Vegan Paella and Other Amazing Things...

Veganizing Cuisines of the World

Garnished with green onions and lemon wedges

Inspired by my travels: I love traveling, and one of the best parts of traveling in my opinion is sampling the cuisines of different cultures and regions. I have had the opportunity to travel to many different states within the United States and so many amazing countries outside of the United States, and have learned so much from all of these travels. Many dishes that I have tried in the past that have a special place in my heart are not traditionally vegan friendly, but luckily most of these dishes have been veganized in Lindsay S. Nixon's Happy Herbivore Abroad. 

Today's Recipe: I am still working my way through this cookbook, but the very first recipe I tried was the Paella. Paella is one of my favorite dishes, and I have definitely missed it since I went vegan. Now thanks to this amazing cookbook, I have a simple, easy, and delicious recipe for vegan paella. I am doing a giveaway of Happy Herbivore Abroad later this month, so keep checking back to see when I post it! I can't share any of the recipes on my blog, but I can share a picture of the delicious paella I made based on Lindsay's recipe. I followed Lindsay's recipe but made two additions: I added 1/2 cup white wine and I also added vegan soyrizo.

Boozin' it up with TJ's

Well this isn't really a miracle considering Trader Joe's always manages to have great tasting products at even better prices, but I found a fantastic Chardonnay for $8.99. I was actually drawn to this wine because it is "Reserve" from Chile, and my chef friend told me that this usually means it is a better wine. Then I saw the name of the wine "Casillero del Diablo" and the little devil's head on the bottle; this sealed the deal. I am really glad I purchased this wine, I usually prefer Rieslings but I really enjoyed this Chardonnay. This wine is a little less sweet than I tend to prefer, but I like really sweet wines; despite it not being as sweet as I would have liked, I still really enjoyed this white wine. It is definitely a mid-bodied wine as far as white wines go, with vanilla and peach notes. The label said that it also has hints of pineapple and citrus, but I didn't pick up on these.....maybe I'm just not enough of a oenophile (that means wine lover). The wine goes well with citrus-ey or acidic dishes, like the paella I made!

Shrooms!

Running News:

Since I am still wary about aggravating my recently recovered knee, I have been keeping my runs limited to flat ground. I have been running about 7 or 8 miles on all of my runs, and I actually bumped up my pace by one minute per mile this past Sunday which made me really happy. I ran an average of 9:30 minute miles, but my first few miles were 10:00 minute miles and my last few were 8:30s and 9:00s. I'm excited to be running again, but my 100% flat running rule has limited me to running loops repeatedly near where I live. However I got a nice surprise on my sunday run when I noticed these beauties growing in someone's front yard. That's right, that right there is a massive family of shrooms.