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!

James' 21st Birthday!

Special K vanilla almond cereal w/ 1/2 sliced banana & soy milk. So good.

With a long black coffee from the Paddington Grind. Like my shoes? ; )

I grabbed a quick bite from the food court at the Westfield mall in Maroubra where we were busy buying some last minute things for James' birthday party. This yummy salad from Sumo Salad gave me the energy I needed to blow up all 150 balloons. Whew.

A hodge podge of sorts. Mixed greens w/ corn, tomato, carrots, chickpeas, avocado & pumpkin w/ balsamic vinaigrette, a bread roll, & a diet coke.

At James' party there was a ton of food. I only got a pic of some of the appetizers including brie & crackers, hummus, guacamole, quiche, & spanakopita. For dinner there were unpictured kebabs, sausages, & lots of salads.

For dessert there was the healthy option of a big fruit salad...

& James' amazing birthday cake that his aunty had made for him. This cake was insane! I love the surfer. It was made by Chris at Cake Occasions.

It was such an amazing night. James' sister & I made a slide show of photos and videos of James' throughout his life, and some of his friends and best mates (along with me) gave speeches.

A million drinking songs later this cute couple from the beginning of the night turned into....

girlfriend taking care of a very wasted boyfriend. Poor James was more trashed than he has ever been in his entire life. I guess that's what 21st birthday parties are for. Interesting fact: the dress I was wearing was James' moms from about 20 years ago.

After sleeping in super late at James' parents house, we made it back to Paddington where I grabbed a soy long black w/ honey from The Grind.

We lucked out & there were tons of leftovers from the party so lunch was as easy as warming up some roasted vegetables & adding the usual hummus & BBQ sauce.

Even though it was James' birthday I was spoiled & received a gift from friend and fellow blogger Winnecke. She works at a bakery, Sonoma, and after reading my blog and seeing how much I love grains she gifted me some of their muesli.

For dinner I had a bit of both the honey & breakfast spice and spelt maple & almond cooked w/ soy milk. I think I died and went to heaven this muesli was so delicious, it won't last long. Thanks Winnecke!

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!

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.

Pub Food & Pokies

Last night James and I headed to the local pub across the street to have some dinner. I had the hummus & bread appetizer as my main. James had chicken schnitzel w/ chips which he eats for almost all of his meals.

Then we played the pokies (slot machines) & drank some beer (I had Stella my favorite).

By the end of the night I had won $20 bucks : ) I was really happy since I never play the pokies & only do 20 cent hits when I do, never expecting to win. That hummus appetizer was not enough for dinner so James & I gave into our cravings & ordered a bowl of chips. It was enormous! We almost split the whole thing though because we are such piglets. French fries are my one of my biggest vices.

This morning James went into the city and brought me back a Starbucks. I was soo stoked, I have been craving an ice coffee like no other. I think they have switched the Australian sizes around though because there was no way that this was a venti, and they didn't have sugar free hazelnut either. Tsk tsk Australia, you should know us Americans need ridiculous amount of coffee to get through the day.

With my coffee I had a big hunk of fruit bread from a loaf that our friend who works at a bakery gave us the other day. Mmm there is nothing like fresh bread, I have been slowly working on this loaf. Of course I topped mine with lots of vegemite.

We studied all day at the UNSW library & went to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat. Their cafeteria is so much better than the one at my University. There are so many more options. I decided on a vegetable wrap w/ spinach, grilled capiscum (bell pepper), pumpkin, and eggplant.

I needed some more caffeine to get my through the day so I had a soy latte a bit later.

For dinner I finally ate at home for once, can you believe it? I have been eating out for every meal since I have arrived. I heated up some organic pumpkin soup w/ ginger....

& more fruit bread. I finished off the rest of the loaf after I finished the soup. How could I resist that carbage?