Farewells

My time in Aus is slowly coming to a close; today was a day of farewells w/ many of our friends leaving Sydney to go back to their respective homes. My day started out w/ a banana & a long black coffee. How hilarious is James' birthday card?

Afterwards we went to Bondi Junction where James went shopping w/ his birthday gift certificates & we spent time w/ our friends Brie & Drake who have been visiting from Brisbane & flew home today. Once again I made a visit to Sumo Salad and had a mix of the falafel couscous salad & chickpea pumpkin salad.

For some very odd reason, even though I don't like chocolate, I tried a dairy free dark chocolate covered orange-peel. Sometimes I will try something just because it is vegan, even if I wouldn't normally eat it. This sweet just reaffirmed my aversion to chocolate- I preferred the glazed orange to the chocolate covering, I know I'm odd what can I say.

For dinner we picked up Thai food & ate w/ James' family because they wanted to say goodbye to James before he left to America. Yes that's right he's coming to America. I am sooo excited : ) The only bummer though is that I procrastinated in buying my ticket home, so the soonest flight I could get out was on the 2nd. I'm trying to get on a standby flight tomorrow, but it's unlikely that I will be able to. Worst case scenario I'll just have to be in Aus for 3 days on my own while James is in California w/ my family. It will be way weird to Skype when he's there & I'm here.

Anyways, for dinner I ate a side salad of mixed greens w/ avocado, olives, capsicum (bell pepper), & tomatoes w/ balsamic vinaigrette and Tom Kha soup w/ vegetables, tofu, & white rice.

For dessert we had some delicious fruit: kiwi, melons, bananas, watermelon, oranges, & pears.

Once we finished dinner w/ the fam we then had to head to our friend Tom's house for another farewell dinner party for our Canadian friend James who is leaving to go on further travels. While I opted out of having a second dinner I could not resist the homemade hummus that Tom's mom made. There is nothing better than authentic hummus w/ warm pita bread.

and some more fruit salad.

The boys being boys. I love that my boyfriend is sporting a Kind Campaign shirt.

Wish me luck tomorrow trying to get on my standby flight, I'll need it!

Samurai on Stanley

With this cold weather outside lately I've been craving a bowl of warm oats.

1/4 banana

3 sliced strawberries

1/2 cup oats

1 cup water

pinch of salt

1 tbs crunchy peanut butter

Then I enjoyed a soy latte w/ honey at the Paddington Grind while I read my book.

For lunch I took the bus to meet James' sister at her school & we walked to the Westfield Mall at Bondi Junction to grab lunch. I had a mix of the Thai salad w/ tofu and spicy vinaigrette & a mixed green salad w/ onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado.

Can you believe this is what they serve at mall food courts? This is not your average sitting out all day under heat lamps normal mall food... everything is fresh and healthy (maybe not so much the fried tofu).

I spent all day getting ready & planning for James' big 21st bday party on the 26th. So far everything is looking great, I can't wait!

For dinner James and I were craving sushi so we tried out a new place on Stanley St. near the city. I love this area. There are tons of quaint restaurants & cafes w/ tables facing the hustle & bustle of the street. I'm a bit skeptical trying new sushi restaurants in Aus, I've had a couple of bad experiences, but Samurai was my best sushi experience in Australia yet.

We started off with some drinks & edamame. Like my new manicure? OPI Light my Sapphire.

I was expecting a little seaweed salad but they brought me this enormous bowl of greenage. Trust me I was not complaining.

I also ordered a vegetable roll.

Dinner was delicious! I always thought that fish would be the one thing I would miss becoming vegan since I used to eat sushi about once a week, but oddly enough I have not craved it once. It's weird how much being vegan has changed my taste buds.

I saw a couple things on my way home that made me happy including an adorable white Vespa...

& a possum in the tree outside. Possums are way different in Australia than they are in America (i.e. overszied rats w/ fangs). They are the cutest things ever. Last winter James & I would go on walks in Centennial Park at night & try to find them climbing around in the trees.... I know we're weirdos.

Tiger Mottle

Tiger Mottle, refers to the 'mottled' surface of a perfect espresso extraction. More importantly the term refers to my favorite place in Paddington for breakfast located at the 5-ways. Tiger Mottle is a restored terrace that has been converted into a restaurant that serves simple breakfast & lunch, and the best coffee I have found yet in Sydney.

