Birthday Cake

When I was little I loved cake mixes and premade icing. Every year on my birthday my mom would offer to bake me a cake from scratch but I would refuse. Every year I would get the confetti cake mix and vanilla icing with little chocolate pieces in it.

Unfortunately for me, that's not quite vegan. For my 18th birthday this past Wednesday (yes, this post is late, but not too late) I opted for something a little more upscale. My mom baked me the golden cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World as a cake and iced it with the vegan buttercream frosting, also from VCTOTW. I decorated the cake with sliced strawberries for the following masterpiece.



For the meal I made vegan pizza with all sorts of amazing toppings (fresh tomatoes, eggplant, onions, Morningstar Farms veggie crumbles, spinach were the main toppings). I'm a real legal adult!

Lasagna and couscous

A backlog of lunches: that means double post for all you lucky readers.

Unlike most of the horror stories I hear about, most of my family is very accepting of my veganism. On Sunday I attended a family party where there was a ton of food that even I could eat. There were Asian noodles, veggie lasagna, rice, salad, fruit salad, sorbet, and all sorts of snacks (chips, cut vegetables, salsa, etc.). In fact, the only non-vegan parts of the meal were ice cream and a cheese lasagna (which wasn't nearly as popular as the vegan lasagna). I brought home some leftovers and had a ready-made lunch of rice, salad, and lasagna for Monday. The lasagna has tomato sauce, broiled eggplant, and tomatoes in layers in between the noodles. I put the bread on top of the rice before I closed my lunch and it all fit perfectly.

For today's lunch I have some couscous with peas and basil. Couscous is great it cooks in just a few minutes and is good cold. Although I pack my lunches at night, I still don't want to spend a ton of time. Couscous is the perfect way to have some real food without laboring for hours. There's also a little more bread, some red bell pepper, two Twizzlers, and some peanuts.

Sandwich time

A lunch that was pretty quick to throw together today: Boca chick'n patty on whole grain bread. I put the baby spinach leaves on the sandwich at lunch time. Also for lunch were carrots, hummus, salted peanuts, and some terrible jelly beans (I can't remember the brand, but they were horrendous. Really waxy and bad flavors). Kicking alongside are some organic raisins, apple juice, mango, kiwi, grapes, and strawberries

One year vegan-iversary

Today marks my one year anniversary of becoming vegan. It's been a little rough at times, but I'm really glad that I took the plunge. For anyone out there who is toying with the idea of going vegan, go for it! Even if you have to take baby steps, I have faith in you.

Yes, I'll admit it takes a lot of self control to say no thanks to free desserts and late night trips for ice cream or pizza, but there's something just so rewarding about it all. More than even helping the animals and the environment (both of which are huge), I get immense self-gratitude from being vegan. I used to have no self control. I couldn't say no to food when it was offered to me and I would eat and eat and eat and just never stop. Even though I can still probably down a 1 lb bag of Twizzlers (and yes, I have done this in the past), I've gained something personally from this whole journey. Somewhere along the way I've realized that I have more control over my life and myself than I ever thought I could.

Now that I've celebrated my veganism, onto a lunch


Leftover homemade pizza (topped with marinara sauce, mushrooms, spinach, bell pepper, nutritional yeast, Morningstar veggie crumbles), 2 hamentaschen, two little boxes of raisins, pretzels, mango, kiwi, and strawberries.

Normally we don't buy the little packages of pretzels, raisins, etc. because they're wasteful and more expensive, but we received a whole bunch of them in gift bags of food for Purim over the weekend, so they'll probably be showing up a bit over the next few days.

Bagel and veggies with hummus

My dad found these little hummus containers at the supermarket and bought a package just for me. I don't really think the separate package is necessary since I could take an extra two seconds and put some hummus into my own reusable container, but it was a nice thought. The hummus itself was a bit of a disappointment, it didn't taste much like hummus at all. The hummus came in packs of four, each of which is a different type. I've also tasted the roasted red pepper one, which was equally mediocre. Also pictured are a mini bagel, cucumber, carrots, a banana, strawberries, grapes, mango, and a few figs

Tabbouleh and paratha

I'm off from school today for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but I never posted Friday's lunch, so here it is.
I had aloo paratha, which is an Indian flatbread made with potatoes. I've made paratha myself in the past, but it's never as good as the kind I can get in the Indian grocery store, so now I just buy it. This variety is slightly spicy and a little oily.

Continuing with the store-bought ethnic foods is tabbouleh. My mom's tabbouleh is better than the pre-packaged but sometimes it's just easier to buy a huge tub of the pre-made, which is still pretty good. Tabbouleh is generally made from bulghur wheat, parsley, tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, and onions.

I also had baby carrots, dark chocolate gelt (chocolate coins), and a peanut butter sandwich that I managed to squeeze into a little container to stop if from getting soggy.

Tagging along on the side is some great fresh fruit: mango, cherries, and strawberries