Tag Archives: vegan

Monday Felt More Super Than Sunday

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Hello, work week!  Did you watch the Super Bowl yesterday?  Were you happy with the outcome?  I will admit to not watching a single minute.  And in fact, Adam and I were a bit under the weather this weekend and did not eat or do a single thing worth mentioning!  Today I’ve managed to get almost back on track and eat some good food.

I had an orthodontist appointment early this morning; nope, I’m still not done with retainers.  My plan was to drive straight to school from there but after two parking lots worth of circling there were still no spots to be found.  Instead I drove to Wegmans and banged out a bunch of work at their comfy booths.  Plus I got a coffee for fuel.

With soy milk and 2 sugars.

My coffee was paired with breakfast from home.  A Coconut Chocolate Chip Clif Bar.

and a baggie of purple seedless grapes.

Curious about my nails?  They are pink glitter French tips!

They aren’t perfect but I did them free-hand so I’m pretty darn proud.

I did work at Wegmans, drove home, walked to school, did work at school, went to class, did work at school, got picked up by Adam, and ended up back at Wegmans for a late lunch.

Some lo mein with a piece of lemon pepper tofu and 1.5 vegan meatballs.

Veggies (mostly mushrooms and carrots with a few green beans).

This hit the spot.

Dinner took a while to cook (you can only fit two trays in our oven at a time) so we arrived home from the store we got right to work on the next meal.

My plate had 1/4 cup of sweet brown rice,

pieces of my Asian Orange Tofu Bake,

and roasted broccoli.

Everything was delicious!  The sauce on the rice and veggies is leftover tofu marinade that I cooked down quickly in the rice pot.  The tofu recipe is from way back in 2009.  I made it again to update the recipe page, still good!

After dinner I managed to drag myself to an 8pm hot yoga class.  Woot!  90 minutes of hot yoga felt so dang good!  I haven’t gone to many classes on this 30-day pass, but I’ve cherished every minute I’ve gotten.

On The Hook

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It’s Friday; two weeks of school are officially done and over with!  And 2 days of Vegan Month in, I realize I need to figure out a new eating plan.  Now that our larders are stocked it should be easier, but I’ve been waiting too long to eat and eating way too much.  Not good.

Due to a looming bedtime and the sheer mass of (uninteresting) food, I’ll keep this quick.  Coconut water was consumed during class.

This Jumanji apple wasn’t quite as exciting as its name, but it was sweet and good.

With 2 Tbsp of peanut butter.  Plus a ridiculous amount of peanut butter (3-4 Tbsp?!) eaten straight from the jar.

This Amy’s Rice Macaroni with Dairy-Free Cheese was good.

The cheese was by far the best vegan cheese you could hope for (it was good even on the just cheese scale, without the vegan modifier!).  But I wish I could find the vegan but not also gluten-free version, because I bet it’d be better.

The rice pasta was a little bit gummy.

Jordan Almonds (x2) were consumed for taste-testing purposes.

If you like Jordan almonds then I have got the recipe coming for you!  I’m baking this weekend and hope to post early next week.

Vegan jerky.

A bagel with SmartBalance Light.

An Earl Gray with soy milk during a monster-shopping trip.

A Red Hood Winter Hook was split with Adam when we got home.

And a big bowl of popcorn (with SmartBalance Light) was consumed while watching “Grey’s.”

Holy crap carbs.  I think I’m going to spend tomorrow embracing produce!

Peachy Keen

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Hello, hello!  We’ve reached Friday without me grabbing a diet coke and/or ice cream cone out of a stranger’s hand, I call that a successful week!  Yesterday went well, I did indeed get in bed early – I stayed up pretty late finishing the 10th Temperance Brennan book, but at least I was in bed.

This morning’s breakfast was peachy keen.

But I miss my cottage cheese, this bowl was so hot!  (Hence the foggy photos.)

My scorching spoonfuls contained –

  • 3/4 cup (frozen, thawed) peaches
  • 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup Silk Vanilla Almond Milk
  • 1/3 cup oats
  • ~2 tsp chia seeds
  • a liberal sprinkle of brown sugar

It was delicious, though I do admit that I’m greatly looking forward to trying a peaches with cottage cheese oatmeal bowl when this month is over!

