All the Hauls

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well and continuing to remain safe and healthy. Things continue to be crazy here but I'm managing the best that I can. This week was a big haul week. I really needed to get back to the store to get some fresh food and I wanted to plan another order from Sweet To Lick to get some vegan specialty items that are more difficult to find. Finally, I placed my first order from Nuts.com to get some random snacks and other items.

I was really missing my Korean rice cakes and Udon noodles and I have been wanting some tofu as well so I decided to go to H-Mart for this trip. I didn't get a ton of stuff because I still have pantry items so I just got some fresh food and the specialty items that I was looking for.

For my fresh items I got some spring mix salad, seasoned seaweed (not fresh but it's in this pic for whatever reason), avocados, green onion, grape tomatoes and some sweet potatoes. I have been craving sweet potato fries so much!

I also got every type of tofu possible 😂 I have recipes for all of them, ha! I also got my favorite frozen udon noodles and the sliced rice cakes (they didn't have the tubes).

Up next is my Sweet To Lick haul. As you know from my last haul, they've created a stress free shopping experience. I called in my order that she packed up as I placed it. I ran over and grabbed my bag off of a shelf and headed back to my car. I am happy to be able to support an amazing local vegan business while also stocking up on some specialty items. I doubled up on most things to make it last a few weeks.

I got two each of the Earth Balance Puffs, EB Cheddar Squares and 2fer bars.

I also got two Violife cheese slices, Beyond Breakfast Sausage, Field Roast Breakfast Sausage and Violife Mozzarella Shreds.

Finally, this is my first haul from Nuts.com! I've heard great things from them and I really wanted to get stuff to snack on while I work because I tend to eat breakfast later (usually around 10-11) and I start work at 1. I figure these snacks will help me get through to dinner and will be easy to eat while I work.

I know it's hard to see what is in the bags. Basically, the bottom left blue bag is vegan mini chocolate chips (they were a good price for a huge bag and always good to have on hand), above it in the green bag is some puffed quinoa which I thought would be delicious in some homemade chocolates or even to try as a cereal of sorts. The yellow bag is dried diced apples, the blue bag next to it is peanut chews because chocolate and why not. Under that is dried peaches which is my all time favorite dried fruit. They are so delicious and I don't typically find them in stores (although I guess I usually don't think to look) and then the last bag is lightly salted cashews. 

I was really happy with my Nuts.com order. Sure things can be a little pricey but most nuts and dried fruit is. The bags are quite large and they will last me a while. I placed my order on Thursday, it shipped Friday and was on my doorstep Saturday morning. They have tons of stuff beyond nuts and dried fruit. They have grains, beans, legumes, superfood stuff; snacks; candy, energy bites, etc. I am not affiliated with Nuts.com at all but I do think it is a great option to stock up your pantry if you don't feel like braving the world just now.

So that's what I have in my fridge, freezer and cupboards right now. How have you all been holding up?

One of my favorite local vegan eateries re-opened and I was happy to be able to support them during this stressful time. I'm looking forward to sharing that with you in my next post. For now, stay safe and healthy my friends 💚

Vegan MoFo 2019: All The Hauls!

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing well! Well, MoFo is wrapping up this week and it has been a whirlwind. I am so proud of myself for sticking with the schedule that I created for myself (posting every weekday), despite my life being so hectic and crazy right now. I am trying to figure out what kind of schedule I want to stick to after MoFo. Since my first week at my new job is next week I'm thinking I'll stick to 2 posts a week until I get settled in and then I'll try and add at least one more post per week. We'll get to that when the time comes though! I hope you've been enjoying MoFo this year and I'm so happy that I participated this year.

So, let's get on the to hauls!! I went to a few places and wanted to share everything with you because hauls are fun 😂

The first place I went to was the Sweet To Lick Market which you can read about here. I was looking for a few specific things (which they didn't have, of course… my life, ha!) but I found a few things that I wanted to splurge on. The first is the Kite Hill tortellini! As you know, I'm not really a pasta person but for some reason I really wanted to try it so here we are! I got a bag of Vegan Rob's Cheddar Puffs, some Follow Your Heart Shredded Parmesan (I've never tried!) and American Slices and my beloved Thai Peanut Primal Strips.

When you go to the market it would be silly not to go to the bakery as well. I saw that they had two Rocky Road Bars left (I got there just in time!) so I made sure to grab one of those along with a Death By Chocolate Whoopee Cookie.

