Days 10-16 ~ Has it really been this long??

What a great food weekend! I have been trying out several new recipes (posts to follow tonight) from my new cookbooks and so far they have been pretty fabulous!!!

I also discovered that there is such a thing as eating TOO MUCH and too much sweet stuff. I was kind of under the misconception that as long as it was vegan and clean that I could eat as much as I wanted….and then my stomach let me know otherwise!! Yesterday, for instance, I had vegan pancakes with chocolate chips and zucchini in it for breakfast, a snacky lunch of some edamame crackers and dark chocolate (im so healthy, i know ) and then an AWESOME early dinner of veggie fajitas….followed by coconut ice cream with a vegan cookie in it, followed much later by a bowl of cereal. Uh, yeah. Overkill. This morning I feel soooo bloated. So although it was all good and “healthy”, I need to tone down the gluttony!

I also went to El Torito this weekend and was a little nervous about eating vegan, but was pleasantly filled with vegetable fajitas (again, so good, but mine were better!)

This week I have some more great meals planned! I can’t wait to keep eating! But i am going to lay off the sweets this time.

Note to self: If you buy all kinds of vegan desserts, you WILL eat them with abandon. Do yourself a favor and leave them at the store!

My First Recipe

So, as I promised days ago… here is the first recipe I made out of my new cookbooks.

It came from “The 30 Minute Vegan”.

Veggie Tempura

I was really surprised that you can make tempura batter with flaxseeds, water, and baking powder. But it worked quite well!

Step 1

Step 3

Enjoy~

Peaceful

i know i have been completely MIA lately…

but i have been a good little vegan girl, and i really feel much better eating this way.

i have lost 3 lbs and my stomach feels flatter

but i have had a rough week, with no time to try out new recipes.

so i have been a little bored with the basics.

BUT I just recieved my Clean Food cookbook and it is AMAZING!!!

The recipes look sooo simple and delicious!!!

This quote from the book really spoke to me…

“Our produce depts. and grocery shelves are lined with unknowns- pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, chemical additives and process upon process, strippin gour food of its inherent nutritional value. Behind each glass of milk or piece of meat is an agenda, a lobbyist, a Fortune 500 company, a processing plant.. yo…u need to squint to see the farmer and binoculars to see the cow!” – Clean Food

So so true.

PS  ~ I bought some Artisana Tahini this weekend, and it is NOT GOOD. Not at all like the tahini Ive eaten in the past with falafel or otherwise.. the texture is weird and I really did not enjoy it. Am I supposed to dilute it? (it is pretty thick)

Days 6 thru 9

This weekend has been great! (I did have fish 2 times, but it was raw, do I get points for that?? lol) No, honestly, I don’t feel bad or like I am “cheating” when I eat fish. I know that it is super  healthy in moderation and I always make sure to buy wild caught.

On Saturday, I went to the farmers market and got so much great stuff! Let’s see if I can remember everything: dates (2 lbs for $7!!), oranges, kale, cilantro, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, avocados, broccoli, and carrots. All organic. Gotta love it!!

Then Saturday night I had a dinner with my group from school. It ended up being only two of us girls (oh darn, wink wink) and she wanted to go to Claim Jumper. I went online to look at the menu ahead of time and was excited to find 2 appetizers that I could eat!! One of them was seared ahi (oh, yum) and the other was avocado rolls wrapped in a philo-like dough. Sooooo delicious!!! And I had a 1/2 glass of red wine…perfect!

Sunday, I went grocery shopping for the stuff I didn’t get at the market. First I went to a local health food store called Sprouts. I knew they would have most of the staples I needed. I got a bunch of great stuff! Spelt flour, Artisana Tahini and Coconut butter, miso, Bob’s Red Mill Buckwheat cereal, leeks, millet, flax seeds, spelt flour, nutritional yeast, hemp milk, shredded coconut…they have it all! I really wanted to get some Amazing Grass protein powder but it was $42.99!!!! It was a little too steep for me. I decided that I would get it another time, because it really is a great product. Oh, I also got some vegan cookies (Uncle Eddies) that are deee-lic-ious!!

