2021, still feels strange typing that. It’s been an interesting week here, another busy short week at work and quiet at home trying to busy ourselves with little projects we’ve been meaning to get to. Ron took apart the dishwasher yesterday since it was misbehaving and found a chunk of glass blocking the drainage that we have no clue how long has been there. It was also an opportunity to deep clean the parts. I repaired the hems and stitched up holes of clothing I’ve been meaning to get to for awhile as well. Miko has been enjoying snuggle time at home with us and long walks. Except for New Year’s Eve, poor guy was not happy about fireworks.
One of my gifts for Christmas was the Vitamix FoodCycler FC-50 and we’ve had a chance to use it multiple times already.
It’s a pretty large appliance, larger that a full sized air fryer, that has a compost bucket you keep in the kitchen to fill with food scraps and when it get’s up to the fill line, place the bucket into the appliance for processing. After running through the drying, grinding, and cooling stages for a few hours, it turns a full bucket of scraps into a little bit of “dirt” that takes up just a small fraction of the bucket. We have a larger storage bin outside we’re storing this dirt in and adding to it for spring gardening.
So far I like it. It does run for hours, but it’s pretty quiet and produces a very mild smell while processing. You can keep the appliance itself in another area of the house like a laundry room or garage to run and that’s another project we’ll be tackling shortly is making room for it in the garage. Some complaints I read is the filters need replacing frequently and aren’t cheap, so I will continue to update on it as we use it more and the dirt it creates in our garden. With my current produce eating and coffee drinking habits, we could easily need to run it daily and that’s just the two of us and a small dog. So maybe they need a bigger solution for whole food plant based vegans, haha.
I also daringly tried a new type of pasta – Blue Evolution Seaweed Pasta. It’s basically traditional pasta with added seaweed for nutritional value.
The fishy seaweed smell was present while cooking and maybe a little off-putting. It’s also present taste-wise, but not strong and worked okay with traditional pasta sauce. It would work better in a vegan “seafood” pasta dish, but was not my favorite alternative pasta.
Other eats this week include spicy beans and rice, simple veggie sauté, smoky potato leek soup, and massive kale salads.
New Year’s Eve was very quiet at home, we blended steamed black eyed peas with RightRice Cajun Spice, jazzed up with hot sauce, and served with maple roasted acorn squash. Then watched the movie 2012 because a big natural disaster movie seemed fun.
We tried a new plant based pizza this weekend found at Sprouts – Vicolo Spicy Mushroom. It was delicious with good texture and flavor on the cornmeal crust and I appreciated the thinly sliced mushrooms adding a great mushroom flavor while breaking up the mushroom texture.
There was also another veggie sauté and vegan Thai takeout last night that.
So it’s 2021 now, I am reluctant to set any big goals or resolutions and approaching it as a we’ll play it by ear thing. I am trying to be optimistic that things will get better, but not right away and it will be months of the same and making the most of it. I watched I Am Greta on Hulu yesterday and it was fascinating. I really didn’t know much about Greta, seeing more of her personality, drive, passion, and relationship with her family was inspiring. She understands her challenges with Asperger’s and how it has influenced her focused passion on the climate crisis and makes viewers question what they’re prioritizing. And there was something rewarding about listening to her bluntly criticize and scold politicians for not doing much to change or educate people on what’s happening and what their money and decisions are really supporting.
I hope 2021 is off to a good start for you and maybe this list helps.
- Cool, we’ll be buying these new Sprouts vegan burgers.
- Men’s vegan leather jackets.
- Fungi “leather” is pretty exciting.
- 15 vegan dressings to add flare to everything.
- Tabitha Brown is helping everyone go vegan.
- Best vegan protein powders.
- Store bought vegan cauliflower products.
- Are vegan cheese alternatives healthier than dairy?
- Ways to be a better vegan in 2021.
- 8 new vegan recipes to try.
- Vegan is cheaper than eating meat.
- Going vegan because of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Hannah says
Happy New Year! Sounds like a nice, quiet, easy start to 2021, which is all I would really want at this point, too.
I do adore Vicolo crusts, though I’ve never gotten the fully prepared pizzas. I’ll have to keep an eye out for them.
Also grateful for the Hulu recommendation. I got a discounted subscription for a Black Friday sale and still don’t really know what to watch. I Am Greta is on the list!
christine says
Happy New Year to you too! Very true and looking forward to trying more Vicolo products. Nice on Hulu, lots of great movie options – we watched Rocketman last night and it was great.