Stuff I'm Into

Hey guys! I hope that you are well and had a good week! I am getting back into my normal routine and trying to catch up on sleep. I should be back to regular food posts next week and I'm looking forward to it! For today, I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I've been loving lately. I would love to hear about the things you've been enjoying as well!

Netflix

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It shouldn't be a surprise that I love The Great British Bake Off because I've mentioned it before in another favorites post. However, I took a break for a few season when Mary Berry and the two hosts left the show. Paul is entertaining but I tried watching with all the new people and I just wasn't able to get into it. I heard that there was an all vegan episode on the latest season to hit Netflix so I decided to give it another try. Naturally this leads to a 2 season binge and I can't get enough. I still miss Mel and Sue and Mary but the new crew has grown on me and the baking is as inspiring as always.

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Do you guys have that movie that you keep checking for on Netflix? My movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love this movie and I have been wanting to watch it for so long but I was never able to find it on Netflix. I decided to try searching for it a week or two ago and it was there! If you have never seen this movie I highly recommend watching it! It's really good and I thought Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet were amazing in it. It also made me hate Elijah Wood and I didn't think that was possible 😂

Disney/Pixar

Over New Year's there were Disney movie marathons all over the place. Thanks to this I was able to watch a movie that I hadn't seen yet. In addition, Netflix added another movie I hadn't seen and both of them were incredible so I wanted to share!

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Tangled was a Disney movie that I had somehow never seen but always wanted to watch. It hasn't been on Netflix since I've had the service and it was never on TV during these marathons. FINALLY it was on and I caught it during a Disney movie marathon and I FREAKING LOVED IT. It quickly became one of my new favorite Disney movies. I love the story and I love Rapunzel and it was beautiful and I just loved it.

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Over Christmas I was asked if I had watched Coco and I said no. I was told it was incredible and I would cry like a baby. Truthfully I didn't have high hopes because I felt it started out a little slow but OH. MY. GOODNESS. It lived up to the hype and it was so good you guys. Of course I cried like a baby and I'm so glad it was recommended to me. It just happened to be added to Netflix so it was perfect timing and I highly recommend checking it out if you can!

Cookbook

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This book has also come up before on this blog when I mentioned some cookbooks that were on my radar. I was lucky enough to receive NYC Vegan for the holidays and I am SO EXCITED!!! I haven't made anything from it yet but all of the recipes look delicious and I can't wait to dive in. Of course some of them will be once in a while treats because they don't quite fit into my nutrition goals for chronic illness management but there are also plenty of recipes that do! I'm so excited to give it a try and I can't wait to do a proper review once I've tried a few recipes!

Food

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I have been seeing Tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes) EVERYWHERE lately and they sound so freaking good. It is my intention to run over to H-Mart this weekend to pick up some rice cakes and gochujang so I can try making them myself. I found a recipe from The Viet Vegan (pictured above from her site) that I am going to try and I can't wait!

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Technically this is a meme but it contains food and is hilarious so I had to share it with you. I can't stop laughing every time I look at it 😂

As you can see I've been catching up on my Netflix/movie watching a lot lately. I have not been feeling great (chronic illness acting up and not sleeping much makes you not want to do much) so I've been giving my body the rest it needs and relaxing and catching up on Netflix. I rarely ever watch TV and I don't really use my Netflix a ton so it was nice to just relax and catch up. What have you been watching on Netflix lately?

That's all I have for you today! I hope that you have a great weekend and I'll be back Tuesday hopefully with a ton of hauls to share with you!! 

End of the Year Meals

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I hope that you are all doing well and had a great New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I'm still pet sitting for my brother so things have been a little out of whack for me and my routine has been more hectic due to caring for all of the animals. I have barely been sleeping because the dogs decide that 4am is optimum time to play games with me so I'm exhausted. I love the snuggles but a girl needs some sleep 😂

I don't have a ton to share with you in this post just because I've been all out of sorts for the past week. I'm going to be home starting tomorrow night so things should normalize again soon. For now I just have a few pictures to share of meals I've eaten to get rid of my processed stuff and transition into my whole foods plant based living.

I had some tofutti cream cheese left that I wanted to finish so I toasted up a poppy bagel and schmeared on some Tofutti and it was freaking delicious. I am not going to give up gluten or bread but I'll make better choices by choosing whole grain bread products that are better for digestion.

Sometimes a girl just needs some chocolate if you know what I mean. I decided some Justin's peanut butter cups were my best option and they were delicious.

I'm sorry that this is a recycled pic but I just haven't been photographing my oatmeal. I've been eating a lot of oatmeal because it is one of my favorite winter breakfasts and this is a fairly typical bowl for me. I usually add raisins too and sometimes I'll use nuts instead of nut butter but you get the idea.

I've been trying to finish up my gyoza and spring rolls so I made this delicious dinner of Trader Joe's Miso Ginger broth with broccoli, seaweed and the Thai Veggie Gyoza with some of the Veggie Spring Rolls on the side. These spring rolls are freaking delicious and I know down the road I'll be eating these again as a treat because they are just really delicious.

