It’s Thursday already!?

Wow I can’t believe it’s already Thursday and I haven’t posted anything about the weekly dinner menu or the budget! That was super fast and unexpected!

Well, like I said in my last post, I have an announce for this Friday. I’m excited about it because I’ve been doing some writing on the side to prep. Can’t wait!

As I promised here is the menu for the week:

Weekly Dinner Menu:

Sunday

Pho

Monday

Veggie Stir fry.

We ended up having Pho again. Remember I locked myself out in the freezing cold…?

Tuesday

Hot Pot

Wednesday

Leftover Hot pot

Thursday

Kabocha squash stuffed with butternut vindaloo

(from VwaV p. 168)

Friday

Stewed Tofu & potatoes in Miso gravy

(from VwaV p. 147)

Saturday

Leftovers

Budget:

Last week: $6.95 (last total balance) – 3.50 (coffee) = $3.45 (new total)

This week: $80.00 – 41.00 = $39.00. The $41.00 was spent mostly on veggies, mock meats, fruits. Yesterday I went to buy 2 Vietnamese sandwiches + 1 iced coffee + 2 desserts totaling $11.00. It was expensive for the amount, but I was really tired.

Highlights of my eats for the week:

Salad Challenge is over, but I’m still in the habit of eating them.

Mixed greens	roasted veggies (sweet potato, zuc, onion, bell pepper w/ a mixture of spices)
Soy based mock meat	nutritional yeast
nuts: Pecans, cashews, sunflower seeds

 

Yao Hawn–Cambodian Hot pot!

Water spinach, mustard greens, mushrooms, zucchini, vermicelli noodles, quail eggs, soy based mock meat (above). Here is the base for the sauce.

 

whole grain Belgian waffles with banana-almond butter sandwiches on top and coffee

    

Vietnamese Iced coffee, cafe sua da

egg sandwich.

 

Miss Dottie workin’ it!

Loomis the pup whose being crate trained. More on that later.

<3<3 Morning kisses! <3<3

Alright, off to get ready for class. HOpefully Mr. Loomis won’t whimper and cry like our neighbor says he does when he’s home alone. Separation Anxiety….working on that. Yesterday he wasn’t crying. I think the treat stuffed Kong kept him occupied. I’m going to put up a camera to watch what he does, but I only have tape (yes, I know old school) that records for one hour, so it’ll be just the first hour recorded. I’m interested in what I’ll see….

Thank you tokens, No Race & Locked out!

 04.25.09, Saturday

Day 14th of Salad Challenge

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while in postings! I’ve been meaning to say THANK YOU for participating in the Salad Challenge. I hope every one of you enjoyed it and realized how much you love salads! I decided I wanted to send everyone a little thank you token for participating.

This is the list of people who officially signed up by the deadline. If your name is on the list and you have a red star * next to it (for updating me and posting about your salad on your blog), email me your address to chhaylengtouch@gmail.com If there is anyone that I missed please let me know. I’m sort of rushing for this post right now, so I might overlook some names. But, I’m sure that this is the correct list of participating participants:

Participants	Website
*Jennifer	Eating Bender
Helen	Helen’s Journey
*Valerie	The World Has Turned And Left Me here
*coco	Balance, Joy & Delicias
Beck
Tavolini	Tavolini
*Maggie	Say Yes to Salad
*Sarah	LovIn My Tummy
snackface
Scott
Justine
Kate
Shene’
*Melissa	Nibbles and Wiggles
*Heather & *Mark	HangryPants
Kaneil	Balance is Best
Meggie
finsorfeathers *Heather	Fins Or Feather Heather Eats Almond Butter

 

I also want to mention that the last 2 runs of the Salad Challenge has been pretty great that I’ve decided to make it a regular thing. So, don’t fret if you didn’t get to participate this time–they’ll be more chances!

04.26.09, Sunday

Today was supposed to be the race, but none of us had registered in advance, so we’re hoping to do it next month in May. The running club actually has races every 4th Sunday, so we’re not too worried about missing any races. Bummer that we didn’t get to race today. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. We weren’t well trained anyway, so this gives us all a 2nd chance to shape up and get through with the race.

04.27.09, Monday

Today’s eats were just at the weirdest hours of the day. Breakfast was really early–around 7 AM then snack to hold me over until lunch was around 11 AM, then Dinner around 11 PM. My day was going fine until I locked myself and Loomis out of the apt. Yes, I know, how embarrassing! I was in such a rush to get home and get him out of his crate (we’re crate training him right now) that I was not thinking straight. 3- 1/2 hours later we were let into the apt and I had a nice hot bowl of pho (no photo here because it looks like the one above). After not having any food for 5 hours (missing lunch) a hot bowl of noodle soup hit the spot!

