Sunday, June 7, 2009

Festival & Finances

To get your attention...












Vanilla cupcakes, with beautiful layered strawberries for the husband, and blue sprinkles for the kids and myself (I don't care for fruit desserts much).

And cute kids...the younger two...












Nate & Maia

Thank goodness for cloth
diapers! We're in major
financial purgatory at the
moment....But you say, "You
just got back from vacation!"
Yeah, that's right, but that
was paid for months ago...you
notice I didn't review a single
restaurant...that's because we
didn't eat at ANY...the Disney popsicles and cotton candy were it baby!
I'm not here to explain it all, nor whine about it. But I wanted to preface why my bentos during the last 2 weeks of school will be centered on frugality. I hope they don't disappoint!

Today was one of our favourite
events--the Stearns Farm Spring
Festival! I was going to make a
tempeh stew for the potluck, until
I realized we were out of tempeh.
So I took that recipe on a tangent
with whatever we had available...

Cashew Veg Stew

2 T. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
5-6 carrots, peeled chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, diced
1 bell pepper (or 1 cup frozen bell pepper strips)
1 can chick peas, rinsed & drained
1 jar pasta sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup cashews
1/4 tsp. salt

Add first 6 ingredients to a large pot. Cover & cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally 5-10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients. Cover. Reduce heat to med-low to simmer. Cook at least 1/2 hour.
Serve. Goes great over brown rice.

























In addition to the potluck
lunch, there was music,
poetry reading, rock painting,
a hay ride, and someone had
brought their pet turtles for
everyone to enjoy...















There were even the two baby turtles...they stayed in their bin though. But the big turtles were later allowed to roam the farm, followed closely by many kids.

Rock painting...













Ryan's first time climbing
the apple tree...





Forget the nice cool
grass...Maia kept crawling
back to the irrigation
access cover??

And Ryan tried the
swing.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I for one always appreciate bento made frugally. We don't always have a lot of spare cash hanging around so I have to go with what is cheap :D

The festival looked like lots of fun!

Anonymous said...

I happen to like reading others posts on frugality. At my job I deal with those everyday who are living in poverty and I want so much to see them learn to be more frugal with their food stamps and to learn how to do more with less. It's because of that job that I have become a more thrifty person. Your frugal-based bentos will not be a disappointment to me. I look forward to them!

Unknown said...

I'm new to your blog and have just read all your past posts. Whew....but what a treat! My husband recently got laid off so frugal will be very much appreciative. Keep up the great work!

veganf said...

Glad to hear from everyone!

Kim & Lewis - I'm very impressed!! How long did that take you to read??!!

delilah s. dawson said...

You had me at cupcake. And something about turtles. And cupcakes.

You are so cool.

veganf said...

You and your cupcakes Delilah! LOL Before I die it is one of my goals to hand-deliver you a cupcake smorgasbord.

delilah s. dawson said...

Well, friend, we would both die happy.

I'll hopefully be meeting Ali this week, and that will be my first KC meetup. w00t!

Unknown said...

I read your past posts during lunch at work so it took about a week. You're very entertaining and from pictures of your kids an awesome mom.

I notice that you make croissant stuff with broccoli, etc... Are those pre-made (knowing you, it's probably from scratch)?

Oh and I saw his cool bento gadget for hotdogs. You can shape your dogs to look like penguin.

Keep up the great post!

veganf said...

Kim and Lewis - Alas, no, I do not make the crescent rolls from scratch at this time, I simply don't have enough time in a day. They're those junky Pillsbury crescent rolls (the "original" variety is vegan) that I got on sale.