Peace out February, you won’t be missed

Thanks for all the positive feedback on my OpenSky shop!  I have a ton more in the works, so I’ll keep you guys in the know. 

 

I had an accident with my froth this morning.  Disregard the mess, it tasted awesome.

Bride mag + apple = bridapple.  Sounds like a horse food.  Ah well.  Lunch was a toasty sando with roasted red pepper hummus and greek yogurt-i-fied tofu “turkey” spread.

I think I added too much greek yogurt 😕 because the “turkey” spread was a little overly oozy. 

I don’t think this sammie was repeat-worthy, but whatever, I ate it.  I mean, I like hummus, and I like greek yogurt, and they weren’t bad together. 

Hmmm…looks like I have to work on my sales pitches.  HA!

No question.  Lunch’s dessert was a definite winner.  Why haven’t I had carob covered raisins in so long?  Foodie fail fa-SHO.

My appetite was weak sauce in the PM, so dinner was more of a snack sesh than a meal.

‘Tizers.

Crack.  Hummus.  Oopma loompa carrots. 

Apple.  Steaz.  Chocolate.

Chewy chewy mango.  Caramel. 

Not exactly a normal day of eats for me, but I give my tum what it wants…and if that happens to be cookies for dinner, well, shoot, I’m a grown up and I do what I want (or at least the latter part).

You may (or may not) have noticed that I haven’t made it to the gym in quite a while.  I have been doing a TON of stretching and flexibility/pilates stuff in my apartment nearly every day and I feel pretty good.  Granted, I miss the endorphin high that running provides, and I’ve had to put my AAAA on pause, but I’m not as aggravated by the lack of cardio in my life as I thought I would be.  If anything, I’m better able to roll with the punches now that I have accepted the fact that February is just not cooperating with my gym regimen.  March starts tomorrow though, so who knows what that will bring…

What has helped in this weather, is making sure to leave the apartment every day on my days off of work.  Regardless of the weather.  As a result Starbucks’ stock is going up no doubt…

You’re welcome economy.  🙂

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Mother Nature must be mad

Can you believe this weather?  Haiti, Chile, Hawaii…makes the East Coast snow seem insignificant. 

There’s a car under there somewhere…

So I stomped my way through a good foot of snow to get to the hospital today.  Brrr.  I toted my usual eats with me too, including a big salad, a squash side dish, and apples and bars aplenty.

The big boy on the left contained spinach, steamed zucchini, carrots, brocc, chopped celery, chickpeas, and dried cranz.  Holy ingredients. 

The smaller side tupperware had delicata squash (I finally found it again! yes!!) with raisins.

Do you like celery? I used to love it, and then suddenly I was just completely over it.  How weird is that?  The only reason this salad had celery was because I happened to have two leftover spears from my bag of plane snacks.  I guess my main issue with celery is the fact that it is sold in such huge amounts.  Yes, I know you can buy the pre-cut sticks, but those are like 400% the price and this hippie’s on a budget.  Sometimes you just want a spear or two, but it seems stupid to buy an entire stalk with 50 servings worth, right?  I may be more apt to buy them and use them if I didn’t think that 90% of it would go to waste. 

Bars, bars, bars.  Apples and apples. 

Although I used to poo-poo the feminine focused snacks, I am getting into Luna bars more and more lately, and this Iced Oatmeal Raisin flavor was pretty good.  Oddly enough, the thing I love best about them is their less substantial nature.  Because they don’t hold me over very long, they are good when I don’t know if I will be able to go for a lunch break in a few minutes or an hour.  If I eat one, and then my patients are stable and I can slip away for a bit, I can still have my lunch without it being too much for my stomach. 

This baby, on the other hand, is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.  I can’t emphasize it enough, Boomi bars are so good and they literally put my appetite on hold for hours.  The Perfect Pumpkin flavor was awesome.  The most dominant flavor was from the pepitas (my latest obsesh), and it married perfectly with the dates, raisins, crisp rice, apricots, and cranberries.  I wish I worked for this company because I think I could live off these bars.  Gah.  They are just too good!!

