Some Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you are all doing well. I haven't been feeling my best lately but I am definitely proud to say that I kicked the caffeine again (old habits die hard but I'm officially caffeine free and past the withdrawals) and I've been sleeping so much better now. Sadly my gastritis is back so my meals have been kind of sad and plain but I still kept taking photos to show you. They aren't the most exciting meals but it's what I ate. There will definitely be more veggies in my next What I Ate post, that I can assure you.

I tried the Greek Style Kite Hill yogurt and still wasn't a fan. I don't know why I can't get into the Kite Hill yogurts but they just aren't my thing. Luckily I had an apple and some pineapple to have so I was satisfied anyway.

This was a very delicious bowl of cereal. This is the Trader Joe's mini shredded wheat cereal with some sliced almonds, raisins, cinnamon and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. This was super delicious and incredibly filling. 

I tried this flavor of McDougall's soups and you guys. It is AMAZING. Definitely my new favorite and I think I am going to try to recreate it on my own. It is so delicious and so flavorful.

These are the nutrition facts if you were curious.

This is my new favorite Larabar flavor. It is perfect if you are craving chocolate but don't want to be super indulgent. It is delicious and certainly helps curb the craving. I love it.

This is my sad breakfast/snack for today. The pain is real right now so I don't have much of an appetite so we'll see how this works out. I know the banana isn't super ripe yet but it was the most ripe one I could find.

So that's my kind of sad Stuff I Ate post. It will hopefully be more exciting next time around. I hope the you are all doing well and that you all have a Happy Easter or Passover, whichever you are celebrating… although is it appropriate to say Happy Passover? That's what I celebrate and I seriously still never know. Oh well 😂 I hope you have a great weekend, no matter what you celebrate!

Treat Yo Self (Well): Whole Foods and Trader Joe's Hauls

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well and that you had a great weekend! Mine was pretty good and now we are back to another work week. I mentioned last week that I was going to go ahead and have a little bit of a Treat Yo Self weekend and it's funny how the meaning of it changed pretty quickly.

My intention was to go to Whole Foods and pick up some harder to find vegan fun foods that I can't really get closer to me. Instead, I decided that I need to treat myself... well. Which means rather than put  more processed garbage into my body, I need to feed it really beautiful, colorful, vibrant, nourishing food. I've mentioned it before but I suffer with chronic pain and it has gotten much much worse lately. I am sick and tired of putting pills and garbage into my body and having negative reactions and just feeling really shitty. So I decided that I'm going to heal myself from the inside out. I'm going to try to eat mostly anti inflammatory foods and see how it goes. I think it will be reflected in my hauls that I'm going to share. I still did treat myself just a tiny bit to just a few of my favorite things but for the most part it is all nourishing and will hopefully help me feel stronger and less pain.

So enough of that, let's get to the hauls!

First I quickly ran to Trader Joe's to grab a few things that I knew I could get cheaper there:

I got a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes, riced cauliflower, baby spinach, zucchini noodles, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, basil and the high protein tofu.

Then I trekked over to Whole Foods and got all of this goodness!

For produce we have a head of swiss chard, some honeycrisp apples, lemons, fresh ginger (I don't like ginger but I'm going to try!), asparagus, carrots (these are HUGE!!) and an avocado.

These are the grocery items that aren't totally terrible for you (although I guess the yogurt is questionable?). I got some Mary's gone crackers, Kite Hill Greek Yogurt to try (on sale 2/$3!) in Strawberry and Peach flavors, some firm tofu and four Larabars.

These are probably the "worst" foods for me but you can see I didn't get much. I got some of the golden sesame tofu from the salad bar (it's one of my favs!) some of the Follow Your Heart Provolone slices (because sometimes you just need a grilled cheese and it's been way too long), four of the Thai Peanut Primal Strips (I controlled myself and limited it to four) and the SeaSnax Chomperz which are oddly addictive.

So that's what I picked up to treat myself! I have a few things planned and I can't wait to show you what I come up with for meals. As I mentioned I'm looking to eat a majority of anti inflammatory deliciousness and that also means I'm going to try to cut the gluten out as well (although I will be eating a grilled cheese on whole grain bread every now and then). We'll see what I come up with!

