Packing for 24 hours and multiple layovers

The art of packing food is my specialty.  Much like making my daily work eats (tutorials here), packing food for traveling is a bit of a craft.  Some may find it easier to buy meals at the airport rather than go through the hassle of taking extra baggage through security.  Personally, I’m not one of those people.  I don’t care if it adds 25 pounds of dead weight that I have to schlep by plane, train, and automobile, for me it’s SO worth the energy.  The cost to benefit analysis probably differs depending on your diet and distance, but knowing I won’t have to pay exorbitant prices for crappy food (with limited vegan options) is worth it.  Peace of mind for a peaceful stomach. 

Tips:

• BYOB (tea bags and empty water bottles) – The way I get around the liquid law is filling up my klean kanteen at the fountain (for free) once I’ve made it through airport security.  Also most places will give you free hot water (some charge 25-50 cents).
• Skip the salt – Flying causes bloating and there’s no reason to add to that.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I already feel gross within a second of boarding a flight.  So I generally try and ditch the pretzels and salted nuts and drink plenty of fluids.  And get an aisle seat 😉
• Pack way more than you think you’ll need – This is the same as how I pack for work.  If I have too much stuff, fine, it’s not like I have to eat it all in transit.  Having extra bars and snacks is hardly a disaster.  Being hungry and unprepared, on the other hand, is totally miserable and leads to bad choices due to less than stellar options. 
• Produce produce produce – Is there anything more portable than fruit?  No.  Apples, bananas, etc. are all naturally ready to bring on the go. 
• Nibble mindfully – Because of time changes, my body never really knows what’s going on and I end up doing more snacking than eating full meals.  Rather than snack the whole trip long, I make sure I am truly hungry and not just bored.  [In other words, bring lots of magazines, books, movies, crosswords, etc. to keep your mind preoccupied so you aren’t using your mouth instead]

 

Veggies, hummus, bread, nuts, dried fruit, cereal, apples, orange, oat bakes, dark chocolate squares.

 

Snack central.  Seriously, I have no editing skills.  Just wait ‘til you see everything hidden in that bag:

 

Probars, Corazona’s, Larabars, Clif bars, Luna bar, KIND bar, Artisana cashew squeeze pack, Attune bar, Love Grown granola, Udi’s granola, dried fruit

And my latest raw obsession too…

 

kaia foods makes really yummy raw foods including sweet things like granolas, as well as savory things like these sprouted pumpkin seeds

The good news is that I will have plenty of bars leftover to throw in my bag.  So when I’m struggling in Paris, I will have backup options and then some. 

 

Hummus and dip-ables (carrots, celery, bread).

 

Produce in zoom.  The salad is pretty much just romaine, carrots, corn, and avocado…with Trader Joe’s faux chicken on top. 

 

I’ve had these before and they are pretty good.  They remind me of the same “chik’n” that The Veggie Grill makes. 

 

It’s soy based with vital wheat gluten too.  It comes with some seasoning on it, which lends itself to a Mexican flavored meal.  Hence the Chipotle-salad-esque meal.  

 

I only kept the soy meat separate for commute purposes…it will be added on top once it’s time to dig into the greens. 

Now about those “oat bakes”…

 

I decided microwaved “bakes” were a smart portable option instead of oatmeal.  So I turned to Ashley, the queen of breakfast bakes.

The first one I made was a spin on her ba-nilla bake. 

I have to say, almond extract is quite an interesting ingredient!  I’m going to have to get some of my own soon (my mom shocked me by having it in her cupboard, but I should have known she’d have it).

 

Where my recipe differs from hers is my grain and milk choices.  I opted for oats instead of buckwheat.  I also skipped the almonds and replaced the almond milk with soy.  Since there was almond extract in the bake already, I decided on soy milk.  I also threw in golden raisins and dried cherries because I think tart dried fruit goes so well with vanilla.  Otherwise, it was pretty much the same recipe.

Mixity mix. 

Ba-nilla Oat Breakfast Bake [serves 1]

*adapted from this recipe

• 1/4 cup whole rolled oats
• 1/4 cup quick oats
• 1T chia seeds or 1 flax egg [1T ground flax meal + 2.5T warm water, whisked] or 1 egg white
• 1/2 banana
• 1/4 cup soymilk
• 1T maple syrup
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1.5 t vanilla extract
• 1/4 t almond extract
• 1/4 t baking powder

Here it is after just 2 minutes in the microwave.

This photo steamed up the camera lens, but you can still see how it’s like a baked good as opposed to a bowl of oats. 

