Vegan MoFo 2019: Stuff I Ate

Hi friends! We are getting close to the end here! It's so crazy how this month has gone so quickly. I'm so damn proud of myself for keeping to my schedule and that I haven't missed an intended post. Yay!

Today I have another stuff I ate post. These wrap ups have been fun and hopefully it will motivate me to start being a little more creative and to get some more fresh food on my plate. Anyway, for the last time this MoFo, let's check out some delicious food I've been eating! Sorry that the lighting gets crappy, it's not ideal at my brother's house.

Chick'n patty sandwich with ketchup because I'm a basic bitch. Seasoned fries because I'm a spicy queen. 😂

My obligatory pumpernickel bagel with entirely too much tofu spread.

I decided to partake in Sushi Wednesday for the first time in a while! Really fresh, delicious sushi for $5.00! Can't beat it!

You know that I will eat watermelon until the last possible second. So delicious.

I had time to properly toast my breakfast sandwich and figured I would take a picture of it all prepared and pretty looking. I had it with some watermelon. This was a delicious breakfast!

As you saw in my meal prep post, I've been eating this at work and will continue to through the end of the week (my last day is Friday! Ah!). It's a really tasty meal and I'm glad that I took the time to prep it!

So that's some stuff I've eaten since my last Stuff I Ate post. As you can tell I've been eating lots of yummy stuff! I am really loving the air fried broccoli, cauliflower and tofu! So good!

💚

Vegan MoFo 2019: Even More Stuff I Ate!

Hello again my friends! I hope you are all well today! As you can tell by the title of this post, today we are doing the wrap up of stuff I ate this week.

I had another chick'n parmesan sandwich (in my pre vegan days I used to eat the chicken parmesan sandwich from Burger King that would be offered every once in a while and I loved it - gross I know… this has been my ridiculously lazy effort to recreate it so many years later) and tried to balance that (I mean honestly, so ridiculous ha!) with some amazing, crispy grapes and some baby carrots.

I made another batch of The Viet Vegan's Tteokbokki and it was amazing, of course! I added some soft tofu to it this time and a half of a bag of rice cakes made three meals for me. I never realized how filling these rice cakes are!!

Of course I have my obligatory weekly pumpernickel bagel with tofu spread 😍

I didn't eat all of this watermelon in one sitting but oh man did I enjoy it every time! It was a perfectly sweet and juicy watermelon!

Sometimes ladies have chocolate cravings and I just happened to have one over the past few days 😂This Haagen-Dazs ice cream was on sale for less than $3 so how could I resist?! I may or may not have an extra pint in the freezer 😉

So that's some stuff I've been eating pver the past few days! I know, kind of junky but whatever. 

Fun news! I'm going to be house/pet sitting for my brother and his family next week so it'll be nice to have a lot of space and an air fryer to use! I'm planning on doing some major healthy meal prep while I'm there (the new addition of a husky pup will make my time in the morning very limited) and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you next week!

Have a great day!💚

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone. I hope you are all well and that you had a good week. I'm glad it's almost over and that the weekend is almost here. I am quite excited that I will be seeing my dear friend on Sunday. She's in town for the weekend and I am always so happy when I am able to spend some time with her and her husband. We have plans to go to Daiso which is a Japanese dollar store. They loved it when they went to Japan and saw that there is one here in Flushing so she asked if I wanted to go and I said of course! I love a good dollar store ;) I'm hoping to find some cool stuff to use in art projects.

Things are pretty much the same otherwise. Emotion comes in waves but I miss him every day. I'm trying to make a plan for MoFo and honestly get a little ahead because the thought of blogging every day Monday-Friday is a bit daunting right now but I'm so excited to come up with new content. I have some cool stuff in mind so yay!

I don't have a ton to share with you today because I just didn't photograph most of my meals but I will share what I do have.

Lots of watermelon. There were also a lot of cherries in my life but I didn't photograph them. I'm loving all of the fresh summer fruit so much.

A personal pita pizza was perfect for a pizza craving.

Lazy breakfast of a pumpernickel bagel with tofu spread.

A beautiful hibiscus flower 💜 These are my favorite flowers, I have a tattoo of one on the back on my ankle. I had to take a picture and share it with you guys.

So that's all I have for you today. I will be back on Tuesday with more food and if I get anything at Daiso I will certainly share that with you as well.

Have a great weekend 💚

Stuff I Ate and MoFo!

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well and had a good weekend. I'm hanging in, thankfully I had therapy yesterday and it was definitely helpful. I'm still feeling low but I'm trying to push through and stay strong. I let myself get the emotions out but I'm trying not to let myself get to a place where I have to climb back out again. I know he wouldn't want me to crumble either. I'm also really going to focus on self care this week because something we discussed in therapy again is that I need to focus on taking care of myself.

