Friday flowers!

Happy Friday, everyone! My Friday has been busy busy busy! Then again, when is any day for me not busy?

Today I…

• went to the gym bright and early and stayed for an hour and a half (weigh in today: I’ve lost 2 pounds in one week, right on track!)
• Did laundry
• Visited the doc for a check up
• Deposited cash money in the bank
• Paid my rent
• Did more laundry
• Did homework for tomorrow

And in half an hour, I’m going to cut up and apple and an orange, hit up Starbucks, and go to work for a couple hours. Hooray for busy Fridays!

Other than having a great check up with my fabulous doctor, I got a surprise from my totally awesome boyfriend today…

Flowers!

I’m sure you saw them coming from the title of this post, huh? The bf was so proud of himself too, when I called and talked to him about it. He said, “They’re autumn flowers! Because it’s fall!” Awwww! He knows fall is my favorite season, so this meant a lot to me.

We had talked about him getting me flowers a few months ago (he sent me flowers when I first moved to Denver for school), but we had agreed that flowers were expensive and that he would do something else in lieu of flowers. Well, not only did he surprise me with a flight up to Denver in October, but he also sent flowers. Such a keeper!

Carnations are my favorite!

So anyway, that’s my day so far. Not only did I get flowers, but outside my apartment today, I saw a cat… and not just any cat. It was a TABBY on a LEASH!! The tabby part isn’t the coolest part, the leash is, but I figured emphasizing tabby couldn’t hurt. Anyway, it was so freaking cute! I’ve seen this cat before, but I never was able to pet it (it was always inside.) Today I got to pet it and play with it, and talk to his owner, my neighbors. The kitty’s name is Clyde and he is SO friendly. Much friendlier than our grumpy cats…

Silly, evil kitty

No new recipes for today, but I’m planning on making some new stuff this weekend. Stay tuned!

Black Bean Burgers

Happy Wednesday! Oh man, I had the most brutal work out class today. The class is called “Core-ruption” and it’s designed to work out your abs and your core. Typically, most of the classes I’ve gone to here at school have been 75% cardio, 25% weights, which is fine with me. However, I do mostly only cardio on my own, and I’ve been noticing some “bat wing” (floppy arms) tendencies lately, so I decided to use more weights.

Oh. My. Gosh. All we do in this class is weights! Today we started with the ball, doing lunges sideways (both legs) and forward and back. Then we did some abs/inner thigh work with the ball in between our legs for a minute and a half. Let me tell you, in that minute and a half, I almost died. My legs were okay, but lifting the ball up and down was killing my abs!

Next we worked on arms with weights… the lady who taught the class was not letting us “go easy” (which for me is 5 lb. weights), and instead demanded we step it up… so I went with the 7 1/2 lb. weights, which was still probably the lightest weights out of what everyone else in the class was using. However, 7 1/2 lbs. is TOUGH!! I couldn’t actually finish out the triceps exercise, which was a bummer, because I love working out my triceps!

We finished the class with some push ups, more abs, and stretching. I’m not feeling it yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be tomorrow. Actually, I did this class two weeks ago, and even though I was sore, I was sore in a good way. I like knowing that, deep down, there’s some kind of magic working in my muscles where they’ll come out stronger and more toned!

For dinner last night, my apartment-mate Kelly insisted on burgers, so we made the Black Bean Burgers recipe from Happy Herbivore. The only things I changed/added were:

• doubling the recipe so we would have leftovers
• Adding minced green onions because we had a bunch that were getting old

And voila!

The final product

The greasy looking stuff is Pam. You’re supposed to spray each side of the patty so it sticks together and cooks. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the cooking in progress… surprisingly, my entirely not vegan roommate wanted to make these vegan burgers by herself, so I made the salad and roasted some asparagus while she made these bad boys!

It sucks this photo came out so blurry… it looked okay on my phone, but not so good when blown up. Anyway, this was my burger BEFORE I added my favorite thing ever… sauteed mushrooms!! Yum! Black bean burger with sauteed mushrooms and a little bit of veganaise. That plus a salad and roasted asparagus? Yes please! Another successful meal, thanks to Happy Herbivore!

The best part about these burgers is that they held up really well the next day too. Kelly had a burger for lunch, and I decided to crumble my burger up, and throw it in a multigrain tortilla along with some of the leftover salad for a yummy and easy lunch meal! So tasty and filling.

