Sniffles and Spaghetti

It's that time of year again... the time when every single person on my college campus collectively gets sick. We call it the plague. I thought I had successfully avoided it, but the endless amounts of Vitamin C and tea can only fight it off for so long.

Instead of wallowing in sniffles and coughs, I'm trying to look on the bright side of being sick, for once. Now, I can catch up on some much-needed sleep, watch movies that I've had saved up in my Netflix forever, and finally finish that great book I started reading! Yay!

...But let's be real. Being sick actually mostly sucks.

I was going to make myself a big pot of soup today, but I realized I'm all out of vegetable broth. Instead, I might make another batch of this cajun white bean spaghetti that I had about a week ago for dinner. 
I got the delicious recipe here, from Noelle at the Peaceful Plate, except I made some minor changes. I used spinach instead of kale and had to mix up my own cajun seasoning using equal parts oregano, paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt. 

All in all, it tasted super yummy and made great leftovers for a couple days! This will definitely be a weeknight staple around here. Maybe the spice will help to clear up the stuffiness in my head a little bit, too.

More yummy dessert recipes to come when I'm better! For now, time to doze off watching reruns of Mad Men.

California Dreaming

Photo taken by my friend Anne Ylvisaker on her iPhone- unfortunately I left my camera at home on our walk today!

Every time I visit California, I realize this is where I belong. The air is so fresh, the sun is (almost) always shining, there are great places to get vegan food, and you can hear the ocean from everywhere. I always feel so rejuvenated, especially since I've been stuck in the Midwest for so long. After college, you can definitely count on me heading to the west coast. Just look at how beautiful it is here, how can you resist?! 

Also by Anne!

Because I'm pretty busy starting my internship with the natural history museum, I'll just leave you with a quick and easy lunch recipe that I made for my mom and I while I was home. It's from my favorite cookbook I mentioned before, Big Vegan. These wraps were super tasty and incredibly healthy!

Easy Veggie Tahini Wraps 

serves 2

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets
2 cups chopped kale
3 tbsp tahini paste
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes
2 large spinach tortillas


1. Steam the broccoli and kale so that they become tender and bright green. Drain them and pat dry.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the tahini, lemon juice and salt until smooth. Mix in the broccoli, kale and tomato halves. Warm up the tortillas in a toaster oven or microwave and fill them with the veggies. Wrap up and enjoy!

I think these are about to become a lunch staple for me.

I love listening to this song by the ocean. Excuse me while I go dream about dolphins and waves...

Toasted Veggie Sandwich and Disaster

Disaster has struck my dorm. Our oven and stove are broken. Now instead of baking lovely treats for everyone, I'm going to actually have to do my homework this weekend. Maybe it's a sign that I need to adjust my priorities. Hopefully it will be fixed soon though, because I have a long "to-bake" list for you guys. Meanwhile....

I discovered the fact that the stove was broken midway through preparing to make a grilled veggie sandwich. I was about to completely give up after waiting 10 minutes for the pan to heat up and just go with boring old peanut butter and jelly, but then I had an idea. I could toast/roast the veggies instead. The result was still delicious.



Basically I drizzled sliced eggplant and tomato with olive oil and sprinkled them with oregano and rosemary and baked them at 400° in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes (until the eggplant was soft). I toasted two slices of bread (I used plain old wheat, but I wish I had some better bread like ciabatta so it didn't get so soggy) and then spread a layer of spinach and artichoke hummus, topped it with fresh basil and finally added the veggies. Perfect for a quick and healthy dinner before I ran off to serve pizza for 5 hours!



Haven't you ever noticed that the best sandwiches are always the messiest to eat? It's a fact.

Warm Tomato and Peach Salad

One pattern you might notice on this blog is that I use a lot of the same ingredients, but do different things with them. Yes, I'm cheap. I make ingredients last as long as they possibly can, so I apologize for the repetition but also I think it's good to find new ways of mixing together similar foods! Like having tomatoes in 3 different posts so far...

This past weekend I went to the Oberlin Farmer's Market and got some yummy fresh veggies. Here's what I bought:



Now to be honest, I don't really know what to do with an eggplant- I've never cooked with one before, but I thought I might as well try! Any suggestions?

I did, however, know what to do with tomato and basil. My favorite food, before I went vegan was a Caprese salad: tomato, basil and mozzarella. Now that I'm vegan I decided to put a new spin on this basic idea. Remember that fresh peach I had a picture of a little while ago? Yep, that's what I added. You may be thinking, "tomatoes and peaches? what kind of a combination is that?" Well, let me tell you, it was amazing. This salad is so easy to put together and could be served as a side dish or a light lunch (or lunch and dinner, like I did).

Warm Tomato and Peach Salad 

serves 2

2 large tomatoes, sliced

2 large peaches, peeled and sliced

1 tbsp olive oil, plus a little extra

1/3 cup packed, chopped fresh basil

salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the peach and tomato slices on a tray and drizzle with the extra olive oil. Broil them in a toaster oven (or real oven) for about 20 minutes.

2. Take them out of the oven, and then mix them in a medium bowl with the 1 tbsp of olive oil and basil. Season it to taste and eat!

Super easy, super delicious.

Check out my super awesome wolf-eye knife.

I suppose you could make this salad cold too, but it was really good warm. Especially on rainy cold days.

Enjoy!

Let's Start it Simple

Hello and welcome to That's So Vegan! I've been thinking about starting a food/lifestyle blog for a couple months now, and I finally worked up the courage to do it.

I started reading food blogs last winter when I went through a sort of food crisis in my life. I needed to make some changes in the way I ate so that I could feel healthier and happier.

So I went vegan.

And it's actually pretty great.

However, being a broke college student with an ill-equipped kitchen, I found that there was a lacking number of cooking blogs aimed at my demographic. Which is why I thought, "What the hell, I'll start my own."

I'll be honest and say that I don't know exactly what this blog will evolve into, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

My first recipe here is not quite a real recipe, seeing as there are not exact measurements. My friends and I made this simple pasta dish a few weekends ago on a trip to my  family's cabin in one of my favorite small towns, Grand Marais, MN. This recipe was actually thought up by my friend Evie, but we all helped put it together and it was absolutely delicious and fresh.



We started with about a pint of cherry tomatoes, chopped in half and sautéed them in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they began to get sort of wrinkled. We then added 3 cloves of garlic and a big handful of fresh basil and mixed it around until the garlic browned a little. Served over pasta, this twist on a regular tomato sauce is probably my new favorite dinner.