Motivation Monday & Creamy Tofu Sauce

Happy stinking Monday, right? As expected, motivation was a huge problem for me this morning. I knew I had a horribly busy and stressful day ahead and waking up to cold, rain, and wind did not help motivate me out of bed. But I managed and that’s something! Katie had a great idea for Motivation Monday and I think we could all use a little extra motivation. On a day like today, what motivates me is looking back at pleasant memories and reminding myself there will be more good times to look forward to. So motivation Mondays are images from great vacations, reminders of beautiful scenery changes and more relaxed times, a Monday tradition I think I’ll keep for awhile. And I think I’ll start with a fabulous gulf cruise we took in 2005. We lived in Florida at the time and could snag awesome off-season cruise deals and usually arranged to go with a bunch of friends.

It was an odd time in November and most of the stops had just been worked by a hurricane a week prior, which I absolutely do not miss about Florida. But Key West still looked fabulous and still one of my favorite places to visit today.

Poor Southernmost Point Marker was looking a little battered after the storm, but we didn’t care.

Another interesting thing I remember about this cruise was the awesome gym on the ship. I’m on of those crazies that uses the gyms in hotels and cruise ships and it can be part of the adventure, I enjoy checking out all the different gyms and equipment. This one was on an upper level of the boat with panoramic glass walls looking out onto the ocean, all I could see was blue water while working out and it was wonderfully relaxing.

Next stop on the cruise was Play del Carmen, Mexico. Originally it was supposed to be Cancun, but it had taken too much damage from the hurricane. No biggie, we were just having fun with friends and knew any stop along the coast would be great. Because the port was too damaged, the ship had to sit out at see while we took little boat taxis in which was an adventure on the rough waters.

The color of the water and gorgeous white beaches were just breathtaking.

Mmmm, then move on to a fun weekend in Monterey, CA in 2008 which brought back so many fun childhood memories for me at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was June and stinking hot in the Sacramento valley, plus smokey from wildfires, and work stresses were getting to us both. So we broke away for a long weekend on the coast.

And the views alone were worth it!

You can actually see a wildfire across the bay in this shot, we were getting so many that summer that the air quality in the valley was awful. I guess all the rain this year is a good thing if we can avoid that again.

I really enjoyed the view from our hotel room of a lively restaurant and the ocean – perfect change of scenery. Looking at these pics are making me crave another getaway – time to start planning!

Back to reality, I had a lazy, but creative dinner. I’ve done a lot with tofu, but have never used it in a cream sauce. I don’t know why, it’s just never occurred to me to throw it in a blender. I had a small, firm chunk of tofu to use up in my fridge and decided to try my Creamy Hemp Sauce using it in place of the hemp seeds for a lighter, fluffier version of it.

The sauce looked and tasted very much like a light alfredo sauce with fluffy texture.

I steamed some chopped broccoli and asparagus in a ceramic bowl in the microwave for 4 minutes.

Mixed the sauce in and steamed for an additional minute to heat it up more.

And just served with chopped green onions.

Tofu makes a great cream sauce! It was lighter than the hemp seed version of this sauce, more of a whipped texture. But packing plenty of flavor and lightly coated the veggies perfectly.

A great dinner that left plenty of room for banana soft serve for dessert. If you haven’t tried throwing tofu into a blender yet, try it!

And what are some of your great vacation memories?