In-N-Out's Super Top Secret "Wish Burger"

This blog post is a little different than my usual, as I am really just blogging about someone else's blog post... Read this post about In-N-Out's Veggie Burger, not listed on their menu or even on their SECRET menu...

http://dailyveganeats.tumblr.com/post/7438678776/eating-out-vegan-in-n-out-burger

They call it the Wish Burger. And their fries and buns are vegan. Their In-N-Out sauce is NOT vegan, however, so don't get that. Otherwise, go enjoy In-N-Out, probably the best fast food joint in the whole world. ...They use the same training methods and quality standards of business as Disney ;)

In other news, today is IHOP's Free Pancake Day. My friends and I have been celebrating free pancake day since high school, so I did my research today about what kind of offerings IHOP has for vegans. The answer is none. Well okay, a $3 bowl of fruit, and coffee (according to the internet. I have not gone in myself and looked at the menu yet). Other than that, vegans should steer clear of IHOP. I will probably whip up some vegan pancakes myself today, in honor of free pancake day, and maybe I'll take em with me when we go to IHOP for Patrick to get free pancakes.


One last thing in vegan news for today- As you know, I recently transfered into Guest Relations at Disneyland, a department that takes a lot of pride in its history, heritage, and traditions. Well back in the 60s and 70s two editions of a "Tour Guide Cook Book" were made. Well this year, to honor the heritage, a third edition was compiled, and I just received my copy. All the recipes are submitted by Guest Relations Cast Members. It is not a vegan cookbook, but tour guides must be really healthy people, because there is a whole vegetarian section and a TON of recipes that can easily be done vegan-style! My new goal is to make one meal from the Tour Guide Cook Book a week. This will help keep me trying new things, and help me to not get bored and lazy about my vegan eating/cooking.

Happy Eating!
-Gina

Little Caesars and Wahoo's Fish Taco

So exciting- last night I actually ordered a pizza!! Little Caesar's vegetarian pizza, ordered without cheese, and their crazy bread, also ordered without cheese, as well as a side of crazy sauce = vegan! I ordered all of those things, and it was about $11 total. The pizza was a large and it came with 8 pieces of crazy bread. And it's okay that there is butter on the crazy bread, it's not real butter, and it has no animal by-products in it. I also ordered my vegetarian pizza without olives, because I don't like olives. I came home from work and was tired and wanted an easy dinner, so it was really nice to just order a pizza, and I have plenty of leftovers :)

Vegetarian Pizza:
http://www.littlecaesars.com/pizza/vegetarian_pizza.asp

Little Caesar's even has a little explanation of their vegan/vegetarian options :)
http://www.littlecaesars.com/pizza/vegetarian_diet.asp

On another note- today Patrick and I were hanging out in Huntington Beach. We ate dinner there. He got a cheeseburger at a place called Bomb Burger. Their fries are vegan, I asked about the oil they cook them in. I ate at a place called Wahoo's Fish Taco. Both of these places are on Main Street, right by the pier. I got their number 1, which is one taco with a side of rice and beans. For the filling in my taco I got their "Banzai Veggies" and I got brown rice (their white rice isn't vegan, it has butter in it) and spicy black beans. I got all that for around $5, and it was a lot of food, and so good!! I read online on a vegan site to make sure you make it very clear to them when you are ordering that you are vegan so they definitely don't mess it up. They gave me extra salsa for free, and had good choices of hot sauces. It was fun because both places we ate were so beachy and casual, so I just hung out at the burger place with Patrick while he ate and then we hung out some more at the taco place while I ate. For me, the more time spent hanging out at Huntington Beach, the better. It was a fabulous day at the beach :)

I know it just looks like a lot of lettuce on the taco in the picture, but trust me, there are a ton of awesome veggies under there!! It was definitely a juicy, messy, wonderful meal.

By the way, can you believe it's February!? And we went to the beach! I love California! Is anyone sick of me saying that yet??

Happy Eating!
-Gina

Disney Dining Vegan

Today is my one month of being in my new role of Guest Relations at Disneyland!

