Orientation Smoothie Shake, Bikes!

**Update** Jared has informed me he put his break back on his bike.

I am not one to eat breakfast when I wake up but I have my orientation this morning at the college and know I'll need something in my belly to help me pay attention. I made a very filling smoothie shake out of vanilla soymilk, a frozen banana and a handful of frozen strawberries. I seriously doubt the campus will have any thing to munch on today and the orientation lasts about 4 hours, so I may have to pack a snack.

Oh, and I also wanted to show off our bikes. We went biking in downtown Decatur on the Trail this past weekend and had a lot of fun. It's starting to get hot though!
My bike is the pink Schwinn cruiser bike and Jared's is the orange IRO fixed gear/no break. I'm thinking about selling my cruiser bike and getting a fixed gear myself, although I personally would like to have a break on mine. Jared is super into bikes, so it would be a nice hobby for us to share together. You can check out Jared's blog here.

I love this picture of Jared!

Valentine's Day Comes Early

Jared and I were out shopping for clothes today when I remembered I wanted a new purse. We are fortunate enough to have an all vegan store called Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe that has shoes, bags, shirts as well as many yummy foods and all the great cookbooks. After circling the mall (UGH!) we finally made it over to their cute little shop on the other side of town. Cosmo's isn't exactly right near our house but we go there about every 2 weeks to scope out the new cookbooks/zines and pick up a snack. I have been eyeing this purse for months now and Jared bought it for me for Valentine's Day. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

He also bought me some of this yumminess, which to me is way better than chocolates.

I'm one lucky wife.

treats from a friend, fruit shake

Jared and I have really, really great friends. We are fortunate enough to have the same friends and some of our friendships have lasted as long as our own relationship (7 years). I met our friend Jon through Jared because they were both guitar players in a band called The Chain Link Disaster. Jon and I instantly bonded over our love of music and of cooking/baking. The cool thing about Jon is that once Jared and I became vegan he immediately started experimenting with vegan treats for us. So, much to my surprise, when I got back from Tampa, Jon had mailed us 4 kinds of HOMEMADE vegan treats all the way from Brooklyn! He made us oatmeal raisin cookies (although they are mini muffin shaped), brown sugar cookies, a giant cinnamon sugar cake thingy and a spiced fruit cake. The oatmeal raisin cookie/muffin treats are my favorite (can you tell? I have 2 on my plate). What a great guy! Sorry ladies, he's taken.

I haven't been too hungry at night, which is a good thing, so for dinner lately I've been drinking my dinners in the form of fruit shakes or smoothies. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I have had several smoothie/juice bar jobs in my day. In fact, I am known as the Smoothie Queen in my family. So, I am fortunate to know how to make really great shakes and smoothies at home. Tonight's drink was less like a smoothie, since I didn't use fruit juice and more like a shake, since I used soy milk. This beauty is 1 cup of vanilla soy milk, 1/2 a pint of fresh blueberries and 1 medium frozen banana. That’s it!

groceries, lentils, almond milk

Today is day three of the elimination diet. Like before, I feel hungry a lot of the time even when I just ate . . . side effect of not eating whatever I want. It is hard to watch cooking shows and I have to leave the room when Jared eats something that I love but is not on my plan. To make sure I do have a lot of options, I stocked up on some groceries. I got raw/blanched almonds, mango, dried lentils, dried pinto beans, quinoa flakes, sunflower oil, peppermint tea, napa cabbage, bananas, watermelon, baby bok choy, sugar snap peas, green grapes, cucumber, pears, sweet potatoes and fresh thyme.

I think the things I have missed most in my cooking have been onions and garlic. I made these lentils today that had carrots, celery, brown lentils, fresh thyme, sea salt, sage, rosemary, oregano and basil, on top of steamed jasmine rice. I think a lot of people would enjoy this dish but I think it would have been a lot tastier with onions.

With the raw/blanched almonds, I made almond milk. With my immersion blender, I ground up a cup of the almonds with about 1/2 cup of filter water until smooth. I then added 2 tsp of maple syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon along with 4 more cups of filtered water. I strained out the ground almonds through a very fine strainer. I think next time I will leave out the cinnamon, use less water and use a bit more maple syrup.

hummus, lentil soup, shakes

Today was filled with yummy eating! Jared and I decided to get out of the house today to go look for bikes. We finally got out of the house in time for lunch and decided to go get some Mediterranean food. We went to the Olive Bistro in Atlanta but the falafel pitas weren't as good as the last time. We did order the hummus small plate which came with whole wheat and white pita that was pretty fantastic.

For dinner, Jared made his AWESOME lentil soup. He put carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, red lentils, veggie stock, sea salt, black pepper and ground coriander. He also toasted slices of ciabatta bread to dip in the soup. I love love love this meal.

For dessert, I made "milk" shakes out of chocolate hazelnut soy yogurt ice cream, better pecan soy ice cream and chocolate soy milk. I don't even need to tell you how wonderful this was.

Cinnamon Apple Muffins, Banana Berry Smoothie

I'm on top of the world! We finally got a new stove. No more baking goodies in my convection oven. In celebration of our new stove, I made these cinnamon apple muffins, recipe from La Dolce Vegan!: Vegan Livin' Made Easy by Sarah Kramer. I had to add more soy milk than her recipe called for since it was almost impossible to combine everything. They turned out lovely! These are especially awesome with a bit of whipped Earth Balance.
My favorite part is the pecan/walnut crunchy topping.

To supplement my muffin treat I made a smoothie with frozen banana, fresh blueberries and hemp milk. Very creamy!