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?

Obsessed With Vegan Food

The title of my post refers to a comment made by Cami to me today. She asked if she could borrow my sprouts, and after telling her that she could I proceeded to inform her about how much I love sprouts because of their texture blah blah blah. She looked at me oddly and said "sprouts are just sprouts, you are just obsessed with vegan food"- duh only I would lecture about the yumminess of sprouts. My love of vegan food went a little above and beyond today.

Brekkie started with the LAST of my banana bread & coffee in this hilarious cup.

After breakfast I had to drive to UCLA to get my blood drawn. I am currently on Coumadin for blood clots that I have in my lungs which I found out about during a stay in the ICU for 9 days in December. I was in ICU because of complications resulting from a simple surgery that I had performed. Although my health is much better now, the medication I am on means that I have to moderate the amount of vitamin K that I take in (which is in a lot of veggies)- this is another reason why I keep track of what I eat everyday. My blood results were great though today and I don't have to go back for another 3 weeks, yey! Afterwards I visited a friend that goes to UCLA and then drove back to Malibu for advanced stats : / raging I know.

Lunch consisted of lots of greens & vitamin K!

Packed lunch for the day-leftovers from yesterday's meal (garbanzo & pea quinoa), TJ's herb mix salad w/ 1/2 small avocado, TJ's spicy peanut vinaigrette.

This lunch did not hold me over at all. Less than an hour later my stomach was growling. I went into the Cafe at school and picked up an enormous diet coke and Odwalla sweet and salty bar. These are the only bar options in the Cafe, but they are pretty tasty.

For dinner I knew I was going to need something to really fill me up, and what is a better option for filling your tummy than lots of carbs? Generally speaking I try to veer away from pasta, but tonight I was desperately craving fettucini alfredo. For the pasta I used whole wheat spaghetti and for the sauce I used a variation of this recipe. It ended up like this:

A little less than 1/2 package silken tofu
2 tablespoon Smart Balance
1/4 cup vegan soy shredded cheese mix
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 cup veggie broth

2 cups peas

Salt & Pepa

While i cooked the pasta I blended everything but the peas in a blender. After it was thoroughly mixed together I poured the mixture in a sauce pan, added the peas, and then cooked on low until everything was warmed. I then poured the sauce on top of the pasta. It was insanely delicious and very creamy, like it contained real butter and cheese.

I was still in munching mode so I nuked up some TJ's meatless meatballs and finished off the last of the sauce.

After dinner I was debating whether or not to go out to Taco Tuesday with friends but decided not to because I had to write a tribute speech. I ended up compromising and stayed in and wrote a tribute speech to the 60's while drinking some Yellowtail Chardonnay, my favorite ; )

Lastly, does anyone know of anyone who is selling their Coachella tickets? I was super bummed to find out that they were sold out yesterday, I've been planning to go for my friend's 21st : ( If I don't find any I may have to either try and scalp some or sneak in.... Should be interesting, i'll keep you updated.

Vegemite Cures All

As usual I started my day out w/ a cup of coffee, didn't include a pic though because they kept coming out so ugly (we're having dishwasher issues that leave water marks on everything soo annoying). I had some more banana bread for breakfast. Delicious as usual.

Open wide! (take note of the tacky purple chipping nail polish)

Afterwards I made myself lunch to sustain me through a busy day of studying and class. Included was a sandwich w/ Tofutti soy cheese slices, sprouts, 1/2 small avocado, & vegenaise on Ezekiel bread. Also I packed snacks including les petit carrots w/ hummus to dip them in & the last of my pineapple slices.

By the end of class I was exhausted and needed a caffeine buzz before I started studying. I stopped by Starbucks and picked up a venti soy ice coffee w/ sugar free hazelnut for me & the same for my friend, Cami, but w/ sugar free vanilla. They spelled my name right too!

Cami got spoiled twice today- coffee & then dinner. Having a blog now has been inspiring me to cook more & she has been my guinea pig, I don't think she minds too much. I used this black bean and quinoa recipe that I found, but I substituted the black beans w/ 3/4 can of garbonzo beans and a cup of frozen peas, my recipe also didn't include cilantro porque no lo tengo.

This was super easy to make and really flavorful.

The recipe made quite a large portion. I practiced a bit of self control and only let myself have 2 cups. Measuring out my food helps me from stuffing my face (sometimes).

(Notice that my previous chipping nail polish has slowly deteriorated throughout the day.Chipped nailpolish is a big pet peeve for me. I hate not having my nails painted).

I added lots of this to my meal.....

I could put sriracha on almost anything. I love all things spicy, and sriracha is quite powerful when it comes to spiciness.

After dinner though my stomach was killing me! Not sure exactly what it was. Coincidentally, I consumed a lot of things that I had purchased in Australia, first beginning with antiacid medicine. Then I drank a cup of ginger Yogi tea in this cute cup from Sydney w/ the opera house on it.

While I was waiting to see if the tea would help my cause, Ratatat helped me write a paper on Perestroika for Humanities. He is so studious.

The tea was not working so I had to turn to the ultimate Australian classic- Vegemite, I had a big spoonful on it's own. I have grown to really enjoy Vegemite and I even crave it sometimes, let me warn you though it is an acquired taste so If you want to try it just have a tini bit on toast. It is great for stomaches though and it made my stomach feel 100% better.

Jimmy's Pub

Woke up this morning and made myself a cup of Joe (ended up drinking this times three). Used this cute little cup that my sister Emma got me in Washington, D.C. She knows me too well, it has become my favorite.

I made this sandwich for lunch which consisted of Ezekiel bread, red pepper hummus, 1/2 small avocado, and tofurky deli slices.

Here are all of my eats for brekkie & lunch....

Above sandwich, les petit carrots, pineapple slices, and a white chocolate macadamia luna bar (my 2nd favorite luna bar).

I also got to use this super cute lunch bag that I purchased from Whole Foods. It was advertised as a kid's lunch bag but I knew I had to have it despite being in my twenties, plus it was less than 2 bucks. I felt a little odd buying a kids lunch bag, but the lady at the counter reassured me that she owned two herself.

Tonight I was more than happy to meet my parents again at the Ojai Valley Spa & Resort. This time we decided to dine a Jimmy's Pub which overlooked the golf course.

While waiting for my family to arrive I indulged in a little reading of the L.A Times, some chardonnay, and complementary potato chips while enjoying the scenery (i.e, heaven).

Vegan options here were EXTREMELY limited. I attempted to order hummus and flatbread as an entree, but ended up getting hummus & flatbread coated w/ parmesan cheese. I felt like I was being a major pain in the butt, but I asked the waiter if he could ask the chef if the garden burger contained cheese in the patty- I was glad I asked because it did. Officially there were no vegan options on the menu, what's a vegan chica supposed to do?

In the end I ended up ordering the crispy chicken salad, minus the chicken & chipotle ranch sauce. Basically it contained roasted bell peppers, corn, lettuce, and black beans. Sometimes you just have to make your own menu.

Don't worry though I Candace-fied it and did not put that previous hummus to waste- I topped this salad off with BBQ sauce and hummus and it ended up being very tasty.

Food porn.

Question: What do you do when you go out to dinner and receive something that you don't like?