Chocolate Chip Pancake Recipe Review

So when I was young, my dad would make Sunday breakfast. There would be pancakes, eggs, bacon or sausage, and fried potatoes. It was always a joy, and I look back on those memories fondly.

Red Lentil Stew Recipe Review

Red Lentil and Vegetable Stew (I believe it’s stew)

Lemon Pepper Chickpea Salad Recipe Review

Lemon Pepper Chickpea Salad

RECIPES for EVERYTHING #5

SCONES!!!! Have you ever made them? I haven’t! So lets see how this goes.

RECIPES for EVERYTHING #4

A Kind of Black Bean Soup (recipe un-named)
Recipe at the bottom

So after a long night at the shop, I drove over to my local Kroger and picked up like 3 things I was missing for this EASY soup! Seriously! I saved some awesome recipes from like 3-4 years ago. HAHAHA!

RECIPES for EVERYTHING #3

Veggie Kabob’s!

By far super easy! I bought more of the veggies that I liked in the recipe. So lots of mushrooms and onions! I did a very small amount of shopping for this recipe, and luckily we had bamboo skews laying around… I have no idea where they came from.

RECIPES for EVERYTHING #2

So this week I made a type of soup, prefect for a cold night filled with friends and good drinks. I believe I got this recipe off a PETA email, back when I used to get them. This soup so super easy to make and turned out pretty good, despite the mix ups I made.

RECIPES for EVERYTHING #1

That title is misleading….

So I’m starting to get back into making dinner again, with that I’ve noticed I hoard a lot of recipes…. From emails, to
Pinterest, magazines, ebooks, and anything I could get for free. I really want to clean out my computer of all these recipes. So I noticed on my desktop a folder labeled RECIPES for EVERYTHING. I have no idea how long it’s been there or what’s in it but it’s a good place to start.

So today we have stuffed mushrooms made vegan.

I changed somethings just because I’m lazy and poor, plus I just wanted to shop one place and not a million. Especially at 7am. Here’s the random snap shot I took (this is before I figured out how to put stuff on Pinterest).

So I didn’t have reduced-fat balsamic vinaigrette (didn’t even know there was fat in that), so I used this small bottle of balsamic vinegar from Old World Olive Press. My aunt gave it to me and I had no idea how I was gonna use it. But as bacon would be used I figured the “breakfast” theme was gonna be good.

So I went to Meijer and they didn’t have any good vegan “bacon”. Only the SmartLife brand and I HATE that brand. So I went with the Field Roast Breakfast Sausages, which by the way are AMAZING! I also have not seen any type of vegan spreadable cheese, so I skipped that. And the only vegan cheese Meijer had was Go Veggie, and they only had the Mexican blend. I wanted a Mozzarella style but beggars can’t be choosers. I did however add minced garlic to add the garlic part of the “garlic and herbs”. Adding to the things I changed, instead of plain bread crumbs I used Panko crumbs Japanese style. That’s just what I had in the house and I believe them to be the same in ways. I also used dried parsley, because I have a bunch of it. 

While I was cooking, the kitchen smelled of amazing maple syrup! It was just so very magical, between the mushroom caps in the oven and the sausages in the pan. To say the least I was excited to see how these would turn out.

I had some asparagus chilling in the fridge, so I boiled that up and put some Earth Balance (vegan butter) on it. That sided nicely, and just as I was finishing up Tom came home from work. 

The meal turned out really good, and prepping all those mushroom caps was well worth it. Can’t wait to see what I make next! 

Have you cooked anything tasty lately? 

Saved Pages of Mine #6

You could lay around like Buster here, or look at some of my saved pages!

Saved Pages of Mine #4

Before you head out today, take a sit and have a look at my pages.

Saved Pages of Mine #3

If you’re not out driving around, you should check out my pages.

