Artichoke Pesto!

Udon noodles, dark chocolate covered coconut chips, and fizzy pomegranate limeade

Caramel creamer,, white beans, artichoke pesto, spicy booch and green onions

I got a few things at Grocery Outlet yesterday. I got the last package of Udon noodles. I guess I'm not alone in appreciating the great price!  Today is a gorgeous sunny day, so going farther to get some good produce is on my schedule. I'm working on being more aware as a consumer when I shop at grocery Outlet. It's very easy for me to get seduced by the awesome deals, and kind of forget about things like plastic and waste and buying things I don't need. Every time I open my fridge and see the hulking plastic tub of  that Nutchello, I feel guilty. I would normally never buy that for several reasons, but I was sucked in by the ninety eight cent price tag! It's fun to try new things, especially at bargain prices, but I need to remember that excess packaging is a problem, whether it's ten dollars or one penny.
I discovered an artichoke pesto that is vegan! How crazy is that. Finding any kind of vegan pesto is really a miracle.

Since I still have tons of pasta in my cupboard, I decided to make some pasta, and add some white beans and this pesto.

I topped it with some sliced green onion, hemp hearts, and of course nutritional yeast. For a jarred pesto, it was pretty tasty. It had chunks of artichoke hearts in it, which I love.
I watched a few episodes of a show streaming on Hulu called The Path over the weekend. It's about a fictional cult/religion called Meyerism. It has Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad. Anyway, like most religions or really any organized group, it has it's good and it's bad, and the people who are higher up and have more power are the weirdest/most screwed up. But, wouldn't you know Meyerists are vegans! At least they show them eating an abundance of colorful food, and they even have a scene where the men are out smoking a joint and grilling, while the little ladies are in the kitchen fretting about and preparing the rest of dinner. So, good for the show for not making vegan food look weird, but I just kind of cringe because there's already enough people who actually think veganism is a cult. Or at the very least like all vegans are super weird about food and other things. It's crazy to me that in 2016 it's still hard to get veganism shown in a positive light. I mean, even mainstream media is slowly starting to speak of veganism as a positive, healthy choice. Other than that small frustration, I'm loving the show, and Aaron Paul is a very good actor. I watched maybe two seasons of Breaking Bad, but then it got way to violent and gory and I couldn't do it. Thankfully this show is not so violent!
Happy Tuesday!