Oregon City + Mail Call = Wonderful Friday

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.

My vitamix came yesterday. I spent an amazing evening with Abby in Oregon City, and then came home at midnight to play with my new partner.

But first-- Oregon City was truly great. I sat and visited with Ben and Donna, Abby's parents, which had been too long. We then went to Tacho's for some eats and some karaoke. Let me just say, I love Tacho's. Every single server was super friendly and accommodating: one pulled out an extra table for us, as it was super crowded for karaoke night, another checked with the kitchen about 9 times regarding dairy and meat free foods. Our server, Angela, let me know what my vegan options were, and I got a side of beans and lettuce with 3 corn tortillas. Just threw some salsa on those bad boys, and it was a delicious dinner. I ordered a carafe of Sangria (couldn't help it--only 9 bucks!) and Abby got the Consuelo--a huge bowl of fruit juices and liquor.
As our server was walking across the karaoke/dance floor, the KJ got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes.

A night filled with tacos, karaoke, Abby, and a marriage proposal? How could it get any better?!

After my bus ride home, it did. It got even better.

Opened up my vitamix, put it together, and cleaned it. Just had to add 5 cups of warm water and a drop of detergent. Whizzed it for 30 seconds, then rinsed it out in the sink. Easy-peasy.
Still full from dinner, so I didn't want to make anything yet--I settled on putting together the HUGE recipe book they included.

Fell asleep dreaming of fresh vegetables.

This morning I bounced outta bed, and threw all this together: (just what I had laying around the house, will head to the grocery store today and get loads more vegetables and fruits)

2 cups spinach
1 cup frozen raspberries
1 apple, quartered
1 clementine, peeled
2 T flax seed
1 T agave
1/2 cup water

Turned it on variable, raised it up to 10, and blended on high for about 45 seconds.

How did my first green smoothie turn out?

Delicious. It's a dark red (almost brown) color, which doesn't look *as* appetizing as those pretty bright green smoothies in some recipes, but I'm not scared of a little rust color.
It made about 20 oz, which I'm proceeding to drink right now.
I think I'll have to get a thermos so I can take 1/2 of my future smoothies to work with me.

So--100% so far. It was a good investment, I know that already.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, my camera battery died, and I've been to forgetful to charge it. I'll post some recap pictures later.

Does anyone else have a vitamix? Have any recipes you want to share?

My New Love

So, who hasn't heard of this?

Well, I sure have. I know a few extremely prolific bloggers received one from the company in order to get others' talking. Talking = Buying.

It worked.

I need one. NEED one. NEEEEEEEEEEED.

I can't think of anything else.

Just look at how amazing it is:





So, gentle reader(s?!), I bought one.

Refurbished. It was more money than one would typically spend on a month's rent (only slightly exaggerating), but I have a pretty strong feeling it's totally worth it.

I'm going to make nut butters (peanut and almond, specifically, but really anything that strikes my fancy), soup (the blades get so hot, you can put in whatever veggies you want, and a mere few minutes later, you've got hot veggie soup), green smoothies (watch out, kale. I'm going to OWN you.), fruit ice cream (totally vegan, and get this, HEALTHY. Hello!), and probably about 3 billion other things I haven't discovered yet.

Next week sometime my extremely expensive VitaMix will arrive at my door, and I will not leave my house for the next year, give or take a year.

I can't waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!

Spinach Pesto Pasta

Spinach Pesto

Preparation time: 15 minutes

4 Cups packed and rinsed spinach leaves
2 large cloves garlic minced
¼ cup pine nuts
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Place spinach leaves in food processor. Puree leaves until they are all crushed, adding more as there's more room in the bowl. Add garlic, nuts, and sea salt and puree again. Gradually add olive oil while pureeing the spinach mixture. Blend until mixture is a thick, smooth paste. Add lemon juice and puree until blended.

I made some of this:

and added it together with this:

And ate this for lunch:

Perfect way to get loads of greens in! Super nutritious lunch.

Can you imagine?

Every morning when I wake up, I like to follow my little internet ritual.

I check my gmail, following links, replying to friends, starring ones I want to get back to.
Then head to Facebook, where I check in on what everyone's been doing, see what new pictures are up, comment on friend's status updates, maybe take a stupid "What kind of drink are you?" type quiz.
Then usually it's over to Yelp, to see if there are any new reviews I want to read, new events posted I may want to attend, or new Talk threads I'm interested in.
On to BBC News and Google News for a quick summary of what's going on in the world. Sometimes I'll check my Myspace, Modified Style's Myspace, Craigslist for cute puppies (I want a puppy, damn it.) and twitter for updates from my favorite people.

Then it's right here to Epicurious Veg*n--I like to stay updated on what my favorite blogs are doing. You can see all of them to the right, but my favorites are Healthy Tipping Point, VeggieGirl, VeganYumYum, and now this one recently started called This is why you're thin!. It's directly inspired by This is why you're fat! -a blog that's been gaining popularity by displaying pictures sent in of foods like a corn dog casserole or a bacon wrapped twinkie.
This is why you're thin! has reader-contributed pictures relating to wellness-hiking, raw green smoothes, fresh vegetables, kids peeling vegetables, yoga... anything that's GOOD for you can be included here.

I've been checking out the pictures for inspiration, and today came across a picture submitted by a woman named Sheri. It's a groovy green smoothie with organic spinach, celery, filtered water, flax meal, Brazil nuts, hempseeds, raspberries, bananas, spirulina, goji berries, and a tasty topping of raw cacao nibs.Um, wow!
She wrote that she feeds this to her FIVE raw vegan kids for breakfast most mornings.

HOLD THE PHONE.

Five raw vegan kids? Can you imagine? Holy smokes. I had to check it out. Her blog is here. I encourage you to check it out. It's so amazing--I love that there's people like this out there. She and her husband, a professor, homeschool all 5 kids and feed them a raw diet. She uses her stove for fruit and veggie storage!

What an inspiration.

This is one of the reasons I like my little morning ritual: I learn new things, find new sources of inspiration, and even discover some new recipes!

Bakery, Cart and Magazine

Exciting Announcements!

1. My friends John and Garrett are opening up a brand new vegan bakery next month. It's going to be probably the most delicious bakery you will frequent. Plus--get this--there's going to be VEGAN SOFT SERVE. And maybe even homemade waffle cones. Located on Alberta, Back to Eden Bakery is going to be big. Please stay tuned for more updates, and help this local business by two rad gentlemen flourish and be well!

2. There's a new mostly vegan cart opening up in the 12th and Hawthorne area--I found this out courtesy of Jess over @ Get Sconed!. Called "Whiffies Deep Fried Pie Cart", it will be serving deep fried yumminess, including empanadas, (vegan) chicken, and misc other delicious things, I'm sure.
Opening in mid April or early May, it sounds fantastic.

3. I received the new Vegetarian Times today, and while flipping through it, noticed an article called "Say Cheese." I thought, "Really? A whole article on cheese? Guess I'll be skipping that one." Then I noticed--it's all about the ease of making nut cheeses! And it has recipes! So I'll totally read it, devour it with my eyes, and then I'll attempt to make my own sometime soon. This Veg Times also has an article about the many uses of coconut milk (or maybe just a lot of recipes for it, either way I'm stoked) and I'm super excited about this article as well! Nice job, Vegetarian Times!