Orange You Glad I Made It!

I saw this beautiful orange flower yesterday. I think it's a poppy. Yesterday was a dreary day and so the orange really stood out and made me smile.
For dinner I made a soup from the Thrive Energy Cookbook written by Brendan Brazier. It's a sweet potato and roasted red pepper soup. I added a few of my own touches to it. As I was changing the recipe it made me think about when I first started cooking and how I followed recipes exactly, and I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have an ingredient. Like I'm sure a lot of us no one taught me how to cook. Although my mom cooked everything from scratch, she only allowed me to make the salads and set the table. To this day I hate setting a table. So it's been a long journey teaching myself to cook, and so many fails along the way. I honestly thank veganism for where I am now as a home cook, because that's when I really got into cooking and wanting to not only feed myself but prove to the world that vegan food is delicious food. And it doesn't have to be expensive.

The original recipe used only salt, pepper and basil for flavor. Since it has coconut milk in it, my mind went curry, so I added curry, smoked paprika and a little cumin. I also didn't add basil because I don't have any, and I also added some red lentils to thicken it up. I used to love to have bread with my soup, and now that that isn't an option I like my soups to be a little on the thicker side. Anyway, this is a beautiful color, orange was the theme for yesterday, and really tasty. It was also pretty easy to make. The leftovers are going to taste amazing for breakfast!

I got the girls a new toy yesterday. It's one of those stuffed mice that you can fill and refill with catnip. Here is Etta claiming it as her own. Afro used to HATE catnip and would run away from it, but I learned yesterday that it now brings out Brutus. Shortly after taking this picture Brutus caused quite the problems. I thought I was going to have to give her a timeout!