Hi Friends!

Happy mid-January 2017. I am excited to say that my transition to eating vegan has been smooth and rewarding. I’ve had more energy and have been eating a more balanced diet than I ever have before. Not to mention I feel a lot better about my part in supporting animal rights and the environment. It’s all good! I have literally yet to find a downside.

I’ve also been eating a lot of really delicious and extra tasty foods (pictured below!) and am slowly working on getting better at photographing them. (That is proving to be a challenging process though!)

There’s a lot of pre planning that goes into my days worth of food. Especially Wednesday’s when I leave the house around 8am and don’t get home until almost 11pm. (Or well after midnight like last night…) So I know I have to have a full days worth of food ready and waiting in the fridge Tuesday night. Also on most days I work until 7:30 and get home at 8pm. I find doing things like chopping a bunch of extra onions when I only need one is useful to save in the fridge to then throw into various other recipes during the week. I also try to cook something large on Sunday so I can use it as lunches for the rest of the week.

I have to say I really love the way my body feels after so far a half month of this. I feel energetic and strong! (And getting even stronger with the help of derby bootcamp!)

Now on to my favorite part! Pictures!

 

This is my first recipe try: Seitan Piccata from Veginomicon. I made the seitan myself which was semi successful, though it looked a lot like brains which I think means I boiled it too much. SO I took to calling this recipe “devil brains” because whenever I pronounce seitan outloud it just sounds like satan to me.

 

 

This is a vegan and creamy version of a recipe my family calls “ziti boc.” It was a Friday night and I was stressed about work in general and also stressing about going into work Saturday morning. I needed a pile of carbs. Enter the linguini. I sautéed some diced tomatoes, kalamata olives, capers, I added some plain almond milk until it looked creamy enough and thickened it with a slurry. As you can see the lighting sucks but at the time I was too hungry to fuss.

 

Baked butternut squash mac n “cheese”

 

This was a cheat. I spent the whole day at work day dreaming about stuffing my face with appetizers from TGI Friday’s or where ever. When I got home instead I tried a really easy recipe for chickpea cutlets, steamed some green beans, and reheated some pasta. I decided to sprinkle some cheese on my pasta because this is a process and I would enjoy the pasta so much more with a little parmesan. The chickpea cutlets (also from Veginomicon) were AMAZING and I’ve made them more than once since.

 

Here we have a plethora of yum. Veggie burgers from the Oh She Glows cookbook, eggplant from the grill, roasted onions and sweet potatoes, and a leafy green salad. A+

 

 The other night I had high hopes of doing a large chunk of meal prep. Sadly I only made it to the grocery store. Although necessary, I was hoping to accomplish more. I was exhausted and the idea of chopping vegetables with no tasty meal in return was not appealing. So instead I gathered all my energy to make some hot coco (which the recipe was very complex, having you blend all the ingredients in a blender before heating them.) All I needed to do was picture the clean up of the blender, pot, and whisk to decide to cut the unnecessary out. I just whisked everything in the pot while it was heating. I also sliced some banana bread made earlier in the week for a really nice little comfort food snack.

 

The other morning I made a tofu scramble. Very simple, quick, easy and, yum… All my favorite things! I dumped in a handful of leftover peas and added some capers for additional flavor + pizzaz. With a side of toasted pita, well I was on cloud nine. Also if you make up the whole brick of tofu then you have enough for a snack and tomorrow’s breakfast too! (It reheats well!)

 

This was a creamy broccoli and potato casserole. I also added thin sliced tofu because I wanted some extra oomf to make it a more filling dinner. It was tasty, and reheats very nicely. For some reason today I’ve had ketchup on the brain and have been adding a dollop of that to these leftovers.

Well thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far!