It's a Wrap

I've been a bit behind in blogging so brace yourself this is going to be a long post. Life gets kinda hectic when your trying to simultaneously take finals & pack up your apartment.

Wednesday:

1/3 cup oats, soy yogurt, crunchy peanut butter, pumpkin pie spice

(pre mixage)

(post mixage)

I normally never eat soy yogurt because the few times I have tasted it, it was really awful. The only reason why I purchased it this time was for my muffins I made the other night, and I had some left over so i tried it with my oats. It was really yummy! I wish I remembered the name of the brand. Of course I had coffee too.

While I was at Starbucks I bought this Gojiberry Granola bar by Two Moms in the Raw. I love how Starbucks carries all of this really great wholesome snacks now. The first time I saw them was when I was stopped off at Starbucks on a road trip to New Mexico and I bought an armful of snacks for the car ride. This bar was delicious! It was super crunchy and oddly enough almost spicy?

You can't beat these ingredients. Raw, no refined sugars, no added oils, 100% organic, 100% vegan.

I was so engrossed with studying that this bar and a coffee sufficed for lunch, and I did not stop to eat until dinner time.

I bought dinner on campus and had the sorina salad w/tofu in a spinach wrap w/ a side of BBQ for dipping, and a bunch of grapes.

Lettuce, tomato, tofu, onions, raisins, carrots, almonds w/ balsamic vinaigrette.

Thursday:

My eats were almost identical to the day before, I was busy cramming for my advanced stats test so I didn't have much time to eat let alone to try and be creative.

1/3 cup oats, 1/2 banana, soy yogurt, walnut bits, and pumpkin pie spice

Coffee!

A wrap again. It was definitely a groundhog day.

This time it was grilled w/ a spinach tortilla filled with lettuce, spinach, tomato, onion, jalapenos, and cucumbers and a side of pasta salad.

I took my stats exam which ended up being pretty tricky. I'm done with school now, yey!!!! Four months of freedom! I cannot even begin to explain how happy I am to be done with school.

After finishing the final I came home to start packing. It's time to say goodbye to my 1st apartment ever where I have lived for the past two years. I'm excited because next year I am moving to Santa Monica which has a lot more going on than Malibu, and Cami and I will still be living together. I can only hope that my new house is even close to as nice as the one I am leaving. I have made a lot of great memories living here w/ my roommates.

My bedroom.

Night table

Inspo board

Living Room

Kitchen (where the magic happens)

Ahh... goodbye Villa Malibu apartments, but not so quick... first I have to pack all of this up! Before getting down to business I enjoyed a snack of 1/2 banana, the last of my soy yogurt (I can't believe this 1 container lasted me 3 days), and a scoop of crunchy peanut butter.

After finishing packing up my desk, I got ready to go out and celebrate the end of the school year. First my friends Cami, Tyler, and Nick, and I went to go get dinner and drinks at Charlies in Malibu. The only other time I have been here was once for karaoke, and I didn't get to try the food.

We started out with a bottle of sauvignon blanc and copious amounts of foccacia bread.

I'm no wine connoisseur, but I would not not recommend this bottle. The bread was delicious though.

For dinner I had the seasonal vegetables- they were very bland, and the waitress offered to have the cook saute them in olive oil, after which they were a bit better but still not great.

After dinner we went out to Irish Pub in Santa Monica called Fin McCool's. It was a great way to finish out the school year.

Here are pics of me & my roommates that I have lived w/ in the past 2 years.

Emily, Cami, me, and Erin.

(yes i think that is my lipstick on Cami's check)

Me, Cami, and Diane (I'm getting Cami back in this one).

Friday:

Thursday was a veerry long night, I'm embarrassed to say what time I woke up at today but let's just say it was way bast breakfast time. I decided to make a very large portion of savory oats.

1 cup oats, peas, roasted corn, shredded soy cheese, nutritional yeast

These oats were the epitome of comfort food. Yum. I could not eat all of them at once so I kept snacking on them throughout the day. While the oats were cooking I munched on some soy nuggets w/ BBQ.

I spent the day packing, packing, packing, interspersed w/ catching up on lost and modern family. I made a smoothie too.

1/2 banana, vanilla almond milk, crunchy peanut butter

I also added a scoop of my roommates hemp protein- I love this stuff it tastes amazing and is really good for you too. This smoothie ended up being my favorite color- green.

i

Isn't it purdy?

I tried to ignore my pounding headache all day, even after 4 tylenols it would not stop throbbing, so finally at 5 in the afternoon I had to give in and grab a Starbucks. I didn't get a picture, but it helped relieve my headache immediately. Oh addiction, it's a b*.

