daily eats

Back to School Vegan Eats and Life Updates

September 4, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Hello internet friends! Welcome to another recent vegan eats post (a back to school vegan eats, to be exact) where I show you some things I’ve been noshing on lately, give random life updates, and give you my hot take on new products I’ve tried.

I’m writing to you from my futon in my wee little studio; Millie is curled up on top of multiple pillows at my side. I’m watching YouTube, wrapping up some work, and trying to relax after a crazy week.

The past couple of weeks in general have been full of surprises, highs and lows. I feel like I can’t even process everything that’s happened. Less than a month ago I was home in Wisconsin, living a cozy familiar life, enjoying tons of laughs, hugs, meals, and sunshine with all of my closest friends and my family.

Now, literally everything is different, and I am just starting to meet new people, and just starting getting to know this new place while navigating a whole new work and study space. Everything still feels so unfamiliar. Eep! Life’s adventures are crazy. Thank goodness for my adorable, loving dog.

Adulting is hard! Self-doubt can be paralyzing! Anxiety is annoying! Decisions are tough! And the older I get, the more homesick I am! Oh, the struggles of change!

Also unsettling: there was a local shooting this week. It was way, way too close to home to not shake me up a bit. Yikes.

I just feel like my anxiety has been rearing lately. Which is why this weekend, I’m planning some down time, which will include lots of mommy/Millie time, a little blogging, junky TV, and some other content creation.

I have so much to be thankful for. I truly do. I just need some time to process my thoughts and settle into a comfortable routine. I’ve found that when I don’t have a routine, I really feel….off. So once I have settled into a weekly rhythm, I am sure things will feel more normal.

Now that I’ve blabbed my life at you, let’s chat about vegan eats. To be honest, I haven’t been taking many food photos lately, and food has been feeling pretty whatever these days.

After my stomach issues, my appetite has been just…different. I want a lot of simple foods and have been very much eating to get by for energy and less for enjoyment, and haven’t really been thinking about documenting eats for the blog.

But here’s what I have documented, and I hope you enjoy.

Let’s get into it!

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

‘Tis the season! Haha. Back to school means back to packing lunches. Until I’m more in my groove, I’m very into quick-to-pack easy and reliable lunch options. Which means a lot of peanut butter on Whole wheat bread with super exciting sides like bananas, apples, baby carrots, nuts and granola bars. I’m five years old when it comes to my school lunches, and proud of it.

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Recent vegan eats & why I haven’t been online much lately

August 24, 2019 by Katherine Baker 1 Comment

Hey internet friends! How are you? You probably didn’t even notice, but I took a couple weeks offline. In addition to taking two weeks off blogging, I spent some time off instagram and Facebook, etc. My mental health hasn’t been the greatest lately, and I’ve been super busy with life things, and the internet wasn’t serving me in any way, shape or form.

I don’t know why I’ve been in such a funk lately. Well, actually, I do. Lots of life changes. But the internet hasn’t been making me feel great. I feel sad or unsatisfied on Facebook and Instagram lately, caught deep in games of comparison, while my follower count continues to drop for whatever reason, which all is just blah and unimportant and un-useful to putting me in a better mood.

All that to say, for whatever reason, I just haven’t been feeling the internet lately, so I took some time off. In addition to a mental funk, I’ve had pretty horrible anxiety, my sister had a baby, I drove for over 24 hours in a single week to a strange new place, and I’ve spent a lot of time feeling homesick, old, broke, sad, and inadequate, while questioning all of my life choices. Shout out to my friends and family who have listened to me whine or sob this past week. You’re all the best. I’m a big homesick baby!

But I’m back to share some recent vegan eats in today’s post, and have a yummy pudding recipe and Whole30 post lined up for later this weekend/early next week.

Before I jump into the eats, here’s a single photo of my new nephew at 12 hours old. Wow. Life is crazy. Also, I’m old. Wow. What a wee little guy:

Now onto the food. Going over these photos I realized how all over the place I’ve eaten lately. Lots of meals out with friends in Milwaukee, and lots of meals eaten the road during multiple days of road trips. Plenty of highs and lows along the way.

Old me who was overly focused on eating balanced meals 99% of the time would have been stressed out by the irregularity of meals, and would have felt unsatisfied eating protein bars and fruit and Taco Bell and random unglamorous food just having to go with the flow for days on end. Today’s me cares less about having each meal be extravagant and/or taste amazing is more focused on eating well most of the time, using food to fuel my life, enjoying meals out with friends and family, and keeping in mind that big picture eating patterns are more important than occasional choices that are ‘less than healthy’ or ‘ideal’ here or there.

Life ebs and flows! Go with it! Now on to the eats:

Beans and Barley Sweet Potato and Black Bean Burrito

I went to Beans (yes, again) with my friend Eileen from grad school who also happens to be from Milwaukee. This was delicious. A must-have at Beans and Barley! I swapped tortilla chips for salad because my body needed veggies after a carb-heavy day.

There was also house-made guacamole and salsa on the side. All this for $7! Beans, you da best!

