Portland: Part One!

I made it back! And oh, how I wish I was still in Portland… yesterday it was 111 degrees here. Guess what it was in Portland? 77 degrees. Ughhh Portland… why?! Or rather, why do I have a comparison of the temp in Phoenix and the temp in Portland side by side? It’s only going to make me sad in the summer…

Anyway, back to the adventures! I’m going to break this down in order of my favorite things about Oregon, rather than a daily log, because that’s easier. And yes, be prepared for a lot of Voodoo Doughtnuts! And be warned, this will be a photo-intensive post, so if your computer loads pictures slowly… just warning you!

First things first: day 1 of our trip, we went to Cannon Beach. Unfortunately, the first day we arrived was the only day it was sunny, and hence this one and only picture I got of the beach (and me). The next morning, we ate breakfast and left early amid the dreary rain. However, I thought Cannon Beach was absolutely beautiful! Next time, more pictures for sure. Also, more Mo’s eating. So much more eating at Mo’s…

Cannon Beach!

One of the coolest things Dad and I did was take a jet boat ride on the Willamette River. I say it was cool because a) jet boat, duh! and b) we learned some interesting info, but I have to say, I wouldn’t do it again. It was one of those jet boat rides that intends to get you wet, and half the time the guide went so fast that I had to close my eyes because my contacts were blowing out! Boo!

Boat ride!

Dad is psyched to be on a jet boat, clearly.

That’s probably the most excited face my Dad had on this whole trip. He’s not a ‘smile for the camera’ guy!

Waterfall!

On our trip, we saw the beautiful Willamette Falls, which was stunning.

And of course, any trip to Portland would not be complete without a trip to the farmer’s market! Unfortunately, Dad and I weren’t in town for the famous Saturday Farmer’s Market, but on Wednesday, we did stumble upon this smaller market downtown.

Farmer’s Market!

A view from the outskirts of the market… once we were up in it, I was too overwhelmed by everything to get any decent pictures!

You can be sure I bought some fresh strawberries and ate them all in one sitting!! Dad and I, of course, being the sweet-fiends that we are, also got a bunch of pastries… but yet again, no pictures… because we inhaled them :-/

And what would a trip to Portland be without lots and lots of eating?! (Answer: not a trip at all!!) Every single day (for breakfast and lunch) we ate at the food carts. Dinner was typically leftovers from lunch, or we weren’t hungry, otherwise we would have eaten dinner at the food carts too. No, probably not the healthiest meals, but damn were they good. My favorites off the top of my head?: DC Vegetarian (I got their tempeh BLT); the Whole Bowl (I ate there twice!); and La Jarochita (those breakfast burritos were NOT KIDDING AROUND. Huge!!). Honestly, I wish I had eaten at DC Vegetarian twice, but Dad insisted we move around the city to find more food cart pods (except, you’ll notice, when he found a food cart he loved…), so alas!

But here, the one semi-blurry picture I got of the Bambino bowl from the Whole Bowl:

I don’t even remember exactly what is in here but let’s take a stab: cilantro, avocados, black olives, black and red beans, brown rice, salsa, and something called Tali Sauce. I have no idea what Tali Sauce is, but let me just say: it makes the bowl. I mean, otherwise this bowl is something I could even whip up… but with the addition of this not-spicy-yet-not-sweet sauce, the bowl is perfect. Heaven! You’ll also notice I left off the cheese and sour cream, thereby making this bowl vegan… aww yeah! Eating healthy while traveling FTW!

By the way, the bowl looks small… believe me, it’s not. I was full off that bad boy for hours! However, it is possible to eat it in one sitting so, if you live there or maybe have access to a fridge, you could get the bigger bowl and have leftovers. That’s what I would do!

And finally… what you came to this post to read about… VOODOO DOUGHNUTS!!! We ate here twice, which was the most I could convince Dad to do, and I’m pretty sure the second time we ate there was only because it was Friday (our last day) and we had nothing to do, and because Dad is a sweet fiend like me.

My first Voodoo loot:

Yes, ALL VEGAN!

