Another Day, Another Dollar

At least today is Saturday though! That means I just have to work half day, and I have no SCARShelter trips that I need to make after I get off work here. Hurray!

Muesli for breakfast again. I took a picture this time before I mixed everything together.

1 cup organic uncooked oats

1 cup coconut milk

1 Tbsp organic hemp protein

2 Tbsp shredded coconut

2 Tbsp chia

1/4 cup organic raisins

1 Tbsp cinnamon

Drizzle of organic honey

Questions for all you vegans out there. What are your thoughts on honey? Should we or should we not eat it? Since becoming a vegan, I never ate honey until my vegetarian friend sent me some in the mail. She said it was from a lady who had a small business there and the honey was organic. I don't agree with bee factory farming as I don't agree with factory farming for any other type of animal. From what I have researched online, I learned that in most large bee businesses that they kill the queen bee every two years. The normal lifespan of a queen bee can be up to 5 years. I read all of this HERE. I don't know. I think that if their are so many different sweeteners out there, then we should probably use those. What do you guys think?

Moving on...here is my bennings tint squash flowering nicely in the rain and my Manoa lettuce is loving this rain.

Am I obsessed with my plants? Maybe. I love these beautiful bright flowers coming out of my squash plant!

Sonic just chilling outside watching me water my plants. I think he has just woke up in this picture.

Review: Coconut Bliss

I was so excited when Kiley at Coconut Bliss decided to sent me a coupon to pick out a free pint of coconut milk ice cream. I went to Down to Earth, which is the closest place near me that sells Coconut Bliss, to pick out my flavor. The only two they had available were Cappuccino and Vanilla Island. I love coffee so I went with the Cappuccino flavor.

Oh my heavens! Coconut Bliss how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! First of all let me say that Coconut Bliss makes organic, non-GMO ice cream. Their coconuts come directly from a certified organic grower in Thailand. They also use agave as their sweetener which is awesome news for diabetics like my dad and husband! This cappuccino flavor was amazing! They also make lots of other flavors such as Cherry Amaretto, Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge and their newest addition of Mint Galactica.

Coconut Bliss makes such creamy, rich ice cream. It's amazingly smooth and has a flavor all its own. It is BY FAR my favorite ice cream of all time. No other vegan brands can come close in comparison to them. I love to eat it alone, because it does not need anything on it to make it better. Just to change it up though, I added some vegan chocolate syrup and cherries on top. Yum!

Please note, Coconut Bliss donated these coupons to me. I was not paid for this review. Click HERE to check out their blogspot!

Zucchini spring rolls

Hello all! This morning for breakfast I made a smoothie. Surprised? Today's smoothie included the following ingredients:

1 cup organic blueberries

1 cup organic spinach

1 organic banana

1/2 an avocado (the last of my avocado..sniff, sniff )

Chia

Maca powder

Organic hemp protein

Coconut milk, enough to blend

So I looked in my fridge this morning to see what I had to work with. As far as veggies go, I had half an avocado, frozen organic spinach, half a zucchini, and a lot of organic baby carrots. Seeing as I already used the avocado in my smoothie this morning, that was one less ingredient. Hm...what can I make. I dug in my freezer and found some old rice paper. SPRING ROLLS! I took out my Spiralo and made the rest of my zucchini into raw noodles. Then, I cut up some carrots. I grabbed a few mint leaves from my garden too. I wrapped all that up into zucchini, carrot and mint spring rolls! I had some leftover peanut sauce that I had made a couple days ago to go with my black bean burgers. I put that in my lunch tupperware too. Oh! I almost forgot to say what I did to make peanut dipping sauce! It was just plain crunchy peanut butter, organic soy sauce (or braggs would work), tiny bit of lime juice, a tiny bit of agave, and garlic cloves.

So I made a successful lunch of spring rolls with peanut sauce, two of my last chai cookies, and an Assam tea. Did I mention I LOVE Assam tea!? My husband could not stop laughing at how ugly my spring rolls looked. I didn't think they were THAT bad. I have an excuse though! I woke up at 8:10 and I start work at 9:00 so I didn't have a whole lot of time to assemble.

Normally I wake up, straighten the front of my hair only (just so it will not be frizzy and not enough time to do the whole thing), wash my face, put on foundation, powder, and mascara, feed my cats, guinea pigs, and noggin, throw my wet pants in the dryer, wait for them to dry, make my lunch, make my breakfast, let Panther outside for a couple minutes so he stops meowing, water my plants, kiss my husband, and then run out the door and try not to forget anything. It's no wonder I look like a wreck every morning!

I have a question. Why do people, once they find out you are vegan, ask you questions like: So do you eat fish? What about just chicken? What! No dairy or eggs either?! WHAT DO YOU EAT!? Cue freak of nature looks. First of all, why in the WORLD would I be a "vegan" or "vegetarian" and eat chicken? How do you guys normally respond to this? I have only been a vegan for a year now. I was a vegetarian off and on through childhood, but then made the switch to be a full on vegan about a year ago. I know a lot of you have been doing this a lot longer than me. So, how do you answer them?

