Back home!

This morning I had drip coffee, you know what that means....

I'm back in America!! I already Americanized my nails

Much to my surprise, last minute I made the stand by flight & I got to spend a good 13 hours in the very back of a plane in between 2 men. FYI sitting between 2 men on a flight is the worse because they always take over BOTH of the armrests. The feminist in me fought for my armrest long & hard the whole flight. Besides the bad seat, since I was standby I couldn't order a special vegan meal, & not expecting to get on the flight, the only thing I had eaten was a bowl of warm muesli that morning.

The flight was a vegans worse nightmare: creamy fettucini, a roast beef roll for a snack, & eggs w/ grey sausage. Ick! I had to go non vegan a bit & had a small croissant, green salad, pretzels, chardonnay, & coffee. I was starving when I got off the flight! Thankfully as soon as my mom picked me up from LAX she brought me to a vegan restaurant that I have been meaning to try- Veggie Grill. This place was reminiscent of Native Foods (my all time favorite). I had the Santa Fe Crispy Chickin' w/ crispy chillin' chickin', lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado, & southwestern spiced vegan mayo on a bed of kale w/ a side of chili.

My mom had the VG- Cheeseburger done El Dorado style w/ jalapenos, caramelized onions, & ketchup w/ a side salad w/ miso dressing. I thought it tasted yummy, but my mom still thinks Native Foods is way better.

Later I drove back to the airport & picked James up from his flight & we came home to a nice homemade meal. Knowing the both of us too well my mom made James a big pasta w/ chicken while I had brown rice topped w/ broccoli cooked in garlic & truffle oil. Truffle oil is sooo good!

This morning I had copious amounts of the coffee shown in the first pic & made breakfast for the family. Cooking for everyone else made me not so hungry, so I waited until the fam (along w/ James & Dru) & I went to go see Eclipse to have my first feed. My friend Dru, the person who originally got me into veganism, has recently converted back to her vegan ways so I brought us some healthy snacks to the movies. Chili & lime cashews, dried apricots, & pepitas.

For lunch I made myself a simple wrap w/ a whole wheat tortilla filled w/ shredded soy cheese, guacamole, tomatoes, & arugula. Doused in tapatio.

Tonight both sets of my grandparents came over for dinner & we drank peach sangria...

& I enjoyed an arugula salad w/, sugar plum tomatoes, & garlic croutons....

hummus, grapes,pita chips and a cold pasta salad....

Yum! It's nice to be home & w/ the family. Hoping for nice weather tomorrow so I can enjoy the beach. Cheers for now.

Oat-ful & Veggie-ful Weekend

Let me update you on my weekend. There has been a big change in my life.... no more soy lattes for me! I've officially changed my Australian drink of choice to a long black w/ soy milk & honey. More caffeine & less soy milk.

Go Socceroos!

My mornings have been very oat-full

Pumpkin Oats

1/2 cup rolled oats, 1 cup water, 1 tbs honey, a couple of cubes of steamed pumpkin

Pistachio Oats

1/2 cup rolled oats, 1 cup water, 1 tbs honey, pistachio bits

PB&J Overnight Soaked Oats

1/2 cups oats, 1 cup water, 1 tbs honey, 1 tbs crunchy peanut butter soaked overnight w/ a few strawberries added in the morning. This was my first time trying to soak oats overnight & I think I may have done something wrong; they had way to much excess water that had to be drained out. They were still very yummy though & easier than making them on the stove like I usually do.

Lunch & dinner has been very veggie-full

Arugula salad w/ steamed pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, 1/2 avocado and hummus & BBQ sauce

Toasted wrap from the Bondi Junction food court w/ spinach, carrots, cucumber, onion, & avocado

Vegetable soup w/ roll from a cafe at the Spot in Randwick

Salad w/ spinach, cucumber, avocado, & capsicum

& bowl of whole wheat spaghetti w/ marinara that was seriously lacking vegetables.

I also tried out a new juice company Emma & Tom's. No added sugar, no concentrates, nothing artificial. The extreme C was delicious.

Other weekend highlights included attending a very fun house warming party for our friend where I ripped my favorite faux fur jacket, going to the movies & seeing Get Him to the Greek which was hilarious, watching the World Cup and rooting for the Socceroos, & making a very decadent non-vegan dessert (pictures to come). Hope you had great weekends too!

