Irvine, Guac, Koba, Sandwiches

Irvine...

Living in Irvine is going swell! I read somewhere that UCI won like second most vegan-friendly college campus one year... or something like that.


Guac...

I made guacamole for the first time the other day.

Here are the ingredients:
2 ripe Avocados
1 lime
1 tomato
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Mash up the avocado in a bowl before adding other ingredients, so you don't mash the tomatoes too much. Dice tomato and garlic, and squeeze lime juice into avocado. Mix all together and salt and pepper to taste. Put it in the refrigerator for a few hours so the flavors have plenty of time to mingle. Get some chips and enjoy!

Koba...

I know I don't usually eat tofu, but this yummy and inexpensive tofu place is dangerously close to my new apartment. It is called Koba Tofu Grill. They have a nice looking inside restaurant, but the part I like is their outside window. Everything on the take-out menu is priced at $5. I have gotten the tofu bowl twice this week. Tofu, rice, veggies, and soy sauce. They have non-vegan items on the take out menu too. It is delicious, convenient, and awesomely vegan :)

Sandwiches...

Jane and I had a nice lunch date last week at a mediterranean restaurant in Anaheim called Al-Tannour. I got a falafel sandwich. It was HUGE! It was so filling and so affordable. The best part is the fresh homemade bread. Totally vegan! This place just got renovated and definitely deserves a lot more customers for its quality, portions, and prices!! 

2947 W. Ball Rd.

Anaheim, CA 92804

714-484-0900

www.Al-Tannour.com 

Go!!!

Patrick wanted me to take a picture of his beautiful sandwich that he made himself the other day. Patrick has a love for sandwiches almost more than Joey from Friends does. Here is his perfect turkey sandwich. FYI it's not vegan.

One more thing...

I accidently deleted the picture of the sandwich, but Patrick and I went to a place in Irvine called Phoney Baloney's. It is a completely vegan restaurant that is located right inside the entrance to a gym. Patrick found out on Reddit that this one day they were having 20% off your order, so we went! 

I got their Buffalo Chicken sandwich. "Spicy grilled buffalo Phoney's chicken with lettuce, red onion, celery, and house made vegan ranch dressing on a sourdough sandwich roll" $5.95

I also got a smoothie called Gorilla Food. "Spinach, banana, peanut butter, chocolate protein powder and chocolate almond milk" You don't taste the spinach. It tastes like the smoothies I make at home, but more chocolate-y and more protein-y! $3.95

It was a vegan meal for a queen! Check out their website for more awesome vegan stuff:

www. PhoneyBaloneys.com

Well that is all the stuff I had backed up to blog about. So I hope you are all still enjoying reading my vegan blog, and now I am hungry.

Happy Eating!

-Gina

Vegan Labels

Patrick brought me home a bag of Disney potato chips the other day and I noticed on the back of the bag this little symbol: 

V for Vegan! I had never really seen that symbol on packaged food. I still read the ingredients because sometimes you can't trust labels, like when things are labeled "organic." But it does make me happy that people are recognizing veganism and helping vegans out a little! 

This brings up something in my mind however. Did you know that "vegan" is a word that we basically made up to mean "true vegetarian"? The word "vegetarian" actually means what we mean when we now say "vegan" - no dairy, no animal by-products. But since the majority of the world takes "vegetarian" to simply mean no meat, we came up with the word "vegan" to clarify. My friend Danny told me all of this. 

Another example of Vegan labeling is found on these Asian pre-pared dinners that I get sometimes:

If you're vegan you should definitely get these. They are inexpensive, come in a variety of flavors, and are great for those nights when you need a quicker dinner. Just make sure to get the varieties labeled vegan because they do have non-vegan ones too.

I'm going to be catching up on some blogging this evening, so expect a few random blog posts!

Happy Eating!

-Gina

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Last night was our second night in our new apartment. I made chocolate chip cookies as a new home treat!

This easy vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe is so delicious! It made about 3 dozen cookies. 

Ingredients:

-2 3/4 cup flour (I used 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cup regular white flour)

-1 teaspoon salt

-1 teaspoon baking soda

-1 cup vegan margarine (I got Earth Balance from Trader Joe's)

-3/4 cup brown sugar

-3/4 cup sugar

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1 banana
-12 oz. vegan chocolate chips (I got Trader Joe's brand chocolate chips

Chocolate Chip ingredients: VEGAN!