I am in the middle of training for a new location within GR- GIL aka Guest Information Locations. So today we toured all around Disney's California Adventure park, Downtown Disney, and the three hotels- Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, Paradise Pier Hotel, and the Disneyland Hotel. For lunch our trainer took us to a cast member backstage cafe that I had never been to before down by the hotels. This cast cafe had the best vegetarian/vegan options of any of the cast member dining locations!! I was very happy!! I usually don't spend much on food at work, but I just couldn't resist the healthy delicious amazingness today. Not only did they have more options than just the salad bar, but they had a clearly posted menu sign with symbols next to all of the vegetarian options with descriptions of what is in everything. I got a hummus pita bread wrap, it had so many awesome vegetables on it, and couscous. The woman who made it for me was very helpful and answered all my questions and made sure I didn't get anything with dairy on my wrap. When I was checking out I told the guy at the cash register that this is the most vegan-friendly cast cafe, but he could've cared less. Oh well, at least I paid someone the compliment! The girl I am training with is a vegetarian so she was also happy, and she got vegetarian soup :) So that was our little mini-celebration for our one month in GR.

I have been thinking about going into the parks as a guest and doing some more research/investigation on how to eat in Disneyland as a vegan. (I searched on my iPhone to see if there was an app for that, and surprisingly there wasn't!) Of course it is Disney, so at any of the dining locations you can always talk to the chef or manager or probably even just your server and they can make you something vegan just for you. But since this blog, and my approach to veganism, is all about being a vegan as easily as possible I thought it would be helpful to do a blog about being vegan in Disney. I would do one blog post for Disneyland park and one for Disney's California Adventure park. As we have been touring around the resort yesterday and today I am starting to see that it won't be that difficult of an investigation, as there are many vegan/vegetarian options in the resort.

For a little head start tip about eating vegan in Disneyland I will give you one fact to tempt you to come back and read my future posts:
The Dreyer's strawberry whole fruit bars that are sold at the ice cream carts (the ones with the Mickey ear ice cream bars and frozen bananas at them too) are vegan! Fruit Bar Ingredients

Okay so while writing this blog I went and google searched eating vegan at Disneyland and apparently there are actually a lot of articles about it. But oh well, maybe I'll still do it!
Anyway,
Happy Eating!
-Gina

Garlic Broiled Tomatoes and San Diego

The two things in the title of this post have nothing to do with each other, except that I did both of them this week. Last night I ended up throwing together a pretty delicious, completely vegan dinner really quickly. We had corn that we needed to cook before it went bad, so we had ears of corn. We had one random tomato left so I sliced it up, put it in a pan with olive oil, garlic salt, sliced fresh garlic, and pepper and broiled that in the oven for about 5 minutes. And then we had leftover green beans, and Patrick had a piece of garlic toast. The picture doesn't make the tomatoes look too great, but they were really delicious. I am brainstorming what to make for my family when I go home to visit NC. I want to make them a great, completely vegan dinner. This tomato dish made me think of making them garlic roasted tomatoes over asparagus over some kind of pasta dish, with a salad, and some kind of yummy vegan dessert. We'll see.

In other news, I went to San Diego for the first time today! Patrick and I tagged along with our friends Jane and Richard, who are awesome California natives, so they showed us the ropes. We toured a WWII aircraft carrier, then we went to Old Town San Diego where we got hand made tortillas, made right in front of us! They were only 2 for $1. You order right from the sidewalk, and the woman made them right there, outside. They were so unbelievably fresh and amazing and delicious.

Basically all of Old Town San Diego smelled amazing because of all the amazing restaurants. For lunch we ate in Oceanside at a local diner called Mary's. I got a BLTA minus the B (bacon), so lettuce, tomato, and avocado sandwich on whole wheat, with a side of fries. See, it's easy to be vegan and not make everyone go far out of their way to accommodate you. Just pick something from the menu and don't be a brat about it. I am spoiled though, living in California where there is such an abundance of avocados and delicious fresh local veggies.

Also, I took some of my homemade banana bread to share in the car on our mini-road trip. Jane and Richard approved! I had packed a little bag of snacks for the day including the banana bread, two apples, and a half a peanut butter tortilla sandwich, just so I would be prepared had there not been anything vegan for me to eat. Luckily there was, so I shared the banana bread and brought the rest back home, but that is always a good idea as a vegan, to be prepared so you don't have to make people go out of their way on a group outing and so you aren't hungry! Especially since as a vegan you most likely eat smaller meals/snacks more frequently throughout the day as opposed to fewer, bigger meals. 

Happy Eating!

-Gina

The World's Healthiest, Easiest, Vegan Banana Bread

I looked up easy, quick, vegan banana bread recipes, found the easiest one, and simplified and healthified it even more!

