Food budget revamped!

Going back a couple posts- I talked about taking the big step and quitting the day job to teach "full time" Well I crunched the numbers and decided that I was going to try and use just $40 a week to get me and the man fed for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I think I'm up to the challenge- plus I already have a bunch of stuff in the pantry and freezer- this is going to be a breeze! Here's week one:

-2 lbs sliced cheese for the man

-whole wheat french bread (reduced- frozen for future soup nights.. James always needs bread with)

- 5 lbs yams

-1 dozen eggs

-3lbs onions

-2 bags (12 bagels in total) "yesterday's bagels"- sliced and frozen

-1 lb collards

-2 lbs kale

-15 sweet potatoes (from the reduced section- I bought these before I went to the other store and got that 5 lbs for cheap) These are being baked as we speak...

- 8 peppers (from reduced section as well- cut up and frozen for future meals!)

-1/2 lb nutritional yeast (organic)

-1 lb sweet brown rice (organic)

- 2 lbs corn meal (organic)

2 lbs oats (organic)

All for a total of $37.45! I still need to buy some soymilk but I'm right on track! Now as I said we did have stuff already- so it will be more difficult in the coming weeks- I'm looking forward to the challenge!

Thanksgiving Foodies!

Hey all! Are you a bit carb-hung over? I have to say that I really did well this year- and mostly ate fruit throughout the whole day- I mean don't get me wrong I definitely snagged some bites here and there of the yummies I baked but I never had the gross feeling that the meat eaters among us get- and I love that :-) As promised here are photos of the food for our first ever Thanksgiving breakfast in our new home!! (Yes I'm a dork and I made little name tags for all of the food- so that people didn't keep asking me what stuff was- haha- but they asked anyway!

From Vcon: Everyone LOVED these things!!! They were the favorite by far- well not by me...
From random sites- compiling in my head: (Now I don't mean to offend ya with the eggs and cheese- but I am the only Vegan or Vegetarian in the family for that matter- so there was absolutely no meat, but I did break down with the eggs... Small steps with the family you know)
Also From Vcon: AMAZING!! This bread took me forever getting the batter together- but it was so moist and just sweet enough, if you haven't tried it... you need to!
From Vegan Brunch: These were just ok- They were a bit dry for my liking.. Lemon poppy has ALWAYS been my favorite muffin.. but the muffin I remember is super moist, super sweet and these weren't it.. Still yummy though!
Ah- now you remember back a couple photos- pumpkin scones? Well in my opinion they are no match for these bad boys! I LOVE these things... I must admit I have a special place in my heart for scones- but these mamma jammmas are fricken to die for!!!! Maybe it's the icing- but I really think it's the texture. Man I love these guys... These were the first thing I was giving away to people so that they wouldn't be in my house and make me gain 25 pounds!!!
Yes.. Another frittata- there were 15 people over.. so I had to have enough to feed the crowd! Also waffles and fruit plate- which I had two of!
And finally not pictured was the roasted potatoes- which came out awesome. James Meme' who doesn't eat potatoes (She grew up picking them an eating them for every meal because she was 1 of 11 children!) could not stop eating them- and said they were the best she had ever had! YAY!!

Side note: James and I only have an on the stove espresso maker- so we had a friend bring some "Box-o-joes" From Duncan Donuts (which I hate because their coffee is gross) and they cost $15 EACH!! Can you believe that crap?!? I could have bought a coffee pot and made awesome coffee for that amount of money!!

For dinner we went to James Aunts house- and I just brought some noodles with garlic kale and chick peas.. Good day!

Just a quick post to tell you all what is to come! I'm in the process of LOTS of baking for my Vegetarian Thanksgiving Breakfast (the only un-vegan thing with be a quiche and a fritatta for the husband and friends) So you can expect tons of pictures of things like: Cranberry-orange-nut bread, Lemon poppy seed muffins, Orange scones, Pumpkin cranberry scones, waffles, Roasted potatoes- and MAYBE if I can find the time and get James to run to the market for me I will make my world famous (well at least family famous) carrot cake. Stay tuned, and enjoy your holiday :-)

Peace- love- Namaste

Almost a quarter life crisis

Here's the gig kids- I met with a studio owner yesterday afternoon.. She wants me to start taking her class, and assisting her... so that she can get a feel for me and I for the studio. In order to do this, I really have had to look at my days. I am struggling between what I want in life, and what I have and have to do in life. You know that I work the day job (Denny's 3 days a week) I'm teaching 5 classes per week, going to school 1 night a week. In the middle- I try and practice yoga, work out, cook, spend time with James and the doggies. And here is the problem: I know that in order for me to teach completely and to give it 110% I need to stop waitressing. I just don't have enough time in the days to get anything else accomplished (the times in the days where I don't work I have to run all the errands of the house- I am the one who grocery shops, goes to the bank, pays bill ect. since James works full time 1 1/2 hours away) But if I stop waitressing we are losing at least $1200 a month. James is so supportive and wants me to do it.. but I'm scared. I need to figure out a new budget... I especially a food one- I need to see if we can make it with just his pay alone- along with the small amount that I bring home from yoga. I know that it will be a struggle- and I'm prepared for that- but I need to feel like it's feasible.. Any suggestions?

Dinner!

Hey Kidlets- (do you guys remember sixlets? You know what I'm talking about- the round candy coated chocolates.. much the same as an M&M..) Anywho- Things have been busy here at City-Vegan; Between work, school, planning a Thanksgiving breakfast, teaching, taking care of the house and all of my boys.. Whew... I can't wait for this semester to be over. Sure I'm only taking one class but it's Math! Bleh.. Only a few more weeks and I will be able to move onto more entertaining subject matter. I will finally have my Associates, and will be taking Anatomy and Physiology for fun next semester along with Creative writing... Mostly so I have time to apply for financial aid for the fall.

