Okay so I’m going to warn you now that there aren’t any recipes in this post. I’m not even going to try and pretend that I remember with any sort of accuracy how these two recipes went down (hey I get points for honesty right?) but I found these pictures and thought they deserved at least a little mention for inspiration especially since, at least where I am, we’re starting off the weekend with a little bit of a cool spurt. That’s right I’m sitting here, in Southern California, at the end of May, wearing my new teal crochet beanie and actually not really looking a tad bit ridiculous… it’s positively nippy today! (Crafty sidenote… I have to think of fun names for stuff I’m going to put in my store… this teal’s really sassy so I’m thinking the “Vegan Vixen” beanie…. other fun names? Velociraptor Ball Beanie?)
First, off a Mexican Food Win!
What you see before you is just your simple run of the mill veggie flautas but I topped it with a cheezy hollaindaise type sauce. You know like a noochy gravy with onions and mushrooms and what not. And then we made some fresh salsa to go on top of that. Blasphemy? Maybe. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Mexican taco dish that incorporates gravy but I’ll tell you it was delicious! It tastes like another blasphemous vaguely Mexican combo Rotel and Velveeta.
Has anyone ever had this before?? I never had but Mr. Guava’s family used to make it all the time. I have to be honest I was a little freaked out the first time I saw Mr. Guava dumping the contents of this odd little can over cubed Velveeta before popping the whole thing in the micro but you know what it was good. Weird… overly processed… artery clogging… extremely artificial… but good. Anyway, that’s what this was like… but fresher and without so many scary mystery ingredients.
I guess you just never know when genius is going to hit. For example, I thought this next dish was going to be a win for sure! It wasn’t. It was a FAIL. What happened was I saw this masterful piece of black bean wizardry on SDCat’s blog… YUM! I thought… I must have it! I even went so far as to pilfer around the internet and find the recipe… then I went home, recipe in hand, and proceeded to make my own version… bah… fail…
My oven baked tortilla strips were actually delicious and spicy as was my guacamole. And in defense of my soup the noodles were only bloated because Mr. Guava had an extremely late night at work. Unfortunately, the tofu sour cream was suspect and the noodles soaked up what was tasty broth and made everything sort of bland but it was pretty and as I look at SDCat’s delicious version again I might have to give this another go. Any tips for tofu sour cream?? I’d love to be able to make my own (tofutti’s delicious but expensive and I have to make a special trip out to Mother’s which is the only place near me that sells it)?? Oh well, I’ll look for some inspiration this weekend.
Happy Friday!
Love,
Guava
[Flash of Recognition] Good now that we’re all on the same page on to my Sweet and Sour Balls!!! That’s right I actually thought of a good idea and followed through with the idea before losing interest! Mild Attention Deficit my– ooh isn’t that an awesome picture of a Velociraptor? I couldn’t decide between that one and this one of it looking all sweet before heading into rabid attack mode…
What? Oh right Sweet and Sour Balls! Check it out!
Mmm…. Doesn’t it look delicious??? It was! And I have another big pile of it in the fridge for lunch!! [Tummy Growls like Velociraptor!] I just used my Mas o Menos Salty Ball 
Yes, I strategically set my Orla Kiely water cup there so you could see what a pretty color my Mango Sauce was [sheepish look]…
… and the entry way which I finally got some new flowers in for color…
I know I know… you can’t eat em but I just couldn’t resist a little floofiness in those adorable little wooden boxes! Hopefully, I’ll get some time to work on my fence this weekend. A little surprise coming there… it will either be awesome or a humongous disaster!
It’s completely adorable all made up and I’m working on an alternate set in the pear print that you see in the couch pillow picture. You’d think after a wedding I’d be done with home furnishings but that just wouldn’t be us. We’re not really fine china Egyptian cotton people. I’m sure people wondered why I didn’t have a comforter set on my registry but asked for 8 sets of 3 different dishtowels! Heehe… at any rate the Orla Kiely Target set is just perfect for our new little house. Bright, cheery, and with a vintage vibe! We had started out looking at dish sets in the antique stores down town but I don’t really have anywhere to store/display them right now and I’d be too deathly afraid to actually use and enjoy them.
Tadaa! Tofu Balls! These were seriously the best balls I had in a good long while (okay gutterbrains… that was a serious comment). They were easy, tasty, and firmed up pretty well (seriously dirty birds… what kind of blog do you think I’m running here?). I started out with the
… but of course didn’t stick to it completely or take any measurements… “DOH!” The Guavas shall have to lay themselves down in sacrifice once again stuffing themselves with dinner after dinner of tofu balls to perfect the recipe for you all. Gah, we’re selfless… and humble! If you’d like to give it a go around (I think Balls in general are hodge podge recipes more than a science) here’s how I think it went down… give it a go…
Mr. Guava and I just got some great cookbooks in Hawaii so we’re thinking of throwing some sort of Aloha themed party (Fourth of July on the 
2. Pretending to wax my imaginary handle bar moustache… uhh… does any one really know the correct spelling of mustache?
3. Discussing the origins of the 
5. And last but not least discussing life with friends in the hypothetical situation that we are characters in the Sound of Music and fighting over who will be Ralph the Nazi Co-Conspirator.