Everything inside is a pristine white, save for the retro vinyl covers on the wall & a wooden moose head above the fireplace which is always roaring (even though it doesn't look like it in the pic, I swear it was!).

James took me here for breakfast this morning before we headed to the library. I started off w/ a soy latte w/ honey which was especially rich & creamy. You can tell by the design on top that they really take their coffee seriously here.

For my breakfast I had the mottle muesli- toasted maple, macadamia, & pecan muesli w/ soy milk, banana, & rhubarb. Rhubarb on top of granola (or muesli as they always call it here) is amazing! I am dying to try making granola sometime soon after recently reading about how to make it on this chica's blog.

For lunch I went to the salad bar again & had a mixed green salad w/ chickpeas, pumpkin, avocado, corn, pumpkin seeds, tomatoes & sun dried tomato basil dressing. No bread for me this time. I was happy to see two fellow foodies taking pics of their salad too. Taking pics of food by yourself can be soo awkward sometimes, I'm glad to know I'm not alone ; )

Second coffee of the day. CAFEEEINE. The coffee stand on the UNSW campus always makes their coffee lukewarm, more like room temperature to be honest. I begged them to do it extra hot this time, but I think they were a bit confused because they made it w/ extra foam. Hmmmm very curious. I also ate a banana but did not take a pic, it was waaay to big & phallic looking haha.

I'll be honest my day at the library was very discouraging. I took my first GRE practice test and I did not do well at all. From there on I started freaking out about grad school, and wondering if I'll get in anywhere... I'm not even positive where I want to go at this point, I still need to research more. I just wished the GRE was based off my knowledge of psychology not random words & math that I have not studied since high school. I do not understand the logic of standardized tests. Thank God I have 2 months left to study, hopefully it will be enough : /

My dinner was equally as uninspired as I was feeling about the GRE- leftover vegan fried rice James' mom the other night that I hadn't tried yet w/ some sweet chili sauce. I also had a few bites of James' pasta that he ate for dinner. Think I'm going to take a break from studying tomorrow in hopes that it will boost my morale.

Emad's

This morning I laid in bed & finished watching Julie & Julia, which completely inspired me w/ my purpose in writing this blog & made me want to start cooking more (no beef bourguignon for me though!). A lot of the main character, Julie's, doubts when she first started writing her blog were feelings I could commiserate with. Like, what is the point of sending messages out into the abyss to randomly be read by people I have never even met, and does anyone even read what I am writing? Also, the entire point of blogging is quite narcissistic, who am I to think that strangers would be interested in my life & what I eat on a daily basis? Like I said this movie inspired me, so rather than these questions making me want to give up blogging they made me reevaluate & remember my original purpose in writing this blog.I know I haven't written an 'about me' section yet so I have not explained my main purpose for having this blog. My main goal is to share how I fit eating vegan and healthy (most of the time) into my busy schedule of being a student, traveling, & enjoying life w/ my family and friends. I have always been passionate about food, and about 14 months ago I made the transition into becoming vegan for both moral and health reasons. I would have never been able to make this lifestyle change without first becoming involved in reading vegan blogs (namely hungryhungyhippie) which showed me that eliminating animal products from your diet & eating healthy is really not that difficult. This was a relief for me considering that I have never eaten 'red' meat, and always have had a hard time on those rare occasion when I did eat chicken not imagining the life of the bird that I was eating.While I am not trying to pressure everyone into becoming vegan (I am far from the perfect vegan myself), I do want to help people understand that they can become less reliant on animal products and still enjoy food. Worse case scenario even if no one follows my blog it can serve an entirely selfish purpose and give me an excuse to dine out more frequently & try new recipes. Another benefit is that I have always loved journaling and by capturing images of the food I consume it helps me keep a record of my life since food is inextricably linked w/ everything I do.

Enough ranting, back to the food!

Breakfast as usual (special K vanilla almond cereal w/ soymilk & 1/2 banana). I also had a coffee at the Paddington Grind but wasn't able to take a pic since I got caught upin a conversation w/ a woman I met there.

At UNSW I regretfully had to buy lunch from this women who drives me nuts because nothing else was open except for the Indian vendor where I had already eaten the day before. She literally yells at people & makes racist remarks all the time. My toasted sandwich was decent though, and filled w/ avocado & grilled zucchini, eggplant, and pumpkin.

