Tag Archives: vegan

Vegan Challenge Recap

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*Sorry this is a little late!

If you didn’t check it out already, click HERE for the intro/explanation to my vegan challenge.  I knew going into the two weeks that I had no long-term plans to become a full-time vegan.  That did not change, at this point I can’t see my life without eggs, yogurt, and the occasional turkey burger.  That said, I really enjoyed the two weeks and would like to repeat the challenge again at some point this year.  Maybe even a Vegan Month.

I am really proud of myself for sticking to this challenge.  Maybe I can’t be bothered to train for a half marathon, but I did successfully make it two weeks without losing it to any meat or dairy products.  I am also proud that I did not depend on imitation products during this challenge.  No soy yogurt breakfasts and tofurkey sandwich lunches here!  While I recognize that many people have healthy, happy diets with those products, the point of the challenge was to rely on whole foods.

Here are some of the main things I learned during my 2 weeks as a vegan –

  • Green Monsters rock my socks
  • I prefer smoothies without milk or yogurt in them
  • Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan is a book no kitchen should be without
  • I actually like tempeh
  • vegan baked goods taste better than ‘normal’ ones

How do you classify your eating habits?  Vegan, semi/vegetarian, raw, carnivorous?  For now I am semi-vegetarian who doesn’t eat mammals.  But I’ll be eating a little less dairy than I used to.

Lovin’ Like Buffy and Angel

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It’s been an absolutely fabulous day with the husband!  We are mid-Buffy-marathon though so I’ll keep this quick.

When we did our grocery shopping this afternoon we got salad bar for lunch.

Green beans, roasted brussels, cauliflower, steamed veggies, and spicy tomato tofu.

Yums!  I love veggies so much.

Today is the last day of the vegan challenge and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about eating a bagel with cream cheese tomorrow 🙂

When we got home the husband got straight to work on this bad boy.

This was our first pommelo experience and we were both pleased.  Adam and I split this huge plate of gorgeous goodness.

And dinner ended up being amazing as well.

The tofu was marinated in tamari, evoo, chipotle oil, garlic, and green onions.  Then I sprinkled with sesame seeds and baked at 450* for 25minutes.  For the veggies I sautéed some frozen green bean mix in the tofu marinade.  ‘Twas good.

Dessert was also exciting.  This small self-bag of gummi candies had my first Easter candies of the season.

See you in the am!

Did you watch Buffy in the ’90’s?  I didn’t really (although one of my friends was beyond obsessed) and Adam had never seen it.  We LOVE it now though.

Like Ice Cream Topped with Honey

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Good evening!  I hope everyone had a great day.  Mine had some hits and misses.  Like apparently I’m missing the gene that allows you to cook kale without burning the life out of it –

My lunch ended up being a tiny plate of roasted cauliflower, boo.

But I hit the nail on the head with my latest layered look –

My great aunt thrifted me this cashmere cardigan when I moved to NYC and I love it.  The buttons are circular except for the one over my heart.

I LOVE little details like that.  I am obsessed with Volcom because they always do nifty things with the stitching and inner patterns.

Classes went ago, I’m a couple of days behind on my Chemistry reading and I was pretty confused in class today.  I’ve got loads and loads of work to do this weekend.

You know that I inhaled a blondie the minute I walked through the door.  I’m making the husband take these to his friends at school tomorrow so they won’t be in the house any more!!

Dinner was pulled straight from the freezer.

I randomly bought this Kashi Mayan Harvest meal awhile ago so I was thrilled to notice recently that it was vegan.

Ok, I know that looks disgusting, but YUM.  I love plantains so freaking much; I can’t believe it’s less than 2weeks until I’ll be home eating them for real.

For dessert I put two blondies on a plate.

And I’ve told my sweet tooth that the kitchen is closed for the night.

P.S. The title relates to nothing except for the fact that I’ve been singing Lady Gaga ‘Beautiful, Dirty, Rich’ all day.

Dreena Burton, I Love You

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Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!  Can we talk about the fricking Maple Pecan Sticky Blondies?!?!?!

I only had 1/2 as much of the pecan topping as the recipe called for – the best part – and they were delicious.  When I make them again with the full amount I’m pretty sure my head is going to explode.  They are chewy, and almost spongy, the topping is the world’s best mix of sweet and salty and the molasses adds a fabulous layer of complexity.  I had two.

And the minute I woke up this morning, before brushing my teeth, and even before I peed, I ate another one!  Buy Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan.  Do it NOW.  Make these blondies.  If you are worried about the “strange” ingredients don’t be.  I subbed out the ‘regular’ stuff for half of the ingredients in the recipe and it worked out fine.

Gah!  I’m still kind of not over it, but I can’t talk about blondies all day, you want to hear about breakfast. 

Last night I mixed up 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup plain skim soy milk, 1/4 cup soy vanilla yogurt, and 1T maple syrup.  I am not a soy yogurt fan but it was leftover from the blondies.

This morning I topped the bowl of with a sliced banana and a spoonful of pb.

Pretty tasty.

I have class this afternoon and leftovers are on the dinner agenda, overall it looks like a low-key day.  By the way – I’ve decided NOT to run before my race.  I am not going to be able to increase my fitness in 10days, but I can give my leg a chance to rest up and heal.

Blondies or brownies, which are your favorite?  To me brownies = ick, blondies = yum.  I will say though, that ALL of my favorite blondies have been vegan.

