tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87350540542172221542024-03-12T23:38:13.815-07:00Positively Veganeasy plant based recipes for anyone who loves good foodKim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comBlogger454125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-19781756851915893852017-08-17T11:29:00.000-07:002017-08-17T11:29:53.405-07:00Easy Vegan MinestroneHere's a good soup I threw together the other night, just using regular things we almost always have around. Use what you have. It will work.
The ingredients are pretty basic, and as with my other un-recipes, amounts are not important. The pasta is optional, but we're big noodleheads.
Easy Vegan Minestrone
small pasta, like elbows or little shells
1 onion, chopped
lots of fresh garlic, Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-67447608992459750002017-08-07T09:24:00.001-07:002017-08-07T09:24:20.274-07:00Zucchini with ChickpeasI don't know why I'm not a gardener. I'm just not. But people often bring me good things from their own gardens, which I really enjoy. I was gifted with an enormous zucchini the other day, and my first reaction was, Oh crap, what am I going to do with this monster? After pondering my options for a while, I decided to cut it in half, and make a simple dinner of zucchini and chickpeas. (The other Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-43863480686697837882017-07-27T08:18:00.001-07:002017-07-27T08:18:54.743-07:00What The Health
Over the last few weeks, several people have surprised me with emails telling me they're going vegan as a result of watching the movie, What The Health. What? Really? I mean, great! But I've never seen so many people so strongly influenced by a food film before. So I watched it for myself, and now I get it.
Have you seen it yet? You can watch it on Netflix, or on the film's own website. Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-39984963528362879202017-04-17T13:38:00.002-07:002017-04-17T13:38:35.598-07:00Black Bean SoupThis one is very different from the White Bean Soup I shared the other day. It's a little bit spicy and chili-like, and goes well with corn bread or corny chips of some sort. I love beans. Grab a spoon and make a big pot of this to get you through some of these last rainy spring days.
Black Bean Soup
Sauté 1/2 an onion, chopped, for 2-3 minutes, in a little oil, over medium heat.
Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-23817904566322159382017-04-12T09:09:00.000-07:002017-04-12T09:09:02.294-07:00White Bean SoupMaking an occasional exception to the general ending of this blog, I'll continue to post new recipes now and then. It's purely for selfish reasons, so I'll be able to recreate new favorite dishes without having to dig through stacks of scribbled notes. Of course you're more than welcome to try these for yourself.
I think it's kind of funny - keeping track of my own good recipes was the original Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-71873810434576339992016-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:002016-09-27T00:00:02.813-07:00Toaster PancakesI always make too much food. Always. It's not like I'm trying to cook ahead and stock up for the week. I just can't scale back my old habit of cooking for five or more people, learned first from my mom, and carried over to my own family later. Now it's just Rick and me most of the time, but I still make enough for house full of kids.
It's OK. It would be even more OK if we had something Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-20514583693242441972016-09-20T00:00:00.000-07:002016-09-20T00:00:17.914-07:00Learn to Speak ChineseWe have a newly opened Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood. Our meat eating friends have had good things to say about it, so we gave it a try the other night. It was Rick's choice for his birthday dinner.
Veggie Chow Mein
Duck House Chinese Restaurant doesn't appear to have a website, but I did find this page on Eater. We wandered in on a Monday night, and were greeted warmly and seated Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-75696141363550595792016-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:002016-09-13T00:00:28.209-07:00Salad and French FriesYou're at a restaurant with friends. Everyone is deciding whether to order the salmon or the cheeseburger or the chicken caesar... and you begin to panic that you're not going to get anything to eat until you go home. You know there's a granola bar in your bag, but you can't figure out how to smuggle it discreetly to your mouth. Everything, everything, everything on the menu has meat in it - evenKim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-43846862173143330092016-09-06T00:00:00.000-07:002016-09-06T00:00:09.424-07:00From Hot Dogs to Fabulous FalafelThe old Der Wienerschnitzel a-frame on Meridian Ave in San Jose has started a new life as Flying Falafel. It's all vegan and gluten free, and it's a terrific addition to the Bay Area vegan food scene.
