Partial Aldi Haul and Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I'm doing the best I can and I'm trying to remain as positive and optimistic as possible given the circumstances. This week I got to the point where I just really needed to go to the store and get some groceries. I chose to go to Aldi because I knew that they have a lot of vegan options and I knew that they were limiting the amount of people that go into the store at one time (which did NOT happen the last time I went to my local grocery store and it sent me into a massive panic attack). It takes me about 35 minutes to get there and it was worth it. While I still had anxiety about it I felt a lot better there than I did in the local store. I tried to get in and out as quickly as possible and I really tried to load up while I could.

What I'm sharing below is just a small part of my haul. I was really freaked out about contamination and putting things away so I just didn't photograph everything but I'll fill you in as best as I can.

This is clearly the most important part of the haul 😂 If there was ever a time for a rich chocolate cake now would be the time! I'm so excited to get into this!

Last time I went to Aldi I got the chocolate coconut cashew chips and I LOVED them. I saw that they had vanilla and sea salt caramel flavors so I decided to get one of each for when that sweet craving hits.

I love cashews and don't get them often so I got some cashews and I really wanted some dried apricots too. I also got dried cranberries because why not. I think these three would make a nice trail mix too!

I decided that I just really needed fresh veggies (I've only been eating cooked) so I decided to go for bagged salads. I could rationalize it in my head so I grabbed this one knowing I'd have to skip the dressing because it contains orange and orange peel. I grabbed 4 bags of salads because I knew I'd want a lot of them.

And here is my first beautiful salad! It is the salad mix with some cherry tomatoes (which I also grabbed from Aldi) and some vegan ranch dressing. It was exactly what I needed.

Another breakfast sandwich with beyond sausage and Violife Cheddar on a huge piece of amazing bread from Aldi.

Burrito bowl with rice, fat free refried beans, a tiny but of Violife shredded Mozzarella, corn and guac. It was DELICIOUS!!

I loaded up on snacks (veggie chips, snapea crisps, etc.), faux veggie chicken (FOUR BOXES of the cutlets and two of the tenders), and stuff like that. I'm set for breakfast sandwiches and oatmeal, have lots of bananas and apples and I'm just hoping that I'll be good with groceries for a few weeks.

This weekend I really wanted to work on some art so I made a few small pieces with LOTS and LOTS of detail. These two baseball card sized pieces took me an entire day. I'm super proud of them though.

I was feeling major Steampunk vibes creating this one.

And this one has a clearly nautical feel. I'm super proud of them and I love that blue color!

So that is all I have for you today! I hope that you are all safe and healthy and staying home!! 💚

Champs Diner in Brooklyn, NY

Hey guys! Hope you are all well, safe and healthy. Today's post is definitely something special because I had wanted to try this restaurant for a long time. Anyone that has been to this region will know that diners are a big deal. We LOVE diners and they are EVERYWHERE. Since going vegan it has been difficult to indulge in diner fare but we are lucky enough to be able to do so thanks to Champs Diner in Brooklyn. In December I went to visit Doug's grave with two of my friends and we decided that the best way to honor him after would be to enjoy a meal for him. Doug was a foodie so he definitely would have approved of the plan so we decided to head over to Champs Diner after we spent some time with him.

There were 4 of us in total (my friend's son came as well) and I got most of what we ordered except for one of my friend's entrees and my friend's son's entrée. I'll share the photos that I did get though.

We all really wanted to try the biscuits and gravy and OMG are we glad we did. We all LOVED it!! Biscuits are one of my favorite things and their sausage gravy was absolutely delicious. We didn't really eat the hash browns because we all had some sort of potato with our meals but omg those biscuits were amazing!

This was by far my favorite part of the meal. I had been craving a Caesar salad for months at that point so we ordered a chick'n Caesar salad to share. It was absolutely delicious and exactly what I had been wanting. Everyone else enjoyed it as well.

This was my meal. Breakfast was always my favorite at the diner so I ended up getting a breakfast plate. It looks delicious but was sadly only ok to me. I wasn't really impressed by the tofu scramble (I ate maybe half of it) and I decided to get all sausage because I have always hated bacon. I ate one of those and was kind of over it. The star of the plate was the French toast which was so surprising to me! I normally don't eat sweet breakfasts in the form of French toast or waffles or pancakes (I like them but I just don't really eat them), but this French toast was seriously delicious! It kind of made me wonder why I don't eat it more often but it's probably for the best that I don't, ha! It was definitely the star of the plate though.

One of my friends got the same thing as me but she got hers the way it comes on the menu which is with both bacon and sausage. 

I didn't get a photo of my other friend's meal (she has a really amazing looking burger) but I did get a photo of her dessert!