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas (you could use 3 if you want it even more banana-y!)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup cinnamon apple sauce
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup all natural whole wheat flour
(you can just use 2 cups of whatever kind of flour you have- I enjoy baking with whole wheat flour)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Lightly grease a baking pan. The original recipe calls for a 9x5 inch pan, but I used an 8x8 inch pan because it's what I had. Use whatever you have that is about that size, but 9x5 would be best. That'll make it more like a real loaf of bread.

Mash bananas in large mixing bowl. I just use a spoon and mash away. To get a head start on the mushiness I kind of squeeze the bananas a bit before peeling and squirting into mixing bowl. It is pretty important to get the bananas nice and mushy and no clumps before adding other ingredients.

Next add the maple syrup and apple sauce to the bananas and stir well. Now for all my stirring I use a fork, because I think it mixes it better. (The original recipe called for canola oil and honey as well as the applesauce and syrup, but I simplified and healthified! Trust me, it works)

Next add the sugar, and stir. Then add the baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and stir really well. (The original recipe also called for 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, but I don't have that, and I don't like pumpkin pie, and I thought it seemed pretty unnecessary, but do what you like) Finally, stir in the flour. I forgot to sift this time, sift if you want, if you don't it's okay too. Make sure to mix well and get everything off the side of the mixing bowl! As you can see, I don't use a mixer- too much of a hassle, so use those muscles and mix well!

You can mix in nuts, vegan chocolate chips, coconut, whatever you think would be good. I didn't add anything else. Pure and easy and delicious.

Pour mix into greased pan and make sure it's spread out evenly and smoothly in the pan, and all the way to the edges.

Place in center of oven and bake for 40 minutes. Of course, ovens vary, so check it after 40 minutes, but it could take 50 minutes or longer. Mine came out perfectly after 40 minutes. The bread is done when you can stick a fork in it and the fork comes out clean. When you take it out of the oven let it cool in the pan then remove it from the pan, plate it, and let it cool more. I sprinkled a TINY bit of cinnamon and an even tinier bit of sugar on top of the loaf, which worked out wonderfully!

I sliced it up, and had two pieces promptly! Best enjoyed warm, so when you're having it later, pop your pieces in the microwave for a few seconds  :)  Guilt free- very healthy! Delicious! Enough said!

This would be a wonderful thing to eat alongside a banana smoothie, with your morning oatmeal, or anything else really! I only suggest the idea of eating it with something else to help fill your stomach, so you don't eat it all at once, because it is THAT delicious!

Let me know if you try any of the recipes on this blog, and if you change, add, or discover anything.

Happy Eating!
-Gina

Dairy Kryptonite

Today I went to the store because Patrick is feeling sick, so I was getting stuff to make him feel better. I was getting stuff to make him grilled cheese sandwiches, so I was in the back corner of the grocery store, in the dairy section. As I was picking out American cheese I started feeling sick to my stomach. Like very all of a sudden. I put the cheese in my basket and walked away from that section and immediately started feeling better. Now I know it is probably just a coincidence, and Patrick and I are in the middle of watching all of the Superman movies, but it made me think dairy is like my kryptonite now. Crazy.

On another note- I experimented today for lunch, corn tortilla with hummus and sliced pears on it. Pretty delicious. I kind of went fruit crazy at the grocery store this week... I hope it doesn't go bad before I get a chance to eat it all, but if I eat too much at a time it's just too much. Gosh I love fruit.

I booked my plane tickets to go home to NC in May. I am very much looking forward to getting in my grandmother's kitchen and cooking vegan with her! I feel like I have learned so much since going vegan! We're going to make a nice big family vegan meal :) I want everyone to see how delicious it is. I will also be going up to New York on that trip so I will find some good vegan places there. Suggestions welcome!

Happy Eating!
-Gina

Be My Vegan Valentine

Some mornings I swear I wake up with super energy powers. Like the first morning that started this whole vegan thing when I woke up at 9am after the New Years Eve party, went to the store, and made amazing vegan pancakes. This morning was one of those mornings. For some reason I got this idea lying in bed and just had to wake up and do it right away. So I made my coffee and made Vegan Valentines Cookies!
Here is a link to the SUPER EASY recipe for vegan sugar cookies that I used:

(I'm going to pause here for a side note- The internet is your friend as a vegan on the path of cheap and simple. Use it. Google searching things like "easy vegan recipes" "simple vegan sugar cookies" " is ___ vegan?" and using the website www.supercook.com to input ingredients you already have on hand to find recipes is super quick and easy and it is like having a vegan guide with you at all times.)

