Eat to Live Days 23-25

Hello all! I don't work on Fridays right now, so Thursdays are my favourite day of the week. :)

I'm also having a good day food-wise. I just ate an incredibly delicious dinner:

The last of my mom's chili (from the freezer) and a baked potato. But what's that on my baked potato? It looks like butter... but no - it's Better Butter!!!

When my aunt found out I was following a plant-based diet for a few weeks, she very kindly sent me some recipes (at times in her life, she's been a vegan). I heard stories that when her daughters were growing up, they would beg for Better Butter! I was anxious to try it for myself.

Cornmeal, nutritional yeast, and unsweetened coconut.

First I brought 1/4 cup of cornmeal and 1 cup of water to a boil. Then I lowered the heat and stirred until it thickened a bit.

Into the blender it went, along with 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast, 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut, and 1/2 cup water. (The recipe called for salt, too, but I omitted it.)

Then I chilled it for awhile, and it was ready for my baked potato! I quite liked it. It mostly tasted like coconut, but it totally had a buttery consistency and overall... essence.

Believe it or not, that's not the only exciting thing I made today. I also made an attempt at peanut butter! And it was SUCCESSFUL!

Just raw peanuts in the Magic Bullet, baby. Mmmmmmmmm.

But I needed a vehicle for my peanut butter. I also needed to do something with the kale I bought a couple of days ago. Can you guess what I made?

Kale chips, of course! I've only made kale chips once before, and I didn't love them (I think I was expecting them to be as good as potato chips). I was determined to try again. I mixed about 2 tablespoons of my homemade peanut butter with two big bowls of kale. I put the kale on parchment paper in the oven at 170 degrees (the lowest setting) with the door open, and left it until the kale was totally dried out (about an hour and a half).

I really enjoyed this (in fact, I'm eating some as I type this post). All in all, a wonderful day in my kitchen. PLUS my most recent pair of jeans (bought in January to replace jeans I'd "outgrown") are not as painfully tight as they were a few weeks ago! :D

Just over two weeks left in this adventure. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to the end...

Have a good night!