Black Eyed Peas & Potluck Parties

Waking up late sometimes means that I end up combining breakfast & lunch, creating not your typical brunch, but instead coffee and a sandwich.

Open wide! Tofurky, arugula, vegenaise, mustard, 1/4 avocado, and soy cheese in between two pieces of ezekiel bread.

After eating breakfast/lunch I picked my sisters and their friends up from school because it was one of their girlfriends birthday and they wanted me to drive them to the b-day party. Just picture me driving my mom's white Range Rover with about ten little girls hanging out of the sunroof, Black Eyed Peas blaring, and all of the windows decorated in pink painted w/ "happy birthday Sarah" hearts and piece signs. It was a sight to see. I brought them to the party at the Marriott pool and got to sunbathe while watching the kiddies- not to shabby at all. When I was done there I drove over to Raveena's house to lounge on her couch all day and watch Cami and Dru film videos of their feet dressed in comforter slippers dancing to Salt & Pepa (if this scenario doesn't make any sense I don't blame you I didn't really understand it either). Rav provided me w/ the necessary snackage.

Hummus & Crackers

Rav is Indian and I have heard that her mom makes amazing Indian food, but in the past 8 years that I have known her I have yet to try her Indian cuisine. This is crazy especially since Indian food is my all time favorite, and almost all Indian food is vegan. Finally on Friday I got to try it!

Black eyed peas w/ whole wheat rotti.

This was soooo good, I had to come back for seconds. She even rolled out the dough for the rotti and made them right there in front of me. You can bet that I will be visiting Raveena's house more often from now on.

Saturday morning I went and took my sisters to breakfast at Cafe Vienna.

I had a couple pieces of whole wheat toast with my all time favorite raspberry jam...

and a bottomless cup of coffee w/ soy milk.

A couple of hours later I was visited my gma in the hospital and I munched on an Odwalla super protein bar. This really was not my favorite, pretty bland actually.

After leaving the hospital I went and ran errands to get ready for my little potluck that night. We frequented both Walmart and Costco ( I tried lots of taste testers), and stopped by Pick up Sticks where my mom and split the buddha's feast w/ brown rice. I'm not really a fan of semi fast food Chinese restaurants, I don't like Chinese food really nor fast food, but this was surprisingly tasty.

When I got home I rushed to get the outside patio ready before everyone came over.

I provided the beverages- an assortment of Mexican beers from Costco & lemon drops.

Easy Lemon drop recipe-

mix 1 part Absolute Citron Vodka with 2 parts lemonade (I use Simply Lemonade) , and garnish w/ lemon slices.

I love these glasses (above) and matching pitchers (below) that I bought from Walmart, they were super cheap too.

Considering that I had to explain to one of my girlfriends what a potluck is, I was impressed by what everyone ending up bringing. There ended up being tons of great food. The aforementioned girlfriend brought Stacy's Pita Chips and 2 types of hummus which is always a winner in my book. I supplied lots of non-vegan food including turkey wraps, margherita pizza, dark chocolate covered acai berries, bbq popchips, and spicy artichoke dip.

My friends all kept my dietary needs in mind and everyone brought vegan food; too sweet of them. Dru made a white bean salad which was delicious, but I sadly forgot to get a pic- sorry Dru! Thank the lord Raveena treated me to more Indian food and brought Samosas filled w/ curried potatoes & 2 types of dipping sauces- a sweet one and a spicy cilantro,

Looks like I wasn't the only one w/ pizza in mind- Tara brought a margherita pizza too, but hers was a vegan one from Z pizza. Sooo yummy I have not had pizza in ages. The soy cheese may have looked a little funny but it tasted like regular mozarella. I dipped mine in the spicy cilantro sauce that Rav brought.

I bought some funny $5 nerd glasses from Walmart that day and decided to sport them. Dru likewise donned the clear pair since she was my date for the night. I'm not going to lie I wore them all today too and have been embracing my inner nerd.

We all got to meet Tara's new BF too who is a great guy, and received all of our approval : )

Rav's beau was there too and they adopted Issy as their child for the night. She was being a bit rambunctious & attempted successfully in decorating him in My Little Pony stickers.

It was a great potluck, and we all stayed up until the wee hours drinking lemon drops & chatting. Good food & friends, what more could one wish for?