The guys running it are cheerful, speedy, and generous. The food may be fast, but it's also real, and really, really good. I went there for lunch two days in a row, and saved half of my second Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-24038079299521750212016-08-29T10:03:00.002-07:002016-08-29T10:03:42.440-07:00Wedding Week!My daughter is getting married over Labor Day Weekend, and as MOTB, I really can't focus on anything but the wedding and the big magic bubble of happiness that surrounds all involved. It's my job to keep that intact, which I wrote about today in TakingTheLongWayHome. Read it if you want to! Link above!
I have a post scheduled to pop in next week, about some fabulous falafel I enjoyed recently. Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-7003052338094620832016-08-23T00:00:00.000-07:002016-08-23T00:00:02.837-07:00No-Fuss LunchI have a shelf full of vegan cookbooks. I love them. I'll keep buying them. I'll keep writing them. And... confession of a real-life hungry girl here... I hardly ever use them. While I technically have the time to make all the fancy food I want, my choice is usually to do other things, like write and make things and share whatever wants to be shared on any given day.
When I'm at home, cooking Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-58042587159301083452016-08-22T12:19:00.001-07:002016-08-22T12:19:51.240-07:00Changes. Change is.Notice anything different around here? (No, not my new dress.) It was time to change things up, in order to make way for other changes that I'm not quite yet clear about. You know how that is? Making anything different has the potential to make everything different. And I'm ready for some differentness.
The old PV logo was fine and lovely, but it was never what I really wanted. I just kept it Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-22384830961449433532016-08-16T00:00:00.000-07:002016-08-16T00:00:21.561-07:00Mom's KitchenAs I write this, I'm in San Jose, in the backyard of the house I grew up in. My parents' house, my family home, most recently just my dad's house, and now, the house that belongs to my sisters and me. My father passed away in June of this year, after living here alone for the last 26 years. Mom passed in 1990, leaving us all, but mostly Daddy, to wonder how in the world we could ever be normal Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-42185778058626509052016-08-09T12:45:00.002-07:002016-08-09T12:45:54.794-07:00The Art of Pieology in PortlandAlthough Portland is famous for its abundance of vegan eateries (which Rick and I support at every opportunity), I get especially giddy over finding intentionally vegan options in non-veg restaurants.
Take, for instance, the popular pizza chain, Pieology. I first tried them in California on a recent trip, and was pleased as punch to learn that we have a location here in Portland, right downtown,Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-58992424627024479722016-08-09T00:00:00.000-07:002016-08-29T08:46:31.566-07:00An Amazing Meal at Harvest At The BinderyThis is about as minimalist as a restaurant review can get. Harvest at the Bindery in Portland. Go there. Right now. This is some of the most artful, elegant, delectable food in all the land, in a lovely rustic-fancy, relaxed setting, created and served by intelligent, thoughtful people, and priced so reasonably you can go for a special occasion, or for no real reason at all.
We ordered and Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-43555542683836459802016-08-02T10:39:00.001-07:002016-08-02T10:39:24.803-07:00Why Not to Use the V-Word
I was sitting with one of my favorite people (my daughter) the other night, on the floor of her living room, sharing a picnic dinner procured from the local natural foods market. We had little tubs of wonderfulness spread out on a dishtowel, a bottle of wine, and a lovely pair of glittery gold shoes to add opulence to the scene.