Whole Foods Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

This was a post-Beans treat. We finished our burritos around 8, and it was a Sunday, and that point in the night, they were low on gluten-free and vegan dessert options. Thus, we strolled to Whole Foods and got random desserts.

I gotta say, this exceeded my expectations! I really liked it! The crust could have been better (like a graham cracker crust instead of an oat crust), but overall, delish!

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Early August Vegan Eats + Random Life Updates

August 4, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Hello there internet friends! Time for a fun recent vegan eats post. In case you’re new here, in these “recent eats” posts, I share photos of yummy food and my dog and interweave some tidbits of daily life into the post. It’s like good old fashion wholesome bloggin’!

Now, let’s hope to it! Vegan eats time!

Honeydew

Why does honeydew get so much hate? When it’s good, it’s so good (IMHO)!

Buckwheat Oatmeal Waffles

Last weekend I realized I hadn’t made waffles in a hot second. So, I decided to change that! Vegan buckwheat oatmeal waffles were enjoyed with banana slices, peanut butter, and real maple syrup. Yum. I will share the recipe soon!

Vegan Salad Nicoise with Mustardy Beans

So yummy. Would highly suggest making. Recipe here.

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Late July Vegan Eats

July 22, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

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.

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Mid-July Vegan Eats

July 15, 2019 by Katherine Baker 2 Comments

Bleh. Life has been weird lately. So it goes, right? Anyways, we’re not here for me to complain. We’re here to discuss some recent vegan eats.

If you’re new here, this is a weekly/bi-weekly series where I just mention some things I’ve eaten recently that I also happened to have taken photos of. It’s a realistic view into things I eat on the daily, with some highlights along the way.

Brownies

I had a serious hankering for brownies on Friday night. Like, old school brownies. I whipped up a (very mini) batch with simple ingredients using a simple method and was super pleased with the result. I may try to make a bigger batch and actually pay attention to what I’m doing so maybe I can post a recipe!

Banana dog!

Haha! My aunt gifted me some Angelic Bakehouse hot dog buns leftover from a cookout. So naturally I warmed them a little in the microwave, then slathered their insides with nut butter and a banana and cinnamon.

For a couple days in a row I ate two of these banana dog things for lunch with apple slices or melon and some snap peas and carrots. Yummy. Low key incredible.

Re-friend Bean burritos

Yummy. I’ve been on a retried beans kick lately. I just buy organic retried beans from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods (refried pinto is my current fav) and heat them up with some spices (cumin, a dash of cayenne, and a hint of turmeric) and enjoy on whatever tortillas happened to be cheap or on sale (using whole wheat or corn) and enjoy with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, guac if I have it, condiments galore!

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Early July Vegan Eats

July 5, 2019 by Katherine Baker 2 Comments

Welcome to another recent vegan eats, where I recap some things I ate recently that I happen to have (usually mediocre or poor) photographs of on my iPhone. I also do some food reviewskis of new products I’ve tried.

Do you like these? Some of my old subscribers I think really did. When I re-did my blog and transferred a bunch of stuff I somehow lost roughly half of my blog subscribers. I feel kind of terrible about it but don’t know what to do!

Anyways, let’s chat. I had a crazy couple of weeks, despite #funemployment. My mom had another surgery, so I was dealing with managing all that, and trying to push out some content here on the blog, including this celery juice post, which some people really appreciated, and others really detested and got upste about! As the French say, “Ça va aller!”

Without any further delays, let’s get on to the recent vegan eats!

Fresh Fin Poke

Ate here with the fam. I build-my-own with the vegan protein option (which is a mix of avocado, roasted sweet potatoes, and roasted mushrooms) with basically all the toppings minus raw onions cause #acidreflux. So good! Wisco readers, I highly recommend FreshFin!

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Late June Vegan Eats

June 24, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Hey everyone! I am writing this post from my phone while Millie sunbathes in the grass as a break on our walk. Anyways, let’s get onto some recent vegan eats, leaving off where this post left off! Whoop!

Vegan Doughnut from Cranky Al’s

My sister got me a vegan doughnut from Cranky Al’s. It was my first ever Cranky Al’s doughnut. I’m not the biggest doughnut fanatic but for some reason I am always trying to like them (do you know what I mean? Or have foods like that?).

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Recent Vegan Early Summer Eats

June 14, 2019 by Katherine Baker Leave a Comment

Hi again my lovely friends from across the interwebs! Back with another recent vegan eats recap for your reading pleasure. I promise the tutorial on the succulent cupcakes will be out in a day or two…until then, onto some foods and life!

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Recipe here! Yummo.

Mini Vegan Strawberry Shortcakes

Another dessert recipe coming to this page soon!

Scrumptious Vegan Cookies

I posted these on Instagram, but I’ll share the recipe tomorrow or Saturday! Stay tuned. 🙂

Tofu Veggie Stir-Fry

The other evening I marinated tofu in a mix of soy sauce, liquid aminos, coconut aminos, sesame seeds, a dash of sesame oil, a healthy squirt of Sriracha, some maple syrup and some ginger (I eyeball the whole thing and adjust, tasting as I go), and let it chill in the fridge for a bit.

