Sauvie Island

Matt and I took advantage of a comp-day he earned by working really late hours the week before, and headed to Sauvie Island on Friday. It was our first trip to the 26,000 acre island, even though it's just north of Portland.

Before leaving the city, we stopped to pick up breakfast goodies at Sweetpea Bakery. Just look at the size of that chocolate chip scone! I was really digging the lemon danish- flaky and moist in all the right places. Mmmm....danish.
Then we picked up falafel wraps from Wolf and Bear's, deciding to eat them at a nice spot on our island walk. I really recommend their wraps, which are all vegetarian, and can be made vegan. Their falafel is great, and with accoutrements like grilled eggplant, kalamata olive tapenade, and full-of-fresh-herb-flavor hot sauce, you really can't be disappointed!
Upon reaching Sauvie Island, we visited Oak Island, a park with grassy fields and, as the name suggests, many oak trees in all stages of life, surrounded by water on three sides.
We did the 2.5 mile loop and then some, picking blackberries all the way. Want to know a secret? The berries in the shade are sweeter than those in the sun! Lucky for us, we had drink containers left over from our lunch to collect the berries in.
It was a lovely walk, but also quite hot...which is why we were thrilled to find a "gourmet" snow cone and Italian soda stand outside a produce market on our way off the island. I decided on a strawberry lemon Italian soda, while Matt went for the blackberry peach.

Tula Gluten-Free Bakery

My plans changed for the morning, which allowed me to bike over to Tula, a new gluten-free bakery in my neighborhood. They opened a few weeks ago, and aside from getting an iced soy latte to go (quite good!), I haven't tried any of their fare. Contrary to their Facebook page, only about 50% of their baked goods are vegan.
I decided to get a lemon tart and iced latte to go. The tart got a little rough-looking from the bike ride home. Luckily, it stayed in one delicious piece. The tart was, well, tart, with a real lemon taste in the filling. The crust was a bit dry and cracker-like, but nutty and tasty all the same. The sweet pop of the blueberries complimented the tastes and textures of the crust and filling.

The latte was tasty too!

I'll be going back, for sure.

Post VVCon Dinner

The stars aligned and I was able to buy a cheap last-minute ticket to Vida Vegan Con this past weekend. Among many other things, my ticket afforded me a gorge fest with an array of rich, sometimes less-than-healthy, foods. In addition to that, Matt and I played host to our Couchsurfing guests and ate out quite a bit in the past several days. (More on the conference in the next post!)

Today I was craving simple, fresh foods, so I made a tasty tabbouleh salad and majadra for dinner.

The tabbouleh contained our first ripe tomatoes, our first lemon cucumber, and some parsley from the garden, as well as bulgur wheat, minced onion, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
The whole grain bulgur wheat added quite a bit of earthy nuttiness, and I just let it soak in water instead of cooking it.
After enjoying majadra for years at Middle Eastern restaurants, I watched an episode of Everday Dish and decided I should make it myself. Well, that was a while ago, but I've finally gotten around to making this simple dish. The dry fluffiness of this slightly salty dish is enhanced by the sweetness of the caramelized onions. It's a really comforting dish. And guess what. I followed this recipe exactly. That's almost a first for me.
Quite a nice pairing I think.

Gluten-Free Almond Butter Cookies

The recipe for these absolutely delightful sweets came from Madcap Cupcake's blog. Sooo tasty. I blame my oily almond butter for the spreading, but these crisp, rich cookies are so yummy, I don't mind one bit. Only five ingredients and no flour, whatsoever.

What was that? You noticed that I've already eaten a few of them since they came out of the oven half an hour ago? So?

Family Portrait!

My photographer friend, Carly, came over to assist with a fun project yesterday. We have the honor of appearing in the Cares4Pets 2012 calendar, scheduled to be released in a few months, and Carly snapped some great shots of the four of us together. As you can imagine, it's not always easy to photograph pets, and given that ours are of a particularly squirmy variety, Carly did a fabulous job! I like how so many of them feature Emerson's tongue on Matt's face.

Which shot is your favorite?

(Don't worry; The chosen image will be much crisper than those portrayed here.)

Food from our garden

Apparently, our growing season here is off to a late start, but since this is the first garden Matt and I have had, we don't really know the difference. All we know is that we're excited to reap the benefits of our hard work in prepping and maintaining our garden!

Our teeny plum tree has lots of delicious, marble-sized fruits.

Last night I made collard wraps along with some pineapple ginger couscous.

From the garden: collards, a beet (pictured above,) parsley.

The wraps contained black-eyed peas, quinoa, carrot, tomato, yellow bell pepper, parsley, and a sunflower seed spread that I whipped up. It was so good that I want to share it with you!

Lemony Sunflower Seed Spread

Ingredients:
1/8 cup sunflower seeds, soaked for a couple of hours, then drained
juice from 1/2 lemon
2-3 tbsp miso paste
1 large clove garlic
cayenne powder to taste
sprig of parsley
handful of black-eyed peas

Directions:
1. Mix everything in a food processor. I added the black-eyed peas because I had a batch already cooked up and the consistency helped bring everything together.
2. Resist eating the spread right from the food processor, instead plopping it inside your favorite wrap.


Our collard leaves were tiny and we had lots of 'innards' left over, so I just made them into a side salad with a fresh beet from the garden!

With our 70ish tomato and pepper plants, I expect to soon be over-run by tomatoes and peppers. In the mean time, it's fun watching the progress, like the tomatoes growing on this volunteer plant that popped up among our strawberries. Roma tomatoes, perhaps?
Lastly, a photo of the carrot we pulled up today in order to gauge their progress.

Happy summer!

Lately, we've had a delightful paring of warmish days and cool evenings in Portland. I love it. And the boys are certainly loving it.
Tonight we honored the coming of the season with yummy (and appropriately named) summer rolls! We were told by our Vietnamese friends that this is a relaxing meal, meant to be enjoyed with loved ones, as you put together your summer rolls just the way you like.

The fillings included baked tofu, homegrown spinach and lettuce, sauteed carrot and onion, homegrown spearmint, orange bell pepper, and cucumber. I made two dipping sauces: a sweet tamarind peanut sauce and a chili garlic sauce. Really yummy!

(This photo doesn't really make the summer rolls seem appetizing. I think it needed a dash of dipping sauce to liven it up! They were good. I promise.)

I also made a batch of herbal sun tea and cooled it down with a couple of frozen boysenberries.
Aaaand we had our first strawberry harvest of the season. They were deeelish!

Happy summer to you, folks in the Northern Hemisphere!