No-So-Small Smalls Will Make Me Not So Small

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We are the proud owners of new (safer, eco-safe) pans!  Nothing else today has gone according to plan though, mostly in a good way 🙂

I ended up only taking a few sips of my Naked juice because the husband picked me up much earlier than expected.  It was good because I got to blow that joint, but I had hoped to be forced to do a few more hours of studying.  When I offered Adam a sip of my juice he randomly fell in love with it and I let him have it.

After our Target trip we randomly decided to go on a date ❤  We had to stop at Wegmans to pick something up so we hit up the salad bar.

Chan Marsala with Naan (YUM!),

roasted veggies and a little bit of tofu.

So good.  Whenever we do the salad bar the husband and I always share a diet soda, awwwwww!

Can you guess what we did next?

Bowling!  I am so terrible at it but I enjoy it so much.  My first game was beyond embarrassing.

But I started to get the hang of it.

And by the 3rd game I beat the husband!

He had a pretty serious thumb injury at that point but I’ll take what I can get 🙂  While we were bowling I munched on this entire “small” (4serving!) bag of buffalo wing pretzels.

I need to basically never pick up a bag that has more servings than I plan on eating at that moment.  In general I only eat things that aren’t healthy when I choose to, but I have no control with those “small” bags.  I did the same thing with a bag of trail mix yesterday 😦

I planned on eating dessert this evening, Maple Pecan Blondies (another E,D&BV recipe), but a mid-way run down the block for flour meant they aren’t done yet.  I’ll probably nibble one before bed and I’ll give you a review in the morning.

What foods do you lose control with?  What have you done to combat the problem?

I Love Green Monsters So Much I Want to Marry Them

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I’ll get back to the title in a moment.  First, did you read my last post?  It explains all about the situation with my half marathon.  Please do read it, I would love some input from my wise readers.

This morning I stretched breakfast and lunch out and together across 3 small snack-meals.  First things first, a lemon poppyseed cookie.

Then a small bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch with plain skim soy milk.

Finally, my new love – I made my first green monster!

I blended 1 frozen banana with a squeeze of honey, 1cup frozen spinach, and 1cup oj.  Holy yum!  This was tangy and healthy and awesome.

I’ve got to run now to go pick up Adam on my way to school.  He needs the car but he is going to sit in on Anthro with me this afternoon first and I am so excited!  I’m probably going to be late at school waiting for Adam and we have some may-jor cleaning planned for this evening so don’t get to anxious for an evening post 🙂

Have you tried gms yet?  What do you think?

I’m a Chickpea Kind of Chick

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I did go to the Spot as planned, but first I had a few other things on the agenda.  Like eat a lemon poppyseed cookie –

And do the quickest gym trip ever: 11minutes (1.14miles) on the treadmill followed by 10minutes of strength training.  I was on a tight schedule and I didn’t want to do much anyways because I’ve got the strangest interval session ever planned for tomorrow morning.

My study session went very well, and while I was there I ended up accidentally ordering a FEAST.

The diet coke was obvious, but the roasted red pepper hummus sounded tasty so I ordered that as well.  I had no idea it was going to be so big!

I ate 3 breadsticks and ~2-3T of hummus, thankfully Adam showed up later to finish off the rest.

I enjoyed a cara cara orange when I got home,

and then I made a delicious dinner, officially checking off all my to-do’s for today, yay!  We had the 2nd half of this box of falafel mix to use up,

but this time we fried the falafels.  Which was hella fun because it meant we got to use our tongs for the first time.

Frying produced such better results than when we baked them.  Our side dish was delicious too, against all odds.  I made Roasted Cauliflower, Chickpeas, and Olives from Cooking Light, but I realized to late that my olives were not pitted.  I went ahead with the dish, sans olives, but I cooked it for about twice as long as the recipe recommended.

All total dinner was a raging success!

Pretty good for a Monday 🙂

What is your favorite way to eat chick peas? I like falafel the best, then hummus, but I want to experiment more with roasted.  That method is taking blogworld by storm and I think if I slow-roast it could become a favorite.

Death and Taxes

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Hey guys!  Sorry for rushing out on you last night, I managed to get to the hospital just in time so that neither the husband nor I had to wait.

This morning I went with a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast before volunteering.

I topped 1/3 cup oats with a splash of soymilk, a big shake of cinnamon, 1t maple syrup, and natural peanut butter.

Delish!  The mix of flavors in this was great.  I usually am not the biggest oats fan (especially without banana) but lately it’s been tasting so good to me.

Volunteering went well today, they kept me super busy for a change.  There’s another volunteer on my same shift now and we get along really well so it makes the time pass all the more quickly.  On my way out I used my lunch voucher to fill up a little container of pineapple.

Then for lunch lunch I made a big plate of roasted veggies.

Okra fries,

and kale crisps with garlic powder on them.

Sadly my tasty lunch was ruined by the fact that I was on hold for 15+ minutes trying to get my W-2 form.  I still just can’t quite get myself away from the soul-crush that is the NYC DOE.

I have plans for a study date this afternoon at the Spot and then a quick but fun dinner.  Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Have you started your taxes yet?  Do you go it alone or have someone/a service help you out?  We are using H&R Block this year.  Our goal was to finish them weeks ago but the lack of w-2 forms is really gumming up the works.