Hello fellow bloggers! Needless to say, my life has been pretty busy lately. I started my bar review classes this week, so I spend all day either in class or in the library doing the copious amounts of homework assigned. I planned ahead and did all of today’s homework yesterday, so I have a day off!
I have oh so much to share with all of you, but I’ll try not to make this post too long. Later this week I’ll try and finish up posting about all the good food we had on our trip across the country. We got really lucky, and I never once had to eat a plain baked potato for dinner. I had some amazing food!
Last week, I was lucky enough to receive not one, not two, but THREE great packages in the mail! The first one was a treasure chest full of goodies from Rachel at Pirate’s Booty!
Isn’t that so cute?
Inside were two bags of Veggie Booty and two bags of Tings, along with lots of booty head stickers and temporary tattoos (which my nephews have been enjoying, lol). I had never had veggie booty before. It was very…healthy tasting, ha ha. All of the adults thought it was just ok, but both of my nephews (ages 1 and 2) LOVED it! The 2 year old doesn’t really care to eat anything and he’s an extremely picky eater, but even he was chowing down. They finished both of the bags themselves in two days! Now Tings have been a favorite snack of mine and Pete’s for a while now, so we already knew that we would love them. But the surprising part was my sister, who loved them too! I only say surprising because she is also a very picky eater and doesn’t usually like my “weird vegan food”. But she liked the Tings so much that she had me pick her up a bag at Safeway that same day.
The next fun package I received was from Bruce at ZICO Coconut Water.
I had never had coconut water before, so I was really excited to try it. I received all three flavors: natural, mango, and passion fruit. The flavor is kind of hard to explain – kind of sweet, and kind of electrolyte-y. I know that’s not a word, but you know that kind of subdued flavor that gatorade other sports drinks have? That’s kind of what I tasted, so I assume it’s the electrolytes. It’s good, but different from anything else I’ve had. The mango was definitely our favorite flavor. I’ve been using them in our morning smoothie, and they work great! Not as heavy as soymilk, but creamier than water. Yum!
The last package was from Lindsy, who was generous enough to send me Ani Phyo’s new dessert cookbook! I was so, so, SO happy to see that many of the desserts could be made without a dehydrator. Even though I have been incorporating a lot more raw foods into my diet, I’m not ready to invest in a dehydrator yet. My parents (even my dad!) are both excited for me to start making some of the recipes from that book. I went out and bought some raw nuts and raw cacao powder, so hopefully I’ll have some time next weekend. I was so impressed with the way the recipes looked, that I ordered her other cookbook, which also looks amazing! I had heard a lot of negative comments about how many times her picture was in the book, so I was expecting it to contain a really ridiculous amount of pictures, but it didn’t at all. Even though it did contain more pictures than most cookbooks do, the focus was definitely on the food, and I’m so excited to start making some yummy food from it!
On a kind of related note, I received Isa’s new book, Vegan Brunch a week ago, and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even read it yet! Travesty! I always read through cookbooks as soon as I get them, so I’m itching to get my hands on that book today! I also received Sweet Freedom this week!!! I was super excited about this because I’ve already tried a lot of the recipes and know that they’re amazing! So if you don’t have it yet, you must get it!
I’ve been eating super healthy ever since bar review started because I need to feel as good as possible and have as much energy as possible. It’s amazing how exhausting and draining it is to sit and study for 10 hours. To make my morning smoothie even healthier, I’ve added Vitamineral Green Powder, chlorella, spirulina, hemp protein powder, and maca powder. It’s like good health in a cup! For lunch I pack a huge salad with romaine, spinach, zucchini, cucumber, black sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. For fat, I either add an avocado or “pizza cheese” (from one of my favorite new blogs, Choosing Raw. Love it!). Sometimes I throw on a few garbanzo beans too. This salad keeps me full until dinner, which is great! By the time I get home, I’m tired and not in the mood to cook, so dinners have been really simple.
I hope to be back later this week with some more posts. I miss reading all of your blogs (my google reader is so full!!!), but I promise that I’ll be back full force after the bar (which is July 28, 29, and 30)!
ETA: I also updated the A Dong post. The wordpress app for iPhones is kind of wonky, so I didn’t realize that it hadn’t posted my pictures.