Woot Woot! Yeah, I had a sewing machine bite the dust last year and then proceeded to pilfer the unused one at my parents house. Unfortunately, just this week while trying to sew my 
I have no idea yet whether this is going to actually fit me or if I was over-confident and am making a sweater for my imaginary half my size pixie friend… we shall see. Also, while I really like how it’s coming along I didn’t really understand the whole “stitching around the post” (any tips?) thing so I think mine looks slightly different than it’s supposed to… oh well… one of a kind friends… one of a kind.
The ladylike fingerless gloves from fore mentioned Happy Hooker! You can’t really see the pattern in this pic but I think I’m actually pretty accurate on this one…
I’m planning on working a matching scarf with a similar pattern. I love WIP Wednesdays! 
When these stores popped up on Mr. Guava’s IPhone we knew we had to go check it out but tried not to get our hopes up (how many of you have had that experience trying to grab lunch at Whole Foods… walk up to counter… look at items… great I can eat one kind of Olive… bah). So we rolled in one day ravenous after a morning of snorkeling at 
I had given up all hope of ever having a
This is what happens to Vegans who seldom get to indulge in the gluttony of a buffet style meal… you end up losing all self control and stand at the counter to pay embarrassed as your plate inches up over the one pound mark. There were several curries, at least 3 rice options, quinoa salad, potato mac, korean style bbq tofu, roasted potatoes.. not to mention the rest of the salad bar (when there’s curry who has room for salad) with Vegan Salad Dressings! On top of this all but 1-2 dishes were local! And wait what was upstairs in the seating area to accompany our meal…
Wow! If that doesn’t win you over (as full as we were… read: death by curry overload) we made room to grab a VEGAN Mocha Chip Shake for dessert! There was actually a whole list of VEGAN shakes! Are you reading this a whole list! Now as much as just the lunch foods would have won me over completely Mr. Guava and I couldn’t help pilfering around the rest of the store…
As Mr. Guava and I contemplated the insanity level of trying to fly with 30 lbs of vegetarian dog food and buying a special cooler to help transport a months supply of frozen foods back home (Fu Scramble!! In a HOT POCKET?!! LOVE IT!) I was completely smitten. Could I survive in Oahu on a checkout clerks budget??? I might just have to find out…
) so if you would like to send Tara a little monetary warm fuzzy check out her 
Haha… okay there are probably a few other things but still we were lucky to find Green Papaya Vegetarian Restaurants while staying in Waikiki…
Among other deliciousness (Spicy Fried Rice, Saimin, Spring Rolls, Chow Mein) we had Vegetarian Pho! Woot Woot! Now I discovered Pho just shortly before I went vegetarian so going out to Vietnamese with friends really has been torturous! This taste has really inspired Mr. Guava and I to branch out and try some new dishes at home because life really isn’t life without some spicy, cilantroey, basily Pho every now and then!
After spending a few days doing the tourist thing down south we headed up to the North Shore…
Hahaha… sorry couldn’t resist… a cult classic? Okay, maybe only in my family. As a sidenote check out the new look of 
Peanut Pinang Curry…
And our last meal there we threw conventional meal ordering to the wind and got an appetizer sampler of all of Haleiwa Eats Greatest Hits. I would seriously live off these three dishes if I could! There’s the staple: Vegetarian Springs Rolls, then theres the innovative Fried Tofu Salad w/ Peanut Lime dressing (will definitely be attempting this), and last but not least (wouldn’t even know where to start in an attempt at this) Crispy Thai Noodles… a house specialty!
Of course we finished off several of our meals with Mango Sticky Rice. Now I’ve had my share of sticky rice but the Coconut Sauce that they put on top was ridiculous… thick and salty and sweet all at once… mmmm…
We of course hit up the world famous 
Finally, I can’t fail to mention Breakers Cafe. No culinary one of a kind masterpieces here but guess what we got for 
Seriously!!! This wasn’t like we rolled out of bed at noon from our honeymooning slumber and had fried rice for breakfast… it was on the breakfast menu!!! Remember when I was advocating 
Hullo Friends! So I’m totally going to cheat here and show some pics of some past Works in Progress for my WIP Wednesday… poor 
And a close up of the goodies…
Our name holders were those 
And a close up of what we used for the cutting and our topper! The topper was hand made out of tin and looked nearly identical to Tio’s Beer Bottled Chapel! It was actually a candle sconce and was all gorgeous and glowy!
And even though this wasn’t work that we did I thought all you food pornographers wouldn’t mind some pics of the amazing fruit spread that Tio’s set out for us… all the fruit was done by hand by the artist himself, Martin Sanchez, and his daughter carved the ice sculpture!
Not to worry Vegans… I did you proud and didn’t just serve fruit as a show of the vegan diet… there was plenty of other good stuff but I don’t have the pictures right now. I’ll definitely show you when I have them!
Sure I have pics from my Vegan Tour of Oahu (which I shall bombard you with to stall as I get back into cooking) but Honeymoon and Wedding Pics are too boring for a first post back! Aren’t these amazing??? They are 
