Vegan Champ!

So, my life has been consumed by food the last couple weeks... like more than usual if you can imagine. I really have been in an off mood and nothing has really interested me except for food and cooking.. I have done very minimal school work... eek. I'm hopefully going to get on top of that this week.

But, since I've been doing a lot with food lately (I wish I had pictures) I'm gonna tell you about some of the yummies I have experienced.

I have recently been in a pinch for money and have been trying to stretch my food dollar as much as I can. So, Friday night I was searching through my cookbooks for something that I could make with the very skimp amount of food in my pantry (there was nothing in the fridge if that gives you any clue). So, I made some lentils cooked with dried herbs and I also made some Jasmati rice to go along with it. After I cooked both of those, I combined them, drizzled flax oil on top and doused in fresh squeezed lemon juice (the lemons were my roommates, shh). Omg.. delicious. It was so easy too. While, I was waiting for the lentils and rice to cook I prepped for making vegan peanut butter cookies to take to Louisville for my volleyball team. They were perfect. gluten-free and incredible. They were the perfect softness and a big hit.

The interesting part of my weekend was going out to dinner with my team and their parents.. It is the first time I've been out to eat since really committing to being vegan. It was interesting but I pulled it off. Of course we went to an Italian restaurant where everything is covered in cheese and butter and all of the salad dressings are made with eggs. Thankfully I had a very well educated server who talked me through some options and I ended up getting a salad with some olive oil and basalmic vinegar and then I ordered a veggie pizza with no cheese. It was great. I ate practically the whole thing. The rest of the weekend I ate lots of fruit, hummus and veggies. It was perfect and I was full the whole time.

Today, I made it to the grocery store before the floodgates opened up on Knoxville. I made enchiladas for lunch. I halfed the recipe and only ate half of that and I'm still sooo full.

On that note, I'm going to try to remember to eat only until I'm satisfied, not stuffed full. This is an obvious way to stretch food dollars.. eat less! Duh! It is just so unfortunate to cook only for myself. Because I like to cook new things everyday but I always have leftovers. I am trying to half recipes and such so I don't waste any food and still can eat a lot of variety.

Anyway, tomorrow night it's lemon garlic pasta and caesar salad. : ]