March 30.

Today is bowling league night! Every Wednesday we go to the Pizza, Poker and Bowling league at the local alley. With our weekly low fee, we get two free practice games to use on any other day during the week, and a pizza with our league games. Pizza. Yay. As we know, I've been eating a lot of veggie pizza's no cheese this month. That's great and all, but dough with tomato sauce starts getting old after awhile.

Usually on bowling nights, I order two slices of the pizza to be the typical "veggies no cheese, with crushed red pepper on the side, please." You know, just to fit in with the rest of my team so we can all bowl and eat pizza together! Yay, team spirit!

Tonight I said, I don't think so. No more boring pizza for me. Instead I made a yummy, healthy veggie wrap ahead of time and stored it in a baggie in my purse until pizza-eating time.

Here is my recipe for a delicious, filling wrap:

On a whole wheat wrap, spread a thin layer of vegenaise.
Next add three slices of Yves veggie deli meat. I like the ham or salami.

Then, cut up some slices of Follow Your Heart chedder cheese and spread them on the tortilla wrap.

Finally, add some fresh spinach, cucumbers, and sliced tomatoes! Roll it all up, cut in the middle and you have a perfect dinner (or lunch) ready for wherever you want to eat it! Great for the bowling alley!

March 29. Day 2 of not traveling

I guess I never really got over my sickness that I had at the beginning of the month of travels, because last night I had such a sore throat again, I could hardly sleep.

I took a sick day today to get some much-needed rest and recuperation. I referred to my "Bragg: Apple Cider Vinegar" book for a sore throat remedy. First of all, let me say that I am a true believer of this miracle natural health liquid! On the back of the jar it has a recipe for a daily health drink -- two teaspoons of ACV mixed with a full glass of water.

I try to drink three of these a day to just stay healthy... or something. It seems to work when I'm not traveling like crazy...

Anyway, in the Bragg book it says to gargle a teaspoon of ACV mixed with half a glass of water three times an hour. I did this faithfully all day, and by early afternoon, my sore throat was already diminishing. Another Apple Cider Vinegar testimony.

Now for the food.

I made a killer soup tonight; and as W put it, I was trying to knock this sickness right out of me with this soup. I got the idea from the Soup Bible, but pretty much made up my own recipe. I call it Jalepeno Chicken Avocado soup. It was very spicy and feisty. W said it tasted like one of the Mexican Caldo soups "from that place on the 101." (Which we love, and are very good.)

I started with a quart of vegan chicken broth made from McCay's Chicken seasoning.

I then added the vegan chicken strips from Trader Joe's. We love these! W used them to make chicken fajitas for our Valentine's Day dinner last month.

Next I drained and rinsed about 8 canned jalepeno slices. Sliced them and added them to the broth and chicken.

Finally, I added 1 teaspoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a couple dashes of Tapa Tio, and garlic salt and pepper to taste.

Let it stew for about ten minutes and added sliced avocadoes to the bowls of dished out soup! W couldn't stop his praise of how good it was as he slurped his down. I couldn't help but agree.

March 28. Day 1 of not traveling.

Nope I'm not traveling. Back to the routine.

Yesterday, I prepared a cous cous salad for my lunches this week. I didn't even taste it until lunch today and it was so good! I had never made this kind before. Usually I just get that package of Israeli cous cous from Trader Joes that has garbanzo beans and orzo and all sorts of stuff in it.

This time I made my own version, not from that package, and it goes like this:

1 1/3 cup dry plain Israeli cous cous (cook it)
1 cup dry red quinoa (cook it)

When those two grains are nice and cooked and cooled, add the following:

marinated artichokes
sundried tomatoes
green olives
1/2 cup Vegenaise
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp oil from marinated artichokes
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp crushed red peppers
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all together well. Chill overnight and eat a big helping of it for lunch. You can also add it to a regular salad for something a little extra special!

March 27. Day 27. Home!

Today was my last day of travel! I got my flight moved up, so I got to come home earlier than I though!

One last day of trying to find veggie goodness on the road.

At the airport we found a diner for breakfast. This diner claimed to use all local, fresh ingredients!

I ordered the "old fashioned grits" and "home style potatoes." Not too bad. Kinda just tasted like any other diner though. That's okay. All I could think about was the grocery shopping I was going to do at Henry's when I got home and the big bowl of salad I was going to make.

On the plane, we snacked on the pretzel snaps I still had from the other day and drank a ton of water and tomato juice. The flight was a very LONG five hours. Packed, cramped plane with lots of people coughing on it. I was feeling very grossed out.

Finally! Back in sunny San Diego, we didn't even go home first before stopping at my favorite healthy grocery store, Henry's. I was so starving, I probably grabbed more off the shelves than I should have, but I couldn't help it! Rice milk, cereal, sprouted bread, apples, grapefruit, oranges, red leafy lettuce, carrots, celery, onions, red and green peppers, cilantro, cucumbers, tomatoes, tofu and more! I am so happy to be home!

