Happy Thanksgiving!

Michael and I contintued with our previous tradition of heading up to Native Foods for Thanksgiving since they serve a huge buffet every year. The Native Wellington, pictured below, is a puff pastry filled with seitan, kale, portobellos, orange-glazed yams, stuffing, and carmelized onions. This is always the highlight of their Thanksgiving meal I think I was able to stuff two of these bad boys into my belly. Also pictured -- green bean casserole, polenta butternut squash terrine, corn bread, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. They also served a mushroom gravy, wheatberry waldorf salad, and a green salad with maple glazed pecans.

For dessert, they served pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and double chocolate brownies. On the side was some sort of pecan sauce as well as a ginger sauce (I'm not entirely sure of these because they weren't labeled). The pies were AWESOME. The brownies had some strange taste that I wasn't fond of. Not sure what it was but at least I was able to down around 6 pieces of pie.

In the previous years, before dinner, we visited Downtown Disney. We have annual passes now so we decided to not only go to Downtown Disney but also Disneyland and California Adventure. The park was so beautiful and luckily not too busy. I can't wait to go back for Christmas!

How was your Thanksgiving?

Bacon/Tomato/Avocado Pizza

Wow, it's been almost a month since the last time I posted! I've just been busy gettin' married. I wanted to make this post about all the awesome vegan food we had at our wedding, but the photos aren't ready yet. In the meantime, I'll share with you all this awesome pizza Michael and I made the other day. We occasionally get BLTA (bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado) sandwiches at local eateries so I thought I'd make it into a pizza instead! This is without the lettuce and with added onions and red peppers. It was awesome. I used the avocados from the centerpieces from the wedding (yes, our centerpieces were all veggies!). We don't usually eat fake meat products but this bacon doesn't really taste like the real thing. It's actually pretty darn good! I can't remember the brand but it's the kind in the red box.

Here's a preview of our wedding photos. Chuk Nowak is such an awesome friend and photographer. I recommend checking out his work.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic day! I know I am!

Sick Darcy Cat + Thanksgiving

Wow, it's been a while since I posted! Michael's cat (well I guess she's sort of my adopted cat now), Darcy, became ill two days before Thanksgiving. We noticed that she was being extremely lethargic, not cleaning herself (which is very unusual for Darcy girl), not eating, and puking up this white foamy stuff. We immediately took her to the vet (a vegan vet!) in the area. She wasn't sure what was wrong with Darcy so she ran some blood tests. The tests came back the next day and they weren't promising -- she still didn't know exactly what was wrong with Darcy, only that her liver levels weren't where they were supposed to be. Since Darcy hadn't eaten all that day or the previous, our vet told us that we needed to take her to the ER that night. Our vet was closed Thanksgiving day and the day after, so poor Darcy stayed in the ER til Saturday. While there, they pumped her with fluids, performed an ultrasound, and gave her a bunch of vitamins and medicines.

Here she is at the ER on Thanksgiving day. Sweet thing was shivering like crazy. She hated it there...

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we took her over to our vet, where she stayed til last Friday. She was away from home for 9 days! While at the vet, they continued to pump her with fluids as well as hand feed her and give her even more medicine. Her liver levels kept going up so we needed to have a liver biopsy done. We found out last Thursday that she has feline hepatic lipidosis, or fatter liver. They're not really sure how she even got this since she is only 8 and, before getting sick, was in extremely good health. In any case, we were finally able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong and exactly what kind of medicine she needed to be taking. We brought her home and have been hand feeding her a high calorie food, vitamins, and liver medicine ever since. We feed her pretty much every 4 or 5 hours (or more frequent if we are home) and it's not an easy task. She hates getting food from a syringe but we need to build up strength in her liver. Slowly but surely she is getting better. 

I came home from work today and found our cute girl snuggled up in our blankets...

It's been pretty cold in our house and she does have a bare belly from the biopsy which makes her a bit colder than Murphy, her brother. We'll be taking her back to the vet sometime this next week and hopefully I'll have some more updates!

