Warehouse Parties & Mimosas w/ Moo

Yesterday started out pretty normal with a big cup of coffee & an unpictured apple cranberry fiber mini-muffin. I ate it up before I could even think to grab my camera.

Spur of the moment I decided to drive up to Marina Del Ray and spend the day w/ Cami at her family's apartment. I mean who could resist this view?

We laid out and got our tan on. Cami's french bulldog Moo wanted to bronze w/ us too.

My lunch was not of the healthiest variety, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyways. Wheat thins & mimosas.

I let Moo snack on some wheat thins, we had to keep her away from the champagne though she can never seem to hold her alcohol!

After tanning all day Cam & I got ready and headed over to our friend Jared's house in Hollywood. We were both starved (wheat thins are not the most filling lunch), so we headed to the nearest restaurant- Sushi Kingz. Jared forewarned us that the sushi was sketchy; I believe he described the restaurant as looking like Christian Audiger's baby. This was a very apt description- the walls were adorned w/ Ed Hardyesque dragons, clubbing music was blaring, and we sat in enormous, gaudy gold chairs w/ velvet upholstery.

The meal started out w/ edamame.

I had the vegetable roll which was just average.

Afterwards we drove into downtown LA for a birthday party in this enormous warehouse that some of Jared's friends live in. Cami and I were unaware that the theme was 'tribal'- oops.

At first Cami and I were the only ones dancing, but by the end of the night everyone was on the dance floor.

Such a fun night. My camera ended up dying so I wasn't able to snap a picture of the veggie sandwich on flatbread that I ate at 3:30AM. We were so happy when we found a 24 hr Subway on the drive home.

By the time Cami & I were up and ready this morning it was lunchtime so Cam took me to this restaurant in Marina del Rey that she has been raving about- Mercede's Grill. We sat outside in the sunshine & downed ice coffees w/ soy milk. Both of us ordered the grilled vegetable tostada- I had mine w/ out cheese & w/ tofu.

This salad was INSANE, one of my all time favorite salads which says a lot considering that I eat salads all of the time. The tofu was really flavorful; it was marinated in this spicy/sweet cuban style sauce. There were a ton of grilled veggies including asparagus, corn, zucchini, along with 1/2 avocado on top of chopped romaine lettuce. Underneath there was a crispy flour tostada w/ black beans, pico de gallo, and white rice. The salad doesn't even need dressing, but the dressing was amazing it was served w/ the house vinaigrette & pesto jalapeno sauce. YUM.

Lunch was a bit pricey ($50 for both of us), but the waitress let us know that salads are 1/2 off if you come between 1-2 Mon-Fri.

Before driving home I stopped by Starbucks and grabbed a soy strawberry & creme frappuccino.

I'm a total sucker for Starbucks' advertising campaign right now, I never order frappuccinos but the ads lately have just stuck in my mind. I tried to order the vanilla bean one w/ soy, but the lady making it let me know that it's not actually dairy free because the powder they use has dairy in it. The strawberries and creme one though has a sugar base and is vegan. It was pretty delicious- tasted like a strawberry milk shake.

Dinner was nice and simple- steamed baby carrots, cauliflower, broccoli w/ hummus, BBQ, and mango chutney. On the side I had 100 calorie wheat roll thingy.

Back to the Bu Just in Time for Finals

It looks like I caught a bit of a cold on the the flight back from Cancun, which is a bummer especially considering that I have finals this week and will posted up in a cubicle in the library studying. Get ready to see lots of pictures of food taken in the wooden box which will become my 'home away from home' until this Thursday.

Breakfast over the past 2 days has been pretty standard. Nothing new here, just Luna Bars and Ice Coffee.

After being deprived of vegetables in Cancun, I was craving veggies like no other. I headed to the cafe at school and grabbed all of the veggies that they had at the salad bar and piled them up on my tray.

Buried underneath was spinach and on top were shredded carrots, tomatoes, corn, chick peas, raw broccoli, and sun flower seeds. I doused all of this is BBQ sauce.

After studying for awhile I munched on some on Stacey's pita chips and had a diet coke.

Cami brought me this enormous Subway sandwich for dinner while I was studying, which led to a fit of giggles for about 30 minutes as I attempted to eat this monster. It included 12 inches of omega 3 bread w/ spinach, tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, pickles, and olives w/ lots of sweet onion sauce and honey mustard.

I woke up today with the worse headache ever, and went straight to the pharmacy to get some meds so that I could last through the day. I also stopped by the Vitamin Barn and had an immunity shot which is made of ginger, garlic, and lots of other things that are good for your immune system. It tastes terrible, but it works miracles. For lunch I made Tj's carrot ginger soup w/ a piece of ezekiel bread w/ lots of earth balance spread on top. I wish I could say that this was really delicious, but my taste buds are totally shot.

