Thursday, August 21, 2008

you only see what you want to see, nothing less, nothing more

So I leave tomorrow to go back to philly. I'm really hopeing that I'll be able to cook and blog as much..I'll definitely be reading everyone else's though, so i'm sure that will inspire me to get in the kitchen. My classes for this semester start up on Monday.. not to mention on my 20th birthday unfortunately.. haha but hopefully they won't be too bad this semester :)

So I went to Vitamin World the other day to look for a new vitamin. I ended up getting the Vitamin Code ones. They're all raw and they seem to be a good pick. Only down side of it is that you have to take four of them a day..that seems a bit odd to me, but we'll see. Also while I was there I picked up two raw nutrition bars. One was the Raw Revolution brand, in chocolate cashew. I wasn't a huge fan.. it wasn't bad, I could eat it..but it was just very bland and boring. I also got a Raw Organic Power Bar in the chocolate coconut, and I did prefer this one over the other. But still, nothing too fabulous. I'd rather stick to Luna bars. :)


Okay so yeah my vitamins are in the background. But in the glass is pure awesomeness. I was thinking the other day about the new Starbucks drinks, the chocolate banana energy one..and thinking that without the whey, and plus the soy milk, it could be vegan. Welll... also realizing that I had all the ingredients on hand already, I made one myself and it was soo good.

Banana Chocolate Drink
1 banana
1 T cocoa powder (more if you want it chocolateyy)
1/2 cup soy milk
5-6 ice cubes
Sweetener, if you so desire.. i didn't and it was fine.

Put it all in a blender and pulse to blend the ice cubes. Add sweetener if needed, or even some peanut butter if you're feeling super fancy ;) Not to mention, the way written above, is all about 100 calories...depending on what kind of soy milk you used! (i used light 8th continent..so 1/2 cup was only 30 calories)
It's just such a simple drink that I love and found really refreshing.

Let's see, also for dinner the other night I made TLT's(tempeh lettuce tomato!) using Fat Free Vegan's "bacon" tempeh recipe.




I would like to ask for a bit of advice though. This is the second time that I've tried to cook tempeh and marinate it and such. The other try was using Veganomicon's hot sauce glazed tempeh. And I mean, the tempeh is always quite delicious. But honestly, I don't really feel like it marinades correctly for me. I never really taste the marinade distinctly..more just like plain tempeh. The recipe on fat free vegan was to marinate it for at least 20 minutes, which i did for about 25-30 minutes just in case. Also, I steamed it at the beginning for 15 minutes, which she said would let it marinate better.. but i still feel like the taste isnt that distinct. Any ideas? :)
Dont get me wrong, these sandwiches rocked though!