Weird Kind of Morning

Usually when my alarm goes off I do not want to get out of bed. I consider myself mostly a morning person. I am definitely not a night person (I'm usually in bed by at least 10 every night), but I'd almost always rather stay in bed than get the day started. Today, not so much. I was out of bed with gusto when my alarm went off and as a result, I'm almost ready for work a full 30 minutes early. Your benefit I suppose. Here are some things I've been meaning to show you.

I bought a box of the Amy's Bistro Burgers and regardless of the fact that I had no buns and had to improvise with a pita, managed to make a fairly good recreation of a quarter pounder from my youth. Tofutti cheese singles are not the greatest thing ever, but in combination with other foods they make for some decent nostalgia.

 

Quarter pounders don't typically have tomato, but I did, so there. This was delicious by the way.

I went through a couple of weeks where I was making burritos like every other day. I developed this lovely technique of putting the burrito seam side down on a hot cast iron skillet to keep it from opening. Genius? You tell me.

Mostly I use refried or whole beans with rice, lettuce and salsa for the boyfriend and add in some avocado for myself, but these were tofu scramble, greens and potato burritos.

My boyfriend never really shops for food. He works in a grocery store 2 days a week and usually the only thing he'll buy is bananas but one day he bought a couple of things including some chocolate for me! And here's how I used it.

First I mixed some peanut butter with some oats and I think a few mini chocolate chips.

Then I added on the melted chocolate and it was almost like a lazy, more healthy resee's. Only more healthy in that it had oats. Delicious.

One day I was wandering the interwebs when I came across the idea for cinnamon roll pancakes. The recipe was not vegan so I just winged it the next morning, before work mind you. The cinnamon swirl kind of cooked into the pancake instead of staying clearly swirled, but topped with a drizzle of icing, these were unbelievable.

Not exactly every morning food.

And finally, I leave you with the tofu omelette that I made Sunday morning. My boyfriend was not a fan as they were a bit more mushy than he would have preferred, but I thought they were delicious!




Alright, that's enough from me as it is now almost time to leave. Thanks for keeping me company while I wasted time before work!

Depression Hurts

Something or other can help

Not sure if that's the right tag line for that commercial, but you know the one?  Where they have pictures of inanimate objects that look like they are frowning and then smiling?  These remind me of that commercial.

For xmas my boyfriend got me 500 Vegan Recipes.  I love this book!  I have already made quite a few recipes out of it.  Starting with this one which is Cinnamon Quick Bread.  This bread was really simple and very delicious.

 Not sure my topping came out quite right, but good none the less.

Next, I made a dinner consisting of Au Gratin Potatoes and Riblets.

 

 The potatoes were a little too tofu-y and the riblets were a little too tough.  I might have cooked them too long.  Not too bad and with a few tweaks might be repeatable.

Finally, I made a breakfast cous cous from the book.  I added almond milk to each individual serving and added just a bit of agave because it was a little dry and bland, but I really liked the idea and it just happened that I had cous cous in my cupboard just waiting to be used.

A Chocolate Giveaway and A Good Cause

Wow, I cannot even believe the whirlwind I have been in since I last posted.  Since then I have moved, cleaned the hell out of my old apartment, been to a concert, been to the ER for my boyfriend being sick, and am currently sick myself.  I had almost forgotten the stress that comes with being busy.  It really makes me appreciate my normal routine of calm evenings at home when I have time to prepare fresh foods and my weekends of leisurely grocery shopping and prepping foods.  These past few weeks I have been eating so many pre prepared foods and I think my body is starting to cry out for better nutrition.   I am still not completely unpacked or settled, but I cooked my first meal on Sunday night that wasn't spaghetti, soup from a can or a burrito.  It didn't turn out spectacularly brilliant, as I was making a tofu scramble and instead of pouring in a handful of nutritional yeast I poured about a cup and a half.  I scraped out what I could and it was decent.  Meanwhile, I have discovered through Shelby that Trader Joe's carries an amazing assortment of vegan products.  Last night I got these mini spinach cheeseless pizzas.

I combined them with some falafel and hummus lettuce wraps and a pickle for dinner last night.  They were incredibly delicious.  My main reason for going though was to see if they had the pizza dough Shelby had blogged about.  Indeed they did.  Hopefully some yummy pizza will be made this weekend.

But, what this post is really about is that Chocolate Covered Katie is giving away chocolate!  To enter, go to this page.  I don't know how many people actually read this blog, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone did.  And while you are on Katie's blog, you might as well take a look around.  She is one of my favorite bloggers around and she is doing an awesomely thoughtful charity fundraiser right now, where you have to do nothing more than read her amazing site.  To read more about it, check out this page.

And I will leave you with the one decent picture I managed to snap during the past few crazy weeks.  This was a simple combination of apples, bananas and cinnamon.  I cannot remember at this point who suggested apples with cinnamon, but it was a great combo!