Homemade Vegan Banana Chocolate Ice Cream

I know it's still cold outside, buuutttttt........ Ice cream is awesome. I actually made this a long time ago, before all these awesome vegan ice creams started popping up every where. About 2 or 3 years ago, and I thought I was soooo cool! I thought I was some type of vegan superhero fairy! I had make myself ice cream! Ice cream I haven’t had in years! It was a good night, a night where I was victorious! If a healthy cheap fix if what your looking for, then you should probably make this recipe!
But if you don't want to make ice cream and want to go out and grab a quart, pint, or bar I can recommend a couple brands!

- So Delicious
- Purely Decadent
- Rice Dream
- Almond Dream

New Years 2014 and Resolutions

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a safe and fun time, I know Tom and I did. Now for the past 2 posts I'd been complaining about how I needed to figure out what food to bring to my friends new years party. Well I figured it out! Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Twirls!!

Vegan Sweet Potato Perogies

So earlier this week or later last week.... hmmm 

Well I'm on vacation so my days blend together. haha! You all know the feeling. 

Always, so I found a recipe for Sweet Potato Perogies! Recipe  

I already had the mashed up sweet potatoes from Tom's mom, and really needed to use it before it went bad. So having this come in my email was perfect timing. 

hmmmmm sexy food shot

Monthly Cleaning and Christmas and Promises

Trying to mark the beginning of the new year with hope and new possibilities. Wanting to start planning things more seriously, and making more manageable goals. This year will be the year I do better! I WILL BE BETTER!!! 

And with that start I suggest to anyone wanting to new cleaning schedule to check Strawberry Mommycakes website for maintaining a clean home. LINK
She has a nice pretty FREE printable for anyone that wants to print it out. But for me.. I lack pretty colors in my printer so I wrote all the tasks down in my planner, it also ran off into my next year's planner. I'm going to try my hardest to keep to it! I'm going to try my hardest to not get distracted and not procrastinate! And not be lazy and unmotivated! I'm serious when I say I will try my best, this new year I will be better then this year. And I'm going to try my hardest to stick to that promise.

My planner is falling apart! Can't wait to use my new one!  :) 

Christmas was lots of fun this year, but of course there were the ups and downs of the day.

Things I Eat

As a vegan, I look up lots of tasty recipes to make and eat. Most vegan food pictures look amazing! Which is awesome! Makes me want to make amazing food like that even more. But what do you do when your just a normal person? Not a fancy food guru, not a master chef, not some stay at home Betty Crocker.

Just a normal everyday person.

Since I still live at home, and pretty much act like a locust when dad buys fresh produce. And I usually just concentrate on lunches and snacks. Work is where I am more then half of my day.

So here are some things I eat!

Rice with some sautéed veggies 

Spiced rice, veggies, tortillas 

Veggies, soup, fruit

Oatmeal with brown sugar and apples, with coffee

Nachos with anything I can find and salsa

And sometimes when I'm lucky, I get men to cook for me!

And there you have it! Just a slice in the food life of this vegan. Maybe once I get my own place I'll be able to plan a little bit more with my menu. 

But for now, I am content. 

So how do you eat?  

Why Tea is just THAT amazing!

That's yummy beet sugar on the bottom!

I like tea, sadly it's not my "go to" drink(I prefer coffee). But hope I can change some of that this summer. I started prepping my tea early in the week, and I'll put it in mason jars. So now when I open my fridge, I don't just have "milk" or some type of juice(I'm not a big juice person unless I do it myself/organic). I have teas ready to go, and I can either drink they cold or warm them up! So that gives me time to do other things besides waiting for my tea to set. 

Now I'm sure we all know that there are benefits to drinking tea, health and beauty wise. Come on ladies we all know we want to look fabulous! I know I do, and drinking more tea will give you those wonderful benefits. One cup at a time! 

So lets get started on health! 

Green Tea 

• Has dietary ingredients for younger looking skin, hair and nails. 
• Powerful Antioxidants that help fight against bladder,breast, lung, stomach, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers! 
• Helps you relax, burn fat, and fights against nerve disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. 
• Also great for your heart! 

Black Tea

• Highest caffeine count! (may be a good replacement for coffee hmmmm)
• Helps protect lungs from second hand smoke
• Also good for you heart! 

