Vegan MoFo 1: Celebratory Breakfast

First things first: It's Vegan Month of Food! To start it off, I wanted the first meal to be something that felt celebratory and unlike my usual breakfasts (oatmeal and yogurt bowls). I also wanted it to be kind of healthy. And not overwhelming in size because I don't always trust myself to eat only one portion as opposed to the whole pan/batch. 

Growing up Saturday mornings were special because if we were feeding ourselves, it was Toaster Strudel. Not Poptarts - I never ate a Poptart until high school - Toaster Strudel. Warm, sticky, almost nothing nutritional to redeem them. They were a maybe once-a-week treat. 

Even better though were the mornings when we were actually running on time to Church, and Mom had a chance to make pancakes. Mom's chocolate chip pancakes were like jumping on pink clouds, playing with a fluffy puppy and eating chocolate all at the same time. That good. One of those happy childhood memories I want to keep forever - until I remember my sisters smearing syrup in my hair, running crazy circles around the kitchen and trying to liberate various necessary Church garments from my closet. Then I want to be certain I never forget. 

So this Saturday morning I decided nothing would suffice but chocolate chip pancakes. Since I didn't have a go-to chocolate chip pancake recipe, I used the Peas and Thank You Apple Cinnamon Pancake recipe, but cut it down to 1/4 batch to serve just me. I used the whole wheat pastry flour option because that's what was on hand - I also cut the cinnamon and replaced the apple with 1 tbsp chocolate chips per intended pancake (2). 

Ingredients, bowl, food scale, recipe-master AKA laptop. 

Baking powder, cinnamon, salt, whole wheat pastry flour, soymilk, chocolate chips, sugar.

Dry.

Plus wet.

Equals pancakes.

Less than 20 minutes later, I had 2 fluffy chocolatey still-a-little-healthy pancakes. Topped with half a banana, 2 tbsp maple syrup and a pinch of powdered sugar. 

I couldn't have asked for a better meal to usher in this Vegan Month of Food.

What was your favorite childhood breakfast?

Goodbye September! and Vegan MoFo Topics.

It's already the final day of September. It feels like this month got sucked into a black hole. I have no idea how it went by so fast. I never got around to setting goals for this past month, so I'm doing a preemptive goal strike on October so it won't pass me by. 

I don't want to be overwhelmed with all the things I'd theoretically like to try to improve my life (studying, sleep habits, hours spent watching TV, fitness goals etc.), so I'll just set one: Vegan Month of Food! 

Check it out here.

In keeping with the guidlines of Vegan MoFo, starting tomorrow I'll be trying to get up vegan-food focused post an average of every weekday - goal of 21 posts this month. 

Topics to Include:

Restaurant reviews - "This all-vegan One was so great" and "What's Safe and Delicious at this Non-vegan One" and "The waiter here did not understand my words when I said 'no dairy, no eggs' so proceed with caution."

Product reviews - "This new soup was totally delicious" vs. "Probably wouldn't buy this again as I can still feel the salt coming out my pores"

A Day in My Food - "This is what I ate today. It's pretty typical." Or "It's pretty weird." I'll likely keep participating in What I Ate Wednesdays for this purpose. 

Wedding - As I continue making plans for my wedding next summer, I'll keep you posted on things like "This caterer was great to meet with and really understood our goals" vs. "I had to tell this guy 'Fish is not vegan!' No go."

Fitness - Technically this is month of food, but I'll likely tack in my workouts to some posts, if for no other reason than to clarify that I'm not actually trying to gain 20 pounds with the awesome food I will be eating. 

Cooking Time Audit - I'd like to see how my prep/cook skills stack up against the cookbook estimated times, so I may do a little Iron Chef-style speedwork and see if I can't get a recipe actually done in the estimated time frame. 

Finally, in keeping with Vegan MoFo guidelines, all food pictures I post in the next month will be vegan. That means if I go out with Fiance John and he gets something non-vegan, you'll never see it. 

Now I'm opening the floor: Any Vegan MoFo topic requests? 

Also, Are you participating? Let me know so I can be sure you're in my reader. 

WIAW: Meals at Home

Happy What I Ate Wednesday Foodie Friends!

My current rotation is outpatient pediatrics, which is a big reduction in time commitment from inpatient and surgery (at least actively working - studying never changes). I usually have about an hour and a half for lunch, I get to eat breakfast while it's light outside and get home before six pretty much always.

Long story short: This WIAW all meals were actually consumed at home. For the next month this will be my schedule. Yes I am counting my blessings. 

Breakfast: Yogurt Bowl - vanilla soy yogurt, golden flax cereal, strawbs (frozen), 1/2 banana, goji berries. And coffee.

Lunch: Warm (Vegan) Chicken Sandwich, Apple. 

Dinner: Roast Sweet Potato Rounds - olive oil, rosemary, salt, roasted for 20 mins at 400 degrees, Tall Glass of Soymilk (unpictured). Nectarine. 

This is a recycled picture...I didn't actually eat salad today. Just potato. 

and nectarine. 

I do not pretend this is really a balanced meal, but it's what I wanted. Sometimes I just don't question.

Dessert: Numi Decaf Black Vanilla Tea, with soymilk. This might be my favorite tea. 

Workout: 3 mile run. Slow, but felt good. 