That's all that I have for you today! I am hoping to get to H-Mart, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods at some point between now and next Tuesday so hopefully I'll have tons of hauls to share next week! I'll probably be back Saturday instead of Friday this week so I can get some more pictures to share as well.

I also wanted to say thanks for the feedback about the e-book. I think I'm going to go ahead and write it. I feel like the worst case scenario is that I just have an e-book written and no one buys it and if that's the case it's ok. It doesn't say anything about me or my worth or my abilities but I really want to write it because I do think there will be some value. I'll keep you posted on it and if you read here you'll definitely be getting sneak peeks of meals since I do post about my meals here too.

Happy New Year my friends and have a wonderful rest of your week! I'll see you Saturday!

Fun Friday: Year In Review and Health Goals of 2019

Hey you guys! It's the end of the year and call me a predictable basic bitch but I thought it would be fun to run through some of my favorite meals that I enjoyed this year as well as talk about some of my health goals for the new year. It'll probably be easy to guess what my health goals are for the year but I always find that writing things out helps me to internalize it more and it helps to keep me accountable. I thought I'd start off with some of my favorite meals/products of the year and then I'd finish up by talking about some goals!

I could never do a yearly food favorites post without including my beloved Bubble Tea! It has been a while since I've had one since it has been cold but it is my favorite way to treat myself in warmer weather!

This doctored up ramen bowl was incredible. You'll see this year has been heavy in soups and salads and I was so happy with this soup!

The Tacodillas!!!! I haven't made these in a long time and I feel like that has to change because they were so so good.

I am going to toot my own horn here and say my grilled cheese game is strong. This one was made with Follow Your Heart "cheese" slices, sun dried tomato and fresh basil and it was freaking awesome.

Discovery of the century was a pumpernickel onion bagel with Tofutti Cream Cheese from the bagel store! YEEEESSSSSS!!!!

I ate A LOT of zucchini noodles and A LOT of salad this year. Both are awesome and these are not bad staple meals to have.

I discovered my love of (Vegan) corn dogs this year! I NEVER liked hot dogs or corn dogs but I tried the Field Roast mini hot dogs and I loved them!

One of my favorite restaurant meals! This was a delicious spicy stir fry from a Thai restaurant. It was so good.

My summer staple was definitely my Ranch Chick'n Pasta salad! This meal was incredible and it was so easy to make big batches to have for the week.

Vegan Chick'n Caesar salads were also big for me this year! So delicious and such a quick meal.

This beautiful soup was a quick meal thrown together with 4 Trader Joe's ingredients (Miso Ginger broth, Veggie Gyoza, bok choy and green onion). Delicious and comforting.

Probably the dish I'm most proud of is my Vegan No Chicken Noodle Soup! It is not a difficult recipe and it felt ridiculous to share it as a recipe but it tastes so authentic (to me at least) that I felt like I had to share it.

I had to include this AMAZING vegan burrito that I enjoyed on my birthday! I definitely want to get back to this restaurant because it was so so delicious.

So now that we've gone through some of my delicious highlights of the year I thought I could talk about my health goals for the New Year. As you know, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and I have been trying to figure out the best lifestyle changes to implement that will help me to be as healthy as possible while living with a chronic illness as well as help manage the symptoms all while being mindful about not triggering eating disorder thoughts or behaviors. It's a delicate balance of moving toward healthier habits but not getting obsessive about the food that I put in my mouth.

I've learned that while Fibromyalgia is mostly characterized as widespread pain and fatigue but I would add that it should also be characterized by sensitivity to… well mostly everything. I am sensitive to light and sound, I am sensitive to temperature, and as I've discussed before I have significant environmental allergies and I also am sensitive to chemicals and medications. So as I live with these sensitivities I have to question if the chemical laden processed food that I put in my body is contributing to my daily pain and fatigue. So, I've decided that the ONLY thing that I'm going to consciously make and effort to reduce/eliminate from my diet is chemical laden processed foods. It feels ridiculous to me to continue to put it in my body when I know that it doesn't do me any favors. At the same time, I am realistic and I know that there will be times where I will eat some processed food because it's freaking delicious, but I figure that limiting it to 5-10% of the time will help me make huge improvements. I will eat mostly fresh, whole foods (including grains and limited oil) and see how it works for me.

In addition I have set a goal to find workout routines that I can complete within my pain limits. I know that yoga will likely become a significant part of my routine as well as no impact cardio and I would like to see if I can tolerate some strength training as well. It's so difficult to feel like I'm starting over with the whole workout thing and with these limitations but everyone that I've ever spoken to about Fibromyalgia says that working out with help your symptoms improve so I definitely want to work on making new workout habits as well. 

I will be bringing you along for this journey, of course. I hope that it is something that you will be interested in. I know that the food will look a little different but I hope that you'll all still like it! And who knows, I may have a little something up my sleeve if this all works out for me and my changes actually do help me feel better 😉 Through the end of the year you'll still see some processed stuff as I finish out the stuff that I already have stocked and then you'll see the transition over the New Year.

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and for those of you that celebrate I hope that you have a magical Christmas Eve! I'll be back here on Christmas day with another post for you! 💜