Tag Archives: vegan

Getting Sappy

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Did everyone have a good weekend?  I kind of took the weekend off (not from blogging, from everything – whoops!).

I’ve got a big day – a quiz I didn’t study for, a Valentine’s date – so I needed a big breakfast.

I reheated my leftover banana breakfast risotto – 30 second increments in the microwave with stirring – with raisins and a splash of Vanilla So Delicious.

Then I topped it with maple syrup and dug in.

Delicious!  I maybe went a little too big though, I definitely couldn’t finish the whole bowl.

We had a new bottle of syrup and I accidentally went a little heavy on the maple,

I didn’t really mind.

After breakfast I dealt with the other kind of sap –

Adam and I are pretty notoriously unromantic but I wanted to show him my appreciation for his participating in this month’s challenge with me, so I picked up some vegan goodies for him.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Lunch At The ‘Bucks

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Please note – I don’t actually call Starbucks that, that would be lame.  It would be a good nickname though; it’s both a shortening of the name and a nod to the fact that their drinks cost so much you’d think they were selling cups of Adamantium.

I did have lunch at the local Starbucks today though.  I went straight there from campus and got some solid studying done.  I started with a grande steamed apple juice (the caramel apple spice minus the caramel),

and a bag of salt and pepper popcorn.

I know that the ‘Bucks has gotten some flack for its iffy nutritionals in the past, but this was both tasty and healthy.

After two hours I was dying to leave but not yet done with my notecards.  My flamingo rubber band friend convinced me to get another drink and finish my work for the class.

Tall, soy, toffee latte.  Good to know – all of the flavored syrups used at Starbucks are vegan.

When I actually completed one class (fyi – that’s one class, 3 hours later I’m HALF done with the notecards I need to make for the week) I headed out to stroll around Elmwood doing Valentine’s shopping.  Another important note – Adam and I actually don’t do gifts for any holiday.  So sometimes I like to celebrate by buying things to make him feel bad.  Did you catch the latest Modern Family episode – “I win Valentine’s!” – yeah, sort of like that.

Now I’m off to the grocery store, a necessary step before dinner can occur.

If you’re in a realationship – did you buy gifts for Valentine’s this year?

These Photographs

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My title is both one of my favorite songs (Joshua Radin, woo!) and a nod to the fact that my eats today were not at all pretty (in any sense of the word).

I’m not sure why I keep trying to pack breakfast when I’m leaving with Adam in the morning.  My plan is always smoothies and my plan always falls through sometime between the 2nd and 3rd alarm clock snooze.  My lack of packed breakfast leads me to talk to you all about pretzels.  Have you talked with your kids about pretzels yet?

Let’s talk Snyder’s of Hanover Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Pieces.  1st, what they are not – vegan.  Also not – a (not vegan either) candy bar.  But they are – the only non-candy bar food available on campus before my 9:25 lab.

I ate them.

I did pack a lunch, but it wasn’t pretty.  Inside this ugly photograph lies a tasty lunch.

A Multi-Grain Sandwich Thin with an eggplant burger and a bit of Stubb’s BBQ Sauce.

I also packed a pair of clementines.

Sadly within three minutes of eating lunch I was starving again.  That’s approximately one hour into my five-hour break if you’re keeping track.  I’m pretty gosh darn glad I ate the pretzels, otherwise I might have chewed off a leg.

When I got home from my final class dinner was the first thing on my mind.

That will be my final bowl of Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup.  It was still delicious, but enough is enough.

My plans for the evening include a shower, hopefully starting a new book, and dessert.  If dessert is just ok then I’ll mention it in the morning.  But if it’s as good as I think it’s going to be – it’ll deserve its own post!  Keep your fingers crossed!

What is the ugliest thing you eat?

L-O-O-O-N-G Long Day

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Welp, my long day was exactly that – loooong!  Even though I’m not in class the whole time, being on campus from 11-8:40 is definitely rough.  I think having a snow day last Wednesday made it seem even harder, so hopefully next week will be a little easier!

I was running late this morning so lunch was simple, but it got the job done.

A big serving of unsweetened applesauce with red hots,

topped with (3/4 serving of) Maple Brown Sugar Mini Wheats and (1/3 serving of) Multi-grain Cheerios.

It actually ended up being a pretty great lunch.  FYI – Mini Wheats aren’t actually vegan (they contain gelatin, I’m an idiot), but we are going to finish what we bought.

I also packed a 2nd snack for my 2hour break before my final class.

This Blueberry Muffin Lara Bar actually wasn’t as good as the first one I tried.  It was almost grassy tasting?!  I was hungry though so I still ate it all.

