Another One Bites The Crust

Hi friends!  The day after my cupcake-fest, I was struck ill again!  I think that my post-illness delicate belly might have been quite overloaded with sugar and that’s what stirred up that nasty stomach bug again.  Either way, I’m back and ready for delicious food once again, but maybe just a little toned down for a bit.

I received a special little package in the mail a few days ago.. Glo Bars! I’ve been a big fan of Angela’s blog for a while now and I finally got my hands on some of her wholesome, vegan glo bars.  I immediately tore up one of the Adore variety, which is S’mores flavor!  The bar was quite flavorful, infused with marshmallow and homemade graham crackers!  I loved the chewy texture.  I’m going to have to order quite a few more of this Adore bar!  I ordered a mixed pack, and I assume that each and every other one will be just as delightful!

I’ve also had a little obsession with hummus sandwiches lately.  Sometimes it’s peanut butter and jelly, right now it’s red pepper hummus on toast.

I feel like I’m really grasping for quality posting material at the moment and I don’t want to bore you guys!  I’ll answer a question I received on formspring.me.

How many tattoos do you have? Are you thinking of getting any more?

I have eight tattoos- the tops of both feet, on both upper arms, one on my forearm, two on my back, and one on my ribs. I’ll post photos one day! I’m thinking of getting more, yup! I would like to get a sleeve on my right forearm with arctic animals, but I think the next tattoo I get will be a chrysanthemum on my shoulder.
Got anymore questions?  Click here and ask away anonymously!

The only food I ate today that is blog worthy has got to be these vanilla cupcakes from 500 vegan recipes.  This is one seriously good cupcake, and easy too!  The ingredient list is super short.  I threw together all the ingredients in probably five minutes!

For the icing, I just quickly whipped together some non-dairy butter, powdered sugar, a bit of almond milk and blueberry agave nectar.  It’s the perfect topper for these beautiful cupcakes.  Oh, and I added sprinkles to the batter to make funfetti!

By the way, I’ve jumped on the formspring bandwagon. If you’d like to ask anonymous questions, here’s you chance!  Click on the link and ask away.  I’ll make a Q&A post if I get any questions

With a bit of time in the morning before my first class, I got to work in the kitchen with Mama Pea’s recipe for Pumpkin Spice Roasted Chickpeas!  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how delicious they are.

I had all the ingredients ready in my pantry!  Hooray, I love it when that happens.  Anyway, so I mixed together all the ingredients in a bowl (just sort of eyeballed it) and then threw it onto a baking sheet with some cauliflower.

Looking good, eh?  It took most of my self control to not inhale the entire recipe before it cooled!  Once cooled, I packed a portion up into my lunch box, along with the cauliflower, a salad of mixed greens and broccoli, and apple slices.  Once I got to school, I mixed together the greens, cauliflower, and chickpeas.  So satisfying!  This lunch was so much better than the one I bought on campus the other day.  I’ll be packing my lunch quite frequently!

Isn’t that box cute?  It’s a bit small, but I managed to pack a hearty portion in there.  There’s two stackable containers with removable dividers.  I ate my lunch by my lonesome in the incredibly crowded student center.  My classes today, History and English, went quite well.  They seem very interesting so far and I’m looking forward to getting into the swing of it all.

After class, I bundled up and headed back to my apartment.  I walk to school, since it’s only a little over a mile each way, and I quickly learned that flats are not suitable footwear for this commute!  I’ve been back home for about an hour and a half and my toes are still frozen!  I learned my lesson there.

I’m usually starving by the time I get home, so I eat dinner pretty early.  I developed an extreme love of tater tots when I was sick.. and it’s clear that this love is here to stay!  Goodness, I love those pillows of potato deliciousness.  A woman cannot live on tater tots alone, so I roasted some broccoli along side.

All dipped in ketchup!  Except for the carrots and hummus.  Dinner was quickly followed with hot chocolate made from almond milk, topped with Dandie’s marshmallows aaaand a mini nondairy ice cream sandwich spread with white chocolate peanut butter.  Oh, chocolate.. I love you.

