what I ate today + a cheap pad thai inspired recipe and pumpkin spice cookies

On September 3, 2019September 3, 2019 By VictoriaIn Recipes, Tofu, Vegan baking, What I Ate Today3 Comments

I’ve been away for the past month, and a lot has changed. I needed a little break while adjusting to new things. I now have a new job where I can sit most of the day and have a regular sleep schedule and I’ve been feeling so much better mentally and physically.

I’m going to be posting regularly again, and to start it off here’s what I ate today.

Brunch:

We started out Labor Day with some vegan breakfast burritos and donut holes from one of our favorite breakfast places, OMG Donuts. Their burritos are really cheap, but they are so tasty and nice to pickup for a quick breakfast. We took these to the mall to eat (because it was way too hot to eat outside which was our original plan) and walked around the mall for a bit.

Dinner:

I wanted pad thai for dinner, but I wanted something quick and easy to make and kinda healthy so this is what I came up with.

You will need:

noodles (rice noodles would probably be best, but we just used fettuccine noodles)
- we made about half of the box
a block of extra firm tofu
spices for the tofu:
- black pepper
- paprika
- onion powder
- garlic powder
- cumin
for the sauce:
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1-2 tbsp soy sauce (we used low sodium soy sauce and added about 1 1/2 tbsp, but add more if you’d like it saltier)
- 1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
- a splash of lime juice
- 1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
lots of veggies
- we combined an asian stir fry and sugar snap pea stir fry mix from Winco. We used half a bag of each for this meal. These included: broccoli, carrots, onions, celery, red peppers, mushrooms, water chestnuts, and sugar snap peas.

First, I cubed the block of tofu and coated it with the spices. I put it in the air fryer and cooked it for about 20 minutes at 400ºF.

While the tofu cooked I boiled the pasta and defrosted the veggies in a pan. Then, I mixed together the sauce.

I moved the veggies to a separate bowl to add the sauce to the empty pan. Let the sauce heat up for a minute, then mix everything together (the sauce, veggies, noodles, and tofu) and let it fry in the pan for a minute or two, stirring it occasionally to make sure it doesn’t burn.

This turned out so good. I’d also recommend adding peanuts on top if you have them to make this a little more like pad thai. Pad thai is one of my favorite comfort foods (honestly, anything with noodles is), and this was a cheap and easy way to satisfy the craving. Nothing beats actual pad thai, but this was really tasty.

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Dessert:

Winco had some pumpkin spice cookie mix for pretty cheap, so we picked some up (even though it’s super hot out but it’s pretty much fall already, right? The Halloween Oreos are already out).

We used half of the cookie mix and mixed that with 1/2 of a flax egg, half of a stick of Earth Balance vegan butter, and 1/8 cup water (we just veganized the instructions on the back of the package). We also added dairy free dark chocolate chips and sprinkled the cookies with cinnamon, all spice, and brown sugar before we put them in the oven.

I really recommend picking this up and making these if you see it in store, they turned out SO moist and pumpkin-y.

That’s what I ate today on this last day of a very lazy Labor Day weekend. We had a relaxing weekend filled with lots of yummy vegan food, video games, and movies. Hope everyone had a great weekend. ♡

Favorite Oatmeal Recipe & Vegan Soup // a full day of eating

On June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 By VictoriaIn Breakfast recipes, Recipes, Vegan baking, What I Ate TodayLeave a comment

Another what I eat in a day post with easy vegan recipes.

Breakfast: the tastiest oatmeal

My favorite combo for oatmeal is peanut butter and blueberries, if you’ve never had it before you must try it. I made 1/2 cup of oatmeal with cinnamon, blueberries, and peanut butter. It was my day off, so I threw in a tablespoon of dark chocolate chips too. The brand I use is Enjoy Life, they make a bunch of variants of dairy free chocolate chips. For an exact recipe, you will need:

1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 tbsp Jif natural creamy peanut butter
cinnamon
1 tbsp Enjoy Life dark chocolate morsels

First, I added the dry oats to a bowl and added enough water to cover the oats. I microwaved it for 1 1/2 minutes, keeping an eye on it to make sure the oatmeal didn’t overflow while it was cooking. Then I mixed it, added a little bit of cinnamon, then microwaved it for another minute. Once that was done I added in the frozen blueberries and mixed it together to defrost them, then I added the peanut butter and chocolate chips. I microwaved it for a few more seconds, just enough for the peanut butter and chocolate chips to melt.

Lunch: Split Pea Soup with white rice

We found a bunch of Amy’s vegan soups when we were at Kroger, and we picked some up for lazy meals. I had half of a can of the split pea soup with some white rice. It was light in sodium, and it was so delicious! If you pick up any of the soups, just be careful because not all of them are vegan.