Overall, this might actually be my favorite recipe so far of this entire book. Obviously, I really loved the banana bread, so that’s my favorite “sweet” recipe so far, but for a substantive, lunch/dinner meal? Oh yeah, Black Bean Burgers!

Okay, back to homework. Pretty sure the guy in the apartment complex next to mine is singing opera. That should complement this law textbook really well, huh?

Moda Monday

Ohh boo, happy Monday again everyone! So I just finished making this post when all of a sudden WordPress deleted it… what the hell? Damn it, WordPress! Okay, so this is going to be much shorter than the last post. Sorry!

This morning I’m happy because: I ate a good breakfast, got enough sleep, roomie is at class so I get to catch up on watching my TV show… the Suze Orman show!

1) I love Suze Orman. Love love love!

(source)

2) Happy Moda Monday! Moda and belleza are two words in Spanish that describe fashion. Moda in Spanish refers to fashion itself, or the act of being stylish. Belleza means beauty… so they typically go hand in hand. Really, I just decided to use the Spanish word for fashion because I couldn’t wait to share this amazing dress until Friday (Fashion Friday?)

Last night, my roomie was online looking at dresses. Typically, I’m not one to go shopping online, especially since I’ve found an amazing thrift store here not too far from where I live. After years of being dragged by my frugal father to thrift stores and garage sales, I’ve finally learned the beauty of bargain hunting. However, when I saw this dress, I started drooling…

(source)

This is the Bonded Lace Pencil Dress from TopShop. I’m pretty much in love with this dress for several reasons… one, it has a low v-neck back, which makes it awesome to wear on a date. Two, I can wear my black suit jacket over it to make it appropriate for work. Nice!

But what would Suze do? (WWSD?!) I’m pretty sure Suze would say I’m “denied” from getting this dress considering what little money I do have should be saved for my emergency fund or whatever. Damn you, Suze, you terrible little financial angel on my shoulder. But this dress is so cute! Nooo Suze!!

Anyway, on a gross note, I’ve started to break out on my face from the stress of school. Luckily, I made a schedule for today and it provides for a good 5 hours of solid studying in the library today. I am psyched!

Since WordPress destroyed my pithy and hilarious post before this one, I’m sorry you all only get left with the crumbs. Unfortunately, I must go now otherwise my face might revolt again. Cross you fingers this posts sucessfully!

“Tuna” Sandwich

Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! I hope you’re all having a lazy Sunday for me. I’ve had the ‘Lazy Sunday’ song from SNL stuck in my head all day, and it’s really making me crave red vines! I would share the video, but unfortunately SNL doesn’t let Youtube play it anymore. Wtf?? Lame!

Another quick post today, because I have a group meeting at 3…

I made the “tuna” sandwich recipe from Happy Herbivore the other day! See, I was really craving a yummy sandwich, and for some reason my mind kept going to tuna, which is gross. Then I remembered seeing a recipe in the Happy Herbivore cookbook for “tuna”, and lo and behold, I had all the ingredients! Jack pot!

Yummy “Tuna” Sandwich from Happy Herbivore:

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the tuna actually in a sandwich, but oh well.

I had the hardest time chopping up the celery… I don’t have a food processor or a cheese grater, so I basically just chopped… and chopped… and chopped… and chopped some more. I was glad I cut up the celery so much though, because nothing is weirder than crunching on a tuna sandwich with huge chunks of celery.

Garbanzo bean instead of real tuna is the best idea ever. The craziest thing about it? It actually tasted and smelled like tuna. Say what?! I know, yum! That Lindsay Nixon sure knows how to make some delicious and low fat recipes! I love this book!

Overall: Delicious tuna sandwich recipe with lots of leftovers (if you’re eating for one… like I am). It tastes and smells like tuna, and it simple, easy, and cheap to make. This is going to be my go-to recipe for tuna!

That’s it for today, folks. I actually made some Pumpkin Muffins from the VegNews magazine the other day too, but it was late at night and none of my pictures came out very well. However, I will be making them again next week or the week after (not sure when my friend’s potluck is), so I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures!

