What I Ate Wednesday

Hey everyone. So I sort of followed through on photographing some meals... and by sort of I mean I barely photographed anything but something is better than nothing, right? This'll be a quick one ;)

I've been eating a lot of fruit. This weather begs for cool, refreshing meals and nothing beats fruit. This is a mixture of cantaloupe, strawberries and grapes and I snacked out of this big bowl for a few days. I've got some amazing watermelon waiting for me to devour it next!

Lots of salads as well. This one is romaine, cucumber, tomato, carrot and sun dried tomatoes. Balsamic vinaigrette added later.

I got to snack on the Earth Balance Vegan Cheddar Crackers and wow!! If you liked Cheez-Its you will LOVE these. The flavor is spot on and they are nice and savory. A third to a half cup is all you need to be completely satisfied, yum! I definitely recommend this snack.

These are the Salt & Vinegar Pop Chips. These were also really tasty. I love salt & vinegar so the flavor choice was perfect. The chips are light and crispy and not at all greasy. Definitely a great choice for your potato chip cravings.

You guys, I am so excited about this find I couldn't wait to share it with you! I haven't made it yet but I was FINALLY able to find this frozen Malawach. This is by far my absolute favorite "Jewish food" I've ever had in my life and the last time I ate it was pushing 20 years ago. My cousin made it for me for the first time and it was so delicious. It is basically a flaky, layered fry bread that originated in Yemen but is very popular in Israel now as well. When my cousin came home from Israel she made it for me and I loved it. I have eaten it maybe two or three times in my life because I could never find it but I finally found it in the freezer section of Fairway Market!

Malawach is made similarly to a croissant with the layers and the "butter" and the folding and oy, what a process. I've always been entirely too lazy to make it myself so when I found this I read the ingredients 400 times to see if it was vegan. It contains margarine but the lack of mention of inclusion of dairy (the allergy warnings which I always check first) as well as the "Pareve" label made me feel confident that it is vegan and I grabbed it! In it's frozen form it doesn't look like anything special but when it cooks it gets puffy and flaky and amazing.

Malwach is traditionally eaten with honey as a sweet breakfast (make mine maple syrup) or with tomato sauce as a savory component. I'm going to try it several ways and I'll summarize and let you know which way I enjoyed it most! I'll probably make it for a yummy brunch on Sunday.

That's all I've got for you. I hope you are all having a great week!

Brought to You By Other Bloggers

The other day I was in need of some inspiration so I headed over to one of the most inspiring blogs I know: Oh She Glows. Angela is definitely a rock star in the blogosphere and it's pretty easy to see why. Her gorgeous, healthy recipes accompanied by equally gorgeous photos are so inspiring and so easy to whip up in our own kitchens. I spent a lot of time combing through her archives and pinning tons of yummy recipes. I can't wait to purchase her cookbook but until I can do that I'm going to continue to make the recipes found on her blog.

I knew I wanted to finally try some of her recipes this week and since my fruit cravings have been kicked into high gear with this warm weather, I decided on a few fruity recipes. I love everything I've made so far and I can't wait to try more!

I am obsessed with Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter and when I saw Angela's recipe for this amazing spread I knew I HAD to make it. Check out the recipe here!

This peanut butter is DELICIOUS and it makes a good amount. Mine is a little grainy because I don't have a great food processor and it overheated so I didn't get to process it as much as I'd like but the flavor is incredible. It has a hint of salt and some sweetness and the chew of the raisins is such a nice texture. The cinnamon adds a lot of depth as well. This is definitely a recipe I'd recommend to everyone!

Check out these beautiful Healthy Strawberry Oat Squares with Homemade Jam! These bars are so incredible and the homemade jam is the star of the show! The secret ingredient to thicken the jam? Chia seeds! It's genius and delicious.

Another winner for sure. And you can make any flavor of jam you like! Someone had even recommended making these with pumpkin and that sounds so incredible to me. These are a great snack on the go and also a yummy treat for breakfast.

The last recipe I wanted to try was the Apple Pie Chia Seed Jam. I LOVE apples and the jam was so intriguing to me and I felt like it was a really versatile recipe so I decided to go for it! Look how beautiful it came out. I decided to leave mine a little chunky and I have a few different meals planned with this gorgeous jam that I will show you next week! And the best part is that it truly tastes like apple pie filling. The only difference is that you can enjoy it without any of the guilt!