Anyway, back to cookies, here is the link:

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6394.0

Ingredients:

I picked this one because I have all of the ingredients in the house and because I thought maple syrup in the batter sounded awesome and because it does not call for soy milk. (I am trying not to use substitutes- a)because they're expensive, and b)because to me it kind of defeats part of the purpose of being vegan.) I followed the recipe exactly EXCEPT I only used about a little less than 1/3 cup of oil, and added a drizzle of water to the mixture when I was forming it into a dough, after combining the wet and dry ingredients. I will also note that I sifted my flour. Maybe it's because my grandmother always does that, it makes it nice to mix thoroughly.  And I used almost a whole banana instead of egg. I am absolutely LOVING using bananas in place of eggs in recipes. It depends on the size of the banana as to how much to use. I read in one place that 1 egg=1 banana, then I read in another place that 1 egg=half a banana. So I used about 2/3 of a banana. Just make sure you mash it up really well- no chunky dough! I didn't use my hands to form the dough into a big ball because I feel like too much dough gets wasted sticking to my hands. Mixing it up with a fork made it form into a nice ball of dough just fine. Also, I don't trust recipes that say not to grease the tray, so I sprayed non-stick cooking spray on the cookie pan. I don't want my cookies to stick!!

Rolling the dough balls in the mixture of cinnamon and sugar was fun. Make pretty small balls, because when you flatten them on the cookie tray they are pretty big. This would be much easier if you have a heart shaped cookie cutter. I don't so I shaped them with knives. They come out looking cool and marble-y because of the cinnamon. The first go-round I put the cookies really spread out on the tray because I wasn't sure if they would spread/flatten more on the tray while in the oven and I didn't want them to run into each other. But it turns out that they basically stay perfectly just as you shape them on the tray, so on the first tray I fit about 8 and on the second tray I fit about 13.5 (I had a little baby heart). Make sure to flatten them or they will be too doughy and less cookie-ish.

Bake at 375 for 8 minutes. The recipe says 7 minutes, but again, my grandmother always bakes her cookies for 8 minutes, and they came out perfect.

So here's where it gets fun. Leave them on the tray for a few minutes to let them bake a tiny bit more. Then put them on a plate and LET THEM COOL! After they cool, ice them! I used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Vanilla Icing. (Yes, it's vegan. Snobby vegans will say it's not vegan because it is processed and bad for you and junk food vegan. But by my definition for my purposes of being vegan it is vegan because it includes absolutely no dairy. I read up online a lot on these matters before I eat or cook with something. So set your own standards and stick to them, that is what is most important. I'm not saying it's healthy- vegan does not mean healthy necessarily, although it tends to make you have a healthier lifestyle. They're vegan cookies, but they're still COOKIES!)

Final step- thinly slice strawberries and shape into hearts and put on cookies. I also sprinkled a little bit of the leftover cinnamon sugar mixture on the icing before putting on the strawberries. Waste not! I threw the little bits that I cut off of the strawberries to form them into hearts into a strawberry banana smoothie afterward. And here is the glorious final product:

They are delicious! I'm having some friends over tomorrow and I can't wait to spread the love with these treats!!

Happy Lovely Eating!
-Gina

Pulp Soup

Tonight I made soup from the pulp left over after juicing. It surprised me how wonderful it turned out! I love hearty (before going vegan- meaty) potato-y stew like you'd get in a pub in Europe.

I boiled some water. Then I added the pulp (mostly veggies- some apple) and I let it simmer on low while I went to the store. No measuring and no timing in this recipe, just instinct. When I got back from the store the apartment smelled so wonderful because of the simmering! I stirred it, turned the heat up a little, and then on another eye of the stove I threw some cut up tomatoes, potatoes (that had already been baked), and onion in a frying pan. No oil or anything. I stirred that around a bit. Oh yeah, I sprinkled salt, pepper, and oregano in the pot of pulp at the beginning before summering. I added pepper to the frying pan. When the frying pan food was cooked I added it right to the pulp soup broth stuff. I forgot to cook the mushrooms in the frying pan, so I just threw them in the pot. I stirred and let all that cook more for a bit. When it was all done I let a little excess water out of the pot. Don't strain it though, it's soup! Then I watched Glee and ate it.

It was so good.

All mixed up. I promise it's more delicious than it looks.