I loved my lunch so much that I made the same thing for dinner.  Delicata squash, raisins, and pepitas…oh, and  actually sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top after and it was sublime.

In an effort to get a nice winter tan – au natural – I had a pound and a half of sweet potatoes with dried cranz.  I’m all about the faux glow. 

And for an added sweet touch, I polished off the night’s eats with a HUUUGE strawberry smoothie.  This one was packed with strawbeezies, xanthan gum, ice, silk soy milk, water, and a few drops of NuNaturals stevia (the liquid kind).

I also had a bunch (as in wayyyy too many) carob covered raisins.  I only photographed this one because it was so small and cute.  I find it funny when raisins escape the carob, or when carob coats a non-raisin (like the mini stem in this case). 

Guess who is working again tomorrow? Yo.

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The Sky’s the Limit

I have big news! 

I know I was a bit of a tease with my previous posts (alluding to a surprise and then holding out on you is not my style, so I apologize), but you don’t have to wait a second longer for the big reveal…DRUMROLL PLEASE…

I am now a shopkeeper with OpenSky, a site devoted to helping passionate people share their favorite products with the rest of the internet using world. 

I have been working a long time on getting my shop perfect for it’s grand opening, and although I still have lots of work to do, I am really excited to do a mini-debut now. 

It has several items that I use on a daily basis, and I’m sure you will recognize most (if not all) of them.  As you can see, I also now have a new tab at the top of my blog which will link you to my shop…so feel free to browse.  I will be highlighting the items here so you will know exactly what they are.  Most importantly, I want to emphasize that my blog is NOT a business venture for me, and I can give you my 100% promise that I will not be adding a single item that I don’t love and feel is fabulous.  Hungry Hungry Hippie is a hobby for me, and nothing more…so, dear readers, don’t think I’m going corporate or changing my blog in any way. 

This is only a tool to help you (since I often get questions about how I make something or what I use for another thing) and now I can show you exactly where you can get them!

Ok, enough on that…time for the food.

After a nice long weekend+ getaway, I was less than thrilled to be heading back to reality.  Starting a three day stretch on a hump-day wasn’t the most enticing schedule, but that’s why they call it work, right?  Right.  Naturally, I brought all the finest goodies to help get me through it.  If only food had that power…

This beastly tupperware had fists ‘o spinach, steamed brocc, carrots, chickpeas, and pepitas.  Simple and divine. 

This more modest salad had frozen corn, frozen edamame and dried cranz (the frozen eats thaw by my lunch time, so it’s not like I’m eating veggie popsicles for lunch).

This lover was the star of the day.  The only thing not vegan about Boomi bars is the honey, which is a pass in my book.  Now.  As we all know, I don’t like nuts, but, because I know how good they are for me, I am constantly working on it.  Cashew Almond sounds pretty nutty PLUS there were visible whole nuts.  Those are two things that generally deter me from giving such flavors a shot, but with the past PranaBar success, I was feeling ballsy, so I bit the bullet nut-packed bar and…turns out…it was DREAMY.  It reminded me of peanut brittle, but in a more chewy (bar) form.  Ok, maybe that’s not the best comparison.  It was lightly sweetened, but not sickeningly sweet (like I’d imagine brittle to be), and it wasn’t hard like brittle.  However, the flavor was a combo of nutty with crispy rice.  Like all it’s sibling bars, it held me over quite well.

Dinner was ready when I got home thanks to my food prepping.  Seitan with BBQ sauce, raisins, and pepitas.

On the side I had a few sando thins with a greek yog/nooch mixture.

It was like cheesy sauce on toasted bread.  🙂

It looks weird, but don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.

 

Yummy dessert-ables!!  Yogi-pretz, raisins, pepitas, and a meg-zoomed apple. 

