A Care Package and Some Groceries!!

Hey everyone! I hope that you all enjoyed the long weekend. As I mentioned previously, sadly it was not a long weekend for me but I still enjoyed it. I took the weekend to re-charge and really try to rest. I started reading the book #Girlboss and I really like it! It's pretty different from the show and I actually like it a lot more. I also did some meal planning and I've got some pretty great meals coming up this week. Of course it meant a second trip to the grocery store because clearly thinking ahead wasn't on the agenda this week, ha!

On Saturday I was greeted at home (after work) by a really wonderful vegan care package from the lovely Bianca from Vegan Crunk!! We all know and love her amazing vegan Southern cooking, her reviews, of course her amazing blog and cookbook and I personally LOVE following her journey as a runner. She completed a full marathon and I think that is so inspiring and incredible. I also really enjoy following her detoxes each January and I found out about Kris Carr because of her blog! Finally, her fur baby crew is so adorable and she has a dog named Maynard! Yaaaaasssss!!!!!

Bianca was so kind to pick out some local Memphis vegan snacks and treats and sent them over to me. Check out what she sent!

Yum!!! In the top left is a bag of Green Goddess flavored popcorn!! I've never heard of that before and it sounds amazing! She said that her friend makes it and sells it at Whole Foods. Very cool!  The top right is Lydia's Sun Butter Cookies and they are made by a local company called Lydia's Kitchen. Below the cookies is a bag of Nikki's Hot Ass Chips (that name is everything!!) in the cool version because apparently the hot ones are HOT. I'm so glad she sent the cool version because I doubt I'd be able to handle the super spicy! She also sent an adorable Made In Memphis magnet and some cute Herbivore stickers!

Thank you so much for the amazing package Bianca!! I'll make sure to let you all know how awesome it all is once I start trying everything!!

I went to Trader Joe's on Sunday to get some stuff for the week and I figured I'd share that haul.

Romaine, Persian Cucumbers, baby carrots and some peaches (!!!).

Apple juice, orange juice and Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze. Yes, I know the juice is pasteurized but that's not something that bothers me. I'm going to use the orange juice in smoothies by the way.

Jasmine rice and some Soy Cherry Chocolate Chip Ice Cream because why not?

I saw these Fruit & Nut discs in the new items section and decided to give them a try! There is a fig and walnut flavor and a date, hazelnut and cacao flavor. I couldn't decide between the two so I grabbed both of these. There is a third kind but to be honest I don't even remember what it is. I'll let you know how these are when I try them too!

As I mentioned above I ended up meal planning after the grocery store (I mean honestly, why?) and realized that I needed to grab a few more things so I ran out to the store but didn't think to take a photo. I picked up an eggplant, some asparagus, zucchini, granny smith apples and of course some stuffed grape leaves. I am making some really great meals this week and I can't wait to show you!

Speaking of great meals, I was going to wait until Sunday to post this with the rest of my meals but I couldn't wait, haha! This was a Mediterranean plate I had for dinner on Sunday night and it was every bit as good as it looked!

This is my planner spread for this week. I went patriotic for Memorial Day and you can't tell by this picture but it is foiled and absolutely gorgeous. You can kind of see the stars in the foiling on the Friday firework full box. I really love how this came out and I'll use the rest of this kit for 4th of July. Seriously, I LOVE getting two weeks out of each kit now and that I can buy fewer sheets from each kit and still get two weeks out of it. Really helps the wallet, ha!

That's all for today's post! I hope that you are all rested after your weekend! I'll see you back here on Saturday!

Stuff I Ate

Hey guys! I hope that you all had a great week! I'm sure you are looking forward to your three day weekend as well :) Sadly since Monday is a typical day off for me, three day weekends are incredibly rare (although I will have one for the 4th of July because it is on a Tuesday!). I am still looking forward to having a relaxing weekend though. It is supposed to storm here on Monday so I'll probably just have a relaxing day of reading and crafting :) Do you have any fun plans for the holiday weekend?

I have a few photos from the week to share with you. I'm still hoping to be better about taking photos but I have been at least trying to take a few to share. You'll see an absolute favorite that has come back into my life ;)

WATERMELON!!!!!! For everyone that has been reading this blog for a while you'll know that watermelon is probably my all time favorite fruit and one of my favorite foods. I never would have thought to pick one up this early but my dad got it for me and oh my goodness you guys! It was GOOD. Really juicy and sweet! I'm so excited for watermelon season! And just summer produce in general. Our farmers markets open next weekend and I can't wait to check them out.