She ordered the birthday cake sundae and holy shit you guys, how amazing does that look! I was so full I couldn't fit another bite in my facehole but it just looks incredible. It had ice cream, whipped cream, funfetti cake bites, sprinkles and a cherry. It may have had syrup but I don't remember. It looked amazing and I really wish I had space for a bite but I just couldn't do it.

I have been back one more time since this outing and decided to go for the chicken Caesar salad for my meal and it was just as delicious. We also tried the nachos and holy fuck were they good!

Bottom line is that Champs Diner in Brooklyn is seriously amazing and I can't wait to get back there after this damn pandemic. Everything on the menu looks and sounds incredible and there are so many more items to try. I'm glad that I was able to go with my friends and share a meal in Doug's honor. It was really a bittersweet day but I'm so grateful for the amazing people that I met through him.

So that's all for today. Stay well and stay safe my friends 💚

Sweet To Lick Haul

Hey friends 💚I hope that you are all doing well and staying healthy. I've discussed Sweet To Lick here many times (click the tag for my other posts!). It is an amazing local business that I've enjoyed supporting since they've opened. They opened as a bakery location then opened a market two doors down. They decided to combine the two and moved the market items over to a section of the bakery. In these weird times they've stayed open but have turned into a pick up only spot. What they do is post pictures of what they have in the market as well as menus for the bakery items, you call in your order and pay over the phone. They pack up your order and you pop over and pick it up. It's a really efficient and safe way to do some shopping right now. As I've mentioned, I'm terrified to go to the grocery store so this was a really great way to supplement my stash for a while. This stuff is mostly specialty stuff that I wouldn't typically find in my grocery store so it worked out well.

It has been a shitty ass week so chocolate was definitely on the list. I grabbed chocolate chunks for baking, some caramel eggs, a Vego bar (!!!!!) and a 2fer bar which is like a big vegan twix bar. I've only cracked into the 2Fer bar so far and it's really delicious. I've had Vego bars before and they are AMAZING. So rich and creamy. A little goes a long way and this bar is huge so it will last a while. I also grabbed a box of the Earth Balance cheddar squares.

I grabbed both the Beyond breakfast Sausage and the Field Roast breakfast sausage. I wanted a breakfast sandwich and breakfast sausage is really hard to get your hands on right now so I grabbed one of each to taste test and so I had a proper stash. I also got some Violife Mozzarella shreds, Violife Mature Cheddar slices, the Kite Hill Spinach Ravioli (you know I'm not a pasta girl but omg this stuff is GOOD) and the Field Roast Mini corn dogs. I totally forgot that I got those until I saw this picture 😂

And this is the reason for the order 😂 I have been wanting a breakfast sandwich for weeks (most days I eat oatmeal with banana, raisins and almonds for breakfast) so I decided now was the time, ha! I made one of the Field Roast Breakfast Sausages and toasted a bagel with one of the Violife Cheddar slices. This was SO FUCKING GOOD and the perfect Sunday brunch meal. I really enjoyed the Field Roast breakfast sausage as well. It is a big patty so you only need one and it has great flavor. I would definitely purchase it again. 

I'm really glad that Sweet To Lick has stayed open and changed to pick up only because I felt comfortable going and I have some fun specialty items rounding out my pantry and freezer items. 

So there you have it! My next post will be really a recap of a restaurant that I went to with friends back in December that I had been wanting to try for such a long time. I hope that you are all doing well and staying safe and healthy 💚

Vegan MoFo 2019: Vegan Sandra's Easy Chickpea Omelette

Hey everyone! Welcome back for another MoFo post! Today's post will be part of the "trying other bloggers'" recipes theme. I found this recipe on Pinterest and it seriously spoke to me. It is very strange to me that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day but I lack some serious breakfast inspiration most of the time. I think it's because I rarely want to make an elaborate meal in the morning and I'm usually in a rush on work days. Anyway, I've been missing some great breakfast options so when I saw and oniony chickpea omelette I knew I had to try it. Typically I don't really follow through on my pins on Pinterest so I'm happy to say that I did follow through on this one!

So, the recipe I wanted to try was for the Easy Vegan Chickpea Omelette by Vegan Sandra. Her recipe that she posts is an onion omelette with lots of onion and herbs. I decided to test out the recipe using just the onions that she included in her recipe the first time around.

How awesome does this omelette look?! I only used a half of a small onion and it still had TONS of onion flavor. I decided to cook mine up a bit before adding it to the batter because I really love cooked onions and wanted to make sure they were thoroughly cooked before making the omelette. I didn't really have herbs on hand so I just added some green onion as well and the only other change I made was to add a little garlic powder for extra seasoning.