Back to saving lives manana, so it’s time to get some shut-eye!!

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Gorilla Food in Vancouver

As I have mentioned before, my (future) in-laws are completely supportive and respectful of my vegan lifestyle.  So much so, that they did research before we headed to Vancouver and had a perfect lunch spot all picked out.

Gorilla Food is right near Waterfront (where the Olympic rings and torch is), so we took the Skytrain there and then walked the few blocks to the restaurant. 

Cute no?  Despite the tree going through the ceiling, the atmosphere was cozy and the staff was really friendly (like the rest of the Canadians we encountered).  The lady who took our order even lived in Brooklyn for a few years before relocating to Vancouver. 

Most of you won’t be surprised by the fact that I chose the Falafel Wrap.  It is described as a romaine lettuce wrap filled with spicy seed and veggie falafel balls on a bed of zucchini hummus and topped with a seasoned tahini sauce and grainless tabouli.

YUM!  The tabouli was very salsa-y, so it kinda reminded me of a falafel wrap with a Mexican twist.  Like a falafel taco.  I dig. 

Kyle and his dad both got the Southern Fire stacked burgers, which came with two protein packed walnut-hempseed veggie burger patties and assorted toppings.

How impressive is that presentation!! 

They were served on a veggie-flax seed bun, which Kyle let me taste.  I wish I lived in Vancouver to try everything on the menu.

Kyle’s mom got the Main St. Monkey sandwich with avocado mash-up, zucchini hummus, tangee olive tapenade, sprouts, tomato slices, and cucumber.

Her sammie was served in a curry squash bread, and also looked pretty spectacular.

We had quite a few treats to choose form at the end of our meals…

We decided to get a couple of Chocolate Almond Pecan cookies to split.  Their cookies are gluten and sugar free and are made in a dehydrator from only soaked seeds, nuts and fruit!!

Oh, and they taste really good.

I also got a Cinnamon Almond Goji Crunch thingy for the road.

Which I enjoyed while cheering on team USA 🙂

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What the Olympics taught me

1)  Canadians are super nice, welcoming, and very friendly.

(Kyle nearly had a heart attack as I took out my camera while we were passing the border patrol…whatever, I live on the edge…)

2)  Canadians are pretty die hard when it comes to ice hockey.

(These pictures are just the tip of the iceberg in fanatic behavior)

(The sea of red as we were waiting to get let into the stadium)

(Maple leaf much?)

3)  Vancouver has almost as many Starbucks’ as Manhattan (read: I was in caffeine heaven).

(I’m fairly certain that my patriotic nails were a critical factor in team USA’s win)

4)  There is no feeling quite like pride for your country.

5)  And yet, I really like fighting (when I’m not involved).

6)  It’s important to be humble and not rub in your team’s win, especially when surrounded by the losing team’s fans.

(Go USA!!!)

7)  Vancouver has some good vegan dining.

(Review and food pics to come)

8)  The Olympic torch is even more breath-taking in person. 

9)  Les Canadiens parlent beaucoup de la langue française.  (??)

10)  I am kinda obsessed with Quatchi 🙂

(Awww…he’s so cute!!)

OK, I know I promised a surprise and a restaurant review with this post, but I am still getting settled since returning to NYC, so I will be back with that fun tomorrow. 

Promise.

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Adrenaline rush 30,000 feet in the air

Before I even GET to my Olympics recap, I have to describe to you the craziest flight I have ever been on.  EVER. 

You see, there’s a reason I don’t have many food pictures from my 5 hour flight, and it has to do with this simple phrase:

“Is there anyone on the plane in the medical field?”

[Insert profanity here]  The good news (for them)?  I was on board.  The bad news (for me)?  I was on board. 