I have a bento meal from the week. I used half of a Trader Joe's Lavash to make a tofurkey wrap with lettuce and tomato. I know it looks like a ton of tofurkey but it's one serving all folded up. Of course I had a nice serving of watermelon and the equivalent of about 4 tortilla chips broken into little pieces, ha! I wasn't trying to have a tiny portion of tortilla chips, it was just all that would fit into that container.

I didn't have time to make lunch for friday so I decided to order in a Chinese food lunch special. This is the Szechuan style tofu with veggies and white rice. It came with a drink (I got iced tea) and it cost $5.75 which is an amazing deal. I at half and saved the rest to have for my lunch today! I would say that worked out perfectly!

I must have been in a Treat Yo Self kind of mood yesterday because I decided to stop off at Sweet To Lick, the vegan bakery near me. I've been craving chocolate pretty intensely over the past week and decided to finally indulge it. I grabbed a thin mint whoopee cookie and chocolate chip oreo whoopee cookie. I tried half of the thin mint one last night and it was good!

So that's what I have to share with you today! Let me know all of the fun things you have planned for the holiday weekend. Since it is the unofficial start of summer, what fun summer plans do you have? I have a few things in mind. Maybe I'll do a fun summer bucket list post! What do you think?

Have a great weekend! <3

Hauls and Meals and Mugs, Oh My!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Mine was really nice but went way too quickly. After an incredibly stressful work day on Saturday I met up with my friends for dinner which was really nice. I did absolutely nothing on Sunday and loved every second of it and then yesterday I met up with a friend and then I went to the mall. It was stressful but I'm glad I went! I feel like a day of doing nothing paired with a day of productivity is a perfect way to spend a weekend. What did you guys end up doing?

Today's post is going to be a combination of all kinds of fun things. I have a small grocery haul that mostly supplements what I already have in the house. I also have a few meals and I'll also show what I picked up at the mall!

For produce I just picked up some asparagus, romaine and grape tomatoes.

For random stuff I picked up some tater tots (!!), my favorite tortilla chips, Lavash wraps, the individual servings of raw almonds, the vegan marshmallows (they're back!!) and the coffee mochi that I have heard great things about! I was feeling a little junky this week haha.

I really liked the Ginger Ale Zevia so I decided to try the caffeine free cola version as well! I really love it! It's so funny because they are all clear (which is great, no artificial colors!) and it reminds me of the whole Crystal Pepsi phenomenon. It's perfect if you want a soda but don't want to drink the chemicals and crap. 

Another delicious flagel (flat bagel) with tofu cream cheese. This is seriously my favorite meal.

We went out for my dad's birthday last week and I got this delicious salad. The only adjustment I had to make was to leave off the cheese. It is romaine, walnuts, cranberries, apples and grapes. So good and fresh.

When I met up with my friend on Monday we went for bubble tea. I seriously love this stuff. I went for my favorite peach tea and I loved it as always.

So I went to the Disney store yesterday to get my mug collection started. They didn't have a great selection at all but what they did have was on sale so I was happy about that. I had a hard time deciding (they didn't really have any princess options which would have made it a lot easier) so I decided to go with some girl power.

Of course I had to get this adorable Minnie Mouse mug! How cute is she?

I also decided to go for the Tinkerbell mug. The other sides have different poses and they are equally as adorable.

In addition to the mugs I decided to treat myself to a Kat Von D liquid lipstick. If you are into makeup but have not tried these liquid lipsticks I HIGHLY recommend them! The formula is amazing. They are super opaque, they are super long lasting and they don't budge. I had one shade before (Lolita, the most popular shade) and decided I wanted to go for a red. I'm so bad about choosing colors for my complexion but I will never try lipsticks on from a sampler… no matter how much they sterilize it. I can't even describe how gross I think that is. Anyway, I picked up the shade "Outlaw" and I am so happy with it! I LOVE it! It's the perfect red shade for me!

source

This is not my picture but it shows off some great swatches of the color. How gorgeous is it?! I'll try to remember to take a picture of it when I wear it :)

So that is the randomness I have for you today. Sadly the weekend went by way too quickly but hopefully the week will be quick and painless. I hope that you all had a great weekend and I'll see you here on Saturday! Have a great week! <3

Stir Fry Roundup and Recipe!

