Eating For Energy

Monday, November 28, 2011

Afternoon Yummy Snacks

It's getting colder outside, the kids are pumped up over the Christmas Holidays fast approaching and it seems the Christmas music is on a constant play mode here in the Gardner's house!! We are craving more warm yummy snacks as we get home from work and the kids from school.

I am now currently reading Cooking Vegan by the Dummies series! It's awesome, great easy read with wonderful selection of recipes and awesome pictures of some of the recipes!

Recently the kids are asking for more homemade popcorn and I've written about this many time and given the full steps to making it in my Twighlight post from Thursday, November 17th when Sky and I went to the premier of Breaking Dawn part 1.

A new found favorite that we never really cooked up for the kids are homemade cornchips with cheese. We never wanted them to eat too much cheese before for obvious reasons. But now that we are getting really good at being Vegan and we have found a cheese after several tries that we actually love is a bonus!! So eating corn in the form of a chip and cheese from rice is amazing!!

The brand we absolutely love is Galaxy Nutritional Foods, Rice Shreds/cheddar flavor!! I mean beyond yummy!! Trevor surprised me last week with this gorgeous cheese on an old time favorite Chicken Cheesy Nachos. Now it's just Vegan Cheesy Nachos!! So gorgeous!! Will be providing that recipe this week. Also we are huge lovers of Smithfields Brunswick Stew!! Cannot eat it anymore due to the pork in it. Well Trevor found a great recipes that adds palm in it and it's like having shredded pork again in a all veggie stew Vegan Style!!

That recipe will be posted this week as well with photos!

So much has been cooking and tasted this whole time I've not been able to catch up with our blog but I have a huge amount to share and show!!

Look out for my updated posts this week as I have some down time of multi tasking Career, Job, Kids, hubby and house etc. Life as we call it!

Any favorite snacks you all would like to share, please feel free to pass it along!

Happy MUNCHING!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

First Thanksgiving as Vegan's !!! Headed off to a Vegan Buffet in Durham!!

This year I racked my brain as to what to do now that we are Vegan's and trying to be good vegan's and not eat the "typical Turkey/Ham" etc. I wanted our kids to learn by example that this is our new food eating life now and we need to do the right thing even when we are tempted by commercials, other families, schools, society etc. We are on a path of healthy, live longer, lifestyle! Save the planet and animals in the process! So I did some research and found our local Triangle Vegetarian Society that also caters to Vegan's was holding it's 13th Annual Triangle Vegetarian Society Thanksgiving at Cafe Parizide. It was amazing, very reasonablly priced and the food was in abundance. What a buffet!! It's hard to believe you can fill up on veggies but you can. We also got to try a soy non-chicken breast and it tasted just like chicken! So delicious we've decided to have the same Soy Non-Chicken breasts as our main for our Christmas Dinner. We also got to experience delicious gravy, stuffing, many new veggies we've never eaten before and the desserts were amazing!!

Here is a copy of the info from the TVS webpage.

TVS Thanksgiving 2011
Vegan Feast and Raffle at
Café Parizäde and Spice Street
Thanksgiving Day, November 24
The Triangle Vegetarian Society (TVS) will have its annual vegan Thanksgiving feast and raffle at one of the Triangle's finest restaurants, Café Parizäde in Durham, NC. Parizäde has a gourmet flair for fresh ingredients with Mediterranean influences, and this will be TVS' 13th consecutive Thanksgiving there (and 18th annual Thanksgiving Feast at an area restaurant). We believe that for the eighth year in a row, we will host the country's largest vegan/vegetarian Thanksgiving.

Like the last two years, we will also have an evening seating at Spice Street in Chapel Hill. Spice Street is a sister restaurant to Parizäde, with equally beautiful and elegant decor and a well-deserved reputation for great food.

Our prices remain at $23 for adult members of TVS, $26.50 for non-member adults, $7 for children aged 5-10, and free for children under age 5. Prepayment will be required. (Would you like to come but can't because of difficult financial circumstances? We may be able to help.)

If you'd like further information about the Triangle Vegetarian Society please go to their homepage at:

www.trianglevegsociety.org



What did you do for Thanksgiving, any new foods you discovered? Any recipes you can share with us?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Homemade Popcorn and the premier of TWILIGHT SAGA - BREAKING DAWN PART 1!!

Don't know about you all but my family are crazy about vampires!! Between our first and ultimate favorite TWILIGHT SAGA!!! 2nd. Favorite is Vampire Diaries!! 3rd favorite for my husband Trevor and I is TRUBLOOD!!




(This photo was taken by my Iphone and as you can see there are a ton of people behind us in the theater waiting patiently as well. Sky was making a crazy face with a mouth full of popcorn. She then added these crazy characters on my phone and I had no idea. I am laughing as I am typing this. She is so funny. I have no idea how to add these types of characters to photos. Very FUNNY!! Movie was beyond amazing and I literally saw it 3 times in 1 week. That's how obsessed I am and a huge fan. Saw it the following Monday with girlfriends and then Tuesday afternoon with Britain.)




