Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Vegetable Soup and Rye Bread

Tonight Kurt and I made a delicious vegetable soup that we just threw together. We started with a vegetable stock base and went from there.















Ingredients included garlic, onion, carrots, blue, red, and white potatoes, green beans, acorn squash (which we baked for about 15 minutes prior to adding it in to the soup), barley, and swiss chard.

It was good.
And our rye bread looks like bunnies, right?

Open-Faced Artichoke and Tomato Layer Sandwiches!

Back in the good old days of college, I used to get some amazing sandwiches from (believe it or not) the student cafeteria. The sandwich was a huge mess of ingredients squashed between a toasted bagel. If I remember correctly, the filling was oil and vinegar, 3 types of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and roasted red pepper. They were tall and you really had to put your elbows into it.

Today I created this sandwich, which kind of reminds me of the cheesy one from college. I call it my "Open-Faced Artichoke and Tomato Layer Sandwich":















I love this sandwich for many reasons. The balsalmic vinegar gives a little sweetness, the marinated artichokes add a bit of a pickled quality, and the avocado is earthy and creamy. You need a good bread or bagel for this sandwich - I used a fresh bagel from my local bagel shop, but you could use a couple of slices of Italian or French bread cut lengthwise too.

Open-Faced Artichoke and Tomato Layer Sandwiches
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Bagels (or Italian or French Bread)
4 tsp Olive Oil
4 tsp Balsalmic Vinegar
1 Avocado
2 tsp Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)
1 Medium Tomato
4 quarters of Marinated Artichoke Hearts
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

Directions:
Slice bagels or Italian/French bread length-wise. Sprinkle each half with 1 tsp olive oil and 1 tsp balsalmic vinegar.

Slice open avocado around the pit and scoop out flesh into a bowl. Smash avocado with a fork to desired texture (I like mine a bit chunky).  Squeeze in the 2 tsp of lemon juice into the mixture, and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix and spread onto each bagel half.

Rinse tomato and cut 4 slices. Cut each tomato slice into half-moons and then arrange on top of the avocado mixture. Sprinkle with pepper.

Cut each marinated avocado quarter into 4 slices, lengthwise. Place on top of each tomato half-moon.

Eat and enjoy!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hello and Welcome!

Hi everyone, this is my first post for this blog. I'm very excited about starting this up and posting as often as I can. I will be talking about my vegetarian/vegan/raw vegan quest for health as well as my artistic and creative endeavors and daily life.

Some things you should know about me are that I have a Lovie (AKA Kurt):
And I have a Pup (AKA Saba):
And here's me (AKA Sara), with Pup:
My little family lives in an apartment in the suburbs in central NJ. We're in a transition phase - figuring out what we really want to do with our lives (be artists/writers/small business owners?), where we want to live (NJ/NC/OR/CA?), and how we want to live (in an RV/on a homestead/in a regular house?) (be vegetarians/vegans/raw vegans?). 

I hope you'll follow along as I share my thoughts and ideas with you!