What I Ate Wednesday: My Day with Baby Sage

Hey hey hey!

We're getting in the Halloween spirit over here. By that I mean that Sage is wearing his pumpkin pajamas and spooky ghost hat.

I'm enjoying the view from my kitchen window.  I have been cooking up a fall inspired storm lately.  Many of the recipes include butternut squash because it just screams autumn to me.  Also, there was that Gooey Pumpkin Spice Latte Chocolate Pudding Cake that I just HAD to try, and thank goodness I did because it rocked my world.  I'm still eating the leftovers.  I've also been really into soups lately, the more veggies, grains, and beans the better!

It's about time that I participate in "What I Ate Wednesday" because I do these sort of posts anyways. I'd like to make a habit of it.  Here I go with yesterday's eats.

7:00AM

Bowl of this Kashi cereal with vanilla almond milk and a mug of kukicha tea on the side.

I thought the cereal would be much more interesting if my dogs were posing behind it.  As you can tell, the sun was shining.

Sage and I then had an errand to run for my husband because he needed some craft supplies for a Halloween project he was doing with the kids at the school he works at.  Always nice to get out of the house a bit.

11:00AM

Tempeh BLT sandwich (leftovers).  I fry the tempeh and then dump on Frank's Red Hot sauce.  

The sandwich also had avocado, Vegenaise and tomato.  

I was actually starving for this an hour earlier, but Sage fell asleep in my lap and I didn't want to move him.  Too precious.

Can you spot the two pups napping in this picture too?  

11:30AM

Gooey Pumpkin Spice Latte Chocolate Pudding Cake time!  If you like chocolate, pumpkin and coffee, then this recipe is for you! I topped it with chocolate ice cream. I really like coconut milk ice cream better than soy, but this big container was only a dollar more and that meant more ice cream for me, so I went for it this time.  My picture of the cake inside the mug doesn't do it justice so you'll have to just make it and see.

Sage played with his mobile while I got ready to take him to the babysitter. As mentioned, I am taking him for an hour once or twice a week so both he and I can get acclimated before I go back to work.

While Sage was at the sitter, I got in a much desired run around the sitter's complex.  My knees felt a bit better on this run than the last.

When my run was done, I texted to see how Sage was doing and was happily told that he was sound asleep.  So I made a quick run to Target!

1:30PM 

I chugged down this coconut water from Target like it was nobody's business.  Then I picked up a few other items (some crazy Halloween leggings included) and drove back to pick up my sweet baby boy.

2:45PM

Back at home, I had a cup of Butternut Squash, Chickpea and Red Lentil Stew to keep me full til dinner.  I made a big batch of this in my slow cooker over the weekend. 

5:00PM

I know it's a super early dinner, but we were hungry.  Dinner will certainly not be this early once I'm back at work.  Once my husband got home yesterday, he took Sage watch and I began cooking.  Peanut noodle stirfry with broccoli and tofu was on the menu.  I love the Peanut Dragon Dressing from Isa Does It cookbook. I used to buy a Thai Peanut Sauce from Wegmans, but not anymore with this simple and delicious recipe.

I used a really creamy organic peanut butter this time and man did it make this dish taste the best yet.

5:30PM

Almond Joy Cookie that Oh She Glows posted on Instagram - only three ingredients!  I made a batch last week to have in the freezer.  I was walking Sage around as he was falling asleep for a nap while eating this so I didn't get a picture.

Another day of eats came and went.  Gosh, food is good.  It was a day of scrumptious eats and a wonderful day spent with my baby boy.

What's the best thing you ate yesterday?

My Day in Food (Vegan)

Hi!

Ready for another day of food?  This was my Tuesday eats.  It's all vegan and all super tasty.

7:00AM

Butternut squash pancakes topped with earth balance and maple syrup.  My first time eating these!  I wanted to use up some of the roasted squash from the day before.

7:45AM

Lemon ginger tea in my $1 Starbucks cup.  I love these reusable cups.  Have you seen them?  Seriously, only a buck.

While baby boy napped...

9:45AM

This chocolately smoothie filled with chia seeds, oats, almond butter, banana, and spinach, oh my!

