Ruts, Reviews, Relations, and…Repition???

 

So dinner was basically what I’ve been having every other night this week, leftovers. Exciting right? No, actually I despise leftovers, I like new things, exciting things. Leftovers are not exciting, but I do try to make them a little intriguing (key word try)…

Soyrizo, quinoa, and black beans

It was really good, but I knew it was going to be. How did I know that you ask? Well it’s because I’ve been having the exact same dish practically for a week, with minor  alterations. Not that I’m complaing…did I mention that I despise leftovers…

Now on to the review part of the post…are you excited? You should be. To begin with this review story though, we have to go back to friday, which was my sixteenth birthday, (I’m not celebrating till tomorrow (BEACH!!!))! As some of you may know my parents own a restaurant that I waitress at, exciting stuff right? Well on friday they had a catering for sibiling 3’s (Wright)  Army ROTC program, and I decided to go and help, I know, I know, I’m so kind *sarcasm. We do this every year and we always have an amazing time. I usually bring veggie burgers along to cook on the grill, but this year I just decided to wait untill we could get a snack somewhere, and that’s how the review came to be. So here it is,Garden Veggie Chips. *Unfortunetly my computer refuses to upload the picture so if you’d like you could click on the link to view them.

                              

So I have to apologize to this company for prejudging them, honestly I thought that the chips weren’t going to taste good, and I figured they would most likely have a strange texture. But they were delicious, they did have a slight after taste, but they were filling and had very few calories and grams of fat. So would I buy these agian…I plan on it!

Finally to the relations, I have another confession. I know what your thinking, “Now Raye how could you top lasts post confession of you not being a natural red-head?”, but oh I can. I turned sixteen yesterday, but I still have the childish characteristic of missing sibling 2. She’s my big sis, the second to oldest, her names Madison (the only one of us with a normal name), and right now she’s stationed overseas in Iraq.  I miss her so much, she’s been deployed since the end of May, thankfully I get to talk to her on Skype. I just wanted to dedicate a part f this post to her because she sent me these beautiful flowers

 She took the time and money to make sure they got here, I love and miss her so much. So this is just a message to any one serving our country, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I hope you guys have a great weekend. Birthday party pics we’ll be up as soon as possible.

 

 

Can you say Food Rut??

This week has been majorly stressful, and the only thing keeping me going is that in my head im chanting, The Beach, The Beach. I leave for the beach on sunday for my sixteenth birthday party with my friends, and family. I can’t wait, be prepared for amazing pictures! Between work, family, and getting prepared to start school next week, (hello eleventh grade!), my food has been pretty repetitive.

 

 The problem with your parents running a BBQ restaurant, and you having a waitress  job at said restaurant, is that you constantly have incredibly unhealthy food around you. It’s an everyday struggle in my life to step away from the sweat tea and put down the french fries. So before I headed to work I made some oatmeal.

 

Apple cinnamon oatmeal

I started off with some snacking after work on sunday, honestly because I was too lazy to start cooking dinner, but I was still super hungry.My evening snack…

pretzels and baked snap peas with hummus

 

 After watching a marathon of  That 70’s show,  (which was around eight), I decided that it was time to start dinner.On the menu was quinoa, soyrizo, roasted eggplants, and black olives. It sound sweird I know, but I was in my kitchen and I saw the beautiful eggplants from my grandfathers garden…

Plus I had a lot of leftover quinoa from last time I went to whole foods. So I decided to be adventures. The only thing was is that I had forgotten how to cook quinoa, and I know what you’re thinking, “Well just look up the directions online silly”. A smart person would definitely look up directions online, but I’m not smart, I’m stubborn determind, me bing “determind”  ended up with me having a pot of overflowing water/quinoa.

after the house almost burned down I manged to save the quinoa

Eventually, I saved the day from myself and my own horrible cooking skills and came out with this master peice…

 I’m so  talented! Okay we all know I’m not, but just let me imagine for a second. Well I have to go get ready for work,  am I a luck lady or what? Untill next time!

NFR

So August is an incredibly busy month for my family. It starts out with my God-mothers birthday, then my Grandmothers, and last (hopefully not least), is my birthday. I’m excited because this year I turn sixteen, and next week I’m going to the beach with my three best friends! Today was all about my amazing Grandmother who turns 76, so we all got together and headed to a pizza parlor and then the movies. But first breakfast, I started out my morning with some wonderful peach green tea and a huge bowl of fruit.