From the top, clock-wise, the ODB (I’m not going to spell that out for you, but you can find it here!), the Diablos Rex, and the infamous Voodoo Doll itself! And yes, the Voodoo Doll had red filling inside of it (like blood). The best part about all of these donuts? They were all on the ‘vegan’ shelf, meaning they were made with no eggs and no dairy! Woohoo! Also, for those curious… they taste exactly like ‘real’ doughnuts. I could not tell the difference and, believe me, I’m kind of something like a ‘real’ doughnut connoisseur.

Eat me…

And, as mentioned on Yelp, go early!! The first day we went at 6 AM (the downtown location is open 24 hours) and there was no line… Friday we went at 8 AM, line practically out the door! People literally get boxes and boxes of these doughnuts, so really… go early or go really late!

And one our last day in Portland, Dad decided to be adventurous…

ODB for an ODB.

and he tried the ODB plus the Triple Chocolate Penetration (picture not shown, because we ate it immediately…) He proclaimed the doughnuts from Voodoo “good”, which is about the highest praise about anything that you could expect from my Dad, so I took it as a good sign.

That’s it for today! Look for more pictures and Part Two tomorrow (or the next day, you never know with me)… until then, stay cool!

Avocado Pesto Pasta

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day… if you didn’t celebrate with your Mom, maybe you celebrated with a Mom of some sort (pets count! I’m a Mom! ), or maybe you just got down with your bad self. I hope getting down with your bad self included either pancakes, waffles, or doughnuts/donuts… because there’s no better way to celebrate ‘Day’s’ then with SWEETS!

Speaking of sweets… I drove down to Tucson to spend the weekend with my parents, and on Mother’s Day, Dad and I took Mom out to breakfast and made her pay! Just kidding… not really… Dad paid for himself and Mom paid for me and her. We’re precious, aren’t we? (Don’t worry, Mom, I promise to make it up to you once I start getting a paycheck!) Anyway– I had waffles. That’s pretty much the best part of the story. Also, Mom got flowers, a card, and delicious See’s candy from Dad and me, which I’m sure she loved as well

Dad didn’t really do the best job of holding the phone still to take a photo, so this is the best we’ve got. Yay! And clearly, we dress fancy…

Anyway, on to the stuff you were promised!

No, not Molly!

Good try to distract me, but I’m not here to talk about the dog (even though she’s the best puppy everrrrrrr!)

Instead, Avocado Pesto Pasta , recipe from Chloe Coscarelli! We actually ended up halving the Coscarelli recipe and mixing it with Simply Organic’s Sweet Basil Pesto sauce mix. We also made one tiny change in the Coscarelli recipe, which you can see below…

Ingredients

• 1 lb. dried linguini (we used the pasta we had in the house– angel hair. Whatevs, it’s pasta (Italian-foodies, please don’t beat me!)
• 1 bunch basil leaves
• 1/2 cup pine nuts (okay, so check it: pine nuts are crazy expensive. I read online that you can actually substitute raw plain cashews for pine nuts, so that’s what we did! Same amount.)
• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and pealed
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 olive oil (we used coconut oil, because we’re out of olive oil and we heard it’s just as good of oil as olive)
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (once again, we have a million tomatoes left over from the Market, so I chopped up 2 whole tomatoes and threw them in)

Directions (hint: it’s so easy!)

1. In a large pot, bring water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. While pasta cooks, in a food processor, blend basil, cashews or pine nuts, avocados, lemon juice, garlic, and oil. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Drain pasta. In a large serving bowl, toss pesto with pasta and garnish with basil and tomatoes. (This is also the point where I quickly brought the Simply Organic mix to a boil, stirred it, and threw it in with the Avocado Pesto.)

Pesto in the processor.

So my photo skillz (and phone) aren’t the best, so this looks gross, but I promise you, it tastes amazing! Also, since I have a tiny food processor, I had halved the ingredients… if you have a regular-sized food processor, you can blend up more pesto at once!

Yummm!

The finished product! I have to say, speaking as unbiased as possible, I liked Chloe Coscarelli’s Pesto recipe much more than just the packaged Simply Organic pesto, but that’s probably because a) the CC recipe was creamier and b) the CC recipe was fresh. I think if you substitute cashews for pine nuts, you could make this pesto really affordable… so do it!

Still alive!

