they won't see us waving from such great heights

So I don't have anything interesting that i've made to share..
basically we've been eating out or making boca burgers and veggies for lunch ;)
but we leave for a month soon so that's why...otherwise i'd be making some delicious food. anyways.

I do have a vegan food review from 7-11!
yes..that's right, 7-11 the convenience store that sells plenty of non vegan calorie filled doughnuts and packaged snacks.
BUT!
don't be fooled. because 5 of the locations in Philadelphia offer many vegan choices from the brand Moshe who makes different vegan sandwiches, etc. in the city.
And lucky for me, one of those 5 locations is right up the street from my apartment!


I went in and saw the assortment of the different things to try..

there was a vegan chicken salad sandwich, seitan steak sandwich, un turkey sandwich, hummus sandwich, lentils and spinach burrito, vegetarian fajita burrito, vegetarian spring wrappers, these asian noodle things, and manyyy many others :) they all looked delicious and i really had a hard time deciding for my first time!

emily got the seitan steak sandwich and I got the vegetarian spring wrappers. We also bought salsa and were super excited to try these Guacamole chips..only to get home and I realized they were not vegan. :( BUT thats okay. the spring rolls made up for it. :)

Anyway, mine were AWESOME! the sauce that it came with complemented them perfectly and was really delicious. Emily's sandwich was also quite tasty, but it tasted pretty much just like a chicken salad sandwich would taste, I would think. So maybe next time i'll try the chicken and see if it's much different from the "Steak". It was also really cool that they had the ingredients and nutritional information posted on each item as well!
Anyway! this was just really convenient and awesome to see that 7-11's in the city are offering these options for vegans, and for people who might not know it's not really meat!

one final down, 3 to go next week! good luck to everyone else taking their finals :)

talk and talk and talk it out

okay so we all know the scenario..
it's late at night, theres not much food in the house, but you really want something sweet and super quick and easy.
this was the dilemma last night for my roomie and i..after having late night food in the first place, we both really wanted something deliciously sweet afterwards, but didn't want to wait for a while with complicated ingredients or a long time in the oven. thus, I can to the decision to make something using my favorite combo..chocolate and peanut butter, of course.
i present to you these:



haha yes, probably the simplest idea ever, but yet was perfect and so tasty! The coconut on top makes it look like snow and winter-y, how cute :)

Anyway if you come to a problem late at night when you just want something tastyyy quickly, i definitely recommend making up some of these.

Mix 1 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of coconut, 4 tablespoons of agave nectar, 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in a bowl. Mix around, but it'll be pretty sticky. Roll them into balls and in a plate of 1/4 c cocoa powder and more coconut. Put the balls in the fridge for about 15 minutes and they should be fine to eat then, but we learned they're much harder and more "ball-like" the next day.. we just didn't want to wait until then ;)

Woohoo for last day of classes too!!!!! :)

and thats one for the show

So I'm back in philly from home for thanksgiving break, I would've updated sooner with what I made, but I left my camera cord and such in my apartment. I had quite a lovely thanksgiving, and I hope everyone else did too. :)

Oh, And I used that Hain's vegetarian gravy packet, and it actually tasted awesome! It went really quickly at the dphie thanksgiving dinner and I doubt anyone knew it was vegetarian! I wish I had bought more for my thanksgiving at home..

Since I had seen Happy Herbivore's e-cookbook for the pudge free holidays, I was so excited to make a lot from there for thanksgiving! First up was I made the cornbread from it.

I absolutely love cornbread, so I was really excited to try this. It called for unsweetened applesauce, in which that became a problem when seeing that the applesauce in the house was Homestyle sweenetened..even with chunks and brown sugar! Well, I made due and used it anyway. I did not reduce the sugar in the recipe, which I should have.. since these tasted very sweet for cornbread, even more so of a dessert -ish type of food. However, I love sweet foods, soo I absolutely loved it this way! The apple chunks in it from the applesauce made them even more delicious!

For my main dish, while my family ate away at the turkey, I made the Maple-Glazed Vegetables from her ecookbook.

I did enjoy this a lot. I think it may have been better if I used perhaps a different asortment of vegetables or added tofu or tempeh to it. But otherwise, the sauce was really good and I'd definitely use that again.

I was really excited to make dessert. I honestly don't think i had ever eaten pumpkin pie before, but I felt as though it was something thats supposed to be at thanksgiving (not sure why since I don't remember my mother ever having it there..) buttttt I made the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie, in hopes that the chocolate would make it more delicious.

But sadly, I think i've come to conclusion that I just don't like pumpkin pie. at all. I think I really just want to like it, more so than I actually do. Oh well..other people ate it so I guess that's good.

Also for dessert I made an apple cobbler type thing.



I used a recipe from ppk and it came out really good!

Apple Crisp:
4 lbs of granny smith apples, cored and thinly sliced
1 T cornstarch
1/2 c water
1/2 c light brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nut meg
1/4 tsp allspice
1 c quick cooking oats
1 c flour
1 c light brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 c oil
3 tablespoons of soy milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dissolve cornstarch in water. Place apples in 9x13 baking pan. Add first two sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice and mix well with apples. Pour cornstarch mixture over all. For topping, mix oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Add oil, milk, and vanilla and mix well. Crumble over apples and bake for 45 minutes.

