Vegetarian Archives -

November 26, 2016

Thanksgiving 2016

Good Morning and Happy Saturday!!

I hope you and your family had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving filled with love, laughter, delicious food, and much more. I enjoyed celebrating my first Thanksgiving in my new home. I woke up with my sister and we made some “sausage” croissants (a family tradition!)

She used a fake sausage crumble of course and then she seasoned it perfectly mixed with cream cheese and wrapped in a croissant, cut into pin-wheels.

The remainder of the morning was spent prepping food for lunch with my family. I made Green Bean Casserole, Cornbread Dressing, Vegetarian Gravy, and Peanut Butter Pie. My sister made mashed potatoes. Everything turned out so good! I have found a new Green Bean Casserole (it’s not the one on the back of the french fried onion box) and it’s completely plant-based except the fried onions. I’m absolutely in love with it! The cornbread dressing was definitely not healthy (2 sticks of butter!!) but it was delicious and everything I hoped for. I tried to find a healthier recipe, but would you believe that one does not exist – That I can find? Lastly, the vegetarian gravy…. y’all – I can’t even begin to express how delicious this gravy was! My dad even liked it and he’s all about that meat. It tasted perfect! I will never miss meaty bone fat gravy again. Now, I tried Minimalist Baker’s Vegan Peanut Butter Pie. I didn’t get to eat it during Thanksgiving because I was a little late making it, but I had a slice this morning and it wasn’t half bad. I’ll be honest though, when you’re used to creamy peanut butter pie with cream cheese and sugar and all that’s horribly wrong for you – it’s not even close to the same thing. My dad refused to give it a try though because it contains tofu haha. You really can’t taste the tofu and I think it’s worth giving a try. I love the chocolate gonache on top – I’ll definitely be using that on top of some other pies in the future.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good pictures the remainder of the day. I did spend a good bit of the Holiday reading my next book club book though and it was so good!

Have you read Me Before You?

I finished it pretty quickly because it wrapped me in. Their relationship was so sweet and I loved seeing it bloom throughout the book. I won’t spoil the ending for you in case you haven’t read it, but I certainly was a bag of emotions at the end of it all. I immediately watched the movie afterwards. The movie left off a few things I found critical in the book, so be sure to read the book!

I love reading a good book during the holidays. I mostly read personal development books these days, but this was a nice treat to get lost in another person’s story and life. I can’t wait to discuss this one with the girls!

After spending the morning lost in the book, I went to a Holiday Open House with local vendors. It was so much and I went Facebook Live for the very first time!! Do y’all know how scary that is?! No room for error, right? It was fun though and I got more comfortable with it as I continued on. That’s exactly how life is though – we step outside of our comfort zone and suddenly our comfort zone expands and it’s not as scary anymore.

That about sums up my Thanksgiving Holiday!! Today I’m going to pick up a tree at my parents and get to decorating! I love this time of year and I’m excited to spend it with those I love most. We have a few exciting things on the calendar for the month of December – a first annual Thanksmas party, Nick’s first work Christmas Party (I’m excited to meet some more of his co-workers!) and then of course, my office Christmas Party. I’m going to miss our Arbonne Christmas party this year because it falls on the same day as Nick’s work party, but that’s okay.

Alrighty, well I’m off to do some more cleaning before starting to decorate. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

May 18, 2015

Which Wich

Good Morning! I can’t believe it’s already Monday. Why have we not invented a 5 day weekend and a 2 day work week yet? That just makes a lot more sense in my opinion.

I was pretty exhausted from the week, so I had really been looking forward to the weekend! Between blogging, work, Girls on the Run, and Arbonne, I stayed on the go Monday thru Friday! When 4:30pm on Friday hit, I was out of there and was so thankful for the weekend. Friday night was pretty low-key for us, we went to Whole Foods for dinner because we were both craving something healthy. I got the four for four, which I didn’t realize was still an option until the other day. You get four Health Starts Here approved options for four dollars. It’s such a great deal in my opinion. We then went to Walmart to pick up snacks for Saturday. Ice cream wasn’t on our list, but it made it’s way in the buggy, so we enjoyed Bunny Tracks before I headed home for the evening to get some much needed rest.

Saturday morning, we were up bright and early for the Dragon Boat Regatta. My office had a team of rowers and the event turned out to be a whole lot of fun! We rowed twice and were scheduled to row a third time, but the weather went from amazing to awful in a flat two seconds! They called off the rest of the event due to the weather. Luckily everyone made it back in safely, but there was a race going on right as the winds hit.