Dinner: potatoes and spinach

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I just really wanted some potatoes and hummus. I made a cheesy sauce with 2 tbsp of Sabra’s classic hummus, 1 tbsp nutritional yeast, a little water to thin it out, and a few drops of Frank’s Hot Sauce. I made 1 cup of spinach to go with it, but I made it the lazy way by microwaving it with nutritional yeast and garlic powder.

Dessert: cookies

This is seriously the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe: Liv B’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe. You have to make these, this is going to be my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe from now on. I really wanted some homemade chocolate chip cookies and found her video on YouTube, and had to make them. They turned out delicious and chewy and I recommend trying out her recipe asap.

That’s everything I ate this day! Just trying to keep it simple and tasty, and showing that being vegan is easy. ♡

What I ate today // vegan junk food

On December 18, 2018December 18, 2018 By VictoriaIn Vegan baking, What I Ate TodayLeave a comment

Here’s a quick what I eat in a day post! It was my mom’s birthday and DJ and I had lots of really yummy vegan food.

We started the day out with some vegan donuts. We planned on bringing a half dozen to my parent’s house but ended up with nine and some donut holes. There’s a place near our apartment called Fresh Morning Donuts that started making vegan donuts and vegan breakfast burritos along with their non-vegan selection, and they’re some of the best donuts I’ve had.

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We also picked up some vegan breakfast burritos because we couldn’t resist and I had a half of a leftover vegan Philly Cheesesteak from Spiral Diner.

We also snacked on some pretzels and hummus.

And the wine my parents picked up also happened to be vegan according to Vegaholic.

For dinner my dad grilled us some asparagus, Boca chik’n burgers with Daiya cheese, and some baked sweet potatoes. They also had Earth Balance butter in the fridge so I added some to my sweet potato.

For dessert we made a homemade vegan vanilla layered cake. This is the recipe we used from AllRecipes.com. This is our go-to for birthdays because it’s so easy to make, and it’s so delicious and fluffy.

That’s everything we ate! Even though my parents aren’t vegan we ate lots of vegan treats and they enjoyed the vegan desserts too.

what we ate today // vegan birthday

On March 16, 2018 By VictoriaIn Vegan baking, What I Ate TodayLeave a comment

DJ’s birthday was this past Sunday and I wanted to treat him to a day full of delicious vegan food.

We both ate an everything bagel with treenut cheese for breakfast (we use the Treeline brand and we buy it at our local Kroger). I recommend adding nutritional yeast too, but we didn’t have any at the house we were staying at.

I had to go into work for a few hours, so I had some avocado and more nut cheese on two mini bagels for lunch (this was all we had at the house and I didn’t want to buy lunch, I wouldn’t normally eat bagels for two meals of the day). I topped the avocado with garlic powder, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Once I got off from work we went to Spiral Diner in Denton, TX for dinner. Their Blue Plate Special for this month is the Beyond Burger with different variations. I got the Ghost Burger, which is topped with cream cheese, spinach, fried onions, and Moore Jam’s pineapple-ghost pepper jam and DJ got the Double Melt which had grilled cheese for bread and a milkshake.

This was our first time trying the Beyond Burger, and I was surprised at how realistic the patty looked. It was really good too! I loved the combination of cream cheese and jam with the burger. It was nice going out with friends and getting burgers and milkshakes; something we haven’t done in over a year.

For his birthday cake I baked him a strawberry cake and dyed the inside blue. This is the recipe I used. It was quick and easy to make and had a strong strawberry flavor which is exactly what he wanted.

And here’s the frosting I used:

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This is definitely not a healthy day of eating, but this isn’t how we eat everyday. We had a fun, food-filled day with lots of yummy vegan treats. Let me know what foods you guys like to treat yourself with on special days in the comments below!

Pumpkin Bread (veganized)

On November 6, 2017November 6, 2017 By VictoriaIn Recipes, Vegan baking1 Comment

We went to Trader Joe’s for the first time last night, and were surprised by all of the delicious vegan food they had! We kept it simple with our shopping trip since we were in a rush, but here’s our little haul: (Note: the cinnamon squares have D3 in them, which is derived from sheep’s wool.)
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This post is mainly about the bread I made today using the Pumpkin Bread and Muffin mix pictured above. The instructions on the box said to mix the premade mix, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 1 cup of water. Obviously I didn’t add the eggs, so here’s how I veganized it and tried to make it healthier:

1 mashed banana instead of vegetable oil. The one banana almost filled a 1/2 cup measuring cup, and I added a splash of cashew milk to thin it out.
2 tbsp of flaxseed meal with 5 tbsp of water to make 2 flax eggs.
I added the mix and the water as normal.

Here’s the photogenic piece I cut out, topped with the cookie butter we also got at Trader Joe’s:

I think our first trip to Trader Joe’s was a success and we will definitely make the 30 minute trip to go back and try out more food. Do you guys have any recommendations of things we should try from Trader Joe’s? Let me know in the comments!

The Healthy Ghost

Category: Vegan baking