Feeling fruity

I've been a bit behind in blogging because quite frankly I've been busy living life (more like planning James's birthday). I'll let the photos do the talking.

Coffee as usual willing me to memorize flash cards

My beloved Starbucks in all sizes @ Darling Harbour

The Australian version of Starbucks; Gloria Jeans. Thank god for their 'American sizes'.

I tried overnight soaked oats in jar & even though I added less liquid this time they were still watery. It looks like pure PB in this pic. No complaints w/ that one.

1/2 cup oats, 3/4 cup soy milk, 1 tbs honey in a peanut butter jar.

Lately I've been feeling a bit fruit in the form of fruit salad...

and fermented grapes ; )

Go Australia! Sadly we're out of the World Cup now, the US is still going strong though.

Of course I've been eating salads too...

Mixed greens w/ tomato, peas, carrots, corn, chickpeas, cucumber, & tofu 2/ spicy tofu dressing.

Carrot & chickpea salad 2/ sultanas (raisins) & an almost barbequey sauce & a couple of chickpea falafels on the side.

The 24th was James' 21st birthday so I took him into the city to go to one of our favorite restaurants Zaafran. I had the mixed vegetables w/ spicy pumpkin sauce & James had the beef vindaloo.

Delicious, but sooooooo spicy even for me & I'm the queen of spicy food.

We also split the saffron rice...

and garlic naan.

Happy Birthday!!

That night we went to his parents house & had unpictured Chinese food. I did get a pic of the chocolate mouse cake.

Tomorrow is his big 21st bday party. We're expecting about 100 people, it should be lots of fun. Expect plenty of drunken photos!

Jenga!

You may have noticed that I changed the title of my blog. Originally I named my blog what I thought was the french version of "the little carrot", which mainly stemmed from the fact that I thought it was a cute name & I love vegetables. Maybe I should have stuck w/ a language that I do know more about though, like English or Spanish, because although I lived in France at one point in my life, my grasp of the French language is close to nothing. I have not changed my domain name though, just the title at the top which I hope is correct. If it is not please let me know.

I was sooo happy when my boyfriend brought me a coffee from Starbucks today. He said that the woman working there did not understand what an iced coffee was and kept telling him that they only had an iced soy latte or a frappucino. Filtered coffee please not espresso. I'm not completely crazy, on the Australian Starbucks website they say that they offer 'iced shaken coffee'. Nevertheless I was still happy to have some caffeine.

The toaster is broken so I ate an non-toasted English muffin w/ crunchy peanut butter & honey for brekkie. I know that honey is not considered 'vegan', but I do not exclude it from my diet. I understand why many vegans object to eating honey, but I am not 100% vegan all of the time (more like 95%)... I adapt my dietary needs to my lifestyle. Plus, my primary reason for eating vegan is because of health & a general discomfort w/ eating animals... combined w/ not wanting to support the dairy & meat industries considering the way that they are currently run in America.

For lunch I grabbed a salad at the UNSW cafeteria. My salad included mixed greens w/ peas, corn, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, avocado, tofu, & pumpkin w/ balsamic vinaigrette & a piece of french bread on the side. There are sooo many options at this salad bar that I get overwhelmed when the server asks me what 7 toppings that I want; i always end up w/ a hodge podge of things.

Surprise, surprise I grabbed another coffee later on. This time I tried something a little new, an orange soy latte. It was pretty tasty & I found a little orange peel at the bottom of my cup.

For dinner I had some of last night's leftovers w/ BBQ & hummus paired w/ Promised Land Chardonnay. I just got into reading a blog about women drinking & have found it really interesting; they present a wide range of views about women drinking and have a lot of interesting contributers. I would recommend checking their blog out.

James & I have been dying to play Jenga lately so we finally stole his family's 'Jenga Xtreme' set. What ever happened to regular Jenga? Most of our time was spend just putting this complicated thing together. I knocked it over every time, oops!

Green Gourmet

Get ready for one amazing day of eating. Breakfast started off w/ the usual soy hazelnut latte from the Paddington Grind along w/ a couple of yesterday's peanut butter banana cookies.

I met James on his lunch break & we went to the local Paddington Fresh foods which has a little grocery store, a deli, and a cafe. As the name implies they have amazing fresh foods.

I opted for this wrap...

Delicious! Despite hunger pangs in the afternoon I held off until dinner because James & I had a little date planned in Newtown. We went to this restaurant Green Gourmet that I have been dying to try. They have a 100% vegan Chinese restaurant along w/ a grocery store next door, Vegan's Choice. Even though I am not the biggest fan of Chinese food when I read their creative menu I knew I would have to go check it out. First we looked next door at the grocery...

they had homemade soy ice cream...

& lots of other vegan desserts including pretty cupcakes & brownies.

