Let Them Eat Vegan! {giveaway} – ENDED 5/8/12
Goooooooood morning <3 Fun news 🙂 The blog was chosen as a reader’s choice winner for best personal training blog over at Fitness Magazine. Thank you SO much to those of you who took the time to vote – I’m honored to have been included in such wonderful company.
Last week’s little photo shoot was for an upcoming issue of Fitness Magazine- exciting stuff!
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Lots of food prep went down in our kitchen last night: the usual stuff for the week (chopped veggies, salsa, grains, a baby meal)
and a seriously amazing dinner.
(Sorry for the weird color. My camera died so I had to resort to the iPhone)
As you guys know, Dreena Burton is one of my all-time favorite cookbook authors. My copy of “Eat, Drink and Be Vegan” has tamari stains and chocolate smudges all over it- it’s been well-loved. Her Supercharge Me cookies are a dessert favorite and my hardcore carnivore husband loves her recipes, too. Even though they’re vegan, they never feel like they’re missing anything, because they’re satisfying and filled with bold flavors.
I also love that a majority of the recipes aren’t dependent on faux meat and soy: mostly whole foods with fresh fruits and veggies as the star of the show.
When Dreena offered to send me a copy of her new cookbook, “Let Them Eat Vegan!” I was so excited to try out some of her new recipes. While I’m still getting back in the swing of making dinners that aren’t prepped by myself and then grilled by the Pilot, I’ve only tried a few of the new recipes. I’ve made the kale slaw a couple of times, and it’s incredible.
When I realized we had all of the ingredients on-hand for her Almond Curry Chickpea recipe, it was an easy choice for dinner.
Creamy spiced almond butter sauce,
chickpeas and zucchini,
baked and served over brown rice.
It was absolutely perfect, and just as before, Mr. Pilot didn’t seem to mind the lack of animal protein at all.
Dreena kindly offered to giveaway a cookbook to a lucky reader, so if you’d like a copy of your own, all ya have to do is leave a comment with a recent kitchen disaster.
I’ll go first:
I set the smoke alarm off while making a salad beast. I was grilling chicken on the George Foreman to put atop the salad and before I knew it, the alarms started beeping. Livi was sound asleep and managed to stay sleeping upstairs while I opened doors and frantically fanned a pillow over the alarm. The Pilot just laughed.
I’ll pick a winner tonight at midnight EST and post it in tomorrow’s AM post.
Edited: This giveaway has ended as of 11:52 AM EST, 5/8/12. Please stay tuned for more giveaways in the future! Did you win? Find out here.
Have a great day and I’ll see ya tonight!
xoxo
Gina
Yesterday’s #smoothieaday:
PB & J
-1.5 C almond milk
-1/2 banana
-1 C frozen mixed berries
-1 scoop Sun Warrior
-1 T peanut butter
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I totally cut a huge gash on my middle finger knuckle on a can lid! i still made dinner and had to convince my toddler that i was ok and not going to bleed out! he was a little nervous, poor guy!
I have been wanting to try one of her cookbooks for quite some time – I always see you (among other bloggers) raving about her recipes!
I haven’t had any true kitchen disasters recently, but a few days ago I was making a pasta recipe that called for sundried tomatoes, and I accidentally used smoked dried tomatoes…way to read carefully!! That flavor is STRONG – the dish was totally changed
Recently I had to make treats to my sons school for all the teachers. I spent a lot of time preparing miniature cheesecakes for all of them and them proceeded to burn them all in the oven. Major fail!
I had a bunch of company coming over for the fist time and one of the couples was vegetarian so I thought I’d try a new recipe of vodka cream pasta. Long story short I used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth. It was so embarrassing when she saw the cans sitting out. My well planned veg. Meal wasn’t completely vegetarian after all!
The “start” button has recently stopped working on my microwave, leaving me no option but to hit the “popcorn” setting to get it to start (2:50 seconds, just in case you were wondering). I keep forgetting that it’s a pre-set (often too-long) time and thus exploding my oatmeal/soup/whatever as a result. Not technically a “disaster”, but a sure sign it’s time to get a new microwave . . .
My most recent disaster was spilling an entire box of ditalini dried pasta all over my kitchen floor. They are so small and went everywhere! I am still finding them here and there.
Lesson learned- be more careful! 🙂
It was my first time trying to make tofu and I read to press it beforehand. Well, I used 15 pounds of books and magazines and tried to cook it up! Let’ s just say I had a tofu mess and we ordered in supper that night!
Hey Gina! Such a fan of your blog- I was cooking pasta for my family and instead of holding the pasta while it softened (so it could all fit in the water- I was using a shallow pan) I decided to rest it against the side of the pan so I could go do other things. Well… the pasta caught on fire! Pretty ditzy move on account of the fact that you cook pasta in water! Have a great day!
Worst disaster was burning kale chips in the oven … stink is a nice way to put it … now I’m on the market for a dehydrator.