After unpacking and showering, we put together one of our favorite and delicious meals ever. It's something I call "Haystacks." You layer a plate full of food like this:

Start with corn chips. I like to use a Frito's type chip, and today I used blue corn chips. Add beans and rice on top of the chips. Cheese (vegan of course) on top of that, and then pile it high with tons of veggies. Ours had lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, jalepeno's, onions, green and black olives, cilantro, salsa, and Tapa Tio sauce. Some people say it's a Taco Salad, but I stick to my Haystack; because when you're all done piling everything up, it looks like a hay stack!

UPDATE: Is that piece of lettuce sticking out on the side of the plate bothering anyone else? :)

March 26. Day 26.

Let's just skip right to dinner.

Chinese food! We LOVE Chines food on the East Coast! I don't know how to explain it, but it's different, and it's better on this side of the country. I don't know why, it just it. Also, it helped that we were in very good company of old friends and some new ones. I miss them all so much, and am always so happy to see my old "crew."

My favorite Chinese dish to order for take-out is snow peas and water chestnuts. It's very simple, but with the garlicky brown sauce, it's delicious. Everyone else seemed to turn their noses up to my veggie-lover dish, but that was okay with me! More for me, thank you very much!

March 25. Day 25.

W is back! We are in DC together! It's spring time and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom!

For lunch we ate at the restaurant, Mitsitam, in the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall.

This is a well-known place to eat if you're doing the museums in that are. It's a cafeteria style place with several stations of food from which to choose. Each station features traditional food from an ancient Native American region.

"The Café features Native foods found throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso America and the Great Plains. Each of the five food stations depict regional lifeways related to cooking techniques, ingredients, and flavors found in both traditional and contemporary dishes." (http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=visitor&second=dc&third=mitsitam)

W ordered the sampler platter which featured wild boar, salmon, black beans, wild rice, and hearts of palm salad. That just tells you a little bit about the food being served. I was able to find plenty of vegan options. I got a Tomato Caldo something, and the hearts of palm salad and sauteed seaweed and mushrooms. Some other stations had things like celery root and snap peas, blue corn bread, and meso-american fried bread topped with beans, lettuce and tomatoes. This place is by far the best place to eat if you're on the National Mall.

March 24. Day 24.

Today was not the best day, in food or in anything else. I'm really exhausted and tired of traveling. At one point I burst into tears when I squished my finger in the seat belt while trying to buckle-up. I instantly started laughing at myself and the ridiculousness of my tired tears.

Anyway, I left Mom and Dad's house in Boston to drive to Washington D.C. For seven hours, I just nibbled snacks of carrots, rice crackers, and pretzel snaps.

By the time I met up with friends in DC, I was ravenous. We went to El Tamarindo, a Mexican/Salvadorian restaurant on U Street. I ordered a corn tamale and a veggie chimichanga, no cheese. It was alright. I'll just say that... Okay, I'll also say that I have really high standards for Mexican food, since I live in San Diego and can get pretty much the best Mexican food in the country.

March 23. Day 23.

I was supposed to drive from Boston to Syracuse today. I had all my road trip snacks ready to go and everything. Then, I started feeling sick again, and weather.com was declaring winter storm advisories across the whole state of New York. What?! It's Spring already! I realized I could never make the 6.5 hour trip through bad weather when I already wasn't feeling good.

(By the way, didn't I just have a bad cold at the beginning of this trip? I don't think I've ever gotten over it completely, and now some other kind of sickness is getting me... sigh.)

Anyway, so I stayed home at Mom and Dad's and ate leftover Thai food from last night.

For dinner we had a classic "Mom meal." It was a meal I always remember Mom making; from way back in the day, you know what I mean?

Potatoes, tofu, broccoli and salad. All the components are covered, and it is delicious! It's just the kind of home cooking I crave from Mom.

March 22. Day 22.

I had meals from around the world today!

First stop: India

For lunch I met up with K again and went to The Kebab Factory in Cambridge. And yes, we passed right through Harvard to get there.

Once there, we both ordered the lunch buffet and pigged out! We had been talking about getting Indian food all weekend and we were ravenous for it today. There were only two non-dairy, non-meat options (Daal and some kind of vegetable dish), but I made sure to fill up on both of them, as well as the basmati rice and naan bread. It was REALLY good. I was very impressed, as far as an Indian buffet goes. The place was tiny, but it was packed with people. That's always a good sign.

Next stop: Thailand

One last dinner with Mom and Dad before I head out tomorrow! They have a favorite Thai place right down the road, so we ordered take-out and ate it while watching a movie at home. It was a fun, cozy evening at home!

Mango Thai has a great selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes, specifically made without egg, fish sauce, or oyster sauce (as it said on the menu.) We ordered the vegetable curry in red sauce, basil tofu fried rice, and vegetable pad thai. SO GOOD!

I am just so stuffed after all of my amazing veggie-lover meals today! This should hold me over for the next few days when I'll be driving for most of the day and the pickins will be slim.