I can't wait to show you how I enjoyed the jam and the peanut butter next week but I figured I'd show you a little teaser ;)

This comforting meal of toast with Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter and banana with strawberries on the side was absolutely perfect.

Check out the raisins in the peanut butter. So freaking good.

So there you have some sweet recipes I've tried from Angela over at Oh She Glows! I can't wait to try some savory dishes as well. I definitely recommend all three recipes and would love recommendations of which of Angela's recipes I should try next!

Hope you are all having a great week so far!

What I Ate Wednesday

Hey guys. I only have a few meals to share with you today because I've just been lazy and my appetite has been weird but I figured a few meals are better than none! Things have been crazy lately because of a major change in my work situation so I'm just trying to readjust and get used to my new workload...

Anyway, here are a few meals... very few ;)

Honestly this was probably my favorite meal of the week. A big bowl of strawberries and a banana. The strawberries were so sweet and delicious. I have been craving a lot of fruit lately so this was a perfect meal for me.

Been eating lots of salads. I love this new container because you know I love my compartments. This salad is romaine, grape tomatoes, cucumber and sun dried tomatoes with Isa's Classic Vegan Caesar Dressing. Carrots on the side.

I saw this sign in one of the Bagel Boss locations and was really excited! Not a whole lot of bagel places out on Long Island carry vegan cream cheese so I was glad to see this. 

A week or two after I saw that sign I decided to have a Shen inspired meal! I saw this exact meal on her blog and thought it sounded delicious. I am a plain or pumpernickel bagel with plain cream cheese gal but I thought this combo sounded great so I opted for an everything bagel with tofu scallion cream cheese. It was such a yummy combo but those giant globs of cream cheese in the middle were removed because that is a bit intense.

Since this was a Shen inspired meal I figured I'd photograph it on the gorgeous Vegan Dish that she gifted me. I love the dish so much and it was the perfect vessel to deliver this meal to you :)

Finally, a quick meal on the go of red and green apple slices and Justin's Maple Almond Butter. It was a delicious combo and I had forgotten how much I loved this almond butter. 

That's all I have for today! I should be back tomorrow with another Throwback recipe! I think they are almost all transfered which is good because I think my other domain expires in July! I'll have to make sure I'm on top of that ;)

Hope you are all having a great week!

What I Ate Wednesday!

Hey everyone! I'm back for another What I Ate Wednesday! I've been eating a lot of raw food lately. Allergy season is upon us and I'm already feeling it so I'm trying to be as clean as possible because it's hitting me really hard. I haven't photographed a ton but here's a little bit of what I've been eating lately.

Here's some of my meals!

I made a gorgeous juice! I couldn't get over how pretty the pulp looked so I took a million pictures of it ;) I definitely felt like I was eating (well... drinking) the rainbow. How gorgeous is it?! It's like produce confetti.

And here is the actual juice. It was a really good one. It has pineapple, orange, green apple, carrots, beet and lemon. I have never juiced beets before so I was a little nervous about it but it was good! It had a bit of an earthy flavor even though I peeled it. I may just use a half next time but it was definitely delicious and this was a large glass. I think it was about 24 oz?

For this dinner I didn't have a raw meal but I did eat my veggies :) This is Eggplant Salad (puree of roasted eggplant with olive oil, vinegar and garlic) and it is served with veggie garnishes and delicious, fresh pita. It came from a place called Greek Corner. Truthfully I'm not a huge fan of most of their food (their hummus and falafel are not my favorite at all) but my mom ordered this one night and let me try it and it was delicious! I usually don't order from there but I will definitely order this again. It's super garlicky too.

I'm sorry about the horrible picture and tablecloth. After I finished my dinner I chopped up some tomato and cucumber and made an Israeli style salad (basically you just chop your veggies nice and small) and topped it with the leftover eggplant dip. I brought this to work with me the next day for lunch. I basically mixed it up into a delicious mess and put it in a pita. Good thing I was alone that day because the garlic is intense ;)

I had this beautiful salad! It had mixed greens, grape tomatoes, almonds, cranberries and candied walnuts (which I didn't eat because I didn't realize they were candied until after I got it and I didn't know what the ingredients were). I used some balsamic vinaigrette and it was delicious!

Sorry this isn't a ton of meals but I'm trying, I promise! Hopefully next week I'll have more meals to show you. I'm just so excited about visiting the mansions and photographing other things that I've been neglecting my meals. Like I say every Wednesday, I'll try for more next week ;)

Hope the rest of your week goes well!

