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Road Trip Roundup
Home sweet home! We got home last night and I am so happy to not be in a car right now. We had a great road trip but I am feeling exhausted. Our last day in the park we got up early went back to Sprague Lake and we spotted this guy walking across the lake. We left Colorado early friday morning and drove a little less than half way home. We stopped in for the night in Kansas City. We had dinner at Cafe Gratitude. This was our first visit there and the food was amazing. It was exactly what we needed after a long day on the road.…
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Hiking & Chilling Rocky Mountain National Park
We are loving Colorado! Sad knowing tomorrow is our last day to spend in the park. The first few days we took it pretty easy trying to adjust to the higher elevation. We were also surprised by the hazy skies caused by the smoke coming from wildfires in neighboring states. So sad reading about the fires and amazed of how large of an area they effect. Rocky Mountain National Park was also insanely crowded Labor Day Weekend. Rangers were limiting the number of cars into the most popular areas of the park. The day the smoke was heaviest we decided not to hike and went into Bolder. We checked out…
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Goodbye August Hello September
Goodbye August! This month has flown by which I am thankful for because I am not a fan of August. By the time it rolls around I am sick of the summer heat and humidity. Fall can not get here soon enough! I am looking forward to Labor Day weekend. We are road tripping to Colorado for the week. I need to start downloading podcasts for the drive tonight. What do you guys have planned for the long weekend? We went to Pepper Place farmers market a few times in August. I am obsessed with the micro greens from Iron City Organics and we also bought a new live edge board from…
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Vegan Whipped Pumpkin Pecan Dip
When I found the tub of SoDelicious Dairy Free Coco Whip at Publix I knew exactly what I wanted to make…vegan pumpkin dip! I wanted to make a sweet healthy-ish snack but all of the pumpkin dips I found on Pinterest seemed pretty high in calories even the ones claiming to be healthy. Most of them were made with cream cheese and loads of added sugar. They just felt to heavy for light snack. The vegan coco whip is pretty amazing by itself but I spiced it up a bit with some fall flavor. What are your favorite fall treats? If you are craving a PSL this will do the trick!…
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End of Summer Road Trip Planning
If you haven’t noticed we take a lot of road trips. We like to travel and we normally drive. Eric doesn’t like to fly and sometimes it’s cheaper just to drive. Throughout the year we will take quick trips. A quick drive up to the mountains in Tennessee (about 5 hr drive) or down to a gulf coast beach (about 4 hr drive). We consider those short drives easy trips we could do for a long weekend. Longer trips take more planning and of course more vacation days away from work so we really only plan one epic trip a year. The longest road trip we have ever done was…
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Vegan Nashville Hot Chicken Sliders
Hot Chicken is a Nashville specialty. Honestly is seems like the whole south has co-opted it as their own. Even Birmingham has a Hot Chicken restaurant. Basically it is a twist on classic southern fried chicken coated with super hot cayenne pepper sauce. Did I mention it’s really hot? So to veganize we made Chick’n Fried Seitan and slathered it with sauce. The end result is these amazing vegan hot chicken sliders. We started by making a batch of of our Basic Chick’n Seitan. This can be done ahead of time. We sliced the cooked seitan into small cutlet pieces. Some of the thicker pieces we even sliced in half…
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Spicy Siracha Granola
I love making granola because its easy and its a portable snack. I will eat it for breakfast with fruit and yogurt but if I am short on time I will just take some with me and eat it plain. It is one of my go to foods to throw in my backpack to take with me on early morning hike. Today I decide I wanted to make some granola that was a little different so I came up with this spicy granola. Who doesn’t love Siracha? To make the Spicy Granola you need: 2 cups oats 1/3 cup honey 1/3 cup peanut butter 1 tbsp or more to taste…
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New Fall Cookbooks I’m Excited About
I admit I don’t spend as much time flipping through cookbooks as I used to. I find a lot of my food inspiration online but there is something special about physical books. I maybe a little biased (this is not a sponsored post but I do work in the book industry) but there is something very calming about taking a little time out of your day to sit down with a book and just emerge yourself in that world. It also brings me an odd amount of joy just to collect cookbooks. I do try to limit myself. We have 2 ok maybe 3 shelves dedicated just to cookbooks. Whenever…
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What’s for Brunch
I decided I wanted to start hosting semi regular sunday brunches because I love brunch I am not a huge fan of going out for brunch. It’s always too crowded, with long waits and limited veggie options. When I told Eric he freaked out a bit until I told him not to worry because I was only inviting him and the cat. I knew he was only panicking at the thought of how much work going into cleaning and cooking to hosting guest. Saturday morning we went to Pepper Place farmers market downtown Birmingham. We bought a loaf of good french bread. Then we bought a watermelon radish and some…
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Vegan Mac & Cheese
We have been experimenting more with vegan cheese sauces. A lot of them have a cashew base but this one is a little different. We made this sweet potato “cheese” sauce in our Vitamix. It is a quick and easy recipe. The Vegan Mac & Cheese doesn’t even need to bake. To make the vegan cheese sauce combine the following and blend until smooth: 2 cooked sweet potatoes (we trimmed the skin off ours and steamed in the instant pot but you can also bake or boil) 1/2 cup coconut milk 3 tbsp vegetable oil 3 tbsp soy sauce 2 tbsp nutritional yeast 1 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp…
