Guacamole

Avocados are, in my opinion, truly amazing. They are so rich and creamy, and you can eat them a million ways, from plain, to in a salad or on a burrito.

Plus, they are packed with healthy nutrients. You know how complete proteins are important? Well, avocados have all the amino acids needed to form a complete protein. They also have healthy fats, which are important to any diet, and can sometimes be forgotten when eating a primarily vegetable-based diet. They also contain fiber, a lot of vitamin C and K, and a whole bunch of other wonderful things.

One of the easiest ways to use an avocado, and also one of my favorite foods, is guacamole. So here's my recipe. I hope you like it!

Guacamole
2 avocados mashed
1 Tbl lime (lemon also works, but I love limes)
1 small clove garlic pressed/finely chopped
1/2 tomato finely chopped
2 Tbl minced onion
pinch of ground cumin
2 drops hot pepper sauce
1 chili (i usually use little chili peppers, but tonight I used half a habanero, and it was awesome)
salt and pepper to taste

Just Some Stuff That Tastes Good

Bean salad - made with beans (black and kidney), quinoa, spinach, tomato, onion, celery,  chili powder, cumin, salt pepper - (basil would also be a good addition; or maybe some lime)

Potato Salad made with hummus instead of mayo (so it's vegan!) - also has celery, sweet onion, and radishes

Recipes will be posted soon-ish.

Honey Mustard Dressing

One of the biggest debates between vegans is whether honey is vegan. It is after all made by bees. However, made from the nectar of flowers, it is not an animal product in the same ways as say milk or eggs. But at the same time, bees can sometimes be harmed when humans retract the honey from their hives, and by taking the honey, we are stealing their food.

When I first went vegan, I did not think of honey as an animal product because it is made with a plant product rather than being produced naturally from their bodies. We do after all use other animals to help us produce things, like using cattle to pull plows to farm; in that sense, should we not eat farmed vegetables because animals helped in their production?

As of now, I can't know what ethical stance to take on the honey debate. For now I eat it occasionally. But I do make a compromise: generally I use agave nectar in place of honey.

Peony in my front yard

One thing that I do use honey for though is honey mustard dressing. I love honey mustard. It tastes so good on so many things, from salad, to steamed kale. So I'm posting a recipe, and hopefully you'll enjoy it. If you don't feel right eating honey, try it with agave nectar (you'll just need to up the proportion a bit because agave is not as sweet as honey). And if you have a favorite thing to put honey mustard dressing on, then please share in the comment section.

Honey Mustard Dressing
1/4 cup mustard
2 Tbl honey
3 Tbl cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
a generous grinding of pepper
1/8 tsp salt
1 clove garlic

crush the garlic and mash with salt. add everything else, except oil and mix. add oil slowly while mixing.

My Garden

Radishes!

I have always loved gardening. When I was little, my mom had garden beds in the front yard, and I lived for the summer so I could watch the veggies grow. We always had tomatoes, and one of my favorite snacks was cherry tomatoes off the vine. My experiences in the garden when I was younger probably account for my everlasting love of food, especially vegetables. After all, watching those plants grow, seeing my food pop out of the earth was fascinating. And NOTHING could beat playing with the worms we found while sifting the compost (I still think worms are some of the coolest creatures).

A tomato

These days, my family has a big garden out back. But for years I've wanted my own space to grow things myself. So, this spring, my mom gave me some space in the front yard to make my own. It's not a ton of space, but I love it all the same. I have two garden beds currently containing: kale, basil, spinach,  radishes, carrots, beets, bush beans, cherry tomatoes, and hot peppers.

I feel that gardening is a wonderful experience for just about everyone. Maybe not everyone would enjoy it as much as me, or even at all. But I seriously fear that many people in our society are loosing a grip on the knowledge of where food actually comes from. Even if you do it just once, it feels so cool to stick a seed in dirt, give it water and some sun and have something grow. It's always so exciting. And I personally feel more connected to not only my food, but also the earth and where I came from, when I watch what I eat grow and when I know exactly where, when, and how it came to exist.

Kale. YUM!! (might possibly be my favorite veggie these days)

I would also like to add that my family (of four) produces a large percentage of the food we eat during the summer. There's something to harvest every day. Tonight we had a spinach salad with dinner, and alongside our kale based lunch I munched on radishes I'd pulled from the ground only minutes before. Gardening my whole life has given me a hobby, given me a passion for food (both eating and nutrition), taught me where my food comes from, and made me closer to my family. It's kind of awesome like that.

Flowers bring the bees, helping pollinate the tomato plants

More tomatoes!

Hi, I'm back!

Hi again,

I feel like I haven't posted on here in forever; probably because I haven't.

I would like to start off by saying that, I actually haven't been eating completely vegan for the past few weeks, which is most likely why I took a break from posting. I moved back to my parent's house for the summer, to do an internship a couple towns over, and to make life easier for my family I choose to try pescetarianism. For those of you who don't know what that is, its a diet very similar to vegetarianism except you allow yourself to eat fish (and unlike veganism, you eat dairy products).

Although my family eats very little meat, they still enjoy fish and do eat dairy. So, I figured I could make a compromise while I'm living with them. Long story short, it didn't work. And now, a month later, I'm back on my blog to finally post more thoughts and recipes.

I would also like to let you know that I'm currently doing an internship and taking a 4 week summer class, so for the next few weeks I might not get around to posting much, but all that will be done soon and I'll have free time again to write about food...my true passion.