Oranges, green apples, and half of a cantaloupe

My mom ordered ahead at the pizza parlor for two large pizzas, and to be honest I was worried that I was going to be stuck with a plate of lettuce and tomatoes (you know the thing that restaurants like to pass off to vegans as a salad to shut us up), but I was pleasantly surprised to see a grilled veggie sup on the menu.

My awesome veggie sub with lettuce and tomatoes, grilled onions, peppers, mushroom, and eggplant!

I have a confession, red isn’t my natural hair color…wait sorry wrong one. The real confession is that I’ve been eyeing this one product for a while and today it finally got to me, so here you guys go, it’s time for another New Food Reveiw!

These baby's are baked snap peas (ignore my thumb with the iron man bad-aid (I wanted hello-kitty ones truthfully))

These were great. They remind me of potato chips but better, there not as greasy and have a way better crunch, plus they fill you up unlike potato chips. They’re actually supposed to be a salad topping, like I said though, they are a great snack. I digress about how yummy these are though, and I will move on to dinner.

I’m very proud of myself because I made this all by myself, aren’t I a smart one. Okay honestly I’m not the soyrizo was already made, the sweet potato was made in the microwave, and well you guys just read about the snap peas. So basically this dinner barely had any preparation, and I’m a typical lazy teenager who hasn’t even washed her dishes yet. You all still love me though right??  Untill next time guys, I’ll try to post monday!

What can I say…

So, its been about a year, and honestly the number one thing on my mind is…what a year it’s been. I’ve been through a lot of emotional stress with family, friends, and just my personal self-image. One thing I definitely want to get back to doing though, is blogging. I miss it so much, and every time I cook or bake something I can’t help but think how much I would love to share it with the blogging community. So although it’s been a tough year, I’ll make sure to start updating the blog with my everyday eats and adventures as soon as I possibly can. I just want to say that I’m back and couldn’t be happier.

Good news or Sad news?

Hey guys  so good new or sad news, well you don’t really have a choice so i choose good news, good news is im back to blogging and my goal is to give you guys one awesome blog once a week at least! Sad news is that I have taken on the task of graduating early and have now taken on extra courses. I love blogging and giving you guys yummy food to look at, but right now academics has to be my number one priority. I hope y’all can be understanding as I try to manage working, school, and blogging. On another stressful  exciting note my brother is getting married. I have three siblings who are all very important to me, two of them are already married and now my brother lets call him Randy ( he’s paranoid and doesn’t want his name being on my blog) is the only one left except for me!  I love weddings not only because they are so beautiful, but because all the family comes together and par-tays! Now that I’m done discussing my social life lets move on to food!

So I have some reviews for you, I bought a variety box of Luna bar mini’s! I’m gonna be honest although majority of the time I try to eat healthy I don’t usually like vegan bars. Luna Bars on the contrary are delicious, I wasn’t completely in love with the texture but the taste definitely made up for it.

First off was the Peanut Butter Cookie, now let me tell you I’ve been a vegan for quit sometime and I know that a product will say it tastes like one thing  and it will taste like a tire, this tasted like a peanut butter cookie though. If I didn’t have any self-control I would have eaten the whole box (you think im kidding, think again).

On to the next delicacy…

I’m on honest person…for the most part, and I was pretty sure I was not going to like the Lemon Zest  flavor, let me tell ya’ this bar made a fool out of me. The lemon flavor was apparent but didn’t take over your taste buds in a “pucker of the mouth” kind of way, it was delicious!

Last but not least the White chocolate Macadamia Luna Mini, this one was my favorite, but it was also the one I accidentally deleted off my camera, either way I shouldn’t have to use a picture to convince you guys to like this thing,  even the name sounds tasty, i would have eaten the wrapper if I had the stomach for it! Seriously though, it did taste really good, the white chocolate coating at the bottom wasn’t overpowered by macadamia nut, they mixed well together creating  a great texture and flavor!

All in all they where all really yummy, and I would definitely buy these again! I have to go study for an algebra 2 test and the PSAT’s so I will leave you all to ponder the question of the day?

Question of the day, how do you all juggle school/work and doing things you enjoy?

Hola!

Hi guy’s tenth grade is awesome I could not love it more. The only thing is ive been super busy and haven’t been eating anything interesting. I’m really sorry but I might not post a regular blog untill around monday or so. Don’t worry though ill try to start getting back to normal soon.

It’s my party, I can cry if i want too!!!

Trust me though the only thing I was crying about on my b-day was how FULL my stomach was after eating so much! I went out to eat several times with family members and friends so these pictures aren’t just from one day, although if I could it like this everyday I would be the happiest girl in the world. Seriously while eating at these restaurants I had some serious birthday luck going on!