Here is a little bonus meal ha! I told you I'd be making a grilled cheese out of the Follow Your Heart cheese and you guys. It was so good and worth it. I knew I had to have one treat meal since I was making it a Treat Yo Self kind of weekend so here it is! I added some sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil and it was seriously delicious. The Follow Your Heart cheese is by far the best I've tried on grilled cheese by far. 

What do you eat when you aren't feeling well? What are some of your favorite gluten free recipes? Let me know!

I will see you on Friday with some meals that I've made throughout the week! Hope you all have a great week! <3

Fun Friday: Randomness From This Week

Hey guys! I hope that you are all well and excited for the weekend! Mine starts Sunday and I'm really excited to get into another weekend. I've decided to have a Treat Yo Self kind of weekend after the past week and a half that I've had and I'm pretty excited for it. I'll share what I get and make on Tuesday so yay! I had another day of panic after I posted on Tuesday but I've finally started to calm down and have been ok since then. I'm so grateful for this because it was an absolute nightmare to deal with it for almost two whole weeks but hopefully it is behind me for now.

Anyway, this post is a random mix of things that I've eaten and that have happened over the past week!

This is how we welcome Spring in New York 😂 We had another nor'easter on Wednesday and got a pretty significant amount of snow. Luckily it has been warmish since then and the streets have cleared up quite a bit.

I remember seeing this on Ingrid's blog and I decided it was time to pick it up. The only flavors they had were Raspberry Lemon and original so I decided to pick up the Raspberry Lemon even though raspberry is not a favorite flavor of mine. Turns out the flavor is really light and I love it. It kind of reminds me of a really weak iced tea. I really love the effects of it too. It definitely has a mellowing effect. It doesn't cure panic but it does help me to feel calm which is perfect for bedtime as I'm not the best at sleeping. I would definitely recommend this!

I decided to have some black bean soup from Panera to warm up. The soups are by far my favorite thing to get from Panera. The black bean is great but my favorite is the Garden Vegetable (order with no Pesto and it's vegan!). The black bean was the vegan option on the menu that day so I grabbed it and it was great.

I had breakfast for lunch on the day of the storm and it was sooooooo good. I had some frozen blueberries that I got for my blueberry corn muffins and to be honest, blueberries are not my favorite. I know I won't really make smoothies out of them and I didn't want them to go to waste. I do love blueberry waffles so I decided to defrost them and put them on top of my gluten free waffles and add some maple syrup and it was SO FREAKING GOOD. I'm glad that I figured out a way to use up my blueberries.

Finally. It's not pretty but you guys, it's damn good. This is a PIZZA BAKED POTATO!!!!! I basically baked up a potato, mushed up the flesh, added some broccoli, pizza sauce, vegan mozzarella and garlic powder and put it back in the oven to get it all gooey and delicious and you guys, it was so good. I made the whole potato but only ate half because my appetite isn't quite back yet but the second half heated up beautifully the next night. I highly recommend trying this out with your favorite pizza toppings! The next time I make it I'll get a better picture because this looks terrible but I promise it tastes great!

That's all I have for you today! I'm looking forward to sharing my Treat Yo Self splurges on Tuesday! I hope you all have a great weekend <3

Mini Haul and a Few Meals

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well, had a great weekend and enjoyed your St. Patrick's Day! I had to work so I didn't do anything but let's be honest, I probably wouldn't have done anything if I wasn't working, ha! I do enjoy living vicariously through all of your posts so I'm looking forward to doing so. Thank you all so much for your kind words and support on my last post. This last week has been one of the worst in a really long time but it's over and I'm feeling better every day. Among a whole list of mental health issues I suffer from Panic Disorder and the prednisone just completely triggered a horrible week of panic so it was definitely a big struggle but I'm getting through it and hopefully I'm on the other side now.

I've mentioned a few times in the past that I'm lucky enough to live close to a fully vegan market that opened in the area. I don't go as often as I'd like because let's be honest, it's damn expensive but I like to go every once in a while to show some support and try a few new products.

Here is a mini haul from Sunday:

On the top left you see Plant Snacks Vegan Cheddar Cassava Root Chips. These were the reason I went. I saw a photo of them on Instagram and decided that I needed to try them so I hopped in my car and went haha. I was glad they had them and they are really good. I also found the Field Roast Mini Corn Dogs and I still can't believe I purchased them because a. the price tag was STEEP and b. I have never like hot dogs EVER. I don't know what possessed me but I've been so curious and decided to splurge. I also splurged on my very first Miyoko's Creamery Cheese and grabbed the Garlic Herb wheel. Finally, since Easter is coming and all (not that I celebrate but you know, justification) I grabbed the chocolate covered Espresso Cocomels and a chocolate Easter Egg.