This recipe was really super simple, and made a whole pan full, so I'll definitely be using it again. paired up with my chocolate peanut butter soy ice cream..it was awesome! :)
well off to unpack my suitcase and huge bag of clothes that are all over my bed..not a fan of unpacking!

crashing through the parlor doors, what was your first reaction?

so I've been eatings lots of really delicious food lately, however, not too many of it has come from me making it.
tonight however, my sorority has its thanksgiving dinner, so I'm going to make mashed potatoes for it. My roommate is making green bean casserole using a vegan cream of mushroom soup, so theres two things I can eat. haha it'll be fun though.
I'm using Happy Herbivore's recipe for the mashed potatoes, and I'm also going to be making them for thanksgiving next week..so I'm sure they'll be really delicious. :)

I went to the philadelphia library today to pick up a book for my class that I needed and I typed in vegan just for funsies to see if they had any good cookbooks there..and they didn't have many, but they did have Eat Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton..so I'm really excited to try some things out from it! I've been wanting it for a while.
Also, in the walk to the library I saw a sign for a nutritional/dietary food store in Germantown. (yes, germantown the place that also that vegetarian restaurant was that seemed so sketchy!) haha but I went in and the guy that worked there was super friendly and they had a lot of different vegan groceries and vitamins! It was really nice.. although a bit pricey since it was such a small health food shop. I did however pick up this packed of Hain pure food vegetarian brown gravy mix. It says to just add water, so i'm a little skeptical haha but I figure I can make a bit for tonight and see how it tastes. I've never heard of it before..


how bad could it be right? ;)

So this morning I really wanted something warm for breakfast to start my day, and our kitchen is quite limited right now since we're leaving for thanksgiving break in few days. So I concocted an oatmeal breakfast :)


I used 1/2 cup of oats, 1 cup of water, about a teaspoon of cocoa powder, a good amount of raspberry preserves, and a little bit of chocolate chips. Soo delicious! Tasted like chocolate covered raspberries..yum :) i love oatmeal.

okay well off to re-write a paper.. only a week and 1/2 left of classes!

and i was your silver lining as the story goes

So last week my roomie and I were deciding where to go for lunch and we thought of this place that was near our old apartment last year..that we always talked about going to but never actually went to. (you know how that goes..)
We used to live right near Germantown..an outskirt of Philadelphia that isn't exactly the nicest neighborhood..and I remember seeing on menupages that there was a vegetarian restaurant right on Germantown Ave called The Nile Cafe. The menu online showed many different sandwiches, salads, mock meats,..even a questionable veg roast duck and spicy fish. And..a dessert menu which instantly wins me over anyway. ;)

So we finally went. And we walked inside and at first you walk into this store which has lots of different things such as books, cds, incense, different body treatments, etc. It was pretty cool.
And then you walked past it and to the restaurant..which is really just about 7-8 tables past the window where you ordered, which you could see the entire "homey" feeling kitchen.

It says it's a juice bar as well, though I did not ask, I didn't really see any place where they would've made different juices, but hey maybe it's hidden.

Anyway, I asked the woman at the window to see a menu, but she said they didn't really have one, and that they just cooked up different things basically all day and you could choose from what was already there. She had enough soup left for my roomie and I to share a cup while we waited for our food. It was a Lentil Vegetable soup..and quite delicious!


We weren't sure what we wanted..but she told us that she had a creole, another vegetable dish that I don't remember because I don't think I liked that kind of vegetable, mockmeat of fish, mockmeat of duck, and mockmeat of BBQ chicken. She nicely let us sample each of the mockmeats to choose which one we wanted, and we decided to go with the bbq chicken, though they were all quite good! We shared a plate because we were saving room for dessert, and it came with the chicken, rice and we chose the creole.

Everything was awesome! the sauce on the chicken was the best bbq sauce I think i've ever had, and it felt like such a home cooked meal, i loved it! The woman was also super nice and made us feel really comfortable with the stuff knowing it was our first time there.
We finally got the dessert, and I chose a scoop of vanilla caramel and a scoop of cookies n cream ice cream. Emily got a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of mocha ice cream. Both choices were really really awesome. :)



This place was such a different atmosphere than the usual vegan cafe's that i've been to in philly, and I really appreciated that. I know I'll definitely be back, especially since it's so close and I'm excited to see how they change up the lunch menu everyday! :)

Okay so I've been tagged by two super wonderful blogs for the 7 facts survey..so I'll do it ;)

1. I'm really really into the Twilight series and sometimes I admit it and sometimes I don't haha but everytime I see a commercial I get really excited and I can't wait to see it in theatres!

2. My ipod is full of underground, compelling, indie music that I really really enjoy.. but I have a seperate artist folder called "Stuff" which I have all my rap that I like to listen to when I feel gangster or get ready ...or just in the mood for it haha but I keep it all under there so it doesn't look like I just have a bunch of T.I. or Lil Wayne haha.

3. I have a bit of an overwhelming lust for Nick Thomas, the singer of the spill canvas. I first heard their song "the tide" about 6 years ago(yes wayyyyy before mtv had ever even heard of them) and I fell in love with them ever since with what talent at composing such heartfelt meaningful lyrics they had. But I really like Nick a lot even though everyone says he looks like a bear :(

4. I hate rainy days. I'd prefer to just stay in bed watching a good movie all day..but mostly I hate them because they make me have ugly hair all day.

5. I love having dreams. I get really dissapointed when I wake up and I don't remember any from the night before, but I love waking up and rethinking about them all day and trying to analyze them. A bit of a Freudian, I know. ;)

6. Freshman year of college I was sooo determined to transfer back to my hometown and finish school there, but luckily and thankfully I did not. Now I couldn't ever see myself doing that and I think I've learned a lot from being up here instead.

7. I honestly don't even know how I wound up with Psychology as my major, I mean I was interested in it in high school but I guess I just wasn't interested in anything else enough. I really hope to go on to do something with nutritional psychology. Though it does make me really really nervous when people tell me that there isn't hope for a good job with just a bachelors in psych, and that you have to basically go all the way. But we'll see ;)

So a lot of people have already been tagged for this one, but if you haven't been...then I officially tag you because I love reading these! :)