Hello and welcome to another weekend catch up. We’re coming off of what feels like an entire week of snow days. It just never stops! Slightly inconvenient when it comes to driving places, but it sure is beautiful. Our dogs are not fans, so a bit more effort is going into indoor activities/enrichment for them right now.
I wanted to say thank you for all of your thoughtful responses (both comments and emails) to my questions about social media and my place away from it last week. It’s really helpful to take in the perspective of folks who actually use the blog and recipes on a weekly basis. I’m attending a “social media exit strategy” workshop for creators next month (hosted by Amanda Laird), and will no doubt have more thoughts after that. I definitely don’t want to rush into anything and am considering all angles.
We’re spending time with family this weekend and mostly just relaxing. I’m also making chocolate chip muffins as a nice lil’ treat. Be well and do take care out there 🤍
5 Things I’m Reading:
- How to Work with the Winter Blues via Lion’s Roar
- Hate cooking? 3 mindsets to make it less of a chore via NPR
- A secret weapon in agriculture’s climate fight: Ants via Grist
- How to train your brain to be more resilient via Fast Company
- Why Do I Minimize My Pain? via The Walrus
5 Things I’m Enjoying
- This is more for the dogs than me, but: snuffle mats. Since my girls don’t tolerate cold and snowy walks, coming up with indoor enrichment activities is key. They love sniffing around for little treats in these mats and it usually takes a solid 15 minutes to find them all. Watching them aggressively sniff and paw at the mats is great for human enjoyment as well haha.
- Nice and naughty cats of the week 🥹
- Foot baths in the evening with magnesium flakes. We got these little collapsible basins over the holidays. Most of the time I don’t want to commit to a whole body bath and having a little foot bath on the couch while I watch my shows in the evening is truly just as relaxing.
- Loving matcha again for an afternoon boost. I make mine with Aikenka matcha as a latte with homemade almond milk (using my nut milk recipe, but with 100% almonds).
- Yes, fear. Yes, rage. Yes, grief.
5 Questions:
- Do you recommend getting an air fryer?
In our house, the air fryer is an essential appliance. Let me list the reasons why:
🖤 We have an old, finicky gas oven/range (that I don’t want to replace quite yet). From a utilities perspective, it’s cheaper to use the air fryer when we can for roast veg, potatoes, tofu, tempeh, crispy chickpeas/edamame and more.
🖤 95% of my tofu consumption is based on this crispy air fried tofu recipe.
🖤 The air fryer heats up faster, cooks things faster, and it doesn’t make the kitchen as hot in the summertime.
🖤 There is no better way to reheat pizza period! I almost prefer air fryer-reheated pizza to fresh at this point.
🖤 You do need less oil with it! Not exactly a top priority for me personally, but I know that this matters to a lot of folks. - Need some game day recipe inspiration!
🔥 All things Buffalo-style: Buffalo Cauliflower pizza with Onion Cream White Sauce, Vegan Seven Layer Dip with Buffalo Refried Beans & Buffalo Chickpea Chili with Mushrooms
🥣 Dips forever: Vegan Jalapeño Popper Dip, Vegan Caramelized Onion Dip & Spicy Vegan Artichoke Dip with Kale
🏈 Etc!: Sticky and Crispy Sesame Cauliflower, Vegan Butternut Nacho “Cheese” Sauce & BBQ Pulled Mushroom Sandwiches - Do you have any favorite food storage containers?
For storing leftovers, washed berries, cut veg etc. I really like the Rubbermaid Brilliance line. We purchased a set of these containers for a promo price at Costco recently and I love them. I know some people prefer glass but in the last year I’ve broken a few glass lock containers from Ikea, so a more durable/indestructible option is better for me. - Thoughts on buying organic or not?
I don’t really pay attention to this with our shopping. Of course I would love it if organic food was the norm, super accessible, and affordable for everyone. If I’m faced with the choice of organic kale or conventional at the store, I’ll buy the one that looks the best. Or in the organic vs local options, I’ll always take local. - Any tips for new vegans?