In the meantime, check out our awesome Thanksgiving! Darcy was in the ER this day, and we were almost sure we wouldn't be able to celebrate. They reassured us that she'd be ok where she was and would most likely be sleeping during the day, so we headed up to Downtown Disney. We walked around the hotels and checked out the Christmas decorations there.

Everything was beautiful! We love Disney so much and will take any chance we can get to sneak up there, if even to walk around the hotels!

We had reservations at 4:30 for Native Foods, who was hosting a vegan Thanksgiving buffet. They had the same buffet as last year, so we were pretty pumped. The Native Wellington is SO GOOD!

I also couldn't believe how amazing their pumpkin pie was (shown on the bottom of the photo). If I didn't fill up on other delicious food I probably would've eaten more than two pieces!

Their cornbread was the best I have ever had. It seriously melted in my mouth. Michael obviously felt the same way...

We were worried about Darcy during the whole Thanksgiving day, but I am sure glad we were able to get away. I love Native Foods, Disney, and Michael, so having all of them jammed packed into one day was pretty much awesome.

The Joys of Life

Sometimes there is nothing better than to read Harry Potter and drink a delicious chocolate-peanut butter-banana protein shake after an exhausting 2 mile run. Oh yeah, on our new patio. More to come on that later :)

My Delicious Day

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!

Non-Food Post!

I realize many of you may not know too much about me except for the fact that I am vegan! I decided to give you all a glimpse into the life of Emily...

- I've been vegan for about a year and a half now. I was vegetarian for who knows how long and then I was living mainly a vegan lifestyle for a year until I decided to fully make the plunge. As a vegetarian I pretty much decided that I would most definitely become vegan, it was all just a matter of when. I feel that if you are a vegetarian just for the ethical aspect of it then it's sort of silly to not become vegan. I hear way too much of "what about cheese?!" which infuriates me. Of course I loved many foods that were not vegan, however, my feelings toward the earth, the animals, and myself is much more important than having a few food items in my diet that I once loved. That being said, even though cheesecake was pretty much my favorite thing ever, I now make a mean vegan cheesecake that is delicious as well as non-heart clogging! Veganism is MUCH easier than most people think. I am so happy with this choice I have made.

- Becoming vegan has taught me something -- that I LOVE to cook and bake! I didn't really know this about myself until I made this change. You can be a vegan and not really like to cook (beans, for instance, are super easy to make). I am lucky I found something that I truly feel improves my quality of life and just all around makes me joyful. Ok, I guess having a nice cup of tea and a good book in hand also puts me in a pretty good mood.

- I currently live with my fiance, Michael, in San Diego. We moved here in late August due to Michael finding a teaching job out here. He looked, and applied for, many jobs across the United States in cities that we both would want to settle down in -- San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Asheville, Austin, etc. We were very lucky that he got a job in such a great city! While I do miss my friends and family back home, I am anxious to get my life started here with Michael and am so thankful I have such a great person to spend my life with.

- I work at Starbucks just to make some money. It definitely won't be long-term -- I am trying to earn some money and build a life here while looking around at different cosmetology schools. I am pretty sure I found the school I will attend, I just don't know when I'll be able to start. Michael and I both just started paying off our school loans (I have a Fashion Marketing and Sales degree) so money is definitely tight.

- I have a fabulous family back in Ohio who supports me in pretty much everything and I am entirely grateful for this (I say "pretty much" because I think most don't support me in having tattoos and piercings, ha). I am a unique, caring, and creative person and I'd like to think I get this from my family for accepting me and even encouraging me to be my own person. All of my opinions and beliefs are my own and I take pride in this.

I think this sums up what I am about without giving TOO much away (this is, after all, a public website). I hope you all are interested in what I just wrote or else I just wrote to myself, haha. Feel free to ask any more questions if you feel so inclined!

With all that being said, now it's time to sit down with my love and eat a delicious vegan dinner that I just prepared...