4 days of "Me" time.

I love these four day weekends, don't you? Mine started on Wednesday night after work. Came home and made a "meatloaf" dinnner.

Again I used the Magical Loaf Studio and created a recipe that used black beans, pecans, oats, veggies and a bunch of other seasonings. It came out of the oven beautiful.

It's not a meatloaf dinner without mash and a vegetable. For the mash, I made a creamy miso gravy to pour over. Oh, that's kimchi on the side. I love kimchi but it didn't work flavor-wise on this plate.

Yesterday, my husband and I took the train downtown to see Ringo's exhibit at the Grammy Museum. Love this place. I've seen many a good music exhibits here. As for Beatle-y ones, I've been to John's, George's and now Ringo's. When they do one for Paul, I'll be all over that. He's my favorite.

RINGO! This was all I got a picture of. It was the entrance to the exhibit. They wouldn't let you photograph anything beyond that. The exhibit itself was amazing. Ton of artifacts, Ringo's drum kits, letters, photos, video etc. I was in Beatle heaven.

After the museum, we went to The Yard House for lunch. We usually start off with drinks. The Smithwicks on the left was my husbands. The pear cider on the right is mine.

Drink #2: Moscow Mule! Vodka, lime and ginger beer. So refreshing!

I ordered a Gardein burger with fries. Yum.

To celebrate the 4th and a successful sunshine day, I made this impressive almond-coconut mango "jello".

If you want to make a vegan jello, agar is your friend. Recipe here. Just substitute almond-coconut milk for the juice.

Kale Pesto Linguine and Thai Coffee Agar Dessert!

I've never made pesto with kale before. I've made it with basil of course, broccoli, arugula, cilantro and spinach. I had two big bunches of kale in my fridge that needed using up so I decided to give it a go. I processed fresh kale with walnuts, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and a little bit of salt. It came out nice and creamy but was quite bitter. I was a little disappointed. I ended up sauteeing some tomatoes and garlic in olive oil and added the pesto to the pan to cook it out a bit. It lost a lot of the bitterness as a result so I was good to go. I tossed it with hot linguine and topped it with "Parmezano Sprinkle" (almonds, nutritional yeast, miso, salt).

For dessert I had Thai coffee flavored jelly agar dessert. If you remember the last one I made, this is the same thing just a different flavor. It was so delicious. I like coffee flavored everything so this was a treat. This flavor worked much better with the sliced bananas.

Thai Jelly Agar Dessert

I bought a packet of this at Bangkok Market on Melrose last week and thought I'd give it a try today. It's the easiest thing ever. You just mix up the packet with 2 cups of water in a pot, bring it to a boil, pour into a mold, add sliced fruit, put it in the fridge for about half an hour and voila! A fun jelly like dessert. It's got a very nice fruity and not too sweet flavor. The sliced bananas upped the sweetness a bit more. I liked the bananas in it but I think their flavor overpowered the jelly a little too much. I think I'd rather have it plain next time. And in case you're wondering, no this does not feel or taste anything like Jello. By the way, Jello is made from gelatin which is derived from animal connective tissue, skin and bone, ew! This product is made from agar which is derived from algae that has thickening properties like gelatin. Ingredients of this product: Agar agar, sugar, anti-caking agent, silicon dioxide, artificial flavor




Look at that lovely green!