Holy cow! How is it almost the end of July?! I can’t believe I’ve been home for two months now. And I’m so sad I have to leave again soon; I was just getting cozy!
I’ve been having so much fun with my Milwaukee friends and fam, and getting back to making content her on this site and elsewhere. If you haven’t checked out my post on what it means when your phone tells you there is “Unhealthy Air Quality for Sensitive Groups,” you can check it out, here!
Let’s move on to some recent vegan eats! If you’re new here this is a mini series I do every 10 days or so to highlight some random things I’ve eaten to inspire your own food ideas and/or give you an idea of what a vegan on a budget eats. Here we go!
Tempeh Bowl
This is one of my favorite ways to eat: a big bowl of veggies and roasted potatoes and a marinated or seasoned protein (tofu, tempeh, or beans). On this particular night I mixed Whole Foods brand organic arugula (which is $1.99 regular price and most often quite good), organic romaine, chopped carrots, and steamed and cooled broccoli as the salad base.
I marinated some flax tempeh using this recipe as a base (truly, I just kinda wing it every time with soy sauce, maple syrup, coconut aminos, liquid aminos, ginger and sriracha) for about an hour then baked for 20 ish minutes at 425. Delicious! My mom really liked it too, which made me happy. I like when I make vegan food she enjoys.
I also roasted a regular and Japanese sweet potato (cubed) and cooked them to add to the salads. Yum! Sometimes I also add grains to these bowls but the large potatoes were enough and I wanted room for cake…
German Chocolate Cake
So on my half birthday I decided I should make half (yup just half) a cake. I scanned the pantry and decided I’d do German chocolate since I had everything I needed.
I make a different version of German chocolate cake; I suppose you could call my cake “German chocolate-inspired.” Basically I make chocolate cake (and add chocolate chips or chopped chocolate to the batter) and make a simple buttercream (with earthbalance vegan baking sticks or similar non-dairy butter options).
You can watch me make it here.
Cereal with blueberries
Nothing really new here. More nightly cereal with almond milk. Lately I’ve been tossing in some fresh blueberries, which has provided a delightful tangy pop.
So Delicious Dairy-Free Mousse
Oh my goodness. this is what I dream of in a dessert. It’s super fluffy and airy. It almost eats like thawing cool whip or soft serve or one of those Yoplait Whips, all of which I’m here for.
I tried the salted caramel swirl which is good and has little chocolate flakes in it. It is a tad bit too sweet in my opinion (just the caramel swirl part) but still so, so, SO good. I can’t wait to try the peanut butter and strawberry flavors !
Veggie Plate
This was an appetizer to what I ate for dinner one night (which was a black bean veggie burger with hummus on bread followed by cereal). As you can see, I wat a lot of food. So it goes when you love produce.
This is a mix of romaine, arugula, carrots and sliced baby cucumbers (all on a pile of hummus), some random leftover peas, carrots and cauliflower, half a kale sea roasted sweet potato with almond butter (on the spoon) and about another half of regular sweet potato cubes mixed all in.
Veggie Plate 2.0
Had another variation of this for dinner with oodles of Beans & Barley hummus & lots of Trader Joe’s Cashew Fiesta Dip. I also globbed raw almond butter on the potato post-photo and ate a piece of Angelic Bakehouse bread with more hummus. Yum.
Japanese sweet potatoes are life!
I covered this with nutritional yeast and Whole Foods Guava dressing (which is oddly so good?!). Again, this was an appetizer / not enough calories for a meal. I just forgot to take a picture of my meal. My point here being I see lots of people subsiding off raw veggies and for me that is simply not enough fuel.
Violife Cheese
This brand of vegan cheese was on sale at Whole Foods and I had to get some! I tried the mature cheddar and it is pretty dang yummy on sandwiches or with pretzels. I also saw VioLife feta while I was there and almost got it; since then 2 people have told me it’s a gem. Next time!
Salad + leftover Brussels sprouts + Veggie Burger + VioLife Cheese
Quick lunch! Threw some arugula and romaine and a couple diced tomatoes on top of leftover roasted veggies. I next microwaved a black bean burger and grabbed a slice of violife cheese on the slide, which I sliced up and ate wrapped in romaine for crunchy lettuce cup-type things (with plenty of hot sauce and ketchup, of course).
Fruit
I got the absolute best cherries at Whole Foods. Along with some blueberries and organic strawberries, which I also got on sale at Whole Foods. Summer produce: I love you!
Sendiks Fresh-Squeezed OJ
I can take or leave most juice, and most of the time prefer eating whole fresh fruits and/or veggies, but holy smokes this fresh squeezed juice from our local grocery store is incredible.
It used to be a bit occasional treat for our family growing up, and I wasn’t even sure Sendiks made it anymore. But my mom had requested OJ on the grocery list and I saw it there and had to get it…and proceeded to drink quite a bit of it. Yum. Almost like candy. Definitely a treat!
Whole Foods 365 Brand Pretzels
Um, why are these like the best pretzels I’ve ever had? I randomly grabbed them while overly hungry on my way out of the store and they are delicious! So so salty. I’ve been enjoying them with Trader Joe’s Cashew Fiesta dip and Beans & Barley hummus.
Beans & Barley
You can’t keep me wats! I had dinner with the fam there on Saturday night. We started with hummus and warm pita because they have the best hummus ever.
For the entree, I decided to mix it up and get something different. I went with the tofu burger (YUM) which is made locally by Simple Soyman, and added guacamole and hummus. I also subbed chips for salad because even though I love potatoes in almost every form I’ve never been a huge chip person.
I don’t not like them, I just would rather have like, a baked potato or pretzels or salad, etc. it came with a herby dressing and a pickle too. I added hummus from the appetizer and ketchup and really enjoyed it! The patty was nice and filled with to and veggies and was very obviously not trying to be meat which is exactly how I like my veggie burgers. Yum! I’ll get this again. Especially with the added guac it was delish.
For dessert we shared vegan blueberry pie and a vegan gluten-free double chocolate cupcake. Yum! Both were delicious. I especially liked the cupcake (I’m a sucker for frosting) with a bite of the blueberry pie filling on top.
The combo of blueberries on chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was oddly really good. I will be making a chocolate cake soon with a blueberry filling, Mark my words! #inspired.
Ikea Veggie Balls!
Just went today and enjoyed these, with lingonberry jam, of course! I adore these balls. They are warmly spiced and hearty and packed with bits of veggies and beans and corn. They also came with a delicious curry sauce and some cafeteria-style steamed veggies and cooked grains. Yummy in my tummy.
I also had a side salad and coffee for a whopping $5.98 total. Mm!
That’s all for now, friends! I’ll be back with more science-y content tomorrow. For now, I’m off to buy produce because even though I buy produce every few days I inhale it all so quickly…what else is new.
Toodles!
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