Do you pack meals, buy meals, or are you able to eat them all at home if you want?

What? It's Fall?!

What's the date? September 27? Shocked. I am shocked.

Blogs all over are full of fall recipes - apples, pumpkin, baked goods. Also discussion of cooler temperatures. However it's still pretty hot here. I've mentally not transitioned out of summer at all.

This is a problem because Fall may well be my favorite season. Pretty sure it is. I don't want to miss any of it mentally lingering in the sweltering awfulness that is summer in the Inland Empire.

Things I love about Fall:

1. The seasonal produce. Apples especially. Also pumpkin. And coming up - the winter squashes!

2. Cooler temperatures. If we've ever spoken, or you've been reading for more than like a day, you may know that I absolutely despise super-hot weather. Summer here is terrible. Fortunately I've been on inpatient almost entirely and basically lived in the hospital. Still - give me my rain and snow.

Home in Oregon - Nov 2010. 

3. It gets dark earlier. Therefore, I'm less of a crazy if I want to go to bed at 9 pm. Hey, it's already been dark for a couple hours!

4. I can bike during the day without arriving at my destination flinging sweat onto people. Nora! I missed you!

5. Soups. Soups. Soups! I love soup. I didn't ever stop eating them over summer, but they did feel less appropriate. 

And so, if anyone else was mentally stuck in summer, I just want to say I understand - and I guess we ought to head on over to Fall. 

What's your favorite thing about this season?

Vegan MoFo and Quick Update.

Thing 1: First of all, let me be clear - Vegan MoFo isn't something bad. October marks Vegan Month of Food (MoFo), when vegan bloggers from all over do their best to post each day about all things vegan and delicious. Check it out at Veganmofo.com. Would that it had been named something family-friendlier, but that's those crazy vegans for you. I'm signed up to participate, so expect an upswing in the food-focused post frequency coming up starting next week. I've been stockpiling reviews and I'll be focusing on keeping things quick and easy to stay healthy and vegan when life is busy (because you know it is.)

Thing 2: We very likely have a wedding venue. It's a big deal. Perhaps more details later when things are more concrete.

Thing 3: I finished inpatient pediatrics with the busy nightmare call including Saturday morning rounds. Oddly enough, I already miss it. Tomorrow I start outpatient, and that means the return of morning runs, because clinic doesn't start until 8:30. I haven't arrived somewhere (medical) so late in the morning in months. It's funny how perspective changes out of necessity.

Proper post soon!

Still Alive

Remember back when I used to write sometimes? I just felt the need for a bit of a break over the past week, especially given how down I was feeling this time last week. It wasn't a crippling kind of downer mood, but I've just had minimal energy for anything but making it through my days in the hospital without looking like too much of a hot mess disaster. 

Breakfasts have been eaten in the dark. Usually with a side of some kind of studying. It still feels like my head is barely above water with these rotations and I can never study enough.  I need more sleep. Also I love it. 

It's been a week and not too much has happened - I was on call Sunday, so Saturday was my only day off and I drove to Santa Barbara and back for a baby shower.

In other news, Fiance John bought an ipad this weekend. He's calling it Girlfriend Number 2. As long as I'm Girlfriend Number 1 I guess.

Food's been basic. A new Amy's Bowl, a new Trader Joe's soup (LOVED), fruits, veggies, Katie made some vegan strawberry cupcakes for the Bachelor Pad finale. 

Also piles of unpictured nut butters and various chocolate. I also made cookies for call and ate too many again. The goal this week is to clean up my diet a bit - I'm not really feeling very well and I think it might help. Mostly I blame the piles of kids with infections that we see every day, but all the sugar intake probably isn't great either. 

Wedding planning is progressing...I'll keep you posted on that. 

Melancholy Monday

I just read Krista's post (My Journey to a Healthy Berg) which mentioned that she was originally going to complain about the fact that it's Monday, but she changed her attitude.

She's great. Inspired.

I however, my cherished readers, am not so shiny today, and I'm going for it with the mopey Monday post.

It's bright sunshine, but the sun feels malicious today. Like it's just trying to burn me and make me a sweaty mess. Check and check. Thanks Sun. 

I woke up with a frown and stubbed my toe on my bed.

I ran this morning, but I just felt anxious the whole time. No good reason. It wasn't anxiety about my day or my run. Non-localized anxiety. It's the worst - I don't know how to fix it.  

I went to the hospital, where I'm on my third week of inpatient pediatrics, which I love in theory. I'm reminding myself today that I like it, because if we took today as an isolated day, I would just hate everything. Everyone was nice. I did an admission and the 2 or 3 questions I forgot to ask in my history-taking became a way bigger deal than they actually are. I found myself thinking, "Gosh, you really suck at this."

I believe I'm supposed to be planning my wedding. I feel like the worst fiancee ever because I'm frustrated with it and the fact that we don't have a place or much of anything finished and nothing's quite right and I think I'm taking it out on John, who's been nothing but supportive and doing a ton of work himself. 

And I ate a pretty substantial amount of peanut butter directly from the jar. With maple syrup, because that's what I do. I feel a little sick. It's that kind of day. 

I now ought to study. No matter how much I do, it won't ever feel like enough.

Melancholy Monday indeed. 

Now everyone click over to Krista's and read something that's not depressing.