Recipes, projects & products that don’t suck.

Welcome potluck guests! Have you had to change your shirt from all the drool yet? Today I am participating in the Virtual Vegan Potluck, which is basically a string of 100+ blogs all linked together with “forward” and “back” buttons/links to guide you through an online plant-based progressive dinner, if you will. You’ll be taken through eight courses, with several bloggers participating in each course. You are currently in the first course, Appetizers, which will be followed by Beverages, Bread, Salad, Sides, Soups, Main Dishes and Dessert. You’ll find links to the previous dish/blog and the next dish/blog at the bottom of this post. Most often on 86 Lemons, I test other people’s vegan recipes and report to my readers, letting them know if it’s…

Remember the Get Balanced course I wrote about not too long ago? It’s a 15-day course focused on balancing your cortisol levels (that would be your stress hormone), which is intricately linked to everything from weight to mood to energy. I’m 11 days in and going strong. You would not believe the amount of substance to this course. Nutritionists, Megan and Katie, have done a fabulous job of organizing the course materials and releasing them a bit at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. There is power in knowledge and when we learn the basic science of how things like sugar, gluten and caffeine affect so many aspects of our bodies, we start to see the bigger picture. The course packet contains several great recipes,…

Wow. What a week. The Boston Marathon bombing (which continues to unfold as I type this post), the explosion in West, TX, and then storms/flooding in our area. Sure does put our “problems” into perspective, doesn’t it? While this very wet, gray, cold weather is not fun, I find it hard to complain when I look at the big picture. The folks in Boston and West, TX need our prayers. Don’t forget about them. As I mentioned in my last food post, I was able to get caught up on my stack of unread magazines recently. While flipping through the April/May 2013 issue of Vegetarian Times, I was excited to see a story featuring several vegan recipes from Mark Bittman’s new book, VB6: Eat Vegan Before…

I saw this image on How Does She’s Facebook page today and it couldn’t be more accurate. As far as I’m concerned, March can start going out like a lamb any day now. I’ve had enough snow and cold weather. Bring on the sunshine, Lord. Please. My sister, who now lives in Texas, brought her six kids home (to Michigan) for a visit over Spring Break. Talk about backwards – going from Texas to Michigan! My idea of Spring Break doesn’t involve building a snowman, but that’s what they did… They stayed with my parents, who live a couple of hours from me. I was getting ready to head down for an overnight visit with the whole gang and I needed a quick dish that…

This has nothing to do with this recipe, but can we just talk about The Bible miniseries on the History Channel for a second? Have you seen it? I had been hearing a lot about it. Last night, after getting home from a trunk show, I decided to go straight to bed because I was out of gas. Then I remembered this series and found it on On Demand. Hubs and I started watching it and couldn’t turn it off! We got about an hour into Episode 1 before we finally decided to call it a night. This five-part miniseries (10 hours total) debuted on March 3, so two of the episodes have already aired, with the third airing this Sunday at 8/7C. Also, the…