Dan had to work at 3 PM yesterday, so I spent some time with him before work. Then I went out for a mani/pedi - long overdue for one! It's been at least 6 months. After that, I decided to go over to Whole Foods for a few items I needed since it was just down the street. I wanted to see if Trader Joe's carried what I needed, but the nearest one was too far out of the way for other errands I needed to take care of. I was not excited to go in to Whole Foods. I only went there once before and it was because I had a gift card. The prices are outrageous. There is a reason the store has this nickname:
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Before I fully researched how to eat vegan and looked up different recipes, I was under the impression that the only place a vegan could shop was Whole Foods. Thankfully, that is not true! I only needed two things: Ener G Egg Replacer and some Daiya shredded mozzarella vegan cheese for a lasagna recipe later in the week. I also thought about making some vegan chocolate chip cookies, which would require two other ingredients: vegan margarine and vegan chocolate chips. I wandered around the store a bit just because they DO have some neat, different foods there. Thoughts of, "Wow, check this out...oh I want to eat crazy healthy...look at this!" were starting to take over me, so I decided to ask the nearest employee for help finding my items and get the hell out of there before I did in fact spend my whole paycheck and things I did not really need.
The egg replacer is a dry, powdered egg substitute that you can use in recipes in place of - you guessed it! - eggs. The box honestly looks like it's from 1974.
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Cost: $5.99. Sigh...on the plus side, it's a decent sized box and it seems like it should last quite awhile. The product was in the baking aisle, so I decided to look for the vegan chocolate chips. Price of a small bag of vegan chocolate chips? $5.99. Ummm, yeah. I'm not making these cookies. But I was desperately craving a sweet treat! What to do?! I decided to check out their bakery section - surely they had some vegan items there. Thankfully, they did. I treated myself to a decent sized chocolate chip cookie for $2.60, which I thoroughly enjoyed at night with a glass of almond milk. This cookie was delicious!
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Finally, I purchased the vegan mozzarella cheese for my lasagna recipe. Cost: $4.69. Grand total for 3 items: $13.50. Thankfully, everything else I need I've found at Jewel and Target and it's all reasonably priced and the same as what I spent on groceries before. Beans are cheap, and Target had a huge sale on Gardein (another brand like Boca or Morning Star) this week. Yippee!
After I got my groceries for the week to come, I went over to Kohl's in search of a reasonable food processor. Armed with a 20% off coupon, I was determined to find a good deal. I didn't have to look very hard - found this perfect sized food processor for only $29.99! And it even came in cute colors, which I'm always a sucker for. I choose turquoise.
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Can't wait to try it out!
By the time I got home, I was starving. I planned to make a tofu quinoa and veggie stir fry. This was my first time making tofu, and I was a little nervous about it. I kept singing "Killer Tofu" while cooking it. Haha...who remembers that?! Here is a hint:
The tofu itself turned out just fine, but the stir fry overall was just "eh." I suck at cooking Asian food, period. In the past, I've tried to make chicken stir fry, shrimp stir fry and I'm never that pleased with the outcome. Still, it was a decent meal, and a very filling one too. I didn't fee Leftovers today!
Next weekend is going to be a challenging one for me. On Sunday, we will be going out to Giordano's for my cousin's birthday dinner. Sitting at a table full of pizza and not having any is going to be tough. I plan to fight the temptation by eating a decent meal before we go out to the restaurant. Maybe I can have some garlic bread or something, but first I'll have to try and find out if their bread has any egg or other dairy product in it.
Meals I'll be making this week include:
Sunday
Black bean quinoa burgers and oven baked sweet potato fries (good for lunch for most of the week)
Monday
Chick'n enchiladas
Tuesday
Leftovers
Wednesday
Falafel stuffed pitas
Thursday
Tofu spinach lasagna
Friday
Leftovers
Saturday
???
Alright folks, I gotta run. Hope everyone's had a great weekend so far. Enjoy the sunshine today!
Ok this is SO weird, because I was just telling Justin yesterday that I wanted a food processor!! I want to be able to make my own hummus and would like to make salad dressing out of nuts instead of oil (there's an awesome sounding cashew dressing that I want to try). I am totally going to check out that one at Kohl's now!!! Well, I'll wait until you post your review, first! :)
ReplyDeleteGo for it! I love the one I bought! Granted I only used it once so far, haha, but it was easy to use, easy to clean and chopped my peppers and onions in about 20 seconds!
DeleteAww Dez I'm sorry about the temptation at our outing next weekend. Thanks for being a good sport and still attending! I have to correct you though that box seriously looks like 1950's! LOL
ReplyDeleteIt's no big deal, I can't hide away from the world! Have to be around tempting foods some time. Haha yeah the box looks so old and weird!
DeleteHow interesting that I found your blog. I have also decided to go vegan for thirty days, and started on April 1st. I have been so so surprised at how effortless it has been so far - I was going into it thinking it was going to be really tough (cheese being my former favorite thing on Earth). I'm a hardcore foodie so I was very worried about eliminating whole food groups, but it really hasn't been an issue. Found a great resource for delicious "foodie" vegan recipes which has been a godsend: http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/vegan-recipes-mains-soups-salads-breakfasts-sandwiches-appetizers.html Seriously, you should check it out. Endless ideas here and cuisine from all over the world. Yum. Of course this guy lives in NYC so it is likely you won't be able to find all of the ingredients for all of the foods (I can't in rural Vermont) but still, totally excited to try some of these recipes.
ReplyDeleteI laughed when I read about you craving sweets. Yesterday I walked down to the co-op and bought a vegan cheesecake and ate the entire thing in one day (it was a single-serve, but still). Man, that did wonders to improve my mood.
I hear you on the pizza challenge. My husband and daughter (who are not going vegan with me) and I have a tradition of getting pizza once a week. Last week we skipped it, this week it will be salad for me. I'm pretty sure most garlic bread has butter on it (although I suppose they could use olive oil) but I'm trying to do the whole foods vegan route so I'm avoiding processed breads, cereals and pastas too (god help me).
Lol, seriously though, I feel better than I have ever felt in my entire life. I don't know if I will have the willpower to do this forever (the time is tough too because I work full time and have a home and a picky toddler who doesn't like veggies and a husband who has Crohn's disease so I'm definately having to double and triple up on cooking meals) but I hope I will. As a bonus, I'm losing weight, every day. I seriously ate a gigantic bean and kale burrito, an entire vegan cheesecake and a big dinner yesterday, and still lost 1/2 a pound, overnight. Best of luck! I will try to follow along with you on your blog.
Hi there,
DeleteThank you so much for reading my blog and for your comment! That is so funny that you have started the same challenge on April 1st. I will definitely check out that website link you shared, I took a quick look and it looks great! I actually live in the western suburbs of Chicago, so a little similar to NYC’s options!
I too have been surprised at how easy it has been and how satisfied I’ve felt from the foods I’ve tried so far. I feel so light and so much healthier! That vegan cheesecake sounds amazing, I would love to try one. Good for you on going the whole foods route too.
I’ve read that “old world” style breads like French bread, ciabatta bread, etc are usually vegan. I checked out the Giordano’s menu online and created an “action plan” – I’ll be having salad and bruschetta!
I’m curious, what inspired you to go vegan? It definitely does involve some planning and prep work, but it’s much easier than I thought it would be and I’m not craving meat in the least.
Good luck and I hope to hear from you again! :)