Trader Joe's Haul, Stuff I Ate and Some Art

Hey everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was ok, as ok as it can be right now I suppose. My mom pushed back our Aldi trip to next weekend so I just went to trader Joe's to pick up a few things so I could eat some fresh food this week. I have that haul along with some delicious meals I've been eating. As a quick update, I'm still struggling. I miss him every second of every day. It's very difficult to go from having someone that became such a huge part of my life (we literally were in communication from the minute we woke up (often before 5am) until the minute we went to sleep (while we were both available of course… but it added up to hours every day) to never hearing from them again. I'm still working on living in his honor so I submitted an application to volunteer for my local chapter of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) as mental health/illness is my platform that I am most passionate about (another thing that we had in common). I am hoping to hear back from them so I can get involved in any way that I can. My next goal is to get in some more self care time by myself. Before he came along I was alone all of the time and it became my comfort zone. Now I fear being alone but I know that I need some time to myself to do something that brings me comfort and joy.

All that said, I have a lot of images to show you today. I have my Trader Joe's haul, a little meal prep, some stuff I ate and a piece of art I created.

For produce I got some strawberries (finally!), an onion, eggplant, zucchini, baby carrots, grape tomatoes and sliced mushrooms.

For groceries I got two cans of dolmas, Mediterranean hummus, tots, the pizza crust I've heard a lot about, sliced almonds for oatmeal, inner peas, sunbutter cups and marshmallows.

I got the veggies to roast and eat with hummus. I roasted up the mushrooms, onion and eggplant with some black pepper and garlic powder and I love this mix with hummus and some fresh veggies and dolmas. I was supposed to add the zucchini but when I was cutting it I didn't like how slimy it felt so I just didn't feel comfortable using it. I actually really like this combination without it so it all worked out.

I made myself a little flatbread sandwich of roasted veggies and hummus with a side of some tots. This was such a simple but delicious meal.

I also made a little lunch plate of roasted and fresh veggies, dolmas and hummus. So tasty.

My dad kindly got me some watermelon and grapes so I had this to snack on throughout the day as well.

Another simple meal of Morningstar Nuggets and some corn.

This is the lunch I prepared for myself today. I made a bento box with my Monbento box with some roasted veggies, dolmas, hummus, carrots, tomato and grapes. It's going to be delicious.

The last piece of art I created I made the night Doug passed away. I was lucky enough that I shared it with him after I made it, so he saw it before the accident. Needless to say, I haven't felt very inspired to create since. Over the weekend I felt that creating a piece for him may be cathartic for me so I made a mini (4x4) canvas for him. I wanted to make a bigger piece but I didn't know how it would go or how I would feel so I stuck with a small one.

I thought this sentiment was perfect for how I felt about him. We waited for each other. We were not in each other's life for long but the impact that we made on each other was huge and we both knew that we had a beautiful future ahead of us. I wanted to include the butterfly because he was the catalyst of my metamorphosis. I'm a completely different person than I was before I met him. I will carry that with me forever but the pain that I have knowing that he won't be here with me to see the transformation still hurts me to my core.

I'm sorry to end this on a depressing note but I am sure it will be difficult for a while. As I continue to grieve and process I will also be moving forward with my life and working toward achieving my goals as I know he would want me to. I will continue to miss him and honor him as best as I can. And part of that is eating awesome vegan food because I know that we would be doing a lot of that together. I can't wait to share that with you.

I hope you all have a great week and I will see you on Friday. 💚

Aldi Haul & Stuff I Ate

Hey guys! I hope that all is well and that you all had a great weekend. Mine was pretty good and the perfect combination of productivity and relaxation as I tried to just rest my body during this flare. I'm feeling a bit better but the exhaustion is getting to me. On the plus side, I've been able the sleep a lot more which is definitely helpful.

I did get to Aldi as I had hoped and got a pretty great haul! I obviously had to share it with you so I have some pictures of that. I also took some pics of food I ate and I really wanted to share the lunch I had with my friend yesterday. It was so nice to see her and I'm so glad we were able to get together!

Up first I have the Aldi haul. I am going to put prices there so you can get an idea of the price as compared to regular stores.

Almond Milk ($2.29), Wheat Thins ($1.69), Green Pea Crisps ($1.39 for a pretty large bag), VEGAN CHOCOLATE FREAKING CAKE aka the reason I went in the first place ($7.49 - pricey for Aldi, average for vegan cake), 2x Chickenless patties ($3.29 each), Veggie Chips ($1.69), 2x garbanzo beans ($.69 each), 2x Vegan Cream Cheese ($2.39 each), Vegan Mozzarella Shreds ($3.29).