Hi Gina! I made a green smoothie in my janky old blender, and while I was facing my cabinet to grab a glass, the power of the smoothie blew the blender lid right off and to my horror, green liquidy goodness splattered everywhere. I now hold my blender lid firmly down when trying to make any smoothie. Guess I could really use a vitamix sometime soon! 😉
twice in the last month i have prepped our coffee machine and turned it on and just set the pot to the side of it and walked away. unfortunately it’s not one that has a sensor so it just brewed an entire pot all over my counter. perfect way to start the day ! 🙂
ps i reeallly want the recipe to that almond curry chickpea dinner!
A few days ago I went to add some garlic salt into a recipe, not realizing that the lid had broken. When I picked it up the top fell off and it spilled all over the top of the stove, thankfully mostly missing the food though. It was a pain to clean up!
My bestie and I celebrated our bdays together with a party. I offered to make bring most of the food over to her house after baking the cupcakes. I fiddled with the recipe too much and they came out crispy and bitter! Then,I ran late (as usual) and the guests had to end up helping prepare the meal. At least the second batch of cupcakes was gone in a flash!
The first time I actually microwaved popcorn myself (since other people usually do it and i mooch off). I read the instructions and it said for “1-3mins” and I though it must be easy, just choose 3mins since there always those leftover kernels that never pop so by 3 mins it should all be popped! NOPE! I was wrong….by 3 mins, steam was coming from the top of my microwave and when I opened it, it was PITCH BLACK inside. I told my mother of the news and it was a hard lesson learned since she had to buy a new one. Opps =P Thanks mom! haha
My husband singed his beard hairs trying to warm a taco shell in the toaster oven. It’s not my kitchen disaster, but it’s pretty good!
haha i bet that smelled reallllllly nice 😉
Yeah girl!! You deserve to be famous, you rock so very much. Recent kitchen disaster, I made a vegan banana bread, and I put oat flour in, because I did not have enough whole wheat. For some reason it made the dough really gluey, and it ended up being weird and un-cooked in the centre, and burnt on the outside. My Love and Baby sister still ate half of it anyway, womp, womp.
Ummm, today. I tried making peanut butter bars for my friend’s soccer game but they turned out way too sweet. Just eating one gave me a stomach ate. No way could I give those out…maybe I need a new cookbook. 🙂
i live with a bunch of people so when i make something i make a lot. A few weeks ago i made a big batch of granola and used up the last of our oats, nuts, seeds etc and burned the whole thing. I felt so bad that i tried to salvage as much as i could but it was pretty gross and wasteful
I dropped a huge wooden cutting board on my foot and ended up in the ER.
Definitely left a metal spoon in the blender while stirring my smoothie. The thing blew up my glass blender jar! Biggest mess ever (purple smoothie all over the wall) and has left me without a blender to use in the meantime =(
Just yesterday, I tried holding the lid on the food processor instead of screwing on ….the one lip was on top of the handle and there no NO seal. Both the kitchen and myself were covered in black bean soup.
I was boiling artichokes and I guess I didn’t put enough water b/c pretty soon it smelled like something was burning and the whole bottom of the pot was BLACK and the poor artichokes were blackened on 1 side 🙁
I just bought a new pot this weekend- I plan to learn from my past mistake!
I used Brewer’s Yeast instead of Nutritional Yeast the first time I tried to make vegan cheeze sauce. Holy disgustingness!!!! I need to win that book!! 🙂
Most of what I do in the kitchen is a disaster, but I try. I did once set fire to my microwave at work. I forgot the muffin was wrapped in foil. Oopsie! 🙂
I was making homemade tortillas over the weekend and I walked away while cooking one of them on the stove (to tend to my children fighting) and completely burnt it. It was stuck to the pan and smelt awful! I spent a good 20 minutes scraping it off the pan.
It was the fire alarm for me, too! I just moved into a new place and was grilling veggies on an indoor grill pan. Little did I know that the smoke detector was located in the kitchen! Whoever picked that location out was obviously not much of a cook 🙂
ooh kitchen disaster. i haven’t had anything too awful recently- the worst i think was that i was microwaving my oatmeal in the microwave at work, and the bowl was too short and it bubbled and spilled all over our microwave. don’t think any of my coworkers were very impressed
I made the WORST sweet potato burritos one time. Seriously, they were disgusting.
I tried making rice in a hot pot back on college. It turned into a black disc. Oops
I forgot to turn the oven on, so my chocolate cake has become … a chocolate cream .. bleab!
The other morning I was chopping veggies for my salad, and I decided to use my hand as a cutting board. Not the smartest move. I should switch to making lunch when I am actually awake.
Hmmm Kitchen disaster? Maybe more recently when I thought it was a smart idea to leave the paper towels next to the stove…needless to say in seconds we had a mini fire on our hands! At least it was put out very quickly, but left quite the mess
Kitchen disaster–when I made an angel food cake and it BLEW over the top and into the oven. It burned and smelled SOOO bad!
I tried to make a brown butter sauce with breadcrumbs for some white asparagus the othery day. I spontaneously decided to do it when I saw the recipe on the asparagus package but it was awful. Way too many breadcrumbs! 🙁 My most epic disaster was when I was a much stupider, less experienced in the kitchen teenager. I put something like 1 cup of baking powder instead of 1 tbsp in a cookie recipe! It seriously fizzled in your mouth when you tried the dough, haha! My Mom determined there was no salvaging it and we had to toss it. At least I learned a lesson about double checking units of measurements though!