Hey everyone– I thought I’d get a quick post in to assure you I’m still alive… barely! We’re in Week Six of school (out of 10 weeks) and, as this is my last quarter of graduate school, EVERYTHING is ramping up, and I am, as usual, overwhelmed!

So I thought I’d catch you up on a couple of cool things that happened over the break… 1) I finished the VegNews challenge! Some highlights of that were incorporating more broccoli into my diet (yum!) and finally learning how to use cabbage… which I didn’t learn very well, haha. So far I have put red cabbage into my ‘green drank’ (thus turning it into purple drank, which is not to be confused with the illegal substance! as well as using it in stir frys.

Surprisingly, cabbage lasts a really long time in the fridge… I didn’t even wrap it up in anything special, but so far it’s lasted for a week. I hope this is normal?

2) I found my favorite go-to meal when I’m in a crazy hurry/have a long day ahead of me… the night before, I’ll stir fry broccoli and cabbage (and maybe spinach and asparagus), make some couscous, and heat up either Gardein ‘meat’ or Boca ‘chicken’ pieces (for protein)… throw that in a tupperware and get a move on! It’s especially good for Wednesdays (like today!) when I’m busy rushing from work to class!

Yum!

Yes, I know this has some processed food in it and might not be nutritionally complete, but damn if it doesn’t fill me up for a solid 4-5 hours… which is exactly how long I need it too!

3) Blake and I also celebrated our second anniversary (Feb. 2!) Woohoo!

2nd anniversary celebration at our favorite place

No, our favorite place isn’t the hotel… haha. Our favorite place is Gallo Blanco, a restaurant inside the hotel. Delish!

Blake surprised me with a trip to the Glendale Chocolate Festival while I was in Phoenix visiting him… oh boy did we gorge on chocolate!! He’s the best, because he knows I DIE for chocolate! I’m definitely a sweet tooth type of person This is how we celebrated Valentine’s Day, since we won’t be together on the actual day (boo long distance!)

4) I’m sorta transitioning back to being vegetarian vs. vegan. Blake did not help my willpower when he made one of my favorite things… bean and cheese burrito!

So delicious but full of cheese!

I think after my VegNews challenge, I will go back to being vegetarian mostly, and vegan when I cook for myself. As much as I enjoyed the challenge, I’m just not ready to 100% commit to being vegan all the time. That’s something I’ll have to ease my and Blake’s relationship into…

5) Finally… I got to see and play with my favorite little monkey while I was back in Phoenix… Maddy!

Trying to hit the camera phone

She looks possessed in this photo… I have a couple better ones of her, but since she is a possessed kitty, I thought I’d share this one with you all. As usual, while I was back in AZ, I took more photos of our kitties than I did of either Blake or me… haha, I’m an animal lover for sure!

So there you have it! I’m still alive, although unfortunately I won’t be updating daily as I did in January. February is going to be very busy… I’m not saying that to get pity, just to give you a heads up.

I promise when I am done with grad school, you will see many exciting new posts! Or stressed posts, depending on whether or not I find a job… ay Dios mio!

Christmas recap

Hey everyone, happy after-Christmas! Did you all survive the holidays? I definitely did… I may have gained a couple of pounds, but I have to say I had one of the best Christmas’ of all time… and that’s saying a lot, because I’ve had some pretty awesome Christmas’! To summarize: on Christmas Eve, Blake (the bf) and I went to his parents’ house to hang out with his family: his mom, dad, 3 brothers, 2 nephews, 1 niece, one brother’s girlfriend (actually 2, but that’s a long story)… and me. That’s it, but for an only child like me, that’s a lot! We opened presents with the one niece and nephew, who weren’t going to be spending Christmas with their Dad, so we celebrated Christmas early with them. The nephew got some really sweet games, including this one “mind” game where you’re supposed to use your mind to “control” the game and push a ball forward. Yeah, it sounds complicated, and it kind of is… Blake swore the trick was to just relax and think calming thoughts, so that the game “read your mind” by thinking you’re as cool as a cucumber. Apparently, sweating would not help you win this game. Let’s just say… I wasn’t that good at it

The next game Blake’s nephew got was Apples to Apples– AKA one of my favorite games ever!

