30 Day Vegan - Day Six

I started out Saturday by baking Rise and Shine Breakfast Bread from the 30 Day Vegan workshop. Everyone LOVED it, and it really does make a great breakfast. Here's William's serving:

No, I didn't let him eat the whole 90+ carb serving; I had him cut it in half.
.
Then, out to the yarden for some more prep work.

Dumb dog ate my new gardening gloves.

.

I got the first load of material loaded into the tumbling composter, part of our multi-family composting endeavor.

Bin for collecting; tumbler for composting (hopefully quickly).

.

Margaret and I both had problems with the tumbler staying too wet and not composting properly. Since we can pretty much count on rain and dampness year round, I wanted a way to keep my "dry" material as dry as possible. I found an old wood pallet in the storage shed and put a batch of dried leaves on that. Hopefully up off the ground it will stay fairly dry, and be able to dry out a bit after a rain. Maybe I'll keep a small bit of plastic sheeting on hand for rainy days...

I then spend a bit of time working mushroom compost and soil conditioner into the upper planters. I ended up with enough excess soil to start filling one of the lower planters.

.

By then it was time to take the boys up to their friend's house for his birthday party. The usual "challenging" fare...pizza, homemade cake, and ice cream. I got William dosed for the pizza, and set up an estimated dose for the cake and ice cream before heading off to the grocery store for this week's shopping.

.

There were a few more items this week that I didn't find, including sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds. The checker suggested that perhaps these were "seasonal" items. I find it a bizzare state of things that "seasonal" has come to mean "available for specific holidays" such as Christmas, Easter, Labor Day and SuperBowl, rather than to mean "this is when it is harvested". I got more jars (one case of quart, one case of small jeweled), and remember now why I don't do grocery shopping on the weekends; there are more people there, more meanderers, and the shelves have been picked over and aren't fully stocked. I'll have to plan the next couple of Fridays to print my recipes, make my list, and get to the store by mid-day on Friday.

.

By the time I'd unloaded everything and put away, the boys were back from their party. Since they'd consumed decidedly non-vegan food for their "dinner", I cooked just for David and I. My first run-in with tofu was in the form of Family Friendly Pad Thai.

It was most definitely yummy, though I found it a bit on the sweet side for my taste. I'd been curious about the peanut dressing thing (this one made with tahini and maple syrup), and I really liked it. I couldn't really taste or notice the tofu, which is probably a good thing. It did fry up nicely and I think "held" the fresh garlic flavor for the dish. David loved it, too.
.
Since my order from Johnny's Selected Seeds arrived earlier in the day, I sat down to start seriously planning out the garden, and to create a master list of "what to do when".

.

The kids wanted to watch a movie all together, and I made up some popcorn using coconut oil. We have an air popper, which is supposed to make popcorn "healthier" by eliminating the fat, but I find the popcorn ends up way to bland, and the salt doesn't stick. The coconut oil lent a great, subtle flavor, and helped the salt stick. Very nice!

.

So, up for today: Get some more work done in the garden (mostly prepare the ground for the beneficial's welcome garden), putter in the yard a bit, finish up the garden planning, and maybe do some baking. I'm looking forward to trying that Pad Thai sauce in a veggie wrap for lunch!