I went to Stop & Shop, our local grocery chain, to pick up a few things and found a few fun new things to try! Gardein has these bowls out that sound amazing!! I grabbed the Sausage and Country Style Gravy Breakfast Bowl to try because it sounded like exactly what I need in my life (and something I can recreate on my own!) so I will be trying that out in a taste testing post later this week! I also got some of the breakfast sausage to meal prep for the week and these Flatbread Pizzas were on sale from $9.99 down to $5.99 so I decided to grab one. I will also review it in the taste test post.

Finally, I picked up a few things from H-Mart so I could meal prep my lunches for the week. I got some cauliflower, broccoli, Japanese Sweet Potatoes and some unpictured tofu. I don't know how I forgot to add it to the picture but it's been a hectic few days, ha!

So there are some hauls for you! It's mostly fun stuff and I brought some other stuff from home to fill in for the rest of the week. I'll be back tomorrow to share the meal prep that I've gotten done for the week. Hope you have a great day! 💚

Haul, Prep and Pizza Nachos!

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all well and that you had a great weekend. Mine was good but of course went way too quickly. I'm still feeling a little blah but I decided that prepping some food for the week may help me with my decision making. Of course my soup will continue to be a staple because it is quick and easy. I did my weekly grocery shopping at H-Mart and made sure to take a picture of the haul. I'm still completely blown away by the prices.

This is my H-Mart haul! I got some carrots (you guys, those were the SMALLEST carrots they had!), two bunches of swiss chard, enoki mushrooms, three Japanese sweet potatoes, three pears, an avocado and some soft tofu. All of this stuff cost me $14! What?!

I decided to prep my produce for the week to make it as easy as possible for myself. I baked up all of my potatoes so I can grab one for dinner after work or for a quick breakfast (thanks Ttrockwood for the nut butter suggestion, that sounds amazing!!).

This is only 1 bunch of the swiss chard. I don't want to get into details about what was going on with the second but I can assure you it was disgusting and makes me weary to eat this to be honest. I prepared it in my favorite way: using Kris Carr's recipe from Crazy Sexy Kitchen. It has onion, garlic, tamari and nooch. It's really delicious.

I cut up my carrots and put them in a container with water so I can grab and go. You can tell by the horrendous cuts that I had a hard time… the same issue I had with the potatoes. I tried to find the smallest carrots they had but they were still too big. It makes me even more happy that I got it done in advance.

Finally, here is a fun meal! I wasn't starving but wanted something fun so I decided to make pizza nachos! These are very basic with just sauce and cheese (I didn't have toppings or fresh basil) but it was still really good! It was definitely a fun meal!

So that is what I have for you today! I'll be back on Friday to share some delicious meals I've been eating. I hope you all have a great week! <3

So. Much. Soup.

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well and that you had a good week. I'm definitely ready for the weekend, some self care and some relaxation. I am tired and I am stressed but I am feeling better than I had been I suppose. I bet it has something to do with the amount of amazing soup I have been consuming over the past few days 😉 I am working on really tightening up my budget for a bit so I'm going to hold off on grocery shopping this week and I'm going to make all of my meals using up stuff in my pantry and freezer. I guess we'll see what I come up with! If I have to run to H-Mart to grab some super budget friendly produce I am good with that, I'll just try to keep it under $10-$15.

Anyway, let's check out some yummy stuff I've been eating.

As you can guess by now I've been eating soup every day. This was for lunch on Tuesday and it was the leftovers of the amazing soup I made on Monday night for dinner. Like I've mentioned, the broth is light but flavorful and the add ins are so perfect. It is by far my favorite meal right now.

Wednesday night I decided to make the same soup but I used the sliced rice cakes instead of udon noodles. OMG you guys. IT IS SO FREAKING GOOD!!! The soft tofu really gives it the egg drop soup vibe and adding in lots of green onion makes it that much better. I love the texture of the rice cakes in this soup as well. 

I made enough for two servings so I had the leftovers for lunch yesterday. I paired it with an apple and it was so perfect.

So I have clearly been eating tons and tons of soup. It's just what I've been craving this week. I didn't have any made for lunch at work today but I did have one of these Pot Pies that I had tried a few months ago in the freezer. I just brought it for a quick, easy lunch. I have to microwave it which is not ideal but I'm sure it'll be fine.