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If you haven’t played Apples to Apples, you need to, right now. It’s kind of difficult to explain, but it’s sooo easy to play, and if you’re playing with friends and family, it’s even better. It’s NOT like those horrid games Monopoly or Sorry! that devolve into you hating your family/friends. Everyone gets a turn at being the “judge” in Apples to Apples, and anyone can win. There’s no luck involved, and there’s no real skill involved save for the “skill” of knowing your family and friends really, really well. Or at least knowing how sick and twisted they might be

Christmas morning found us over at Blake’s parents again, this time with fewer brothers and only one nephew… who, by the way, happens to be one of the cutest babies EVER! Blake’s Mom and Dad (the baby’s grandparents) had us take the baby for a walk because they weren’t finished making breakfast, so we got to take this cute little monkey out:

This baby is the sweetest, quietest, most precious baby I’ve seen in a long time. Also, I happen to think 6 month is the best age for kids. They’re soft and cuddly and kissable, and they don’t talk back or hit that hard. I’m pretty sure I only want a 6 mo. old when I have a kid. I don’t know what I’ll do with it pre-6 months, or obviously what I’ll do with it as it grows up… maybe “gift” it to my Mom to raise. She did a pretty good job

Christmas afternoon, Blake and I drove down to Tucson where my parents live and opened presents/had Christmas dinner with them and my grandparents. It was so delicious and wonderful to spend so much time with my folks– I love when I get together with them and Blake. We always have such spirited discussions And of course, Mom and I crack jokes at Dad’s expensive almost every 5 minutes, which makes everything better/more hilarious!

We spent Christmas night with my folks, and then the next morning, Blake and I got up and went on a hike with my Dad while Mom made delicious chocolate-stuffed French toast. Okay, she may have had help from Trader Joe’s, but she also cooked up some veggie “sausage” and made eggs for the guys, plus her signature delicious coffee, so she was plenty busy. We ended the day by helping my parents with some projects around the house, and then drove home.

All in all, a really good Christmas! My favorite foods of the weekend were definitely: the stuffing Blake’s parents made for Christmas Eve dinner (I looooove stuffing!), the red velvet cake my Mom had for Christmas night dessert, and the chocolate-stuffed French toast (plus coffee!) Mom made the day after Christmas. Yeah, I definitely gained some weight… oh well, it was so delicious!

Next post to come will be about the sweet legs workout I did today– this post is already a little long, so tomorrow you’ll have something else to look forward to!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve to you all, lovelies! And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, happy Hanukkah/happy Kwanzaa/happy Druid celebrations/etc. etc.

This will be another short and sweet post. Yesterday, Blake finally came home (he had a half day but it felt like forever!) and we went to the gym straight away. It was arms/abs day, and my exercises were as follows:

• Warm up on the elliptical (10 min.)
• Abs on the floor (sides) – 10 reps, 3 sets
• Abs on the ball (sides and center) – 20 reps, 3 sets
• Chair abs (don’t really know how to describe this one – you hold yourself up by your arms and pull your legs up) – 10 reps, 5 sets (yeah, I killed this one!)
• Bicep curls – 10 reps, 3 sets
• Rowing machine – 10 reps, 3 sets
• Chin assists – 10 reps, 2 sets
• Tricep dips – 10 reps, 3 sets
• Pull ups – 10 reps, 1 set (those were killer!)
• Reverse chest presses (worked my back) – 10 reps, 3 sets

Yeah, we stayed for a long time- longer than we intended, for sure! But it felt absolutely great, and now we’re both feeling it today. I love those days! I’m trying to convince Blake to go for a hike today, but we have to be at his parents’ for dinner tonight by 5, so that’s probably not going to happen. Oh well!

After the gym and showering, we went and ran last minute Christmas errands. My gift to Blake is/was supposed to be clothes, but when we went to Ross (yeah, discount shopping!) EVERYTHING in his size had been totally picked over! We were only able to get him 2 work out shirts and 1 pair of work out shorts. Since I started dating him, Blake has lost a bunch of weight, and practically none of his clothes fit him anymore. I’m glad we were able to get him new work out clothes, but I really hope we can find some normal clothes in his size after Christmas!

After dinner, we indulged in a part of the delicious dark chocolate bar that Blake’s boss got him for Christmas. I love Trader Joe’s!

