My Daily Smoothie

The saying is always An Apple a Day, Keeps the Doctor Away. Well I tend to eat my daily apple in a smoothie. Last year I did a month long smoothie fast and it was an epic FAIL. However, I did come up with some pretty creative and simple smoothie ideas that I still tend to eat on a normal basis.

What you need is 2 or 3 carrots and 1 red apple.

Be sure to scrub your carrots and your apple. I always buy organic carrots and apples because I don’t like to peel them. I feel like I get more nutrients leaving them intact.

Chop them up and put them in your blender/nutribullet.

Add some water or green tea to your blender to make it smoother. I like mine chunky and I like to eat it with a spoon so I don’t add much.

Then blend that puppy up.

This is the level of chunky I like. Add more liquid if you like to drink it through a straw or something.

These 4 ingredients typically fill 2 small mason jars, and I take one to work for a 2:30 sweet snack.

Then that’s it. Grab a spoon and enjoy! Guilt free =]

#CouchLife ha.

“Beef” Tacos

So I eat tacos errrrdayyyy, and I feel like I’m typically associated with tacos and tequila ha. So of course #1 on my list after adopting a vegan lifestyle, was to create several taco options for my various moods. It felt only right to start with the most Basic AF taco…the traditional Beef Taco.

From my very first blog post on my decision to go vegan I stated that I wasn’t a huge fan of tofu. I want to live a more plant-based life and tofu just feels a bit “processed” to me. So I want to attempt to cook without tofu as much as possible. So I didn’t want to just buy “vegan beef crumbles” from the frozen section.

This past weekend at Trader Joes I picked up some cauliflower rice for no real reason at all. Then when I was at work earlier it hit me that I need to turn that weird cauliflower rice into beef and make some tacos ASAP!

So I did!

I started with the cauliflower rice and put half of the bag into a skillet with some olive oil until it browned. Which took all of 3 minutes…literally! This is cauliflower, not meat, so you better keep an eye on that skillet!

Once the cauliflower rice was brown I added 1 of the packets of taco seasoning and mixed it together really well. Once I did that it seemed kind of dry…and when you get tacos at Del Taco & Taco Bell the beef is saucy…and I needs errrthang SAUCY!! So I added about 1/2 a cup of vegetable broth to sauce it up a bit.

I then taste tested my “beef” and realized I was a genius, because it was BOMB!

I then put the “meat” in a bowl and set it to the side. I then sautéed a red and green pepper and an entire red onion. I sautéed them in a little olive oil and added a bit of Tony’s seasoning to spice up the veggies a bit. I didn’t cook them for very long though because I don’t want to over cook them and deplete the nutrients.

I then put those aside as well. In the same skillet (i love cooking with just 1pot if i can…because i’m lazy AF) I then toasted my tortillas without wiping it off. That way my tortillas have a bit of flavor from the vegetables and the “meat”.

Once the tortillas were done I assembled my tacos. I personally like VERY simple tacos with just veggies and salsa. Typically I add lettuce, but I was out of lettuce today.

I picked up some vegan mozzarella from Trader Joes as well for my tacos, but decided to keep it simple in the end…but I shall cook with this cheese on something else I’m sure!

ATL Option: Healthfull Essence

So this past weekend I made my chauffeur…my boyfriend ;)…drive me to the West End area of Atlanta to try a vegan restaurant I found on yelp. This restaurant is kind of oddly located in the back of a building on the first floor, and it’s cafeteria style as far as how the food is setup.

This restaurant is a Jamaican style vegan restaurant with a lot of different options on the menu. I chose the okra medley, jerk “un-duck”, curry cabbage, and plantain. So the conclusion?

The okra medley was great! it was basically just spiced okra, and I looooove okra. The Jerk “un-duck” actually wasn’t a fav unfortunately. It’s made out of bean curds and it was a cool concept…but it just missed the mark with me and i actually only ate maybe 2 or 3 bites. The curry cabbage was the star of the plate. I could have eaten an entire plate of that!!!! And of course plantain’s don’t need a synopsis because they always win!

