Vegan Eats in Asheville, North Carolina

It's been a while since I've written but I'm back with pictures of the fantastic food I had while on a girl's trip to Asheville, North Carolina with my best friend Keesha. We had a wonderful time touring the Biltmore Estate and we also enjoyed eating great food. Although Keesha isn't vegan or even vegetarian, she was a good sport by eating at a vegan restaurant with me. This first pic shows what I ate when we went to Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria which was a spinach salad and a sub with teriyaki marinated tofu, olives, mushrooms, and atichoke hearts. It was healthy as well as really tasty.
This next picture shows what I ate when we went to Rosetta's Kitchen, a great vegan restaurant in Asheville. I ordered a portobello swiss melt without the swiss, added avocado slices had some sweet potato fries and a side of vegan mac and cheese which was made with nutritional yeast. It was really yummy!

After my sandwich, I was still hungry and craving something sweet so I decided to have a slice of their chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. After my first bite of the cake I felt like I died and went to vegan cake heaven!

The next day, we went to tour the Biltmore Estate and afterwards, we went shopping in downtown Asheville.I had read online about this great chocolate shop called French Broad Chocolate Lounge that had vegan truffles. We stopped by there and I bought this chocolate balsamic truffle.

Mmmmmmm.....this was one tasty truffle! Here's a shot right after I bit into the chocolatey goodness. I would normally pair chocolate and balsamic vingear together but it was surprisingly good. Great trip and great food-you can't beat that!

Vegan Gumbo or there's a first time for everything

Tonight Den decided to try his hand at making vegan gumbo. In order to make the gumbo, he used Bayouland Magic gumbo mix and then he added okra, carrots, corn, green beans and cut up pieces of tofukey tomato and basil vegan bratwurst. Although I've never eaten gumbo before, since Den usually makes great meals, I decided to give the gumbo a try. Here's a picture of the gumbo right after Den combined all of theigredients.

Below is a picture of the gumbo served on a bed of white rice. Overall, I liked the gumbo because it was spicy but not too hot. While the gumbo was good, I didn't really like the okra in the gumbo at all, the taste and texture didn't really feel quite right in my mouth.Other than the okra, the gumbo was great.

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.