I ate my snack at 5pm and then five hours later I ate dinner.

Holy god was I ever hungry for dinner!  I couldn’t eat right away when I got home because I had to complete a lab assignment for tomorrow, pack my bag, make Adam dinner (he’s obsessed with peanut sauce and not so obsessed with the soup so I made him a fresh batch of sauce to eat on tofu for dinner)…..

By the time I got around to eating dinner – on my feet, over the stove, cooking Adam’s lunches for the rest of the week – my Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup was more of a mash, but it was still delicious.

Hands down, best soup I’ve ever had.

Just to give everyone a head’s up, I won’t be able to post until dinner time tomorrow.  You know, because people will be crying their eyes out if they can’t read my morning post 😉

How many meals a week would you say you eat standing up?

The Best Reason

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I’ve got to keep this snappy, today’s a busy day.  In addition to it being my long day (classes from 11 – 8:40) I’ve also got a lot of on-campus errands to attend to.

Luckily I’ve learned that busy days aren’t a good reason to skip the gym, they’re the best reason to get a work out in!  Starting my day by working out gives me energy, gives my day a sense of purpose, and helps me have a sense of accomplishment all before breakfast!

This morning I headed to the gym for a treadmill workout.  I’m trying to balance not increasing my distance too quickly with building endurance, so I decided to run longer for slower.  I set the treadmill to 10mph and plugged away for 20minutes and 2miles.  5 minutes each of cool down and stretching and I was on my way.

I also prepared for my busy day by setting up my breakfast last night.

Sidenote – blog reading has given me major chia envy, so I was super excited when I found this bag of Bob’s Red Mill Chia Seeds on sale at Wegman’s the other day.

I decided to try them out using a method cobbled together from a few different blogs.

Last night – in a mostly empty jar of peanut butter – I combined 3/4 cup So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk, 1/3 cup raw oats, and 2 Tbsp chia seeds.

This morning I added in a splash of Vanilla So Delicious and half a sliced banana.

The end result was fantasmic!

The chia seeds really did make a sort of vegan ‘yogurt’ and you can never go wrong with oats in a jar!

Have you tried chia seeds yet?  What’s your favorite way to use them?  Have you ever grown a Chia Pet?

A Loaded Lunch Post

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Hi guys; I hope everyone is having a good Monday!  I prewrote this lunch post and set it to publish in advance because I’ve got a lot to talk about today.  While I’m actually eating lunch, you guys will be getting a lunch-time recipe!

First up, the recipe!  Homemade Veggie Burgers –

  • 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • half a large sweet onion, chopped
  • 1 large purple eggplant, chopped
  • 2 T worchestire sauce
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 15 oz can chick peas, drained
  • 1/2 cup raw oats
  • 1 tsp sweet curry powder
  • 1 tsp garam masala
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Preheat oven to 400*.  Spread two baking sheets with aluminum foil and grease thoroughly with cooking spray.
  2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion to pan and saute until starting to become translucent, 2-3minutes.  Season with pepper and salt to draw out the moisture.
  3. Add eggplant and worchestire sauce* to the pan.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5-7minutes. 
  4. Remove pan from heat and set aside.
  5. Place chick peas in the bowl of a medium food processor and pulse twice.  Do not pulse until smooth, remember, you are not making hummus!
  6. Working in 1/2 cup batches, pulse eggplant mixture into the chick peas. 
  7. Pulse in oats and seasoning until well-combined, scraping down the sides as need be.
  8. Remove the food processor’s bowl from its base, being careful to mind the blades.
  9. Shape mixture into 8 palm-sized patties and place on the prepared baking trays.  The patties will be very soft, but will firm up as they cook.
  10. Bake for 30-35minutes, until the outsides of the burgers have started to brown.

*please note – worchestire sauce is actually not vegan.  But, we’ve got three bottles of it in our pantry (from a review for the blog) and I can’t afford to buy another bottle of something else.

For lunch I packed a veggie burger on an Arnold Multi-Grain Sandwich Thin spread with a bit of horseradish mustard.

Delish!  I snuck a bite of the burgers during production last night and I’m loving the use of eggplant as a base.

On the side, a baggie of sliced cucumber.

The Sandwich Thins were actually sent to me for free to review the two newest varieties.

I’ll let you know in my evening post what I thought, but I’ve tried other varieties in the past so I’m expecting to love them.

The review is part of a healthy living initiative, so I was also sent this wicked cool Le Sportsac gym bag.

Way too cool for me 🙂

What are you having for lunch today?