Very fulfilling and warm. For dessert I had some strawberries dipped in the chocolate icing I bought for Patrick's bday cake that I later found out is vegan. Yeah, that's all gone :)

I'll be going home to Salisbury and then to visit New York for a bit in May! I can't wait to eat vegan there :)

Here are two vegan blogs I also read, because I know the people that write them:
http://table-foods.blogspot.com/

http://denonnecandis.wordpress.com/

Happy Eating!
-Gina

TGI-Avocado!

Thank Goodness It's Avocado!

This blog may not be well written, I am kind of tired right now...

But I just had to blog about avocados! Something I never ate before going vegan that I have discovered I simply LOVE!

This blog is also a report back on how to eat vegan at TGIFridays. Patrick and I went there for his birthday. He got a whole rack of ribs. I asked our waiter if he had a vegan/vegetarian menu. He was super helpful. He brought out a print out of the menu with symbols beside the dishes saying what they had in them (dairy, eggs, soy, etc) I have to tell you, TGIFridays has basically no vegan options, but they are awesome and willing to make it work for you, so I have no complaints! I ended up getting literally the most amazing salad I have ever eaten. It was a sante fe style salad with lettuce, beans, corn, tortilla chips, tomatoes, cucumber I think, I can't remember everything on it, but I had to ask them to leave off the chicken, cheese, and olives (because I don't like olives). For my dressing I originally ordered something else, I don't remember what it was, but they ended up not having that option anymore so I moved to my second choice which was the avocado vinaigrette. MMMM It was the BEST EVER! With my salad I also got a baked potato with chives. It was overall a delicious and filling meal :) And usually with one of these huge salads at a chain like this you can't even make it past the cheese, chicken, and ranch to get to the actual vegetables. I ate the whole thing.

I had been feeling like I hadn't been eating that well for the past few days, still vegan, just not super healthy vegan... for example, I discovered that the icing I bought for Patrick's birthday cake is vegan so I had some of that, and I had vegan pizzas two days in a row, and a bunch of triscuits... etc. etc. So I decided today I would eat only fruits and veggies! For breakfast I had coffee (coffee is a must and a given) and juice- a fruity concoction with apples, oranges, lemon, ginger, parsley, carrot, and cucumber-  very light, good for morning- for lunch I had a banana, strawberry, orange smoothie, then I had for a midday snack celery- but I usually put PB on celery, but today I mashed up some avocado and dipped my celery in that and it was YUM! Then for dinner I had an awesome salad, and the most exciting part was I made AWESOME homemade AVOCADO dressing!!! :) Today I think is the very first day in which everything I ate came from the earth and wasn't processed at all and the only cooked thing I ate was some leftover potatoes with my salad for dinner! But don't worry, I'm not going to go raw vegan.

Recipe for the dressing:
-1/2 an avocado (RIPE!)
-some chopped up garlic (chopped as fine as you can, because I don't have a food processor and the blender didn't work too well to mix it all up)
-some parsley
-1/4 lemon, peeled (not just the juice, I put the 1/4 of the lemon right in there)
-garlic salt
-pepper
-olive oil (to whatever consistency you think looks good- a decent amount)

I first tried doing all that in the blender, which helped at first, but then it all just got stuck to the side so I finished the job mashing it and stirring it to death with a spoon. I put it on the salad and mixed it all up with my hands to get it all completely coated :) On my salad was lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and uuum I think that's it.

I think I say this every time I make something new, but I think this was my favorite thing so far.
Made me not even jealous of Patrick eating a little caesars pizza for dinner. I did find out, however, that little caesar's bread sticks are vegan without the parm cheese, and so is their sauce and their crust!


Happy Eating!
-Gina

Vegan Pizza!!!!!!!!!

Tonight I made my first homemade vegan pizza and IT WAS AWESOME!!!

I think it is my favorite thing I have made myself since going vegan.

So here's how I made it. (No recipe by the way, just me, myself, and my brain)

Ingredients:
Hunts mushroom flavor pasta sauce
Ground oregano
Pepper
Garlic salt
Fresh chopped garlic
Parsley
Green bell pepper
Onion
Tomatoes
Olive Oil
Corn tortillas

Preheat the oven to 350.

Step 1- Put tortillas in baking tray. Spoon some pasta sauce on top of the tortillas and smooth around so you don't see the bottom of the tortillas at all.