The ease of this is so mind blowing.  Now, I haven’t tasted it yet, but I did lick the spoon, so I am pretty sure it’s going to rock. 

The second “oat bake” I made was my own recipe using up the second half of the banana and whatever I could find in my parents’ kitchen.

Frozen blackberries?  Sure, why not! 

 

Nuts & Berries Breakfast Oat Bake [serves 1]

• 1/4 cup whole rolled oats
• 1/4 cup instant oats
• 1/4 cup soymilk
• 1T chia seeds or 1 flax egg [1T ground flax meal + 2.5T warm water, whisked] or 1 egg white
• 1/2 banana
• 2 T crunchy peanut butter
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1.5 t vanilla extract
• 1/4 t baking powder

 

Once they had cooled I packed them up in tinfoil. 

I’m pretty sure I’m covered in the food department.  Now, hopefully I won’t get to Spain and realize I am missing my toothbrush or something. 

Adios amigos! 

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Purple Potato Eaters

To be honest, I have never liked potato salad.  It looks really gross.  That’s probably due to the mayo, which I also never liked.  White creamy condiments give me the heebie jeebies.  Potato salad is kinda the quintessential picnic food though, right?  I can recall many outdoor get-togethers and summer BBQs that had potato salad as a side dish (usually a fairly untouched dish).  It seems so un-American to dislike it.  But I guess I feel similarly about many other “classic American” foods, too…burgers and fries?  I’ll pass.  Why does the US have such crappy food to define our national eating habits?  I wish hummus was a classic American dish.  Maybe I’m meant to live in the Mediterranean?  Anyway, I’m getting off topic here, reign it in Elise!

Back to potato salad.

To cut to the chase, I don’t know what provoked my decision to replicate the OG dish with a vegan version since I don’t even like the real deal, but regardless, that’s where this post is headed.

I like things that are colorful, so the purple fingerlings (also known as Peruvian fingerlings) were a nice twist, offering pretty shades of color to make it a bit more pleasing to the eye.

This recipe is stupid simple (maybe that’s why potato salad is such a popular item?).

I chopped the taters (so pretty!) and put them in a glass bowl and microwaved them until they were cooked.  I added some almond milk for the last minute so they wouldn’t get overly dried out.  If you aren’t impatient or lazy (like I am) them you could easily steam them, thus preserving the moisture of them.

The ingredients to make vegan potato salad are below…

Purple potato salad (this recipe is for one because Kyle detests all things with dill)

• 7-10 fingerling potatoes, cooked and chopped
• 2 T almond milk (you could use any non-dairy milk, but I find almond milk has a nice salty aspect to it that works well in this recipe)
• 1 T apple cider vinegar (this makes a kind-of vegan buttermilk when combined with the almond milk)
• 1 T vegan mayo
• 1 tsp dijon mayo (spiciness to taste)
• 1 T honey mustard
• nutritional yeast to taste (I used < 1 T)
• garlic salt to taste
• shake of dill (can easily be omitted if you don’t like dill – I hardly used any because I’m not a big fan)

Once everything is mixed together, Annie get your gun(s) because those biceps are gonna be getting a workout.  I mashed and mashed and mashed some more, until I had a nice semi-lumpy consistency.

Now this is a potato salad I can get on board with!

I had some for dinner and the rest got tupp-ed up so it was all ready for school lunches.

Now that I shared the recipe I promised a while ago, I’ll carry on with this post.

Last I left off, I shared my not so pleasant night shift…after which I came home, showered, and immediately fell asleep.  I woke up around noon and walked out to the living room right as Kyle was walking in the door!

Little Miss Hawaiian Tropic was just returning from la playa, and decided to bring me some farmer’s market goodies.

Isn’t my husband a peach?  [And how sweet am I to pay him back by calling him names and making dishes I know he hates? – I believe that’s what they call #wifefail]

So yeah.  I knew whatever was on the menu for breakfast lunch was going to involve strawberries for sure.

Enter Love Grown Foods.

 

The Cocoa Goodness Oat Clusters & Love were so fantastic, this time I decided to try the Simply Oats flavor.

Same pure, clean, whole food ingredients.

Crispy!

I’ll take a bowl of yummy please and hold the processed crap.

That’s what I’m talking about.

The Simply Oats flavor reminds me of my quinoa granola recipe a bit because of the sunflower seeds.  They have a pretty prominent role in the otherwise simple ingredient list, which means they stand out to my taste buds.  Maybe too much?  I like sunflower seeds, but I prefer them in a more subtle role.  This flavor was ok at first bite, but then grew on me a bit…as opposed to the Cocoa Goodness flavor which I loved from the second it touched my lips.

