Lazy for the Long Weekend List

I have just been lazy and running late the last week with posts, I blame the heat and just feeling overall drained after dealing with triple-digit temps for over a week now. I am really enjoying our long weekend, we took Friday off too and I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow, haha. Looks like today is the last day of the heat for awhile, at least we hope! The dogs have been really frustrated with me for not being able to go on regular walks and my 8-mile run yesterday was awful since it was already hot in the morning and smokey with wild fires all around us. Really looking forward to fall weather soon! And I need to decide soon if I’m going to register for a 10-mile race next weekend with my sister. I want to to support her and log another race, I don’t if the weather will continue to be awful and smokey!

Eats have been basic, I’ve been working through a lot of potatoes this week making simple oil-free stir fries with them.

And this simple salad with chickpeas, sprouts, and hummus dressing.

Friday we attempted to escape the heat by driving to Berkeley to finally try The Butcher’s Son, a crazy vegan deli with hearty meaty and cheesy plant-based alternatives.

Unfortunately we failed in escaping the heat, it was close to 100 degrees there too and very smokey with no breeze which is extremely unusual for the area and scary since they’re usually in the 60s and 70s this time of year and breezy. It might have been worse since most buildings do not have air conditioning – they usually don’t need it! But we found a shady table outside and made the best of it.

We arrived around 1pm and it was packed, all the tables inside were taken, we were lucky to score the shady table outside and great to see a place like that in high demand. Check out the “bacon” patty melt with macaroni salad hubby got.

It had layers of smokey vegan “bacon”, vegan burger patty, two types of vegan cheeses, grilled onions, and grilled mushrooms. Yes, that’s manly vegan comfort food! And he loved it, the smokey “bacon” was so close to real it was freaky.

I tried the Tempeh Tuna Melt with potato salad.

It just looked awesome with sourdough bread, avocado, tomato, and vegan grilled mozzarella. It did not disappoint, very hearty with a tuna-like flavor.

We’re already looking forward to our next trip back maybe in late fall early winter when it’s not so freaking hot! And we braved the heat to walk a few blocks to Animal Place’s Vegan Republic shop.

It’s a cute little shop with all things vegan – books, cosmetics, clothes, food, pet food, jewelry, etc.

We really wanted to go crazy in the chilled and frozen foods section because there were just so many local tofu options, vegan cheeses, and frozen foods that we’ve never seen in our local stores. But no way they’d survive the long drive home in the heat, boo. Instead I picked up some fun products to try including dog treats, vegan jerky, soy curls, and that coconut vegan bacon is delicious! I hope I can find more locally.

Saturday was a lazy day of going to the gym, shopping at Grocery Outlet, and working on house projects. By dinner time I threw more potatoes and other veggies into a wok to make a curry stir fry.

And yesterday we had a fish fry early Labor Day family party at my sister’s house were we skipped on the fish, but indulged in vegan mac and cheese instead.

I dug out my Peas and Thank You recipe book for the simple vegan mac n’ cheese recipe, then embellished it a bit by adding vegan cream cheese to the blender sauce, peas for more veggies, and baking it topped with bread crumbs for a crispy casserole texture. It came out great, but I’m thinking I’ll add a drizzle of liquid smoke to the blender sauce next time for a smokey cheddar flavor.

Today will probably be another lazy day inside working on stuff and avoiding the heat. I have a lot of yard projects I’ve been wanting to get to, but no way this weekend. Hopefully things will start getting back to normal this week as we start moving towards fall. Okay, to the list.

I could get into these non-traditional vegan burger options.

And this is encouraging news about plant based demand.

Better late than never, here are some vegan Labor Day recipes.

Yum on these vegan pizza recipes.

Vegan inspiration on Instagram.

Yeah, another vegan NFL player!

The 5 best running sunglasses.

Leilani Munter is awesome.