#BostonStrong

I might not be from Boston, but I'm from CT and know some people who do live in Boston. We all know I'm a New York sports fan all the way, but even that can be put aside in light of recent events. It's terrible to turn on the news (or log in to social media) and see all that was going on in Boston and the surrounding area. I'm glad we have brave people in this world who will risk their lives to protect us. I wanted to let ya'll know of some ways you can help those affected by this tragedy.

First off, there's The One Fund, the official fund for the Boston tragedy. Donations can be made on their website. Below are some items you can purchase from companies who will then donate to The One Fund as well.

Second, Alex Eaves, the creator and owner of the Boston-based company Stay Vocal, worked with William Somerby to create the shirt you see below. It costs $20 and 100% of that goes to The One Fund. You'll also be saving the planet too as the design is printed on brand new shirts that were destined to be destroyed. Due to the shirts that were available there is only men's size large, but you can get creative and repurpose it if it's too big/small (check out some ideas on Pinterest). I ordered mine already and hope you will do the same!

Third, Saucony will be selling lace plates to show support for Boston. 100% of the proceeds will go to The One Fund. These can't be purchased yet, but you can sign up for pre-sale notification (note: that will sign you up for their email newsletter).

Adidas has also jumped in and is selling t-shirts in men's and women's sizes for $26.20 with free shipping with 100% of profits going to The One Fund.

There are also plenty of runs and races being organized to support The One Fund, so look for one in your area.

Whichever way you choose, just support our fellow Americans. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the Boston tragedy. United We Stand.

College, Food, and Weight Loss

If you werent aware, I am in grad school. Almost finished though (28 days until graduation), and then I have no idea what will go on after that. Anyway, back to my point. I'm in grad school, and sometimes maintaining healthy eating habits can be tough. Especially when I live on campus and have a free meal plan. Campus food is good, but it's not always healthy and it's hard to figure out the nutritional value of the foods.

I am actively working towards getting back into shape and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I've been going to the gym most days of the week, usually taking one or two days off each week. That's a benefit of being a college student - free gym access. The hours are great at the gym too; I can go early in the morning to get energized for the day, late at night to burn off stress from the day, or somewhere in between if my schedule allows it. I'm on Week 3 of Couch to 5k which is going really well for me. It's getting easier and easier to run for longer. I've even signed up for my first 5k as motivation - the Pensacola Sunset Run on May 11. I won't quite be finished with the Couch to 5k program, but I'm okay with that. My goal is basically to finish, preferably in under an hour and with as much running as possible. I may be leaving Pensacola sometime not too long after that, so I figured it would be a nice farewell to Pensacola run.

More info on the Sunset Run HERE 

To help with the eating habits I started doing Weight Watchers. In two weeks I've lost four pounds so it's obviously helping. It's tough though, and I think being in college makes it tougher. I can't get nutritional information for the food served on campus (except for Papa John's and Quiznos) so that makes it especially tough. I have to guess a lot (or I just stick to salad so I only have to guess at the dressing). Then there are other times that make it difficult as well.

Take for example yesterday: Festival on the Green during the day and a Blue Wahoos game at night. For lunch yesterday some coworkers and I got some Festival food: I had delicious fried fish, fried pickles, and corn on the cob. Well there went the majority of the days points.

Knowing I'd be at a baseball game that night I opted to eat a quick dinner before heading out. It was a very quick dinner as I had about 20 minutes in between work and leaving for the game. That was a great plan as all I got at the stadium was a diet soda. It's okay to splurge every now and then, and that's one thing I like about weight watchers.

Sadly the Wahoos lost, but we had a great time at the game. Today has been a nice, relaxing day of babysitting. I will hit the gym later and then chill with some friends tonight.

My goal is to keep up with this blog; talking about college and weight watchers and probably some job search stuff. I'll include some recipes from time to time of the delicious things I cook up.

Katy Perry Epicness

Seriously the most epic conversation ever. We all know I love Katy Perry so this is great. Had to share it.

Vegan Success

So I apparently never posted my final vegan post. So it's coming soon. After finals, most likely.

Vegan Spicy Sweet Linguine

So like I mentioned in yesterday's post, I modified Rocco DiSpirito's Spicy-Sweet Linguine alla Vodka from his Now Eat This Diet. I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone in case anyone is wanting to try the vegan version.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz whole wheat vegan-friendly linguine
• 1.5 cups dairy free marinara sauce (some store bought sauces contain cheese)
• 4 oz jar fire-roasted red peppers, cut into strips
• 2 tablespoons vegan cream cheese
• 1 tablespoon soy milk (or other milk substitute)
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
• 1.5 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
• Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Bring a large pot of [salted] water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package.
2. While cooking the pasta, simmer the marinara sauce and peppers in a medium sauce pan. Cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Remove from heat
3. Mix vegan cream cheese with soy milk until combined. It should be the consistency of Greek yogurt. Add more milk or cream cheese as needed. Slowly whisk the cream cheese mixture into the sauce.
4. Drain the linguine and pour into a serving bowl or back into the pot. Add the sauce, parsley, and hot pepper sauce. Gently toss until the pasta is evenly coated.  Season to taste.