For dinner James & I were both craving some hummus so we ventured into Surry Hills' Little Lebanon & picked the restaurant that looked the least sketchy & had the best decor which is how we ended up at Emad's. I was immediately impressed by the hot pink walls, silk pillows decorating the benches, and bright jewel toned gauze draping the ceiling. By the time that I walked through the kitchen to get to the bathroom and saw that the kitchen was staffed by only one little old Lebanese women, drinking wine & wrapping dolmas, I had fallen in love w/ the place.

We started out w/ some hummus & flat bread of course. This hummus was insane; super rich and creamy & topped with lots of olive oil. There is nothing better than homemade, traditional hummus.

I had the tabouleh salad &...

rice wrapped in vines leaves.

Emad's is BYO so we went to the bottle-o across the street & grabbed a bottle of Promise Land Chardonnay. While this is James' moms new favorite (she always used to drink Yellow Tail like me), it is a bit too sweet for my liking.

After both of our meals we weren't entirely satisfied so we ordered some more flat bread & hummus. If anyone loves hummus more than me it's James, he can eat tubs and tubs of it on his own. Emad's was great, but I would recommend going with more than two people so that you can try lots of different dishes since the menu is all meze w/ no real main courses.

bread + lettuce+ hummus

As much as I love eating out, after awhile I start to feel a little guilty about spending all of that money & I usually always eat healthier when I cook for myself. So this time instead of buying lunch at the UNSW cafeteria like I have been doing lately, I decided to pack a lunch to bring to the library.

Mixed nuts & dried fruit, a banana, & an english muffin sandwich w/ mixed lettuce, avocado, tomato & hummus.

Before leaving the house though I had a big bowl of Special K Vanilla Almond cereal w/ soy milk.

Then before getting down to studying I of course needed some caffeine so I went to the coffee stand on campus & grabbed a soy latte w/ hazelnut syrup.

The coffee warmed me up a bit & gave me the kick I needed to hit the books.

I think James needed to coffee more than I did though!

That night once I got home I made myself a salad w/ mixed lettuce, steamed broccoli & corn, & hummus w/ a piece of Lebanese bread.

After a long day of studying we needed to blow off some steam so first James & I went to the Paddington Inn across the street from us & then we took the bus down to Bondi where we had some drinks w/ a bunch of James' guy friends at the Beach Road Hotel. Afterwards we ended up at the White Revolver to celebrate our friend's birthday. We danced a bunch & there was an open tab so....

I had some champagne ; )

Once I got home I had the late night munchies so I made a little snack wrap w/ lettuce & hummus in rotti bread. I just realized that all of my eats for the day were a variation of the same thing- bread + lettuce + hummus. Go figure.

Sweet Disposition

Weirdly enough I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm went off and felt completely awake despite only having about 6 1/2 hours of sleep. I was starving and quickly consumed a steamy bowl of oats.

1/3 cup of oats, w/ 1/2 banana, & almond butter

I've been too lazy to make it to the grocery lately so I have been guilty of frequenting Starbucks far too often & tossing away one too many venti plastic cups. Can you tell where I am in this photo?

Venti ice coffee w/ sf hazelnut & soy milk

Tanning salon! I know, I know tanning beds are so bad for you... I just hate being pasty & all of that artificial sunlight always gives me an endorphin boost. I listened to Temper Trap's Sweet Disposition on Pandora with my phone while tanning. This song always puts me in the best mood : ) I use Pandora everywhere- on my phone by the pool or on my computer in my room, anywhere music can be played.

For lunch I brought these packed eats to school:

Grilled zuchinni, sweet mustard, tofurky, soy cheese, and vegenaise, on ezekiel bread.

Sandwich hanging out next to a fuji apple.

Later on in the library I also had a luna lemon zest bar. This bar really seemed to lighten up the dark & dreary library.

By the time dinner rolled around I was ravenous. Decided to make this TJ's stir fry that has been hanging out in my fridge for way to long.

I beefed it up with TJ's chicken-less strips. I always buy these but rarely use them, I'm not sure why though because they were pretty tasty.

I switched up the sauce a bit because the sauce that comes with it usually is too sweet for my taste. In a blender I put 1/4 package silken tofu, miso paste, a splash of vegetable broth, and black bean and garlic sauce. It tasted awful at first so I gave in and added the packaged sauce to it. It was still a little off. Finally I added a bunch of sriracha and it tasted delish. Ohh sriracha how I love you.

Like my pretty plating?

I ate most of this even the though the package said 3 servings. What can I say? I was hungry. Hope you have had a great day.