Christie AKA nugs

[onehappyvegan]

Creamy Sweet Raw Cherry Ice Cream

4 frozen bananas

4 dates

1/2 cup frozen cherries

Blend in food processor or blender. I left it somewhat chunky with the dates and cherries to give it some added texture with chunks of sweetness!

[nugsmalloy]

We've moved!

We have switched blogs! It's more organized and we decided it would be best to start fresh so we both could make posts. We refined our goals and have a better game plan.

Follow us at http://ourcatalyst.tumblr.com/.

[nugsmalloy]

Sunday!

Sunday was Mother's Day of course! We started the day off with a delicious peach and banana smoothie. I cut up about 4 or 5 peaches (which I got from whole foods and they were ABSOLUTELY to die for.) and 3 large bananas with some coconut milk and blended it up. Cavin doesn't like the chunks from the peaches though when it's blended. Not sure how to combat that when blending. -- I have like a $20 blender, it works okay. I spent the big money on the Hurom juicer. I gotta start researching good ideas on getting rid of the little bits in fresh fruit smoothies.

Then we were off to his Mom's house. We have been divulging ourselves into redecorating their front yard. It's been a super fun project that gets us out in the sun doing something together and we both get to use our creativeness. Before Florida we dug up all of the weeds which was about a 4 hour job. Next we ripped out the old edging they had in which was just a black boring rubber. Cavin replaced that with a nice red color - I'll post more pics later - and I got to painting the shutters. His mom picked a nice color, which the boys were afraid would be too pink. The new color is on the left, old brown on the left. What do you guys think? 

We were starving so his mom whipped up some morning star nuggets and a salad. She also suprised me with my very own herb garden! I am now growing Cilantro, Basil, and Sweet Mint. I'm so excited!! 

For dinner we went down to my mom's and had planned and bringing Tuck so she could finally meet him, picking up Mellow Mushroom pizza, and going to the park to eat and catch up. Well, you can only plan so far! The night goes as follows....

We had to wait 45 mins for the pizza, even ordering it well in advance. So we took our time and went and got drinks from the gas station and hung out. No biggie.

We got to Mellow, she's showing us our pizza's to make sure they are good. I ordered the "Mega Veggie" with the Daiya cheese. She presents me with a "Mighty Meaty" with Daiya cheese. So. We had to wait another 30 mins for that to be remade. (My mom however got to keep that one as well, she was happy.) 

Go back to the car to start it up and head to the park. FINALLY, WE'RE STARVING! I start the car up, it immediately dies. Start it up. Dies. Cavin says it's the fuel pump. *face palm*

Cavin makes some calls, takes a few minutes and gets it running and we're off. But the car could die at any minutes so we gotta take mom home. Me and mom have to eat in the car, he has to wait until we get all the way back to our house which took about an hour and a half. It was awful and we were in low spirits. So what does one do???

Make cookies!

So we made some vegan gluten free cookies from Eat Pastry. Delish! He really likes these, they blew him away when he first tried them.( I personally prefer the non-gluten free kind but they only really stock this kind at my whole foods.)

[nugsmalloy]

HI! Lots of updates. 

Starting with dinner Saturday night, we skipped lunch since we were out so late and slept in... oops. It was my sis's birthday so we took our golden retriever Tuck with us down to to my dad's house and had a grill out. Tuck was the life of the party and we even took him off the leash for a little bit, which was such a trust builder for us since he can be a tad flighty sometimes. But he did great and the weather was perfect.

They all had steaks, we had Amy's brand veggie burgers and we tried out some of the Daiya cheddar slices on ours as well. We both weren't big fans of it! It overwhelmed the taste, especially for Cavin since he doesn't put any additional condiments or anything on his, he said he would have preferred it with out it. He was a little sad that he wasn't eating a steak with everyone and my family was giving us an epic load of crap for our meals BUT he persevered through it and felt good that he didn't cave and eat the steak. He seems really dedicated to finding out what and most importantly why people cut out animal products from their diet. It's pretty cool. And it's awesome that this is his choice, and I am just here to help him along with it. 

(OH. And check out that alien hand going to the Heineken in the top picture.) 

[nugsmalloy]

Breakfast this morning!

Pancakes with some fruit. Notice anything with the picture?

......

I thought I had Earth Balance, turns out it was Smart Balance with an Earth Balance lid. :P

Definitely regretting those beers though last night! I feel awful for drinking, even though it wasn't that much. I always notice when I eat super cleanly I feel so gross the next day after drinking. Going to make more of an effort to not drink.

[nugsmalloy]

Recap of yesterday!

I keep seeing the mounds of greens in the fridge and decided to make another green juice for lunch. 

*4 apples * 1 giant red chard with the stalk * 4 leaves of kale * 1 cucumber * 1 lime

Cavin came home for lunch and tried it and exclaimed "It tastes like... a kick in the face!!!!" He also kept commenting on how it smelled like someone had just mowed the grass in our kitchen.......... lol. He enjoyed an Amy's Teriyaki wrap and some bagel chips!

