PRIMAL STRIPS!!

I know I have not blogged in ages, but when Primal Strips awesomely sent me some of their products to try I wanted to tell the world what I thought!


These things are yummy!

I will definitely be a buyer of the Hickory Smoked and Texas BBQ! They are the BEST flavors and textures in my humble opinion.
I must be honest, I am not the biggest fan of seitan and after I tried all the flavors, cooked and uncooked, I found out that the Lime, Thai Peanut, and Teryaki were seitan, oppose to soy like my two favorites. (All information is listed on their trusty website) It was definitely the texture that wasn't as appealing, but the flavors were very good. When I cooked them in the soup below, I appreciated the texture much more. The lime was probably my least favorite, but for someone that likes a good tangy flavor, this one is for you!

The hot and spicy is made of shitake mushrooms, has an interesting texture and definitely a good bit of hotness.

I decided to use the teryaki and thai peanut in a simple udon noodle soup and I really like these in the soup. They held on to their flavor even after being in onions and home-made veg broth.

These guys are a keeper!
THANKS FOR THE SAMPLES PEEPS AT PRIMAL STRIPS!

Snow Days

Today it is absolutely blizzarding and I am sitting in my store finding ways to entertain myself while everyone else either gets snow days or what not. Who shops on days like this? Why oh why must Thornes Marketplace be open on a day like this?

I will amuse myself and you of course with some stories from the previous nights. Although I don't work at the Northampton Brewery anymore I still get invited to their holiday staff party and let me just say it is the best night of the year, pretty much besides say New Years Eve and my birthday, obv.

This past holiday party I woke up on my couch, clothes on my living room floor to find I had left my purse, phone, and ONE glove OUTSIDE my apartment door! WTF, yea good times. Apparently I learned I live in an extremely trustworthy building! Some craptastic iphone pics above of Anna and I in our hot red holiday dresses.

The night before the big Holiday Brew Party I went to see Dan Bern in concert. He is seriously the Bob Dylan of our generation and absolutely amazing. This was my second time seeing him, and I am fairly certain that last year after his show we had some lip contact. HOTT.

The store is going well. Maybe I should post some pics of my store in my next post. I don't think I have ever shared those with you lovelies.

Food lately has been pretty redundant. Lots of homemade soups (today I made a tomato and three bean chili with leak broth, yummm. I make em the night before and heat up the next am while getting ready for work. Soup always tastes better after you let it sit ) and stir-fried greens, hello KALE, my fave! Cliff bars, oh holiday festiv flavors I love thee, all sorts of hummus and oh meatless meatballs from TJ's. I am sickly addicted. I need help. Like I cannot stop eating them, it's pretty well... amazeballs.

Well I hope you gems have a lovely snowy or not afternoon. I will be reading blogs all day to entertain myself xoxo

Thanksgiving, hummus platters and more!

Hello gems!

What a nuttyballs weekend! I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! Mine was in Lexington with my dad's whole fam, a lot of vino and hell of a lot of vegan food :) First up I know you all want to see what I ate for lunch today. Good Neighbors makes a delicious middle eastern spread. Yumm, I think I could live off of this stuff. Don't judge. My precious mac as my tray, poor thing. Sacrifices I make in retail to keep small business alive ;)

This is just a hilar pic of me and my friend Damien at Butterfly. A Chinese restaurant that has two menus and one is all vegan, love that! I love my food on chopsticks obv!

And on to the Thanksgiving Feast! For apps we devoured hummus and tobouleh with crackers and pitas. It's a family addiction I tell ya.

The vegan table consists of homemade everything. Cranberry sauce, dates, pumpkin rolls, wild rice stuffing with tofurkey sausage and cranberries, mashed potatoes, bourbon maple sweet potatoes, roasted mashed squash, green beans with mushrooms, roasted Brussels sprouts, noodle slaw and more I can't remember. Damnnnn it was good!!

And of course pumpkin pie with a cookie crust. There was also my mother's famous chocolate pumpkin muffins but I didn't get a shot of those.