At first, when I heard the flight attendants call for help, I got a rush of adrenaline, but the feeling that quickly followed was more of a stomach drop.  The passenger was visibly suffering, couldn’t seem to get enough air with each breath and even after slapping oxygen on him, didn’t show signs of relief.  In the back of my head I knew that there were minimal options in treatment.  I mean we were up in the clouds with little else on board aside from millions of peanuts.  Not the ideal setting for nursing.  Fortunately, the flight attendants procured a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and I was able to have a listen to his lungs and heart and get a set of vitals.  I’ll gloss over the nursing mumbo jumbo…but after an hour or so, he was looking a bit more stable so I headed to the back of the plane to talk to the doctor they had patched through to the plane.  They were trying to decide whether or not they should do an emergency landing to get him to the hospital. 

“The nurse is on the line now, over.”  “Roger that.”   ;)  I felt like I was an air force nurse….only I kept forgetting to say over, so then I would click back in just to say “over.”  I’m sure they are still laughing about how ridiculous it sounded. 

Anyways, the story gets better…Because they were having issues with the mics in the back of the plane, the pilots asked me to go in the cockpit.  How many people have been in a cockpit post-911 while flying?  None.  And then I came along…it was crazy.  They had to guard the door while I entered and then again (30 minutes later) once I exited.  HOLY CONTROL PANEL!!  It was dark and there were buttons and lights and gadgets galore.  I was so scuuurred I was thinking please ignore me, please ignore me the entire time.  I’m sure they know what they are doing up there, but the last thing I wanted was to shift their focus from flying to helping me with the friggin’ mic.  Finally I got patched through to the MD on ground and I told him about the passenger and what we had done so far and what the person’s current status was.  He agreed to continue to monitor closely and upon landing they would have EMTs waiting.  Awesome.  This was what I suspected he would say, so I was relieved to go back to my seat. 

I’m always looking for ways to pass the time on cross country flights, but this is one I don’t think I will be trying again anytime soon. 

The flight attendants and other passengers were so sweet, and really made me feel proud that I could step up, so it was kinda neat.  At the same time, I was pretty nervous throughout the ordeal, but knew that everyone was watching me.  Accordingly, playing it cool was important not just to keep me in the zone, but also to keep the rest of the people on the plane out of the panic zone.  Fear is a funny thing.  It can be helpful in small doses, but once it gets overwhelming, it is beyond detrimental. 

With an hour left until we arrived on the East Coast, I THOUGHT I was home free…  Not so much. 

Next thing I know, they are running to get me again for a different passenger!    Geez.  It’s like the flight was cursed!?  This second person lost consciousness and hit his head on the bathroom door on his way down.  He came back pretty quickly, but naturally I did an assessment just to make sure there weren’t bigger issues at play.  When all was said and done, it was time to begin our descent, and I was able to pass off responsibility to the EMTs.  Both were breathing with pulses at the end of the flight, so mission accomplished I suppose.

Talk about working on my day off!  The airline did reward me for my help, and I will admit, the flight went by far quicker than it usually does, so there were a few perks in exchange for the bullets I was sweating for hours while 30,000 feet in the air.  I have only a fraction of my eats on film because I wasn’t as incognito as I usually am, and busting out my camera mid-flight wasn’t an option.

Half of this was left over from my first flight’s snackies.  Kyle made fun of me saying it looked like I was preparing for a famine, but the joke was on him when he wanted in on my treats.  Of course I shared.  I also had a few apples, bars, and a sandwich, which barely made it to the first layover.  Then we hit up Qdoba for a burrito bowl salad with the works (black beans and guac up the yin yang). 

We landed just after 11, and thanks to the most brilliant eavesdropping, we were able to share a taxi into Manhattan, this avoiding the complete nightmare that is NJ Transit. 

Sorry for the picture-deficient post.  I promise the next will include Olympic highlights, a Vancouver restaurant review, and BIG NEWS!!!  Stay tuned…

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Vancouver time

By the time you read this, I am likely in the upper itty-bitty corner of WA chilling at the in-laws casa before heading across the border to Vancouver.  Kyle and I put in a bid for Olympics tix decades ago and, amazingly enough, we got them for a pretty stellar event. 