We came in third for the first race, but first on the second race. Our friends Danny & Shaina came out to help us row, although Danny has pretty much promised he’ll never come again haha. It’s a lot of hard work and a super early morning, that’s for sure! I think deep down he enjoyed being there though. Shaina left early because we didn’t need her to row and she offered to have dinner ready for us after the races. She made a delicious Tomato Pie, which I’m sure sounds as crazy to you as it does to me! She subbed in Greek Yogurt for part of the mayo it calls for to make it a little healthier. It’s basically pie crust with half mayo, half greek yogurt, sliced tomatoes, spices, and cheese on top. I was a little skeptical, but it turned out delicious! She had a side of guac just in case we didn’t like the tomato pie. We spent the rest of the evening watching tv and relaxing. I was craving some cookies, so Danny made a famous batch of his delicious cookies – seriously, these things are amazing! I don’t even want to guess how many cookies I ate, because it’d be embarrassing.

Sunday turned out to be another relaxing day, thank goodness. Nick and I did some stuff at his house, I got some work done, we went to Whole Foods again for lunch and looked at DSW because I have a coupon I can use right now. I found some cute sandals that I’m going back for later today. I do believe the highlight of our day was finding the most amazing place to eat – Which Wich. Have you ever eaten here?! As a vegetarian, finding a sandwich shop that doesn’t just put a few pathetic veggies on a slice of bread with a piece of cheese is quite difficult. I would have never in my life thought about it if I wasn’t a vegetarian. I was a little nervous giving it a try, but Nick and I have both suggested it at one point or another and just never went. I figured I’d get the tuna. I still eat fish on occasion and when we go to places like Subway, that’s what I’m basically required to get because there is no way I’m spending $5 on the ridiculous thing they call a veggie sandwich. We walked in and they have a place for you to create your own order, I wish I had taken a picture of it, but there is a menu on the wall and numbered sandwich bags depending on which section you’re ordering from. I looked at the vegetarian section and there were FIVE options, one of which was a BLACK BEAN PATTY!!! Seriously, I was ecstatic. You then select all the toppings and cheese you want. I went with a black bean patty on wheat, with pepper jack cheese, buffalo sauce, ranch sauce, crunchy onion straws, lettuce, tomato, pickle, salt, and pepper.

Before we even got our food, we were already raving about the place, but then we thought… maybe we should actually get our food and taste it before speaking too soon. Then I saw a sign with the owner quoting that if you’re not 100% satisfied with your sandwich, they’ll either make a new one, refund you, or both! So I knew at that moment, it just has to be good! Sure enough, we were not disappointed. Nick also got the black bean burger because he likes having a healthy option and knows my struggle with sandwich places. He got a whole lot more toppings on his.

I finished off the entire sandwich with no trouble at all. We decided that it’s not even worth eating at other places in the Dogwood Shopping area when we can get a wide variety here and we can choose to be healthy. I could have gone full blown vegan or even Engine 2/Health Starts Here approved! It’s nice to know that I have those options when I’m eating out and I’m doing one of those challenges. You can choose to do a lettuce wrap and even a bowl, so the healthy options are there! We continued to rave about our dinner to each other the rest of the night because we were so pleasantly surprised.

Now I’m off to work for another week. I’m getting brackets put on this morning, so I’m a little nervous, but the process of braces is officially underway! Yippee! Hope you have a wonderful week!

Have you ever eaten Which Wich?
What’s your favorite sandwich from there?
Have you ever done a Dragon Boat race?
Did you have a good weekend? What did you do?

May 11, 2015

Florida Birthday Re-cap 1

Good Morning! I was looking through some pictures yesterday and realized that I never shared about our trip to Disney and my birthday. I’m warning you now, this will be a major picture overhaul, but I feel like I actually did a good job at enjoying myself tremendously while also capturing what all happened. It was a jam packed trip, but we had such a wonderful time, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate my birthday! I’ll break this into a two part blog post.

On Monday, we headed out of town around 11pm. We had plans to grab breakfast with our friends, Joel & Charlotte, in Atlanta. It was a slight detour, but we decided it’s probably worth the trouble in the future because we were able to try a new restaurant and spend some time catching up with them. Although it was extremely short, it was very sweet!

