delicious zucchini spaghetti

scenes from the woods, where i spent a bit of time saturday night ...


I made this tonight for two busy people (me and boyfriend) and whipped it up in less than 10 minutes. no, seriously. so of course, i had to share! i have no photo, i was too busy eating it! but trust me on this one. especially if your garden has a zucchini glut ... it's the time of year, y'all!

based on a meal i had at a raw vegan restaurant in baltimore:

shred one or two LARGE zucchini with a grater, and plop into a large bowl.

add a large amount (maybe one package) sauteed mushrooms (i did mine in veg broth with rosemary added) ... i know, not raw ....

then add a whole JAR, that's 25 oz., of spaghetti sauce ... i used one from whole foods that i love, it's the 365 brand "italian herb"

add one can of drained cannellini beans for protein and texture

add one or two huge handfuls of nutritional yeast

add a lot of dried or fresh oregano, basil, thyme

mix it all up, chill for a few hours in the fridge, and voila dinner is served cold!

next time, i'd like to try it with raw "meatballs" ... next time maybe.

tomorrow night we are hopefully doing polenta bean bake if i can figure out how to make polenta from scratch. i suspect it has something to do with cornmeal? my local food desert grocery store did not carry it, but i can't deny their wonderful selection of organic canned beans on sale, which i loaded up on. the bean bake will also feature raw monterey jack cheese produced locally. i'm in a vegetarian phase again.

also on this week's menu plan: pad thai with tofu, lentil dal with spinach on rice, and tempeh with a maple-mustard-balsamic glaze paired with corn fritters and garlicky collard greens. we'll see what actually gets done.

here is a vegan bean salad with rice (delicious with frank's red hot added!)and the roasted veg/quinoa/pesto thing we crave lately)


I also wanted to blog about Unplugged Sunday, which some of you may know Heather over at Beauty that Moves started some months ago. I've been trying to do this with my boyfriend, and we usually make a delicious home-cooked breakfast featuring the herb roasted potatoes from vegan with a vengeance. we walk our dog to the new local organic market in our neighborhood, we stop for coffee at a new coffeeshop, we go for a long drive with a picnic lunch and go hiking. however, i've found it next to impossible for adam to give up his cell phone for the entire day. he seems to NEED to have it in his pocket, he says, to check the time. but he checks the time more than i've ever seen anyone with a watch do. it's caused quite a bit of argument and stubborn childish foot stamping (um, literally) on my part. every week for three or four weeks now. i don't want it to be this way, but i've learned that i'm just going to have to enjoy unplugged sunday on my own for a while and see what he makes of it. i can't believe how much i get done, but all at a pleasurable pace. yesterday i wrote down all of it to share with you:

woke about 9 a.m. .....

walk with dog and breakfast at a neighborhood diner (mmm blueberry pancakes...the dog had a side of bacon) ... this all took about two hours

came home and did pleasure reading for two hours

spent another two hours doing laundry/dishes/tidying up the apartment/making a snack/organizing the book nook upstairs

went for an hour and a half walk with the dog in the park, and spent another half hour driving to and spending time at the local health food market to pick up a few goods

made a batch of leftover hummus and heated up leftovers for dinner (we are a huge fan of roasted local veg/red quinoa/homemade pesto these days)

took out a large batch of recycling, wrote a grocery "items needed" list, made sundried tomatoes, organized my craft/work studio, washed bras in the sink, frogged two very old failed knitting projects

did some more pleasure reading, and turned the lights off about 10:30.

what an awesome day! it's amazing how, when you take the internet and cell phone (the cell phone i barely use anyway, i'm a throwback and i often seriously consider ditching it altogether) out of the equation, time SLOWS way down and the day seems to stretch on and on. and look at all i did, pleasurably! yay, me. great way to start the week.

tonight, i think i'll start a dishcloth just to have a knitting project going until i get some yarn for my two upcoming bigger projects (knee socks for me and a winter wrap for the dog). or i'll work on the shawl i've been slowly crafting for the last few months. it has a few errors, but overall it's a beauty and i learned a few new skills doing it (ummm patience among them?? lol).

the research papers are feeling a little less scary now that i more or less have all the sources and literature i need for both ... now it's just a matter of investing the time to read and take notes on everything in advance of actual writing. i spent three hours of my day reading, one on a treadmill at the YMCA :-)

I am pleased to tell you that I think I've been losing weight, if not on the scale then the weekly measuring tape tells truth ... losing anywhere from a half inch to four inches on various body parts.

I am settling into my 15-hour/week job at the montessori school. i've been asked if i would like to do 25 hours but i'm not sure what will happen with the home business so that's all up in the air. i do love the freedom if not the scariness of not working full-time. i needed this break like i needed air. today i bought a notebook to track ALL daily expenses as so many experts tell you to do. we'll see if it saves us money. we have to save money.

a few months ago, i blogged about not being sure what direction my blog posts were going in. is it a simple life blog, a food blog, a craft blog, a daily ramblings blog? i found that i just wanted to be ME. i want my posts to resonate with what's important to me at a given time, not to be labeled as some perfect superblogger like (sorry) SouleMama ... it's an issue I'm having with "vegan" right now, too. I love to eat vegan, and I do most of the time. When I eat dairy and eggs it's infrequent and I'm very picky on the source. But I'm not sure I want to BE a VEGAN. ya know? well, any thoughts would be appreciated. we're always striving to be our very best selves, and I think it's wonderful to be inspired, but I also think it's important to just BE the things you think you want to BE, and not analyze them so much or present them as a perfect spread in a blog.

here's to a happy week, loves. i'm thrilled to say i'll be watching gillian welch live tomorrow night, in my cowboy boots!

love and light,

karen


p.s. a word about the sundried tomatoes. sadly, i wasted six lovely local tomatoes because i had them in the oven on "warm" for 12 hours ... they really need only about 5. what i do is cut all the squishy watery middle parts out, cut the tomatoes into strips (i use the oval tomatoes, not the round ones), salt them to draw out water, then put them on a cookie sheet in the oven. when they're done, i stick them in freezer bags, plop them in the freezer and voila. oh, well. next time i hit the farmer's market i'll try again!