Step 2- Sprinkle the seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, oregano) on next so it soaks into the sauce real nice. Add the chopped garlic pieces and spread around evenly so you don't get a huge garlic bite! Then slice up and add all the other ingredients, adding a tiny bit of parsley last. Use as little or as much as you like. Slice everything thin. Place evenly around pizza to try to get even flavors in each bite. I poured the tiniest bit of olive oil on top of it before baking and also topped it off with some more garlic salt. You could use regular garlic sprinkles and not garlic salt, but it's cheaper that's why I use it. The oil made the tortillas a tiny bit soggy in the end, but it was worth it for the flavor. You could leave that step out if you want or just use a bit less oil. I loved it.

Step 3- Bake in oven for about 15 minutes. Let cool a little after coming out of oven, mainly just to give the whole thing a chance to not be so slippery. Me, I just scooped it right off the baking tray and onto my plate right when it came out. Didn't look as pretty but it tasted so incredibly amazing. I might add more tomato next time, but that's not the biggest deal. I'd say these turned out PERFECTLY! The size of the individual tortillas was nice.

Completely assembled, pre-oven:

OMG so good. And I love this because it had so much flavor but took up so little of each ingredient!! So I can make it often! I am confident this would surpass any non-vegan pizza lovers test! My family is Italian, so trust me on this one.

Happy eating!
-Gina

Simple Sunday Lunch

I've been doing a lot of blog posts lately about complicated vegan things, like juicing, baking, and eating out. So I wanted to do a post today to take this blog back to its roots. Being vegan simply and inexpensively and proving that can be done and you don't have to be some kind of health or environmental super star to be vegan. Since starting this blog I've had a few people tell me, hey Gina I was thinking about being vegan but thought I couldn't do that, but I've enjoyed reading your blog! Well I am here to say that I am here for the average person! I can't really cook that great I don't have that much mulah and I am usually a very busy person. I digress...

My point is, even though I choose complicated or interesting stuff to blog about, a lot of the times I eat something that looks more like this:

A lazy vegan's Sunday lunch. Leftover green beans, apple sauce, and triscuits and hummus. Now I have to admit, this is the laziest I've been in a while, but it is certainly healthier than heating up a hot dog (something I would have been more likely to do for lunch pre-vegan). And it is delicious. Small portions but more flavors. The triscuits are Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil flavor, the hummus is Roasted Garlic flavor, and the apple sauce is Cinnamon! I think when you first become vegan it can be harder and overwhelming because you just don't know what to eat, but after a little while you'll have enough options in your cabinet to make it easier to just grab something and throw something together quickly. Your cabinet will slowly start to become more and more vegan friendly :)

Point of this post- you don't have to be a vegan super star to be vegan. Regular people are vegan too.

Happy (simple) eating!
-Gina

What to do with pulp????

So as you know, I got a juicer for my birthday. Well when you juice you have a lot of pulp left over. I don't want to be wasteful so I looked up some ideas of what to do with the pulp.

First attempt: veggie burger....... FAIL. First of all I burnt it. Second of all I made up my own recipe including the pulp, beans, and potatoes, among other things. Third of all, disgusting. Patrick didn't hate it. Curious.

Second attempt: Veggie Bread Cake... well that is just what I have come to call it. SUCCESS! I found the video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uU63jh96ag&list=LLrgVbFqOBcuO1v0gocM9ZiQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

I followed this lady's directions almost exactly, except that I didn't put quite a full third cup of pulp, just about 2 cups and a handful. When I was making the batter (and eating a bit of it) my mind was truly blown by how delicious it tasted. I was worried to ruin the wonderful batter with veggie pulp, but it turned out AMAZING. OH YEAH.... IMPORTANT: I replaced the three eggs with three bananas, mashed up. BRILLIANT! VEGAN!

So that took up a lot of the pulp. Next thing I might try is veggie soup with the pulp, and sprinkle some on my first attempt at homemade vegan pizza (which I bought the ingredients for today)!! Oh also, I've been sprinkling a little on my salads. It's okay that way. But I am still loving juicing! And so is Patrick!

I got some vegan cookbooks from Danny for my bday too. I am kind of intimidated by most of the recipes right now, but we shall see. I am becoming quite the cook/chef as of late!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL BOYFRIEND WHO FULLY SUPPORTS MY VEGANISM! We are off to TGIFridays to celebrate his bday! So I shall report back on what they have that is vegan!

Happy (Birthday) Eating!
-Gina