Go slooooow. Start with one vegan meal a day for a bit. Then go to two plus snacks. Try all 3 meals vegan for a bit and assess how it’s going. Look for vegan versions of your favorite foods. Do not spiral into despair if you make a mistake or accidentally eat/use an animal-based product. Among other things, the vegan movement is about kindness and compassion–I recommend extending that to yourself as well.
5 Seasonal Recipes:
- One-Pot Brothy Beans with Herbs & Lemon
- Creamy Vegan Orzo Risotto with Butternut Squash & Brussels Sprouts
- Loaded Shawarma-Spiced Fries with Crunchy Veg Salad and Lemony Tahini
- Sticky Marmalade Tofu
- Mushroom Brown Rice Bake with Caramelized Shallots, Crispy Lentils & Gremolata
Oh the dilemma of organic vs conventional! I really enjoy fresh fruits and Veggies when in season, find that is when produce is at its best and try to be more intentional with my meal preps with this in mind. I choose local over anything first, it hasn’t traveled as far and often is the freshest, and they say more dollars go into your community as opposed to a Big Box Chain. Often the smaller farmers don’t use a lot or any of pesticides, but the organic certification drives the cost too high for them so they don’t do it. I understand not everybody has the option for local. I also refer to the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen. You can find that info online and it changes regularly. Big Agriculture is sneaky and constantly trying to get into the game, so whether your tomato roots or blueberries ever touched soil can be debatable and now there are new movements to bring farming back to its roots (literally and figuratively). I now have a membership to a CSA for spring, summer and fall. I will also volunteer every few weeks for them and they send me home with loads of produce as well. Its such a great way to get into the seasonal produce game.
And lastly, I love Saturday Sun (and The First Mess), thank you for this, Laura!
I save my veggie scraps and freeze them for vegetable broth and the broth is great. Is there anything you do not put in your vegetable broth? I am careful not to add too much cruciferous leaves and parts, but will use some cauliflower leaves. What are your thoughts? Is there anything you just don’t put into the veggie broth?
Hi Devi! Thanks for these questions. I’ll answer them in next week’s edition :)
okay, I think this finally convinced me to get an air fryer – do you have one that you recommend when cooking for 2?
Hi Jayla,
I also primarily cook for two and have the Instant Pot Vortex. It’s great! https://instantpot.com/collections/af-5-6qt/products/instant-vortex-plus-6-quart-air-fryer
-L
thank you for the response and for your blog and great recipes!
Love love love the nice and naughty cats of the week. Really needed that dose of laughter and the reminder of good things in this world after this week.
Loved the article on training the brain to be more resilient. We’re probably all thinking of ways to help ourselves in these ways. I just read this poem recently that also speaks so beautifully to this topic:
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs – all this resinous, unretractable earth.
–Jane Hirschfield, Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems
Hi Laura, Thanks for another great post! I love matcha and would really enjoy a matcha latte as my afternoon break, but caffeine in the afternoon can make me too wakeful at bedtime, so I have something herbal at that time of day. Do you find matcha has the same “caffeine effect” as black tea? I’ve heard that it doesn’t – I guess the only way to know for sure is to risk it & try it haha. Just wondering what your experience with it is.
Thanks for the snuffle mat info. Is there a particular brand of snuffle mat that you prefer?
Hi Jeannie!
Matcha can definitely have an equivalent amount of caffeine as black tea, depending on how much you use in your drink. And you want to use a good amount to get the flavor right! Some folks will argue that it’s a “calmer” caffeine boost, but if you’re sensitive to caffeine in the afternoon, it will stay in your system until bedtime just the same as coffee and black tea. I enjoy mine right after lunch so that there’s a decent buffer of time. And our snuffle mats came from a local pet store! Lots of online retailers have them in varying levels of difficulty. I’ve even seen a few blogs with instructions to make them yourself with felt fabric!
-L
Thanks Laura!
My weekly source of joy! Thank you for curating such a thoughtful roundup.
Hi! I know you have commented on this before, what is your fav vegan protein powder and how do you use it? Smoothies? What else?
HI Emily! I’ll answer this in next week’s edition :)
-L
Thanks for your writings, Laura! My small acupuncture/wellness biz just announced it will be leaving instagram. I moved to substack which feels better for me, at least for now. My personal account is still on insta for now but we will see what the future holds