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The bar is really rich though, and even though Blake and I absolutely love chocolate, we could only finish half together. Yum!

This morning, we went a little extravagant and had pancakes. Blake made them, and I cleaned up afterwards. Fair’s fair!

Nom nom nom! We paired it with a side of pineapple (I know, random), but I had already inhaled the pineapple by the time I took this picture

Now we’re chillin (so full!) and then we’ll get to wrapping each other’s presents (in separate rooms!), then we’re off to his parents. Tomorrow we go to his parents’ again in the morning for actual Christmas, then we go to my parents’ (HOORAY!!) for more Christmas. We’ll be spending the night with them and then we’ll have day-after-Christmas breakfast with them. I’m SO EXCITED!

Drive safely and be safe this weekend, everyone! Leaving you with a picture of our kitty, Izzy, chillin near the Christmas tree:

Week recap!

Hmm, I see a trend with the last two posts… both recaps! Hopefully this blog doesn’t become a series of recaps… :-/ I blame it on the plague I had for the past couple of days. Today I finally feel 100% better… so good, in fact, that I can’t WAIT for Blake to get home because I really want to go to the gym!

Speaking of the gym and recap, I did go to the gym on Wednesday night. Wednesday I didn’t have the epic plague like I had on Monday and Tuesday and, don’t worry, everything I touched, I touched with my towel so to lessen the spread of germs. I didn’t push myself super hard, because I didn’t want to exacerbate my plague, but I did get to do:

• 30 minutes on the elliptical (around 3 miles, I think)
• 3 sets of 12 squats
• 3 sets of 10 lunges (both legs = 1 lunge)
• 3 sets of 10 calf raises on the machine
• 3 sets of 10 leg presses on the machine
• 3 sets of 10 on what I like to call “the vag machines” (the machines for the inner and outer sides of your upper legs)

I feel like I did something else too, but maybe not. Oh well, when I go today, I’ll hunt around for the machines I used and make note of them for next time. Today will be arms day, so I won’t be using as many machines as opposed to using the free weights.

On Sunday last week, I was in Tucson visiting my parents, and my Mom took me to one of my favorite places ever: Choice Greens! (formerly known as Chopped.) I got the best salad ever. Actually, it’s the only salad I ever get when I’m there, but whatever. It’s amazing.

Romaine leaves, baked tofu, caramelized walnuts, dried cranberries, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and maybe some other vegetable floating around in there. I usually change one or two things in the salad every time, but a few things remain constant: walnuts, cranberries, and tomatoes. Yum!

On Tuesday, Blake let me sleep instead of taking me to work with him (which, by the way, I don’t mind because I get to read Young Adult books all day). He usually comes home around 4 PM, and when it was 4:30 and there was no sign of him, I got a little worried. I sent him a text, and he replied “lots of traffic”, so then I thought nothing of it. Until…. he came home and surprised me with these!

Flowers! Christmas flowers, no less! This is what they looked like after I cut them down to fit in the vase and took away all the pretty wrapping. So thoughtful! He said this was my present for being sick, because he felt bad for me, and it was his way of getting out of hugging me, since he didn’t want to catch my plague. I couldn’t smell the flowers until today, but it was the thought that counted.

Finally, in order to combat my plague and the sucky weight gain from Vegas (curse you, unlimited buffets!), I had a green drank the other day. Beware, it looks completely unappetizing:

Mmm.. am I right?? Haha! In this drink there is: butternut squash, spinach, protein powder, celery, pineapple, strawberries, and apple juice.

Green drank!

Unsurprisingly, I did feel better after I drank it. So much better, in fact, that I was able to run some last minute errands for gifts for friends and family. I tried to stop in at Cost Plus, which is an awesome store similar to Pier 1, but the ENTIRE parking lot was full. There were no spots left except for the handicapped spots, and obviously I wasn’t going to park there. Bummer! On the other hand, I was able to hit up See’s Candy for some gifts for Blake’s niece and nephew, so that was a plus.

Everyone drive safe for the holidays, and avoid the plague!

Busy Sunday

Unlike Lazy Sunday by those crazy guys on SNL, today was a busy day for us! We started off with a light breakfast (egg and cheese burrito for the boy, pumpkin flax seed granola and soy vanilla yogurt again for me) because we had dinner plans later… to Sweet Tomatoes! Yum yum!

