Peanut Butter and Vegan

Easy Vegan Soft Pretzels

September 3, 2016 by pb&v

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted a new recipe! This summer I spent my time working at a local vegan bakery and I’ve absolutely loved it. So much that I actually did tear up a little bit once the week before classes rolled around because I just didn’t want to go back to school and not get to spend everyday at the bakery! I’ve learned a lot of new things over the summer and it’s just overall been really great.

Anyway, back to the point of the post. I discovered sometime within the past year that I really love making bread dough, there’s something so therapeutic about the whole process; it helps me relieve stress and relax a little bit. That being said, I’ve often thought, surely there are things to make other than bread, pizza, and cinnamon rolls, I just didn’t know what to make! That is, until last weekend when I woke up on Sunday morning and thought to myself, “I think I’ll try and make pretzels today!”

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Category Breads and Muffins, Recipes, Sides, Snacks | Tags: | 2 Comments
Sir Kensington’s Fabanaise Review

May 26, 2016 by pb&v

Just over a year ago, the magical powers of aquafaba were discovered. Just a handful of crazy vegans pouring bean juice in a mixer and seeing what could be done. I remember spending almost my entire spring break last year playing with this magical liquid testing what its limits were. I researched and talked with others about our various experiments, posting everything in the, then small, Facebook group. It was such an exciting time being a part of the discovery and experimentation of aquafaba.

One of those experiments was seeing if the aquafaba would emulsify just like eggs when making mayonnaise. It seemed like a bit of a long shot since aquafaba doesn’t have the exact same properties as eggs, considering it doesn’t have a yolk, but we gave it a try anyway! That recipe has now made its rounds on the interwebbies and it’s been so cool seeing it featured on so many other’s blogs and websites. I never thought the recipe would end up being so popular!

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Category Reviews | Tags: | 2 Comments
Red Velvet Smoothie

February 1, 2016 by pb&v

I have a ton of smoothie recipes posted, so I was a bit hesitant to post another, but you can never really have too many smoothie recipes, am I right? Smoothies have become one of my favorite things and I don’t think I could ever go back to a smoothie-less life. They’re just such perfect meals or snacks and a great way to get in fruits and veggies!

I’ve honestly had this recipe sitting in the “notes” on my phone for well over a year, so I figured it might be time to actually post it. I have a bad habit of doing that actually… There’s a whole list of recipes on my phone or various pieces of scratch paper floating around the house that I just haven’t gotten around to photographing and posting. Ah, but that is the life of a busy college student I suppose. After doing homework and taking notes all day on my laptop, the last thing I really want to do is sit down and stare at the screen for even more time, even though I truly enjoy writing these posts. My eyes just can’t take so much screen time! I know, what kind of 20 year old doesn’t want to spend all day everyday in front of technology?

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Category Braces, Breakfast, Dessert, Recipes, Smoothies, Snacks | Tags: | 6 Comments
One Year of Running Everyday

January 23, 2016 by pb&v

This is going to be a long post, but just roll with it.

Today is a big day. One that felt so far away, as if it would never actually be here. Today is day 365 of my run streak. One year of running every single day. That’s pretty huge if you ask me.

At the start of 2015, my mom mentioned how our friend Amy over at Veggies Save the Day had been doing a run streak and she might do one too. A run streak is simply running at least one mile everyday without missing any days. Back up a little more into September of 2014 and we had both already started running again, so it was a pretty attainable goal. I thought the run streak sounded like it might be fun and decided to participate in the streak with my mom. What I didn’t expect was just how much I would love the run streak and how much it transformed my view of running as well as change my mindset overall.

I ran cross country in high school, practicing everyday and usually running at least once over the weekend, but it definitely wasn’t something I looked forward to or found a huge deal of enjoyment in. Sure, it helped me with stress (literally running away from my problems :P), but other than that I mostly questioned why I tortured myself on a daily basis. Even though I wasn’t competitive at all (which I think drove my mom a bit nuts as I didn’t really care who passed me during races), I got so much enjoyment and excitement out of every new PR. The more I ran, the more I enjoyed it.. errr tolerated it, but during my last season I got really bad shin splints and was out for the season, running my very last race on my birthday (which I limped my way through with my shins all wrapped up because I was determined to finish). I ran every now and then once I got to college, but I started running more with my mom in the summer and fall of 2014. This was mostly an every other day kinda thing though.

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Category Running | Tags: | 10 Comments
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Overnight Oats

September 13, 2015 by pb&v

I started writing this post weeks ago and never actually got it posted…. I started classes again a few weeks ago (boy, that 2 week summer vacation flew right by!) and I am now commuting to campus, which is roughly 25-30 minutes away (without traffic). Which means I don’t have time to eat breakfast at home in the mornings, at least not if I want a decent parking spot. I have class until 1:50 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and from 8am – 11:50 on Tuesday. I also work from roughly 12pm-5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I don’t get to go home for lunch either. Thus, I have started actually doing some meal prep for the week on Sunday. I’m pretty bad at planning out meals because I’ll usually plan something and once it comes time to eat it, I’m really not in the mood for it at all. But I’ll try to stick with it this time. (Also let me know if you’re interested in a post about my weekly meal prep??)

The mornings have been all about overnight oats. I’m a huge fan of oatmeal for breakfast because it’s so versatile. You can change the flavor up so easily, plus it’s super quick and easy to make, especially if you grind up the oats prior to cooking them. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to actually cook oatmeal in the morning anymore, so I’ve switched it over to overnight oats, which I’ve actually been enjoying quite a bit. I thought I would hate eating cold oats, but they’re actually really refreshing on these crazy hot and humid mornings. And if you want a warm breakfast, you can just pop the whole jar in the microwave for a minute or so!

