Two delicious meals & a beach getaway

Lots of great meals (and some terrible ones) in the last week or so! The first one was made by Brian and it was a simple sesame-teriyaki stir fry. We cooked up some udon noodles and Brian had been marinating some tofu for a couple of days, so he threw those in a wok with snow peas, carrots, daikon radish & mushrooms. Very simple, fast, delicious, and perfect when finished off with some sake! I just have to brag for a minute about how lucky I am to have a boyfriend who loves meat but still enjoys cooking vegan meals for us!! He has been really supportive of me since I started eating this way and has drastically cut back on his meat intake (all his choice, I swear!). When you're feeling lazy and don't want to make a teriyaki sauce or a marinade for your veggies you can just use a jarred one- that's what he did this time, although usually we like to make them from scratch. Asian food is popular at our place because it's so quick and we just throw whatever we have in the fridge into a wok. :)

The next day I left for a beach trip with some girlfriends. We meant to camp near Cannon Beach, OR, but because we got a much later start than we wanted and were just dying to get to the beach, we ended up driving to Manzanita and renting a beachfront room. It was such a gorgeous weekend and we mostly just lazed around on the beach in the sun. SO nice to have a weekend away from work for once! The downside was the food on this trip... we started from Olympia and grabbed some bagels to take on the road, but they accidentally messed up my order and put meat and cheese on mine, so I just had to snack on pita chips instead. That night for dinner we found an "Asian-fusion" restaurant to eat at which I thought should have some offerings for me, but what we ordered looked like prison food. I had tofu "curry" which was a grey gravy-like consistency over rice and frozen veggies. After pushing our food around on our plates for awhile we gave up. There were other food mishaps but I chalked it up to small towns and the lack of research I did beforehand. That night I did had my first deliberate cheat on veganism by roasting marshmallows, which have gelatin in them- a big vegan no-no. Next time I'll bring vegan marshmallows, dark chocolate, and graham crackers so I can have my own s'mores at the fire :) Here's a photo of the Manzanita sunset.

I forgot all about my bad food weekend when I got home on Sunday and went to a friend's place for dinner with girlfriends... she whipped up the most amazing Middle-Eastern themed feast for us! I am still dreaming of this meal, and ALL of it was vegan. Below is a (kind of lousy) pic of some of the delights... Israeli cous-cous salad, falafel, two kinds of hummus, lentils, dolmas, whole wheat pita, and my favorite of the night, roasted beets with raw slivered red onions in a balsalmic reduction. the meal was finished off with both a blackberry and a pear-rosemary tartlet. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH oh my gosh I want to eat this every single day. Thank you to my wonderful friends for being so talented in the kitchen and so generous to those of us who are a little cooking-challenged!

So go cook up a big meal with your friends and enjoy it with some wine, a movie, or just good conversation. And take a trip to the beach if you can, even if it's just for the day! But learn from my mistake and bring lots of food with you that you can eat so you don't end up picking a dud for a dinner-spot :)