Grocery Haul: Trader Joe's

Hey everyone! I'm back with another quick post. Today I have a grocery haul to share with you. I've been doing my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's for the past few weeks because it is much more cost effective. I won't lie, I've missed the large variety of organic produce that Whole Foods offers but my wallet has been appreciating the switch.

I didn't actually buy any Meatless Meatballs but I immediately thought of Shen when I saw them and decided to snap a pic. I'm glad that you'll be able to get them again Shen!

I was a little disappointed in the organic fruit selection. I think this was mostly because I was able to get the most amazing organic peaches there just a few weeks ago and now every stone fruit they had was conventionally grown. It bummed me out but I didn't get it because I just can't bring myself to get conventionally grown dirty dozen fruits or veggies. I did get a few great things like strawberries, bananas, basil, grape tomatoes, lemon, cucumber, carrots and avocados. Mmm.

For grocery items I decided to splurge on some faux meat and decided to go for the TJ's version of Gardein Chick'n Tenders. Same taste and half the price, you have to love that! I'm also not really a pasta eater so I don't know what possessed me to get this gluten free pasta but I added that in to my cart as well. The Mediterranean hummus is one of my favorite commercial hummus' so I picked up a container of that. I've never tried the Chocolate Sorbet but how can I turn down chocolate sorbet made with coconut milk?! I hadn't seen this before either so my curiosity got the best of me. I finally finished my last tub of EB so I picked up another one. I've never had the whipped version, I hope it's good!

That's pretty much it for my haul. I'm trying to get back on track with my posting and I already have and idea for my next one so hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later! Shen, you inspired the next one so I hope you like it! See you soon!

Show & Tell Sunday: A Perfect Morning

Hey everyone! I know I haven't kept up on my word of posting more often but I hope that today's post will make up for it. It's only noon and I've already had the best morning I've had in a REALLY long time. As I'm sure a lot of you know or can tell, I haven't been feeling amazing lately... partially because of feeling yucky from allergies but mostly from anxiety and depression issues I have. On the heels of kind of an exciting epiphany I had this week of where I want to be and goals for my future I decided to get off my ass, take some damn Allegra and get outside.

My plan was to get up really early and make the 30ish minute trek out to Huntington to go to the Sunday Farmer's Market. It is one of my favorite drives on Long Island. To give you an idea of the area, I passed three of the Gold Coast Mansions between my house and the furthest destination. In addition, in a Scandinavian fascination frenzy last week I discovered that there is a Danish bakery 10 minutes past the Farmer's Market traveling on the same road so I figured what the hell, let's check it out! You know I love some good bread. So I left at 7:30 this morning and hit the Farmer's Market then traveled the extra 10 minutes to the bakery. It happened to be across the street from the marina in the town of Northport so I took a few pictures so you could see how amazing of a morning it was.

I'll show you those pics first:

This is probably my favorite picture of the day. The sky was so blue and gorgeous and it was so peaceful there. There were tons of boats in the marina and it was a beautiful view the whole way around. I should have taken a panoramic shot...

Looking in the complete opposite direction there are a few more boats and some really beautiful houses. The town was really small and very cute. Definitely a beautiful place to spend a Sunday morning.

There was also a park with a little gazebo, lots of tables and benches for picnicking by the water.

A kind of crappy picture of the bakery. There is outside seating so you can enjoy some treats and coffee with a gorgeous view of the marina. I'm really glad I decided to check it out.

After I went to the bakery I traveled back down the same road (25A for any curious New Yorkers) and stopped into Wild By Nature, a natural grocery store (kind of Whole Foodsesque I guess) on the opposite end of Main Street in Huntington that was on my way home. They have a lot of vegan options and I picked up much more than I was anticipating!!

I'm sure (or at least I'm hoping!) you are curious to see what I picked up on this excursion? Well, let's check out the haul! I took the pics on my phone, sorry about the crap quality. At least Instagram allows for some really great photo editing as you can see above but I did my best to make these presentable.

