Weekend List with New Protein

Miko has been happy to chill in the air conditioning with triple digit heat temps this weekend.

Not Leela, when she gets bored and restless and wants a walk, she will tell us.

It doesn’t matter that it’s uncomfortably hot and she’s just been out to the backyard, when she wants a walk – I hear about it! I can’t blame her, I can only spend so much time inside before wanting some sunshine even if it’s an oven outside.

Friday hubby and I tried Blaze Pizza for dinner and I was very impressed with the vegan offerings. Blaze is an inexpensive build-your-own-pizza place that serves bottled beer and wine too and a lot of these style pizza places have been opening in the area lately, very trendy. You get in line to move through a pizza assembly line, pay at the end, and wait briefly for your pizza to come out of the super hot pizza oven. You can make a veggie only pizza with red sauce or add their vegan cheese which I think is Daiya Mozzarella or very similar. They only serve one size of personal pizza which looked too huge to me, but actually isn’t due to the very thin crust. We both created separate vegan style pizzas, I tried the vegan cheese loaded with more veggies and hubby created a simpler veggie pizza with pineapple.

They also offer gluten-free crust and tons of veggie topping options. I was a little scared at the long line when we first walked in, but it moved fast through the assembly line and ordering was simple, the employees were knowledgeable about the vegan options and even offered to change gloves before preparing it to prevent cross contamination with meat and cheese pizzas prepared earlier.

Among all the awesome swag I got from Vida Vegan Con was a coupon for a free package of Heidi Ho Creamy Chia Cheeze which I promptly claimed at Whole Foods. I went with the Smoky Chia Cheeze flavor and the texture is more like hummus which is a great thing for spreading on veggie burgers, crackers, or using as a dip.

It’s also pretty low calorie at only 50 calories per serving and the first ingredient on the short ingredient list is a vegetable puree blend of potatoes, turnips, peppers, and garlic.

I really liked it spread on apple slices while hubby was a fan of adding to fun vegan burger creations, something we will be buying more of soon.

And I got another great freebie this week thanks to winning a giveaway from Laura at Raise Your Garden! A new protein powder to try in our smoothies – Garden of Life’s Organic Plant Protein in the Smooth Coffee flavor.

This is right up my alley since I’m a regular user of Garden of Life’s Raw Protein powder and Raw B12. The texture on this protein powder is a little different, it’s lighter and fluffier compared to Raw Protein and has a mildly sweet coffee flavor, kind of malty.

I blended it with frozen bananas, carrots, kale, VitaMineral Green powder, broccoli, and a touch of stevia powder for hubby and I and noticed the sweet coffee flavor was still pleasantly there even blended with other ingredients and it gave the smoothie a lighter, whipped texture.

At 100 calories per serving, it offers 15 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber, probiotics, and nice little boost of nutrients to start the day. I will add it to our regular Subscribe & Save shipments from Amazon to have in the smoothie protein powder rotation.

The news is a little dry this week since it was a busy one for me, but I did enjoy reading this article from Dr. Colin T. Campbell on history of our obsession with protein and interesting points on animal protein promoting more body growth and cancer growth compared to plant protein and other differences animal protein has on our bodies compared to plant protein.

Hubby actually found this one – an interesting study on the consumption of nuts reducing the risk of death.

If you use canned chickpeas, save the liquid for a vegan egg alternative.

I love diet and lifestyle inspirational stories and this is another great one from Forks Over Knives about a journey of a dad with a desk job dabbling in and transitioning to an active lifestyle and plant-based diet.

LifeHacker broke down Alton Brown’s method for making healthy veggie chips into simple steps.

I hope everyone is having a great Father’s Day weekend, happy Father’s Day to dads. I’ve got a busy day planned with a run before the heat kicks in, gardening, testing our first batch of homemade sauerkraut for this year, laundry…lots and lots of laundry, and seeing a famous doctor speak live which I can’t wait to share later this week!