Earth Day Dinner

Ok, so it's only an "Earth Day dinner" because it's Earth Day, not because we did anything special to celebrate it. Honestly, I feel a bit ashamed that we didn't celebrate, but quite frankly, I couldn't think of a single thing we could do to celebrate Earth Day that we don't do nearly every day. That's right folks, it's Earth Day every day at our house!!


Actually, we had thought to plant a tree, but we've had terrible luck with tree planting in the past. Our trees never seem to survive the season. So instead, we've decided to have an arborist come to plant some trees for us. Therefore, tree planting was out.

I do have some cute Earth Day themed things that Mairin has said and done though. First, she's very concerned about conserving toilet tissue so as not to need to cut down trees to make more. She still hates to use a napkin if it has one spot of food on it, but heaven forbid if you use more than 1 square of TP. She can also frequently be caught picking up random trash and throwing it away, wondering why people don't do so in the first place. And, the other day the weather was a strange mix of sun, rain, clouds, etc. and I commented that Mother Nature was having a tough time making up her mind.......later that day Mairin says to me "Mommy, why are you having a hard time making up your mind today?" I looked at her puzzled and asked what she meant and she says "well, you are Mother Nature, aren't you?"


Alright, now to the food, that is after all why you guys stopped by, right? For dinner tonight we had Mushroom Burgers, fried Yukon Gold potatoes, and steamed broccoli. The burger recipe came from vegweb. I pretty much followed the recipe exactly. Only, I didn't use fresh herbs, I used about 2 tsp dried basil instead. Also, instead of the cooked white rice the recipe calls for I used a combo of cooked brown basmati and bulgur (because I had a bowl of those two already cooked and mixed together in the refrigerator). These burgers were really, really good. They looked very much like beef burgers, and while they didn't taste exactly like beef burgers, they did have the essence. I think next time I make them (and there will definitely be a next time) I'll add a little vegan Worcestershire, and less liquid smoke.


I grilled the burgers on my indoor grill, and served them on toasted buns with a bit of Vegenaise, sliced onion, and lettuce. For the potatoes, I just sliced them thin, and fried them in about 2 Tbs olive oil with about 1/2 a spanish onion sliced into small slices.

I hadn't planned any dessert, but then started thinking I should do something special since it is Earth Day and all. So, I started looking around to see what I had on hand, and it turns out I had everything I needed to make the Banana Swirl "Cheesecake" from Vegan Planet.

Actually, I took a little help and used a store bought graham cracker crust that I had in my freezer. Also, for the peanut butter in the filling I substituted soy nut butter. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as is.

Once again, vegan dessert did not disappoint. This was delicious. It didn't have that tang that traditional cheesecakes have, but that certainly didn't change the fact that this dessert was quite decadent!!