Sky, Britain and I have been waiting for over a year to see this film!! We are beyond excited!

We are hitting the Premier tonight at 10 pm to wait in the Theater lobby before the actual start time of 12:01 am

(11/18/2011)!! We are making a huge amount of homemade popcorn! I love my popcorn!! It's old fashion style!!

All you need is: 1 BIG pot (one you'd cook a big order of spaghetti and meat balls in)coated with veggie oil. Add a good coating of popcorn seeds to cover the bottom of the pot and cook over high heat! Or if you don't tend on shaking it back and forth over the flame-Medium heat. Make sure you take the lid off after the popcorn has popped quite a bit and is about to hit the cover. We take off the lid because I make sure to overfill the bottom of the pot with popcorn seeds because its fun! As your popcorn pops over the pot, turn the heat down and listen to the last popcorn seed to pop! I then dump the popcorn into a brown paper bag and add a good amount of Sea Salt. Shake it all up and serve!! This is my and our kids very favorite snack for home and at school! I actually have the neighborhood kids ask for my popcorn all the time as well as our friends and family who hang out and attend our parties! It's a huge hit! I also love the fact that we do not use the microwave anymore and we do not throw microwave bags away and add to landfills! As GREEN as possible in our house!!

So tonight we are going to smuggle our popcorn in to the theater and buy the big size sodas!! To enjoy our beyond favorite movie of all time - TWILIGHT SAGA - Breaking Dawn Part 1!!!

Let me know if you are huge VAMPIRE fan's and if you tried making popcorn old fashion style and what you thought of it!! I promise your taste buds will love you for it!!

Long time no talk!

Hey Everyone! I would like to say a huge "I am sorry for not being on top of my blog as I normally am!" With the holiday's fast approaching it seems life has been put on fast forward!!

My Real Esate business is going great and I have my first deal being processed!! I have another buyer client who is ready to place an offer at the end of December! I am working with a Rental and I have several deals beginning to develop come the New Year!! Trevor is doing great at his work and has exciting plans on starting another business! The kids are doing great! They are becoming more acceptable to our new recipes I am trying out!! I am still currently reading "Complete Idiots guide to Vegan Eating kids!" really great! I would recommend it! It starts off with stating it would be a great idea to have a "introduction meeting" for the entire family and really discuss what is the best way to introduce and handle becoming a Vegan eating family. Make a Mission Statement and BPO's stand for Best Possible Option and this is a great idea as sometimes that's all you can choose to eat or drink in certain circumstances. There are several recipes at the back of the book and I plan on trying them out myself and then taking photos and letting you all know what worked well for us and what the kids actually liked them!

I have been experimenting with The Kind Diet recipes by Alicia Silverstone. Over the weekend I made a gorgeous Winter Butternut Squash soup!! So delicious! We also had an amazing Halloween Party and served a good amount of Halloween Vegan food! I plan on adding photos and recipes and telling you all about our wonderful Halloween night!

There is so much I need to inform you all but have been too busy to keep up. So please bare with me. I have just updated my "birthday blog from Sept. 16th" and my blog about serving vegan food to wonderful dinner guests. Please check them out!

Please look out for many more blogs to come over this weekend! I love all comments and questions!! Keep them coming!!!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Finally feel like a Vegan Family!

Tonight was really nice; for a family of 5 running around with all of our heads cut off it was nice to finally be on time with dinner! Trevor was on his way home, the kids were outside enjoying the fresh air and playing. Something I only get to do one hour a day jogging with Trevor in the pitch dark at 5 am in the morning! I tell you in the New Year one of my New Year resolution is to find another outdoor activity that doesn't consist of picking up the kids’ stuff or mowing etc. Just a fun outside activity for me. What that is I am not sure yet, but I need another outlet that will allow me more outdoor time!