They have a great salad bar there so we had a big salad for lunch. Then I went to Trader Joe’s for the final stop. Whew! Coming home with all my healthy, vegan food felt so good.

So let me end this forever long post with some pictures of stuff I have been eating the last few days.

Ezekiel tortilla with quinoa, mushrooms, tofu, bell pepper and hummus

veggie sandwich on sourdough with bok choy, zucchini, bell pepper, and mushroom

Nuff Said

Chocolate ice cream with frozen berries & coconut butter..oh yes

Can you guess what I did with these veggies?

Up next… my first cookbook recipe!

Staples

After receiving my new vegan cookbooks and perusing many of your lovely blogs out there, I decided I need to go purchase some vegan pantry staples! So far my list includes…

• Amazing Grass Chocolate
• Nutritional Yeast
• Breakfast hot cereal (probably will get Bob’s Red Mill)
• Chia seeds
• Egg white replacer (? not sure on this one)
• Hemp milk (I am typically a soy drinker but want to try hemp!)
• Daiya cheese
• Turmeric
• Vegan dark chocolate
• Spelt flour
• Cornmeal
• Vegan mozzarella
• Soba noodles (good?)
• Polenta
• Grains: couscous, quinoa, millet, amaranth
• Tahini
• Coconut butter (for some raw macaroons! yummm)

Unfortunately, I don’t have any Whole Foods around here! When are they going to get on it?! Its not like I live in the sticks or anything! So I will have to go to a health food store here that I love, but is very expensive

Anything else you guys can think of to add?! What else do I need??

Days 4 & 5 ~ the smoothie adventures

Yesterday (Day 4) my smoothie was like sludge. Thick, green sludge. I used 7 or 8 kale leaves, an apple, soymilk, cacao nibs, and almond butter. But man it tasted GREEEEEEN. So I chewed drank it all and it was not bad by the end

Then today! My blender was majorly malfunctioning. I had all my ingredients in it, filled to the brim with some awesome red leaf lettuce and I start pouring the soymilk in……and the soymilk started coming out all over the counter! Grrrr… so I put the blender on a plate and stuck it in the fridge… Hopefully I can figure out what is wrong with it tonight and have a smoothie for dinner.

 my lunch.. ezekiel tortilla with leftover baked tofu, broccoli, potato, and hummus

yummmmy

dinner last night and lunch today.. Israeli couscous with sauteed mushrooms, chard, tofu, and zucchini mixed in. Delish!

I have school tonight from 6-10 so I will probably eat the smoothie for dinner and bring a PB&J for snack later.

Have an awesome day!!

Day 3

Yesterday was Day 3 and I must say, I am enjoying my vegan “lifestyle”!

I had my green smoothie with berries, raw cacao nibs, a banana, raw almond butter, and almond milk! It was yummy but the berry seeds very chewy. I think next time I’ll get just blue berries instead of mixed

Then for lunch I had a spicy lentil wrap from Trader Joe’s with tahini sauce…they make my life so easy!

Dinner was leftover pasta with sauce and rainbow chard on top! Arabella of course would not eat the chard but she did devour her noodles!

Snacks throughout the day were an apple with peanut butter, and then a banana with peanut butter (I think I need to take it easy on the peanut butter!! But its so filling and gooood!) I got a great PB from Trader Joes with valencia peanuts and flaxseeds in it! I also drank lots of water and tea.

I also got my books in the mail yesterday!!!! I got 30 Minute Vegan, The Urban Vegan, Clean, and French Women for all Seasons (highly recommended by a friend). I started to read the 30 minute vegan but was sooo sleepy, so I brought the 2 cookbooks with me to work. Hopefully I will get a chance to thumb through them and plan some dinners…I already feel like I am running out of dinner ideas! I am so tired when I get home and Arabella just wants me to hold her and play with her so it’s hard to make a good meal. So I thinkt hese books will really help me!!

Have a great day everyone! Day 4 (today) details later….