First, the Farmer's Market haul:

Truthfully, I've never really been impressed by the Long Island farmer's markets that I've been to. They are small and they only have one organic produce vendor. I was pleasantly surprised today! There was still only one organic produce vendor but they had more stocked than usual for this early in the season and everything was GORGEOUS. I got a HUGE head of Boston lettuce for salads and lettuce wraps, gorgeous strawberries and a bag of tuscan kale for juices and smoothies. The berries smell incredible and are super sweet and juicy.

New to the market this year was The Green Neveet. I was drawn in by the vegan sign :) She was so sweet and helpful. I believe she said she is a nutritionist and she sold a few different kinds of cookies, granola and hummus. I wasn't even going to sample the cookies but she just kept breaking off little pieces and handing me samples and I'm glad she did! In my first glance I immediately dismissed the sesame cookies because while I enjoy sesame, I'm not a huge fan of sesame cookies. I was immediately drawn to the coconut and luckily she let me sample it because I wasn't blown away by it. I also tried lemon (really fresh and beautiful), a chocolate mint one (also delicious), a raw cookie and the sesame. I was prepared to hate the sesame but I was blown away, it is delicious! It has almond flour, coconut oil, tahini, maple syrup, anise (I really can't believe I liked it, I am not a huge fan of anise either!), vanilla extract and baking soda. Really good, gluten free and all natural. Gotta love that!

I also tried the sun dried tomato hummus and it was absolutely incredible. Really smooth and creamy with a lovely flavor. I had to pick that up as well. I am so glad I wandered over to her table!

After I went to the Farmer's Market I continued along to the Copenhagen Bakery. It was really cute inside but it was crowded and I didn't really feel comfortable asking questions while there was such a huge crowd so I just settled on a loaf of bread. I don't know which products are authentic Danish products but I wish I knew which bread was. Maybe I'll try going back at a slower time to see if I can ask some questions.

I ended up with a gorgeous loaf of really dark pumpernickel. As you know, pumpernickel is my favorite :)

Finally, here is the Wild By Nature haul. I had gone in to grab some Tofutti for my pumpernickel and ended up grabbing a few more interesting things. I may be going to my brother's house for a BBQ tonight so I figured I'd make my life and everyone else's lives easy and grab this Bento Box for dinner. I've had it before and it's good. I also saw the Hail Merry tarts which I don't come across often and grabbed the Persian Lime flavor! I'm excited to try this, I've heard a lot of amazing reviews of the brand and these tarts. I also picked up Just Persimmons by the Just Tomatoes, Etc. brand (they make the freeze dried fruits and veggies, you've probably seen them at some point). I've never had a persimmon before and thought it would be a fun snack to try. Finally, I grabbed a cucumber to have for juicing, salads and lettuce wraps :)

After I got home I was starving and parched so I put my haul to good use and made breakfast. I had a huge jar of ice water to quench my thirst and enjoyed a pile of super sweet and juicy farmer's market strawberries alongside the ends of the pumpernickel (I love the ends) with some Tofutti. It was a perfect breakfast to cap off a gorgeous morning.

As you can see my morning started early but was really fun, invigorating and peaceful. I felt really happy to be out and enjoying the beautiful morning and finding new, fun foods to try. Being by the marina was really peaceful and was a nice break for me since things have been so crazy lately. And to think I did all of this by 10am! I'm an early bird for sure. The best part is that my weekend just started ;)

So there you have it, my absolutely perfect morning. I hope that you have all had a great weekend and enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Grocery Haul

Hey everyone. I know it's been such a long time! I'm sorry, things have been crazy lately. I've been able to work a couple of weddings and I can't say no if I'm available because every penny counts, right? Work has been crazy and between being super busy all day and feeling yucky from my allergies I'm usually pretty shot by the end of the day. I had put off going to Whole Foods for almost two weeks but I really had to go today because I had NOTHING so I decided that I'd do a quick grocery haul for you guys! I got a lot of the usual suspects but also a few new fun things. Mostly healthy but a few fun treats ;) I also apologize for the really horrible photo quality... these were taken with my phone and were totally backlit so sorry about that!