As I mentioned above I'll be doing a sort of pantry type challenge where I skip grocery shopping this weekend and try to make as many meals as I can out of the pantry, freezer and fridge. I know I'll be eating a lot more soup and I have a few other things planned. I love this type of challenge because it forces you to be creative and I can't wait to share what I've come up with!

I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you back here on Tuesday!

H-Mart Haul and Stuff I Ate

Hey you guys! I hope that you are all doing well and that you had a good weekend. I'm cold but doing a bit better. It was a really rough week last week but my therapist helped me put it in perspective yesterday (because I had a shitty day yesterday too) and reminded me that there is still plenty of time to turn this week around. So, I plan on doing just this and hoping that the rest of the week will be better. I plan on being more focused on self care (I will be getting my first hair cut in a year this week) and just being kind to myself.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. I finally made my way over to H-Mart and grabbed a few items to create amazing meals. I keep forgetting how affordable H-Mart is so I think I need to go more often and do more of my shopping there. I made sure to photograph my haul, of course, and a few of the meals I enjoyed over the weekend.

So this is my H-Mart haul! I got all of this for just under $15! That's amazing considering there is 5 servings of udon noodles and a large bag of sliced rice cakes. So I got udon noodles, honey crisp apples, an avocado, a bunch of green onions, two packages of enoki mushrooms, soft tofu and sliced rice cakes.

On Sunday I was really craving a "junky" comfort meal as it was a super lazy day with an impending "snowstorm" (when really it was just kind of dumb and insignificant). I grabbed some of these now vegan Morningstar Farms Chik'n nuggets to try. I am so glad that they've been making more of their products vegan so I can try them! I believe they were on sale too so bonus!

My incredibly beige but delicious meal. I had some nuggets with some tots and an obscene amount of ketchup and it was exactly what I wanted and so damn good.

You guys. This is 100% the best soup I've ever made in my life. Yesterday I did still have to shovel in the morning (it was just not as much as they were anticipating) and had a crappy day so I was craving a warm, comforting bowl of soup. I decided to get into my H-Mart goodies and try to make a cross of some of my pre-vegan favs: Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup and Egg Drop Soup. I was SO HAPPY with how it came out, it was perfect! Of course I didn't measure anything so I don't have a recipe but I'll let you know what I did.

I made the broth from Better than Bouillon No Chicken Base, mushroom seasoning from H-Mart (I got that a while ago) and some garlic powder. This created a light but really flavorful broth. I added some udon noodles, enoki mushrooms, crumbled soft tofu and green onions. I used one brick of udon noodles (I get the frozen ones which cost $2 for 5 servings) and was able to get 2 servings of soup out of it. This is definitely going to be a staple meal, it is so so delicious.

So that's what I have for you today! Did you do anything fun this weekend? I need to live vicariously through you 😂 I'll see you back here on Friday!

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!

H-Mart Haul & Meal Prep

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all well and had a great weekend! Mine was sort of lazy and sort of productive but I guess that's how most of my weekends go. The pain has been pretty bad this week so I've been taking it easy and trying to do a little extra self care as well. I'm planning on starting to do some yoga in the evenings so I can get all relaxed and stretched out before bed. I found some really great videos geared toward people with chronic pain and illness so they are more gentle practices and that is exactly what I need. I'm looking forward to it. I may try to do yoga by candle light because I feel like it doesn't get much better than that!

Today I decided that I would focus a little on meal prep and also show you my latest H-Mart haul. I decided that I'm going to step up my ramen noodle game (there are plenty of gluten free ramen options, yay!) so I picked up a few things to get on that. I did a little meal prep for the week as well so I wanted to share that too!

So first up is my H-Mart haul. I grabbed some of that mushroom seasoning to make some broth (I will be using miso with it I think), some unsweetened original Almond Breeze for when I am ready to make that garlic sauce), some enoki mushrooms, green onion, baby bok choy and some soft tofu.

On Sunday I was not feeling great but I decided that I was going to make the gorgeous Chickpea Flour Mini Veggie Frittatas from The Mostly Vegan. I used spinach, mushrooms, broccoli and green onions and I used the Onion Salt from Trader Joe's instead of regular salt.

Aren't they beautiful?! They are delicious too you guys. I highly recommend this recipe! I have them in the freezer for a quick on the go breakfast.