White Tea

• Has the most potent anticancer properties! 
• Also delicious!

Oolong Tea

• Lowers cholesterol (drink enough of this you might be able to kiss those cholesterol pills goodbye!)

Pu-erh Tea

• Type of black tea, but pressed into cakes
• Less weight gain
• Lowers cholesterol

Facts!

• Tea can boost exercise endurance!
• Tea is great for hydrating the body! (please stay away from the soda/pop this summer! Well not give you that wonderful summer shine and luster)

Things to do with tea (that isn't drinking it)

• Reduce Razor Burn!: Apply wet tea bag over affected area and then replace that razor blade, because it did a horrible job at being awesome.
• Smelly Feet!: Give them smelly toes a daily tea bath, your feet with love you forever! Just make sure it's strongly brewed tea and that you let your feet relax in it's nice special bath for 20 minutes! (Light some candles and play some soft music while your at it)
• Plants!: Use new or used tea and sprinkle around rosebushes for a midsummer boost! Cover with dirt or mulch to hide the tea from hungry animals. When you water the roses the nutrients will help the roses grow. Roses love tannic acid that comes from the tea.
• Eyes!: Of course everyone knows this one, but in case you don't. Your skin around your eyes loves tea and all the wonders within it! So get some wet tea bags warm/cold and place on your closed eyes for 20 minutes! Your eyes will feel refreshed and will also help with any bags under the eye area. 

My friend Ashley lllooooovvveeesss tea! LOOK HOW MUCH SHE HAS!!! She's like her own little tea store! She also introduced me to beet sugar! I had no idea what it was, but it's yummy and better for you then normal white sugar(which isn't vegan anyway). But there you have it! The wonders of tea! 

                    What are your favorite types? I personally love fruity teas or  floral teas.    

Apple and Berry Scented Quinoa and Macrobiotic Vegan Diets

Been looking into some new vegan recipes to test! This is a really yummy breakfast or snack! My boyfriends mom recently showed me a chef named Christina, you can find her here -----> Website

She's a vegan chef and a cancer survivor and super funny.

My diet recently started going down hill, to keep this long story short. My diet consisted of white rice and rice products. Here's a break down of my meals for a day, and that lasted maybe 3 weeks. 

-Breakfast-

Some type of rice cereal with rice milk

Coffee with raw sugar and rice milk

-Lunch-

Large amount of rice with a side of some kind of veggie

Maybe a small bag of potato chips

-Dinner-

Some type of Enriched Noodle w/ sauce 

And that made me bloated and now my skin is all broken out with acne. Lovely stuff happening here.

So I looked into the diet Christina cooks for, which is a Macrobiotic Vegan Diet. 

You can learn about all the different diets here --> Website

You can learn about the Macrobiotic Vegan Diet here --> Website

I figured I need to fix what I'm doing to myself and really eat foods for a reason, and not just because it's food. 

Because one find I've found out being a vegan for about a year or two, is that. Just because your a vegan doesn't mean your healthy. I was between being a junk food vegan, and then just eating what I could get my hands on without spending money. 

That didn't help, all I ate was rice and whatever was in my parents kitchen. Which wasn't catering to my nutritional needs. 

So I'm once again trying to redeem myself (this isn't the first time) and hopefully this time it all works out for the best. 

Check out the recipe for the Apple and Berry Scented Quinoa here --> Recipe 

This was my first time using quinoa, and I was surprised it took so long to cook. But it was worth it! Soooo good in that apple juice! And I also splurged on some fresh blueberries and raspberries! $4.00 for each pint...you bet I bit that bullet. And I bought all I could organic, it was a bit more then I thought it would be. But I figure if I eat right now when I'm young, it'll buy off in the future. 

Hope you enjoy this light and refreshing breakfast! 

And if you're interest in some other breakfast ideas, I have you covered!

Cranberry and Chocolate Scones

Banana Almond Oatmeal

Mixed Fruit (goodness this is a old one)