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Category Braces, Breakfast, Recipes | Tags: | 2 Comments
Vegan French Toast (Using Aquafaba)

August 1, 2015 by pb&v

I should really be studying for my exams on Monday and Tuesday, but this is more fun. My summer classes will come to an end on Tuesday, August 4th and I will get to have almost 3 whole weeks of summer vacation! Hopefully I can get out and do everything that I had planned on this summer in the span of 3 weeks. There’s this place called Cloud 9 around here that is basically a giant trampoline playground type thing and I’ve been dying to go for over a year, but haven’t been, so that’s on my summer list. Taking Rory camping, going to the beach, traveling, all kinds of things I want to do! Get ready for the adventures.

This week’s adventures included peach picking with a few pounds of blueberries thrown in because, why not? We ended up picking 101.5 pounds of peaches and 3 pounds of blueberries, which is the most amount of peaches we’ve ever picked at one time. We managed to pick them in about 15 minutes, which is about the time it took us to pick 63 pounds last year. This year was a little different though because we were constantly being attacked by flies and we were picking as fast as we could, running between trees. Oh, and if you’re wondering, yes we managed to fit all of this in my little tiny smart car.

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Category Aquafaba, Breads and Muffins, Breakfast, Recipes | Tags: | 4 Comments
My Favorite Tofu Scramble

July 26, 2015 by pb&v

So this week wasn’t exactly exciting or anything, other than a few trips on the boat. I spent most of my week being a giant ball of stress because I had 3 tests in 3 days, which wasn’t exactly the most fun, but I survived! We had planned on going peach picking at some point during the week, but those suckers just won’t ripen up!

So anyway, since I didn’t really do much this week I decided to share my tofu scramble recipe. You’ll have to excuse the really crappy pictures of this recipe- tofu scramble is one of the least photogenic foods out there, plus I don’t have a fancy camera or anything.

Oddly enough, I was never a fan of eggs before going vegan. They were pretty nasty and I would usually have whatever sides we were having with the eggs and just pass of the eggs themselves. The taste and texture really didn’t appeal to me, and now even the idea of eggs disgusts me. I would occasionally eat a few bites of scrambled eggs, but I couldn’t stomach more than a few bites, and I definitely wouldn’t eat a fried egg. Ever. Tofu scramble to the rescue! While I do use black salt in my tofu scramble to add a more eggy flavor, it still doesn’t really taste exactly like scrambled eggs, which is totally ok with me! I actually like tofu scramble way more than I ever liked any kind of egg dish.

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Category Breakfast, Recipes | Tags: | 4 Comments
A Week of Adventures

July 20, 2015 by pb&v

So this week was probably 20 times more interesting than last week. While the majority of it was spent doing school work, the weekend was pretty exciting!

The week started out with a huge accomplishment for me, which I am going to continue bragging about for a while. I ran my first ever 10 consecutive miles on Monday! Before this my longest run had been a little over 6 miles, so I am extremely excited! The downside is I don’t think I took enough time to rest afterwards and seem to have a bit of a hip injury. I’m hoping doing a week or so of easy one mile runs will help and I won’t have to stop my run streak!

So if we fast-forward to Wednesday, we went out and picked 12 more pounds of blueberries and I think about 6 pounds of blackberries. Our freezer is getting a tad bit full at this point- we might need another chest freezer! So far we have already out-picked our total from last year with 33 pounds for this summer, and we still might get more this Wednesday! We are going to have so much fresh picked fruit in the freezer, but I don’t think you can ever have too much frozen fruit, especially with how many smoothies we drink.

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Category Adventures | Tags: | No Comments
Blueberries and Hushpuppies

July 13, 2015 by pb&v

I’m a bit late for this one, but eh, it’s aight. This week was extremely busy with school, but on Tuesday we went back up to Williamsburg and bought our very first boat! We went for a little sunset sail and it was a lovely evening. After a few more practice sails we will be ready to sail her down to her new home!

Then on Friday we got to go blueberry picking, which made the entire week better. It even happened to be National Pick Blueberries Day, what a coincidence! Last year we went picking twice and got 15 pounds each time, for a grand summer total of 30 pounds. This year we want to pick even more since we had to start rationing the ones in the freezer around February to make sure they lasted until the summer!

On our first picking trip we ended up with about 22 pounds, so we are definitely going to beat last year’s total!

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Category Adventures, Aquafaba, Breads and Muffins, Recipes, Sides, Snacks | Tags: | 2 Comments
Saving Lives

July 4, 2015 by pb&v

So writing a weekly post has motivated me to do something interesting every week, which is perfect because I am an extremely introverted person who would rather stay at home all day than brave the outside world. Ok, maybe not to that extreme. I will gladly go on a hike with family or friends, but don’t you dare make me talk to strangers. Haven’t you ever heard of stranger danger??

So anyway, I didn’t really think this week would be all that interesting, just the usual school work and daily routine, but it has turned out to be quite the week. On Monday afternoon the Currituck SPCA had a fire that started in the dryer in the laundry room and they are now working to clean everything up. They have to use chemicals to get everything back in order, so they need to foster out their animals. Most of their dogs need to be in homes that don’t already have dogs and the same goes for the cats, so we didn’t think we would be able to help foster any animals. Instead we bought some baby wipes to clean up the kittens and some cleaning wipes to take down and donate along with some fresh towels since they aren’t able to wash theirs.

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Category Adventures, Miscellaneous | Tags: | 2 Comments

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