Good morning my friends!

It’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday, it’s Easter, and it’s mine and Michael’s TWO YEAR anniversary! I can’t believe how much time has just flown by since I met him. Since today is Easter and he has to work (he is a project engineer and his plant does installs on holidays while they’re shut down and employees are off site, so he has to be there to oversee things), we did our celebrating yesterday.

We ventured downtown yesterday morning and I stopped by Spanish Street Farmacy, a local old-timey general store and restaurant that sells locally grown items, fresh baked bread, and herbs – I picked up a chamomile plant that I’m going to plant in the herb bed later today. We had a late breakfast there, and tried their ginger turmeric tonic – which was so delicious!

After that we ran to the actual pharmacy to pick up Michael’s prescription for the steroid ointment that he for his skin (he has CTCL, Chronic T-Cell Lymphoma, which presents as dry red patches on his skin and is treated with UV light therapy and topical steroids). Then we went back downtown and browsed an antique store in search of fun items for food photography props – sadly I didn’t find anything that really caught my eye.

Then came the fun! Our favorite downtown spot, Ebb & Flow Fermentations, was having live music and launching their new menu. It was a sunny and warm 65 degree day and they have a gorgeous brick patio perfect for sipping some drinks, eating some food and listening to some music. Their new menu was loaded with vegetarian and vegan options, which I absolutely love! It is so difficult to be plant based at most of our local restaurants, because about the only thing on the menus that don’t have meat or cheese is a salad and fries.

Ebb & Flow came through with flying colors. They had a salad with edamame, apples and chickpeas. They had a chickpea wrap, two different kinds of hummus with veggies and pitas, roasted sweet potatoes, a roasted sweet potato and mushroom sandwich, and a pickle plate. Plus plenty of fun and unique options for the meat-eaters of the world too. Their menu is one-of-a-kind and diverse and I loved it! Not only did they fit everyone’s needs, they also deliver on taste and quality too. The chef who owns Celebrations, the original fine-dining restaurant in Cape Girardeau, also owns Ebb & Flow, designs their menu, and trained their chef. Their self-brewed beers are unique and fantastic as well. They definitely know their stuff!

When we finished up there, we went out for dinner. We originally planned to go to Gabriel’s, an Italian fine-dining restaurant. But with a perusal of the menu online, I quickly realized that their current entrees offered nothing that was plant based-friendly. They had a vegetarian lasagna, but of course that has cheese. So as much as we had been looking forward to that, we altered plans and ended up going to The Southerner. They had enough dishes that could be altered to accommodate plant-based eating, and I ordered the tuna poke bowl.

I had a couple of bites of the tuna, but I’ve been noticing especially here lately that when I do have meat of any kind, I can’t stomach very much of it. A few bites and then it just starts to taste undesirable to me. But the poke bowl came with edamame, so I was able to just scoot the tuna aside and eat the rest – greens, rice, edamame, tomatoes, carrots, avocado, sesame and a soy miso dressing. It was delicious!

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Sadly I failed to get any pictures at Ebb & Flow…which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you if you’ve been reading my blogs for a while! Speaking of which, it’s time to move on to the weekly meal planning and prep. I’m getting ready to move to the kitchen and start whipping up some food for Michael for the week as soon as I’m finished writing to you.

I will be making the Tikka Masala today, as well as some oil-free vegan banana muffins and the stroganoff. I’ve never made tikka masala before, so I’m excited to give it a try. Michael and I went to St Louis on Thursday for his quarterly oncology appointment, and I was craving some Indian food. The Indian restaurant we had at home closed so we haven’t had Indian in quite a while. Unfortunately none of the Indian places in the area around the hospital opened until 5, and we were finished at the hospital at 3:30, so Indian didn’t happen. But we did find a place that had Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern food.

We picked up lots of yummy stuff. Michael got some kabob sandwiches, and I had a chickpea tomato stew (can’t remember what it was called). And we got a small plates sampler that had Baba Ganoush, Falafel, Makdoo and Stuffed Grape Leaves. Soooo good, and I’ve decided I’m going to try making some baba ganoush at home! But for today we’re going with the tikka masala, with a side note to start searching for some more Indian and Middle Eastern recipes to expand our recipe repertoire.

On that note, I will leave you with some snaps of the only food I remembered to photograph last week – tempeh tacos, which were not one of the planned meals, but whipped up on a hungry whim!

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And with that, I’m off to make some food! I promise I will remember photos this time – I’m bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and the whole day is my oyster. Food, photos, then yard work and gardening! Happy Easter my friends!

Love,
Loren