Instant Playback

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Since last night was the Super Bowl, I thought I’d give you the play-by-play of my evening.  Here are some of the things – other than scarfing single-serve pb cookie dough – I did while I was home alone –

  • found the articles (hopefully) for my big nutrition presentation
  • watched the new Super Bowl commercials online
  • organized three years worth of study note cards
  • sat in a 62* apartment for two hours before I realized the heat was off

Overall I’m not sure whether or not I’d call the evening a win or a fail 😀

I’ve gotten stuff done this morning too.  Like a kill-two-birds-with-one-workout trip to the gym where I studied notecards on the elliptical.  30minutes, elliptical level 6 and random.  I did several minutes of sprints intervals and got all my studying done.

And I made a tasty breakfast.

Before I got into the shower I made a batch of quick stewed apples – 1 chopped apple, 1 Tbsp agave syrup, 1 Tbsp h20, dash cinnamon; microwaved for 150 seconds.

Then after I got out of the shower, and my apples had cooled down a bit, I put them atop a bowl of Stonyfield Vanilla Soy Yogurt,

with a drizzle of maple syrup and 2 Tbsp of my simply sweet granola.

It was like a healthy, vegan apple crisp!

For reals though, this tasted exactly like – if not better than – apple crisp.  Make it!

What was your favorite Super Bowl commercial?  I didn’t see them all – and I wasn’t that impressed – but I think the “angry wife” Pepsi Max one was my fav.

The Super What?

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I may have been a cheerleader, but I just don’t follow football.  Even the Super Bowl.  There, I said it!  Adam and I are pretty much on the same page about everything.  But he cares about the Super Bowl a little bit, and that’s a whole lot more than I do.

We were on the same page with breakfast this morning though.

I whipped us up a batch of smoothies, 1 part frozen strawberries to 1 part chocolate peppermint stick soy milk.

We needed a sipable breakfast because we were busy moving around giving the house a deep clean.  I don’t want to tell you how long it’s been since I scrubbed the stove (um, never!), but it took me a good 20minutes to get the burners clean.

Once we were no longer living in squalor, we headed to Wegman’s for lunch.

Fruits,

and veggies,

plus a sandwich from home.

I split a pita and filled my half with Tribe Roasted Garlic Hummus, green pepper, and cucumber slices.

It was a nice lunch, and it fueled us through a weekly grocery trip amongst the horde of people who somehow forgot that today was the Super Bowl.  I don’t want to judge, but were those people all afraid that their carts of chips and beer would spoil if they bought them more than an hour before their parties?!?

I’m home alone tonight, Adam cared just enough about the game to head over to a house with cable.  I did send him off with party food though.

Spinach and Artichoke Hummus –

  • 15.5 oz can chick peas, drained
  • 14 oz can quartered artichoke hearts in brine, drained
  • 3/4 cup frozen spinach
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp plus 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup salted soy nuts
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat tsp oil in a skillet over medium-low.  Add garlic and saute until just beginning to brown, 1-2minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Add spinach to the pan and cook until completely thawed.  Remove pan from heat and set aside.
  3. Place chick peas in bowl of food processor and pulse until smooth.
  4. Add artichoke hearts to the processor and continue pulsing until smoothie, scraping down the sides as needed.
  5. Working in ~ 1/2 cup batches, add spinach and garlic to processor and pulse until smooth.
  6. Pulse in soy nuts and Tbsp oil, until mixture is well-combined.  Note – the soy nuts will add a chunky texture to the hummus, if you prefer a smoother end product then you will need to start but processing the nuts first.
  7. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I stayed home doing girly things, like cleaning out the food processor, baking tomorrow’s lunch, then cleaning out the food processor again.  It’s a good thing I took many cooking bites, because after the send round of blade cleaning I decided I was not going to make dinner.

Really, it doesn’t come up that often that I have dinner by my lonesome, so why not revel in the situation and make myself a batch of single serve cookie dough for dinner?

Yeah, yeah, I had this yesterday too.  But this was different, this was peanut butter single-serve cookie dough.

  1. Using a fork, mash together 1 Tbsp Smart Balance Light and 2 Tbsp chunky peanut butter.
  2. Mash in 3 Tbsp flour and 2 Tbsp sugar.
  3. Pour in a splash of Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk and mix well.
  4. Place in the freezer for 30minutes, stirring occasionally.
  5. Top with a serving of chopped up Chocolove bar.
  6. Eat with a spoon, moaning occasionally.

Do you watch the Super Bowl?  Who were you cheering for today?

Seriously, have you tried the single-serve cookie dough thing yet?