So I have been wanting to talk about what is in the video for a while now, but just now finally got around to doing it. I did not feel like typing therefor I video taped the slight rant...I didn't realize it would be THIS long but it is.
Hello and welcome to DALLAS TEXAS! If you are not from Dallas or have never been then you may not know how difficult it can be to find some good VEGAN COMFORT FOOD. Let me tell you, it is annoyingly hard. About a month ago people had been telling me over and over to try it out. So finally when my friend Cat was in town I had to go and try it...now I am obsessed.
Going to Vegan places makes my heart so so happy because I don't have to worry at all about anything I am eating! Recently I took my good pal Melissa there and she loved it!
This is a really random blogpost but I just thought I would share since it was a good memory...and I was also a fan of my outfit.
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| I got the El Paso burger, with a classic "patty", cheese, and asked for it without Jalapeños. Be sure you try the mac-n-cheeze since it is the best vegan mac I have ever had! |
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| Just thought I would show off this cute outfit since I love it |
So I have been vegan for over a year now! But if I am being completely honest I don't eat as clean as I should be, so since the beginning of the summer I decided to change that!
Next semester I will be living with my good friend Itati, another fellow vegan, and neither of us will be using the meal plan. Because of this we will need to be cooking, which I honestly prefer. My favorite meal that I have been making this summer is quinoa, red potatoes, onions and chickpeas. There is so much flavor, its filling, and full of nutrients. Below is the recipes!
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup of quinoa
- 2 cups of water
- Pepper
- Sea salt
- Onions
- 4 Red Potatoes
- Chickpeas
Directions
- Set the oven to 425
- Cut up the red potatoes
- Mix the potatoes, chickpeas, and diced onions in a bowl
- Season with the spices above
- Set the seasoned veggies on a pan and drizzle in olive oil
- Put the pan into the oven for 30 minutes and stir at the 15 minute mark
- While the veggies are roasting cook the quinoa
- While the quinoa is cooking mix together the spices above, I like to throw in some diced onions to add flavor
- Once the quinoa is fluffy take out the veggies and mix everything in!
Hello! So I as of a few days ago I have been in college for 1 month. That is really crazy, time has just flown by! What I will be talking about is how being vegan in college is going for me so far. Before going into college a lot of my peers and family members told me that I wouldn't make it a week in college being vegan. Well...this is awkward...because its been a month!
Of course they weren't telling me this because they were trying to change my diet, well not everyone, but its also just because a lot of people don't understand what you are able to eat being vegan. So to anyone who may be reading this that wants to go Vegan, its not difficult!
At my school's cafe they have labels on every meal. It will tell you whether something is vegan or if it just vegetarian. If your school does not do this then I strongly urge you to simply ask.
Most days that I eat at the cafe I go straight to the section that has the vegan options. It is actually pretty good, in my opinion, but I'm also not that picky. But on days where I am not feeling the typical vegan options in the cafe, I get creative.
We have a pasta and stir fry section. So when I want something different and little more carb loaded I just go there. Since I have now been vegan for 6 months (ahhh!!) I have don't a lot of research before coming to college. You just have to be conscious of what most meals are made of, even if you can't see the animal byproducts they can still be there. So just be creative and don't be afraid to ask.
Utilize all the restaurants and food that your campus has for you, because sometimes you have more options than you realize.
Another thing I love to do, when I'm craving sugar, is I bake some brownies. I recently had a post that included the recipe, its really easy so use it! I recommend buying common vegan ingredients, so if you ever want to cook you can already have the ingredients with you.
In all honesty I find that being vegan in college is much easier than being vegan at home. When I was at home I felt like my diet got in the way of my families, but now that I am on my own it doesn't bother anyone.
So if you are on edge about staying or becoming vegan in college, don't be. It really isn't as hard as people like to make it out to be. Just remember the reasons why you went vegan, that way other peoples opinions or comments won't affect you!
Also...it helps avoid that Freshman 15!