After breakfast, we went hiking. We didn’t do any crazy hiking, as we both don’t have hiking shoes yet, but we did a light little hike at a nearby mountain. The weather was warmer today than it has been, so it was a really nice hike!

I thought this picture was one of the cooler ones we took while hiking. The sun made is kind of look halo-y! Or like the sun was raining on us… whatever

Phoenix is off in the distance!

After that, the boyfriend and I decided to finally go get our Christmas tree. Blake, the bf, had been chomping at the bit to get a tree since BEFORE Thanksgiving, so this weekend we decided was a good time to get one. Blake had never had a real Christmas tree growing up, and it had been years since I had a real tree, so it was actually fun going to Home Depot and picking out a yummy smelling real tree.

Our pre-decorated tree! Notice how it’s light outside when we set it up…

This is what it looked like when we finished decorating! Yeah, it’s nighttime, but we had to get it perfect. You probably can’t tell, but we have a silver and gold theme, interspersed with some red, blue, and green balls. We tried to stick to a “silver and gold” theme, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough silver and gold ornaments, so Blake’s roommate let us use some of her decorations, which happened to be a bunch of different colors. It’s okay, the tree looks even prettier in my opinion

And here is a picture of some of those sweet Costco cards I’ll be mailing out tomorrow to my friends and family:

I gave you a bonus picture for fun Aren’t these cute cards?? They come in all different shapes and sizes too, so it makes each card really unique. The ONLY down side with these cards is that you physically have to take them into the post office to have them weighed, because they tend to be a little heavy and need extra stamps. Oh well, it’s worth it to me to have some unique cards… and I’m sending out only 10 or less, so it’s not that expensive

Finally, tomorrow I see my cousin to exchange Christmas presents before she goes back to Virginia, where her family lives. I got her a $15 Starbucks gift card, because who can’t use a Starbucks card?! They’re everywhere! Also, since she graduates from college this year, I thought I’d get her a cookbook, and what better than…

Cookin with Coolio!!! Surprisingly, this book is NOT a joke– the recipes are real, and apparently Coolio has his own catering company, so he probably knows what he is doing. I assume she might use it once or twice, but more likely it will be a coffee table book for her. Who could not show off a gem like this?? Haha! (By the way, I know there is a barcode on this book. Don’t worry, I didn’t steal it from a library. We have this same book at my school’s library, and that’s where I first got the idea of this book for her, months ago. I bought the book off Amazon for her).

So there you have it– We got our exercise in, got and decorated our Christmas tree, and I got my cousin’s present wrapped and ready for tomorrow. Also, Blake and I are now fat and sassy after our dinner date at Sweet Tomatoes (an awesome soup/salad/hot food/dessert buffet place that we love) (only $18 for both of us!), so the rest of today will be spent doing laundry and tidying up.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Magic bars & VegNews magazine

I’m counting down the days until I go back to school and my “school life” back in Denver… only 2 more days left here in Phoenix! It might sound like I’m excited, and I am, a little, but I’m also pretty sad I have to head back so soon. I had a great summer, and I did a lot of stuff (some good, some bad).

Here’s a rundown:

Hurricane Irene and breakfast

This weekend I’m visiting my parents down in Tucson, so today I woke up to some delicious coffee, courtesy of Mom. I LOVE my Mom’s coffee!! She typically uses this coffee from a local restaurant in Tucson, the Blue Willow, and she always has delicious creamer. Seriously, no one can beat the way my Mom makes coffee!

I made myself some toast and then added the hardboiled eggs Dad made for us, so I had a pretty healthy breakfast.

Yes, my coffee is

Scary book review & First Watch

So yesterday, I had all the intention in the world to update the blog. However, I got completely sidetracked by a book my work-study boss recommended to me for summer ‘fun reading.’ Let me tell you, this book was disturbing as all get out! The book is called The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, and it’s basically about an outbreak of the Ebola and Marburg viruses in the 1960s-1990s. The outbreaks took place in Germany, Africa, and Washington, D.C., and the book is based on a completely true story, which is the most disturbing thing of all.

Don't read this book at night

Source (and tiny review)