Yummm. Now I don't have a tofurkey or field roast at the real Thanksgiving but I want to have a friends Thanksgiving where we do that. Any preferences people?? xoxo

Pizza Pizza

Running my own store means I work 7 days a week. Bleh, I know. And three of those days are 11 hour days, more bleh. But Friday and Saturday my friend Anna and my mom work the last three hours so I don't want to kill myself. Every Saturday night my two gems (Damien and Mark) and I go out to our fave pizza place where the bartender hooks us up AND they have vegan cheese! I always try to make a different pizza every week since they have an ABUNDANCE of veggies to choose from.

Last night I got soy cheese, zucchini, mushrooms, caramelized onions and roasted garlic. Here are two of the last slices, sorry I forgot to snap a pic before I devoured 3/4 of it.

Yummmm

Life Cafe!

Hi bloggies!

The last two days I have been in NYC. Tuesday night I was asked to speak at a Young Women in Business Entrepreneurial Event, and it went really well. It was weird realizing just two years ago I was sitting in a classroom just like these guys listening to people who had started their own business and now I was on the other side. It was a very cool feeling and being in the city completely recharged my batteries. Such a refreshing place to be.

Lots of vegan food and drink was to be had. We had our first lunch at Gobo, one of my favorites, unfotunately did not take pics. Gobo

That night we went to Life Cafe where we all indulged on too many cocktails and french fries to appreciate the real goodness this place has to offer. Life Cafe is where the writer of Rent wrote the show, and is also where the dancing restaurant scene on tables takes place. I am in the center with my two friends on either side of me, and a new um... close friend Kenny on the far right.

Life Cafe is amazing. The next day I did venture back there for lunch and indulged on their vegan burrito with soy cheese and tofu sour cream and of course lots of guac and wine. So delish. I might have even met my fellow vegan alcoholic that day, but we can't jinx that one so hush on that for a while ;) Pardon the bad lighting below...It was amazeballs though.

ATTENTION and chocolate-pumpkin brownies

Since I started blogging again there is an issue I have been wanting to bring up and lucky for me someone wrote exactly what I wanted to say perfectly today, no preaching, no judging, just facts at "Where's The Revolution" Blog. In Praise of gluten and other yummy things.

I adore the list in this post above. It is perfect!

Since blogging again I have seen many vegan blogs (to my disappointment) that seem so restricting in terms of diet, and I even feel put-off by the lack of fun some people seem to have in exploring their lifestyle. I think if veganism is ever going to catch on at a successful rate people have to understand how much you DO have living a vegan lifestyle. Soo many foods I eat now I would never know exsisted if I never went veg. Does anyone else feel this way? (Disclaimer: I do not mean to direct this to people that for health reasons cannot eat wheat, gluten, soy, etc. Please realize I respect that for health reasons some people cannot eat certain things. This is not a post that applies to that.)

My friends ask me to cook for them all the time, they order vegan meals when we are out, are always up for veg restaurants and usually finish my meals when I don't. My mom went vegetarian after I went vegan. I want people to realize you don't have to be straight-edge or give up drinking, or cut out sugar, or even just shop at health food stores (although I do) because you are vegan.

To sum up what I feel: I am vegan but I love my fried tofu, my vodka, and my frozen meatless balls just as much as my trips to the farmer's market every week for fresh produce. I do eat almost all organic and whole foods, but I use vital wheat gluten for sausages and seitan like it's going out of style, and I could not live without veganaise. I am also a total nooche and salt whore. My mom bakes weekly and delivers her goodness to me. (She's a typical jewish mom, and if she's not shoving my fridge with food and baked goods, it severely disturbs her. Luckily, she totally gets the vegan thing.) It's not about restrictions, it's what makes you happy and what works for you to enjoy life while doing your part for animals and the environment and your own health at the same time.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts?

Chocolate pumpkin brownies from VCTOTW :) Melt in your mouth delish. Thanks mom!

The Kind Diet

I know this is hard to read but Robert Cheeke wrote " To Jessica, you rock big time!"

Alicia Silverstone has always been one of my favorite people because:

a: Clueless was one of the best movies of all time and she totally rocked it out in that

b: She's a vegan, duh

c: She signed her new book to ME! I can just feel the jealousy ;)

I cannot wait to read this and cook some of her recipes! My facebook buddy/vegan body builder Robert Cheeke is featured in the book and also signed it to me and sent a few of his products Vega to me, which I am also looking forward to trying. THANK YOU ROBERT!