I have been wanting to try one of her books for the longest time! But last week I let my oatmeal cook on the stove for about 40 min before I remembered it was there. It smelled horrible and was like a cement rock- it took so much scrubbing to get it out of the pan!
I like to cook frozen pizzas without a sheet under them so they get extra crispy, well I was cooking a thin crust pizza and its edge slipped between the grates on the oven rack and all the toppings slid off as it unthawed, I was left with some naked pizza, and a very messy oven!
my most recent “disaster” was last week when making applesauce muffins. When the muffins had been in the oven about 10 minutes I began to clean up the ingredients and realized I forgot to include the Palm sugar. I thought for sure they would go in the trash, but pleasantly surprised that the muffins were tasty without any sugar! Didn’t really end in a disaster afterall 🙂
This cookbook looks amazing! I would love to win a copy.
Most recent disaster was when my brain took a vacation and I didn’t put any cheese atop my homemade pizza. My husband took out the pizza when the timer went off.
“Um honey, where’s the cheese?”
“it’s on top of the counter, can you put it on the pizza?”
“aren’t you supposed to cook the cheese with the pizza?”
“ohhhh…yea”
Not much of a messy disaster but very much a disaster according to my husband who apparently will have nothing to do with cheeseless pizza.
In my sleepiness I accidentally dumped coffee grounds into the water part of the coffeemaker…didn’t even notice until after I had my coffee! That was a fun mess to clean. The cookbook looks amazing!
One time my mother was cooking macaroni for us kids and she was multi-tasking and fetching something from a cabinet which was really high up. I remember her standing on a chair, getting the item, and then all of a sudden, she was falling and her hand somehow went straight into the pot of boiling water. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the night in the emergency room. The cookbook looks fab! 🙂
My recent kitchen disaster involved someone else…. as we were putting together the croissant egg salad sandwiches for my bridal shower recently, I noticed a family friend lick her own finger and try to rub some red substance off of the croissant. I was mortified. There was no way I’d let that be served to our guests but in the same token, how could I take it away without embaressing her?? I ended up saying ‘oh, did you cut yourself?’ and whisking the sandwich to the wastebasket. She said she didnt and she wasn’t sure what was on the croissant but better safe than sorry!
I have not had much time to cook or be in the kitchen recently since I am going through final exams 🙁 But while I was studying in the library late last night, some genius decided to make popcorn and burnt it!!!! It was so bad I had to leave the library… Guess that’s as close as a kitchen disaster that I can get lol!
Two days ago I just caught a pan of coconut on fire in my oven while trying to toast it. MAJORLY on fire. I will try the stovetop next time!
I made cupcakes for my husband’s high school reunion lunch, and while I was happily snapping away photos I realized that my light set was totally melting the frosting! They looked so sad, I popped them in the fridge but the damage was already somewhat done.
I have had many kitchen disasters over the years, but my DH does most of the cooking now! So my most recent (possible) disaster would have been when I made corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s day! I bought the corned beef already done from Trader Joe’s, so I was concerned about making the cabbage right! I did half in the pan that I was heating the corned beef in, and attempted to roast the other half! The half in the pan was great, and the half I attempted to roast…not so much!
The first time I tried to make Mama Pea’s broiled tofu I ended up burning it do bad the smoke alarm went off, i opened all the windows to air out the house…not realizing how windy it was. Well the wind gusted through blowing the flame from a candle I had lit. This caused the flower decoration also on the table brubthe candle to go up in flames! The smoke alarm went off again & I grabbed a towel to smother out the fire. Thankfully it worked & I didn’t burn down my house! Though the table does now have a nice burn mark in it…
My worst kitchen disaster happen several years ago in high school. My mom had asked me to make dinner and she left the instructions and the ingredients on the counter for me. I had made the dish several times before but I was confused by an ingredient change she had made, so I called her to confirm and she said, yes all the ingredients were correct, just make the cornflake chicken. So I did using the frosted cornflakes she had left on the counter (I checked, there were no regular cornflakes in the pantry). Although frosted cornflakes might taste good with milk, they taste awful when used to bread chicken. My most recent kitchen disaster was forgetting to add the yeast to a batch of homemade bread. When I tried again, I forgot the salt. It was not a good day for baking.
My recent disaster was when I accidentally turned on the wrong stove element and had a plastic colander on the element that heated up. Burnt plastic smells so awful and on top of that, it melted onto the element and took forever to clean up.
(my sister gave me permission to share this one-we share the kitchen;)
I came home one day to billows of smoke leading into the kitchen and an unpleasant, yet familiar smell. My sister was standing over a pot on the stove filled with black stuff and was telling me how she tried making lentils, the smoke alarm went off and she opened all the windows but the smell won’t go away.
Turns out, badly burned lentils smell almost exactly like marijuana…who knew?!
For the rest of the day we were worried neighbors would think we were the “pot house” because the smell lingered forever, and when people came through the door they asked who had been smoking…kind of embarrassing.
Better yet, our dad’s a pastor.