Columbus Ohio Vegan Meetup

Yesterday I attended the Columbus, OH Vegan Meetup. If you're vegetarian or vegan and aren't familiar with meetup.com it's worth checking out. Meetups are organized by topic and city, so search for vegetarian and nearby cities to join a group. I like the Columbus Vegan Meetup because Columbus is only 2 hours away and has SO many veg friendly restaurants. This meetup was held at On The Fly, which is part of Dragonfly Restaurant.

I had been to Dragonfly before but never to On The Fly, so I was curious about the whole setup. I arrived a few minutes late and went into the building, which is a small room next to the restaurant with a counter and a few tables. It was hard to choose but I decided on tacos and chocolate mousse pie. Then, I found a place oustide at one of the cute little tables. The weather was perfect for this meetup, not too hot and a nice breeze. My order came and there were 3 tasty vegan tacos consisting of a corn tortilla, refried beans, lettuce and a veg cheese sauce. My favorite part was definitely the dessert. The mousse pie was thick and rich and creamy, all around delicious. I drank water in anticipation of how sweet and rich the pie would be, so for the tacos and pie my total came to $9.90. This isn't the cheapest place to eat but compared to Dragonfly, which will probably run you $15-$25 per person (and is well worth it) it is a more affordable option.

After the meetup, I decided to hit a few shops before making the two hour drive home. I love thrift store shopping and Columbus has the best thrift stores! These 2 fun bottles had to come home with me. Got both of these for only $4.50!!

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The Crocosmia Lucifer is finally blooming! Spent most of the day weeding, not fun but necessary I guess.
Went to Lowes and bought a sedum assortment. I'll get some sedum pics up soon. Love these little groundcovers!

Pineapple Crisp

I've been eyeballing the Pineapple Crisp Recipe from page 184 of the  The PDQ (Pretty Darn Quick) Vegetarian Cookbook: 240 Healthy and Easy No-Prep Recipes for Busy Cooks  for awhile and since I had the book out I decided to get the rolled oats and canned pineapple to make it today. Glad I finally did! This really turned out tasty, however when I make it again I will make some changes. I must have had extra juicy pineapple chucks because reserving 1/2 cup of the juice from the can and adding it to the recipe made this WAY to watery. See all that unnecessary liquid:

Once I took it out of the oven, I drained the liquid, but it would have tasted better if it wasn't there at all, so next time I will omit the juice. It also needed a lot more topping, which was the best part, crispy and sweet, loved it lots. So next time, I will double the topping. I think something else that would probably help is to use crushed pineapple, since the chunks weren't uniform in shape, the topping didn't stick really well. Other than those few changes, this recipe was a hit! The topping part was so good, I'm going to use it on some other fruits.

 Look for more recipes to come from PDQ Vegetarian Cookbook

Have a great evening!

Chocolate-Granola Refrigerator Cookies

 

Today, I made the Chocolate-Granola Refrigerator Cookies from page 176 of The PDQ (Pretty Darn Quick) Vegetarian Cookbook: 240 Healthy and Easy No-Prep Recipes for Busy Cooks

I like this book, though all the recipes aren't vegan, many are and you can make substitutions to make them vegan in most cases. There's a recipe for pineapple crisp that I really want to try soon.

I chose this cookie recipe because it was fast and required few ingredients. Still, I didn't have everything it called for, like walnuts or pecans and granola. Since I'm not a big nut fan anyway, I just omitted this and in place of granola, I used oats.

These turned out really good. I love the raisin, chocolate and coconut combination! It took no time to make them either. The picture did not turn out so good I'm afraid. Don't let the fact that they look so gross deter you :)

These didn't get as hard as no bake cookies. Maybe they will after a few hours. Doesn't matter to me though.
They won't go to waste.

Growin' Some Peanuts, 2 Product Reviews & More Owls

My local nursery had something new this year that looked like a lot of fun-- peanut plants. I'm totally unfamiliar with growing peanuts, but I picked up a couple plants to try it out. I'm not even a big peanut fan, I just couldn't pass them up. I'll keep you posted on the nut situation.

Eating alone tonight so I went out to the garden, gathered some stuff for a salad and topped it with one of my favorite bottled salad dressings- Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing. It's vegan and all natural and despite it's strong taste, I love it. I usually go for light salad dressing but this one is thick. The only real downside is that for the price, about $4.50 per bottle, it doesn't last me more than about 3 days worth of salads. I would love to come up with a recipe for something similar to make at home. If you have a recipe, please leave a comment!
Watch the label because there used to be 2 versions of this and one wasn't vegan.

Since I worked hard in the gardens today and as I mentioned I'm eating alone, it seemed like a good time to pull out one of my favorite convenience foods-- Simply Asia Sesame Teriyaki Noodle Bowl
I really like the flavor. It's a little sweet and the sesame seeds really make it special. You make this in the microwave in 2 minutes. They even give you the bowl and a little fork which makes it perfect for work. The downside-- I'm not a big fan of using a microwave and it's high  in sodium-- 47% of the RDA, yikes!! Another thing I don't really like is the bowl can't be recycled. However, since the bowl comes with a lid, it makes a great little seed starting container.

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Months ago, I bought this adorable craft paper at a local hobby store. The same day, I found a gift bag with this owl on it. Lucky for me, the peachy color was a perfect match. I planned on doing something with it at some point and last night while I was super bored, I pulled the stuff out. I took a tray and painted it cream, then decoupaged the paper on, cut out the owl and adhered it, then topped it all with a protective coat. The end result, is a cute little tray that matches my living room.

This cutie came from a customer. She read the blog, saw I like owls and gave it to me :) What a nice gesture. The bottom comes off and you can put a candle in it. And it looks very cool lit up. I really love my customers and not just because they give me things ;)

Got this baby at a flea market. I think it's an owl. I guess it could be a chicken, but in my mind it's definitely an owl. Poor guy isn't perfect- has a chip on one ear- but I'm not complaining.

We've had this lamp for a couple of years.
Can you guess why I like it?

What's Blooming in June?

All kinds of pretty flowers are blooming in my garden right now. Pictured are yellow yarrow, red velvet yarrow, spirea, lilies, multi-colored bee balm, echinacea, and pink lemondade honeysuckle.

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The Colors of Bee Balm 

Bee Balm is such an inpressive flower. It grows wild here in Ohio but you generally only see it in red. I was lucky enough to find some pink growing alongside the road so I dug up a little and brought it home. To my sheer delight, some of it ended up being purple! 

• Bee Balm is a complexion booster and can help minimize redness
• American Indians used it as a seasoning
• The flowers can be eaten and make a lovely salad garnish
• Fresh and dried bee balm leaves can be used to make a medicinal tea
• Steam inhalation of the plant can be used for sore throats and bronchial inflammation
• Wild Bergamot was used also as an sweat inducer for ceremonial sweat lodges
  

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Daisies & Beautyberry Bush Foliage

 Pink Yarrow

 Red Velvet Yarrow

Torch Coneflower

 Lily

Pink Lemonade Honeysuckle

Strawberry Scented Geranium

Mr Lincoln Rose (one of my favorites)

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What's About to Bloom?

Crocosmia Lucifer

Mint Explosion

Sunflowers that re-seeded from last year