So I’ll def come back to this spot whenever I have a Jamaican itch lol. Quite a few people in line were ordering the curry “un-goat”..so I may give that I try next time!

It’s [LIT]erature

While on the trip to DC, I of course needed a book to read on the flight there and back. The book that won was The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison.

Let me tell you now…this book is not for the faint of heart. [SPOILERS TO FOLLOW]

There is kidnapping, child rape in graphic detail, psychological abuse, and just overall wtf-ness.

This novel is #1 in a trilogy and I think I will pass on reading the remaining 2. This book left much to be desired. I think the writer focused too much on the graphic details and not enough on anything else. There was character development, but only in a  one dimensional aspect.

I don’t believe in characters being only one-way in an entire book and not growing or changing over time. And I do not believe that a child-molesting kidnapper could do it for 30+ yrs and not have any break in his delusion and abuse once….i just don’t buy that.

Give it a try if you’d like..it is a page turner, and i read it very quickly. But it left an icky feeling behind and disappointment…much like the rape in the book.

Vegan on the Road: DC

I recently went to a friends wedding in Washington, DC. It was held at the National Harbor and was absolutely gorgeous. However, this blog is about FOOD…not flowers and diamonds.

Prior to going to DC I yelped all the Vegan hotspots in the city, and I had every intention of hitting them all. Unfortunately, my itinerary had other plans and I was only able to try ONE of the restaurants on my list——-NuVegan Cafe

NuVegan is on a very busy corner and I actually had to hop out of my boyfriends car and just run in because we couldn’t find parking. It is a vegan soul food kitchen. Unfortunately at the time I went they were only serving brunch (and i aint wont no dang pancakes!). So I scraped together some non-breakfast items to try.

“Fried Chicken”, Mac n “Cheese”, and Spicy Garlic Kale.

(1) The fried chicken actually peeled, felt, looked, and tasted like real chicken…and I’m still semi-weirded out by that. (2) The Mac N Cheese was reallyyyy good, but I’m not a mac n cheese girl so I just had a couple of bites to taste test essentially. (3) The Spicy Garlic Kale was BOMB!!!!! I don’t know what type of heavenly foot they stuck in that kale but it was the best thing on the plate! (and the only vegetable-based option..win!). The kale was also a “salad” of sorts. It was in their cold bar and they have it out all day.

I urge everyone to try this restaurant if you want authentic southern food, completely vegan.

Why am I Vegan?

Like most of the world, I watched the “What the Health” documentary on Netflix recently and began to question everything and the life I’d been living….Is the sky really blue?!! I think the documentary definitely was vegan propaganda but I also have always felt humans weren’t meant to eat the amount of meat we consume these days. If you think of “hunter-gatherers”, they only ate meat when they caught it, and it was a luxury, and I’ve always felt humans were more “hunter-gatherer” (this is not based in any actual research ha).

Following the documentary, I decided to cut all chicken, beef, pork, and dairy products. I don’t like to actually call myself a vegan though because I have no qualms with honey and I refuse to give it up. If anyone can provide me factual evidence that honey causes me bodily harm then I may give it up, but until then…you can’t have everything!

As for fish…it was not mentioned above because I have not definitively given it up. I don’t actively eat fish or seafood, but I may partake in crab legs or crab cakes once a month. The documentary didn’t really define any true issues with fish besides the farming of them and mercury. So I always make sure I splurge for “wild caught”. Also, I spoken with several doctors regarding the mercury (I work at a hospital), and they all said I’d have to essentially eat-breath-sleep Fish 24/7 to acquire any type of toxic mercury level to my body.

As a new vegan, I am having to change my outlook on food and cooking. I’ve started coming up with new meals that resemble old meals and maintain some since of southern cajun flair to my life.

So am I vegan?…yes-ish. Don’t be a vegan snob and kick me out of the club 🙂