If you keep your eyes peeled to your TV sets during the men’s US v. Canada ice hockey game, I promise I will try my best to do something obnoxious enough to get some air time (think stars & stripes face painting).  I’m currently working on getting Kyle’s dad to paint his chest, but I’m sensing he’s not so into it. 

I can’t imagine why…

Already got my nails did.  My attempt to be patriotic may have come across more 13 year old steals her older sister’s nail polish lame, but whatevs, I’m rockin’ it regardless.   

Anyways, my Friday started bright and early. 

Coffee, laundry, packing, errands, etc. 

Plane food packed, I headed to midtown to meet up with Kyle, and we were off.

Liquid essentials: Starbucks VIA, tea x 4 (hot water at the airport = 50¢)

Food essentials: Barney Butter almond butter packet, WF multigrain sandwich thin, carob covered raisins (yummmmm), apple[s] (I brought more than I photographed), tupp ‘o salad fixins (beans, steamed veg, etc.)

Bar essentials: Honey Graham Z bar, Cashew Almond Boomi bar, Apple Pie PranaBar

The only non-vegan ingredient is honey.  Review to come…

This one is vegan and 75% raw.  Review to come…

Non-food essentials:  crosswords, mags, books (The Kite Runner, etc.), iPod downloaded movies, travel scrabble (love)

Go team USA! 

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Dessert three times a day

Cough-E & a Caramel Apple

Diggin’ the froth?  Do it! 

Do the Stonyfield people know that their Oikos greek yogurt is borderline sinful when combined with apples?  Caramel apples for breakfast with NO guilt whatsoever?  Uh, that gets two thumbs up.  Now that’s a dessert that Gigi can start her day with, controversy free.  Maybe. 

Lunch was so boring, I almost don’t want to show it.  Boca vegan burgers open faced on Vermont soft wheat bread with Tribe roasted red pepper hummus. 

You can’t go wrong when combining bread and hummus, so as basic as this meal was, it left me super content.

Not content enough to skip dessert, though.

Carob covered raisins rock my world. 

I have an obsession with Yogi teabag messages. 

I seriously apologize for the extremely repetitive (uninteresting) food I ate today.  I’m bored just uploading the pictures.

Somehow I ended up watching curling minutes hours longer than the sport was ever intended to be viewed…it wasn’t the Olympic event I set out to watch…I don’t know…it’s inexplicable.  Let’s just say I definitely understand the game now, which pretty much indicates how long I watched.  HA!

This may just go down in history as the lamest post I have ever written. 

Dinner has the potential to redeem my day’s eats…just a bit.

Course 1 was chickpeas, butternut squash and raisins. 

So good.  Different textures and different flavors are the key to a perfect dish.  When such foods are combined you don’t need to add anything else.  Now those are some yummy clean eats. 

Course 2 was a twist on my mashed UN-potatoes recipe…this time, instead of butternut squash, I used a zucchini that was on it’s last legs.  The rest of the recipe was pretty much the same.

Turnips.  Coconut milk. 

 

Nooch.

Pulse in the bullet.  Serve it up. 

Deeeelish.

Obviously the day’s dessert streak couldn’t be disturbed. 

Strawberry ice cream!!

I just can’t get enough of xanthan gum.

I ran out of NuNatural’s stevia (again), so this was sweetener free, which was fine since I added wayyyyy more frozen strawberries than I usually do, and this time I used vanilla soy milk rather than unsweetened or coconut milk.  Also, there were only 2 ice cubes (compared to the 5-6 I usually add).

Thicke like Robin.  Mmmmm…

Even more sweet than dessert is the fact that I am heading to Vancouver tomorrow!!!  Olympic athletes beware, you may have a super fan stalker on your hands in less than 24 hours.  Be afraid Canada, be very afraid.  Kidding of course (I don’t want to be held up by border patrol for the 1% serious nature of this blog).