Canceled flights and idiotic business travelers

Earlier this week was so crazy! I was in Phoenix, visiting my boyfriend for his birthday, and the absolute worst thing happened the day I was supposed to fly out: my flight was canceled and my rebooked flight was delayed indefinitely. Wtf Southwest?!?!

Luckily, the people on the phone at Southwest were very nice and rebooked me on the earliest flight in the morning, where I made an important observation: business travelers are actually the rudest, most vile people to travel with. I know it sounds strange… usually when I fly, I’m annoyed by the older folks or the people with kids, because they are so slow, walk into you, and never know what they’re doing.

But business travelers? They are heads above the rest. They are sophomoric, idiotic, and rude.

It was definitely a “guy’s club” flight that I was on (at 6 AM, so I was definitely NOT in the mood to deal with it.) Grown men were saving each other seats like little girls in a cafeteria. I actually got the stink eye from one man when I looked at his entirely empty row with I guess what looked like possession in my eyes. Don’t worry, tool, I have no intention of sitting with some guy who makes jokes about his “lame ex-wife” the entire flight. Lame ex-wife? More like smart ex-wife to leave someone like you!

I ended up sitting next to a very nice older gentlemen. He may have been a business traveler, but he was polite and didn’t make fart jokes at me all flight, like the other guys in front of me did. He even gave me his extra serving of Southwest’s honey roasted peanuts, which are my fave!

When we landed, all of the businesses travelers stood up like they were going to move somewhere. Um, what? We’re still taxiing, morons. Sit down. And then, they all pushed their way to the front, completely ignoring people in front of them trying to get off in the proper manner. I actually just jumped in front of some guy who was pushing behind me to push past me. I deliberately took my time getting my bag, too, because seriously? You may have pushed away the other nice woman on the other side of the aisle, but no way you’re pushing me, mister. Oh, and just you try to push me, sir. You will get screamed at so fast and so loud you will never want to mess with another 20-something year old female again.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not a morning person. Or at least, I don’t like being insanely stressed out in the mornings, and that’s what flying on the plane makes me.

Anyway, when I finally, finally got home, I still had to finish one assignment before class that night. Let me tell you, it was a nightmare. I hate canceled flights!

Since I hadn’t gone grocery shopping before I left, I basically threw together everything I had left, which ended up being:

• A box of pine-toasted couscous
• A can of black beans
• 1 tomato
• 1 red bell pepper
• a tsp. or so each of salt and pepper

And… voila!

Yes, there is my lovely chipped nail polish. The red was pretty while it lasted…

The dish was very filling and hit the spot. I love couscous and I love black beans, so it was a pretty tasty meal. Not the prettiest or the most well-rounded, but good enough for a quick meal.

I still have a bunch of it left, so I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. Any suggestions for the leftovers?

Couscous ‘n’ garlic shrimp recipe!

This past weekend until today I’ve been in Phoenix, visiting my boyfriend and celebrating his birthday with him. The big 2-6, can you believe? I like to remind him regularly that he is “so old”… it’s pretty awesome, and joking about his elderly status never gets old to me!

In addition to celebrating his birthday (i.e. eating out and going to the movies – we saw Contagion, don’t see it if you’re a germiphobe!), the boyfriend also decided to cook something delicious. He is an absolutely fabulous cook… and he can fix things and open jars for me. How did I get this lucky again?!   He wanted to try a new recipe while I was in town, Couscous ‘n’ Garlic Shrimp. He found the recipe on Yahoo!

We decided to tweak the recipe a little: We didn’t use tarragon like the recipe called for (it was $6 at the store!), we used veggie broth instead of chicken broth, and we didn’t put any Parmesan cheese on top. Now, if you’ve noticed from this blog, I don’t eat meat, and obviously shrimp counts to me as meat. However, I have eaten fish in the past (so I know my body can handle it) and I have less of an aversion to eating fish than I do eating animals. Furthermore, it was his birthday weekend and he gets excited about cooking us new things, so I figured what the heck. I wouldn’t cook it myself, but it made him happy…

Best of all? It was freaking delicious!

Normally, I’m not an olives fan, but the addition of black olives was SUCH a good idea. Just the right hint of bitterness to complement the lemon butter juice!

