Day 7: Vegan Challenge

Hey guys!

How is everyone doing? Well, it’s the end of the week and I’ve completed my Vegan Week Challenge. I’ve learned a lot about the way I eat and caring more about what I put into my body. So, today I kind of had a lazy day and ended up having left over’s for dinner and ended up having my overnight oats with fresh fruit. I’m hoping that I can keep this experience with me and carry it onto my daily eating habits.

Breakfast:

 

Now I have never had overnight oats, but these cold overnight oats sounded so interesting that I just had to try them. They did not disappoint. It was the ooey gooey goodness of oatmeal but cold and flavorful. I really enjoyed these and I’m definitely going to make a point to have them again. As for dinner I ate the rest of my cheddar broccoli soup and it was just as delicious as before. I figured I wouldn’t post a picture since I had already posted a picture of it before. Well, I suppose now it’s time for my conclusion.

Conclusion:

Being vegan honestly made me feel better, even though I could have made more of an attempt to add in vegetables I still felt good. I’ve noticed that it’s nice to know what’s in your food before you eat it. Not to mention also, it’s really nice when you have a nice home cooked meal opposed to going out and eating greasy fast food. I know sometimes it’s a hassle to cook everyday, but when your going out and buying something fast and cheap you really are getting what you paid for. I’m starting to realize how important it is to be healthy, it not only makes you feel better but it makes you want to do more. Even though I don’t think that a vegan lifestyle is for me, I still really enjoyed the journey and I’m glad that I went out of the box and tried something new. I’m not a health freak by any means, but at least now I have a better idea on things I should put and take out of my diet to make me feel better.

Well, thank you for reading. I hope you keep reading and have a wonderful night.

Day 6: Vegan Challenge

Hello wonderful people!

Well, today I figured I would take a rest of the running and finally had things ready to eat.  I wanted to keep everything new, but I figured I needed a little break after cooking so much and decided to make the delicious banana split oatmeal again. However, this time I decided to mix in the banana instead of putting it on top and still was extra extra delicious. Yum, yum. Oh! Speaking of oatmeal my friend helped me out so that I could make some yummy overnight oats! I can’t wait to eat them in the morning.

Breakfast:

I’ve been feeling a lot more energized lately, so that’s good. Although, I have been feeling quite jittery..not quite sure what that’s all about but at least it’s better than i’ve been feeling. My friend updated me on how when you start to go vegan your body is somewhat trying to detox itself so it can make you feel kind of icky. So I’m glad that at least now I know why i’ve felt sick to my stomach the past couple days. Anywho, tonight was family pizza night so as usual my Dad made the dough. After changing a few of the ingredients I made a meatless pepperoni and sausage, cheese, and tomato pizza. It was pretty gosh darn good.

Dinner:

Other than that, just one day left of my vegan challenge and i’m actually quite proud of myself. Things have been going pretty good, got a letter from college that they accepted me and things are going great. So, as long as things keep staying this good why change it? Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be sure to post tomorrow and sum up everything that I learned this past week.

Everyone have a wonderful night.

Day 5: Vegan Challenge

Hello guys!

Nothing really too excited for today to eat, kind of kept it simple since I needed to run to the laundry mat today. I started off the day with some num num Panda Puffs. Who thought such a peanut buttery goodness could be packed into a cereal. Not to mention, they’re gluten-free!

Breakfast:

After the laundry mat I needed to go to the store to pick up apples for my apple fritters! Which were WELL worth it just to say. Either way, I ended up getting home pretty late so I ended up just making a nice tossed salad for dinner and paired them with my absolutely delicious apple fritters!

Dinner:

Dessert:

Oh my goodness, these were beyond amazing. Of course vegan, but still so so good! I usually don’t like apple pie, but these were just…delectable. Gimme more please? Haha. Alright well, that’s all for now. I’ll be posting more soon!

Day 4: Vegan Challenge

Hey fellow bloggers!

The past couple of days have been extra muggy and hot outside, today it was 98 out. If you stepped outside and inside an air conditioned house the difference was so nice when you came back inside. Anywho, so far I feel like I have been quite busy almost as if I don’t have much time on my hands. I’ve been trying my best to fit everything in and still eat right, so my posts might be quite short. Other than that, things have been going pretty good. Feeling good and eating right. For breakfast this morning I decided to make myself some yummy pumpkin spice pancakes. Oh, pumpkin spice pancakes how I love thee. Haha. They were so delicious I couldn’t stop eating them.

Breakfast:

Then later on I started onto my vegetable stir fry; it was probably the best thing I’ve had so far. The sauce I marinated it in was absolutely delicious and just added to the whole entire meal. Kind of a simple meal, but still amazing.