Vine Tomatoes ($1.49), Zucchini ($1.69), Asparagus ($2.39), Bag o' mini potatoes ($3.89), Mushrooms ($1.09), Bag of pink lady apples ($3.69).

As you can see, some of the price are amazing and some are fairly average. The pricing on the vegan products are very good, particularly compared to name brands like Gardein. I heard that the cream cheese is basically like Tofutti and that is a great price for tofutti. Tofutti also happens to be my favorite vegan cream cheese so double win. That's why I picked up 2 of them. I also have only heard great things about chickenless patties which is why I picked up 2 of those. I've heard mixed reviews on the shreds so I only grabbed one of those.

We (I went with my mom) went first thing in the morning so when I got home I had breakfast and tried the cream cheese and it indeed was basically Tofutti. That was a great deal and I'm glad I picked up 2! The date on the container was really good so it should last me a while.

As I mentioned, I met up with my friend for lunch yesterday. There is a new vegan/vegetarian restaurant that opened fairly near me that I haven't yet had a chance to try. She was down for trying some veg food so we headed over to Zen Garden for lunch.

They have a prix fixed lunch menu that comes with an entree, soup and rice. I was torn between the hot and sour soup (typically my favorite soup) and the wonton. I chose the wonton soup because my meal was going to be spicy (supposedly, ha) and it was really light and delicious. I ate both wontons but left about half of the broth to save room for my meal!

For my entree I chose the Eggplant with "Chicken" in Garlic Sauce and subbed out the bell peppers for broccoli. It was DELICOUS!!! I came with rice and I chose white rice. The veggies were cooked perfectly, the soy chicken was amazing and the sauce was really great. It wasn't super spicy but it had enough of a kick that it was satisfying the spicy craving.

Despite being stuffed we were right across the street from my favorite bubble tea place so we popped over to grab a bubble tea! I got a medium (which is the smallest so it's funny that they call it a medium) peach pulp tea with 50% sweetness and boba. Such a great way to finish the meal.

We caught up and had a great time in general. I love hanging out with her and hopefully we can make it a more frequent occurrence. 

I wanted to have a lighter dinner that night so I made a snacks mediterranean plate. I had a few carrots, the last of my dolma, a small pink lady apple, some tomato and hummus. It was delicious.

I made another bento for lunch today and had to take a picture to share with you. I have the leftovers of my lunch yesterday and added my last giant honeycrisp apple and some raw almonds. I'll space all of this out over the course of the day but it all looks so good and I'm very excited to enjoy all of it.

Ok that's everything, finally! I feel like this post was really long but I hope you liked it! I'll be reviewing the Aldi's products as I try them so stay tuned for that! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that your week is great. I'll see you back here on Friday.

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all well. It is almost the weekend and I couldn't be more thrilled. This will certainly be a self care kind of weekend where I continue to declutter my life, rest my body and this weekend I also get to catch up with a friend of mine. We will be hanging out on Monday and I'm thrilled. I have missed her and it will be nice to catch up. We'll go out for lunch and I don't know where but I'm looking forward to sharing some of the awesome vegan food Long Island has to offer.

I'm not feeling great physically (I'm mid flare right now) and I'm working on adding in some probiotics into my daily routine. I am also looking for a vegan source of an Omega 3 supplement. Everything I found so far has some sort of orange sourced ingredient which I can not have due to my allergy. I have contacted a company to ask the source of their beta carotene and if it is not orange then I will take that one.

Anyway, let's take a look at some of the awesome meals I've been eating lately.

You guys. The baked oatmeal is freaking glorious. It is very dense but it is delicious and the chocolate is a game changer. When you warm it up the chocolate gets all melty again and it's awesome. I bet it's great with some plant milk on top too. I used this recipe from The Healthy Maven. I just used pecans instead of the walnuts, added the chocolate and didn't put the banana on top.

Like I said, I'm trying to be more consistent with my probiotic intake. I love the mango kombucha from Trader Joe's so I have been drinking this. I also have a supplement I can take if I need and I also have raw apple cider vinegar that I'll mix with water if that's what I feel like doing for the day.

You know I love my bagels and this one is toasted (from the freezer, you know how I feel about toasting fresh bagels) with half Earth Balance and half Tofutti. I enjoyed this with a cup of coffee with the Caramel flavored Silk Almond Creamer. Really delicious meal!

I finally made another bento box in my Monbento! This one is pretty similar to my staple box and it includes dolmas, grape tomatoes, baby carrots, hummus and some honey crisp apple slices. This meal is so fresh and tasty and really east and quick to put together.

As you can see, I didn't photograph any of my dinners. As I mentioned earlier I'm mid flare and I'm just so exhausted by the time I get home from work I barely even want to eat dinner, never mind dealing with photographing it. You saw a lot of it anyway with the meal prep so I figured it wasn't a huge deal.