The first product I tried was the Miyoko's cheese which I spread on a toasted pumpernickel bagel. You guys, I don't know what's wrong with me but I never seem to like to most popular and raved about products. I found this oddly sweet for a Garlic Herb flavored cheese. When I hear garlic herb I expect really savory and it was sweet to me. I was not a fan. I'm glad I can at least say I tried it though.

The next product I taste tested was the mini corn dogs. I decided to go for a junky dinner and had a few of the corn dogs and some fries I baked in the oven (for reference that is a salad plate haha). I was really surprised by how much I liked the corn dogs. To be honest they are really expensive and I probably won't buy them again because I don't like hot dogs enough to do that but I did enjoy them (probably because I love cornbread) and the rest of the bag will definitely not go to waste.

This is just a random bonus meal I photographed. I made a delicious wrap with half of one of the Trader Joe's Lavash wraps with hummus, tofurkey, avocado, tomato and romaine. I had it with a few stuffed grape leaves and some delicious, sweet pineapple. Such a great meal.

So that's what I have for you today! I hope that you are all doing well and I'll see you on Friday with another post! <3

What I Ate In A Day

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I'm hanging in, haha. I'm trying to get back to feeling normal after a bad reaction to prednisone (which I took after having an allergic reaction) and I just feel awful and all out of sorts. After I stopped taking it I wanted to do everything I could to get it out of my system as quickly and smoothly as possible so I have been trying to eat as healthy as possible. My appetite has been low so I've been doing the best I can to get meals down and luckily on the day that I photographed my meals I had shoveled snow twice so it helped boost my appetite a bit. I haven't done a what I eat in a day post in a while so I figured it would be a good time to do one.

For breakfast I had some avocado toast with salt and pepper and some pineapple on the side. This was so good and perfect for fueling the snow shoveling I would do after.

I had to shovel snow again at work so I was definitely ready for lunch. I had some rice with some broccoli on the side and it was really delicious.

For dinner that night I had some of the tofu scramble that I made (which is soooooooo good!) with a half of a potato that is smothered in some French dressing and roasted(I seriously love these potatoes).

So that is everything I ate in a day. Everything was delicious and pretty nourishing and although I'm still feeling like garbage I'm hoping that every day it'll get a little bit better. If I could offer any words of advice following my experience it is to make sure to disclose EVERYTHING to your prescribing doctor, even mental health issues. I went to an urgent care place and had not disclosed my mental health issues and the prednisone ended up being an absolute nightmare. I'm still trying to get past it and I'm still struggling so seriously, always disclose everything before being prescribed a medication.

It's not all doom and gloom though guys. I decided that I needed to challenge myself this week. I suffer from a very low self esteem and it is something that I'm working on in therapy. I decided that I was going to get rid of my biggest security blanket: my hair. I hide behind my hair because I don't think I'm pretty (and this isn't me trying to get people to tell me I'm pretty, trust me) and I decided that I can't do that anymore. So I went and chopped off 6-8 inches of hair and you guys... I LOVE IT. I'm so happy with it. My stylist did an amazing job and she even took the time to teach me how to curl it with a flat iron. In reality I probably still won't be able to do it haha but I'll try! Anyway, here it is!

I'm really happy with how it came out. I was worried about cutting it and she was more conservative with the length than I was... I kept on telling her to go shorter, haha! I figured if I was going to do it I had to do it. It's a bit shorter in the back than in the front and I just love it. So I'm really glad that I decided to do it and get rid of my security blanket. 

That's all I have for you today! Happy Friday and I hope you all have a great weekend!

Grocery Haul and Meal Prep

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are easing back into another week. I feel like I've been on the hot mess express for the last week and I'm ready for my stop so I can get off this train ;) I made a really conscious effort to be as prepared for the week as possible as you'll see in the grocery haul and the meal prep that I did this weekend. I have a really bad habit of not being able to decide on anything in terms of meals (or anything really) because I never know what I want so I figured if I made the effort to plan and prep it'll make my life and the decisions much easier. It literally took me three hours to decide to eat cereal for dinner the other night. It's so ridiculous, haha!