I was overwhelmed by the menu; 118 choices, all vegan, can you believe it?

I went to the buffet to try a bit of everything. The prices were really good too, $2.40 AU for 100 grams, I ended up spending $13.40 on my meal (about $11.30 US).

On my plate there was- steamed vegetable bun, steamed whole wheat BBQ not pork bun, steamed pumpkin cake, soy drumstick, steam chao zhou dumpling, sticky rice, BBQ King Roast 'Pork', sweet & sour pan fried nori tofu roll, crisp not chicken w/ shangtung sauce.... at least that is what I think was what was on my plate, I'm sure there was other stuff too. I was in heaven!! Everything was so good especially for 'mock' meat which normally freaks me out a bit. My boyfriend too was blown away, he swore that the 'pork' dumplings tasted like the real deal (he is part Chinese too so he knows his stuff).

They also had great tea. We just had what they gave us but they also had lots of other options on the menu. FYI the service was seriously lacking we had to wave down the servers, but the food made up for it. .

Even though I was more stuffed than I have been in ages we had to try some of the dessert. We had the organic raw chocolate & strawberry 'cheesecake' w/ homemade vanilla soy ice cream. I didn't eat much of the cake because I don't like chocolate but James loved it. The ice cream was amazing though, different than regular ice cream.... dare I say almost chewy?

The highlight of the meal were these adorable steam vegan custard coconut dumplings. The epitome of deliciousness. Crunchy coconut on the outside w/ chewy dough & gooey sweet custard on the the inside. I saved one to bring home.

In the end our whole meal w/ 2 desserts was only $45 AU which is amazing especially for Sydney. After having to be rolled out by the waiters because we were so stuffed our night ended w/ a couple of movies (Julie & Julia and A Serious Man) & some chardonnay for me & Cooper's Green for James.

Loved this new wine, Andrew Harris Highfields Chardonnay .I like trying local Australian wines while I'm here visiting.

I'm already looking forward to my next visit to Green Gourmet, I've heard they have great Yum Cha during the weekends ; )

Venice Beach

I had to wake up super early this AM and drive to the Chatsworth courthouse to take care of a speeding ticket that I missed my previous court date for. So frustrating. It was my first ticket ever & I didn't realize that they don't send you any information in the mail about your court date. Luckily I was able to get traffic school & 45 hours of community service rather than having to pay the exorbitant fee.

I decided to have a hot coffee instead of iced to last me on the drive up.

Venti coffee w/ sf hazelnut & a splash of soy.

Afterwards after spending far too much time waiting in lines at the courthouse my mom and I were ready to get the heck out of there. I dragged my mom to check out my new favorite restaurant Mercedes Grille in Marina del Rey and Cami joined us too.

We ordered mimosas w/ our meal.

Sometimes I am really a creature of habit, and even though I ordered this salad the other day I had to have it again.It is insanely delicious!

Grilled Vegetable Tostada Salad w/ marinated tofu and no cheese.

When we were finished with lunch and said farewell to mi madre, Cami and I decided to work off our lunch by renting beach cruisers and taking a bike ride from Marina del Rey, to Venice, and then Santa Monica.

When we got to the Santa Monica Pier we stopped off at the Coffee Bean and I ordered a large ice coffee w/ soy milk. I love the Coffee Bean, it's a bummer though that all of the powders they use in their drinks are dairy based, otherwise I would frequent here more often.

At the pier we enjoyed the people watching and scenery.

We acted like little kids in the arcade after I kicked Cami's butt at air hockey (one of my favorite games).

Eventually we made it back to Laguna despite the Memorial Day traffic, and I arrived home just in time for dinner. The family was BBQing for my little sister Summer and her girlfriends (think lots of screaming little girls & blaring Keisha i.e madness), so I had to fend for dinner on my own.

I tried a new hummus from Costco; organic basil & sundried tomatoes- this tub is enormous!

I paired the hummus w/ a mixed green salad w/ shredded carrots & raw corn, some cous cous

from Costco too, and a hundred calorie whole wheat roll (w/ some BBQ sauce on the side).

This hummus was pretty good, the calories compared to other hummus was not too shabby either. The couscous was definitely the best part of the meal though. I loved how there were big pieces of couscous (compared to little ones), olives, and bell peppers. Yum!

Later Raveena came over and we enjoyed some Chardonnay & strawberries for dessert as we watched the crazies on the Real Housewives of NY and chatted it up.

Days like today make me realize just how lucky I am to live and go to school in the LA area (I know Malibu is on the outskirts but it still counts). There is nothing more fun than exploring your own neighborhood, and no matter how many times you have seen it before you will always notice some new quirk that you had overlooked. The bright graffiti, crazy characters, and chaos of Venice Beach as well as the charm of the Santa Monica Pier will never get old.