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday. Well not as happy of a Saturday for me. Have you ever had one of those days where everything is going wrong and you just get more and more angry as the minutes pass? Today is that day for me. It started late last night and this morning has been a disaster from a blown fuse to some idiot almost plowing into me as I was driving to work because he wasn't paying attention. At that point I was so frustrated I just screamed as loud as I could in my car and let me tell you… it actually helped. I'm still not exactly thrilled but I feel better than I did an hour ago. I just have to get through one more day of work and then it is my weekend. I actually have exciting plans and I'm going to be catching up with two of my friends and I can't wait! I'm also going to head over to the mall on a mission. I really want to start a Disney mug collection and I want to collect as many characters as I can. It'll be a slow accumulation but I'm excited to see what the Disney Store has! Of course it means a trip to the mall but it's a trade off I'm willing to make :)

Anyway, update out of the way! Now we get to the point of today's post :) On my last post a lovely commenter (and fellow Long Islander!!) named Trixie asked for my Stir Fry recipe. I'm going to do the best I can for you Trixie! I never measure when I stir fry but I can at least give you a jump off point and you can tweak to suit your tastes! In addition, I'll be posting a roundup of stir fries I have made so you can see the veggies I like to use.

This was a great one! It has tofu, asparagus, and mushrooms with some Jasmine Rice.

Also delicious! Chinese Eggplant, asparagus, tofu and broccoli.

Chinese Eggplant, tofu, asparagus and mushrooms again.

This one is an Udon Noodle stir fry. Tofu, broccoli and Chinese eggplant.

This one was snow peas, cabbage, mushrooms and tofu.

Simple Stir Fry!

Ingredients:

Veggies of Choice (see below for suggestions)

Tofu, tempeh or seitan

Hoisin sauce

Soy sauce, tamari or coconut aminos

Garlic (fresh or powder)

Sriracha (optional)

Directions:

1. Using a little cooking spray, brown your protein of choice over medium heat. This is the only oil I use and it is minimal, just to help the protein get nice and crispy.

2. Add veggies to pan and stir fry using a little water. I like to cover my pan for a few minutes to help the veggies steam and cook through a little quicker. Stir every couple of minutes. Add water when needed. 

3. While your veggies are cooking, stir together sauce ingredients. Start with 1 tbsp hoisin, 1 tbsp soy sauce or tamari or aminos and some garlic to taste. If you like heat, add some sriracha. Taste the sauce and adjust as needed. If it is too sweet for you, add a little of your soy sauce option. If you want it sweeter add a bit more hoisin. You can also add ginger if you like ginger. 

4. Add sauce to veggies. Stir everything together. Let it cook for another few minutes to heat it all through and let everything meld together.

5. Serve with rice or noodles or on its own.

Stir Fry Veggie Suggestions:

Asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, snow peas, carrots, peas, onions, green onions, peppers, edamame, Chinese eggplant, bok choy (!!), mushrooms of all varieties, zucchini, celery and baby corn.

I know this is a very loose recipe but it's the best I could do to put it all together. Stir fry is based on personal preference I think but hopefully this provides a good starting point for you! 

That's all I have for you today. I'll be back Tuesday hopefully in a better mood. I should be since I'm excited about this weekend :) Do you have any plans for the weekend? Are you guys Disney fans? Which character would you get on your first mug if you were going to build a collection?

This & That

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great weekend and that all of the Mommies out there had a wonderful Mother's Day. My mom and I had a nice, quiet, mellow Mother's Day and we continued the celebration yesterday when we went outlet shopping together. Sadly I didn't find any sneakers or bags that I liked so I'm still looking out for those. Does anyone have any recommendations for good, inexpensive vegan gym sneakers?? It would be greatly appreciated :)

This week I have a few meals (nothing crazy) and decided to show a few of my planner layouts as well. It's funny, the planner stuff has been mentioned a bit lately in my comments and Bianca even mentioned them in a post so I decided that since it has been a while since I've shared some layouts I'd show a few of my recent favorites!

This is the most simple stir fry ever of Chinese Eggplant and rice with some garlic sauce. It was so good.

A slightly more exciting stir fry that has tofu and broccoli in addition to the eggplant and rice.

Of course I had to have some veggie rolls at some point this week.

