What I Ate Wednesday - The Orlando Edition

As promised, I'm back to show you all of the yummy food I ate while in Florida! I think there was a good mix of healthy and a little bit naughty... some good vacation balance I think ;)

Check out the eats!

Up first is a tradition that we have which is a trip to Loving Hut! Every time I go I say I'm going to have something different but every time I get the same meal. This is the "Combo #1" which consists of rice, summer rolls, tofu and vegetables. As you can see I almost forgot to take a pic this time and dug in before I remembered! ;) It was delicious as always.

I also baked on Friday which is also tradition. This trip I decided to make some vegan chocolate chunk brownies from Party Vegan. They were delicious but a little crumbly... a problem that can be fixed in only one way...

Heating and topping with ice cream. This is a piece of blondie heated for a few seconds and topped with So Delicious chocolate ice cream. So delicious it was.

This snack plate is courtesy of a friend of my friend (who I've gotten to know over the past few years and love!)! He made us a lovely snack plate of mini pitas, sliced tomato and cucumber and on the side is sun dried tomato hummus. He did a great job! 

So I saw his veggie snack plate and raised him a fruit snack plate. Grapes, strawberries and the rest of the vegan chocolate chunks from the blondies melted on the side for dipping. The three of us didn't even make a dent in this huge plate, ha!

It is also tradition for me to cook a dinner and this time I decided to go kind of simple and make a pasta dish. This is my friend's plate (do you see the random heart in the sliced garlic?! How cute!)... I used a salad sized plate for my serving, ate about 2/3 of it and wanted to die, ha! I've never been a big pasta eater and when I do eat it a little goes a long way... it just feels like a heavy meal in my tummy. Anyway, this pasta dish was SO SIMPLE but also so delicious! It is tricolor pasta with steamed broccoli in a garlic and olive oil sauce. It was so flavorful despite the short ingredient list. I'll definitely be making this again in very small portions ;)

As I mentioned on Monday, we went for a walk around Lake Baldwin on Sunday evening then enjoyed a lovely Mexican dinner overlooking the lake. I started with a (strong!!) frozen strawberry margarita. It was so good.

I ordered the veggie fajitas which in this case (since I asked for no bell peppers) was a sizzling plate of mushrooms and onions.

On the side was some guacamole, pico de gallo, rice and black beans. I asked for them to leave off the dairy. It also came with tortillas for wrapping. Very delicious meal! Also ate about half before being totally stuffed.

On Monday we went for lunch at Ethos Vegan Kitchen! We normally go for brunch but decided to try it out for lunch this time. It was amazing, as always. We had an adorable waitress who was so sweet!

We started by splitting an order of garlic knots between the three of us. They were DELICIOUS, the best I've ever had! They were piping hot and super fresh, sprinkled with vegan parm and served with a garlic butter dipping sauce.

I chose the Crispy Chickun Salad. It has baby spinach and mixed spring greens topped with crispy chickun, tomatoes, cheddar cheese (presumably Daiya), cucumbers, carrots and red onions (which I left off). You can choose ranch or agave mustard dressing and I went for the agave mustard dressing. It was so delicious! Definitely recommend this salad.

And there you have it, the meals I enjoyed in Orlando! I definitely ate well on this trip and had such a great time! I'm also looking forward to talking a little bit more about our day trip to Cassadaga, which I will do in my Nerd Alert! post this Saturday. 

I hope you have all been enjoying these recap posts! Stay warm all of my chilly friends here in the Northeast!

This Week In... Orlando!

Hey everyone!! I'm baaaaaaaaaack! The cold 32 degree weather was kind of a punch in the gut coming back from the gorgeous 85 degree Florida weather but that's the way it goes I suppose. Anyway, I just got home about an hour ago and I couldn't wait to show you guys some pictures from my trip! You'll have to wait until Wednesday to see the yummy food I had down there though ;) Such a tease, I know.

I know you're probably wondering why the hell I took a pic of my "allergy kit." Well, it's because I was going to be sharing a space with...

This handsome guy!! He is so freaking cute I can't stand it. Here he is resting on the very top level of his kitty mansion that his grandma got for him ;) You can see he can't be bothered by my nosiness.

So on Friday we ran our usual errands that we run when I visit (Whole Foods, grocery store, wine store, etc.) and after that we settled in to catch up and...

Have a glass of wine with Kathie Lee and Hoda... those lushes, hahahaha! He loves them and I find them amusing, especially their love of daydrinking so we decided to join them for a glass of wine. And this was when I found out that wine makes me soooooooo sleepy.

Here is an obligatory photo of a silhouette of a palm tree. When in Florida, take photos of palm trees.

On Saturday we took a little day trip to a town about 40 minutes away from my friend called Cassadaga. It is a spiritualist community and is known for the amount of mediums and psychics that inhabit the town. We walked around and checked out the shops and it was really interesting. I purchased a few things but I'll hold off until Saturday to tell you about that ;) I'm full of teases in this post!

It was hard to get a clear pic of the building but this is the Cassadaga Hotel. The building was so incredibly beautiful, this photo doesn't do it justice.

There was also a park and a short nature trail in the town. It is so hard to describe but the air smelled sweet! When we were walking the trail the air smelled amazing and sweet and I *think* it may be because there were orange trees around there? I thought I saw a sign for it but I didn't see any oranges. Lots of little lizards running around too.

On Sunday we had a lazy day and watched some movies before going out for an evening walk around Lake Baldwin (the same lake from the pictures last year) followed by dinner (and a margarita) on the patio of a Mexican Restaurant.

Here is the gorgeous view from our table at the restaurant. It happened to be sunset too so we were treated to a blue and pink sky. It was a gorgeous evening. (Note - I darkened this picture on purpose so you can't really see the faces of the other diners. I feel weird showing people without permission!)

Today we were slow waking up but then got ourselves together and went to a vegan restaurant for breakfast (actually lunch since it was noon when we got there) and then just hung out until it was time for me to leave.

The flight home was ok and I was treated to some gorgeous sunset views. Naturally I captured them for you, my friends.

Beautiful, colorful sunset!

Sunset over NY. So pretty, the colors were so stunning. 

When I walked outside at the airport here in NY I was greeted by bitter cold temperatures. It's crazy what a different a thousand miles makes ;)

So there is the overview of my trip! Stay tuned for Wednesday to see what delicious meals I ate (and cooked) while I was there. I'll do my best to catch up with all of your posts too!