Ingredients for the sauce:
- 1/2 cup of cashew cream
- 2 cups basil leaves
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 clove garlic
The steps:
- First make the cashew cream
- To make this cream you will need a small pot, 2 cups of water and 1 cup of cashews
- Put this over the stove and boil for about 10-15 minutes
- Make sure to begin the pasta while your cream is boiling
- Once you feel that the cashews are no longer hard turn off the stove
- Put the mixture, including the water, into a blender and mix at a low level
- Once the mixture has become thin, without any lumps, you can turn off the blender
- Now that the cashew cream is done pour all the cream into an air tight container, making sure to leave 1/2 cup of cashew cream in the blender, but store the rest
- Add all the ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth
- Once finished the mixture will look very green
- Now mix your pesto into your pasta and eat!
I found this pasta very nice! At first it was a little dry, because I ended up making too much pasta, haha. But I made some more and now I can taste the flavor much better!
TODAY I come with an amazing recipe I discovered for vegan BROWNIES! When I decided to make these I did not expect them to be AMAZING, but spoiler alert THEY ARE! Don't be dissuaded by the thought or the ingredients because they are so good.
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup of mashed avocado
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 1 cup of all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (i used hershey's)
- 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 3/4 water
- Almond milk
- Chocolate chips (non dairy and non soy)
- Two bowls
The steps
- Pre-heat the oven to 350
- As soon as I gathered all of my ingredients I began to mix all of my dry ingredients. This helps it to be a little more organized and make the process go a little smoother
- Grab the avocado and cut it in half. I took one half and mashed it up, this ended up being about 1/4 a cup. If you are worried about wasting the other half go ahead and make a mini dip with the rest
- Now that you have the avocado, mix together all of your wet ingredients, this will look really gross and murky.
- Now in the bigger of two bowls pour everything together.
- I cut up the chocolate chunks and threw it in the mix after
- When I did this the mix was a little too thick for my liking, so I threw in a little almond milk. Of course I am really bad a gauging so I put too much and it became too runny.
- If you did what I did, just add a little more cocoa powder and you will be fine.
- I didn't feel like I had enough batter to put in a brownie pan, so I improvised and put the mix in the brownie pan
- Before putting it in the oven I put some full chocolate chunks on the top of the batter
- Then put it in the oven for 20 minutes
I hope you enjoy these brownies, because I know I did. Even if you are not vegan you will still love them as much as I did!
AHH! So! Life is taking an interesting twist for me right now. Never in a million years did I think I would be doing this, but here I am about to begin. I am becoming Vegan!
I don't really know how to explain how I decided, it just happened. Two weeks before I went to San Francisco I started to get a lot of stomach pains and I would wake up in the early hours of the morning and feel like I had to throw up. This was really weird because I hadn't been eating anything weird lately, so when I started to pay attention to it I realized it only happened when I had some kind of meat in my meal. So the week before San Fran I didn't eat any meat and I felt a lot better! When we went the only meat I had was the meat in the Din Sum and that night my stomach felt queasy. So I decided that I would take a break from meat for a while, because my stomach couldn't handle it.
One day I was cruising through YouTube and I came across this girl named Kalel, she is Vegan and made a video talking about good reasons to become Vegan as well. I watched the whole thing and found myself really interested, so I continued my research and found that I really agreed with everything that went with it. The next day of school Vegan pamphlets were everywhere I went. I grabbed one and read through it and found myself repulsed by all the cruelty I read. It was really that moment that I decided that I wanted to try it out.
Of course you can't just jump into becoming Vegan, especially if you are like me and have been eating meat and animal byproducts, so I am starting off small. I am cutting out meat entirely, and I am slowly taking out dairy and eggs. My kitchen doesnt really have anything that will help me with this goal, so if I absolutely have to have something with milk or butter in it then I will, but I hope that soon I will be able to be completely Vegan.
So I have decided to blog and document my journey of becoming vegan. This week my friend, Paige, and I went to the smoothie factory. I got a berry delight smoothie, with soy instead of yogurt, and then this vegan chocolate chip cookie. I liked the smoothie more than I liked it with Yogurt, and the cookie was actually really good! Then later that day I had a salad from chipotle, instead of my usual chicken I had Sofritas and veggies. I know these things are all very basic and small, but none the less they are a start. :)
I hope that I will really be able to go through with this, but a lot of people are being very supportive of me! So wish me luck?
