Vegan Food!

I try my best to be as 'raw' as possible but with two jobs, and limited variety on freash produce, a girl has to make exceptions. Such as...
Comfort food #1 - Amy's Baked Ziti





#2 - Annie Chun's vegan noodle bowls

Quick and Easy - Bananas are literally the perfect food! Pre wrapped, fast, and perfect nutrition! I usually stuff a few of them in my lunch bag as I'm heading out to my next shift. Remember that you want your nanners slightly spotted, not just yellow or even green.

Bean Burrito - The easy classic, no need for frozen, expensive. Just beans, salsa, avocado, roll it up on a torrtila or make a dip bowl either way it's a true tummy pleaser.
PB&J - Yep, it's still as yummy as ever. I use Dave's Killer Bread. You can easily make your own peanut butter in your blender. Same thing with jam. One favorite of mine is peanut butter and nanners.
Veggies & Dip - So fast, easy, and delish! Just slice up the veggies, grab some peanut butter or whatever dip you have on had and go.
Fruit - Nanners aside, apples, peaches, pears, even just an avocado are all amazing grab and go foods.

Fast, Harty, Filling - Can't go wrong with pasta! My favorite's are using the quinoa variety of pasta's, or whatever other vegan pasta's I can find. Just add some tomatoe sauce, salsa, veggies, whatev and presto! Same thing with stir frye. Throw the veggies in a pan, sizzle a little and yumm.

My typical work days consist of..
1) a fruit smothie with a handful of greens thrown in.
2) nanners or other fruit
3) Soup, pasta, salad, pb&j, something like that
4) veggies & dip or more nanners
5) Annie Chun's noodle bowl, borrito, something
6) whatever fruit I have on hand

See, easy peasy!

Back to Basics - Vegan for over a year! Ep.1

Well I've definitely gotten back to my roots! Sorry for my long absence but I've been on a path of rediscovery and I have to say that I love the person I've found within myself. I've lived most of my life just scraping by with no hopes, dreams, or goals for the future. Just surviving day to day as best as I can. Now I at least have hope! I'm going to be sharing my struggle, triumphs, discoveries, treasures, and new found hopes and dreams with you all.

I've been vegan for a little over a year now and it amazes me just how all encompassing the vegan life is and how quickly your entire life gets taken over by it. I've always tried to be 'aware' of my impact on our planet and such, but really.... Just how conscious can you be if you have no real knowledge to go off of?! I started by taking animal products out of my diet but quickly realized that some of the 'vegan friendly' alternatives are filled with more crap then the original foods. This opened up the world of GMO's to me, and a whole range of nightmares LOL. Having my mother living with me is a challenge on it's own. She tries so hard to be understanding and encouraging but it seemed like everything was deemed 'healthy' by her simply because it was 'fat free' or low sodium. She was born in the 60's, I've learned to think of it as the 'margarine era'. It took several attempts to make it clear to her that jello is not vegan friendly, since gelatin is derived from animal bones/hooves. That one kind of shocked me when I found out. I mean really.. Who sat around and had that idea to grind up some animal bones to eat?! Another thing, Soy is not always healthy! There was a few times at the store mom would pick something up and by like "oh it's got soy, it's healthy". GMO soy, maltodextrin, etc. No, it's not healthy. Yes I do eat soy and wheat, it's darn near impossible not to right? But I do try to avoid these thing as much as possible. So it's been a huge adjustment for everyone in my life. My mother, who believes that if she doesn't know what's in it then it can't hurt her, has learned to quietly roll her eyes while I spend hours reading the labels at the grocery store. My 17 year old brother asks questions and wears a permanently confuses expression at meal times, but he's a trooper and always tries it with a positive attitude. My co-workers tease, criticize me and try to trick me into eating animal filled foods. But they always mention how good my lunches look and smell ;-) and that gives me hope.

A co-worker of mine shared with me the story of how her youngest son nearly died due to ingesting cleaning chemicals and how now she uses products that are so safe you could drink them and survive. The real head turner is that they actually work as well as the artificial, chemical ridden ones, and they smell heavenly. This is yet another avenue of living a 'pure', natural, eco - friendly life. Why save the animals if we're just going to poison ourselves with fumes and DNA altering chemicals? I've always gotten massive headaches from bathroom cleaners and so have usually opted for an SOS pad, hot water, and some serious elbow grease instead. It's like itstinctual light bulbs have been going off all over inside me for my entire life saying "yes, this is healthy, do this, not that".

I'll be posting my favorite vegan things, transitional things that have made my life easier, etc. Feel free to ask questions and post responses.