Enjoy! Check out Rocco DiSpirito because he has lots of great recipes and they're low in calories. His version of this pasta has only 307 calories and 7 fat grams, so this one's probably around there.

My Vegan Vacation

Note: For those of you who have said that you haven't been able to comment, I think I fixed that issue.

My Vegan Vacation: 4 Days in Melbourne, Florida

So I chose October as my month to go vegan because it didn't involve major food holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's...) so I shouldn't run into many speed bumps. Well, I hadn't thought about the fact that I was taking a long weekend to go down to Melbourne to visit my undergrad for my sorority's alumni weekend. I had a fantastic weekend and was so happy to see so many of my Alpha Phi sisters. Love them.

Sunrise over I-10.

Food was complicated over the weekend. Thursday I drove down and brought food with me for the road trip (7.5 hour drive) so that was fine. Left super early in the morning, but I love driving before the sun is up.


Thursday night I went out for Mexican with a friend and easily found a vegan option, and the waiter assured me it was dairy-free. Friday breakfast consisted of a bagel and some coffee with a friend at Panera, of course. Breakfast was a little late so I didn't eat lunch. Dinner was the challenge. Alpha Phi was hosting the 3rd Annual Red Dress Gala, a formal dinner fundraiser to raise money for the Alpha Phi Foudation in support of heart health. My sister, Norah, who is wonderful and was in charge of the event worked so hard to get a meal I could eat. The hotel that the event was being held at clearly did not understand what it means to be vegan. My salad consisted of watered down lettuce with two slices of tomato. I say watered down because I thought at first that they had drizzled it with oil for dressing, but no they just soaked the lettuce in water. No dressing. I squeezed lemon juice onto it to add some flavor and ate the tomatoes last so that I got the most flavor at the end. I was a little worried about what would come next. The entree they served was a plate of vegetables. Just vegetables. They were delicious, and I was grateful to have them but there was nothing else. No rice. No beans. Nothing but veggies. I'm clearly a rabbit. My friend next to me has a bunch of allergies so she also got a special meal. They served her after me and she got a plate of veggies and rice. I looked at her plate and said "Why can't I get rice?"

Norah and I. She's awesome.

My plate of veggies. Delicious. Not fulfilling.

 Saturday was a lot better for food. Lunch consisted of a BBQ at the APhi house. BBQ doesn't typically scream vegan, but my Little was awesome and made me a vegan dish. She made this pan-asian noodle dish which was delicious. There was also fruit, and a salsa dip that I could eat. That worked out well. For dinner I had a fantastic veggie wrap at bar and restaurant we were at for dinner. Thanks to the website barnivore.com I can easily look up alcohols that are vegan friendly so that is always helpful. Sunday was the drive back and I didn't really eat much other than chips.

I didn't have a chance to go food shopping since I got back until tonight. So Sunday night and yesterday consisted of leftovers. Tonight though I made a vegan version of Rocco Dispirito's Sweet and Spicy Linguine alla Vodka (which has no vodka in it...). The recipe calls for yogurt and I didn't have soy yogurt, nor was I able to go downtown to Ever'man's to get some, so I experimented and mixed a little bit of vegan cream cheese with some soy milk. It seemed to make the right consistency so I gave it a try. It was delicious. And I tweeted about it and Rocco retweeted it which kind of made my night because I'm in love with him. Maybe tomorrow I'll post my modified version of the recipe. It really was good and it's pretty low in calories. Rocco has really great low-cal recipes with his Now Eat This Diet.

 

 

The sauce came out great with my yogurt substitution experiment.

Finished product.

Put it in some tuperware and brought it to my office for dinner.

That's all for now. I had a fantastic trip and made the best of it as a vegan. I didn't starve so I'd say it's a success. Look for some more posts soon.

Me and some wonderful ladies at Red Dress Gala.

Loved this in the Florida Tech alumni magazine.

My Life Month as a Vegan - Halfway!

Day 17.

Since it is October 17 I am past the halfway point of my vegan month. It is going well and it is going by fast! There are plenty of recipes I still want to try and I have lots of leftovers in the freezer. I'm definitely going to be eating vegan past this month (but not entirely vegan). I'm really enjoying this veganism and have learned so much and tried many different foods, and a lot more cooking than normal.

So since it's the halfway point here's a list of the things I've started missing:

• Eggs. I love eggs and the substitutes are great but sometimes I just want to scramble up some real eggs.
• Mallomars. If you recall from my last post I'm missing these now that it's Mallomars season.
• Candy corn. Love Halloween because of candy corn, but it's made with gelatin. I found a recipe for homemade candy corn that doesn't include gelatin or anything else that isn't vegan-friendly so I might give that a try.

Honestly I think that's it. It's a short list, but I'm not really missing anything else because I've found great subsitutes.

I'm not missing ice cream because I love this!

So on the note of Mallomars, I mentioned last time that my mom mails them to me since they are hard to find down here. Well, about an hour after I wrote the last post, I was at Publix and found a (very small) supply of Mallomars. Well, at least I know I can find them here.