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If it’s midnight, is it still dinner?

I don’t know much about snowboarding jumps but Saun White’s triple McSwoopy Loop Double CrissCross Uppity looked infinitely cooler than any other athlete’s trick.  Wow. 

Anyways, here are my fabulous work eats.

Because of all the ah-maze comments you guys left me, I decided to give the oatmeal raisin GNU flavor & fiber bar a second shot, and I will definitely be getting some of the other flavors to try as well…it was definitely better than the ThinkThin bar I had. 

I bought a bunch of these ThinkThin nasties all at once (like months ago), and I am trying to use them up because they suck and they were pricey.  I really only got them because they kinda made me feel like I was eating Reese’s PB cups.  Only they leave my stomach feeling similar to how a Reese’s would, so it’s really not worth it.  I must be cray cray to continue to eat them.  I only have a few more though, so that’s a plus.

Hey there you sexy salad you!  Believe it or not there was spinach buried beneath the brocc, carrots, pepitas and dried cranz. 

The other tupp had more millet/squash lovin’ supplemented with dried cranz.  I ran out of delicata squash so this was butternut and it wasn’t nearly as tasty as yesterday’s delicata dish.  Seriously, I need to go out and get more now, I’m craving it hard.  Prepare yourself for a squashy future on HHH.  Ok?  Disclaimer done.  Now you’ve been warned.

On a totally nonrelated tangent, I saw this Robert Frost poem on the subway today and liked it so much I thought I would share.

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

I love it.  My mood is very much affected by similarly random things…usually nature related.  In fact, the snow really does help in this terribly frigid winter weather because I can appreciate the beauty that pristine white snow offers 🙂

Here’s a photo I snapped yesterday right outside my apartment – totally worth the numb fingers that resulted from it.

After work I headed to MSG to watch the Knicks play the Bulls.  I would rather have been watching the Olympics but you can’t pass up box seats.  Kyle’s job does have a few perks.  Too bad he had to work more from the apartment after the game (boo).

My purse’s contents held me over through the game, but just barely.

When I got home I wanted quick and easy.  This is what quick and easy looks like.

Chik ‘n humm-diddly. 

The best news was that the snowboarding half-pipe was just beginning when we arrived home.  Suh-weeeet.  Not so sweet was the fact that I was eating dinner at 11 pm, but whatever, I’m just going to gloss over that part.

Once my appetite was relieved from it’s ravenous state…I made a big salad to fill the rest of my tum up with fiber. 

Unfortunately, my stomach wasn’t satisfied, even after that beastly thing you see above.  Puzzled, I pulled out the big guns. 

Bread.  Beautiful, glorious bread. 

I got a sh!t ton of these Crazy Camel Dessert Hummus tubs in the mail a loooong time ago, and this flavor was the only one left.  Can you guess why?  Yeah, the name says it all.  Maple Walnut.  Gag me.

I detest walnuts and all walnuts flavors, so I made Kyle be my poison taste tester.  Turns out, the maple was the dominant flavor and I couldn’t even detect a hint of the icky walnut.  Phew.  It smelled and tasted just like maple syrup.  For a second I forgot I was eating bread and hummus and thought I was digging into a stack of pancakes with maple syrup. 

The illusion didn’t last too long though, as there were definite chickpea chunks.  Now THAT’S my idea of dessert!

Yeah, I had a few more pieces (three). 

