VEEG

No, vegans are not crabby cakes, they are happy cakes!  Happy that they can eat these delicious morsels! Whether you are vegan or not, these will delight your palate and you won't miss those crab creatures one bit.  The secret here is the Hearts of Palm.  You can find Hearts of Palm at Trader Joe's, BJ's, Wegmans, Amazon... Hearts of Palm does not have a POW, hit you in the face flavor.  But the texture is amazing. With all the seasonings that are in this 'crab' cake, it tastes like a crab cake.   Try hearts of palm in salads, I love to have it in the summer with fresh garden tomatoes and avocado.... divine! VEGAN CRABBY CAKES 1- 7 ounce container Hearts of Palm  1/4 cup seaweed shreds (you can buy them like that or shred a sheet of nori yourself) ½  teaspoon salt, plus more as needed ½  cup panko crumbs 2 egg replacers equivalents  (ie. 2 tablespoons ground flax seed meal and 4 tablespoons warm water, mixed before you add it to the main ingredien

One of my favorite places to go out to dinner is an Ethiopian restaurant here in town.  I really love them.  However, there is a lot of oil in their food. Restaurants do that though, salt and oil are things that amp up delicious.  I don't blame them.  I get it.  I wanted to recreate Ethiopian at home with a lot less oil. The beans were pretty easy.  The injera.  Ah, that was a bit of a challenge. That report coming soon. Yekik Alicha 1 cup dried yellow split peas 2 tablespoons coconut oil 2 small to medium yellow onions, chopped 2 cloves garlic, pureed 1 and 1/2 tbsp fresh ginger, pureed 2 tsp turmeric 3 cups water 1 tsp salt In a saucepan place onion and oil together and saute for a good 5 to ten minutes.  keep stirring it to keep it from scorching.  Add in garlic, ginger, turmeric, salt and split peas.  Add the water.  Cook, uncovered until split peas are tender.

Before I tell you how my Vegan journey began, let me tell you about how I felt about Veganism before. I am going to be honest here. Please don't be offended.  Always I thought Vegans were extremists.  I am not a fan of being extreme.  I live my life in the grey areas.  I am aware of the grey areas.  My parents really did not have strong opinions. I sit on the fence of a lot of things, being able to see both sides. So my thoughts were, being vegan is ridiculous, we are suppose to eat meat.  That's why we have those fangs... for meat.  But that is whole nother argument that I wont get into now. I also didn't sit on the extreme of eating only meat.  I have never been afraid of beans.  All over Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness you will see recipes for bean dishes.  We ate meat, as a family, 2-5 times per week.  Most weeks two times.  But it was heavily laden with cheese.  In our house, cheese was our best friend.  I never bought too many deli meats because I felt they were

When my daughter was two or three I started Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness.  I loved that blog.  At that time I was a stay at home Mom and desperately in need of a creative outlet and something I could look at and feel a sense of accomplishment.  So many years ago.  I poured my heart into that blog.  There were so many blogs that started at the same time as mine and seemed to sky rocket.  My blog, just plugged along.  Never reached 'rock star status'.  Many times I was bummed by that because it is how I saw myself in the world of professionals after leaving my social work job to stay home with the kids.  If my blog failed, it meant I wasn't any good.  Boy, was I hard on myself.  Many times I thought to leave blogdom, be done with it.  But I kept going, thinking that some amazing success would happen with my blog.  Something amazing would spring forth.  Some company would sign me on as a recipe developer.  Or my hits would go up and I would make money doing my blog. Or I