I do have some exciting news though. As I mentioned, I decided that I really wanted to participate in Vegan MoFo this year! I finally decided on a few themes to cycle through over the course of the month. They are Budget Vegan, Long Island Vegan Restaurants, Restaurant Copycats and Trying Other Bloggers' Recipes. I will also include some Stuff I Ate posts and grocery hauls since that is what my blog tends to be and I want to stay true to that. I haven't decided if there will be a structured schedule or if I'll just post what I want when I feel like it. I will definitely also be including some art and I LOVED Julie's idea of doing art inspired by food and I have a few ideas already 😊 I will be doing my best to post Monday-Friday and take the weekends off. I think this is actually exactly what I need to get me back into being more creative and getting me out of my head and lifting me back up. Doug and I were on the same page that showing amazing vegan food is the best way to promote veganism so I am totally going to do the best I can to honor that and him through this month.

Random dinner of chick'n parm and some waffle fries.

Yummy lunch from the deli near me. Rice with broccoli, cauliflower and some yucca. Yum!

Sometimes you just need a big pile of fruit. It's been pretty hot here so this container of cherries and watermelon was perfect and refreshing on a hot day.

Yummy dinner of roasted veggies, tomatoes, dolma, stuffed grape leaves and hummus. My signature dish, ha!

Aldi veggie burger, grapes and chips.

Of course I need to get in as much fresh fruit as possible so here is a little fruit salad of grapes and cantaloupe.

I decided to leave my comfort zone with my newest piece and I am so happy I did because I LOVE THIS. I went for a Steampunk style piece and I'm really happy with how it came out. I love the colors together, the grungy look and the elements that I used. I'm really happy with this.

Gears are a huge part of the Steampunk look and I had a few in my stash and I think it looks awesome.

I was really happy with the composition of this one as well. I'm really excited to keep experimenting and going out of my comfort zone to see what I can come up with. 

So this ended up being a much longer post than I expected but I guess I was just feeling like I was getting in the MoFo mood 😉 I'm really excited about it this year and I'm hoping that this will be the catalyst I need to push myself on this blog more and get out of the rut I'm in. Like I mentioned, Doug and I both believe(d) that sharing amazing vegan food is the best way to promote veganism and I'm going to do everything I can to do so in his honor.

I hope that you all have a great week and I'll see you back here on Friday 💚

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. 💚

Popping In

Hey you guys! I hope all is well. This week has been chock full of more craziness with more testing and stuff. I am going in for my follow up and full results on Monday but from what it seems so far I have no nerve damage (yay!) but two herniated discs in my neck. I also saw the word myelopathy on the screen with the MRI report but I guess we'll see on Monday. I've been completely drained all week and I'm hoping to be able to catch up a bit on rest this weekend. 

I don't have much to share today but I guess some is better than nothing, right?

On Wednesday I had the testing from 7:00am - 8:30 am so there definitely wasn't much time to do anything in the morning. I decided to take part in Sushi Wednesday and grabbed this beautiful, fresh sushi for $5. Can't go wrong with that.

My dad surprised me with some AMAZING watermelon. I'm shocked by how good it is, especially for this time of year.

I've been trying to be consistent with my art because it has been very therapeutic for me. It is a great distraction from my anxiety and other stuff that I deal with so I've been trying to spend some time every day working on it. This is a teeny tiny mixed media canvas that I made and I really love how it came out. I like working with these little canvases and I think I'm going to grab a bunch more because it is a great, manageable size for me to work with as I'm getting started and learning more about this particular type of art. 

That's all I have for you today! I hope you all have a great weekend! Let me know all of the fun things you have planned in the comments 😃

So. Much. Watermelon.

Hey guys! I hope that all is well! I have to say that everyone is doing just an awesome job with their MoFo posts! I'm sad that I missed the boat this year. I definitely have MoFo FOMO but there is always next year! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend. Mine was a regular weekend (the joy of having a Sunday-Monday weekend) but it was pretty good.

I wasn't able to get a ton of pictures but you'll see a common theme among the three that I did take. I'm sure you can guess from the title what it is. Also, you can see that my indecisiveness has just reached a point where I'll put whatever I want together for a meal whether it goes together or not 😂 I have to say I did enjoy every one of these meals as random as they were.

This isn't a random meal and it was absolutely delicious. Avocado toast on sourdough with some watermelon.

Random meal number 1: Tempura cauliflower with watermelon and corn. I know, weird. But delicious.

