Assorted vegan goodies

Just wanted to write about some of the yummy food that I've had lately, both homemade and store bought. First up is a wonderful vegan pizza that Den made for dinner a couple of weeks ago. This pizza was made on a wheat crust using Ragu spaghetti sauce and topped with mushrooms, olives, artichoke hearts and onions. Not only was it simple to make, it tasted fantastic!

Next is a loaf of vegan banana bread that I bought at Garden Cove ( a local natural foods store). It's always comforting to go to a store that as vegan options as well as nut-free options (since Den is allergic). The loaf was small in appearance but big on taste.

Tonight for dinner we had baked potatoes with Lightlife Smart BBQ and Tofutti Sour Cream-healthy and tasty. So there it is-three tasty vegan goodies I've have lately.

Thanksgiving in September

Lately, I've been thinking about what to eat for Thanksgiving and other holidays since I've recently became a vegan. While shopping at Foods for Life, a local natural foods store, we saw Tofurkey with stuffing and I decide to test it out. Den cooked the Tofurkey,yams and wild rice. Overall, Tofurky gets my seal of approval. It tasted good and I can definitely see myself having it for holiday dinners.

Some of the best chinese food in southern California

Recently, me and Den had to take a short trip to California to take care of some business. While we were tere, we had the opportunity to visit our favorite Chinese restuarant, Dragon House. What I love about Dragon House is that the restuarant has a separate vegetarian menu. Here's some pictures of the yummy food that we had when we went there. Just so you don't think me and Den were pigging, it was actually Me, Den, Den's Dad and Den's stepmom eating all this food at Dragon House.




This is a picture of Dragon House's Vegetarian Beef and Broccoli







The bowl up top contains vegetarian orange chicken while the bowl on the bottom contains vegetarian sweet and sour chicken.Although it was vegetarian, I asked the server whether or not it was vegan friendly and he said it was. Their food is always something I look forward to when we visit California.

Chocolate temptation then Chinese chicken & broccoli

Athough I've beeen doing pretty good with my new vegan lifestyle, there are some areas I'm still weak in such as when co-workers bring in chocolate candy from a trip overseas. I've had my moment of weakness and almost gave in but in the end, I stood my ground. Yay me! I'm doing my best to take it one day at a time and reassure myself that by not eating eggs or dairy, I am helping animals and not hurting them.

Last night Den made a tasty dinner of Chinese chicken and broccoli however since money's kinda tight right now, he cut up some veggie chicken nuggets rather than using Morningstar chike strips and instead of using regular white rice, he used a bag of pre-mixed rice and vegatables. Surprisingly, it was very filling and I told him he'll definitely have to make this again.

Labor Day weekend road trip

Today Den,my mom and I decided to take a road trip to Scottsboro and visit the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Unclaimed Baggage is a cool store in Scottsboro, Alabama where you can buy items that were found in luggage people have lost at airports. Every once in a while, you can find something good. Although I didn't find anything over there today, we did find some tasty food at an outdoor market a block away from the store so we went there after visiting Unclaimed Baggage.

Mom+ Funnel Cake=Love
The first booth we stopped at was selling funnel cakes and both me and Den were shocked when my mom told us she'd never had one before. While she was initially cautious about eating it (she thought the powdered sugar was a bit too much), she couldn't get enough of it.
The Pita of Yumminess
After we finished up the funnel cake, we decided that we need to find some lunch with a little more substance. Fortunately for us not too far from the funnel cake booth was a booth selling Greek food like gyros, homemade potato chips and kebabs. At that booth, I was able to pick up a veggie gyro or what I've nicknamed "the pita of yumminess" which you can see below. The veggie gyro has peppers, whole olives, cabbage, lettuce, and tomatoes which have been simmering in their own juices all day. It was extremely tasty!



Vegan Nachos for Dinner is a fiesta on my plate
After ending our road trip and taking mom home, it was dinner time for us and Den decided to make nachos. While he did miss cheese and sour cream at first, since he had other toppings like tomatoes,onions, olives, salsa and guacamole, he got over it and we had a great dinner. After all this eating today,I'm stuffed-happy but stuffed.

Great food all day

Lunch
Today I went out to lunch at Rosie's Mexican Cantina with my co-workers in honor of his birthday. Considering I hadn't been there before, I wanted to make sure I had a dairy free lunch and I'm happy I was able to eat out with friends and not feel out of place. The veggie fajitas were very filling since it was made up of carrots,mushrooms, onions, peppers, rice, beans and tortillas.

Dinner

Tonight for Dinner, Den decided to make me a childhood favorite of his as which was a reuben. Den had some convincing to do since the only thing I knew about a reuben was that the sandwich usually had sauerkraut on it and I can't stand the smell of sauerkraut. Den made the rubens by using Lightlife turkey,red wine vinegar and fajita onions and peppers. This was really good, especially once I put it on a hoagie roll and spread on some veganaise which is my new favorite sandwich spread.

My new Red Robin favorite-the Natural Burger

Me and Den were debating where to go out for dinner tonight and finally decided on Red Robin. Since I'm still new to veganism, I was kind stuck in reference to what choices were available for me to eat there. It's weird how I'm noticing the small things on menus now that I used to ignore before;it's like every Red Robin burger had either cheese, mayo, or both.

Initially I was going to order what I usually get which is the California Chicken Burger (subbed with Boca Burger) and request it without the cheese, mayo or bacon. After thinking it over for a few minutes, both Den ad I agreed that this would making the order process harder than it needed to be and suggested that I order the Natural Burger and add a side of guacamole since I love guacamole so much. Reading the contents of the Natural Burger on the menu, it seemed like a safe bet considering it contained neither cheese or mayo so I ordered it (subbed with Boca Burger) and hoped for the best.

Once my natural burger arrived,I immediately put all of fixings on the burger and took a big bite. Oh My God,it was fantastic! This was the perfect cure for my burger & fries craving and I'm definitely gonna order this the next time we eat at Red Robin. I was happy that had the option of either french fries or melon and that I was able to go out to eat with my husband and still leave the restaurant feeling full but not overly stuffed.