12:00PM

Butternut Squash Mac n' Cheeze and tempeh (fried in Frank's Red Hot for BLTs over the weekend) with avocado and tomato to go along.  Basically I don't like to waste food and these were leftovers from the weekend.  Still just as delicious.

And a few minutes after I finished lunch...

Not the whole container, I swear.  Just a solid third of it.  Notice the sleeping baby in the background.  He sleeps, I get to eat.

Then it was time to visit the babysitter Sage will be going to when I go back to work.  Mama and Sage selfie!

2:00PM

Time for some more tea.  This time Kukicha tea.  Speaking of which, I haven't talked about my interest in the macrobiotic diet here in a long time, but it's still very influential in my life.

Sage and I then made a quick trip to Wegmans to pick up just a few items.

I got home and needed a sweet snack.

3:45PM

APPLE!

And then a sweet smile...

4:45PM

Handful of cashews to hold me over until dinner.

6:00PM

And finally dinner.  I'm starved by this time. 

Scrambled tofu with greens (collards) and raspberry chipotle sauce over green rice (made from sautéing spinach and scallions then pureing and mixing with short grain brown rice).  

This meal is all about the flavor.  It may not look appetizing but it's so crazy good.  This recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers cookbook.  Moosewood restaurant is in Ithaca, New York with fantastic vegan meal options. My husband and I have eaten there a few times on special occasions.

7:00PM

Dessert time.  Two chocolate chip cookies from this book.  

It's a one bowl simple recipe that gets me my cookie fix in less than 20 minutes!

I just eat my way through the day.  I'm a hungry mama between breastfeeding and running, and that's good because I love food.  

What's the best thing you ate today?  

What do you think of my food day?

Five Vegan Lunches

Hi there!

I typically do not have the opportunity to cook at lunchtime because I work in a law office. However, because I am home on maternity leave right now, I have my stove and oven to use all I want.  Also, I have my refrigerator which I stock full of whole foods each weekend.  Therefore I am taking full advantage of being able to make fantastic vegan lunches each day.  That's not to say that eating a vegan lunch at work isn't easy, but for me it usually involves leftovers, sandwiches, or salads, and occasionally takeout.  But now that I look at what I ate all week, that's still what I had!  I did use my oven and stove a bit though.   

I get many meal ideas from other bloggers, so I thought it would be helpful to share what I've been lunching on to give my readers ideas and hopefully show that eating a plant-based meal is simple and delicious.

Here are some lunches lately:

1 - Sandwich made from Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole-grain bread with avocado, tomato, spinach, and Vegenaise

2 - Roasted butternut squash and with garlic mixed with baby spinach and short grain brown rice

3 - Leftover tempeh (from Red Hot BLT dinner night before) over spinach with Vegenaise for dipping, and side of brown rice (leftover) mixed with olive oil, basil and tomatoes

4 - Salad from restaurant. Romaine topped with strawberries, walnuts, and balsamic with raspberry vinaigrette on the side.  I also had a side of sweet potato fries.

5 - Udon noodle stir fry with broccoli and tofu (recipe here). I actually made this for dinner, but I always make extra so there is a lunch portion the next day.

There you have it, five days worth of lunches.  When I dived into vegan eating five years ago I had no idea what to eat and I certainly had no clue how to cook.  Now, I love trying new foods and new recipes.  It's opened my eyes to the beauty of whole foods and how fantastic it makes me feel.

Let me know if you like these kinds of posts and I'll keep sharing my weekly eats. 

P.S. Check out that run I logged on the right side over there.  Yup, two miles happened yesterday!  It wasn't easy, but after 11 months off and having a baby I didn't expect it to be.  It was fun though.  I'm resting today and hoping to get back out there on Sunday. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Packing a Simple Vegan Lunch

Hey there!

How's your week going?  It's crazy rainy here in Central New York right now.  It started thunder storming last night around dinner time and basically hasn't stopped raining since.  I know the plants are probably quite happy about it, but my dogs are not so pleased.  Jax basically looked at me like I was crazy when I told him to go out this morning.  "Seriously, Mom, you think I want to go out in that?  Why don't you go out in that?"  Yeah I don't take his attitude personally.