Another dish with the same color palette but slightly different. More corn, more watermelon and some longboard style dry roasted potatoes. OMG you guys, this was delicious! I learned about this style of potato from Vegan Peace and I loved it!

So those are the meals I have to share today! I hope that you all have a wonderful week and I'll see you back here on Friday! 

Stuff I Ate

Hey everyone! I hope that all is well! Another week is ending and I know I'm ready for the weekend. Just two more days and then it is here. I don't think I have any plans for Sunday and Monday will be crazy busy. Do you guys have any fun weekend plans? Let me know, I'd love to be inspired by the fun things that you are doing!

Today's post is going to be another roundup of stuff I've been eating this week. I have been thoroughly enjoying my meals and I'm excited to share them with you.

It has been a long time since I've picked up some veggie rolls from the store for lunch. They are typically $6.49 for the rolls which I understand is a pretty good price. I picked these up on Wednesday and it was "Sushi Wednesday" and the rolls were on sale for $5. You can tell that the rolls are significantly smaller which would be how they make up for the price difference. It kind of annoys me because it just feels misleading. I would rather pay the $6.49 for the regular sized rolls but that's just me.

You know I need to have some watermelon in my life. This is a pretty large bowl (it's deep) and it was really sweet and delicious.

I put my Spinach and Feta Pinwheels in the freezer to keep for quick weeknight meals. It's so easy to pop in the toaster oven to warm up while you make a quick salad or fruit salad on the side. This meal was perfect, I loved the pinwheels and salad combination.

Another vegan chick'n caesar salad with some flatbread on the side. Super delicious and a very easy weeknight dinner.

You know I love my Mediterranean plates! Also a perfect meal that comes together quickly and is great for a hot summer night.

Finally, I've been enjoying some iced coffee on these exceptionally hot days. I loved iced coffee season!

That's all I have for you today! I hope that you all have a great weekend and I'll see you back here on Tuesday with another post! <3

Grocery Haul, Meal Prep and Meals... Oh My!

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing well, had a great weekend and are staying cool. I really enjoyed this weekend as I was able to see one of my best friends for the first time since December. We've been friends for almost 20 years and she is one of my favorite people on earth and I miss her all the time. We were also joined by her husband who is also wonderful and we had a great time. I'll share a little more on this later.

Today's post has a lot going on! Of course I have my (small) Trader Joe's grocery haul to share. I also got some meal prep done as well as some meals I ate over the past week to share with you. I also have the delicious meal I enjoyed with my friends to share as well.

Let's get into it!

First is the produce portion of my grocery haul. I got two bags of butter lettuce, some shredded carrots, asparagus, portabella mushroom caps, grape tomatoes, an avocado and an onion.

My grocery portion of the haul was quite small and contained two delicious treats: Crunchy Curls and Soy Creamy mini ice cream sandwiches.

Next up we have some minimal meal prep:

The timing could not have been more perfect to make these banana muffins. I have been craving banana muffins for a while and I happened to have some very ripe bananas that needed to be used so I got to work using my very favorite recipe: Chocolate Covered Katie's Fat Free Banana Bread recipe. Instead of strawberries I used walnuts and chocolate chips and I made them into muffins. Of course it can't be a Sarah muffin making experience without some sort of issue (seriously, why can't I just make a batch of muffins without incident?). This one was minor but I completely forgot that since these are fat free they would stick to the paper... seriously that's amateur hour on my part. Luckily it's not too bad and I was able to rescue my muffin from the paper (in a few pieces) but next time I'll just make the loaf like I normally would.

Of course I made a batch of my favorite pasta salad for the week. I usually get 3-4 servings from the batch (I usually use a half of a bag of pasta at a time and add tons of veggies) so lunches are pretty well set for the week.

And here is some stuff I ate:

Of course you know I have to have my watermelon!

This was a lazy yet delicious meal of mini Field Roast corn dogs with some roasted potatoes and obviously a lot of ketchup... because I love ketchup on everything.

A quick lunch of rice and beans and broccoli. Very delicious.

This was the amazing meal I enjoyed when I went out for lunch with my friends on Sunday! We had Thai food and I enjoyed this dish of spicy eggplant, tofu, broccoli, onion and green beans with a spring roll and some rice. So so delicious and the leftovers were devoured the next day.

We also went for some bubble tea and I had my usual Peach Pulp tea with boba. I thought I'd take a picture of the top before I punctured it with my straw because I thought it was so cute! You know I love my skulls so combine them with bubble tea and I'm a happy girl.

So there you have it! A little bit of everything to start off the week :) I hope that you all have a great week and I'll be back here on Friday with another post to welcome the weekend (well for you guys, not for me since I still work Saturdays). I hope that you are all enjoying your summer! What fun summer things have you been up to?