                      

When my mom came home from work she surprised me with a bag full of delicious food, including the super cool Lucy’s cookies. Not only are they gluten-free, they taste awesome. It bring’s yummy childhood memory’s back when I eat them.

 Then I had a beautiful salad at Ruby Tuesdays.

 This blog is called vegan ventures for a reason people. I’m not a food rut kinda girl, so when I saw/smelled this wonderful greek place  in a food court at the mall I said heck yeah. The flavours exploded in my mouth, the chickpea stu had a great texture and… their fried eggplant was vegan (yay) it’s always impossible to find tasty fried vegetables that are vegan.

I went out to eat with friends and family at mellow mushrooms and their vegan pizza is two thumbs up. The cheese was gooey a had a buttery nutty flavour. Not only was the pizza good but the atmosphere was awesome too. They had peace signs and the 70’s everywhere. I mean come on when they have a pizza called “The Magical Mystery Tour” how could you not like it.

Well im going to head in for the night (gotta take care of the pig). But before I go let me tell ya’ about my surprise birthday present…please click here,  aren’t they awesome I was sooo happy when I got them. I was planning on getting another pair originally but I saw theses in store and thought they where so cute!

I hope you guys have a great week I start sophomore year Wednesday so wish me luck!

Oh P.S-

 

My gorgeous vegan cupcake that I got from WH!

P.P.S- All these pictures where taken by the camera that my mom gave me for my birthday ( I also mentioned this in an earlier post), and my dad gave me the adorable Toms.  So I would just like to take a moment to say thankyou so much for the birthday wishes and gifts!

Random Post!

Hey guys, so stupid me lost her camera. I know it’s sad, but don’t worry ill find it.. hopefully. These are just some random pictures from the past couple months of thing ive eaten (pasta, soy nuts, and more pasta.)I hope y’all are having a great week. My birthdays tomorrow so hopefully ill find my camera tonight and have great pictures to show you. I’m going go look for my camera, and then put a tracking device in it…bye!

The Challenge

Ok so we all eat a little too much on vacation and gain some weight.. ok well maybe its just me. Either way I gained a couple of pounds. So for one month I am going gluten-free, starting tomorrow. I know exciting isn’t it, I’m kinda nervous because ninety percent of what I eat is whole wheat pasta (over exaggeration), but I think I can do it. By the way I got an awesome present for my birthday  from my dad, so thankyou dad although you don’t read my blog. I’ll be posting a picture of them tomorrow, it’s not an animal or anything I already have my hands full with Rudy (pig), I’m just referring to it as them to keep it a surprise, I love surprises. So gluten-free challenge starting tomorrow, i’ll also be posting part three of vacations restaurants! I hope you guys have a great rest of the weekend.

Food, food, and more food! (vacation part 2)

Like is said this is the entire food part of  the NY vacation and let me tell ya’ there’s a lot of it. First lets begin on the way up. Now I live in the south so to go into a gas station and find this

      

was really awesome, it has no artificial flavor, no artificial colours, no preservatives, and is 100% natural. To find out more info. about flavors, nutrition facts, and where its sold you can click here! There where other things that I ate on the way like baked potato chips and things like that bot nothing blog worthy. When we got there though I brought staples with me like Amy’s Non-Dairy vegetable Pot Pie and also a brand of vegan macaroni and cheese both of which I was super excited to try!

 Now as a child I LOVED macaroni and cheese, so while trying this i braced myself for it to be horrible compared to my standards, but it was actually pretty good. It had a creamy texture, and the cheese didn’t have a stong fake cheese flavour, would I buy this again, maybe if im hankering for some mac and cheese, as a regular side dish though most likely not.

Now for the Amy’s Pot Pie Review, it was delicious. It truly looked tasted and had the texture of a pot pie I ate the entire thing. Its crust was flakey, the sauce was creamy and flavorful, the tofu didn’t have a stong soy flavour, and the vegetables tasted like fresh vegetables! Would I buy this again, absolutely.

So as you know my birthday is coming up and because we where with my g’ma i asked my mother if we could celebrate it early with her. Well i got a suprise when i woke up the nest mornning at my grandmothers house. When i walked into the kitchen i saw this master peice…

My mother doesn’t really know how to make a vegan b-day cake so she went with the other option a fruit cake, pun intended. Later on that night I did really make me a vegan birthday cake using Cherrybrooke kitchen cake mix and frosting. In my opinion this did not taste like the typical vanilla cake mix or frosting, it tasted much better. Now don’t get me wrong I like my cake mix in a box, but this had a much better more complex flavor. Well it’s time for me to go to bed but “Food, food, and more food” will be continued tommorow!