Lately I've been making a point to pack better lunches for work.  Especially at 33 weeks pregnant, I truly cannot skimp on lunch.  I need a nutritious meal that will get me through the day otherwise making it to 5PM just won't happen.  And if I don't pack a proper lunch, then I've got to venture around downtown trying to find something to eat, but I really don't want to be spending the extra money.  My husband and I do a solid grocery shop every weekend so there really is no excuse not to bring a great lunch.

I work in an office downtown so if I wanted to spend the money everyday I could just go out to lunch.  But really that gets old quick, and especially since I stick to a mainly vegan diet, my restaurant options are a bit more limited.  I'd say 50% of the time I bring leftovers from dinner the night before for lunch, so if there aren't leftovers, I need to pack lunch in the morning before I leave for work.

Here's what I've had for lunches so far this week:

Monday - Salad with leftover Apple Cider Vinegar Tofu with balsamic dressing, nectarine, and homemade Glo Bar from the Oh She Glows Cookbook (highly recommend this book!)

Tuesday - Salad with soy chicken with vegan caesar dressing and tomatoes, kettle potato chips, Glo Bar

Here's the lunch I packed for myself this morning.  I won't eat it all in one sitting, probably over the course of a few hours while I work.  

 -Whole wheat bread (I have Tofutti in the fridge at work which I plan to slather on this as toast)

- Salad with strawberries and cashews with a balsamic dressing

 -Large bowl of watermelon

-Glo Bar (these bars are SO GOOD!  Oats, brown rice krispies, almond butter, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds)

Packing a healthy vegan lunch is really easy.  It may take some thought in making sure you buy the right ingredients at the beginning of the workweek, but it definitely pays off come lunch time!

What's your go-to simple lunch?

Day of Food: Ovo-Vegetarian Style

Hey there!

At 29 weeks pregnant, my eating habits have slightly changed.  What I mean is that I am eating more often and slightly more.  I'm not eating different foods than I was prior to being pregnant, but I am making a more conscious effort to eat a variety of foods and get enough protein and calories.  Basically I'm eating extra calories each day right now, but really I'd say I was eating probably around the same amount when I was marathon training a year ago, so it might not seem like I'm eating much more than my usual.

I've come to learn that I need to eat about every two hours to keep my energy levels high and feel my best.  So it will probably look like I'm just eating my way through the day, which is the truth.  Aside from the occasional breakfast that includes eggs, I stick to a vegan diet.  I try to be as perfect as I can about it, but I know there are instances when dairy slips in when I'm away from home.  The majority of my days I could label as vegan, but yesterday included eggs so it was an ovo-vegetarian kind of day (eat eggs, but no meat or dairy products).  

Here's how I fueled for the day yesterday:

I like to call this my first breakfast.  I ate at 6:45AM pretty much immediately after climbing out of bed.  I let the dogs outside, made myself breakfast, and then got ready for the workday.  This is a piece of Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread with earth balance on top, and an organic egg cooked over hard.

On the way to work I like to have my smoothie with me.  I make a variety of smoothies throughout the week, and sadly this smoothie was not as tasty as I had planned.  I used too much avocado and it was too strong for my taste.  It would have been perfect if I had only used 1/2 an avocado instead and maybe 1/2 banana.  I only drank half of it.  I truly hate wasting food, but I just couldn't get it all down.  Too much avocado taste.  Note to self:  do not use a full avocado in shake.  The shake had in it a full avocado, almond milk, chia seeds, spinach, cocoa powder, and a spoonful of maple syrup.

Upon getting about an hour into my workday I was hungry again.  A piece of Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread with a happy slathering of Tofutti did the trick.  

And then no more than a half hour later, an apple for some sweetness. 

Then there was my pre-lunch snack.  Preparing my stomach for lunch which really just means I couldn't wait another hour to eat.  I had a few corn chips with a lot of hummus.  This cilantro jalapeno hummus flavor is my new favorite.  You're probably wondering at this point how I get any work done with all this eating.

I was actually "full" from my morning snacking so I decided to go on a walk on lunch.  A nice 20 minute stroll felt really nice.  I got an odd cramp in my right side about halfway through my walk so I decided to take a breather at Starbucks.  I didn't order anything, but just sat and relaxed for a few minutes and then finished up my walk.

