Wannabe Australian Bada**

Now I'm not really sure what the protocol is on bringing food into different countries. I'm pretty sure that it's okay to bring packaged foods with you, but I still felt like I was smuggling these Luna Bars into Australia. How could I go without my lemon zest? Sometimes being a bada** comes down to the little things. I had one for a small lunch while studying yesterday.

We took a break to get an early dinner, & went to this sketchy Japanese place at the recommendation of James' friend Joel. While the combo of a vegetable sushi roll & veggie udon noodle soup was cheap ($10 AU), I was a little irked by the sight of some floating hot-pink-dyed pieces of gelatin in my soup.

Don't worry that's not fish eggs on top, just some weird sauce.

Dinner was a bit funky but it kept me full for a long time. I munched on some chili limi cashews before bed. These were not the Trader Joe's kind but almost as good.

This morning I woke up bright & early and walked down the street to go to my daily coffee provider- The Paddington Grind. I had a soy latte w/ 2 equal & some Vegemite on turkish bread.
Yes there was butter on that bread. Yes I ate it. Bada** I know.

Like a true wannabe Australian bada**, I put some more vegemite on that turkish bread when I got home.

Afterwards, I put on my wettie (wetsuit), headed down to Maroubra beach w/ the Bra Boys, and jumped in the surf.

No way! I am not that big of a bada**. I watched James & his friends surf for a while until it started drizzling & headed to a nearby cafe to enjoy my new Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged and a soy chai latte. This chai latte was $5.40 AU can you believe it? redonkulous.

By the time the boys got out of the surf it was lunchtime so James & I headed to Nando's in Maroubra. I had the veg pita w/ no mayo, and hot peri-peri sauce. The little flag says "for the adventurous heat seeker".... guess that's me.

Close up

Look at all of the sauces that ended up on our table! I'm such a bada** that I'm sure you can guess that I dipped my pita in the extra, extra hot peri-peri sauce. My mouth was on fire afterwards!

Lagunatic

I've been slacking on blogging this week so this is going to be a long post, but a good one w/ lots of yummy food!

Wednesday:

The usual breakfast- coffee & a Lemmon Zest Luna Bar

I had to drive up to LA to go to a doctors appointment, and afterwards I met up w/ Cami to go apartment hunting in Santa Monica. While there seem to be hundreds of apartments available almost all of them were 1 bedrooms : ( The search continues.... We stopped by my favorite vegan restaurant in Santa Monica for lunch, Real Food Daily. RFD is similar to Native Foods, but the food seems to be a bit healthier. I hadn't been in a couple of months, and I was happy to slurp down my favorite acai tea.

The waitress told us about a new appetizer that has yet to be put on the menu. I think it was called a sea patty, because it is supposed to be like a crab cake but made w/ arame and done in a pesto sauce. Cami and I both agreed that it was absolutely delicious. I loved the plating too.

For my main I stuck with my old favorite the club sandwich.

This sandwich is to die for. It was enormous and came with a caesar salad on the side w/ my favorite croutons. It has thick breaded seitan that is crisp on the outside and moist on the inside, crispy salty tempeh bacon, soft chewy bread, loads of creamy vegeneise, lettuce, tomato, and avocado. I'm salivating as I write this.

I was totally stuffed after lunch- when I came home I unwound w/ a glass of chardonnay. I think my kitty apple wanted some too.

My mom made a very delicious white bean, broccolini rigatoni dish, which reminded me of minnestroni soup. I rarely eat pasta because I usually pig out too when I have it, what can I say I'm a carbaholic.

I added meatless meatballs to mine and my mom made a separate batch w/ sausage for the rest of the family.

Here is the recipe- Sauté 1 chopped white onion and 3 cloves garlic in olive oil in a large skillet. Add heads of 2 bunches of broccoli rabbe, and sauté until mostly cooked. Then add 8 cups of vegetable broth and 2 ounces of tomato paste and cook on medium heat until mixture begins to boil. Add ½ box of enriched whole-wheat rigatoni and 1 can of white beans. Cook until al dente.

Thursday:

Looking back on my Thursday eats there seem to be a whole lot of brown drinks, first beginning w/ a cup of joe.

Then I made a smoothie w/ one of Trader Joes's new products, Almond Butter w/ Roasted Flax Seeds. I love flax seeds but I don't eat them enough. I think that this product will replace my normal almond butter from now on.

Smoothie w/ above almond butter, plus ice, half a banana, left over coffee, and half a cup of vanilla almond milk

Brown drink number 2

For lunch I was at the hospital again visiting by grandma, so I had the only thing that looked edible in the cafeteria- a big ole' salad. Mixed lettuce, garbanzo beans, peas, carrots, baby tomatoes, all dipped in a rasberry vinaigrette.

Of course I needed some carbs on the side.I had a whole wheat dinner roll.

As I was waiting to pick up the girls from the bus stop I went and grabbed my third brown drink of the day- blended vanilla ice coffee from Cafe Vienna. Icy deliciousness.

For dinner I hapazardly put something together and had even more peas & corn. I really don't know what I would do without frozen food. Everything from this meal down to the brown rice from Costco was frozen.

Brown rice w/ corn, peas, and meatless meatballs (I added mango chutney & BBQ sauce).

After quickly scarfing down this meal I headed out for a night on the town in Laguna w/ my chicas Dru & Raveena. I think we went to almost every bar in Laguna- first Gina's Pizza for pitchers of Stella (more brown drinks)...

then to Big Fish for mojitos...

then to the Saloon for this crazy yummy pineapple drink where I bumped into one too many people from high school...

then we walked to Blue Laguna, then Hush, and ended up at the Sand Piper where we danced the night away. Here is Dru getting her funk on

and me and her canoodling/dancing? Don't mind my insane roots, i've been refusing to cut/color my hair for the past few months.

It was a really great night, lots of fun- Dru & I did some serious snacking when we got home late night, but luckily I didn't take any photos so there is no evidence except for me feeling bloated this morning. This post is already long enough, so I will share my eats from today w/ you 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.

Brekkie X 2, Mexican X 2

I woke up early this morning in Ojai and had a lemon zest Luna bar and a cup of coffee which was really gross. It was way too watered down; coffee done w/ a French press is so much richer. Afterwards I went to the hot springs which were really beautiful, I was disappointed to see though that people had littered a bunch there. I got a great picture, but it was accidently deleted : (

By the time I got back my family and I went to go and get breakfast at Eggs & Things. It's a cute little place w/ very traditional breakfast options. This is how I ended up eating breakfast twice, although a burrito w/ beans, avocado, & potatoes w/ a side of fruit really isn't breakfast.

Close up

I also had a few more cups of coffee (much better than my first on of the morning) & some OJ. I love this coffee cup

Pretty flower I saw, had to add it.

On my way home to Malibu, I went and stopped by this sketchy massage place in Thousands Oaks where my mom and aunt had gotten a massage before & they said it was great. I was a little hesitant, but an hour later & only after spending $40 I was super glad that I had went - they were really good. I was feeling so relaxed that I came home & passed out for a few hours.

The burrito from earlier sat in my stomach like a stone and I wasn't hungry until about 9 p.m. tonight. Weirdly enough I was craving Mexican again so I improvised.

Nacho's vegan style! I was going to go and buy tortilla chips but I decided to use some of the left over Terra root chips that I had left over from earlier in the week. On top I melted TJ's Mexican shredded soy cheese, black refried beans, homemade guac (1 small avo, diced onion, salt, & pepper), & diced tomatoes. I doused it in Tapatio before digging in.

It was delicious, I'm in a food comatose now. Perfect for staying in on a Saturday night & catching up on Lost.