Anyway, I made a trip to Trader Joe's on Sunday and figured I'd share the haul with you!

For produce I got some romaine lettuce, baby spinach, potatoes, broccoli, baby carrots, diced onion (lazy as fuck) and grape tomatoes.

I picked up a few grocery items as well. I got some of the Lavash, the high protein tofu, some soy creamy cherry chocolate chip ice cream, mediterranean hummus (still the best store bought hummus in my opinion) and some frozen blueberries.

After Trader Joe's I decided to do a little meal prep for the week. Here's what I made:

I made a HUGE tofu scramble with the high protein tofu, onion, broccoli and spinach. I seasoned it with Trader Joe's onion salt and some black pepper. It's so good you guys. I had the onions in there the longest and they got all brown and caramelized and they made the whole thing taste amazing! I'll be able to get a ton of meals out of this too.

I really wanted some redemption after my last muffin fail so I decided to make some blueberry corn muffins. They are better than the last muffins I made (I mean they aren't green yet so that's a step in the right direction) but they are so dense and pretty dry. They are edible and it's nothing a little Earth Balance and maple syrup can't fix but they aren't amazing. At least they look pretty. The blueberries gave them a pretty purple swirl and I'm not mad at it.

As I mentioned I'm really trying to be better about planning my meals to make my life and decision making a lot easier for myself. I got this new insert for my planner and it is great because you can plan your meals and write your grocery list in the same spot. I'm just hoping that I'll actually use it!

Are you a meal planner? How far in advance do you plan? What happens if you don't want to eat what you've planned. That tends to be my biggest problem.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll see you on Friday with another post! <3

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I figured today would be a good day to do a Stuff I Ate post with photos I've been taking of my delicious meals since the last Stuff I Ate post. I've been trying to be less lazy about my meals but yeah…. not so much hahaha.

I had purchased the Gardein Fishless Filets to make some fish tacos for my Taco Tuesday post but that didn't happen… but I did decide to make some fish and chips! It was so good you guys. I didn't really ever eat fish in my pre-vegan days so I don't know what possessed me to try these before but I really liked them. I rarely eat them but I definitely would recommend them if you wanted some fish and chips or fish tacos. I bet they would be awesome with malt vinegar.

You guys. This is a huge deal for me. Hazelnut will forever be my favorite flavor of coffee and coffee creamer and it has been YEARS since I've seen the Hazelnut Silk Soy Creamer! I couldn't believe it when I stumbled upon it in a grocery store I had never gone to before. I am so happy to have this back in my life.

This fruit bowl was the reason I went into the above grocery store and it was as sad as it looked. It was not good. Luckily I didn't waste a lot of money on it (it was like $3.65 for this huge bowl) but it was definitely disappointing.

I decided to treat myself to some ice cream (and it was on sale for $4 sooooooooo, yeah) and they did not have my beloved coffee caramel fudge flavor. Vegan Peace raves about this flavor so I decided to give it a try and you guys. This shit is GOOD. I think it is now tied at the top with Coffee Caramel Fudge for me. Thanks for the recommendation!

This sad picture was a work breakfast that I had. This cantaloupe was actually really good, especially for being off season. The muffin was… well you know how the muffin was from my PinterTest post and the coffee with my Hazelnut creamer was freaking amazing.

It has been a while since I shared a bento box! This one has my favorite simple rice "bowl" with jasmine rice, seasoned seaweed, tofu, green onion, tamari and a little agave. In the other container I had some more cantaloupe and some almonds with about a tablespoon of chocolate chips. Not the prettiest bento box but certainly delicious!

I've also been eating lots of tacos but you saw those in my last post so no need to show them again. That's all I have for today's post but I'll be back on Tuesday with some more fun vegan stuff. Hope you all have a great weekend! <3

Taco Tuesday

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well and that you enjoyed your weekend! Things have been pretty hectic here but I'm pretty happy that I've been able to keep up with both of my blogs and also keep other side projects going as well. I could do with a few extra hours a day for relaxation but I guess this is the grind for now.

Anyway, I thought it would be really fun to do a Taco Tuesday post today! I don't eat a ton of Mexican food or tacos specifically but lately I've been enjoying them as a quick meal for nights where I just want to throw something together. I've had a few different versions of tacos so I thought it would be really fun to do a full post on the tacos I've been enjoying and what better day than a Tuesday!

