Some Vegan Memorial Day Recipes

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Happy Memorial Day! It occurred to me recently that I’ve never done a recipe round-up post, so I thought I’d take this holiday opportunity to do one. So here are some Vegan Memorial Day Recipes to bring to a BBQ!

Also, dog parents, be sure to watch your little ones during fire works if they aren’t fanss of them (Millie flips out and tries to hide).

Let me know if you try any of these Vegan Memorial Day recipes and let me know whatcha thing! HMU on insta or twitter.

1. Black Rice Beet Veggie Burgers

BLACK BEAN BLACK RICE BURGERS BEETs 2

With rich umami flavors from black rice, sweetened up with beets, these veggie burgers are an eye-catching main dish.

2. Crispy Sweet Potato Fries

Delicious Easy Baked Cripsy Sweet Potato Wedges with Almond Butter

My favorite side ever. Serve with guac, hummus, or almond butter!

3. Watermelon Arugula Salad with Herbed Tofu Feta

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A lovely side dish to have at your feast!

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Vegan Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

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You read that right. They’re here: gooey, glutinous, Vegan Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. Are you ready for this? *cue Tswift song*Delicious Vegan Nutella-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these a couple of weeks ago shortly after finals had ended. I needed a mini baking project to help me unwind from the perils of final stress.

Vegan Cookie Dough Scoop

I had had a hankering to make Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip cookies after seeing this video while stalking Skyler (aka @diningwithskyler) on Facebook. Except obviously, I wanted to make them vegan.

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Random Eats + Random Thoughts

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Hey friends. Happy Thursday.  Thought I would pop in and share some random thoughts and eats lately. I love reading these posts and like writing them too. I hope that by sharing some random snacks and meals I may inspire some yumminess sin your life, should you be looking for new food ideas! At the end, I share a few random thoughts.

Here we go.

Random Eats:

Chex + Almond Milk + a sprinkle of sugar

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I love cereal. I go through phases where I’ll eat it daily. These phases tend to be in the summer, with cream-of-wheat and oatmeal phases being more prevalent in the winter/fall months.

Right now I’m on another daily cereal kick. Never in the morning, but always at night as a bedtime snack. With lots of almond milk + a sprinkle of each cinnamon and sugar. So good. Cool, creamy, and crunchy and refreshing. Mmmm.

Also, shout out to toxicology for ruining all rice-based foods for me. I now consume each bowl of Chex cereal cognizant of its arsenic intake and enjoy the crunchy squares with a side dose of paranoia.

Tony’s Chocolate

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So good!! Where has this been all my life?! I also love that the brand supports fair labor practices, as many chocolate companies support slave trade labor.

You can get it on Amazon if you can’t find it nearby!

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Banachos (Banana Nachos)

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Sometimes I think I could live off of potatoes and bananas and things to dip them in. Seriously. I eat both pretty much every day and never tire of them. The best.

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One of my favorite ways to eat bananas is sliced up, topped with cinnamon, hemp hearts, oodles of nut butter, and/or granola. My sister coined this creation “banachos” and the name just stuck (at least in our circle).

Delicious Banachos: Banana nachos

This is less of a recipe and more of an idea. I want you to make banachos with whatever you like to eat bananas with.

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Easy Everything Bagel Fries

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HECK YEAH it’s another potato post. Potatoes just happen to be my favorite food, and ever since it’s debut, I’ve been obsessed with Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel seasoning salt. Hence, today I share with you these easy oven-baked everything bagel fries.

Easy Baked Everything Bagel Fries

These came about on a Thursday evening as I was trying to use up the last 2 potatoes in a 5-pound bag I had purchased Sunday. A quick math calculation made me realize I average eating about a potato a day. I’m more than okay with this statistic.

Easy Baked Everything Bagel Fries

Anyways, I was texting with my dear friend Caty about her recent appreciation of Everything But the Bagel Seasoning Salt, and suddenly, my own craving for the stuff set in. Fresh out of avocado (my go-to for an Everything But the Bagel Seasoning Salt), I decided to wedge up my taters and make everything bagel fries in the oven.

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The Best Vegan Restaurants in NYC (according to my Tastebuds)

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Hello! I get a lot of requests for recommendations for what to do and eat in New York City, so I thought I’d make a list of all of the best vegan restaurants in NYC (according to my tastebuds and experiences, at least) and keep them all in one place as a reference for anyone who may be curious!

This list is by no means exhaustive; please note I have always lived in the city as a student and have limited funds and time to eat out, but I do have many more places on my to-eat list (noted at the bottom), and I will update as I go!

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I was originally going to list all my favorite eats and activities in one place, but the eats portion ended up getting to be much longer than expected, so I decided to break up the posts. Keep an eye on for a post on my favorite activities in the city, coming soon!

Below you’ll find my favorite vegan-friendly eats in the city. Now grab your Metro card, we’re goin’ to New York City!

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Concussion Confessional: What I Learned From Concussion Recovery

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Hello friends! Wow. It. has. been. a. minute. But I promise I have a valid reason for my absence, and it was related to my health. Specifically, this spring, I had not one, but TWO concussions within a 3 week period, which greatly limited my allotted/tolerable screen use time, and I had to be selective as to what I used my computer time for.