On a fun note, I'm hoping to get to Aldi this weekend for my groceries! Wherever I end up I'll make sure to photograph it and share it with you.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Do you have any fun plans? Let me know what you're up to!

H-Mart Haul & What I Ate In A Day

Hey everyone! I hope that you are doing well! It's Friday again, yay! I'm really excited because I went back to the gym today! It has been a goal for such a long time but I was worried about it because the last time I tried to go back it triggered a lot of Fibro pain and it kind of scared me away. This time I'm just being more aware of the workouts that I do and I'm going to try to avoid anything that tends to trigger pain (the bike definitely was a trigger, for example). Anyway, I'm really glad that I went and I'm hoping to turn this into a consistent habit so I can start getting back into shape and improving my fitness. Supposedly exercise is one of the best ways to manage Fibro symptoms so I guess we'll see!

Anyway, for today I have a small haul from H-Mart and a What I Ate In A Day type of post in one. I meal prepped this week so I've been eating the same stuff for the most part so it didn't make sense to take pics of the same meals every day. So this is an example of how I've been eating!

So here is my small H-Mart haul! I got the rice cakes (!!!), some scallions (for $.89 a bunch), gochujang (you guys, I read SO MANY LABELS!! Every other brand had chemicals and high fructose corn syrup. This was the cleanest brand I could find), some chili garlic sauce, firm tofu (stir fry) and soft tofu (I'm going to crumble that in with the rice cakes). I'm going to make the rice cakes this weekend, I can't wait to try!

I decided to use my favorite Monbento bento box to pack up my breakfast and lunch. For breakfast I have more of my apple crisp and yogurt (go with vanilla yogurt if you are going to use it for something like this - it's SO MUCH BETTER that the plain). For lunch I had some delicious stir fry (sauce made from low sodium tamari, a tiny bit of agave, chili garlic sauce, rice wine vinegar and a little cornstarch to thicken it up) with tofu, mushrooms, broccoli and asparagus with some jasmine rice. When I know I won't get to my fresh veggies in time I put them all in a container in the freezer and use them for stir fries. This is the combination I happened to have now. It was so good.

For snack I had a pear.

For dinner I had this delicious Mediterranean type plate with dolmas, carrot, cucumber tomato salad with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and some hummus. Another awesome meal.

My final snack was some cashews from the Israeli market that I posted about in my last post. All in all I'd say a really delicious day of meals and I'm doing well with not consuming a ton of processed food and chemicals. I'm aware that a few things like sauces have some preservatives in them but I'm cut out most of the packaged food and I'm really glad that I have.

So that is all I have for you today! I am hoping to do my shopping at Aldi's this weekend so maybe hopefully I'll have a haul for you on Tuesday! It kind of depends on the weather though. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you next week!

Mini Haul and Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope all is well! I hope you liked Friday's post about the RISE of the Jack O'Lanterns event. I had such a great time at the event and was very excited to share it with you. I'm hoping to be able to venture out more and experience more on Long Island to share with you in the future. For today, I have all of the food to share!!

First up I have a mini haul from Trader Joe's. I decided to take a picture of my cart before I headed over to checkout.

So here's the haul: A bag of the Crunchy Curls (so addictive you guys), some Tater Tots (when you add nightshades back in obviously you go for the tater tots!), hummus, avocados, baby carrots, an onion, mirepoix, grape tomatoes, zucchini and butter lettuce.

So I know the mirepoix is kind of lazy but my plan for that is to dump it into a bowl, mix it up and dump it back into the container to hold in the freezer. I thought it would be perfect for when I just want to make a single serving bowl of chick'n noodle soup - I can just grab a few tablespoons and not have to worry about waste and chopping veggies forever when I just want a quick bowl of soup.

This is the apple pecan baked oatmeal all served up. I added a little almond milk to it and it was so delicious.

I made a bento lunch of a wrap (gluten free wrap with lettuce, hummus and the fajita veggies I made last week (I had this meal earlier in the week) and an apple on the side. The wrap combination was great but the actual wrap was a little brittle for my liking. I was hoping that it would soften up as it sat in the fridge all morning but it didn't really.

Some sushi rolls which I ate with my gorgeous new chopsticks! I really wanted to get a set of reusable chopsticks (I also got a set of steel straws because I am a straw girl) and these rainbow steel ones are beautiful. I have to get used to using them but I am so happy with them. They were $.99 (I got them here) and I plan on getting a few more pairs to have on hand. I'm not affiliated with them… I just think they are pretty.