First up some yummy fruit! Grapes, strawberries and pluots (!!!), all organic.

Romaine, zucchini (for raw zucchini pasta), carrots, tomato, garlic, basil (the last three ingredients for a raw sauce) and some huge celery stalks. I typically HATE raw celery but it is so good for you and is especially good for inflammation which I always need help with. I have a ton of Angela's Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter and I thought that they would be a perfect match and a great way to get me to eat celery so I'm excited to try that!

Here's the fun stuff!! I saw the new Earth Balance Vegan Cheddar Squares (Vegan Cheez Its, what?!) and had to try them. I will definitely let you know how they are :) I also love salt and vinegar so decided to try Pop Chips in that flavor. They are supposedly lighter than potato chips? And I guess not greasy because they are popped? We'll see I guess! In the back on the right there are Sea Snax Chomperz which are some sort of puffed seaweed chip I think. I have no idea but again, I was intrigued so I grabbed some. I didn't realize how expensive they were until after I looked at my receipt so hopefully they are good! 

Finally, my Whole Foods FINALLY started carrying my favorite and the only coconut water I will drink - 100% Raw Coconut Water. It is so delicious and as you can see they are bright pink! This is a good thing apparently because the antioxidants in the coconut water will turn pink in a reaction to the light so it is my understanding that the brighter the pink the more antioxidants? I could be totally wrong but that's what I heard :) I got one large bottle and two small eight oz. bottles... in retrospect it would have been more cost effective to just buy another big bottle but the little ones were so cute :X

This isn't part of the grocery haul but I just got them for like $1.50 each and I love them so I thought I'd share! These are my new water cups, one for home one for work. I love them because they are my two favorite things - skulls and owls! So cute, I'm so excited to use them.

OK that's all for today. I think my grocery haul is a good balance between healthy and a few fun treats and I'm really truly going to try and photograph some more meals for you. I'm going to start eating smaller meals more often again because my digestion is out of whack again and can only eat small portions for now before feeling yucky so you should be seeing some small, veggie packed meals coming up over the next week!

Happy Friday everyone. One more day until my weekend ;)

What I'm Going To Eat Wednesday: Grocery Haul

Hey everyone! Two posts in two days, that hasn't happened in a long time! ;) In case you haven't seen yesterday's post, I'm going to try and start posting each day within a certain theme I've assigned to the day. Wednesdays in the future will be a "What I Ate Wednesday" post, but since I was unprepared with meal photos I decided to show off today's grocery haul in a "What I'm Going To Eat Wednesday" post.

Check out the haul:

Produce haul: Strawberries (I've been craving them for weeks! Especially chocolate covered strawberries :X), baby spinach, gourmet mushroom blend, tomatoes, shredded brussels sprouts, cucumber, bananas, grapes.

Random groceries: Tofu, GoodBelly (they finally had my Tropical Orange flavor - the only one I like), Sesame Seitan (had to try it), udon noodles and mushroom ramen (I've been craving soup like crazy too).

Products to Review: Go Brooklyn Munchies (lemon flavor), Earnest Eats superfood grain breakfast cereal bowls, Chia Pod vanilla flavor.

This last group, the products to review, is something I'm really excited about. Normally when I go to the store I rarely stray from my list. The decision to dedicate a day of the week to posting reviews (and sometimes recipes) is actually a really great way to get me to try new things that I would WANT to try but would never actually get. Is it weird that I'm most excited about using that adorable little spoon included with the Chia Pod? ;)

That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow (*gasp* 3 days in a row?!) with a Throwback Thursday recipe that I'll bring over from the old space. I'm enjoying the balmy upper 30s temperatures today and will certainly continue to soak up every minute of the pleasant temperatures through the weekend. 