What I Ate Wednesday

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I did a What I Ate Wednesday post so over the past week I made the conscious effort to photograph as much as possible. I didn't get a ton of pics but definitely enough to give you an idea of what I've been eating :)

I know it seems silly to take a picture of water but I've been focusing on hydration over the past couple of weeks. I drink a couple of these large mason jars filled with water every day. I love my glass straw :)

As the weather has been warming up I've been enjoying some smoothies lately as well. I got this one from Fairway (the store with the awesome pickle barrels and huge olive collection that I discussed here) while I was out and I'm typically a little weary of this since a lot of places tend to use syrupy fruit. This place had everything laid out for me to see and it was all fresh fruit and greens. This one is mango, pineapple, strawberry and spinach (passed on the agave she was going to add). Fresh produce blended with ice, you definitely can't beat it. 

I've busted out the juicer as well. This super green concoction contains one large cucumber, some romaine leaves, a few handfuls of spinach, some green apple and the juice of one whole lemon. It was really good! And I love the immediate boost of energy I get when I drink it. Oh and the cup is an adorable plastic-y (BPA free) mason jar type container that my mom got me. So cute!

I made myself a large fruit salad with several oranges, apples and some strawberries. Munched on this over the course of 3 days. It was so good and having it prepared and ready to go really helped my laziness ;)

This is a very thick bowl of Mayim Bialik's Tomato Soup with Israeli Couscous! Her pictures look way better than mine but oh well ;) This is a very delicious soup out of her cookbook Mayim's Vegan Table. The book is a really great collection of simple vegan recipes for family friendly meals. I love that she includes veganized versions of popular Jewish recipes too! I was pretty excited about that since there are some recipes from my childhood that I do miss and now I can make them again!

If you are interested in the recipe for this soup PETA actually has it posted here! Try it, it's delicious!

I had to make this last picture even larger so you can see the gloriousness of it. Last Saturday I went out for dinner at Wild Fig with my oldest (we've been friends for 15 years!) and dearest friends and her awesome husband. They live in Massachusetts so I don't get to see them often and when I do get to see them I am so happy. We went for Mediterranean food and had the most delicious meal with lovely company. For appetizers we ordered hummus and stuffed grape leaves. These were served with the most delicious, warm, fresh flatbread. Their hummus is by far my favorite of any hummus I've ever had. I wish I could bring home a gallon of it. On the bottom of the picture was my red lentil soup and it was amazing as well. Such a perfect meal and I was STUFFED when we left. It was such a good night :) I'm planning on going to visit them sometime in the spring as well and I can't wait! Oh and sorry about the horrible pictures, I took them with my phone in horrible lighting.

So this is some of what I've been eating! I'm going to try my best to continue to photograph what I can of my meals :) See you tomorrow with a Throwback Thursday Recipe!

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!

What I Ate Wednesday... on Friday

Hey everyone! I told you I'd make up for my missed Wednesday post :) I hope you enjoyed yesterday's Throwback Thursday post with the snack recipes. Today I have a few pictures of food I enjoyed over the week. I only have a few but it's better than the zero I've been posting recently. I just feel like I'm rushing around all the time and just forget to take them but sometimes I remember just in time.

Here's what I've been eating over the past week:

Meal from the salad bar. Lots of carrots, some dolmas, roasted potatoes (very oily, only ate a few of them) and a cucumber and tomato salad (also a bit too oily).

A beautiful container of really sweet fresh fruit. This one has cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberry, orange and kiwi.

I drank many smoothies like this one. I had this one at work and it was to the very top of my large mason jar. I used my glass straw too which I love so much. This one is my favorite combo of banana, strawberry and pineapple.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to breakfast with a friend on Wednesday. In addition to the great conversation and catch up, I had a really delicious breakfast of steel cut oats, cinnamon topping, fresh strawberries and pecans. It was from Panera and it was really good. I definitely recommend it if you are going to be there for breakfast.

So there was another meal I was going to post that I've been eating a lot this week but I'm going to save it for Sunday when I review the cookbook it came from :) I'm also getting really excited because in less than a week I'll be soaking up some sun and some best friend time and it can't come soon enough!

Hope you all had a great week. I still haven't been able to get to a mansion because of weather (and it's supposed to snow AGAIN on Monday, ugh!) but I'll get you the first post of my Gold Coast Mansion series as soon as I can.

See you Sunday!

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.