I’d love it if more of you guys would go back and tell me something about yourself!

Vegan Month Challenge

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Ugh.  Today was day 3 of no diet soda and I’m seriously cranky.  Also, when I woke up there was no food in the house (vegan or otherwise) and I’ve been starving all day.  It was one of those situations where I waited so long to eat that I never got full, even now.  Oh, oh, oh!  And I’m annoyed because I have projects I want to start and we haven’t been given all of the information that we need yet.  Okay, I think that’s it for the complaints!

Breakfast was a smoothie.

I found this Vega Tropical Tango smoothie mix (HLS sample) in the cupboard and blended it with 1 cup of orange juice and 7 oz of frozen soursop pulp.

It tasted better than it looked.

My classes went well, though I was cranky the entire time.  Thinking about my newest reason to love Kristen Bell helped.  I made sure to run to Wegmans for an emergency grocery stock-up the minute class was over!

I ate this handful of peanuts x 3 when I got home.

Dinner was stir fry.

We stir fried a bunch of veggies – frozen brocoli/carrot/cauliflower mix, plus more frozen broccoli, plus canned stir fry mushrooms, and canned baby corn – with stir fry sauce and topped with a few toasted cashews.

Tasty, but it didn’t even make a dent in my hunger.

Next I had a huge (2 cups, aka 2 servings) bowl of Wegman’s Berry Corn Crunch Cereal with Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk.

And a huge spoonful of Dark Chocolate Dreams pb.

And now I’m going to go have some popcorn.  I swear that all of vegan month won’t be like this, it’s just that I waited to long to eat and I let my hunger get out of control!

February = Vegan Month Challenge

We’ve done this so many times now that this announcement feels like it doesn’t require much fanfare.

During February of 2012, Adam and I will be doing a 1-month vegan challenge.  No eggs, no dairy, no meat, no honey, and no products containing any of the aforementioned.  No, we didn’t choose February because it’s the shortest month.  Yes, we are excited.

Over the years I’ve done three different challenge introductions and three different challenge recaps (see the links above) on my blog and I feel like there’s no new way to explain why we are choosing to do this.  Basically –

While I think a vegan diet can be healthy for some individuals, I don’t think it is healthy long-term for everyone.
I think that everyone can be healthier if their diet includes more vegan meals and less meat.
Adam and I have both been in a healthy diet rut recently and a month of vegan meals will force us to spend some time with vegetables again.
1 month is a good way to remind myself that not every dish needs cheese.

Would any omnivores be interested in joining me for the month?

You Say Pizza, I Say Piazza

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It was another great day here in Ohio.

Our last day, unfortunately.

For breakfast I poured a bowl of my grandma’s cereal mix (Cheerios, Special K, and Crispix by the looks of it) with some vanilla almond milk.

Lunch was a big salad – romaine, cherry tomatoes, and an Asian sesame dressing – with cold truffle mac and cheese crumbled on top.

Leftover mac is officially the new crouton.

I also had a glass of almond milk,

and a turtle for dessert.

We spent the afternoon switching out Christmas decorations, and the boys found a minute for a quick nap.

Then we were off to the movies.  We saw “We Bought a Zoo,” and all three of us thought it was great.  Very funny and touching.  My grandma handed me a mini York patty mid-movie that hit the spot.

Dinner was tasty as well, La Piazza in Troy.  I started with a house salad with honey mustard dressing,

and two slices of bread with garlic dipping oil.

For our main meal, Adam and I split two entres.  We shared, but both ate a larger portion of our “own” plates.  He had Smoked Chicken Ravioli (stuffed with smoked chicken, herbs, cheeses, tossed with tomato basil cream),

and I got the Eggplant Parmigiana (fresh eggplant sliced and baked with tomato basil sauce and three cheeses).

All the dishes were good, but now we are feeling a little weighed down with cheese.  In fact, I’m going to blame my heavy dinner for my complete and utter exhaustion at 9:45 pm.  Good night!