I didn't have dinner until way later, and when I did it was quite odd. My fridge is running low, and I was not sure what I felt like... sometimes I eat really weird stuff. I ended up having spinach and meatless meatballs topped w/ vegan caesar salad dressing. Believe it or not it got even weirder after I took this pic.... I added nutritional yeast and garlic croutons. I know your probably gagging as you read this, but i thought it was quite delish.

Wow that was a long post!

Picnic Time

Ahhh it feels so nice to be able to finally relax at home in bed. Longest day ever, I've been at school since 9:30 this morning until 9 tonight and about 10 1/2 of those hours were spent sitting in a cubicle studying. Crazily enough I still don't feel 100% about my humanities test tomorrow.

Surprisingly, for breakfast I did not have a Luna bar, instead I grabbed a 'protein plate' at Starbucks along with the usual ice coffee.

It had a small whole wheat bagel with a squeezable pack of Justin's Nut Butter, grapes, and a few apple slices.It also contained a hard boiled egg and cheese that I didn't eat.

It was pretty yummy- I was surprised the grapes were really crisp and the apple did not taste like it had been sitting around all day.

I took a study break around midday to meet up w/ my Advance Research class for the best final ever- a picnic! I should have taken more pictures I don't know what I was thinking. I made Caesar salad for everyone w/ the Real Food Daily vegan caesar salad dressing, organic croutons, and romaine lettuce. I also had them test out my Banana Nut Muffins which everyone seem to love : )

Also at the picnic was potato salad, chips, fruit, pita, hummus, and wraps. One of my classmates, Kyle, was super sweet and made me a vegan pita sandwich w/ tomatoes, avocado, sabra hummus, and pesto- it was insanely delicious!

Afterwards I went straight back to the library, and studied not stop until about 6 when Cami brought me my second coffee of the day. I'm still feeling pretty sick and don't have much of an appetite, so I just had some left over Caesar salad for dinner in a recycled sabra container.

Finally, I was able to come home and unwind with a big cup of peppermint tea.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Back to the Bu Just in Time for Finals

It looks like I caught a bit of a cold on the the flight back from Cancun, which is a bummer especially considering that I have finals this week and will posted up in a cubicle in the library studying. Get ready to see lots of pictures of food taken in the wooden box which will become my 'home away from home' until this Thursday.

Breakfast over the past 2 days has been pretty standard. Nothing new here, just Luna Bars and Ice Coffee.

After being deprived of vegetables in Cancun, I was craving veggies like no other. I headed to the cafe at school and grabbed all of the veggies that they had at the salad bar and piled them up on my tray.

Buried underneath was spinach and on top were shredded carrots, tomatoes, corn, chick peas, raw broccoli, and sun flower seeds. I doused all of this is BBQ sauce.

After studying for awhile I munched on some on Stacey's pita chips and had a diet coke.

Cami brought me this enormous Subway sandwich for dinner while I was studying, which led to a fit of giggles for about 30 minutes as I attempted to eat this monster. It included 12 inches of omega 3 bread w/ spinach, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, pickles, and olives w/ lots of sweet onion sauce and honey mustard.

I woke up today with the worse headache ever, and went straight to the pharmacy to get some meds so that I could last through the day. I also stopped by the Vitamin Barn and had an immunity shot which is made of ginger, garlic, and lots of other things that are good for your immune system. It tastes terrible, but it works miracles. For lunch I made Tj's carrot ginger soup w/ a piece of ezekiel bread w/ lots of earth balance spread on top. I wish I could say that this was really delicious, but my taste buds are totally shot.

I stopped by the Jamba Juice on campus and had them make me a dairy free cold buster smoothie. The library has also been feeding my crack (coffee) addiction by providing free coffee during finals week.

After I came home from taking my first final (in public speaking class, I think I did pretty well), I made some banana nut muffins and caesar salad dressing for the picnic that my advanced research class in having tomorrow. It is so nice just turning in a paper rather than having to take a final.

Caesar salad dressing from Real Food Daily cookbook.

I made up my own recipe for the muffins.

Banana Nut Muffins

1 ¾ whole wheat flour

1 ¼ Splenda brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon allspice

2 ripe large bananas

1 tablespoon soy yogurt

½ cup almond soy milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin tins with spray on oil. Sift together dry ingredients (flour through allspice). In a separate bowl, mash bananas and then mix in wet ingredients (soy yogurt through vanilla). Pour wet into dry and combine. Mix in walnuts. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way. Bake for 15 minutes. Makes about 15.

Tada!

I really have no appetite right now since I'm sick so I just had 2 of these muffins for dinner w/ earth balance, and from what I can tell they seemed pretty good. I'll let you know what my class thinks of them.