Soon after posting, I curled up in my little nook and vegged out on the couch for a bit.  If you follow my Twitter, you’ll know that I am completely obsessed with Law and Order: SVU.  Two of last night’s episodes had an Environmental / Animal Rights theme going on, so I was pretty excited to watch.  Of course, they portrayed a lot of the activists as bad people, who were being investigated by the FBI on terrorism charges.

I’ve read that animal and environmental rights activists are pretty high, if not number 1, on the FBI’s terror list.  That’s pretty ridiculous.  As far as I know, no animal or environmental rights activist has been charged with harming anyone.  There’s also some pretty crazy legislation that, as Will Potter say’s, ‘uses “terrorism” rhetoric to chill free speech and to protect corporate profits‘, and I think he’s spot on.

It seems like I’ve gotten pretty off topic over here, but it’s my blog and I sure can do that!  Back to breakfast.  I fell asleep in my living room nook last night and turned to some more familiar nooks and crannies for breakfast.

I don’t have that many english muffins left, so I’m going to work on getting some more interesting and creative breakfasts going on!  I love english muffins, so crisp and chewy, but I do need some variation in my life.  Along with the peanut butter and jellied muffins, I noshed on apple slices and strawberries.

Thanks for the lunch suggestions in my last post!  I’ve got tons of new wrap ideas to bring to school.  I’m going for a different route today, however!  Time to throw on my apron and get to work.  I’ll be back after class   Have a great one!

Oh!  One more thing! Make sure you check out the bake sale for Haiti over at The Chic Life- I’ve donated vegan banana chocolate chip muffins!  Go bid!

Anyone know the song from my title?

Today was way more awesome than usual!  The day was focused totally around love.  Love for photography, love for friends, love for kabocha squash, love for hummus.. I could go on, but let me get to the fun stuff.

In anticipation of a whole lot of running around, I fueled up accordingly.  I roasted half of a kabocha squash, just tossed in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Let me tell you, I am in love with kabocha.  I’d like to go steady with kabocha- give it my class ring and let it wear my letter jacket.  Or something.  Moving on, before I take this too far.  Ah, well.. alongside, I made a hummus wrap with red pepper hummus, arugula, green peppers, and pickle. That combo was quite delicious, but I do eat this combo very often.  I’m thinking that wraps are going to become a staple in my lunch rotation while I’m back in school so I’ve got to find some more exciting insides.  Suggestions?

Soon after, I ate an un-pictured apple.  Filled me right up!  Very soon after I finished my crisp, juicy apple, my old college roommate showed up at my door!  Melissa and her fiance, Jeremy, are getting married in November and asked me to be their photographer!  We had planned to take the engagement photos last week, but I ended up in the hospital on the day, so moved it to today instead.  It was incredibly windy and quite overcast, but Melissa and Jeremy totally worked it.

What do you think?  I’m quite fond of them!  These are just a few super quick edits, but I am sure I will have more to post over at my photography blog, Nicole Lee Photo, very soon!

I was starving after all this, so I immediately headed into the kitchen to find something quick.  I started with a salad of baby lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, green pepper, and hummus.  With my salad, I ate a vegan BLT that my friend Jeff brought me yesterday!  So nice of him, and it was really delicious.  It’s got tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato and vegan mayo, I assume.  I’m lucky to have great friends!

I better go finish up my homework- I don’t want to be slacking already.  Oh, and I think I hear a tofutti cutie calling my name from the kitchen!

I woke up pretty early this morning, considering how late I ended up staying awake last night!  After a quite boring dinner of peanut butter and jelly and my salad leftovers, a friend and I watched about four hours of Twin Peaks.  Have you seen Twin Peaks?  It’s the greatest show in the history of television, I’m telling you.  I’ve you’ve never heard of it, you should rent the DVDs!  It’s a very absurd detective-esque series from the early 90s.  It’s by David Lynch, and if you’ve seen any of his films you’ll probably have a good understanding of how bizarre it can be!

So, yeah, I ended up going to sleep fairly late.  Even so, I bounded out of bed this morning for breakfast.  I don’t have too many breakfast options at the moment, so I settled on peanut butter and jelly on an english muffin- again.  I love this combo, but it is getting a bit old!  I believe it’s time for a grocery store trip.