Dinner:

Other than that I haven’t been really doing much because cooking and keeping myself updated on new movies that have came out. I watched Take Me Home Tonight and Limitless and they were both pretty good. Well, that’s all I can think of so have a wonderful night everyone.

Day 3: Vegan Challenge

Hello there guys!

I know I posted this post late, but I suppose better late than never. Not much new going on, but I do happen to have pictures of my meals for today. I started the day off with one of my good friends recipe of banana split oatmeal. It was absolutely delicious.

Breakfast:

 

After that I ended up making myself some amazing spicy cheddar broccoli soup. It was so good that I actually kind of preferred it to one’s that I’ve had with milk and dairy. I’ll definitely be making this soup again sometime. I paired with with a meatless chik’n patty wrap to complete my meal.

Dinner:

Anyways, sorry for the short post I’ve just been keeping myself busy so I haven’t had much time to make my usual long posts. Well, that’s all for now.

Day 2: Vegan Challenge

Hey guys, how is everyone doing?

So, it’s day two of my vegan challenge and things are turning out great. Today I woke up and felt quite refreshed and ended up making myself a strawberry and banana smoothie, which was delicious. I tried looking up a recipe for vegan french toast, but instead sort of came up with a recipe on my own and they turned out to be delicious. I thought that nothing was really changing until I found myself constantly up cleaning things around the house and keeping myself busy. It was almost as if i’m starting to be more enthused to do things. I ended up cleaning my room like I have been putting off and took charge and finally sent in my college application. Overall, I feel quite accomplished. Although I kind of do miss my meat and dairy, it’s strange how eating better can really make a person feel so much better.

Breakfast:

Later on in the day I started on my Black Bean Burgers and I was hoping that they turned out. I was worried that they would turn out mushy and not taste right, but they ended up getting nice and crispy on the outside and soft in the center. Yum, yum. I paired them with some seasoned red and sweet potatoes. Everything turned out great and was delicious to boot! I think I’m starting to get pretty good at this Vegan baking thing. Haha.

Dinner:

All in all, thank goodness no more mess up’s in my diet and that everything turned out how it was supposed to. Maybe if everything works out I can just keep trying new things and get a little creative. Well, that’s all that I can think of for tonight. I’ll keep posting and keep you updated.

Day 1: Vegan Challenge

Hey everyone!

Today as promised I started my Vegan Challenge. I went to the grocery store and picked up a ton of vegan goodies to eat for the week. Today I ended up making my spicy black beans which I turned into a delicious bean burrito for dinner. As for breakfast I started out with a mocha chip scone that my good friend made and like everything she makes it was delicious. I wasn’t able to take a picture before I went out the door because today was quite hectic. I was at the grocery store for nearly 2 hours searching for everything that I needed for the week. At any rate, while I was out I was snacking on these cherries that I bought and they were so delicious. They’re these yellow and red cherries and normally I don’t like cherries, but these were exceptionally good. Yum, yum.

Snack(s):

As for dinner, I made my bean burrito’s with meatless ground, spicy beans, tofutti sour cream, Dairya cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato. They turned out great and made a wonderful dinner. However, after hanging out with my friend she told me that most people make the mistake of not checking meatless products and they end up having dairy in them. So, unfortunately the ground that I made had dairy in it which kind of upsets me, but she assured me that when going vegan it’s okay to make little mistakes because sometimes the ingredients are hard to keep track of. So, with that being said I feel a little better, but nonetheless I feel bad for making a mistake. Maybe I’ll extend it a day depending on how I feel by the end of the week.

Dinner:

Anyways, I’m going to be sure of checking the labels from now on so that I don’t make any more mistakes! I guess it was good that I made a mistake on the first day than on the last day. So, things are going okay so far but we’ll have to see what the week has in store. I’ll be sure to keep posting with good eats.

Everyone have a wonderful night and keep reading.

 

Blueberries, Blueberries, Blueberries

Hello there folks!

I finally went blueberry picking on thursday as planned with my good friend and we had a blast! We both brought our camera’s and it wasn’t as nice as we would have hoped for pictures, but to our surprise while we were walking to go pick the blueberries it turned out to be such a beautiful day. We finally got to the blueberry bushes and there were so many for us to pick and to eat of course. We ended up picking them for about an hour and it was getting quite toasty outside that we started walking back to the orchard. While we were wandering we looked at all of the other fruit, so we were quite exhausted by the time we actually got back. When they weighed my blueberries I had picked about a pound of blueberries. I can’t imagine how long it would take to fill the whole bucket! We would have been out there for hours. At any rate we had a blast and the blueberries were so delicious. Has anyone noticed how much better fruit is if you hand pick it? And, no I don’t mean hand picked from the store. Haha. Anyways, I almost have all of the blueberries already gone. I should have picked more!

