Creamy (no dairy) vegetable soup!

Wow… thank you for all the comments on yesterday’s post!!  I love Tasha’s idea about the deep purple!!  I will post a picture when I figure it all out!!

FYI – for those of you that liked the color it was Milk Pail by Martha Stewart!!

Onto FOOD!!

A few weeks ago I bought this stuff!!

I thought it would be great for lunches…

Super easy ingredients and pretty healthy too!!

I took it yesterday in my lunch and had it with some pita bread from the Farmer’s Market and some veggie soup!! and the verdict?

AMAZING!

It’s savoury and delish!! (and local YAY!)  If you live on Vancouver Island, look for it, it was about $5.50 for this block and I ate about 1/4 of it for lunch today!!    I found it in the deli section at Quality Foods!

I love finding new lunch worthy products!!

As for the veggie soup.

I served it over fresh spinach with dried chow mein noodles on top (for crunch)

 “Everything but the Kitchen Sink” Soup!

1/2 green pepper

4 carrots

2 stalks celery

2 precooked potatoes

4 broccoli stalks

1/2 head cauliflower

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

Just enough water to cover everything!!

Boiled it together for a few minutes (to make everything a wee bit soft, but not too soft)

Then I blended it all together (in batches)

In the final batch I added 1/4 cup cashews (for creaminess)

To this I added for flavour

1 tsp lemon juice

1 TBSP miso

1 cube (no) chicken bullion

1 TBSP hot sauce

and a bunch of spices (I think I added curry)

S & P to taste!!

It was tasty, we had it for 2 dinners (with some bread) and then I had it for lunch with the pate and pita!

Really you can just have fun with it, and add whatever you like!

I LOVED the spinach in it too! That was my favourite addition!

Happy Wednesday to you!!!!!!!!

Do you have any fun plans for the long weekend?  Do tell?

On my plate…

I’m so glad you guys enjoyed our engagement story!!  It was a good day!!

Yesterday on my facebook page – I let everyone know that we were making perogies for dinner!! I got a bunch of inquiring messages regarding these delicious doughy goodness!!

Warning, the pictures ARE NOT pretty – because it was so dark, I had to use what light I could find.

I followed Meg’s recipe that she tweeted to me!   But for the filling I did potatoes with roasted garlic, pepper and nooch!  And Dave did potatoes with cheese and bacon.

I made BIG MASSIVE ones and tiny little  wee ones

I fried them up and ate them as is… nothing fancy, nothing exciting but they were AMAZING!!

Totally worth the effort,  although I’m glad we made 2 batches, so I have a ton of left overs!

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Up next,  I’ve had a MAJOR craving for Caesar salad.

Funny, because I never liked it before going dairy free – but now I crave it!!

CAESAR SALAD Dressing (Raw?/Vegan)

makes 2 servings

For the dressing – I tossed all this into the Vitamix;

3 Tbsp cashews

1 tbsp Nooch (nutritional yeast)

1 clove garlic

1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp braggs

1tbsp evoo

2 tbsp water

salt to taste.

Blend up and toss with salad…

I added some extra nooch on top, and some homemade croutons

It was VERY garlicly and VERY good!!  I will be making it again for sure.

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Ok… what’s next?   Oooh I still haven’t given you my mushroom risotto  - I guess you’ll have to wait again!

I also made some of “Almost as good as Nan’s” Pea Soup! 

topped with some of my new favorite snack

So good!  SO addicting!

Ok your turn… what did you eat that was good this weekend?

How do you cook your perogies? 

Have you tried a raw/vegan salad dressing before?

Hope your week is fantabulous! (funny that didn’t come up in spell check)!

 

 

Oh and PS…  my new favorite thought…

I have seen the light!

The fresh juicer juice delicious light!

Dave took me out for lunch at one of my favorite restaraunts yesterday and I ordered a fresh juice – it came looking something like this.   I didn’t take this picture, I just borrowed it from here!

And I officially became a beet vampire!!

I have no idea what was in it (besides beets) because I told the waitress to surprise me…  let me tell you ladies and gentleman

I have been craving this ever since the last savoured sip! 
I officially know what you all mean when you say

“When I drink this juice, I feel the energy pulsing through my blood” YES! Amazing! 
But for $4.50 for a drink, I felt like I was being robbed as well! haha


I also made some DELISH super easy veggie soup, and it was awesome because I used up all our left over veggies!

I boiled up carrots, cauliflower, onions, garlic, potatoe, parsnip, kale, green pepper.  Added some chicken bullion, miso, pepper and hot sauce.  

Then whizzed it up in the food processor until smooth.

It got an A+ all around!! :)   And soo easy!  I served it with 3 Korn Bread – which is also fantastic!


Another amazing thing that I learned this week…
If you mix these two things together – you get a VERY tasty result!

I put these together and served over one of the previously created OHSHEGLOWS veggie burgers, tossed on loads of spinach wrapped it all up and tossed it into my sandwich press! WOOT!
Amazingness was born!