Sorry I didn't photograph a ton of meals since Saturday but it's been a bit hectic. So to make up for it I decided to share four planner layouts below. For anyone that is new here I do decorate my planner because it makes me happy and it makes me more likely to use it. I only decorate my weekly and monthly calendars but I also track meals/exercise, finances and I also have notes sections for various things. It's just a fun thing that I do and for the hour I spend on it each week it makes me happy and allows me to be creative. In case anyone is curious, all of the sets happen to be from a shop called Creating & Co. She is my favorite :)

This was the week after Beauty and the Beast came out and I was going to see it on Monday but I had to push it to the following Monday. I LOVE this. It is so cute and a perfect way to remember when the movie came out.

I'm obsessed with these colors. This is a neon coffee themed week and it's so cute. The color combination is beautiful.

I saved this set for the week of Mother's Day because I thought it was perfect. It is so beautiful and springy and just makes me think of Mother's Day. I really loved the way this one came out.

Finally, this is this current week's layout and it is a fitness theme! I thought it was perfect to coincide with the start of my fitness journey and these colors are amazing.

You'll notice I only use my personal sized planner now. I don't really have a ton going on in my life so this is the perfect sized planner for me. In addition, I have multiple sections in it and it allows me to keep everything in one place. It also brings down the cost of stickers tremendously because I buy fewer pages and the one set lasts two weeks. I'm really happy with the change and being able to budget less and get more out of it.

So that's all for today! I'll be better about photographing meals for Saturday :) I hope you all have a wonderful week!

What I Eat In A Day #6

Hey everyone! It's that time of the week again! Happy Saturday! As always I will be joining you in weekend mode in a few hours and I am quite excited about it. It is a nasty, rainy day here on Long Island today so it is my full intention to go home tonight and curl up in bed and binge watch something on Netflix. I haven't decided what yet but I have all day to figure it out :) Definitely something light and fun. I've decided to take a step back from True Crime stuff because it is quite triggering for me so it's best to hold off on that content for a little while.

Anyway, I'm here today with a full day of eating. It was quite carby and I'm good with that. It was also really delicious and I'm definitely ok with that :)

Breakfast was simple toast with crunchy peanut butter. Super satisfying!

I snacked on this bag o' mango all day. I got it from the deli next door. They have pre-cut mango most days and it is such a perfect snack on a warm day (it was nice earlier in the week!).

For lunch I had this bento! I used half of a Trader Joe's lavash to make a tofurkey wrap with lettuce and tomato, a few snapea crisps and a salad. It was so good and so filling.

For dinner I made some gluten free penne and enjoyed it with a faux meat sauce made with some marinara sauce and beefless crumbles. It was then topped with a generous spoonful of nutritional yeast. I always overestimate how much pasta I can eat so I ate half of this bowl for dinner and brought the rest for lunch to work the next day. It was great even the second time around. 

So that's what I have for you today. My mom took the day off of work on Monday and she and I will be having a girl's day and we are going outlet shopping. I've been avoiding the outlets for the same reason I avoided the mall but I'm feeling pretty excited about it! My mission is to find new sneakers to help motivate me to get my ass to the gym and I also need a cross body bag. If I find anything I'll make sure to share it in Tuesday's post!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Happy Mother's Day to any mommies out there - that includes moms to both human and fur babies. I hope you all enjoy your day!

Groceries and Bubble Tea!

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday :) I hope that you are all doing well and had a great weekend. It was really beautiful yesterday so I made sure to get out and enjoy the nice weather for a bit. The weekends always go by quickly but this one seemed to go especially quickly. It's back to the grind today but that's life, right? Anyway, today I have my weekly Trader Joe's haul and some bubble tea!!

For the produce I got some blackberries, grape tomatoes, romaine hearts, a bag of russet potatoes, broccoli slaw, asparagus and one regular tomato.

For random grocery stuff I got my favorite tortilla chips (these have a strong lime kick, I LOVE them!), Inner Peas, jasmine rice and a bottle of the coconut aminos! It costs $2.99 which is a great price!

So as I mentioned above, it was a gorgeous day yesterday and I felt like getting out of the house and enjoying it. After running some errands (Mother's Day gifts and my Dad's birthday gift are done!) and after that I decided to go on an adventure and find the new bubble tea place I found online. By adventure I mean venture about 20 minutes from my house but it was an adventure for me, haha. Anyway, I found the place quite easily and got this beauty! While I enjoy the delicious bubble tea from the mall (the mango green tea one), Peach Bubble Tea has always been my favorite and I missed it. That is exactly what I ordered. I always go for less sweetener because it's always too sweet for me so I went 70%. It was still pretty sweet but so delicious! The tapioca pearls were so fresh and chewy and delicious. I am going back in a few weeks with my friend for a catch up session and I can't wait!