I haven’t had a chance to post about the weekly dinner menu yet. Been pretty hectic around here. Rest assured they’ll be one posted up soon along with budget updates. On Friday I have exciting new to announce, so stay tuned!

Breakfast

Snack to hold me over until the long awaited lunch

 

Late Dinner:

yams, zucchini, jalapeno, mushrooms, bell peppers all roasted then topped onto rice and a tortilla. Not the greatest, but it did fill me up.

Meet Loomis

Will be back to post more pictures, but for now, Meet Loomis, our Labrador Retriever mix. We rescued him on Saturday, 4/25/09 from California Underdog Rescue & Education C.U.R.E. He had a brother who looked just like him. We picked Loomis because he had a belly and he always went to sit in the middle of where all the other dogs were. What a sweetie!

Which is Better?

Hi everyone! I’m looking for a host for pictures so that I can upload them quickly onto another site. I am not familiar with any of them (ones listed below). I know there are lots of people out there using them now and I am just curious which one is better? I’m looking for something that can hold a lot of photos along with ease. CAN YOU HELP?

Which is better? and why?

• Flickr
• Shutterfly
• Photobucket
• Others…..?

Budget Recap:

Total Budget	$80.00
Spent:	-73.05
Balance remaining:	$6.95 THAT’S A RECORD!!

 

4.23.09, Thursday

Today was filled with many random munching on leftovers. I didn’t take pictures of them because they’re the same thing you’ve seen before already. It saves me time and you the time to scroll up and down. ha!

Snack: Homemade Cayenne  Tortilla chips.

• 3 or 4 tortillas cut in half. Each half is cut into another half (totaling 4 triangles). Then each of those 4 triangles you cut in half again giving you a total of 8 triangles total. I love triangles!
• liberally add EVOO
• season with garlic powder & cayenne pepper
• bake at 375 * F for about 10-15 minutes. You don’t have to flip.
• When they’ve browned, take them out and season with s + p.
• Serve with queso sauce

 

Sweet Sweet TREAT!

Long and I split it. I ate most of it though I love chocolate! I had it with a cup of milky tea.

 

4.24.09, Friday

Breakfast:

Coffee along with my buddy–Almond butter banana sandwich.

  

Dog Lovers Please help!

The 5K Race is this coming Sunday, 26th

I’m a little nervous about it. I haven’t run much. Mostly biking. We’ll see how I do. I’m aiming for a time of around 30 minutes. A 10-minute mile isn’t bad right. I’m also contemplating if we should all run together and make it fun instead of each running at our paces. I think the latter would most likely happen. It’s probably for the better anyway.

Question for all the dog lovers/owners out there:

Long and I are contemplating on getting a little puppy to add to our family…

1. What type of dog do you recommend for a household with cats?
2. What dogs do you prefer to have and why?

Any pictures would be great too. If you don’t have a picture of the type of dog, a name would be good. I can look it up. I don’t know a lot about dogs at all. All that I know is that I love furry little animals.

4.23.09, Thursday

Breakfast:

I was rushing to get out of the apt and didn’t have time to sit and eat, so I quickly made myself a cup of tea and had this Kashi GoLean Chewy Oatmeal Bar on my bike.

 

Lunch: Day 12 of Salad Challenge

This was the heartiest salad as of yet. The carbs, veggies and Yves grounds in the lasagna really made this meal complete.

2 handfuls of chopped leafy veggies	zucchini circles
red bell peppers	mushrooms
ranch dressing	nutritional yeast
leftover lasagna (Protein in form of Yves grounds)

 

I was still hungry after the salad, so I had a small bowl of creamed sweet corn.

4.22.09, Wednesday

Snack:

1 medium banana-almond butter sandwich.

An Americano to keep me awake. It didn’t work, I fell asleep while reading my textbooks. ha!

 

Dinner: As promised, we had Lasagna.

This one is completely vegan and completely mish mash but completely DELICIOUS! Long made the red sauce to put in between the layers, but he didn’t add enough Yves grounds, so there was no texture there. I made the cheeso sauce again, but I added wAy too much in between the layers, so that didn’t help either. Regardless of how it looked plated, I would make this over and over again. That. Good.

 

Mangoes!

Ever fall off your bike?