A few hours later after some chaos, I baked it off at 425 for 30ish minutes and served with Trader Joe’s quick frozen rice and a stir-fry veggie mix steamed in the microwave using Stasher bags (which works perfectly!). Trader Joe’s Soyaki sauce and more Sriracha and TJ’s green dragon sauce were added on top. I ate this bowl times two. Yay FODMAPS and bloat and gas.

This was a perfect super quick meal after a long evening pup scare that involved two trips to the ER vet. Sometimes fast and tasty is the way to go.

Beans and Barley Salad

We got Beans to cater my sister and her husband’s baby shower. It was a super scrumptious home run slam dunk, to put it mildly. Almost everything went…except a bulk of the giant salad we bought. So I took it home (along with their magnificent homemade balsamic) to munch on over the courses of a few days.

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Recent Vegan Eats and Photos from Late May in NYC

June 4, 2019 by Katherine Baker 1 Comment

Good morning, afternoon, or evening to you, internet friends! Going to do a mini photo/brain dump with some recent vegan eats now that I’m home in Milwaukee for the summer after a very stressful move where literally everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. As the struggle bus was REALLY bumpy last week, a lot of the random snacks I ate escaped my phone’s camera because documenting my protein bars and other random snacks for the blog was the last thing on my mind. Yay good times! These eats pick up where this post left off. I will be recapping my sister’s bridal shower desserts in a future post. I am also working on a vegan Q&A that will be live soon so check back later this week if you’re interested!

And here’s a fun twist: the first person to comment the correct number of times Millie is in this post will get a surprise from me! Now onto the post:

Brunch at ABCV:

Backing up to being back in NYC/Jersey City a couple weeks ago: here is a lovely brunch I had at ABCV with my mom. After going to ABCV for dinner the previous week, I wanted to try their brunch, so the very night I dined there I made a reservation for the following Saturday for brunch.

Verdict: delicious. I would say, though, that I think ABCV shines brighter at dinner, at least based on the two meals I had. Anyways, I had the Vegan Eikorn pancake, which had some strawberries and bananas baked in, some tangy raspberry powder on top, and came with the cutest little beaker of maple syrup and a scoop of coconut cream that melted all over the top. YUM. I love pancakes. These were very good pancakes. They had the texture of a very fluffy thick pancake/muffin that was magical. For $18 though…I thought I’d maybe get more than one.

I also shared the avocado lettuce cups again and had some of my mom’s dosa. I am feeling inspired to up my pancake game, make those lettuce cups, and try my hand at dosa making!

After dining at ABCV, we went to Union Square Green Market and walked around. I hadn’t been in years and it was honestly really nice! I used to live on Union Square my sophomore year at NYU and went all the time. It truly is one of the most magical farmer’s markets.

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Recent Vegan Eats + Blogging Every (Other) Day in April

March 31, 2019 by Katherine Baker 5 Comments

Hey there friends! It’s a Sunday evening and I just enjoyed some dinner and (non-dairy ice cream) and decided to check back in with another random round-up of recent vegan eats in the past month or so.

I choked last night home alone and it scared me good. So I decided even though I have plenty of stressful stuff to do, it’d be a good time to unwind and update the good old blog.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to acknowledge that I stink at being consistent with blogging this academic year. My interview/travel schedule has been absolutely cray cray. And then this thing happens where the longer I go between posts, the weirder it feels for me to get back into posting. I draft a thousand drafts, decide they aren’t good enough or that no one cares, and delete them. How productive! Not. I also get frustrated because my blog isn’t as good as it should be or as good as I know it could be and that really, really bothers me.

Between full time school, my two jobs, and the interview cycle, taking care of my mom, and trying to be a human, I find myself so burnt out this year all I want to do is hide under the blankies with my doggo whenever I have 5 minutes of free time.

(A random pic from Tuscon, AZ from one of the zillion trips I took this semester)

Yet, I have all of these ideas and the need for creative outlets. So then I get frustrated in the reverse. I had lunch with some old food media friends on Friday and it really made me itch to get back in the creation groove.

So, to try to get back in the swing of things, I’m going to try to post roughly every other day in April. It will be like old school blogging where people actually blogged diary style with short posts instead of essay-long, curated, edited-photo blogs. I’m usually a fan of quantity of quality, but I want to try to push my comfort zone with the blog and get my creative juices flowing again. Let’s see how I do! April looks like a stressful (but fun) month so I’m pumped to give this a whirl.

Without further delay, let’s get some vegan noshes coming your way…

Lunch at Supernatural

Vegan queen Chef Chloe Coscarelli had a pop up with Tom Colicchio at Craft this month and I got the chance to go on Friday. I had the animal lover’s burrito, a couple bites of some vegan mac, and way too much sprinkle cake.

The cake was certainly the highlight. It was vanilla with a slight lemon undertone. And the sprinkles were somehow the crunchiest and freshest sprinkles I’ve ever had.

The photo of my burrito looks like I accidentally sat on the burrito. I promise I did not. I’m just not great at cutting things in half.

The pasta wasn’t really my thing (I’m usually not into vegan ‘macs’ at restaurants, but the cake was something I will dream of for years to come!

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