CSD Cleanse Update & Another Throwback Recipe

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well! This will probably be a quick post on my end because I'm exhausted but I just wanted to pop in and show you a few meals I've been eating on this cleanse as well as share an old recipe that I've been enjoying this week too. But I figured I'd start with a quick grocery haul :)

Shredded coconut, raw almonds (VaVaBars anyone?!), fresh dolmas (!!!!!!) and some mushroom broth.

2 HUGE, beautiful bunches of swiss chard on sale 2/$5, a huge container of spring mix, bananas, cauliflower, broccoli, ginormous carrots and gourmet blend of mushrooms.

And some meals:

When I have time to juice I start off my day with some green juice. My favorite one is Kris Carr's Morning Glorious juice which has romaine, kale, celery, cucumber, apple, lemon and broccoli stems. I'm not a huge fan of veggie heavy juices as I have more of a sweet tooth but I really like this one.

Lots of big salads with beautiful, fresh veggies. The one above has greens, carrots, tomatoes and cucumber.

I found my adorable bento box and made some great lunches with veggie sticks (I'm telling you those carrots were HUGE), cucumber, dolmas and some hummus.

I made some zucchini pasta with steamed broccoli and Nana's Marinara but forgot to get a pic. I'll try and get one the next time I eat it because it was delicious!

Finally, on days that I don't have time to deal with juicing I go the quicker route and make a smoothie. For some reason I have an easier time drinking veg heavy green juices than smoothies so I make some concessions and make fruit smoothies and use Vega powder to bump up the nutrition and get 2 servings of greens as well as omegas and probiotics.

My favorite smoothie is my Good Morning, Sunshine Smoothie! This one came out extra thick and it was soooooo good! It was like soft serve for breakfast. I am loving my Ninja high speed blender, it is making my life so much easier.

I took this pic to show you the swirls of green from the Vega powder. I just thought it was fun :) 

So like I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to bring all of my old recipes over here and this is a great opportunity to bring this smoothie recipe over! Here it is!

Ingredients:

1 small frozen banana

5 fresh strawberries

1/2 cup frozen pineapple

3/4 cup favorite plant milk or water

1 serving vanilla protein powder*

Directions:

Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

*I always use Vega One protein powder because it has my greens, probiotics and omegas included. No need to add spinach unless I want an extra green boost!

So there's my update! I hope you all have a great night and a great start to your weekend tomorrow. I have one more day of work until freedom and I can't wait. It'll be nice to be able to relax and not worry about getting up and running around.

21 Day Challenge Grocery Haul

Hey everyone! Hope you are all doing well. The 21 day challenge started yesterday and so far so good. I had a chance to go grocery shopping today and I figured I'd show you the haul. This haul is courtesy of Trader Joe's. I had some gift cards and this is an expensive lifestyle so it definitely helped out to have this first haul almost completely taken care of :) I am aware that this is probably not even a week's worth of groceries but I have to take space into account and it should get me through a few days. I also don't like overbuying and throwing things out. That drives me nuts :)

Here's the haul:

First up are staple fruits: 2 bags of oranges, lots of apples and pears.

One bunch of bananas (I buy them one bunch at a time), two containers of grapes (one to be frozen for smoothies, yum!), one container of dates (I don't eat a lot of these because they are so super sweet on top of sweet fruit), some frozen blueberries and as a treat some pomegranate seeds. I have a few more bags of fruit in my freezer as well.

Four bags of greens: Baby romaine, arugula, baby spring mix and kale (for smoothies).

More veggies: Zucchini, 2 containers of grape tomatoes, 3 giant cucumbers, celery and basil.

The crazy thing is that this is a TON of produce and it probably won't get me through a week. I guess I'll have to see how far this gets me. I'll be back later this week to show you some food I've been eating. The plan is a giant smoothie for breakfast (with added greens since my salads won't be as giant as recommended), a fruit meal for lunch, some more fruit before dinner (probably bananas) and a big big salad for dinner. I think having that kind of structure will help me take a lot of the guesswork out of what I should eat and it will make planning a lot easier.

Hope you all have a great Monday and to all of my friends dealing with the horrific cold weather please stay warm and safe!!