Needless to say, there was very little leftovers after this. We were able to save a little for lunch the next day, but not much. It was so good. The boyfriend says he would reduce the amount of lemon juice in it next time, and I agree. The lemon juice was a little overpowering. Other than that, it was such a good meal! Score 1 for Yahoo! recipes!

Well, I have to get back to my graduation portfolio and get some things done for this student organization I’m the president of. Life is hard when you’re a balla! Also, I hop on a plane later today, so I’m planning on getting coffee at the airport and being very productive while I wait/fly.

Hasta luego!

Career course

Happy Monday, everyone! Like I said before, life is crazy busy… and it’s about to get crazier! On Friday, I decided to take a career course offered by our Career and Professional Development center. I’m really excited about this class because I think it should give me a clearer picture of what I want to do and how I can go about getting there. Also, I’m hoping it provides some connections and resources for job opportunities. We’ll see!

Speaking of connections, my Mom is friends with a woman who has a contact in Homeland Security. I was able to send him an email with my resume and a cover letter. He emailed me back recently, just mentioning how much resume was “very impressive” and that he was willing to work with me. Unfortunately, the government is in a “hiring freeze” for his particular department, so we’ll see. I’m glad I’m still a couple months out from graduating… cross your fingers they lift that freeze! It would be a dream to work in the Homeland Security department… that is exactly what I am going to school for, and is fast paced. I love how interesting and diverse issues are on a day to day basis. It’s perfect for keeping me engaged and dynamic in the field!

As for classes, this quarter is going to be a ton of work. I like about 2/4 classes I’m taking, which isn’t a great ratio, but we’ll see. I’m half and half about liking the two other classes… I might eventually like them, but I’ve only had one class of each so far, so maybe they will get more interesting. Most of them are required core classes, so I didn’t exactly get to choose the most interesting courses!

The other day I had an absolutely delicious breakfast– in fact, I’m reminded of how I need to go to the grocery store ASAP for some more yogurt!

Blueberry soy yogurt topped with strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. Bananas are full of potassium, which is great because I’ve been cramping up from all the gym stuff I’ve been doing. It’s good, but tiring!

All right, off to do some more homework. Hasta luego!

Blueberry soy yogurt, strawberries, blueberries and bananas. Bananas = potassium = YAY!

Busy and semi-productive day

Oh man, this first week of grad school (I’m in my second year) is going full speed ahead! Can’t believe how busy I am already, and it’s only the first week. It will get better… right?! Here’s a recap of what I did over the past two days:

The other day I went to Zumba with a good friend of mine. She and I did pilates last quarter together, as a way to motivate one another to work out and to get up and go. It was really great, and it was her idea, so this quarter I found a ‘Zumba toning’ class for us to do. It was AWESOME! We did Latin dancing and weights, which was perfect. If I need to work on anything, it’s arms! And a little rhythm couldn’t hurt either. I can’t wait for next week!

Later that day, my roommate and I decided to take a trip to Nordstrom’s Rack, because we were feeling pitiful in the tops department. My closet is pretty much all plain black and white tops… not very exciting, huh? However, it ended up being a very ill fated trip to Nordstrom’s Rack… we didn’t find anything! The only thing the Rack had was dressy work clothes and coats. It’s getting cold, yeah, but I don’t need a coat! I suppose nothing compares to the Missoni at Target frenzy though, hmm? My roommate ended up going to the Target near us today, and she said absolutely nothing was left of Missoni stuff… only a few days after Missoni came out! Does anyone know if Target is even still selling Missoni pieces online?

In order to make ourselves feel better about our shopping fail, we decided to get… Yogurt! There’s a new yogurt place close to where we live, Nova, and we were dying to check it out. I had the chocolate and cake batter, with coconut, cherries, and kit kat pieces as a topping.

Fat free! Unfortunately… not so good! The yogurt was really frozen for some weird reason, so it was super hard and really icy. Also, my roommate got the raspberry yogurt flavor, and it was way too sweet. Bummer #2!

After the yogurt shop, we decided to check out a laundromat fairly close to where we live. See, it’s $3 to do laundry (and drying) at our apartment complex for one load. When you have 3 loads to do (darks, whites, and bedsheets or towels), $9 to do laundry once a week gets really expensive and ridiculous! So we went to this fairly sketchy laundromat down the road…

"No"

This Pepsi machine was not working. Know how I know this? Over the slot to take quarters was the word “No.” Not “out of order” or even “broken”… just “No.” All righty then…

More laundry. We didn’t need to buy their soap… it might have said “No” too, but I didn’t check.