They decided to take us to Thumbs Up Diner, which was absolutely delicious! I think we were all impressed with our choices for breakfast that morning. I went with a veggie omelet, a slice of french toast, and a hot cup of coffee.

After breakfast, Joel & Charlotte had to head off to work and we started our journey down to Gainesville to see Nick’s brother & sister-in-law. We were just dropping by because we knew we’d be seeing them very shortly at Disney World since they were coming down the day after us. While we waited on Trey to get back in town, we had a delicious lunch and visited a unique grocery store down the street from their house. I can’t for the life of me remember what this place was called, but we found a few things that we were excited to try!

We got some dark chocolate cherries that were really delicious, but we didn’t get a chance to finish the bag because we accidentally left them in the car and they completely melted (FAIL.) You all know how much I love Kevita, so I wanted to try this new-to-me flavor, Blueberry Cherry, along with a Kombucha brew that Nick picked out. Our main reason for going was because Kathryn saw a vegan fruit chew that she thought I might like, so I definitely had to get some, but I ended up not liking it very much. Nick loved them though and had no problem polishing off the bag. Lastly, my cousin got me hooked on these homeopathic remedies when we were in Jamaica. She has one that she uses for tension/stress and one that she uses for a hangover when needed. I never got too crazy in Jamaica, but there was one morning that I woke up less than par, so I tried one of her homeopathic remedies and it seemed to do a good job. I wanted to find a sleep aid homeopathic remedy to help us fall asleep quickly at night so we would get as much rest as possible, so I picked that up while we were there also. It seemed to work great throughout the trip too so I highly recommend it!

Of course, lots of fun with this little nugget during the entire visit – although it never seems like enough!

Tuesday night, Nick and I made the rest of our trip down to Orlando so I could be ready for my conference on Wednesday morning. The conference ended up being super informative and I had some good vegetarian options.

This was a delicious Greek meal where I made a falafel pita pocket and had cous cous and a greek salad on the side. Not much else to share regarding my work conference because I’m pretty sure I’d bore you all to sleep at the computer, so I’ll move on to Wednesday night after the conference. I could have decided to join the conference attendees at a sponsored dinner, but it was at a steak house and I really wanted to spend some extra time with Kathryn and the baby, so I decided to meet them at their hotel for dinner instead. We had an early birthday celebration and spent the evening snuggling on sweet baby Cade and chit chatting!

Kathryn and I both ordered a drink with our meal… I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was pomegranate something I believe. The point is that it was delicious!

Later than night, Nick and I went out to explore Downtown Disney for a bit. So much has changed and so much continues to change in this area of Disney World! We were a little overwhelmed with how crowded it was, but that helped prepare us for Thursday night activities, so I think it was worth the trip.

Thursday morning, I woke up to attend the remainder of my conference, again, I learned so many awesome things and I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to attend this special event in Orlando. After the event, I periodically checked my work e-mail to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but other than that, I shut off my work brain so I could focus on spending time with these wonderful people on my birthday at Disney World! I’ll be back to share what activities we did for my birthday along with everything else that wrapped up a phenomenal trip to Florida!

Switching gears….

How are you?! April was a busy month for me and I didn’t make a lot of time for blogging. I certainly missed it. I have a lot of random stuff going on right now, but things will slow down a little bit since Girls on the Run ends this week. I’m going to miss these beautiful little girls! I also jumped on the Arbonne ban-wagon and I’m so excited about it! I’m not a “sales” person, but I love their products and I will happily promote them if I find value from them and believe in them. Arbonne is 100% vegan, so I really cherish that about the company. You’ll see a lot more posts and updates to the blog about Arbonne, so be on the look out. If you ever have questions or are interested in sampling some products, feel free to reach out! I’m working on my personal schedule right now so I can fit in everything I want to do – one of those things… reading blogs! Holy cow, I have not sought out new blogs to read in ages and the blogs I do follow, do not get a lot of attention from me right now, but I crave that blogging interaction, so while I’m trying to find time for everything I have committed to or volunteered for, I also want to make time for YOU!

So seriously… the main questions I want you to answer in today’s comments – How are you doing? What’s new with you? Do you have an exciting trip planned? Are you trying out a new venture? Do you need prayer for something specific? Just give me an update on your life because I know April flew by and I missed out on a lot of blogging interaction.

Thanksgiving 2016

Which Wich

Florida Birthday Re-cap 1

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