San Antonio

Last Wednesday we drove 3 hours to San Antonio to see our mom and stepdad, who just moved there from Houston. We had a nice time with our mom - we went up to Boerne, TX (30 miles north), which is a cute historic town. While there, we stopped in at Love's Natural Health Food Store and bought a lot of vegan goodies. It was a huge store! Here is a picture of all of the products we purchased that we've never tried before:Lundberg's Koku Seaweed Brown Rice cakes - These seaweed rice cakes would pair nicely with avocado, nutritional yeast, cucumbers, or tofu for a sushi-like snack. We love how it's brown rice, like all of their rice cakes. This flavor is tasty, but our favorite is still the Flax with Tamari Rice cakes.

Bob's Red Mill Buckwheat Pancake and Waffle mix - what could go wrong with Bob's? We love Bob. We've heard that buckwheat makes especially good pancakes - what's your favorite toppings for pancakes/way to prepare pancakes?

Amy's Tamale Verde black bean frozen dinner - good, especially the Mexican rice and Tomatillo sauce, but the tamale wasn't anything different. It was like the tamale pie with a lot of cornmeal crust. It also contains too much sodium - about 700 mg!

Simply Organic Pure Vanilla Extract - great quality stuff.

Frontier Veggie Pepper - black pepper jazzed up with some red bell pepper, onion, garlic, and celery!

Sambazon Acai & Mango Smoothie - tasty! We've been on an Acai kick lately, and have recently purchased pure Acai (without sugar, Genesis Today's Acai 100) to enjoy an ounce every day for antioxidants and other health benefits.

Mr. Krispers Multi-Seed Chips - baked and multigrain, with poppy seeds, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, brown rice, and corn.

Ruth's Chai Goodness Original - claims to be a hot/cold cereal. Serving size is two tablespoons, and contains chai seeds, hemp seeds, and buckwheat (prism-shaped with a nice crunch, so cool!).
We haven't yet eaten it as a cereal, but we did enjoy it in soy yogurt for a nice granola-like parfait! Very nutritious!

Clean Well natural hand sanitizer - safe with no hazardous chemicals and biodegradable!

For meals, we had the pleasure of cooking dinner for our parents in their nice kitchen (compared to our apartment kitchen with a screwed-up oven and small counterspace).
We tried the Avocado Orange Salsa recipe from Student's Go Vegan cookbook, and served it with Mary's Gone Crackers, corn-on-the-cob, and spicy Mexican pinto beans. We enhanced it by adding diced tomatoes. It was fresh and flavorful, with avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, red onions, cilantro, oranges, and lime juice. Yummy and so simple!

One day during the week, we had a lot of cilantro that needed to be used up. We made cilantro pesto and made a wrap with roasted chickpeas, spinach, and cucumber slices. It was so tasty and healthy. Why is it that meals that are so simple are the best?

For another dinner, we sauteed portabello mushrooms marinated in balsamic and oregano, then drizzled olive oil on top when ready to serve, and paired it with orzo and fresh steamed green beans.


Well, summer school Physics for just 4 weeks is very fast paced and tiring. Wish we could sleep as long and soundly as our cats do!

Stay tuned for a FABULOUS Bob's Red Mill post soon!

Peace, LK