Sonic wanted to say hi!

Being broke

I have been pretty broke lately. My husband is unemployed and just does side jobs here and there. So don't mind if my next few posts aren't super exciting food wise, since I will be working with whatever I have in the house.

Breakfast today, sorry for the crappy picture. This is my version of muesli:

1 cup organic oats (soaked the night before in water, not necessary)

1/2 cup coconut milk

and the rest to taste

Goji berries

Cacao nibs

Chia seeds

Hemp protein powder

Organic almonds

Coconut shavings

Sweetener of your choice

My husband works at an acupuncture office part time to help with computer work. He got this for me from the office. How cute huh?

I wanted cookies yesterday, so I looked through my cupboards and I had just enough vegan chocolate chips to make one of my favorite cookies. These are chocolate chai cookies. So so yummy! The recipe is in an older post on my blog HERE. My friend stopped by and I told her, guess what? I made THE cookies! She screamed, YES!!! I gave her a baggie full, and she ate about four just standing in the parking lot. If you love the taste of chai tea, you will adore these.

Nano hates the vet

This was breakfast yesterday and today. Yesterday I had organic peanut butter and organic banana slices on Ezekiel bread. Today I had a smoothie packed with tons of nutrition hence the grey color. I added the following ingredients:

1 cup organic blueberries

2 handfuls organic spinach

1/2 an organic banana

1 scoop raw protein powder

1 scoop chia seeds

2 Tbsp cocoa nibs

1 tsp spirulina

Coconut milk, enough to blend

This was my poor Nano at his vet appointment today. He crawled behind me and smashed his face into the corner. He's had scabby bumps on his head, and I had to find out why. I think it is because him and my youngest cat like to rough house and his head got infected from getting scratched too many times. He had to get a shot for his skin irritation so he wasn't thrilled.

Now he's back and happy to be home.

My husband bought a ton of walnuts at Costco so I have just been using them for anything I can. I made some fresh walnut butter.

Dinner was black bean burgers. Basically the same concept as the garbanzo bean burgers, but with black beans. I ate them with a big spinach salad and some fresh peanut salad dressing and guacamole.

Review: Tofutti

The nice people at Toffuti sent me a few coupons to try out some of their products. I settled on Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese-Plain, Better Than Sour Cream-Plain, and Chocolate Tofutti Cuties. Tofutti makes a good variety of dairy-free products for us vegans.

I will start with the Chocolate Tofutti Cuties. First off, Tofutti Cuties have been around longer than any other frozen nondairy ice cream sandwich out there. It comes in the following flavors: vanilla, totally vanilla, cookies and cream, strawberry wave, chocolate, peanut butter, mint chocolate chip, coffee break, wild berry, & key lime. The small health food store near me only carries the flavor of chocolate, so chocolate it is! These little ice cream sandwiches are just what the doctor calls for when you are craving something chocolaty and sweet. They are nice and creamy too! None of the ingredients are organic, but they are vegan! These are nice to just have in the house in case you have a chocolate emergency, which I seem to have often. If you are a chocoholic like me, these are a must in your freezer.

Check out that creamy, chocolaty goodness!

Now let me talk about Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream. When I became vegan, cheese was my biggest downfall. I could easily go without any meat, milk or butter, but I always loved my cheese! When you taste Tofutti's cream cheese, you will never miss your old cream cheese again! This stuff is amazing! It has exactly the same texture and consistency as regular cream cheese. I LOVE it! The store near my home only carries the plain variety, but that is fine by me. It also comes in flavors that range from garden veggie to french onion to garlic and herb. If you used to love cream cheese, look no further. This is no only comparable, it is better! Their sour cream is the same! It is creamy and light just like dairy sour cream. I like to use it for vegan stroganoff.

These two are must haves in my home, just in case I need to make some crackers with sun dried tomatoes and cream cheese or tacos or bagels & cream cheese or enchiladas. The list could go on and on.

Please note, Tofutti donated these coupons to me. I was not paid for this review. Click HERE for a tasty jalapeno popper recipe using Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese.

Monday and I am off!

Breakfast of tofu scramble and cream of buckwheat. I wanted to make a nutritious breakfast. This one has lots of protein, iron, and vitamin C.

Before...

After!

Bibingka

(Coconut rice desert)

3 cups sweet rice

1/2 can coconut milk

1 cup raw sugar with 2 Tbsp organic molasses combined (this is how you make brown sugar. You can also add 1 cup brown sugar instead if you do not want to make it)

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Preheat over to 350. Cook sweet rice in rice cooker. In a saucepan, combine coconut milk and half of the brown sugar mixture. Cook on medium until thickened, about 20 minutes. Stir constantly or it will burn. Put cooked rice into a bowl. Reserving 1/2 cup of the coconut milk mixture, stir remainder and remaining brown sugar evenly into the hot rice. Pour into baking pan. Top with the reserved 1/2 cup coconut milk mixture. Bake for 20 minutes, then broil for five minutes to set topping. Cut and serve!

Dinner was a Tofurkey dog with some of my kimchi and avocado, lots of mustard and ketchup.