For dinner I got Boca's new veggie ground crumbles from Whole Foods (which were now GMO free!), and made tacos! We both found out after we ate that we were craving tacos soo bad so it hit the spot. I also finally got a chance to try out Daiya's new vegan cheese slices. I bought the Swiss and the Cheddar. For the tacos I used the cheddar. Very impressed, and Cavin thought that it was delicious, he didn't notice a difference. He said that it tasted like velveta cheese. I wish I could have had some shredded for the tacos to out on top, instead I just heated up a slice on top of the tortilla. I just heated up the crumbles on medium heat for 10 - 15 minutes and added a little fresh lime, cumin, chili powder, fresh ground black pepper and garlic. While that was cooking I chopped up an avocado that was so perfectly ripe, tomato and romaine leaves.

It was our friend Casey's big 3-0 gathering last night, so we went downtown to see the Cyclone's game (ice hockey). It was a rainy yucky day but we had a ton of fun. We went to this new place after they lost, lol, called Yard House. They have 140 draft beers on tap (wow) and serve giii-normous beers. I tried the Chimay triple and the Hercules Double IPA. I was more impressed though with their vegetarian section on the menu! Definitely awesome to see in Cincinnati. 

We ordered the lettuce wraps which first came out with chicken mixed in with the tofu... which Cavin confirmed. No biggie so we just sent it back and got the one with mushrooms, and it was pretty good! It had three dipping sauces and came in a deep fried bowl, which reminded us weirdly of "crab rangoons" from the chinese food place by us.

      http://www.bocaburger.com/products/crumbles.aspx

http://www.daiyafoods.com/

[nugsmalloy]

"Pigs can learn to play video games, and chickens are so smart that their intelligence has been compared by scientists to that of monkeys."

[nugsmalloy]

Breakfast time!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie again, by request. :D

Strawberries * Bananas * Coconut Milk * Ice

[nugsmalloy]

DINNER DAY 2!

Here is dinner from today! Cavo had a little cheat day.... - he had a lunch in meeting at work, and had no veggie options. He ate a turkey wrap and was ashamed, but I reassured him that this can be a mega life change, and no one is perfect. :D

We had left over cheese ravioli's in the fridge, that he finished up and I had the left over pineapple from this morning's smoothie and then whipped up a green juice. I have a tendency to put everything in my fridge in my juicer.

*Golden Beets * Kale * Apple * Ginger * Carrot

[nugsmalloy]

Today was Keller William's Annual Red Day! We volunteered at Matthew 25, it was a great experience, humbling. Me and my group got to open up old used paint cans and if they weren't spoiled or stinky, we could reuse them and pour them into giant containers by color to be mixed up and reused in Nicaragua. The instructor said each of us would be helping approximately 200 people! 

I was a little nervous for our following lunch, it was at Firehouse Grill. Obstacle averted! They had a killer veggie burger and I just asked for it to be without the smoked gouda and paid a dollar more for steamed broccoli. 

[nugsmalloy]

Breakfast number two! My favorite... Pineapple smoothie. Pineapple * Banana * Coconut Milk * Ice

[nugsmalloy]

Well, Day One! And we are starting slow, doing a semi-cooked vegan diet for a trial week, to see how it goes. Here is our meals from today!

We had a strawberry banana smoothie for breakfast:

2 Naners * Handfull of Strawberries * Dairy free milk * Ice

Overall, it was pretty good, but all I had on hand was plain soy milk, and it kinda threw off the taste for me. I had to pick up some coconut milk from the store on the way home today for tomorrow morning's smoothie, my favorite ever - Pineapple. Yes. -No picture of this one.

**Going to have to up the serving size for the Mister, he was complaining by 9 am about how hungry he was. ;)

For lunch I made a Cobb Salad:

*Spinach * Carrot * Sunflower Seeds * Cherry Tomato * Mushrooms * Radish * Avocado * Broccoli * Gardein Seven Grain Crispy Tenders * Amy's Lite Honey Mustard 

Overall, this was pretty good. I wanted to throw in just about everything so I could gauge Cav's reaction to them and see what he liked, and didn't so much like. Everything was good - sans the broccoli and mushrooms. He said he prefers them to be cooked, but loved the avocado! I also squeezed a fresh lemon in our waters with lunch! 

Mmmm.. For dinner I made a veggie Madras curry.

*Eggplant * Summer Squash * Mushrooms * Fresh Garlic * Madras Sauce * Garbanzo Beans * Fresh Parsley 

I buy my sauce from Seeds of Change, they have a couple different kinds, this stuff rocks. I just sauteed my veggies with the sauce and made some rice. 

http://www.seedsofchangefoods.com/our_foods/product.aspx?c=simmer_sauces&p=274

http://www.gardein.com/products.php?t=frozen&p=4