Things I love Thursday – Vegan MoFo – Cats, Pizza, J, and lentil soup

I love Thursdays as a day of reflection. It’s been kind of gloomy outside this week, so it’s nice to think about all the good stuff going on, and it also makes me appreciate having the option of staying inside with my kitten for a while while it rains.

This past weekend was the beginning of OccupyToronto and I love that I live in a country where public demonstration is permitted, and people can have a reasonable expectation of being heard. I think regardless of how you feel about the protest or its impact, there is no denying that there is a feeling of global community being built as a result of this movement, in addition to offering a visual representation of people that are struggling, and want change. That and Occupy LOL Street.

I love the magical combination tomatoes, lentils, onions/garlic and some spices can create on a lazy afternoon. Throw it all in a pot, cook and eat something that just tastes warm and comforting.Which is what I’m cooking up right now!

I love the Black Magic vegan pizza J ordered for dinner last night. After taking advantage of the Queen Street E (Toronto) Magic Oven‘s Wednesday all you can eat pizza night a month ago, and trying a diverse assortment of pizzas, we finally found one that’s just brilliantly good. Pesto, sundried tomatoes, KALE and daiya. I also love that someone will deliver vegan food to our house.

I love Apples. They come in so many delicious varieties, and it’s possible to get really tasty local ones.Which is why next week is going to be a week of apple dishes (while still keeping with my other themes.) I’m pretty excited about it, because we still have at least 20lbs of apples at home from when we went picking them earlier in the month.

I love that Emmiecat has decided that on my pillow or just to the right of it, is a great place to sleep. Sometimes she wakes me up with scratches, but lately I’ve been waking up to purring.

We also recently purchased (where by we, I mean J did) a food processor/blender and immersion blender AND finally – I have a rolling pin. I love all of these things because they make more things possible and cooking a heck of a lot easier. This is the first time I’ve ever had a food processor, and I never realized how useful and versatile they are. I mean, obviously I have a vegetable heavy diet, and I’ve just taken the hand chopping process as coming with the territory…BUT this changes everything!

Favourite Blogs of the Moment  (But, really, I love yours too.)
– http://cookeasyvegan.blogspot.com/ – Andrea’s Easy Vegan Cooking. I don’t know what it is, but everytime I visit her site it makes me smile. I like her writing style, the photography, and how generally friendly she seems to be.
– http://vegansonthemove.wordpress.com/ – Gabrielle and Ms.Panda/Lisa are great people IRL, but I’m digging the posts about awesome vegans, recipes, pictures and Buhbuh.
– http://getsconedpdx.com/ – Jess Scone, currently the VeganMoFo theme is brilliant, with animal companions writing in about their humans. Emmie cat wants to do it, but she’s been busy sleeping and also, very importantly watching my pots cook.
– http://muffintopped.wordpress.com/ – Emily has a way with words and her entries are genuinely fun to read whatever they happen to be about.

Other stuff: Hugs. Burning the candle at both ends. Learning new and interesting information for free (Thanks Stanford and MIT). Local cleaning supplies that are okay to be used around children or animal companions, don’t cause my skin to react in angry allergic ways, and generally don’t suck. The way I feel right after I go running. The normalization of veganism and plant based diets. Amazing recipes. Hot cups of coffee. Blanket forts. green onions. cocoa. Cucumber mousse. Bad Lipreading.