While riding my bike, there are a handful of things that I fear might happen:

• getting hit by a speeding car
• getting slammed with a car door while I’m speeding through
• falling down while on my bike

Yesterday, I experienced the third (falling down while on my bike). The fall happened under and overpass right next to the freeway intersection, which scared the hell out of me because I was almost sure that the first (getting hit by a speeding car) would have happened if I didn’t move out of the way quickly. Luckily for me, it didn’t and I walked away with just minor cuts, bruises and a half broken toe nail.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I lost my phone. It had apparently fallen out of my back pack when I fell. I am so upset with myself. I should have checked if I had dropped anything, but I didn’t. The one time that I don’t take a second look back, is the one time that I leave something behind.  Aye!!

4.21.09, Wednesday

Breakfast:

ww toast w/ AB

 

puffins

 

black coffee. Today is a lot cooler than the past 2 days.

Snack:

Pistachio Larabar 

Lunch: Day 11 of Salad Challenge:

2 handfuls of mixed greens	strawberries
garbanzo beans	small yellow bell pepper

4.20.09, Monday

Snack:

WW toast with agave almond butter

Dinner: Buitoni to the Rescue!

Green beans and tomatoes

   

And Buitoni! THANKS FOODBUZZ & BUITONI!!

 

The main ingredients are listed right on the package:

Here’s my portion topped with queso sauce. SooOoo good! And they aren’t joking when they say that it’s big portions. The ravioli sac was literally busting with filling. I should take a stab at making my own ravioli someday.

  

4.21.09, Tuesday

Breakfast:

2 medium banana’s. 1 banana sliced to put on top of ww toast and agave nectar almond butter.

Iced Americano. I thought about having a hot cup of coffee, but due to my massive sweating, I figured ice was the way to go. It cooled me down and woke me up.

 

Lunch: Day 10 of Salad Challenge:

2 handfuls of spinach leaves	1 block of fresh tofu
1 ripe mango	1 large hot house tomato
sun flower seeds	Annie’s balsamic vinaigrette dressing on side

 

Refreshments!

Iced White Jasmine tea. Nothing hot there here!

 

Fresh strawberries. Mmm I love strawberries

Dinner:

steamed Kat na with balsamic vinegar s + p

 

Nut curry from Indian in 6. This was the first dish that I did not like from this book. It was soOo bland. The original recipe called for chicken, but since I don’t eat chicken and didn’t have any  mock chicken on hand, I used tofu instead. That might have not helped with the flavor. haha.The crumbly textured you see surrounding the tofu is actually cashews. I got a little lazy with the pureed part.

 

Snack:

bowl of puffins and later I had 2 medium sized oranges.

Weekly Dinner Menu

Sunday

Chick-Pea Curry

Monday

Leftovers

Buitoni Ravioli

Tuesday

Nut curry

Steamed broccoli

Wednesday

Lasagna

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

Yao Hawn, Cambodian Hot Pot

(might rethink this one. It’s been quite hot lately)

Saturday

Focaccia Pizza.

(This was SOoo awesomely good that we have to have a repeat!)

Now, wasn’t that a fancy looking Menu? tehehe I know I’m a dork.

Budget Update:

Last week:

Another successful week for us! We managed to stay within our budget with just $0.93 left!  I am so glad that we know exactly where our $$$ is heading. I can’t tell you enough what a relief this really is. :0)

And you know what? I am actually enjoying the challenge of preparing meals for ourselves (our guests, family, and events) while staying within the budget. It not only fun, but it’s also another thing that Long and I get to do together. yay!

This week:

Budget:	$80.00
Spent so far:	-27.14
Total Left for the Week:	$52.86

 

~~~~4.19.09, Sunday~~~~

Dinner & Dessert:

Chick-Pea Curry. Recipe from Jay Soloman’s 150 Vegan Favorites

 

Long and I each had the last two slices of vegan chocolate cake (see here for frosting). I tell you, if you guys want a cake that freezes well, THIS IS IT.

~~~~4.20.09, Monday~~~~

Breakfast:

Milky Earl Grey

I really didn’t want to eat anything, but knew that I would be out for a long time, so I forced myself to eat this bowl of cereal.

Day 9 of Salad Challenge

1 handfuls of spinach leaves	1 T. nutritional yeast
~1 T. ranch dressing	1 block of fresh tofu
red onions	red bell peppers
zucchini	mushrooms

It was so hot here in Oakland, that my wet hair dried up within 30 minutes of showering!

Mango-orange juice-pineapple shake = heaven on earth!

    

I’ll save the rest for tmw’s post. Have lots of writing to do!

1 More Week To Go!

Woo hoo! We made it through the first week!

