Sunday, February 6, 2011

A Yummy Weekend!

Finally got to the grocery store.. $86 at whole foods.. but I got a lot of staples that will last me a long time like umeboshi vinegar. Yeah, read on.

Day 2
Breakfast consisted of Ezekiel bread with peanut butter again because I'm obsessed and love peanut butter and could pretty much eat it all day long. haha. So glad that is not off limits anymore. I attempted to make my organic coffee howeverrr I, like an idiot, left the silk creamer OUT the day before! ug! Bad news bears. After leaving for work without my appointment book (This is what happens when I don't get my coffee in the morning!) I stopped at starbucks for a tall soy pumpkin spice (the one in hc still has the flavor!!) latte. I didn't plan too well for the day as far as finding time to eat but then a client surprised me with a slice of vegan chocolate mousse pie and LUNCH WAS SERVED! haha. The dessert was absolutely delicious.. not my usual 'lunch' but it was perfect timing on this day when I didnt have a chance to even nook something in between clients. After work, it was dinner time so my fiance and I went out for sushi. I am completely obsessed with sushi. A former addict of the spicy crab roll I have now switched to avocado, sweet potato, carrot and cucumber, etc. I also loveeee miso soup and its totally vegan thank goodness so I had that too. I have no alcohol tolerance so I ended up drinking 1/2 of a glass of wine and feeling like I shouldn't operate heavy machinery before my fiance finished the other half in..well..3 seconds. Me+ Alcohol are just not best buddies. More like acquaintances that get along well in small doses. I pretty much went home and went to bed right after that.. well after eating a SMALL ! Yes small! Vegan cupcake. Not the most healthy vegan day with the TWO desserts.. I should probably limited to one a day :/ Oh well- my 3rd day is better!

Day 3
Surprise, Surprise the morning consisted of Ezekiel toast and peanut butter. Still haven't purchased a new creamer but at work I did have some chocolate almond milk in my refrid so I mixed a bit of that with the coffee from the lobby. Not bad! I'm turning into quite the barista! I only had a half day so I came home for lunch and had a chicken soy patty open faced sandwich (one soy patty, one piece of Ezekiel) and a big slab of hummus on top! yum! Later that afternoon I went to whole foods with my fiance and we found our early mini dinner in the hot bar! WE LOVEEEEE Mediterranean platters and they had all the stuff to make one... felafel's balls (if you haven't tried yet, you must!) hummus, cute little mini pitas, a cucumber relish (WITH WHEAT BERRIES!! WHAT A GREAT IDEAAA!) and a yogurt dill dip (which he ate but I of coarse passed on) We made our platter and ate it when we got home from the store. Sooo good! We also order this platter a lot at Juniper 61 Here is what our platter from Whole Foods looked like (minus the yogurt dip haha)
This was taken with my camera phone so not sure how good it shows up but yummm this was so good. We ate this at like 4pm and then started to make dinner. I convinced my fiance to make dinner from my favvvv vegan book The Kind Diet We also had a bet on how much it would cost to make the dinner since we pretty much had NOTHING and had to buy all the ingredients. We did the whole dinner for around 40 bucks (less then going out to eat) plusss it fed 3 people and my fiance and I both packed Tupperware of it for lunch during the week. Divide that many meals by 40 and it not so much. He estimated it would cost much more so I wont the bet..and by winning he has to make a vegan dinner with me AGAIN next weekend :) He is a BIG meat eater..your typical guy.. but it meant sooo much to me that he was willing to make this dinner with me especially when it involved ingredients he was non familiar with. But guess what? He really liked it!! Have I converted him to a vegan? Absolutely not. But could I see us making this again. Absolutely. Here is a photo of our dinner (again, cam phone til I get something better to take photos with!!)
Its pecan crusted seitan with rustic pasta. What is seitan!? Well, its kind of like tofu in that it takes on the flavor of whatever you marinade it in, etc. but it is extremely close to the texture of meat. You can make it takes like chicken or ground it up like hamburger..wheatever. Its extremely versatile and it has a TON of protein. I can almost guarantee you could throw it in a dish and people wouldn't ask what it was and would just except that it was some kind of meat. The dish was probably the best one I have ever made..it was just sooo yummy. We put the seitan on top of Rustic Pasta, also from the kind diet book. I didn't think it would be as good as it was! Even my fiance said he liked the pasta the best! We used whole wheat angel hair pasta which works really nicely with the dish since it has a nutty flavor. The "Sauce" was made by combining onions, celery, CABBAGE (yes it sounds weird- my fiance LOVED it- he wanted more cabbage in it!) garlic, olive oil and its sauted on the stove top. Then you add 5 TBS of marinara.. again I thought this was weird. Its just for some soft tomato flavor..but its NOT going to turn it into a tomato SAUCE.. then you throw in the cook pasta and mix it all up and the setain goes on top. This is just a cliffs note of the recipe- you can google for it or better yet BUY THE BOOK!! Its awesome and you wont regret it! We had a late dinner- 8pm or so and then we each had our dessert that we bought from whole foods- his wasn't vegan but I managed to find a vegan oatmeal cookie there so I thought WHY NOT! and bought it. IT WAS AWESOME! I enjoyed in with a small class of almond milk. Yum! I forgot how good oatmeal cookies are :)

Day 4
And that brings us to today.. day 4. This morning I decided to change things up a bit and had some oatmeal with a drizzle of 100% maple syrup. Its more expensive then the kind I grew up putting on my pancakes but its worth it because its totally natural.. no sugar or weirdness added. Whole foods "365" Brand has a great organic one I use- its about $10 for a glass container of it but it should last you quite awhile unless you are making a dessert that calls for a lot of it. Maple syrup is a great replacement for white sugar and you can also buy a maple sugar which is just maple syrup in crystallized form.. make sure to check ingredients. This can be pricey too.. about $13 for a cylinder but again its natural, unprocessed, and should last you a long time.

For lunch, I couldn't help myself- I pulled out the left overs from last night..maybe about 3/4 cup of pasta and a small chunk of the seitan on top. Its JUST as good reheated. I will definitely be making this again!

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