So you all know that my birthday was at the beginning of the month and was much fun.. but my in-laws wanted to take me out to a birthday dinner. We were supposed to go last week, but I canceled on them after having waited at the DMV for almost 4 hours to get my car registered (and they didn't let me by the way!) So we moved the dinner to last night. Now I'm silly and forgot my camera- but I do have to start out by saying that they took extra time to find a place that was veg*n- a first in the almost 7 years that I've been part of the family- and they were actually excited about it! We hit up the Garden Grille cafe, a place that James and I had been a handful of times and were not huge fans of- but hey they were trying and I wasn't going to make them feel bad.. So James and I started out with a V-7 veggie juice which consisted of: carrot, beet, parsley, cukes, spinach, celery, and tomato. I've never really had veggie juice minus the green smoothies in a bottle- and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I think it would have been better with some lemon or ginger.. but I would certainly have this again! For dinner I ordered Garlic broccoli and Grandma Reggie Raw Heaven which was: arugula, mango, avocado, grapefruit, beet-jicama and cashew-sesame gomasio.. Which was amazing!! The combination of the mango and avocado- so incredible.. I even had dessert of Tofu Marble Cheese cake.. OMG this is the first cheeze cake that I've had in YEARS and it was sooooo great. James shared that with me too! I made him :-)

I think the most impressive thing of all was that the in-laws really liked it a lot too.. and coming from them... thats pretty impressive.

BUSY!!

Good morning all! How was your weekend? Mine was fantastically full! As some of you know, my birthday was Thursday- and in honor of it, I threw myself a party!! Ok so maybe thats a bit lame- but it was kind of a house warming party too (though lets really be honest it was about me!! hah) It was really great! Before I go any further I just have to say how wonderful all of my friends are- I really have never felt so loved on a birthday before, I feel truly blessed to finally made some really awesome friends!! The night went great, with tons and tons of people (at least 30 at one point) all hanging out in our 874 square ft. home.. There was a fire roaring in our fireplace (the first fire we have ever burned here!) awesome conversation, and of course some adult beverages were had. I am not one to drink a whole lot- and usually one maybe two drinks is all I need to get loopy and goofy- I'm already like that 100% of the time anyway so you

can imagine what I'm like under the influence! Here is me 4 drinks in:

I'm wearing my"old lady" sweater as my friends lovingly call it. I just love this thing I got it second hand for $6 and I just love the way it fits, and the color. Apparently I was walking about with my hands clasped at the top like I was cold or something, haha. The next morning there were a TON of things to do in the cleaning department. One of our friends, Matt had decided to hide empty cans and bottles all over the house- so even though we thought we had cleaned most of them up before we went to be there were at least 2o that I had uncovered in the morning. I wasn't hung over which was awesome but I think the boys had just had too much fun and this is what they looked like for most of the morning!And heres the loot! Some friends brought wine, and I also received some leg warmers that I have been wanting, and some coconut foot cream from burts bees, a couple candles, a frame with a photo of James and I from our Saco Canoe trip, and wine glasses.. And what do you do with wine glasses?! Drink all of this wine (someday!) that others got for me!

Saturday was spent cleaning, and reading, hanging out and waiting for James to get home from school. We met up with some friends and went out to dinner, and hung in at their house for a movie!

Sunday we spent raking, and raking and raking some more leaves. My mom had come over in the morning and we drank like 3 cups of coffee a piece, then we were off to the hardware store to pick up some lawn bags... (little did we know we would be getting a ton more later in the day) But before we started, I went to making some soup to fuel our bodies for the hard work to come- this was part lentil part veggie soup that I loosely made from these recipe:http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2009/11/recipe-damians-favorite-lentil-soup/It was awesome.. I added different veggies- opting for what I had on hand. This was a winner! Then off to the leaves.. we filled 49 lawn and leaf bags... No seriously.. I'm not kidding:

INTENSE is all I'm going to say- I'm really really sore and I was exhausted.. So I kept dinner SIMPLE!!!
Baked sweet potato with a salad or romaine, carrot, cukes, tomato, roasted garlic, walnuts, and a grilled Shroom... with some wine too!

Awesome weekend, I'm so sad to have to go to work now!

My tummy isn't at all happy with me the last few days.. It's kind of an on and off thing though- which I find really weird but whatever! So in honor of the tum tums, I ate a mostly raw diet today. Raw chocolate and banana ice cream with some dried unsweetened coconut sprinkled on top, and apple, a very green juice from TJ's, salad with romaine, broccoli, carrot, tomato, cukes and topped with some lightly cooked collards- all coated with a bit of olive oil, lemon and salt. a brown rice cake sammich with peanut butter, a home made cliff bar, 1 celery stick, 1/2 a large carrot and another apple. It seems like a lot I know, but mind you I taught two times today (one very intense class- one forward folding) and went to school for 2 1/2 hours. So all in all my tummy did feel a bit better- though I still felt sick for a couple hours today- which is annoying because I just don't know what's going on!! it really annoys me!

Tomorrow is my birthday!! I'm having a party on Friday- but as for the actual day I'm working, and cleaning, along with baking and cooking for the event. I'm not too sure how many people are actually coming.. so it can be kind of tough to anticipate how much food to prepare. Mostly it's going to be snacky type stuff, you know hummus and veggies, some cookies, and brownies.. I'm probably going to make some calzones as well.. I will have pictures finally!! The camera isn't broken. and we will have lift off!