Mallomars, hidden in with all the Oreos.

Pre-roasting.

 So for some reason I'm totally in love with roasted veggies lately. So one night I decided to roast up some veggies that I needed to use up before they would go bad. So I took some carrots, celery, and also some potatoes and seasoned them up a bit with oil, italian seasoning, paprika (of course), and some salt and roasted them in the oven. Delicious. Served it over some rice. It was a super easy meal and very delicious. I had leftover veggies so I put them in some tupperware and put it in the fridge (knew I'd be eating them a lot over the next few days.

Roasted veggies. So amazing.

Served with some delicious white rice.

Terrible picture but I love quinoa.

 So then the next day I didn't have much time for dinner so I thought I would have a vegan burger that I could quickly microwave. I didn't have any bread so I thought I'd just serve it over rice. But then I realized I had rice the night before with the veggies so I should come up with an alternative. I couldn't think of what else to do with them though given everything that I had in my kitchen. Then I realized that I had quinoa that I had yet to (ever) use. Yes, I've never cooked with quinoa before. So I cooked up some quinoa which I seasoned with a little bit of garlic salt. Delicious.




So I sometimes feel the need for a snack, but I've been wanting something healthy and vegan. I've made roasted chickpeas before so I was in the mood for those earlier this week. They are super easy to make. You just take canned chickpeas (I usually do two cans at a time), rinsed and drained. Season them up however you'd like. I used some canola oil, paprika (of course), some Italian seasoning, and a little bit of sea salt. Spread them evenly over a baking sheet and bake at 400 F for about 40 minutes (keeping an eye on them for the last 10 minutes so they don't burn). Delicious. Lasted me a few days (surprisingly). I might make some more tonight for my road trip tomorrow.

Pre-roasting

Roasted.

So the last couple of days I haven't felt like doing much because I've been pretty sick (upper respiratory infection and viral bronchitis). Good times. So last night I didn't have much of an appetite and didn't feel like cooking anyway so I had some Amy's frozen vegan mac and cheese that I heated up in the microwave. It was pretty good and a perfect portion size when I wasn't feeling well.

Amy's Rice Mac and Cheeze.

Zucchini cake batter.

Tonight for dinner I decided to make some zucchini cakes. I found the recipe from VeganDad. I modified the recipe a little bit. I didn't have soy yogurt and Publix doesn't sell it. I didn't have time (or energy) the last couple of days to get downtown to Ever'man's so I thought I'd experiment with modifying the recipe. I used a little extra soy milk and also whisked some softened vegan butter into the wet ingredients. I also seasoned up the batter with some paprika and nutritional yeast flakes. I used about a tablespoon and a half of batter for each cake and fried them up in canola oil. Otherwise I kept the recipe the same. I didn't make it with the tomato-onion relish either, but I'll try that the next time. They came out pretty good. I want to see if I can cook them more like pancakes or maybe bake them somehow so that they aren't fried in all that oil. I had them with the rest of my leftover roasted veggies. It was a delicious dinner.

Zucchini cakes and roasted veggies.

I made 12 of these with the recipe.

This past Saturday some friends and I took a spontaneous day trip to New Orleans (3 hour drive). We left around 7:30am (when we had planned to leave at 6:30am). We went to the aquarium, the zoo, and then wandered around the French Quarter. I loved the aquarium (of course, but was sad that the penguins were on hiatus while their exhibit was renovated). We got a deal where we got admission to the aquarium, an IMAX movie, and the zoo for only $19. So we saw an IMAX about coral reefs and the destruction of them (in 3D). That was pretty cool, but sadly not narrated by Morgan Freeman. The zoo was really awesome too though some exhibits were also under renovation so there were some animals we couldn't see. We tried to find some vegan friendly restaurants (and found plenty) but the two we tried for lunch were closed. So we skipped on lunch and had an early dinner at The Gumbo Shop. I had a vegan gumbo which was pretty delicious. Everyone else's food looked awesome too. After dinner we wandered around the French Quarter. I may have gotten a hand grenade to drink (amazing). We saw some street performers doing awesome break dancing. It was a great time. Then we drove back to Pcola that night.

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.

Last night I did some baking. I baked some vegan banana bread with a recipe I found from a google search. I used a smaller pan than the recipe called for so I also made some muffins with the batter. It came out really amazing, and the people who have tried it agree. I call it a success.

What's left of it. I used vegan choc. chips for a couple of the muffins.

So this weekend will be my first vegan vacation. I am leaving tomorrow and driving down to Melbourne, FL to visit my Alma Mater (Florida Tech) for my sorority's (Alpha Phi) alumnae weekend. I'm really excited because I haven't been down there in a while (April, I think?). I'm looking forward to the trip, but I'm worried about my food options, especially since we have some events involving food but I don't know if I'll have options. It's okay though because I know I'll figure something out and I'm also taking some stuff with me. We'll see how it goes.

Sorry for such a long post. I'll have another one sometime early next week.