Some of the few washing machines that actually worked. As you can tell, I had a lot of time to take photos. It ended up costing us around $6 bucks total to do 2 wash loads of laundry and 1 dryer load. Not too bad, but we did spend a lot of time there and my roommate kept talking to me, so I didn’t get to do homework. It was sort of a waste of 3 hours (well, maybe not 3, but definitely 2), and I don’t know if I can really justify wasting that much time when I have so much to do. I suppose if I brought homework and told her to be quiet it could work, but it’s not really the most conducive spot for studying.

So, question for you all. Have you ever lived in an apartment complex where laundry was really expensive? Have you ever not had a laundry machine and had to use the laundromat? What are your experiences with apartment living? I’m just curious to see if others have done the math and decided what works out best for them!

Tofu Scramble and Cajun Home Fries

Oh my gosh, right now I’m watching the men’s final of the US Open, and I am SO excited! Rafael Nadal (2) is playing number 1 Novak Djokovic… I’m rooting for Rafa, as always! At first, I thought Rafa was going to be swept in three sets, but currently he’s doing pretty well. It’s in the third set right now, but now it’s 3-4 Rafa! Yay!

Anyway, while tennis plays in the background, let me show you some delicious food I made the other day from Happy Herbivore (my new favorite cookbook!)

First on the list was Tofu Scramble. Here’s how it started out…

Just tofu! In the recipe, it calls for 1 lb. of extra firm or firm tofu, but I decided to put in a little more tofu so I could have leftovers. Accordingly, I added more spices and whatnot…

After the spices! Mmm… look at all the turmeric and nutritional yeast! My friends unfortunately find it hilarious that I eat “nutritional yeast” (they think the name is gross) but I’m really liking “nooch”, as I call it. It has a good flavor and is a great cooking substitute for cheese… and did I mention, a TON healthier for you than actual cheese? Yum! Unfortunately, nutritional yeast is quite expensive, even from the bulk bins at Sunflower… although Cait (from Cait Hates Cake blog) recommended I buy my nooch from KAL’s on Amazon.com. I think I’ll try that next!

Scene of the crime!

Cooking really goes better when you actually use all the spices, am I right? Yum!

The finished product! I chose to add: spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms to my tofu scramble. I put in about a cup or so of each, a little more spinach. I wanted more mushrooms, but my roommate wanted to use the same veggies I did and she doesn’t like mushrooms, so I didn’t put in quite so many.

On my plate! The second dish we made were the Cajun Home Fries. We didn’t use russet potatoes, I think we used the Yukon golds or something. We used the softer yellow potatoes, because that’s what we had. We definitely used all the spices that Lindsay recommended, plus a little more (because we used more potatoes than what the recipe called for.) The home fries were SO good! Lindsay is not joking when she says you will eat all of these in a second. Home fries were one thing we did NOT have leftovers of!

My complete Sunday meal: Tofu Scramble, Cajun Home Fries, and orange juice. Yum!!

Still 3-4 Nadal. Come on Nadal!! You can do this!!

Oh, and in other important news: graduate school started today! I’m in my second to last quarter… then I’ll be DONE with school! (For now…) So excited to get back to school and start cracking out some papers. I’m feeling super motivated this quarter, which is really good, because I’ve got loads of stuff on my plate. Very exciting stuff coming up for me this year, I’m sure!

Red Lentil Dal from HH review plus BANANA BREAD!

As I mentioned yesterday, I made the Red Lentil Dal from the Happy Herbivore cookbook for my roommate and other friend last night. I made it almost identical to the recipe, except instead of using dry red lentils, I used organic canned lentils I had leftover.

Other than some minor issues (our stove is not even, so for the first step where you cook the onions and garlic in water until they’re translucent, it took a while because the water kept pooling in one small corner of the pan) and that it seemed to take a long time for the water/liquid to cook out, I thought it came out really well! In fact, the only complaint we had was that Kelly, my roommate, had not cooked the rice long enough so it was a little crunchy. Luckily, I was not in charge of rice-cooking, so my vegan dish was not blamed for the “crunchy rice.”