So as I was saying, I was putting together our dinner "Vegan Style" and I finally felt like I was in control of the meal. Like I was not floundering around with left overs, trying to figure out what we were going to eat and feeling very guilty as I normally do not knowing if we are eating a full balanced Vegan Meal. Well tonight I think I covered a lot of balance for us. While I was getting the last minute details to our meal, I had the kids set the table. Sky had the placemats. Britain had the cutlery and glasses. Luke had the coasters and napkins. We use cloth napkins as we have done away with paper napkins for over 3 yrs now. We try to be a very "Green" family. I also asked Luke to help a little more as he's not a baby anymore being 7 and should do more in the house then destroy and become Tasmanian devil! I swear!! So I asked him to vacuum and he was ok with that. No back talk at all! Almost fell over! For dinner tonight I thought I'd pull out the new favorite Vegan dish and it's Kebab’s with salad and other veg. This meal consists of Morning Star Veggie Sausages that taste like real sausage and we heat them up in a pan, slice them up into 4's and add them to pita bread or a wrap or on top of a salad. I slice up tomatoes, cuc's and lettuce. Trevor likes to add lemon juice and I typically would add the Good Season's Italian dressing. This time since we were only down to one bag of veggie sausages I decided last minute to check the freezer and pulled out a non-chicken cutlet filled with onion, corn, black beans and spices!! Yummy!! Has a little kick just so you know!! I also cooked Basmati Rice which is really yummy and Britain surprised me by asking if she could cook Brussels sprouts! I was so in shock at this request. To get any other green veg down my kid’s throats besides green beans and lettuce is a miracle! "Sure", I said! So I let Britain get on with cutting off the ends to the Brussels sprouts and slicing an X at each end of the sprout and she then added them to the pot of boiling water. I also added my Trader Joe's chicken-less chicken cutlet which only needed 5 minutes in the pot to heat up in the boil bag that came with it. We all had salad, rice, Brussels sprouts and the rest of them had veggie sausages to my chicken-less chicken cutlet! Luke of course was not the one of us who ate most. He refused the sprout, munched down on the rice and cuc's and practically was beyond giddy over the sausages that he refused to eat with a fork but was shoveling it down his throat with his hands! Pig!
I told him to use his manners and he just looked at me as if he'd roll his eyes! Sometimes I tell you; kids try your patience! We talked about our day, we laughed, we argued, we then tried to eat the last of anything that was left on the dishes! That's how hungry and eager to eat our dinner we were! We even had time to get Trevor's old collection of Little Miss and Mr. Men books out that were created and produced in England. Luke read to us Little Miss Tidy and did a great job!! We are working on his fluency as he's falling behind in ready this quarter! And with all this great dinner and clean up (our dishwasher died 3 weeks ago and everything is now by hand for an additional hour after dinner!) we still managed to get them in bed on time! Trevor and I are in bed now, he's reading "The Success Principals by Jack Canfield" and I fancied letting you all know what a great night we had with all the crazy thrown in there too! I am still reading and digesting "Idiot's guide to raising Vegan Eating kids". I will be on "Living as Vegan's for Dummies" or I might read “Cooking for Vegan's for Dummies". I think that would probably be the best book to read next.

So anyone of you out there finally hit a good place with becoming Vegan's with all the crazy of just running your lives and trying to manage your time or activities in the process! Let us know!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Answering a Crepe Question Part 2 (Trace Ellen please read)

Just yesterday Thursday, November 3rd around 4 pm I visited Simply Crepe's off of Falls Of Neuse Rd in Raleigh, NC to interview with the Owner Pierre! I loved my experience so much when I took my favorite client and new dearest friend Nina to lunch there, I thought it would be a fun place to work extra hours to help provide a regular flow of income while I build my career by referrals in Real Estate.

Nina thought Simply Crepe's would be a lovely place to eat and thought it would cater to Vegan's! It was pretty close and as a wonderful gesture she paid for my lunch as well! Had such a lovely time with her there! Well it does for Lactose free and veggies (vegetarians) but it's not there quite yet for Vegan's. Still enjoyed it immensely!! I did find out I was wrong about the Buckwheat Crepe mix. There are eggs but there isn't any milk.

Well I am sure you are all wondering why I decided to interview there besides have a great lunch! I love the ambience, I love the decor and the staff was very friendly. The lunch was brilliant and I got such good energy there! The high frequency of positive vibes just vibrated in this restaurant! I had my hour interview yesterday and I had a great time. Learned a ton as to how Simply Crepe's came about. How its family run. How everything in the decor is 2nd hand, yard sale, or restores items from Habitat for Humanity. Even their straws are green and immediately biodegrade once they hit a landfill! Simply Crepes are "VERY GREEN CONCSIOUS" and this made me love them even more as I am huge "VERY GREEN SUPPORTER AS WELL AS MY FAMILY"!! After an hour interview I got the job! I am a waitress for up to 30 hours per week and 30 plus hours a week in Real Estate. Not to mention the full time job of not losing my mind and enjoying my children as a full time Mom who's hit a stage of breaking out of the "stay at home mold" and trying to swing into a new career change and now 2nd job to help facilitate the first job. My gorgeous hubby Trevor is beat and has been pulling his weight and then some for 11 1/2 yrs and I want to return the favor and swap places as a matter of fact. These new steps will allow both of us to do this! Another cool note, Pierre liked the idea that I was a Vegan and confessed he's been trying to break into serving vegan food to his customer's but has been very afraid. I asked why and he said "truly my being afraid is just ignorance as to not knowing how to prepare Vegan friendly food". I told him "get in line as I am there and only been a "vegan in training" since July 1st. So he suggested I help him with his menu to add more Vegan dishes! How cool is that. Not only will I work in a very cool, hip and green restaurant, I'll also be of help to add some knowledge to the Vegan Menu items Pierre would love to add! I am very excited! If I have some local Raleigh folks who are in the mood for a fun, hip place to eat and receive great service, please check out Simply Crepe's off of Falls of Neuse Rd. www.simplycrepes.com

I'll also update the our pantry and weekly menu with new dishes created at Simply Crepe's that I can tweak and make Vegan for home! Cannot wait to share to you all my new knowledge of Vegan foods restaurant style and maybe in the form of a crepe or two!