I know I probably sound silly saying this, but I had absolutely no idea that blueberries were a light pink before they were ripe. It’s interesting how many kinds of fruits and veggies can look so different before it’s ripe.

As I said before, look how huge this field was for picking blueberries! It was amazing. I thought the blueberries looked so pretty sitting in my bucket that I wanted to take a picture of them. I can’t wait to go back so that I can pick more fruit!

The Vegan Challenge:

As for other news, I’ve been really getting down on myself for the way that I’m treating my body. Due to my baking crazes, along with everything else I’ve been catching myself eating more and more as well as eating lots of junk food. I’ve finally decided that it’s time to really buckle down and set myself straight. So, for those of you who caught my very first post about change I mentioned something about me taking a vegetarian challenge for a week. Next, I went on to talk about taking a Vegan challenge week so what better time to take the challenge than a time when I’m trying to teach myself to eat better? So, I was planning on starting next monday as soon as I get healthier groceries. My good friend who is vegan is helping me to plan out my meals, so that I know the right things to eat. Since my friend will be packing to go camping I’m planning on going vegan once I get my groceries tomorrow. As long as everything goes as planned I will be posting my meals everyday and keep you updated on how it’s going. I’m hoping this will force me into a better eating habit, so we’ll see. That’s all for now, I’ll post tomorrow when I begin my meals.

So much, so little time

Hello there fellow bloggers!

What’s everyone been doing while I’ve been gone? As for me, I’ve been keeping myself busy mostly doing little odd and end things here and there. I feel like there’s so much to do in such little time. My Mother wants to have a garage sale this weekend, so I need to get everything ready for that. Not to mention also I really need to get on putting my application into college so that I can start in the fall. Other than that I’ve just been baking sweets and somehow still focus on my health. Haha. I ended up baking those cookies I talked about, but the presentation wasn’t what I expected so I shall try, try again! However, I did make these cupcakes that I found off of the Food Network website for the show Cupcake Wars. Oh, I love that show! The cupcake itself was really delicious, but again I had difficulty with the frosting. It turned out to be a different problem though! Now, the frosting came out to the right consistency but it tastes completely like lemons and butter. Either way the presentation was nice so I decided to post a picture of the pretty cupcakes.

White Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes:

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty, aren’t they?

Moving on, I’m going to be picking blueberries with my good friend on thursday! I’m excited. Last year we were searching all over to find a place that you could pick your own fruit and we finally ended up finding this orchard and we got to pick apple’s. So, now we’re back again this year for some of the other fruit! We should have a pretty nice time as long as it’s nice outside. I’m keeping my fingers crossed! Let’s see, anything else? Hm, oh! Me and my friend also made banana soft serve for the first time and it was so gosh darn delicious! Who would have thought that a frozen banana could be so good? We ended up putting peanut butter and chocolate chips in it and it was absolutely deeelishh.

Well, th-th-at’s all folks! 

Happy 4th of July!

Hey guys!

I took this picture against the sun when I was fixing my settings and this is how it turned out, I thought it looked really pretty.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful 4th of July, because I know that I did! Me and my Mom did some late shopping and later on we enjoyed the typical hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. I was planning on making some cookies, however the dough didn’t really have time to set up before I had to leave so I shall be making them tomorrow and I will post the pictures. Moving on, after I finished eating one of my good friends, her boyfriend, and his friend went to go see fireworks! We ended up sitting there for about a good 2 hours before they started, but it was nice enjoying the outdoors. Once the fireworks started I tried taking pictures, but I felt like a dunce trying to find the right setting to shoot the fireworks in time. I ended up with a few shots that I am pleased with though, so the pictures will be posted below. Even though the fireworks weren’t the greatest I still enjoyed spending time with my friend and enjoying the night life. Overall, it was a pretty wonderful 4th of July. How was everyone else’s 4th? What did you do?

Fireworks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This guy was lighting fireworks in front of us, so I decided i’d take a picture..even though he’s standing right in front of them. Haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took a lot more photo’s of the fireworks, but these were one of the best one’s to turn out. Enjoy!

Oh! And not to forget. Yesterday, I started going on my fritz again..fritz..that’s a new one for me…anyhow, I started to go back into my baking craze and whipped up these delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles. They’re really really good, however I don’t think I could have more than one without getting an intense sugar rush. Not that sweet is a bad thing, ’cause if you know about the food I post…it’s mostly me baking desserts. Anyways, I’ll post the pictures and you’ll have to let me know what you think of them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that’s all that I have to post for today! Everyone keep reading and once again I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July! 😀