An apology! And the last week of MoFo, condensed.

So, I do sort of have of an excuse for the 2 weeks of no posts. We had some unexpected family news last week and had to make a last-minute trip down south, and this past week, Dan's parents have been visiting, so we have been hanging out with them instead of blogging! Forgive us?

Our sudden change of plans meant we missed out on DC's VegFest this year. VegFest is like Christmas  (or pick your holiday) for me -- free samples, coupons, deals, vegan food from PA, VA, and MD that we don't get to eat usually, and talks and demos throughout the day... we will have to wait until next year, though.

We DID get to go to Imagine Vegan Cafe in Memphis, though, which will get its own post later!

Anyway, here are some photos I had been planning to post for the last week of MoFo:

Red beans and rice with vegan sausage

We made red beans and rice from my mom's recipe, using some multigrain rice (it had seeds and stuff in it, it was good) and leftover seitan sausage from a while ago. I love red beans and rice. I think it is one of the meals I'd be OK living off of--maybe because we used to have it almost every week when I was little, and I never got tired of it.

Pad thai, brussels sprouts, and leftover rice 

Admittedly, pad thai is not one of those foods I could live off of forever, but maybe for a few weeks! We made a sauce for this with a bit of peanut butter, hoisin, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sriracha, and this Thai mushroom-chili spread stuff from Trader Joe's. The brussels sprouts were yummy! I think we microwaved these in a bag, and then added olive oil and salt (we might have fried or broiled them a bit after microwaving, I can't remember...)

Pasta and broccoli casserole and green beans

Another childhood dish, slightly altered... this is usually made with rigatoni, but Dan bought some other pasta--whole wheat. I actually do not recommend using whole wheat pasta for this. The white sauce doesn't cook with it as well, or something. Also, make sure you used unsweetened milk... we used unsweetened almond and it was kind of weird, so maybe soy or rice is better? The green beans were cooked in the oven for 30 minutes or so with olive oil, salt, and pepper!

I also made these cookies and had planned to take a photo, but I didn't get to before we had eat them as we rushed to the airport to head to Memphis!

That's all for now...more soon, I promise!