ve been keeping frozen bananas in my freezer to snack on, but then I found another use for them: ice cream. Gena, of Choosing Raw, wrote about making raw vegan banana soft serve back in June. I tried it out last night for dessert, and… wow. It really was as good as she made it out to be, and I think it’s a great substitute for the much-less-healthy store-bought vegan ice creams (not to mention much cheaper).

I had to let the frozen bananas soften for a couple of minutes before processing them, because my cheap food processor couldn’t handle it at first. But after about 2 minutes, I just blended it up for another minute or so (Gena’s original recipe says 5 minutes – I guess it depends on the equipment you’re using). I also made the chocolate sauce to go with it – delicious.