Of course, consumed with mass quantities of coffee.  I think I’ve been over-doing it on the coffee the past two days.  Just because I am able to drink it in excess now that I am not sick, doesn’t mean I should!  I’ll have to remind myself that this morning.  Or later this afternoon when I reach for a cup.

The urge to bake struck me soon after breakfast!  I found a can of pumpkin in my bare cabinets and got to work on pumpkin muffins from the Post-Punk Kitchen.

It’s barely past breakfast and I’ve already consumed one.  They’re really good!  I added walnuts to mine and had to sub half of the oil for applesauce, since I ran out.  Because of that, or because I couldn’t wait five minutes to cool, they stuck to the wrappers.  It’s all good though, no scrap muffin was left behind!

Time to get going with my day!  Lots to do, lots to do!

Well, anyone who goes to school at Southern will tell you that when it rains, our campus straight up floods!  It would be extremely helpful if they had a boat service to taxi the students around.  I’m telling you, it’s needed.  I walk quite the distance to get to class and as you can imagine, I was soaked by the time I got onto campus.  I don’t mind a little rain, but an umbrella would have been a good idea today.

My classes so far were fine and my teachers seem pretty nice.  I have an hour break in between the two classes, so I headed over to the student center to pick up something to eat.  I meant to pack a lunch, but when I went to make something today I realized that I didn’t have too much to work with.  Bummer!  The offerings for vegans at Southern aren’t too impressive, so I went to the salad bar and loaded up on the veggies, beans, and tofu.

The student center was so unbelievably crowded and I had no where to sit, so I wandered by myself around for a while and barely had any time to eat, so I ended up packing the salad up and taking most of it home with me to eat now.  I took this photo at home, after I picked out all the raw tofu and chickpeas!  To hold myself over until I got home, I also got a banana and ate it on the way to class.

The walk back was just as wet as the way there, so right now I’m warming up in bed with a cup of matcha green tea and an orange.

I haven’t had an orange in a while!  I don’t like the seeds, but it tasted delicious anyway.  Lifted my spirits from my mediocre day.  It just seems so weird to be back in school again!  I felt like an outsider.  I guess time will tell how this all goes down.  I can choose to make this semester good or bad.. and I’m definitely trying for good.

When do you start school?  What courses are you taking?  If you aren’t in school, doing anything exciting this week?

Hi friends!  For the past two weeks, I’ve been so, so sick!  I had a terrible stomach bug or case of food poisoning which led to a hospital visit, lots of nights hugging the toilet, and very boring food.  But, I have used this time to think about posts for the blog and changes I’d like to make.  First off, I think I’m going to start documenting my life through food.  I do very much enjoy reading blogs of that type, and I think that it would make it easier for me to post more often, which I love to do, and create interesting discussions.  Which brings me to the second point, I’d love to create more discussion over here!  Along with that stuff, I think it will be very fun to display my vegan eats from day-to-day, instead of just the meals I have recipes for.

Anyway, more to come on that!  Let me get back to today.  I am so happy that I’m feeling great for my first day of school.  Yup, after a year and a half off, I’ve decided to head back to university.  I’m only taking three classes, but I’m pretty nervous and a little excited.  My classes this semester are History of the American Indian after 1850, English, and Digital Photography.  I’m pretty excited for that last one, except for the fact that it’s a Saturday class and is from 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon!  Yikes!

I woke up pretty early this morning because I fell out of bed!  Yeah.  I fell out of bed.  It was been shocking to be woken up from that, but I’m fine.  My bed is pretty close to the floor.  I just laid around until I wanted to eat some breakfast.

Peanut butter and jelly on toast, plus some fruit.  Plus another un-pictured piece of toast immediately following.  I can’t forget the coffee!  I haven’t had this breakfast in two weeks or so and I missed it!

Ah, yes, so now I’m just procrastinating getting ready for class.  I’ve got my books ready to go but I still need to pack some snacks and get dressed.  Talk to you soon!