So, I’m thinking I may start doing one of these posts each week, maybe every Wednesday.  We could call it “What Vegans Eat Wednesday.” I’ll try to mix things up, but you’ll probably notice that I tend to have some things pretty regularly–like chia seeds and buckwheat groats basically every morning. 😉

Breakfast: Homemade soy yogurt sweetened with a little maple syrup, with chia seeds, buckwheat groats, diced apple, and pumpkin butter. Black coffee.

 

Lunch: Quinoa cakes with a quick, creamy sauce made from Miyoko’s Kitchen Sundried Tomato Garlic cheese and water.  Also, an entire 10-oz bag of frozen spinach.

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Chris surprised me by taking Friday off of work, giving us all a three day weekend together.  Today was gorgeous, but Friday and Saturday were hat-and-mittens cold.  We still made sure to get out and about quite a bit, including a couple of excursions to get Roman some new books.  We’ve given him two of them so far, and I’m pretty sure we’ve read them each about three dozen times.  That kid loves his books.

Today I thought I’d share a list of the things that I’ve been reading (other than Good Night Trains), cooking, and enjoying lately.  Enjoy and hope you all had a good weekend!

 

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Our trip to visit Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary last month was a 2-day affair. We drove up on Saturday to visit the sanctuary, stayed in a hotel overnight, and got up the next day with the intention of stopping off to do some apple picking on our way home.

Unfortunately, as we pulled up to the orchard, we notice a “closed” sign hanging out front. It turned out that the weekend prior had been their last of the season (wah wah). The day was cold and windy anyway, so, instead of finding another orchard, we decided to head down to New Paltz and bum around the town.

I wouldn’t have expected it, but between Woodstock and New Paltz, we had ourselves some seriously good eats that weekend. We even came home with a borderline shameful haul of vegan treats (pictured above). Most of the places we visited were ones that we had pinned down prior to heading on our getaway, but a couple were surprises. All of them were great.

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Breakfast: Oatmeal sweetened with maple syrup and spiced with cinnamon and a pinch of cardamom, diced pear, walnuts, chia seeds, and buckwheat groats. Not pictured: a cup of black coffee.

 

Lunch: Leftover lentils, roasted garlic sesame mochi, and lightly steamed kale and collards.

 

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Happy World Vegan Day, guys!

That’s right, November 1^st is World Vegan Day, and it also kicks off both World Vegan Month and Nablopomo. Since starting Leaves of Kale, I’ve been planning to participate in Nablopomo, which is a challenge that bloggers take on to write a post each day of the month. (The organization BlogHer now hosts a challenge every month, but November is still considered the official month of Nablopomo.) Having already planned to take this on, when I realized that this month is also World Vegan Month—well, come on! It’s just too perfect.

So, since it’s Nablopomo, and in celebration of World Vegan Month, I am planning to write and publish a post here every day for the remainder of November.

I have no illusions that this is going to be an easy task, especially with a toddler to chase. My posts will no doubt range from fully photographed recipes to a list of articles that I’ve enjoyed reading, a few thoughts, or maybe a series of simple iPhone snaps of whatever I’ve eaten that day. I know that this month will challenge my perfectionist tendencies, and I hope that it will push me into a consistent blogging groove. It’s going to be an exercise for sure!

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Immediately after we booked our plane tickets for our visit to Minnesota/Wisconsin last month, I began to panic. Well, more like plan/panic. Planic?

The first two times we flew with Roman, the question of what we’d eat while traveling, and specifically on the plane, wasn’t a huge deal. We probably stashed a couple bars in my bag for ourselves and maybe bought some nuts or something at the airport. As far as Roman was concerned, well, I just made sure to wear a nursing top. His first plane ride was at 2 months old, at which point he was basically on the boob all the time anyway, and even on trip number two, at just shy of 11 months, I was still his primary source of nourishment. Whenever he was hungry or moody or tired, I’d just pop him on the boob. Easy peasy.

Twenty months, however, is a different game. While Roman is still happily nursing down for naps, bed, and comfort, food-food now makes up the more significant part of his caloric intake. The kiddo needs to eat and has definite mealtimes, which are essentially impossible to avoid in the several hour process of: travel to airport –> check in at airport –> wait at airport –> wait on plane –> fly on plane –> wait at baggage claim –> wait for car –> travel to destination. And while mealtime is so, so, so much cleaner than it used to be, he is still an uncivilized little animal who takes no issue with occasionally smearing food all the way up to his eyebrows, a complicating factor for in-air dining.

So two months out from our trip, in my early onset flurry of “planic”, I started searching for kid-friendly vegan travel eats. The lists I found included things like hummus, sandwiches, and hummus sandwiches. Others recommended nuts or salads (grain, green, and pasta). Don’t get me wrong, these are all great ideas—they’re just not the most toddler-friendly ideas.

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