This was my first set of tacos that I tried. They are clearly soft tacos and I stuffed them with some fat free refried beans, the tiniest but of vegan cheddar, some vegan sour cream, tomato and lettuce. These were delicious.

These were technically supposed to be quesadillas but ended up looking like tacos so I'm calling them tacodillas and including them in the post 😂 I used soft taco shells and made them with fat free refried beans, spinach and some amazing buttery soft avocado (which I add after crisping it up in the pan). This combination may seem odd but it is by far my favorite. 

I would probably call these a savory breakfast taco? These have refried beans, tofu scramble with spinach and of course some avocado. To be honest I will probably leave out the beans next time and just make a more veggie filled tofu scramble but this was really delicious as is. Maybe I just wasn't feeling the beans this time. Who knows. It was still really great and tofu scramble tacos are definitely something I will make again!

I was going to make a sweet breakfast taco/tacodilla as well but didn't get to in time for this post. If I make it soon I'll post it in my next Stuff I Ate post (which I think should be coming up soon!). I'll be honest, I'm kind of good on tacos for the time being haha. I have probably eaten more tacos in the past week than I have in my entire lifetime and while I enjoyed them I'm definitely ready for a break!

All of my fellow Northeasterners please be safe during this next storm! Stay warm and dry <3 Have a great week everyone!

PinterTest 1: Breakfast Edition

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I'm excited to bring you my first PinterTest post! This is where I finally go through some of my pins and test them out. For today's post I decided to try out two breakfast recipes. One was amazing and one was an epic fail and it was probably my fault, haha. Anyway, I'll show you the original picture and link to the pins and I'll show you how mine came out and what I thought of it!

Mexican Avocado Toast

Original Image: Source

The first recipe or meal idea that I wanted to try was the beautiful Mexican Avocado Toast pictured and linked above from Veganosity. It's a beautiful, simple, hearty breakfast and comes together really quickly so it's a great way to get you going before work or school and to sustain you for a while. Let's see how my version came out!

So let's be honest my picture is a little sad. Certainly not as beautiful as theirs but you guys. This toast is fucking good. I left off the hot sauce (that acid reflux ya'll) and the cilantro (because that shit tastes like soap) so my version had the core ingredients of toast, refried beans (I used the Trader Joe's fat free refried beans), some perfectly ripe avocado and some cherry tomatoes cut into quarters. It is seasoned simply with salt and pepper and I am definitely loving this simple but delicious breakfast. I definitely recommend trying it. Two thumbs up for this and I will certainly be making it again in the future.

Sooooooooo now we move on to my epic fail…

Morning Glory Muffins

Original Image: Source

So my second venture was the Morning Glory Muffins from Baker By Nature. Let's be honest, that picture is gorgeous, how could I resist?! The muffins are packed with amazing ingredients like apples, carrots, raisins, walnuts and coconut. It sounded so delicious. And then I made one change that probably ruined the whole batch for me. 

Let's take a look at my images:

So they look fine, right? They actually look freaking delicious. I made only 1 change to the recipe. I used oat flour instead of whole wheat flour. I've done this with many recipes in the past and have never had a problem. I don't know if that is the culprit but these did not come out great. The texture was really strange. They were really dense but also super crumbly at the same time. They weren't dry but still just really crumbly. The other thing that I noticed about the flavor was that it was A LOT of cinnamon. I would definitely recommend cutting back on the cinnamon. I am a huge cinnamon fan but this was still a lot for me. I still love the idea of the recipe but if I were to try it again I would try it using the whole wheat flour and cutting the cinnamon down. I love the combination of flavors and ingredients, I think I just failed on execution. Live and learn!

Oh and side note, I don't know what the hell happened but when I came home from work the carrots on the top of the muffins had turned GREEN. What. The. Fuck?! It was maybe 10 hours after they came out of the oven. I have a feeling it was the way I stored them and maybe not cooling all the way before putting them in the container but it was really weird. Obviously I had to trash them which I HATE doing but I'm not eating green carrots.

So there is my first PinterTest! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! I certainly enjoyed finally getting to test these recipes. I'll have to start perusing my Pins again to pick some out for my next PinterTest!

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!