The veggies I used were getting to their use by dates and I didn't know if I would use them in time so I packed them up and put them in the freezer to grab for a quick mid week stir fry. Looking at the picture I regret using the plastic bag but I will use a re-usable container next time. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I'm trying to limit my food waste by freezing any unused veggies before they go bad.

Finally, if you've been here a long time you'll know that I used to roast veggies to eat with my hummus/dolma plates. Since my favorite fresh tomatoes are out I decided I cook up my favorite veggie combo for this dish (minus the eggplant) and sautéed up some onion, zucchini and mushrooms. I'll reheat in the oven so it gets that roasted flavor and I promise you guys this is AMAZING with hummus and dolma and some lettuce (which I don't think I have… oops). 

Anyway, that is some of the prep that I did over the weekend and my amazing H-Mart haul. I love how affordable they are. That mushroom seasoning was the most expensive thing at $6.99 but when you think about it that is going to last so long. I think I read that it is good for three years so I imagine that it will go A LONG WAY and that makes the price tag so worth it to me.

What are some of the things you've been meal prepping lately? These veggies will also be amazing in burrito bowls with brown rice, black beans, corn and avocado. I think that it will end up being a staple for me :)

I hope that you all have a wonderful week! I'll be back on Friday to share some of the amazing meals I've been eating lately!

Grocery Haul and Some Randomness

Hey everyone! I hope that you had a great weekend. Thank you all so much for your kindness last week, I always appreciate your support and nice words. I'm feeling better from the bronchitis (the cough is lingering but not nearly as bad) and I just tried to have a balance of resting and being productive and I think I achieved that. I'm looking forward to having a long weekend, my first one since the holidays last year and plan on having that same balance of rest and productivity. I'm really looking to get rid of some of my physical clutter in my life in attempt to ease my mental clutter as well. I've started but I'm looking to really make a dent this weekend.

I have some grocery hauls and a few random pictures to share with you:

This haul is from H-Mart, the Korean market that happens to be about 2 minutes from my house. I got some seasoned seaweed, baby spinach, soft tofu, Korean rice cakes (I've wanted to try these for so long!) and some scallions (those cost me a whopping 20 cents!). I can't wait to make the recipes I have planned with these ingredients.

I also grabbed a few random things from Fairway. Vegan "dairy" products and they had Zevia on sale big time so I decided to try the Dr. Pepper product they have! I can't wait to try it, I hope it's not gross, ha!

I treated myself to a bubble tea on Sunday and it was so delicious and refreshing. I think I'm going to make this a weekly treat because I enjoy it so much. Thankfully it isn't too far from me either. I got my favorite Peach Green Tea with the boba.

I made myself another quesadilla in the same combination of fat free refried beans, daiya cheddar and some spinach. So delicious. I need to get tofutti sour cream to go with this and of course some avocado.

So I very rarely post "selfies" (still hate this word!) but I have a point to make with this one. This was taken yesterday. As you all probably know by now about 4 years ago I had an allergic reaction to hair dye and through subsequent testing found out that I had an allergy to the chemical PPD. This meant that I could no long dye my hair and had to learn to deal with the gray hair that had been plaguing me since I was 16 years old. It has taken years but I've finally grown comfortable with my gray hair and have moments where I even kind of like it. I have been someone that has picked myself apart my entire life and I have never been happy with my appearance. While I may still lack confidence in my appearance my acceptance of one of my insecurities shows me that I am on my way. I posted this natural hair, no makeup picture because this is me. My skin doesn't look great and my salt and pepper hair is getting a lot more salty but this is the skin and hair that I was given and it will make my life a lot better if I can accept that. It's a slow journey but I'll get there.

And that's all I have to share with you today. Thanks again for everyone's kind words. I'm glad to be back on my regular posting schedule and I'm hoping to have some fun new meals to share with you this weekend. I hope that you all have a great week <3

All the Hauls

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all well and that you enjoyed your weekend. It went by too quickly for me, as always and the grind starts again. I did hit up some grocery stores yesterday and I made sure to take a picture of everything so I could share it with you. Do you guys have to go to multiple stores to get everything you need? I do my main grocery shopping at Trader Joe's but there's just a few things that I can't get there. I went to three stores yesterday. It's exhausting, haha. I'm fully stocked though and I'm excited to make some fun things to share with you on Saturday.