As a side note for the bubble tea, I went to H-Mart the other day (I didn't get anything) and I found the uncooked tapioca pearls there! I'm tempted to pick up a package and see if I can make my own bubble tea. What do you guys think? Should I give it a try? Have any of you ever tried to make your own? Do you have any recipes you'd recommend?

So that's it for today! As always I'll be attempting to not be useless at photographing my meals :) I hope you all have a great week and I'll see you back here on Saturday!

Bento Boxes and More!

Hi everyone! I can't believe it is Saturday already! This week has gone really quickly. I'm really happy to say that I was able to get to the gym three times this week. Every time I've tried to re-start the gym I go once or twice and fall off from there. I kept it up and I'm hoping to add another day within the next few weeks! Just as a quick note: one of my goals for the gym was that I was actually hoping my sleep would improve after I started going and guess what?! It did and it happened immediately! As soon as I put my head on that pillow I'm out and I'm out straight through the night. I've started to fall asleep a little earlier and I wake up a little earlier but I'm ok with that since I like to get to the gym early anyway! This is a huge deal for me as it usually takes me a while to fall asleep and I tend to wake up once or twice during the night as well. If nothing else, this is a huge improvement and it makes it so worth it to me!

Anyway, I'm here with a few meals to show you. Two of them are bento box meals. They were good you guys. Check it out!

This first bento box was delicious! On the left is stir fry with tofu, snow peas, cabbage and mushrooms. It was seasoned with tamari, hoisin and garlic. There is some jasmine rice under there too. On the right is an apple and some baby carrots.

This box was also freaking amazing. On the left is my favorite salad with the cranberries, almonds, romaine and Panera Asian Vinaigrette. On the right is a tofurkey wrap and filling in the spaces were some juicy, crispy grapes. This bento may be one of my favorites so far!

This dinner was seriously everything. It was a combination of my favorite things: oven fries and a mediterranean plate! The oven fries were enjoyed with ketchup. This meal was delicious and so filling.

This picture is actually a re-post but I did enjoy a faux chick'n caesar salad this week as well. I really love this salad and it feels like a treat. I used the Just Caesar dressing and Gardein Crispy Chick'n strips and it was delicious.

Sadly that's all I have for you today. I'm definitely hoping to get better with taking pictures of everything to share with you. I'm also hoping to get out more as the weather improves and I will definitely share those adventures with you! I'm trying to think of a summer bucket list and I'll make sure to share that with you as well. Any suggestions for fun things to do over the summer? I can't wait for the Farmer's Market to start again in June!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I hope that mine will be a nice combination of productivity and relaxation :) I'll see you back here on Tuesday!

What I Eat In A Day #5 & A Small Haul

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday! I hope you all had a great weekend :) Did you do anything fun? I did quite a bit including going to a movie Saturday evening (a BIG step for me!! - saw The Smurfs, it was cute!), the mall on Sunday (also a big step) and had a productive Monday. I also decided to re-activate my gym membership and went for the first time yesterday and did some cardio. All in all a very busy weekend with lots of steps in the right direction.

For today's post I photographed my meals from yesterday and I also have a small haul from Trader Joe's. I needed more romaine lettuce so I decided to just grab a few things while I was there.

For breakfast I had Trader Joe's gluten free waffles with some peanut butter, banana and maple syrup. Seriously delicious!

For lunch I had my favorite Mediterranean type plate with stuffed grape leaves (of course!), tomatoes, carrots, hummus and a piece of bread from the Turkish market.

Dinner was my new favorite salad again with romaine, cranberries, almonds and Gardein crispy tenders with the Panera Asian vinaigrette. So delicious.

For the haul I got Lavash wraps, apples, shredded cabbage, romaine hearts, mushrooms, slivered almonds and snow peas. I also made a stir fry to enjoy over the next few days on Monday. I almost grabbed the whole wheat Lavash but decided to check the ingredients and noticed there was honey in there. I'm glad I checked!

I went for a walk around the neighborhood yesterday evening and came across this gorgeous tree with the most beautiful blossoms. I had to stop and take a picture! That is my favorite thing about this time of year. The neighborhood looks so beautiful and it was nice to get some fresh air.

So that's what I have for you today! I hope that all is well with all of you. I'll see you again on Saturday with another post! <3