I stopped by the Jamba Juice on campus and had them make me a dairy free cold buster smoothie. The library has also been feeding my crack (coffee) addiction by providing free coffee during finals week.

After I came home from taking my first final (in public speaking class, I think I did pretty well), I made some banana nut muffins and caesar salad dressing for the picnic that my advanced research class in having tomorrow. It is so nice just turning in a paper rather than having to take a final.

Caesar salad dressing from Real Food Daily cookbook.

I made up my own recipe for the muffins.

Banana Nut Muffins

1 ¾ whole wheat flour

1 ¼ Splenda brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon allspice

2 ripe large bananas

1 tablespoon soy yogurt

½ cup almond soy milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin tins with spray on oil. Sift together dry ingredients (flour through allspice). In a separate bowl, mash bananas and then mix in wet ingredients (soy yogurt through vanilla). Pour wet into dry and combine. Mix in walnuts. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way. Bake for 15 minutes. Makes about 15.

Tada!

I really have no appetite right now since I'm sick so I just had 2 of these muffins for dinner w/ earth balance, and from what I can tell they seemed pretty good. I'll let you know what my class thinks of them.

La Biblioteca

Today's eats were a little boring, lo siento. Woke up this morning and took my sisters down to the local cafe, Cafe Vienna. I always go here with the fam when I'm home they serve a great breakfast. I had the Samba bowl which is an acai smoothie topped w/ muesli and strawberries. It was really delish, really filling though I was only able to finish half.

Afterwards I drove back up to Malibu to get cracking on some HW- only 2 more weeks left of school! Yey! Time to start studying for finals : / I stopped by subway and got a sandwich.

Veggie sandwich on omega 3 bread w/ mustard, sweet onion sauce, cucumbers, onions, pickles, tomatoes, lots of jalapenos, spinach & olives.

Me being a dork in the library, looks like i'm trying to hide my face w/ the sandwich haha.

Cami brought me a coffee too to keep me going.They spelled her name right!

I had a little study break and ventured to the cafe (the cafeteria on campus). Vegan options were incredibly limited. I had literally the only vegan option in the entire place which was a stir fry with tofu and rice. It was pretty mediocre, too much oily sauce and not enough veggies.

I was able to finish a lot of work by the time Chapter rolled around at 8. Tonight was our sorority's last meeting of the year, I was sad to see a lot of the seniors go especially my roomie Erin I have lived with for the past 2 years : ( I'm sure she has a great future ahead of her though.

Spice up your Life

I woke up yesterday exhausted and guzzled down lots of unpictured coffee before I dived into a bowl of oats. Not the prettiest picture I know, but I swear every bite was delicious.

1/3 cup oats, 1/2 very browning banana, and a scoop of almond butter.

I was in such a rush to get to class to present my speech that I had no time to make myself a packed lunch, so later I stopped by my favorite place for a quick and easy sandwich, Subway!

I was excited to see that they introduced a new Omega 3 fortified bread, I tried it and it was really great- it tasted more wholesome compared to the regular whole wheat bread. In the sando was avocado, spinach, pickles, olives, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, mustard, LOTS of jalapenos, and doused in sweet onion sauce. I also had a diet coke bigger than the size of my head.

Later in the day I tried a new the Odwalla super food bar. It was a little weird eating a green bar especially because none of the ingredients in it were green themselves (mostly dates)- odd I know. It was way better than other Odwalla bars that I have tried.

My dinner was more like a snack because I knew I would be going out to Cantina later which meant I would be consuming lots of tortilla chips. I had 1/2 cup brown rice with some of TJ's grilled zucchini and eggplant on top.

That night I decided to go out and celebrate getting a 96% on my speech paying tribute to the sixties! I was a little nervous about it because my teacher is a preacher, and the slide show I used had pictures of topless hippies and talked about the drug & sex revolution. It seems he didn't mind though and gave me an A. I embraced the sixties spirit that night and wore a head band and flowered platforms to Cantina, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in Malibu.

We had lots of tortilla chips & salsa, with guacamole which didn't make it into the picture.

I also had a couple of blended Margaritas.

Afterwards we went to Spumoni's, this little Italian restaurant with a bar and sang some Karokee. In true Snackface fashion Cami and I belted out Spice Girls and took silly pictures. Didn't realize my brassiere was showing this much- oops!

When I got home late that night I had did some snacking.... I poured out waaay too much BBQ sauce. This is a crazy soy nugget/BBQ ratio.