Chickpea Noodle Soup (unfortunately watered down because I didn't realize how low I was on vegetable broth. Still decent, though.)
I had a coupon to try a free WayFare oat-based "cheese" product and picked up the Mexican-style spread to use in nachos. It's reminiscent of Play Food (cashew-based cheese sauce that was made and distributed just in the Kansas City area for a limited time). Though not as good as Play Food, this was still a nice addition to nachos.
It reads, "It Melts!" on the container, which I thought was strange, because it's already a spread. Then I glopped it on top of nachos before sticking the whole pan in the oven and why, yes, it really does melt!
I needed a fast dinner one night and decided to give this little carton of soup a whirl.
It has a beautiful color!
However, just a few bites in and I was done. I'm not sure what it was about it, but a few spoonfuls was more than enough for me. It is cashew-based, so it's kind of rich. The flavors are great, but overwhelming (for me) in large doses.
I finally tried a Tofurky pizza! I went with the fire roasted vegetable variety.
It tastes very much like a frozen pizza, especially the vegetables. The crust was pretty bland and I felt the pizza was too light on the sauce (I'm a saucy kind of gal). Otherwise, it was a decent pizza. I think in the future, should I decide to get another one, I'd get a plain "cheese" one and top it myself with fresher, better ingredients.
I had read a few reviews of Mary's Gone Crackers around the blogosphere, so when I saw them on sale at a nearby health food store, I decided to give them a whirl. (And I also happened to have some "smoked cheddar" variety of WayFare spreads.)
I picked up the "original" flavor of crackers (seemed like a good place to start). The crackers are wheat-free and gluten-free, with ingredients including brown rice, whole quinoa, flax seeds, and sesame seeds.
The crackers are very thin and crispy. They just barely held up to the WayFare spread. I could taste every single grain that was used in the cracker, which was pretty cool. No weird fillers -- you can taste it all! I wouldn't pay full price for these, but if they're on sale, I would certainly be inclined to purchase them again.
I hate coffee. The only thing I'll order at a coffee shop, typically, is an iced soy chai tea (and it has to be iced because I always burn my tongue on coffee shop hot beverages. I'm such a wimp). Anyway, those things are expensive, and I prefer to keep some chai concentrate on hand and make my own. I gave this brand a try and found it overwhelmingly clove-y. If you really like the taste of cloves, this would be the brand for you. It gave me a bit of a flashback of the clove cigarettes of my high school years. Blech.
While house- and dog-sitting over the holidays, I made a big batch of black bean-veggie stew. I'm very pleased with how it came out.
I kind of hate corn, but it was included in an otherwise-awesome blend of veggies from Publix, so I made an exception.
Some Mary's Gone Crackers went well with this, too.
The new year is around the corner and this year, I am determined to make something with black-eye peas "for luck," since I've never done that before. Hopefully I can find the time and energy to make it happen. If I do, you'll see it here!