Aren’t ya glad you made it this far? Don’t ya just feel soOo much better knowing that you’ve been eating a plate full of raw veggies everyday for an entire week now?! I sure do! You’ll notice that lately I’ve been sticking to spinach leaves for my salads. That’s only because I ran out of mixed greens before the week was over, so I just grabbed a bunch of spinach from the grocery store the other day.

Here are my conclusions on the salads for this week:

• I’ve found that the salads I have been eating have not been keeping me full. I’m finding myself hungry just a couple of hours right after eating it. To counter this, I started adding more protein and carbs. It helped a little, but I may need more.
• If I didn’t eat my salads during the day, I find myself rushing to eat it later that night. So, this week I am going to make it try even harder to get my salads intake during lunch. I seriously prefer to have cooked veggies during dinner and I can’t always eat when I wake, so Lunch is my only option.
• I need a more creative salad. Hmm need to blog surf some more…;-)
• I love fruit in my salads
• I enjoy tangy dressings

What are your findings? If you’ve already posted it on your blog, please link it here so that others can go there.

04.17.09, Friday

Breakfast:

Cereal w/ milky Earl Grey

Lunch: Day 6 of Salad Challenge

2 handfuls of spinach	1 block of fresh tofu cubes
1 orange	red onions
mushrooms	red bell peppers
balsamic vinaigrette

Snack:

1 medium-large banana split with pb and ab

Dinner:

Pad se ew with braised gluten

Vegan Peking Duck made out of Tofu “spring roll” wrappers. I used this recipe here—> VeganMania

REFRESHING coconut jelly in this sweltering heat

popcorn while watching a movie

04.18.09, Saturday

Breakfast: Tea

Brunch:

A tortilla heated on a very hot skillet topped with fresh veggies and leftover vegan peking duck (above).

Kashi’s Peanut butter & chocolate meal bar reminded me of a candy bar.

….it looks like a candy bar too!

Dinner: Green beans and Tomatoes

Day 7 of Salad Challenge. I almost forgot to eat my salad! Luckily I remembered or I would have totally miss an entire day of fresh veggies! The one you see below is:

Exactly 1 cup of spinach	red bell pepper
sunflower seeds	orange slices
balsamic vinaigrette	Tofu dumplings (these are before they were boiled)

04.19.09, Sunday

Breakfast:

Milky tea

Lunch: Day 8 of Salad Challenge

1 medium mango	fresh tofu cubes
2 handfuls of spinach	red bell peppers
mushrooms	zucchini
balsamic vinaigrette

whole wheat toast with Agave Almond Butter

Something very cold to cool me down cause I’m burning! Pineapple+1 cup of orange juice+ice. Before this I had a tall NF Iced Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks

My second attempt at creamy making Almond butter.

This time I used way less Agave nectar and let the food processor run for a crazy amount of time. I still didn’t get the smooth texture I wanted, but this will do for now. It definitely turned out better than the first time, but I’ll keep trying to get it perfect.

Stay tuned for The weekly dinner menu and budgeting updates! I hope you’re not tired of ‘em!

Budget recap & the ever so Versatile Focaccia

Budget:

Budget for the week:	$80.00
Spent so far:	-77.18
Total $$$ remaining:	$2.82

I just came back from the market (after doing loads of laundry) and got a bunch of ingredients for tonight’s dinner (see Weekly Dinner Menu). Here’s what I bought:

fresh tofu	Hu Tieu noodles
Kat Na or Chinese broccoli	Vegetarian stir fry sauce
carrots	Spring roll wrapper for Peking Duck. This thing was EXPENSIVE! $4.99 for one package.

I was hoping to have at least 5 dollars left, but the bottled sauce, ATM fee and the wrapper put everything nearly close to the edge. Hopefully we don’t spend on anything else for tomorrow.

Salad Challenge Update:

I haven’t had my daily salad as of yet. It’s almost 3:30 and I haven’t had any lunch. yikes! We ran out of salad, so I have to head out and get some more greens. I’m contemplating on going on my bike or with the car. I’m leaning more towards driving because I’m a little exhausted. I’m still not done folding the laundry. ack!

If any of you are curious about the Salad Eaters, check in to see how they’re doing. Some of them are a lot more creative than I have been–That’s for sure! The ones with a * are the Salad Eaters that I am able to see progress with meaning they have been updating on their blogs.

• If you haven’t updated us on how you’re doing, please drop by and leave a comment. I and everyone else would love to see how you’re doing!
• You could also email me if you’d like to keep things private.
• Better yet, email me and let me know you’d like to act as a guest blogger.

