Vegan Mofo is coming!

Hey all you Zoey fans!

Baby Zoey has been keeping me on my toes but I wanted to post and say that Vegan Mofo is going to be in November this year in case you are interested in participating. I will post more information as the event gets closer and I will be posting quite a bit in the month of November.

Baby Zoey is getting big. Her favorite foods so far are green smoothies with kale or spinach, collard greens with butternut squash, black beans, bananas and avocados. We have gotten into a bit of a cooking rut so I am hoping that Vegan Mofo will help inspire me to be more creative. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still here!

Going Green!

In an effort to further improve my health and explore new foods I have decided to go green for the month of March!

Ok, the truth is that I was watching Dr. Oz and there was a woman on the show who had cured her cancer in part by eating blended leafy greens every day (and eliminating all animal protein from her diet). The part that impressed me was not that she had cured her cancer but that she looked AMAZING. She was glowing and looked about 10 years younger than her picture before she had cancer. I don't think this was makeup folks, this was the real deal.

So I decided in that moment that I would create a little challenge for myself. I do love kale green smoothies but I don't eat them as often as I would like. And, since Mr. Zoey loves them too, I rarely get to eat the entire bunch of kale.

So.. for the month of March I am committing to eating at least 1 bunch of leafy greens every day. If baby Zoey takes some naps I will share pictures here!

I picked up the little bunch of chard in the top picture at the local farmers market last weekend. I ended up steaming it for a couple minutes because that is all I know to do with shard but I kind of wish I had eaten the whole bunch raw. I snacked on a few pieces while I was waiting for the water to boil and it was really good. Unfortunately I can't find bunches of little leaves like that anywhere in stores. Hopefully I will be able to find them again next weekend!

Zoey Zoey Do, Where are you?

That's how Zoey's Kitchen feels to me these days. (That was my sad attempt at the Scooby Doo theme song- in case that only plays in my head). I'm still eating, and Zoey still exists but somehow the whole cooking thing has fallen through the cracks recently. My diet has become essentially the elimination diet and while that seems to be helping baby Zoey's skin, it isn't much to photograph.

I have even taken some pictures of my gluten-free creations, but for some reason the work to upload them and blog about them seems overwhelming and sad because most of them use tomatoes, or corn or chickpeas and all of those are off limits to me right now. So I haven't. And I am trying to decide what to do with this blog.

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading just closed up shop a few weeks ago. I am not ready to throw in the towel on Zoey's Kitchen yet but I am thinking about either allowing myself to post less or allowing myself to post about things other than food. I am sort of on the fence.

I started this blog because I was exploring a new way of eating (The McDougall Plan) and I thought that blogging about food would keep me on my toes and trying new things. It worked and now the plan seems easy to follow. My health has improved and even Mr. Zoey has jumped on board. I would embrace the same theory with my elimination diet, but you really can only take so many pictures of beans and rice.

So anyway, that's the scoop. I'm still here and baby Zoey is getting big. Regular Zoey is getting big too (we refer to it as her sympathy pregnancy weight). Her best trick these days is to bite my toes any time that baby Zoey cries. She's a good helper :)