Happy New Year! The pups celebrated by enjoying their new beds by the fireplace.
And we celebrated by going to a Vegan Soul Soirée hosted by the Sacramento Vegetarian Society with an amazing menu and book signing by Joshua Ploeg, The Traveling Vegan Chef. The event was held at an interesting rustic riverside cabin\campground because last year’s location was too small for this year’s crowd!
And I ended up buying two of Joshua’s books, This Ain’t No Picnic and Superfoods for Life Cacao to add to my huge collection of recipe books that I’m resolving to read more and use this year. :-)
The cabin had a huge fireplace that many of us huddled around since it was chilly and the cabin was uninsulated and unheated.
The food serving was casual, but fun with lots of great options!
I overloaded my plate with a little bit of everything – sweet potato mash, mac and Nacheez, cole slaw, kale and black eyed peas, BBQ tofu, tamale-style cornbread, seasoned rice, and chick’n fried tofu.
For dessert was a lovely apple crumble creation with fresh made coconut cream.
And it was all wonderful and unique creations. The tamale texture on the cornbread was fun and hearty, the apples in the crumble were fresh and crisp, not cooked to mush. The sweet potato mash and mac and Nacheez were my favorites and clearly everyone else too because those dishes disappeared first! It was another wonderful vegan meetup event where we got to meet and chat with new vegans, eat wonderful food, and get back home before the New Year’s madness starts.
For New Year’s day, we hit the gym early and I spent the rest of the day taking down the Christmas tree and decorations. It was a little sad, the holidays have been such a blur this year and it felt like just last weekend we put the tree up! But it was also nice to get everything put away for the start of the new year.
For dinner I dived into Joshua’s new Cacao recipe book and got inspired by a chocolate savory green bean recipe. I didn’t have all of the ingredients, but had the basics and translated it to a sautéed rice dish with green beans, carrots, and spinach using cacao, balsamic vinegar, and tarragon for the seasoning.
It looked very interesting cooking, almost like chocolate rice crispy cereal cooking with veggies.
But actually came out great for a savory cacao dish, it had a dark chocolate balsamic tang with a herby kick – very fun!
And the book is filled with a lot of savory cacao recipes that I’m looking forward to trying and getting a little crazy with!