Eating past midnight isn’t typically my style.  I hate going to bed on a full stomach, but I think it’s worse going to bed on an empty stomach, so I’ll call this a win.  When do you have dinner?  Same time each day?  Depends on the day?  I remember living in Spain it took a while to get used to the late dinners, but once I got into the habit, it was cool.  Meals are such an affair in Europe, it’s wonderful.  When I got back to the US it took a while to readjust to the meal times.  Now (thanks to my job) I eat at completely unpredictable times.  (If) I get lunch, it’s whenever my patients are stable enough for me to step away.  And since I don’t get off work ‘til 7 pm, I don’t get home until 8ish which makes dinnertime fall somewhere between 8 and 9.  On days I don’t work, I am also all over the map.  Throughout the day I do much more snacking, but try to eat dinner around 7.  This means I can have dessert and not go to bed feeling full. 

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Be still my Delicata heart

I don’t know how this beaut escaped my taste buds for so long, but now that I’ve found it, I’m not letting it go. 

This squash just blew my former #1 (butternut) way out of the water.

Dear Mr. Butternut squash,

You were good to me for a while.  You stood the test of time as I experimented with various other squash varieties.  Acorn had nothing on you, pumpkins were a close call, but in the end you prevailed.  Spaghetti squash are fun to play with, but can’t stand alone.  Even the much adored Kabocha didn’t stand up to your sweet orange flesh.  Alas, delicata squash has now dethroned you.  Please understand, it’s me, not you.

Sincerely yours,

Elise

Talk about low maintenance!!  All I did was chop, sprinkle with S&P, and steam them until they were tender (tested with a fork). 

These were the literally sweetest gourd I have ever experienced. 

I packed them in a work lunch along with some other goodies, including a completely unedited salad and a few bars.

I can hardly even remember everything in this, but I’m fairly certain it was spinach, red bell peppers, steamed asparagus, carrots, raisins, and pepitas.

For those who have asked, I steam my veggies (like asparagus, carrots, broccoli, etc.) first, and then let them cool before adding them to my salads.  I try to do massive food prepping on my days off, which includes steaming a sh!t ton of veggies and tupperware-ing them up for the work week to come.  So that helps me throw salads together the night before work.  Sometimes having too many ingreds is overwhelming though, and they lead to salad beasts like this one, with way more things than I ever intend. 

Tim Gunn would hate me, when it comes to salad making, I don’t have an editing eye at all, but I still make it work.

My delicata squash was accompanied by another new food (for moi).  I’ve been trying to spread my wings in the WFs bulk bins department, so this was my first time cooking millet.  Not gonna lie, this was sensational.  I will definitely be making this far more often now that I know I like it.  It’s kinda like a grain version of cornbread.  It was super easy to cook (easier than couscous) and has a soft, yet crunchy texture.  It was great.  I added in raisins for extra sweetness and it was perfection.

And in the spirit of trying new things, I have some new bars to review!

The cinnamon raisin GNU bar was like an oatmeal raisin cookie but not nearly as sweet.  It had a “healthy” taste, if you know what I mean.  It was good, but I like my bars with more obvious sweetness.  The good thing about these bars is they are high fiber (read: happy hippie) and have beyond stellar ingredients.  No fake sweeteners whatsoever.  The only source of sugar is natural in the form of fruit juice.  The company’s philosophy is very similar to my own…processed food has the “goodness” sucked out of it.  Maybe I will give some of the other flavors a try because I love that cute little bird’s message on the wrapper!  What can I say, I’m a sucker for good marketing, especially if it’s related to the effects of fiber… 😉

Newbie bar numero dos was another PranaBar.  This time I tried the Apricot Goji flavor and it (again) blew my mind.  I can’t even believe I hadn’t heard of these bars until so recently.  I am a complete convert to their goodness.  This company has taken raw, vegan bars to a whole new level in my opinion.  The apricot wasn’t too strong, but it was definitely present, and the combo of all the different seeds, dried fruit and nuts knocked my socks nursing compression hoes off.

Call me boring, but given the success of my new finds, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted for dinner after work.

More millet topped with pepitas, more delicata squash, with chickpeas and steamed veggies on the side. 

Why mess with a good thing, right?

Right.

I ended the night with a heap of apples with cinnamon. 

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