So amazing in fact that no photos were snapped!



I was also pretty excited… the day I got engaged I also won this amazing package at FOOD BLOGS.
Sorry for the dark pic – Gold Label coconut oil, coconut cream, coconut peanut butter and coconut flour!
Thank you Tropical Traditions! 

I can’t wait to dive in, all this stuff will prep my body for all the coconut drinks in MEXICO…

Speaking of MEXICO haha

We have found two different locations for our wedding (finally)
RIU Sante Fe or RIU Emerald Bay

Anyone been to either?  I will have the quotes by Monday and will hopefully make our decision soon after.
They offer a pretty amazing wedding package that includes just the right amount of guests!  

We are hoping to do it Dec 26-Jan2nd ish time….  which won’t be convenient for many people, but we understand that, it was either that or no wedding for 2 years!!

Also if you follow me on TWITTER you will know that I had my interview to get into school yesterday! 

It went really well and I should know by next week if I get in or not!  They said I was a reflective leader, I have NO idea what that means, but I took it as a compliment! haha

Anywhoo watch tomorrow for some product reviews – all fantastic yummy stuff!! :)  - Soy Ice Cream = YUM!

Hope you all have a beautiful day!!
xo Jess

ps.  Anything exciting going on for you today?!!?

A red, lazy Sunday!

So I had a knock on the door today...   11am on a Sunday - Guess who it was!!

THE POSTMAN! (poor guy, working so much right now) 

He delivered something super fun.

take a peek inside!!

Lots of Starbucks RED Christmas goodies from Kris @ Iheartwellness! 

LOVE it... so super fun!! 

Inside the little dove package was a GIFT CARD!!

THANK YOU KRIS. you are fantastic!!

What a great Sunday Christmas Surprise! 

Rewind to yesterday.

I tested out yet another Amy's Soup!

(sorry it's blurryish and flashy)

We love Minestrone Soup in this house.

It was full of lots of goodness and very tasty.

I prefer my home cooked stuff, but this was a very close second!

Then I went to Starbucks for another fantastic visit with a WONDERFUL friend.

She was just home for a super quick visit, but it was great as always.

I brought my camera to snap a picture (we don't have one since we were about 16) but I forgot! 

Then I did some last min running around,

with an expectation to pick something up for dinner - FAILED

way to busy out there.

So we ordered pizza!

I got whole grain crust with assorted veggies, no cheese...  Good and pretty healthy

And amazingly enough, it didn't bother my stomach at all !! YIPPEE

Then I packed up some treats

And we headed over to our friends place to play games!

We played this one, so much fun!!

Sorry for the flash!!

A hit for sure, and there were some good scandalous answers (from unsuspecting people too!)

What are your favorite board games?  We could use some new ones!

I've spent all of today just puttering around.  My goal was to clean up my "Zen Room"

EEK!  I'm not even sure what happened in here.  Not very Zen like that's for sure. 

It just became the "catch all" while I was organizing Christmas

Close the door- I haven't gotten to it yet, but I will!

Now I'm just hanging out... with my hot lemon/honey drink...

Watching "Must Love Dogs"

So yummy!

Don't forget to enter the STARBUCKS giveaway! 

I will leave you with some "Holiday Wisdom" from the cup I got from Kris!!

"We invite YOU to LISTEN to your DESIRES and to RENEW your HOPE.

To SEE the world not as it is, but as it COULD be.

Go ahead, WISH.

It's what makes the holidays the HOLIDAYS.

Off to create a gingerbread house with my hunny! 

Stay tuned for pictures!! 

Jessica

Dairy Free Treats and a weekend review!!!

Hope you guys had a great weekend!!    I layed pretty low all weekend,  we tried to go out shopping but my energy lasted about an hour... just long enough to get some treats -  YUM...

I had NO idea that Junior Mints had no dairy!!  YAHOO - that being said, if your allergy is super bad, they may have come in contact with some dairy, so beware.

Candy Canes of course  and one of my favorite treats.   German Gingerbread cookies!! I love them!! I held my breath when I was reading the ingredients! 

Even though I was super tired, I still made some delicious food this weekend!!   

Minestrone  Soup and Cornbread!

 

It was sooo good!!  So soul filling!!  The cornbread was sweet and cornbready!! :)

Then I took most of Sunday off,  we laid on the couch the whole day watching stupid tv shows...

We decided to order pizza for dinner!!  (Yes I can still have pizza)

I ordered a small Classic Italian - ham, pepperoni, green peppers, onions, mushrooms and green olives.

HOLD THE CHEESE... here is what is left over... It was great!

The pizza shop told me one day that they actually use a separate tray for the cheese free pizza's. 

That made me happy!!

 

Anyways, I am finally feeling better, which is good because all 3 of my work contracts start this week and I have my meeting tomorrow about getting my school paid for!   Keep your fingers crossed for me!!