Although my daughter is not vegan (she's sort of a Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-86986184444263170392016-07-26T00:00:00.000-07:002016-07-26T00:00:09.565-07:00Flying Elephants on the Bridge
The Elephants Delicatessen chain is pretty big around Portland, and we have a new location to love now, in the South Waterfront, on the west end of the new Tilikum Crossing Bridge. After a liesurely walk across what's been dubbed "the Bridge of the People," we stopped for a snack at the new Flying Elephants, which is right next door to Starbucks in the gorgeously modern new Collaborative Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-19547126787738447302016-07-21T11:16:00.001-07:002016-07-21T11:16:08.282-07:00The Way It's Supposed To Be
This is an extra little side post this week, because the news lately is nothing but awful, politics embarrassing, and the general mood of folks I run into is kind of low-energy. I feel it too. Without going into detail, I'm struggling more than a little bit these days. Things are piling up. I feel... un-good. And I know from experience that the best way to feel better is to make someone else Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-26411930390785195212016-07-19T00:00:00.000-07:002016-07-19T00:00:12.446-07:00What to Eat When There's Nothing to EatI'd been away for a week and supplies were depleted. I woke up hungry on my first day back home, opened the fridge and harrumphed, Nothing to eat...
At second glance, I noticed half a loaf of bread. OK! I can have toast! Boring! Not enough! But on closer inspection I discovered some vegan cheese slices, a bit of tomato, and some clean and crunchy romaine. That's more like it. Grilled cheese for Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-72904885416275233862016-07-12T00:00:00.000-07:002016-09-19T13:01:49.416-07:00Knitting MeditationLife has been weird lately. Stressful stuff, you know? We all go through these patches, and we all have our own tricks for getting to the other side. My old habit of powering through and just working harder has not been doing it for me lately though, and it became clear that I needed to do something different. As in slower and calmer. Not my strong area, slow and calm.
Over the years, I've been Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-71230871994665928522016-07-05T06:02:00.000-07:002016-07-05T06:02:03.561-07:00Overnight (Oatmeal) SuccessI know I'm not the first person to discover or share this ridiculously simple breakfast "recipe." But if it's new to me, it might be new to you too. So here it is. I like to share the things that are working for me, and Overnight Oatmeal is one of them.
Overnight Oatmeal (ONO) is just what it sounds like - oatmeal you make at night and eat the next morning. The beauty is, it takes all of Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-41837585491053083892016-06-30T09:35:00.003-07:002016-06-30T09:35:47.254-07:00Easy Mu Shu Veggie WrapsI love, love, love Mu Shu Veggies with Hoisin Sauce and those amazing little Mandarin Pancakes. Did I say love? I meant LOVE. But even so, I don't make them very often because the pancakes are a little more work than I want to put into a casual dinner. I'm not lazy, but I do look for shortcuts where I can find them.
Enter the miraculous tortilla, flatbread gift from the goddess of simple kitchenKim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-49590700305736384352016-06-03T08:17:00.001-07:002016-06-03T08:17:37.822-07:00Why I'm Scared of VegansYeah, I said it. I'm scared of other vegans.
Why???
Well, because some of them are scary, that's why. Not all of them, obviously. There are loads of lovely vegans out there. But you never know. Some of them are judgmental and preachy and superior and unpleasant. Even to other vegans. And that's just creepy. Only some of them, of course. But again, you never know.
When I'm about to put Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-7703613843957166022016-05-30T07:53:00.001-07:002016-05-30T07:53:06.643-07:00Bok Choy with Brown Rice and Orange Sauce
This is a good thing to make when you want something beautiful, but aren't particularly inspired by the kitchen gods. I picked up a big bunch of gorgeous bok choy at the farmers market, without a clear plan for it. A couple of days later I had to use it or lose it, so this is what happened. It's as easy as it gets, and goes to show that with a few staples in the house, you can come up with Kim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735054054217222154.post-17930629414746779992016-05-27T12:28:00.003-07:002016-05-27T12:28:28.552-07:00My Morning MeetingsEvery morning (almost), before I get out of bed, I spend a few extra minutes having a "meeting" with myself. I think about how I want my day to go, and what I have lined up on the to-do list. Often dozing a little bit, I sometimes get "other input" as to what I need to get done. I've not always listened to this interruption to my Very Important Thoughts, but lately I do. I get up and write it allKim Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17603924613617534376noreply@blogger.com