I still had 3 bowls, though, so interpret that how you will…

I will now completely contradict what I just said, and show you my next meal, in which sunflower seeds were essentially the star of the show.  I’m literally laughing at myself right now because of how ridiculous my likes and dislikes seem to align in this post.

Toasted Udi’s bagel with Sunbutter Natural sunflower seed spread and raspberry fruit spread.

Delish!  Sunflower seeds may not be my favorite in seed form, but in butter form are outstanding.  I actually think it trumps almond and peanut butters. Now that’s a bold statement!  [I’ll probably be singing a different tune tomorrow given my recent pattern of contradictory statements]

So what can we conclude from this?  Making food generalizations seems to be pointless in my case.  Hopefully I’m not quite as bad as Kelly Bensimon (who swears she doesn’t eat any processed food…as she is shoveling gummy bears into her mouth), but I think it’s safe to say, my food preferences are as unpredictable as her sanity.  For the people who don’t watch The Real Housewives of NY, this reference may not make sense to you, but trust me, you aren’t really missing anything.  After all, this is the woman who declared her support for PETA while wearing a fur coat.

Do you ever get surprised by foods you thought you disliked?  Is there anything you hated growing up, that you now enjoy eating?

I hated nuts growing up, but nowadays I’m more of a fan.  I still have a few issues (I rarely touch walnuts, pecans, macadamias, and some others), but cashews and almonds are practically their own food group in my current diet.

Stay tuned for the Larabar winner announcement on Tuesday!! [And in the meantime, make sure to enter]

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Please don’t pinch me

Happy (belated) St. Patrick’s Day!  I seriously forgot to wear green – yikes!  My grandpa would disown me if he knew such a thing!  This is also the first St. Patty’s in a long time that I didn’t celebrate with green beer.  I’ll try and make up for it this weekend.  But more on those plans later. 

I definitely had a rough time waking up yesterday morning.  It didn’t help that midnight came and went and I was still awake…

My alarm buzzed me back to life at 4:20, at which point Jillian and I got our sweat on.  [That sounds dirty] 

Since I had such success with this combo the previous day, I went for a repeat combo.  This time it was sans Attune cereals, but I made a mix as close to the OG version as I could with Love Grown Foods Cocoa Goodness granola plus Three Sisters Cereal Honey Puffs.  It was another brilliant breakfast combo and I made it til noon before my stomach needed more sustenance.  Baller. 

I had an apple as a snack since my lunch break wasn’t until 2 pm.

This beauty was what I had awaiting me when I finally broke free from my patients. 

Spinach, strawberries, alfalfa sprouts, avocado, pepitas, and balsamic vinegar.  100% amazing.

On the side I had an Alvarado Street tortilla dunked piece by piece into a mini-tub of Sabra hummus.  The tortilla and salad combo was a bit like a deconstructed wrap when eaten together.

Naturally, I packed half the produce aisle with me too, including a few cuties and a pair of galas.  This lunch I brought the pure green tea flavor of Ito-En Teas’ Tea.  Kinda strong for green tea, but maybe I am just a wuss.  I’m trying to decrease my stevia intake a bit, so the fact that their teas are unsweetened is nice.  The candied ginger is a given.  I’m probably on my 800th box at this point.  If I could grow it myself, I’d probably cut my Whole Foods bill in half.  No seriously.  It’s an addiction. 

The last piece of the above scene is the newest PROBAR.

Halo S’mores – The Sinfully Healthy Snack.  In a word: fabulous. 

Work was especially exhausting, made even more so by the fact that I had some patients with heart breaking diagnoses that required LOADS of attention.  When I have these kinds of cases, it’s a good (yet, sad) reminder to ditch my own unnecessary stresses.  Life is too short to worry about the ridiculous things that you can’t control.  [Sigh] 

I got home to a clean apartment and freshly folded laundry.  Now that’s a how you pick a husband.

Dinner doesn’t require much in the explanation department.  Butternut squash, red quinoa, falafel.

After a nail biting UCLA game, I was finally able to relax a bit.  I had seconds of the above meal, followed by a chocolate packed dessert.

I decided what this flavor of Love Grown Oat Clusters & Love reminds me of. 

 

Skor bar flavored oats!  Crispy, chocolaty, sweet, crunchy bliss. 

Love love love, love in my tummy!  So, I had 3 bowls to polish off the bag.  And now I’m off to pack!

Guess where we are headed this weekend.  Here’s a hint…

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