First I have my Trader Joe's haul: Romaine hearts, tomatoes, cabbage, bananas and potatoes.

Also from Trader Joe's: The new Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips (you guys, these are amazing!), refried beans, pineapple, frozen corn and frozen broccoli.

You guys. I got some insider info from Trader Joe's. We'll probably not insider info but I got some exciting news! They are coming out with coconut aminos! They should be stocking it by the end of the month and it's perfect timing because I'm pretty much out of tamari.

I also went to H-Mart and grabbed a few things. I got 2 Chinese Eggplants, a bunch of scallions and some Black Bean Sauce. I don't know about you but I've been seeing jjajungmyeon noodle recipes EVERYWHERE lately and it looks so good. I think it's basically a Korean noodle with black bean sauce recipe and I finally gave in and said I have to make it! I can't wait to try!

I also got this soup spoon from H-Mart. I love this kind of spoon and I thought this one was so pretty so I picked it up.

Finally I went to Stop & Shop which is the regular grocery store because I wanted to try this Zevia ginger ale. If you've been reading for a while you'll know I tend to get nauseous a lot for whatever reason. Ginger ale helps but I just wanted to find a better option. I've tried Zevia before but not the ginger ale option so I figured it was worth a shot. I'll let you know when I give it a try.

So that's the haul! I have some fun meals planned for the week and am looking forward to sharing them with you. I hope that you are all having a good week!

Another Grocery Haul

Hey guys! I hope that all is well and that you enjoyed your weekend. I was so excited we actually had a gorgeous day on Sunday where it was 60 and sunny. It was so perfect so I made sure to get out for a bit and enjoy it. And then I came home and took a nap haha. I haven't been feeling great the past few weeks so I'm just trying to catch up on sleep and feed my body some good stuff.

I did some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and then stopped into H-Mart to grab a few things. Check out what I got:

For the produce I got a bag of baby spinach, a HUGE bag of clementines, a bag of spring mix, some zucchini, 2 avocados and some shredded cabbage.

For groceries I got some tofu, some soyaki sauce, frozen peaches and cherries and some of the garlic and herb pizza dough.

Guys, I seriously love H-Mart. The prices there are insane. In the back of this picture is a package of 5 servings of udon noodles that I got for $2.99! I don't know if that is a good price but 5 servings of noodles for $3 sounds pretty good to me. I also got a Chinese eggplant and a bunch of scallions. This cost me about $5.

I'm thinking I'm going to make an udon noodle stir fry tonight and I'll make sure to take pictures of it to show you this weekend. I hope that you are all doing well and that your week goes quickly! It's supposed to warm up again later this week and I'm looking forward to it!

All The Hauls

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I think I've decided that for now a Tuesday/Saturday posting schedule is what will work best and I'm really going to work hard to stick to it. I've felt really inspired lately to get back into the blogging game and I plan on getting back into the food related posts but also including some other content as well. I miss my Fun Friday posts as well so maybe I'll have to get something reminiscent of that going again :)

Anyway, today I have a few hauls to show you! I ran to Trader Joe's and H-Mart yesterday and I also received an order from Vegan Essentials. I didn't get a lot but I still wanted to show you what I picked up.

First up is Trader Joe's! They finally started to sell Tahini so I got a jar of organic tahini for dressings and hummus, some Soy & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips, some apple juice (weird craving lately), spring mix, avocado, lemons and a lime, shredded carrots and some mushrooms.

I only got a few things from H-Mart but I definitely need to shop there more often. They have some great produce and really low prices. I got a bunch of baby bok choy for a whopping $.79, a head of Napa Cabbage for $1.49 and a bunch of scallions for $.99.

So the reason for the order to Vegan Essentials was for the white chocolate chips. The kosher market I would get them from before closed (wah!) so I placed the order. Now I couldn't spend a ton on shipping for just a bag of white chocolate chips, right? So I decided to pick up some more of the Thai Peanut Primal Strips, Peppermint Choco Chews (barely any peppermint flavor detected) and the elusive chocolate covered Cocomels that I could never find! I can't wait to try that!

So that is my haul for the week. I am looking forward to sharing how I use everything this weekend! I'm also going to start planning out some fun Bento Box meals to share with you hopefully next week in my first post in my Bento Box series!

I hope you all have a great week! <3