Not so much cooking

Hi all... The past few days have been quite busy, and we have not been home much to cook or to eat. I kind of forgot about a few things that we had planned to do--I wanted to do more cooking than this while I was still on break, but at least I have a few things to share with you.

Tuesday Bob and I went hiking up in Clayton, Georgia at a little area called Warwoman Dell. The trails around the area were fairly light and easy, but there were some neat things to see along the way. We packed the "usual" hiking food--bread and peanut butter, apples and oranges, steamed edamame. I also brought along a huge sack of trail mix that we got for Christmas.


We never got a good, clear view from the mountain peak because the trees had not been cleared. That is actually pretty refreshing. It was a beautiful, clear day, though, and even through the skinny tree trunks the Great Smoky Mountains were an awesome sight.


We saw lots of stone ruins along the trail; this one was preserved and a rustic little picnic area was built around it.


At the bottom of the trail was a beautiful little waterfall rushing in over a rock piling.


There was no one around to take our picture, so I did a blind one-handed shot... and I think it came out well!

Wednesday we had to go to Atlanta: Bob had a Wesley Foundation staff retreat that he had to attend, and I was able to tag along. We stayed in a hotel and the Wesley Foundation provided all the food for the retreat. There were plenty of snack foods that were suitable for Bob and me... and while the rest of the staff had pizza for dinner Wednesday night, they were happy to order veggie burgers from Ruby Tuesday for us. And I never, ever go on a retreat without taking some Better Than Milk powdered soy milk--that way we can eat breakfast!

Thursday after the retreat was over, we met a good friend of ours in Atlanta. He has been in Mexico for several months doing volunteer mission work, and will return tomorrow to Mexico until mid-July. We chilled out with him all day long and half the night. He is a self-proclaimed granola-head and thus the vegan thing is not hard for him to understand; we had homemade vegetable soup and bean burritos and just had a wonderful time walking in the rain and playing Trivial Pursuit and dominoes until about 2:30 AM. It was a 1.5 hour drive back to Athens, so we didn't get to bed until about 4:30. That made Friday a sluggish, stay-at-home kind of day.

I have been meaning to try the Pumpkin Seed-Crusted Tofu from VWaV for a while now, so I made it finally for lunch today. I draw the line at deep-frying my foods, however, and opted to bake it instead, at 350 for about 25 minutes. It got browned pretty well in the oven, but I found it to taste a bit on the bland side without the chance to soak up the frying oil. It tasted good, though, and I do not regret baking it instead of frying. Next time I will probably try to find some way to give the tofu some flavor ahead of time.


To go with the tofu, some more stir-fried kai-lan, and some roasted purple and sweet potatoes.



A light, healthy meal with plenty of iron and calcium, vitamin A, antioxidants, and omega-3s and omega-6s. Add the antioxidant power of a nice glass of red wine...


Don't worry, I didn't eat this much--this is Bob's plate.

Happy weekend, everyone!