Fruits & Veggies Monday {Food for--and from--the Mountains}

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend and are ready to start out the new week on a high note! Of course @lenasveganliving always helps kick things off with her wonderful contest. There are already lots of yummy entries, and it is still early in the day here so plenty of time for more to pop up and get us excited to eat our fruits and veggies!

This week I was a little bummed to not be able to make it to my favorite farmers market, but I really wasn't too upset as it was because @dksart and I were able to take the weekend off to head up to the mountains in North Georgia! It had been quite a while since the two of us were able to get away, even for just a few days, so I had been looking forward to it for quite a while. The trip held the perfect mix of getting active and exploring some of the scenery while hiking, but then also just chilling out and reading a book on the back porch of the cabin with the sounds of nature all around. My only small disappointment from the weekend was that most of the local orchards up there were done with u-pick, but we still made it home with a bushel of yummy fresh apples.

Before I share a little more about the visit to the orchard, I'll show you what we packed in the cooler for the weekend. As I am sure many of you have encountered, when you have certain dietary needs sometimes it is just a whole lot easier to make food to bring for a road trip than trying to find a place to eat out. As vegan and health-conscious eater, knowing we had a full kitchen at the cabin meant I prepared most of our meals to bring with us.

I also knew we were going to be out hiking on a few of the days, so I kept in mind easy portable lunches in addition to our meals in the cabin. Though the cabin had a fully stocked kitchen, I knew I didn't want to spend the whole weekend cooking so a little prepping made sure that wasn't the case. @dksart whipped up some fresh baked potato fries both nights, but the rest of the meals we just warmed back up what I had already prepared at home.

To go along with the taters I made a tofu scramble. I know, it is normally served as breakfast, but it actually tastes just as good for dinner. 😉 When I was looking through the refrigerator before we left that was one of the best things I could come up with to use up the last of the veggies from the week. It is also a great way to refuel after hiking and make sure to get in plenty of nutrients. This one had onion, pepper, mushrooms, kale, tomatoes and broccoli sprouts.

I snuck in some more fruits and veggies at breakfast with pumpkin pear overnight oats. Such a simple yet filling meal to start out the day before we headed out on our adventures. These had rolled oats, almond milk, chia seeds, pumpkin puree, chopped pear, pumpkin pie spice, and walnuts. I packed some bananas to go along with in case we needed an extra boost before going hiking.

For lunch and snacks I went with a classic--peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Haha, I just can't seem to pack a road trip cooler without a few of those. I find that the Food for Life sprouted grain bread actually holds up really well, even after a few days in the refrigerator, and of course my nut butter and jelly is all natural with no junk added. To go with I also packed grapes, carrots and hummus. Since we were a little light on leafy greens in our meals, I also grabbed green juice on the way up there just for good measure. We may not have consumed as many vegetables as we usually do when eating at home, but we definitely ate much healthier than most Americans do on vacation!

To stock up on our apples we stopped at a different orchard this year than we went to previously. It was one of the only ones still doing u-pick, but the lines were so long even at 10:30 in the morning that we just decided to purchase from the market. I love getting out and picking my own, but at least we were still able to get ones right from the source. They actually had a lot more varieties available in the market than for picking, as well.

They also had fresh produce, so I grabbed a few things since I missed my own Saturday market visit.

They had a whole bunch of pumpkins for sale outside of the market. Some of them were massive!!

We didn't have any room for pumpkins, though, since I insisted on purchasing about 40 pounds of apples (and some sweet taters, too). 😊 I opted for Honey Crisp, Arkansas Black and September Wonder varieties. You know where I'll be for the next few days...

Have a fantastic week everyone!