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

-Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

-In a separate large bowl, beat together the margarine, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and banana. (Mash up the banana a bit inside the peel, it'll make mixing easier. The banana is replacing eggs, so make it mushy!)

-Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until well combined. I sprinkled in a little bit of cinnamon for fun. It's good. Next time I think I'd skip that though.

-Stir in the chocolate chips (and eat some dough.)

-Drop one inch spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes, until edges are golden brown. NOT TOO LONG! That is the trick. 

Delicious!

Nothing says HOME like homemade chocolate chip cookies. Patrick's comment after taking a bite was "Let's eat chocolate chip cookies and watch America's Funniest Home videos just like when we were kids." I like that reaction. 

On a separate note - We usually shop at a grocery store called Smart & Final. The one in Santa Ana has a big, fresh, inexpensive produce section. We found a Smart & Final in Irvine, and it still has the same great low prices, but unfortunately the produce section is lacking. Since produce is mainly what I eat, this is disappointing. We are going to check out the option of me possibly getting a meal plan at UCI. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Eating!

-Gina

Just a quick blog on my lunch break. I didn't want to do lunch dishes, and I was running errands, so I stopped at Mother's Market and got food from their food bar. You fill up a container and buy it by the weight. I got roasted vegetables and "chicken" and onions. Tofu I'm assuming. It is delicious! and $7! and no dishes! It's so nice and easy because they label "vegan" and list all the ingredients :)

Happy Eating!

-Gina

Back from Hiatus

Hello to all my Vegan Blog fans!!!!

I took a slight hiatus from writing in my blog. It has been about five and a half weeks since I flew back to California from New York after my two week east coast excursion. But not to fear, the blog lives on! Once I tell you all everything that has happened in the past month you will understand me not writing and hopefully forgive me.

Most importantly - yes, I am still 100% vegan! July 3, 2012 (in 2 days!) will be my 6 month anniversary of being completely vegan. Kind of hard to believe. And, every day I am still learning so much. I woke up on this day 6 months ago and went to the store to get Danny ingredients so we could make vegan pancakes. I've never looked back :)

Since this blog focuses on my vegan experience, and since most people reading are probably already pretty up-to-date on all the changes in my life, I will make this as brief as possible. You can totally skip this if you're up-to-date on my life. I just can't believe how much has been/is happening...

________________________________________

-I got back to Cali May 24th. I immediately started looking for dance related jobs. The trip, with inspiration from Josie and Trent, really got me motivated to find a job that I like in my field. No more settling for working at a theme park. Also, I wanted to find a smaller company to work for.

-June 2nd I choreographed, danced in, and helped film a music video to a Lady GaGa song with an awesome friend.

-By June 4th I had two new part time jobs to replace my job at Disneyland! Anaheim Ballet Front Desk Registrar (with the perk of free dance classes!) and Dance Instructor for summer camp at Olympica Gymnastics Academy! Patrick and I still both work for Karacters 4 Kids too when we can. He left Kohl's and is working at Attractions/Parade Crowd Control at Disneyland.

Anaheim Ballet:

-My mom visited us in Cali June 6th - June 12th, which was her surprise grad gift from the whole family. Lots of eating out. Lots of great vegan stories/food! I will do a post about her trip after this.

-June 13th I registered for UCI classes. I start graduate school for Dance/Digital Media late September.

-June 22nd we got our housing assignment at UCI and found out that we are moving to Irvine on July 6th!!! We got our first choice one bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, balcony graduate student/family housing. It will be our first place that is just ours together!! :)
2nd floor:

-June 25th we bought a car! We are financing a certified pre-owned 2007 red Toyota Prius HYBRID! It is in both our names. We are keeping my 2005 "Henry" Honda Element. We need two cars for all of our jobs. And we are so happy to have gotten a hybrid for great gas mileage. Haven't named the car yet. I like "Capri" for a name. We'll see.

-June 28th and 29th we volunteered at the 11th annual Dance Camera West Dance Media Film Festival at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It was a great networking experience for us both. And we met a girl named Jessie who is going into her second year of the same grad program I will be going into in September! So we will be classmates and neighbors! She gave me a lot of info about UCI's grad dance program :) It was a really inspiring and motivating festival experience. 

So that pretty much brings us up to today. I am packing.

We move in 5 days. I plan to continue this blog on a regular basis now, starting with some stories from my mom's trip to Cali.

But that's all for this one. Eat healthy so you can be ready for all of life's changes and excitement!

Happy Eating!
-Gina