Last Soccer Game

It was a stormy night and, in the morning, we were sure Jackson's last soccer game of the season would be cancelled, but the coaches felt it would be too difficult to try to reschedule, so the game was on. The field was basically one giant, muddy puddle. Of course the boys had fun slipping and sliding around!

Afterwards we walked over to the playground for a little end-of-season celebration. Their wonderful, encouraging coach said a few words about each boy and gave them a trophy.

Go Dragons!

I made chocolate mini-cupcakes with raspberry buttercream (recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.) They went quickly!

We snacked the rest of the day on olives, fruit, and Spinach Artichoke Dip from Dreena Burton's latest, Plant-Powered Families. I love that it's made from cashews rather than a ton of faux cheese and mayo. Dreena feeds her kids the way I like to feed my family.

We scooped the dip onto torn-off chunks of fresh baguette. The bread recipe is from The Garden of Vegan, it's an old favorite that produces a great baguette.

Vegan MoFo Day 1

If you've come across my page via the Vegan MoFo blogroll, welcome! I'm Sara, stay-at-home mama of Jackson (6) and Olivia (4), wife of Tony, and human companion of Monster.

I cook vegan food at home, but I will eat vegetarian items at restaurants or if we're dining at someone else's house, so that is why I don't classify myself as vegan. Tony and the kids are omnivores, so I make eggs and grilled sandwiches for them from time to time. But I don't cook meat for them, because I don't know how, and I think it's gross. Anyway, this month everything I post will be totes vegan.

I typically write about our daily activities as a busy, adventure-loving family, as well as the food we make. I noticed that a lot of bloggers adopt a theme for MoFo, so this month I've decided I will try to make as many recipes as possible from my Pinterest boards. I have a habit of pinning stuff and never getting around to actually making it, so this will give me a little push, and hopefully be somewhat interesting for you as well.

But there will also be randomness. I have the attention span of a goldfish and can't stick to a theme for thirty days. I have tried before. So before I get to my Pinterest recipe of the day, allow me to share my first-ever attempt at steaming an artichoke.

I saw beautiful whole artichokes at Trader Joe's and decided to bring one home. The anatomy of the artichoke had always been intimidating to me. There's something called a "choke?" And it's sharp and spiky?

Artichokes are actually super simple. I followed this recipe. I didn't injure myself on the spiky choke. Victory! Olivia and I first tried dipping the leaves in melted Earth Balance with black pepper. We didn't like it, so we ended up making a dipping sauce of Veganaise and a little sriracha. I can report it was delicious, and Olivia approved of the new vegetable thanks to its tactile, finger-food aspect.

And here is the Pinterest find for today. Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread. I veganized it no problem by using Earth Balance and subbing flax eggs (1 Tbsp. ground flax + 3 Tbsp. water = 1 egg). If you are new to using flax eggs, be sure to mix the ground flax and water in a small bowl before you do anything else. Then they will have achieved a suitably goopy and "eggy" consistency when it's time to add them to your batter.

A moist, uber-chocolatey bread, a great way to use summer zucchini.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope to see you again this month and to check out your blog as well, if I'm not already following it.

9 Years

In addition Father's Day on Sunday, Tony and I had another celebration marked on our calendar this week -- our 9th wedding anniversary. It's actually today, but we got a sitter the other night and went out to dinner.

For our destination, Tony chose Moonshine, located downtown.  It's a really cute restaurant and I was looking forward to their good (strong) drinks. Once seated, we enjoyed their powerful
air-conditioning (did I mention we parked a few blocks away and it was 102 degrees out?) and I enjoyed my ice-cold vodka lemonade.

For our appetizer we had grilled artichokes with pimento pepper sauce.

Yeah, I didn't know it came sprinkled with parmesan, but it was easy to pick off.

We had never eaten whole artichokes before.  They are so much fun to eat. You have to tear into each leaf with your teeth and suck the flesh off.  We imagined that we looked like vicious wild animals to our fellow diners. But then we realized a lot of other tables were ordering the artichoke, too, so we weren't the only ones making goofy faces.

For my entree I had the "Bohemian" sandwich with portobello mushroom, red onion, tomato, arugula, and balsamic and sundried tomato pesto. It came with some giant French fries that were pretty tasty. The sandwich was OK, but the pesto made the bottom piece of bread soggy. Like, it was already soggy when it was served to me, which seemed odd. I discarded the soggy piece and ate it as an open-faced sandwich. 

After dinner, we walked around downtown. This is something we have always liked to do together -- wander around, talk, take in the sights and the people. These days, we are usually pushing strollers, but on this night it was just the two of us.  We could even hold hands! We came across this art on the side of a building, which seemed appropriate for the occasion.

I know Tony won't read this, but happy anniversary babe.  Love you.