And as much as I love blogging and intend to blog consistently from hereon out, it fell to the wayside when I could only be on the comp a few hours per day, and computer-dependent school deadlines cluttered my calendar for several months.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about why I’ve been gone and to share my experience with having multiple concussions.I didn’t tell everyone I knew I was going through concussion recovery, mostly because I really didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. While I was going through all this, I felt really alone, scared, and quite sad.

I am hoping sharing my experience will help at least one other person going through concussion recovery to feel some sort of relateablity, and hopefully, a bit of hope.

So buckle in, here’s the story:

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Pasta with Charred Cherry Tomatoes, Broccolini and Vegan Parmesan

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Pastaaaaa. I have been craving pasta for quite some time now. I don’t know why. Probably because carbs = love.

Vegan Pasta with Brocollini Charred & Tomatoes Parmesan

Pasta has always been one of my favorite foods. I grew up with an Italian grandma and her penne arrabiata with charred peppers was the best.thing.ever. It has ruined almost all other pastas I’ve had since. Nothing like what Oma cooked up. Somewhere I have her recipe for her sauce. I can never make it quite like she did though…must be that Italian grandma magic.

I decided to make some pasta with some leftover veggies I got to take home from an event. I roasted up some cauliflower, broccolini, and tomatoes on Friday, and while I was eating them, the deliciousness of the roasted tomatoes just called for pasta.

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I was too lazy and hungry to make it at the time, but today I cooked up some whole wheat noodles, paired it with steamed broccoli, a bit of olive oil and lemon juice, salt & pepper, a bunch of Vegan Hemp Parmesan, and the real MVP, the charred tomatoes.

Super simple, very flavorful, and far from over-complicated. The way Italian-inspired food should be, as far as I’m concerned.

Vegan Pasta Brocollini with Charred Tomatoes Parmesan

Let’s talk pasta for a minute, shall we? At some point society demonized the glorious stuff. The thing is, there is nothing inherently significantly worse about pasta than many other forms of carbohydrates, especially when it’s whole grain.

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Random Eats Lately

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Hey hey! How’s it going? I’m just popping in to share some random meals and snacks I’ve been into lately. I love reading these posts because they inspire meal and snack ideas in my own life, so I hope to inspire some of you. Let me know if you like these kinds of posts! They’re fun to write so I’m happy to share more like them.

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This past week was particularly emotional and stressful and chaotic in school, work, career stuff, and with some family stuff too, and I ended up getting a killer migraine on Friday, which I took as a signal that I need to take a step back and relax for like, a hot second. All that to say I wasn’t as motivated to post serious intensive content this weekend and wanted to write something bubbly and fun. Now on to the food:

Avocado Toast from Mathew’s Food & Drink

Last weekend my friend Raag came to visit me in JC and we got brunch at Mathew’s. I got the avocado toast and it was one of the better avocado toasts I’ve had. Ever since Vital Root changed (ruined) their avo toast, I’ve been looking for a new avo toast bae and I think I found it.

It came with whipped avocado, fresh peas, radish, pickled shallots, and poppyseeds on toasted sourdough. The fresh peas added a nice pop of sweetness that contrasted nicely with the tangy pickled shallots. And I’m a sucker for poppyseeds so I was so into this. Paired with a side salad and some shared tater tots.

Ripple Foods Yogurt Bowls

I bought some Ripple Greek style yogurt recently and was excited to try it. Verdict: decent, but doesn’t taste like Greek yogurt. The thickness is there, but I want that TANG baby. Also, it was a wee bit gritty.

With bananas, homemade banana bread granola, berries and goobs of peanut butter on top, however, it was a satisfying snack for sure. Still think I prefer Kitehill Plain Greek style yogurt, but the search for a perfect vegan Greek yogurt continues…

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Vegan Strawberry Almond Butter Oatmeal Crumb Bars

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Today I was craving some comfort. The past few weeks I’ve felt uneasy, and I can’ quite figure out why.

Easy Vegan Almond Butter Strawberry Seed Jam Bars with Crumb Topping

Perhaps it’s a combination of stress of an 18-credit graduate school load, figuring out my summer practicum, some pressing family issues, or the mundaneness I sometimes feel after working on something (whether it be school work, work work, projects, or applications for practicums) from morning til evening with little relief.

Once I cross one thing off my list, it seems, 6 more pop up.

VEGAN Strawberry Almond Butter Oatmeal crumb bars

Yesterday I took a break and got brunch at Mathew’s with my good friend Raag. The outing provided not only a delicious meal and good conversation, but a much needed break, some peace of mind, and a fleeting moment or two of comfort.

But today, I was back on the grind. And today, comfort came in the form of Vegan Strawberry Almond Butter Oatmeal Crumb Bars.

Vegan Strawberry Chia Jam

I love a sweet but not-too-sweet breakfasty nibble, filled with oats, nut butters, and sometimes fruit to snack on in the afternoon with tea and to have to pack for snacks during the school week.

I wanted something with a soft bottom, a yummy fruity center, and a scrumptious oatmeal crumb topping. Crumb toppings are one life’s finest pleasures, as far as I’m concerned.

Almond Butter Strawberry Chia Seed Jam Bars Spread 2

I was trying to decide what to bake when I remembered the clearance frozen strawberries I purchased at the store yesterday, and the idea for a Vegan Strawberry Almond Butter Bar with an oatmeal crumb topping came to me. And just like that, I knew I had to make some.

Easy Cegan Almond Butter Strawberry Seed Jam Bars + Crumb Topping

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