 
  When I got back to the office, it was officially lunch time for me.  Lunch consisted of this quinoa salad.  What a great recipe!  I made it Tuesday night and it tasted even better after sitting in the refrigerator overnight.  It's packed with goodness (carrots, black beans, green onion, and an awesome cumin lime dressing).  I made this dish one other time and I plan to make it weekly for now on.  I enjoyed it with another handful of corn chips.  

 By 4 o'clock I was in need of something.  I should have brought more food to the office, so all I had was an ALT bar.  It wasn't really what I was craving, but I ate half of it and it held me over until dinner.

When I got home from work, I started cooking my favorite dinner.  Sesame tofu over brown rice with kale and sweet potato.  My husband got home a little after me and together we finished the meal.  I post this dish a lot, but it's because it's my favorite and it makes a weekly appearance for dinner.

 

Not long after dinner I finished the night with a gluten-free brownie and a few scoops of So Delicious coconut milk ice cream.

  I'd say it was a happy day of eats.  I found that eating frequently kept me feeling great all throughout the day.  I will be keeping up a pattern like this.

What's the best thing you ate yesterday?

Six Foods I Eat Every Week

Hey there!

I have absolutely noticed an increase in my hunger levels this week.  Basically every two hours, if not sooner, I'm hungry for something.  Therefore, lots of snacking to get me through the day.  I think we all have foods that we eat every week without fail.   I'll get on a kick with certain foods and have it for weeks at a time, but the foods listed below are foods I absolutely have every week, if not multiple times a week.  In fact I love these foods so much I can't imagine a week without them. In no particular order, here they are...

black beans

My husband and I eat black beans like it's our job.  They definitely fall into at least one (sometimes up to three) meals each week.  My favorite recipe with black beans:  these quesadillas.  You truly cannot go wrong if you've got tortillas, daiya, black beans, and rice in the house.  

brown rice

Speaking of brown rice, that too makes a major appearance in our house each week.  It goes with close to every meal.  Those quesadillas I talked about, stir fries, salads, wraps, you name it.  Coming from my macrobiotic perspective, brown rice is an absolute super food and I wouldn't go a week without it.  Also, I don't cook fresh rice every day.  It keeps in the refrigerator for a few days, so we generally cook up a large batch and then use it for the next two days.      

sweet potatoes

 Oh they are so glorious.   By now you've probably heard me mention my favorite sesame tofu meal that goes with a pile of baked sweet potatoes.  We eat them all winter long and then make lots of fries with them come summer.  They pair so perfectly with a veggie burger or dog.  I'll even just eat a sweet potato with earth balance and cinnamon for dessert.   

kale

 Kale has become my new favorite green leaf.  It's so nutritious and really I'd take it over spinach.  My husband grows buckets of kale and it's wonderful eating it fresh (like really fresh straight out of the garden).  It truly tastes better than store bought, but really I love kale.  It makes me feel good.  We often saute it in olive oil with garlic and eat it along side dinner.  Kale makes any dinner healthier and happier.

sprouted grain bread 

My go to breakfast is sprouted grain bread - I like this brand.  There are weeks where I have two slices of toast every morning for breakfast.  My favorite toppings include peanut butter, almond butter, Tofutti cream cheese, jelly, and earth balance.  Depending on my craving, I change it up.  Also, a super simple meal is a grilled cheese made with sprouted grain bread and daiya.  And then with homemade sweet potato fries and a side of kale, you've got a wonderful lunch/dinner there.

 noodles (rice, udon, soba or whole wheat)

Udon noodles with broccoli in thai peanut sauce

Last, but certainly not least, are noodles.  If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook you've definitely seen pictures of my meals involving noodles.  I just love them!  Noodle stir fries with a pile of veggies and tofu are my favorite, but a nice Italian dinner of whole wheat spaghetti with Field Roast sausages is also so comforting, especially over this freezing winter we've had.  Noodles are easy and filling.  I stick to organic.  On a busy workday, it's almost effortless putting together a quick noodle stir fry.  Makes life easy and my stomach happy.

Soba noodles with faux chicken and veggies in spicey orange sauce

So there you have it, six foods I eat every week.

What are some foods you eat every week?  What's your favorite from my list?