Participants	Website
*Jennifer	Eating Bender
Helen	Helen’s Journey
Valerie	The World Has Turned And Left Me here
*coco	Balance, Joy & Delicias
Beck
Tavolini	Tavolini
*Maggie	Say Yes to Salad
*Sarah	LovIn My Tummy
snackface
Scott
Justine
Kate
Shene’
*Melissa	Nibbles and Wiggles
*Heather & *Mark	HangryPants
Kaneil	Balance is Best
Meggie
finsorfeathers *Heather	Fins Or Feather Heather Eats Almond Butter

4.17.09, Friday

Breakfast:

Milky Earl Grey

 

Oatmeal with a spoonful of TJ’s peanut butter

4.15.09, Wednesday

Breakfast:

Coffee!

 

The usuals as of late: whole wheat toasts topped with pb and ab

 

Lunch: Day 4 of Salad Challenge.

A fellow blogger and salad eater, Coco, gave me the idea of adding pasta to my salads. I played on that a bit and added dumplings to the mix. Pretty good with the salad, but in the end I ended up wanting more dumplings rather than the greens. Is that a good thing? haha.

2 handfuls of greens	1 roasted bell pepper, chopped
sunflower seeds	no dressing
tofu in dumplings

 

Dumplings had: tofu, carrots, onion, noodles, cabbage along with other sauce goodies. I poured soy sauce + vinegar on top.

 

Dinner:

Was leftover soup. It didn’t look pretty enough to photograph

Later that night I made focaccia and Long and I ate it dipped with a little bit of ranch. Sooo good!

4.16.09, Thursday 

Long snapped this pretty picture of Miss Dottie in the morning. What a princess!

 

Breakfast:

Just coffee, wasn’t really hungry when I woke

Lunch:

greek yogurt with strawberries

 

Salad Challenge Day 5.

I played up the idea of having carbs in my salad a little further. Here are focaccia courtons.

2 handfuls of greens	1 medium carrot cut into sticks, I ate the rest while cutting
walnuts	“croutons”
tofu triangles most of them underneath	ranch on the side

 

I filled one large slice of focacca with sun dried tomato pesto

 

Dinner: Pizza!

I must have ate about 2 “slices.” Long ate the rest. The bread was so thick, which made it sooOo filling. There were two sauces. The red sauce and Queso sauce.

Red sauce: Long made with tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, spices and herbs.

Queso sauce: is the vegan cheese I referred to a while back.

Toppings were basil, zucchini, red bell peppers, red onion, and jalapeno

Dessert:

Mango slices and chocolate cake!

New Stuff

I got the job! I’m so excited and can’t think about anything else! All I have to do is send in my contract and submit my bio and I’ll be going through the orientation. EEEEK! I’ll go into further details after it’s launched. Sorry to keep ya’ll in the dark. You’ll find out soon!

I’ve also tinkered around a bit with the following pages:

• • About Me New Pictures & new text
  • My Diet New Pictures
  • Fitness New Format
  • Also check out Leng’s Store, if you haven’t already.

I’m only posting Tuesday’s eats. I’ll save all of Wednesday for tonight’s or tmw’s post. Have lots to do today and have only made a little dent in my list.

04.14.09, Tuesday

Breakfast:

Just tea and fruit. No picture.

Lunch: Day 4 3 of Salad Challenge: Look at those beautiful colors!

2 handfuls of mixed greens	1 grilled yam
leftover baked tofu	sunflower seeds
sliced strawberries	no dressing

Dinner: The menu say’s tonight’s leftover night and we’ve got plenty of that to eat up!

Stir fry on the fly from Sunday, 4.12.09

Spinach and Garlic also from Sunday, 4.12.09

Kabocha squash in coconut milk from Thursday, 4.09.09

All of a sudden I had this crazy chocolate craving! I couldn’t find any chocolate in the house other than choc. chips and I didn’t want to make cookies. I really wanted something entirely chocolate. I went online and found this chocolate cake that doesn’t requires any milk or eggs. Even the frosting I made didn’t have any animal products in it. That makes this delicious cake entirely chocolate and entirely vegan. Here’s the link to the recipe. The frosting I just eyeballed with chocolate chips, vanilla soy milk and light corn syrup. It’s best eaten warm. It also should freeze well too. Long and I ate about 1/2 of the cake already together and I froze the other half for emergencies. You could also the cut the cake into individual slices and freeze them . When you have those late night cravings you can just pop it in the microwave for a minute and you’ll have a ooey gooey chocolately delight.

I didn’t eat much during dinner, so even after that cake I was still hungry. This is the soup from Monday, 4.13.09