This was a burrito bowl that I made. It had brown rice, fat free refried beans (from Trader Joe's), fajita veggies and mashed avocado. I was kind of wishing I made this into a quesadilla because I just ended up leaving most of the rice but it was still good.

This was by far my favorite meal of the week, ha! I made a vegan chick'n caesar salad with the butter lettuce and some morningstar grilled chick'n strips that I had and paired it with some tots! I don't think the chick'n is gluten free but I had it in my freezer and I didn't really want to waste it because it's kind of expensive. This meal was so freaking delicious.

Finally, I made the quesadilla I was talking about above. This just has refried beans and fajita veggies because my avocados were not ripe yet. The gluten free wraps are much better when toasted up like this. It was really delicious.

So that's what I have for you today! I'll be back on Friday and I hope you have a great week!

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope that you are well and that you all had a great weekend! Mine was really nice, I had a good combination of productivity and relaxation and a really good therapy session so I'm heading into the week feeling pretty good. I did the best I could to photograph some meals for you and as you'll be able to see I've been eating some pretty yummy stuff.

I had a yummy hummus plate for lunch the other day. I cut up a really good roma tomato, had some stuffed grape leaves (of course), a little Violife vegan feta (I only ate half of that little brick, that stuff is rich!) and some delicious hummus from the Turkish market.

While it is a sad thing that we are at the tail end of watermelon season I am pretty excited for HONEYCRISPS!!! Yeeeeesssss! This delicious dinner was a simple Boca Burger, a honey crisp apple and some chips. So good.

Sometimes you just need some chocolate and Justin's is there to help a girl out.

A bialy toasted with melty tofutti. Yum.

It's been a while since I posted a bento! I put this one together for lunch today and it is just some tomato and stuffed grape leaves with hummus and another honey crisp apple. I think this will be a great combination.

That's all I have for today! I hope that you all have a wonderful week and I'll be back on Friday with some more delicious meals!

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well and that you had a great week! It looks like it is going to be a nice weekend here in New York and I hope you will all be experiencing the same Spring-like weather (finally). Today I am going to show some really great meals I ate this week! I've been trying to be more diligent about eating more fresh foods and also about taking pictures of my meals for you to see. I think I've been doing a better job with both this week!

Anyway, let's check out the eats!

This deliciousness is a big ass bowl of zoodles cooked with sauce, broccoli and some beef less crumbles. I topped with a little bit of shredded vegan cheese and it was so freaking delicious.

I had some of the zoodles left over so I had them for lunch the following day with a salad. Really delicious, filling meal!

This was such a delicious dinner. I had the last of my mini corn dogs with two of my potato cakes and a ginormous carrot. It was really satisfying!

I've been snacking on Larabars a bit this week as well. They were on sale for $1 each so I grabbed a few. I love that they have so few ingredients and their flavor selection is amazing. I highly recommend the mint chip brownie if you have a chocolate craving! It's so good! It would be amazing crumbled into some nice cream as well!

This was clearly not a meal made of fresh foods but I needed a quick lunch to bring to work and I love this tofu scramble every once in a while. I paired it with an apple which I've been loving so much lately. I pretty much eat an apple a day so we'll see if it keeps the Dr. away in the future 😉

This is a pretty good representation of the meals I've been eating this week. I had a lot of repeats so I didn't feel the need to photograph those meals. I hope that you all had a great week and that you have an awesome weekend! I'll see you on Tuesday!

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

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope you are well! I made it a mission this week to at least take a few food pictures and I came through with it. There is not a ton of pictures but it'll give you an idea of what I've been eating lately. I've been having a lot of acid reflux issues lately so I'm researching the best foods to eat to try and minimize it and I have a pretty good plan. Hopefully what has been listed actually works but I'll be sticking mainly to fruits and veggies (no citrus, tomatoes or other acidic fruits), whole grains, etc. Hopefully these will be soothing to my system and I can get this all sorted out soon. Stay tuned, I'll be running to Trader Joe's tomorrow to pick up a few things so there will be a haul for you soon.

For dinner one night I made a tofu scramble with some spinach and it was delicious. I had wheat toast with Earth Balance and some clementines. The clementines were so delicious but a terrible decision and I paid for it. Sadly those will be my only citrus of the season :( It's a shame because oranges are my favorite.

I made some extra tofu scramble for my bento lunch the next day. Tofu scramble on the left and an apple and some almonds on the right. Really delicious.

I picked up some of my favorite hummus and enjoyed that with some whole wheat pita and veggies.

Finally, I also picked up some of my favorite red lentil soup. It was delicious.

So that's what I have for you today! I will be back on Tuesday to share a haul and probably some meals that I've had between now and then. I hope you have a great weekend! I will join you there in 7 hours :)