Chilling & Grilling

Long weekends are great – it’s Sunday, but it feels like Saturday, love it! And it’s been a great weekend so far, I met up with my mom and sisters for lunch in Old Town Sacramento yesterday where the music festival just happened to be going on.

There were bands set up to play all over the streets with local entertainment.

And the weather was perfect to enjoy a lunch on the river.

We headed to the Delta King for a late brunch which is an old riverboat that has been restored with a restaurant, bar, and hotel

The inside was beautifully restored with a huge bar, dining deck, and dining room.

With a great view of trains crossing the river.

The menu wasn’t so exciting for me because none of the main brunch items were vegan-friendly being mostly eggs, meat, and cheese. I ended up ordering a fruit cup and plain oatmeal from the sides section of the menu, but it was cheap and the company was great.

We wondered old town for a bit after for a little shopping and I got into trouble at The Chef’s Olive Mix, an olive oil and balsamic tasting room with an overwhelming selection of flavored olive oils and vinegars.

I only purchased two bottles of olive oil, Chipotle and Mushroom Sage, to add to my collection for flavoring popcorn, grilling, salad dressing, and sauteing veggies. But I could have easily purchased many more!

Somehow after hours of shopping and walking in the sun, I still had energy to run to Costco and restock our kitchen with bulk produce. After that, I was done. So my sweet hubby chopped plenty of veggies for me for a simple veggie hummus dinner.

It was all I was craving after such a long day and very filling!

And this morning it was so nice having a berry-loaded breakfast smoothie after being out of berries for a week! :-)

For dinner tonight, hubby and I decided to start celebrating Memorial Day by grilling and I wanted to try this Grilled Garlic Artichokes recipe using my newly purchased mushroom olive oil.

I let hubby do the honors on the grill since he’s much better at it, but the artichokes had to be basted with a garlic olive oil lemon juice mixture multiple times while on the grill.

And we had a very attentive audience around the grill.

The artichokes came out great, the mushroom flavored olive oil added a mild, but tasty flavor to them and the texture of the leaves was just right after being boiled then grilled, they were perfectly tender and not fibrous.

My plate was pretty simple with grilled corn, artichoke and baked beans. But a tasty pre-Memorial Day celebration.

I did have an interesting time finding vegan baked beans at the grocery store since we rarely buy canned baked beans. After carefully reading the labels of the various flavors, many of them contained honey, beef fat, or bacon fat in flavors that seemed vegan at first glance which is kind of scary!

Don’t forget to enter my NuNaturals giveaway, the winners will be selected tomorrow!