I decided to, every once in a while, let you readers follow my day! I have friends and family across the country who always ask what I am up to. I also get a lot of "BUT WHAT DO YOU EAT?!" questions when people find out that I am vegan. This way, you all will get to know what I am up to as well as see how/what I eat! Like I mentioned in the previous post, I am trying to eat healthier. Please don't judge me if you see some junk food. I seriously get craaanky (or at least antsy) if I go too long without some sweets. Yeah, I know I have issues.
Here's how my Friday went today. Luckily I was off work so I was able to just relax and get some cooking done. We desperately need to go grocery shopping but I was able to work with what we had lying around. For breakfast I had vanilla chai oatmeal with sliced bananas. It was so good! I used strongly brewed chai tea and cooked my oats in that over the stove. I added some almond meal, flax seed meal, a tiny bit of sugar and vanilla extract, cinnamon, and ginger. I would've really liked to use some vanilla almond milk but, alas, we are out. The bananas gave the oats a nice sweetness so I guess I didn't really need the almond milk.
After my delicious breakfast, I went outside to do some repotting. My basil is getting big enough to finally have their own pot and start getting big! Can't wait to start making some pesto!
I also thinned out my spinach. I had way too many spinach plants in one pot (the terra cotta one in the photo below). It looks a bit empty now, but I am really hoping they'll take off.
There's been a pot lying around the apartment complex since before Michael and I moved in. We have had plans to take it and use it since it was abandoned and filled with dead leaves and rocky soil. I went to empty it out today and, to my surprise, found a strawberry!! The dead leaves pretty much covered the whole pot so I wasn't able to find it until I really started digging. Instead of using that pot for my herbs, I repotted and thinned out the strawberry plant (pictured below, bottom right). I am so excited about this!
I am hoping my chives and other basil babies (pictured below on the right) really get growing. If they don't it is really no big deal, especially since I've never grown herbs before. In any case, I am still proud of them and all their accomplishments thus far!
The two big trees in this photo below are our citrus trees! Michael's trees were confiscated at the border when we moved to California and he's been pretty upset since. When we moved here we decided to buy a ruby red grapefruit and a Meyer lemon tree. We bought them when they were already rather large but still treat them like our herb babies. I guess I just can't leave anyone out. I can't wait until we finally have a house with a yard to give these more room to grow (and, of course, have a MUCH bigger garden).
Anyway! After repotting and making a mess of our apartment complex, I decided to do some juicing. I ended up using 4 cucumbers, about 2 cups of spinach, 6 oranges, and 3 limes. This yielded 7 cups of juice. I was just going to make orange/lime juice like we usually do, but I picked up some cucumbers last night and thought "why not?". I am so glad I did this because I think this is my new favorite juice!
See? I just absolutely love it so much that I am practically chugging it down!
With juice, I had an early lunch. I ate leftover quinoa salad that I made a few days ago. In this salad is quinoa, chopped green peppers, spinach, and white onion, sunflower seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, a dash of salt and garlic powder. It was a nice light lunch to go along with the refreshing juice.
After eating, cleaning up the kitchen (our juicer has like 6 big parts that need to be washed. It's a pain), and throwing some chili into the crock pot for dinner, I decided to walk down the street to Balboa Park. We are very fortunate to live where we do -- we're close to pretty much all the fun stuff in San Diego! Our street dead ends into the northeast part of Balboa Park. I found a nice spot against a tree and read a little.
I am really trying not to spend
too much time on the internet. I can't help but go to Yahoo and read all of the articles (um, hello, did you see Kate's wedding dress? Gorgeous.) so I am trying to keep myself distracted enough to cut back. Luckily I love to cook and bake so that's distraction enough!
I will let all of you know this now -- I eat like 4 or 5 meals a day. I can't eat a couple really large meals. My stomach just fills up way too fast. I typically eat quite a few rather small meals. Don't be surprised when I post multiple lunches or dinners, like I am now...
I made some homemade hummus while I had a Costco veggie burger in the oven. I topped my burger with pickles, hummus, and a Trader Joe's whole wheat bun. These burgers are the best.
After lunch, I just relaxed for a little while until Michael got home from work (I snuck this picture -- he had no idea that I took it until I showed him the photo).
The chili was finished cooking right as Michael got home! I didn't really taste it while it was cooking, so I figured it wouldn't really be that tasty. However, it was surprisingly great!
We finished up dinner with Takis and Trader Joe's vegan chocolate chip cookies. These cookies have been sitting in our cupboard all week waiting to be eaten! We're trying not to eat any sweets during the week so we were both excited that it's Friday just for these cookies. Also, Takis rock. Michael discovered them while living in Detroit. When we moved to San Diego, we realized they are EVERYWHERE here! We love these things so much.
We were going to end our day with tennis but unfortunately I work at 4:30 am tomorrow morning. I wish I didn't have to go to sleep so soon! Such a bummer. I will be finishing it with X-Files, so I guess I can't really complain too much. Hope you all had a fantastic Friday!
