On The Road Again...

April's "day job" and alter-ego is Apryl Knight, mild-mannered musician, who plays music from many times and many lands on WAY too many instruments. Her main performance venues are Renaissance festivals and SCA events. On July 19, she began an almost two month tour that would start with two weeks of Pennsic, include her first ever trip to Canada (to visit a cousin and generally sight-see), and conclude with her first ever gig at GenCon.

To prepare for the trip, April's dehydrator went into almost constant use for three days. Sweet potato/yam chips, apple chips, beet chips, and carrot chips were made, as well as olive tapenade and spinach artichoke dip. Unfortunately, not many pictures were taken, but here's one of the sweet potatoes pre-dehydration, just after having gone through April's brand new mandoline slicer (seriously, this thing is AWESOME!) -



To make dehydrated dip, choose your favorite recipe (like this one for spinach artichoke dip), make the dip, and spread it thinly on your dehydrator trays. If you don't have the silicone tray liners, you can cut liners to fit your trays from parchment paper. Dehydrate until completely dry (about 8 hours, but if it's not completely dry, let it go longer), then put in a blender or food processor until completely pulverized. When you're ready to eat it, add just enough warm water to reconstitute, stir, and eat! April's favorite camping cookbook (which has instructions for many dehydrated dips) is Another Fork in the Trail: Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes for the Backcountry.

After getting the van packed for the whole trip (So. Much. Stuff.), April and the hedgehogs prepared for the 24 hour drive.


"It's 1,396 miles to Slippery Rock, we got a full tank of gas, half a set of new tires, it's not dark...and we're wearing sunglasses." "Hit it."

A fabulous lunch awaited 3 hours later at Spiral Diner in Dallas. (For a review and TONS more pictures, check out previous posts here, here, here, here, and here.)



April had Bryan's Brutal Tacos, which were delicious, and grabbed one of her favorites, the Ate Layer Burrito, to have for dinner (as well as a brownie, because one does not simply leave Spiral Diner without a brownie).



April and the hedgehogs drove until somewhere past Nashville, TN, when they decided to stop for the night.

Italian Parsley Pesto

What's a gal to do with a giant bunch of leftover Italian parsley that she bought to make unimpressive gall bladder-friendly soup?

After doing an online search for "Italian parsley recipes", I decided that the answer was "pesto".



April's Italian Parsley Pesto

• 3 cups fresh Italian parsley, roughly chopped
•  3 garlic cloves
• 1-2 inches of Serrano pepper
•  2/3 cup nutritional yeast
•  1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons spicy brown mustard (I used yellow because it's what was in the apartment)
• 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
•  1 tablespoon chopped mint
•  2 tablespoons lemon juice
•  salt and black pepper to taste


Preparation
1. Place garlic in a small saucepan and cover with water. Boil for one minute, rinse with cool water, and add to food processor. 
2. In the food processor, blend together all ingredients. Season with the black pepper and salt at the end.

Emerald Green Dip Of Vegan Nominess

Today's entry is my 100th post on this blog! Woo hoo!

Let's flash back in time a week or so, back to before I was having gall bladder issues and I was still trying to figure out different ways to use the large pot of black beans I'd made and what was left of a large bunch of kale.

*sound of flashback music*



While we're back here, let's remind past me to actually write down how much of what goes into specific things when they're being made. *facepalm*

I know I had at least 5 or 6 large leaves of curly kale, about 1/2 a cup of black beans, 1/3-1/2 cup of pineapple salsa, several good shakes of turmeric and ginger, and about 1/4 cup nutritional yeast. I tossed all of it into my BlendTec blender with just enough water to make it smooth.



I ate it with Wheat Thins Flatbread chips, and it was delicious!