Primed to Party

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We have got –

a) a problem
b) a packed to-do list
c) a party
d) a profound preference towards alliteration
e) all of the above

If you guessed (e), you’re correct!  Adam and I have the problem of being crazy people because we stayed up past 2am doing absolutely nothing.  This morning got off to a late, rough start, but our day was packed full of to-do’s to prep for tonight’s party.  We are almost set up and I’m all packed for tomorrow to boot.

Today was a double smoothie sort of day.  First, another round of berry chocolate mint.

For two, 2 cups chocolate mint soy milk, 2 cups frozen strawberries, 1 scoop chocolate protein powder, and 6oz 0% plain Greek yogurt.

My second smoothie was a (soy) nog delight.

For one, medium frozen banana, 1 cup Silk Soy Nog, 3 Tbsp malted milk powder, and a handful of ice.

Plus nibbles while we got ready for the party.

I’ll see y’all on the other side, from St. Thomas!

Note – I will probably be blogging every other day or so on vacation (my parents don’t have internet).  If my first post is Monday morning, that doesn’t mean my plane crashed.  But thanks in advance for thinking safe thoughts for me!

Hello, Old Friend

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It’s finally time for my favorite treat of the season –

Silk Soy Nog seriously makes me so happy!  It tastes just like (actually, better than!) regular egg nog but only has 90 calories for half a cup and no saturated fat.

The Silk Nog actually showed up at the grocery store back in early November, and it’s possible I had went into crisis-mode because I thought that meant it would be gone before it was seasonally appropriate.  Thankfully Silk products have a long shelf-life, so Adam bought me two cartons just to get me to stop whimpering!

I like Silk Nog straight from the carton, in coffee, and in overnight oats, but today’s smoothie might have been it’s best use yet.

For 1, blend –

  • 1 medium frozen banana
  • 1/2 cup 0% plain Greek yogurt
  • 3 Tbsp malted milk powder
  • 1/2 cup Silk Soy Nog

Topped with seasonal sprinkles for funsies.

It was thick, and sweet, and Christmas-y, and perfect.

I had a late breakfast because I spent my morning at the dentist.  My teeth are perfect and now they feel nice and squeaky clean.  On of our friends is a hygienist at the practice so it was more like catching up with a friend (literally!) than a scary appointment.  I’m not sure what will happen with lunch because I’m actually leaving the house this minute to pick up a school friend.  We are heading over the Buffalo Centre for the Treatment of Eating Disorders to get in some observation hours.  I’ll see you this evening!

Hello Again

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I swear, with my hand on a stack of Buffy DVDs, I really do have a blog!  It’s been a few crazy days, but I did miss y’all like crazy.  I’m not going to recap, but I will mention a few things – Adam and I are about ready to serve the dog on a bun ~ we’re all ready for a vacation ~ I have two tests tomorrow because I didn’t even make it to school on Friday to take my exam.

Starting again this morning…

I had a group meeting to finish up a project so I headed to school this morning.  We worked for a couple of hours and we are feeling ready good about the assignment, which isn’t even due for another couple of weeks!

Since it was after 1 before I could even think about food, I headed to The Spot for a quick bite while I studied.

Pizza bagels are crazy simple, just a toasted bagel with marinara sauce and cheese on top, but also crazy good.

I ate 3/4 of this, and gave the last bit to my friend when she picked me up.

Then we moved the party to Starbucks so we could take advantage of the 2-for-1 holiday drinks special.

I got a grande, non-fat, eggnog latte. Score!

Mid-studying this afternoon I snacked on a D’anjou pear.

I also took a break to make an easy, fall-feeling dinner.

  1. On foiled, sprayed baking sheets, top chopped tofu and butternut squash with apple cider vinegar, salt, and brown sugar.
  2. Bake for 40 minutes at 350*, then 20 minutes at 400*.
  3. In a large pan, cook shredded cabbage in apple cider.
  4. Combine.

Dinner was so tasty, the squash got almost caramelized.  I liked the undertones of apple spread throughout.  I took a small portion and now Adam and I both have great leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

I know I didn’t eat all that much food today, but trust me, Adam and I more than covered it the past few days!!

Have you gotten a holiday drink from Starbucks yet?  Which one’s your favorite?