Grab and Go Vegan

Too busy to cook? Well my vegan day was crazy busy. It happened to be Mother's Day too. Not that I'm a mother, but my husband is a flower peddler. So you can understand why he needed my help yesterday at his farmer's market booth. We both drove a van of flowers when usually he just drives one. We sold double the flowers! I made 10 arrangements (pictured above) and we sold 9 of them!

My day started at 5:00 am. That's when the alarm went off, of course I snoozed it several times limiting my chances of leaving on time. For once my man trusted me, and didn't call to check if I were actually up. He had left an hour earlier to load both vans at the farm. I quickly made my usual breakfast of almond or peanut butter toast. However, this time I toasted Force Primeval Bars from Trader Joe's. Made my tea to go and breakfasted while driving down the 101 freeway, enjoying the view of the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

Okay so I was just under 10 minutes late to the farm, where I jumped into one of the vans and slowly followed Leo in his van deep into the foothills and canyons between Santa Paula and Ojai. No sharp turns or breaking allowed; otherwise you would have a mess of broken flowers and water to clean up. This drastically tamed my driving style.

Once setting up, it took 2 hours before we sold one of my flower vases, which made me nervous, because I didn't want to lower the price or have worked 4 hours in vain. We chatted up the customers, and generally keep busy. I went off to buy us coffee and vegan cookies nearby, but by 2:00, when all packed up, I was starving. We both drove to the nearest California Pizza Kitchen (cpk.com) for a well deserved meal. Let me tell you, they have updated their menu with two great vegan salads. The roasted vegetable one looked delicious, but I ordered the Miso Shrimp Salad (sans shrimp). This is a wonderful, light, oriental style salad with edemame and crunchy fried noodles mixed into chopped nappa and iceberg among other yummy veggies. Do tell them to hold the shrimp!

Here's the problem with an early supper. Around 8:00, you get hungry again. Leo decided to go to bed early, so I foraged in our freezer for a quick bite. Here I found a vegan TV dinner. Amy's brand black bean tamales, dairy and gluten free that I had bought at my local grocer. Surprisingly good! It was spicy and flavorful. The corn tortillas were thick, home made tasting. Just enough food for me, although I wanted more brown rice on the side. I would recommend you get one for those days you don't want to cook.