This omelette was DELICIOUS. I highly recommend adding the garlic for the extra seasoning because it just added a really nice flavor to it. I was very excited that this tasted as great as it looks because it is such an easy and quick breakfast meal that you can enjoy any time of day!

I have so many ideas for fillings I want to try. I really want to try a spinach and feta omelette with Violife feta, Sun dried tomato and basil as well as a spinach, broccoli and vegan cheese omelette. I will definitely post them when I do get to try them!

Orlando Vacation: Stuff We Did!

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week. I'm ready for the weekend. The week after vacation is always difficult and I'm feeling it for sure. Anyway, I'm back with a fun post where I'll get to re-live all of the awesome things that we did while I was visiting my friend in Orlando! I have a lot of pictures to share so I'll get right into it.

The very first thing that we did on Thursday (my first full day) was head over to Blue Spring State Park early (while it was still chilly) so we could see the Manatees!!!! I took a panoramic picture so you can see just how many there were in this one little section.

The manatees like to go there during the winter when it is cold because the water is 72 degrees all year so they can find warmer waters in the winter month. I felt comfortable going here because they do not allow people to touch, feed or interact with them as it disturbs them so they just allow us to observe them in their natural setting.

For those of you that may be new here, manatees are my absolute favorite animal on earth. They are so sweet, kind, gentle and even playful. They are also freaking adorable and I always have a pretty emotional reaction whenever I am near them. I am so happy that we got to go and see them.

As you can see there were TONS there on that day. I think I heard someone say that there were over 400.

There is a nice little trail you can follow with viewing points along the way. It was a great way to spend the morning and I loved every second of it.

This viewing section allows you to get closer to them (still not close enough to disturb them) so I was able to get this great picture of them really close up.

After we went to the park we popped over to Cassadaga as it was only a short drive away! I have been there before and we always enjoy making a trip over. It is a spiritualist town full of psychics, mediums, spiritualists and have people doing readings, shops where you can pick up crystals, jewelry, cards, books, etc. and a nice area for you to take a walk.

We've been to Cassadaga before but I've never had a reading and I decided that this trip was the trip to do it. I scheduled my reading for 1:00 with April but I actually ended up being rescheduled for 1:30 with Gypsy because April wasn't able to get there in time. They say everything happens for a reason and I'm a firm believer in this because I had an AMAZING reading with Gypsy. I was really overwhelmed by it if I'm being honest. It was also really fun so that was an added bonus.

While we were waiting to have our readings done (my friend went right after me with Gypsy as well) we took a walk around the nice wooded area and I snapped a few pictures there as well.

Another picture from Cassadaga.

After Cassadaga we were both starving and that was the night we went to Loving Hut for dinner. It was a really fun day finished up with the most delicious meal!

The following day we decided to go to the outlets for a little shopping excursion. I took a picture of the Disney Character Warehouse because that was why I chose these particular outlets. I really wanted to see what they had since I had to skip Disney this trip (thanks to my budget, wah!) and it's interesting to see what they have and the prices. I did see a great set of dishes that I loved for only $10 but I decided I just didn't need them so I passed on it.

After the outlet shopping I was exhausted and not feeling great (I was on day 3 of a migraine, had a really bad travel day on Wednesday and a long day Thursday - all in the middle of a Fibromyalgia flare) so we went home and relaxed a little. I cooked dinner that night and made the pasta dish that you saw on Tuesday. It was the perfect meal to make because it came together quickly and required minimal effort.

The next day we met up with our friends for brunch after a quick trip to the farmers market and then decided to pop over to Michael's and Sprouts!! I've never been to Sprouts and have only heard great things. He told me it had opened and I knew I had to check it out! I didn't want to grab a lot but we did grab the Daiya Chocolate Cheezecake (on sale for $6.99!), the Sante Fe Burrito from Daiya, a Live Cola kombucha which I can NEVER find, some trail mix and chocolate almond clusters. I am SO JEALOUS that we don't have a Sprouts!

That night we decided to have a quiet night and the reason why we got the cheezecake was because we were going to play the Golden Girls Monopoly game that was part of my Christmas gift to him this year! We thought it would be hilarious to get the Cheezecake to enjoy while we played and it was perfect. As I mentioned on Tuesday it was so freaking delicious, I can't wait to enjoy it again!

Since I was flying home at sunset on Sunday (I landed at 6:00 because my timing is perfect for Superbowl Sunday 😂) I had to take this picture of the gorgeous sky! It was the perfect sendoff I think.

So that is what we did during my Orlando vacation! Have you ever been to any of these places? I highly recommend all of them, I had a really wonderful time and seeing the manatees was a highlight of my life. It was really magical for me because I love these animals so much.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you back here for regularly scheduled programming on Tuesday!