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New Fall Yoga Books I’m Excited About
So full disclosure here I am not getting paid to do this post but books are how I make a living. My normal 8 to 5 day job is working for a wholesale company to buy books for the retail chain Books-A-Millon (BAM). Books-A-Million is the 2nd largest bookstore chain in the country and I buy the books for certain non-fiction categories for all of their stores. One of the perks of my job is I often get sneak peaks at new books and I have access to advance reader copies (ARC’s) of books before they are published. ARC’s are kind of like the manuscripts that the publishers work with…
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Jerk Seitan Sandwich with Pineapple Corn Relish
We were inspired by the Jerk Seitan Philly that Eric had at Sanctuary in Knoxville recently to come up with our own jerk seitan rub. I love Caribbean flavors especially in the summer when its so hot outside. Eric started by making a batch of his Basic Chick’n Seitan. While that was baking he made the Pineapple Corn Relish and the Jerk Sauce. To make the Pineapple Corn Relish mix together: 1 cup roasted corn 2 cups minced pineapple 2 tsp minced jalapeno pepper 2 tbsp chopped cilantro 1 tbsp minced red onion juice from one lime To make the Jerk Sauce mix together: 2 tbsp agave syrup 3 tbsp…
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Basic Chick’n Seitan
We use seitan in our meals quite often. It is a great protein source meat substitute and also an alternative to frozen soy-based products you might buy at the store. You can buy pre-made seitan at the store but it is easy to make yourself and homemade taste so much better. We will tweak the flavor profiles sometimes but most often we just start off with this basic recipe and then we change the flavor of it with a sauce or grilling glaze after the seitan is fully cooked. To make the Seitan you need: 1 cup vital wheat gluten (we buy ours in bulk online) 1 tbsp chickpea flour…
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Photos From Our Blue Ridge Road Trip
We are back home from our Virginia Blue Ridge road trip. We got back into Birmingham just in time for rush hour traffic Wednesday evening. We stayed at a condo in the Wintergreen ski resort. The resort is in a great location. Because we were at a higher elevation up on the mountain it was at least 10 degrees cooler and a lot less humid than back home. It is close to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah National park but it is also close to cideries, breweries, and wineries. The first night we checked out the Bold Rock cidery in Nellysford. This is their flagship location. We had visited…
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Easy Summer Dinner
We are having a great time on vacation in Virginia. Yesterday we explored Shenadoah and today we went wine tasting. The resort we are staying at is doing their 4th of July fireworks show tonight so we wanted to make something easy for dinner. We bought a pack of Field Roast Frankfurters and sauted them in a pan. Then we topped with vegetarian chili. With the hot dogs Eric whipped up a simple brussels sprout slaw. The slaw was mostly brussels but was mixed with radishes, grated parmesan cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. We also made a box of Daiya dairy free Alfredo Style Cheezy Mac. This…
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Sanctuary Vegan Cafe in Knoxville
We are on the road again! We drove up to Virginia today. We drove to Knoxville, TN last night to split up the drive. We made it into Knoxville at dinner time so we stopped at Sanctuary Vegan Cafe. This was or first time there. It’s tucked into an old strip center next to a movie theater with a simple sign that says Vegan Cafe. The employees were all super friendly. They have a decent sized menu with a lot of seitan items. We shared the cauliflower buffalo wings. They were amazing! They were crispy and just the right level of spicy and how can you go wrong with vegan…
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Vegetarian Patty Melt Sandwiches
We have been trying to eat extra healthy on weekdays. I have been taking my lunch to work more and Eric has been cutting back on weeknight beers. Those extra calories add up faster than you would think. But it’s hard to be good all the time so weekends are our cheat days. Friday night for dinner we made patty melts. To make the vegetarian patty melt you need: Gardein ultimate beefless burgers sliced sourdough bread 1 small white onion diced Velveeta cheese (or Field Roast Chao slices to make it vegan) about 1 tbsp vegan butter This can be made all on one skillet. Start by cooking the diced…
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My Yoga Journey
I have never really talked about my yoga practice on Vegetarian South before but it is a big part of my life. I am not a teacher. I am just a student. Actually scratch that I am not “Just a” anything. I am a yogi. I am working on limiting the word “just” from my vocabulary. It is weak and unnecessary. I often find myself drafting an email at work “I just wanted to check on” but thats not exactly what I mean I don’t need to be polite about it “I want to check on” fill in the blank and it is probably because it has been over a…
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Getting Ready For Our Next Road Trip!
So excited! Counting down the days! We are road tripping up to the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway and staying near Shenandoah National Park. We have never been to this park or done the northern part of the Blue Ridge so we are looking forward to seeing some new places. If anyone has hiking trail recommendations in that area send them my way. We are trying to find a couple of easy day hikes. Around this time last year we did a Blue Ridge trip to the section near Asheville, NC. Since Asheville can get expensive fast we stayed in Waynesville to save money. Waynesville is about a…
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Blackberry Picking
I like to eat seasonally and local as much as I can. We go to the farmers market some but you can’t get fresher than going straight to the source. So saturday morning we went blackberry picking with my mom and sister. Eric went with us too but he was convinced he was only invited to be berry picking labor. I told him that it would be easy and we wouldn’t be there long but was he wasn’t buying it. My mom found the farm online from pickyourown.org it is a site that connects you to local farmers in your area. The farm we went to had blackberries and blueberries…
