Have you ever been to Portland, Oregon? I went for the first time last week. Such a great city! Definitely want to go again. Definitely want to stay longer than 2 days. Definitely want to try more restaurants.

Portland. Is. Awesome.

Found these places using the Portland Guide:

A.N.D. Cafe, Portobello , VooDoo Donuts.

A.N.D Cafe: Lunch was delicious.

If you find yourself at Portobello and you are a beet hater…order the beet tartare! Seriously, it is amazing. You might even get over your beet issues. I did 😉

Portobello: Amazing food. Super cute. All vegan.

VooDoo Donuts: Vegan donuts! Really good!

Do you live in a house full of vegans? I don’t.

Tonight my family BBQ’d. I made stuffed bell peppers. They looked so much prettier than the non-vegan dishes 🙂

The only thing I followed on this recipe was how to cook the peppers…boil for five minutes…cook at 375 degrees for 40 minutes (lightly covered in foil)…put 1/2 inch water on the bottom of the pan. Following these directions I believe you can stuff peppers with anything you want 🙂 I stuffed them with brown rice, black beans, broccoli, salsa and a little garlic salt. Beautiful and tasty!

Talk to you soon.
Tracey

God gave us animals to eat. I truly believed that. I was vegetarian in my late twenties/early thirties because eating animals made me sad. I started eating animals again under the belief that it was OK since really “they” were meals from God.  (ugh…so dumb!)

The other day there was a post from Vegan.com where the most common questions about going vegan were answered. One of the questions was “doesn’t the Bible endorse eating animals?”. A great answer was given. You can read all of the answers here.

I believe the Bible. What do you believe?

My go to Bible verse for the support of a vegan diet/lifestyle – 1st Thessalonians 5:21,22.

21. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
22. abstain from every form of evil.

Of course these could be the go to verses for life 🙂 But this is a blog about being vegan 🙂

The meat and dairy industries are evil. I will abstain. And it is OK! If you have any hesitations with your diet of meat and dairy please read Eating Animals or Bleating Hearts. I am forty nine and my life is peppered with meat, dairy, vegetarian, vegan diets. Took a long time for me to commit. Finally did because I pushed my sensitivities to the side and read books/articles/blogs.

Tonight was backwards. Usually I ramble after I share what I had for dinner 🙂 I had a black bean burger. It was great! The easiest recipe by far! Love the site happyherbivore.com! (I used bread crumbs instead of oatmeal).

Crunchy pickles and BBQ Sauce were great toppings. Did you know Kraft Original BBQ sauce was accidentally vegan?

Thank you for stopping by!

Tracey

Tonight is about a failed yet successful dinner.

Eggplant fail to be exact. Way too much salt (my fault). Terrible. Rosemary Bread and Marinara Sauce instead. Perfect.

Have to add a picture of my husband lighting the candles with a paper towel.

Eggplant fail then no matches 🙁

He saved my day.

The Rambling.

You might think giving up meat and dairy is entirely impossible. You might be right. You might be wrong. How will you know if you don’t try?

Do you get sad when you see an animal on the side of the road…lost? Or worse…dead? I am always affected by that kind of thing. It can ruin my day. I read Skinny Bitch then Eating Animals then started Bleating Hearts…why didn’t I care about baby chicks, chickens, cows? What was wrong with me? Seriously, the mind is crazy…when something is so huge in magnitude I (we) shut it out…don’t think about it…if you can’t think about what you are eating then maybe it’s wrong…

I share this because I know what it’s like to say one thing and eat another 🙁

Talk to you soon.

Tracey

Some nights you just want a PBJ and a cupcake.

Feeling relaxed lazy I decided to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. I never make those. So good!

OK it was on a hamburger bun but still so good 😉

Anyway, my boatload of leftover chocolate sauce inspired me to make cupcakes. Growing up we made Wowie Cake all of the time. Also called Depression Cake. Whatever the name…it is vegan! We have a recipe that floats around our family but I can never find it so I followed this recipe.

Pretty sure it is the exact same as our “family” recipe.

Just when you think your family is original…

Sorry to disappoint but there is no photo of the PBJ. Two reasons – I ate it too fast and it is bad enough I told you it was my dinner!

Talk to you later.

Tracey

Hello.

So many recipes I want to try…just sitting there quietly in my cookbooks, Pinterest, Tumblr…

Mind boggling at times 😉

Tonight I made Salt and Pepper Tofu.

If you google Salt and Pepper Tofu all of the recipes are basically the same. The difference is usually with the sauce they pair with it. The sauces all sounded delicious but in the end I picked salsa! Easy since I have a huge container from Costco.

So simple. Four ingredients – tofu, salt, pepper, cornstarch. The frying was the hardest and most painful part 😉

This would also be an excellent appetizer with a really great peanut sauce!

Did you see the video of the elephant that was rescued after years of abuse? It was beautiful. To be honest I ignored the story based on the title all day yesterday. I love rescue stories and happy endings but I end up feeling guilty for the years I loved zoos and Sea World. My brother emailed me this morning with a link to the story. Had to watch it because…you know…I read whatever my brother sends me 🙂 Felt the guilt. Felt the sadness. But overall I was just happy!

It can be overwhelming at times thinking how I can make a difference. I think I need to balance my faith-family-animal advocacy evenly. They are all important. When I figure out how I can help animals directly I will let you know. For now I am diving into being vegan. Slowly getting rid of animal cruelty products. Blogging recipes I have tried – hopefully showing that cooking is easy and fun without meat and dairy.

Hope your week continues to be awesome!

Tracey

Hi.

Hope your 4th of July was great!

Did you know you don’t need an ice cream maker to make ice cream? I had no idea it could be this easy. It is not your typical ice cream but it is so creamy you will think you splurged on the expensive stuff.  The topping took less than ten minutes and it is very good!

I made a double batch of the chocolate sauce using regular sugar. I have a limited kitchen as far as utensils/pans go. I own two big pots and neither is a saucepan. Sometimes a recipe is small so I need to double it so it doesn’t burn 🙂  In case you think I am a crazy person – I did have a saucepan but a couple of years ago my son took it backpacking and ruined it. When something breaks it takes me forever to replace it. Obviously 🙂

I used three bananas, one mango and full fat coconut milk for the ice cream.

My ice cream stayed the texture of a soft serve. Maybe because I threw a mango in there instead of another banana? Maybe because I used a different kind of coconut milk? Next time I will follow the instructions and see if it becomes more scoop-able 🙂 The taste and soft texture were tasty. The photo didn’t seem to appreciate it though! Looks kind of melted.

Notice my “vintage” scooper? It has been around since I was little. I love it.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Talk to you soon.
Tracey

Hi.

Do you have a great neighbor?  I do.

Do you have a great neighbor that has a big beautiful mango tree?  I do 🙂  And he shares (thanks, Thomas!).  Time to find a mango friendly recipe!  Most of my friends on Pinterest are not vegan but they pin great recipes.  Tonight I tried one  – California Quinoa Salad.  Lots of ingredients but only one of them was my motivation for making it. Mangos.

The mangos are definitely not the main part of the salad but they add color and sweetness! I love everything about this salad except the name 🙂

Should be called Hawaiian Quinoa Salad 😉

Sooo pretty.

This would be a great salad to bring to a BBQ this weekend.

Bye for now.
Tracey