March 21. Day 21.

I didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning due to a very frustrating and unfortunate situation with Thrifty rental cars. Side note: NEVER in a million years rent a car from them.

At any rate, I was absolutely starving by the time I reached Portland, Maine. It was barely 10:30 but I was going to find and enjoy a nice big lunch somewhere in this funky little city I've never been before. I used my Yelp app to find vegetarian restaurants and The Green Elephant looked like the place to go. When I found it, the sign said "Open for lunch at 11:30." It was 10:57. Sigh. It was another vegetarian Chinese place, and I so wanted to make up for that misdirected ordering disaster at the last veggie Chinese place. Oh well. Portland looked like it was a hippie-ish enough town to find something else vegan, but I didn't have a lot of time to spare.

I drove around till I finally found something that was open -- Market Street Eats. All they had on their menu was wraps and salads. Sigh. I'm kinda getting sick of wraps and salads to tell you the truth; but what could I do? I was starving, and I had already paid the meter to stay here. Yippee. Let me just wallow here in my misery and try to get down yet another hummus and veggie wrap. I was already in a bad mood because of my horrendous rental car nightmare, and had to go deal with high school students in less than an hour; and all I really wanted to eat was something hot and spicy and sprinkled with soy sauce.

To be fair, if I wasn't feeling so cranky, I'm sure I would have been quite satisfied with this meal. The wrap was actually pretty good when I had the extra "hots" added to it. (Hot peppers.)

For dinner, Dad put together a red bell pepper gnocchi meal that he had picked up in Little Italy yesterday. It definitely made up for my lackluster lunch and helped cheer me up after a very stressful day. It's so nice to be home and have Mom and Dad take care of me again!

March 20. Day 20.

Wow! I can't believe it's been twenty days since I've been home! It goes by fast when you're having fun, right?

Before we left Vermont today, we had a wonderful big breakfast with KK's mom and dad: Potatoes and veggie sausage links.

If you notice, half of my plate is empty... that's because there was something else non-vegan on the plate and I almost didn't want to admit that I cheated again.

KK's dad and K made cinnamon donuts for breakfast, and how could I pass them up?! Especially when they were dipping them in the fresh maple syrup? I told myself that "When in Vermont..."

Yesterday it was Cabot cheese, today it's Vermont-style donuts and maple syrup. I think you'll have to agree, that just this once, I couldn't pass it up.

March 18. Day 18.

Back in Vermont for weekend #2!

On the drive with K we stopped in St. Johnsbury to find something to eat. I felt like we were in one of those movies where the out-of-towners go into some small town local spot and everyone in the place gets quiet and just stares at them. That’s what it was like when we walked into Anthony’s Diner. After our waitress (who looked like she had probably worked there for 40 years) commanded us to “sit anywhere” she slapped some menus on our table and pointed to a white board on the wall. “The specials are over there.” She said in a monotone voice, and walked away. I looked at K, at the menu and said, “I don’t think there’s going to be many vegan options here…”

With a menu that featured fresh Atlantic Haddock, beef stew, and Venison, I almost felt like they would scorn me if I ordered a salad. What do I do?!
K ordered a chicken wrap, so I ordered the veggie one, and felt silly requesting it to be made without mayonnaise and cheese…


...Later at KK and her parent’s house, we sampled fresh hot maple syrup from the neighbors sugar house! Pure Vermont maple syrup. Nothing is more natural than that. We even tasted the sap straight from the tree.

For dinner, KK’s mom made Minestone with Pesto soup. We all know how much I love soup, so I was very excited about this delicious dinner.

KK’s mom gave me the recipe so I could make it for myself at home.
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped
5 ounces green beans, cut
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 potato, cubed
¼ cabbage, shredded
1 small eggplant, cubed
7-ounce can cannellini beans, drained/rinsed
2 Italian plum tomatoes, chopped
5 cups vegetable stock
3 ½ ounces dried spaghetti
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Basically, you stir-fry everything in the oil for about ten minutes, then add the stock and spaghetti and simmer for 40 minutes. Right before serving, add a dollop of pesto sauce, either store bought or homemade. Enjoy!

March 17. Day 17.

The Connecticut Whole Foods I went to for lunch must have been brand new. I haven't seen one yet that had special parking spots for "fuel efficient cars" or "carpool cars." The rest of us world-destroying-cars had to park way over on the other side of the parking lot and walk.

Anyway, then I get inside and at the salad bar I could use an actual bowl for my salad and save 15 cents off my entire purchase because I was saving a tree, or something, by not using the cardboard to-go box.

This salad bar was amazing! There was such a huge selection, I knew my salad was going to cost well over the $7.99 per pound. Oh well. I was starving and I haven't eaten a good big salad in a while.

Ten dollars and fifty-three cents later, this is what my delicious salad looked like:

There was some mixed green lettuce, eggplant, tomato, fennel, beet, edamame, quinoa, tofu, rice, roasted red peppers and mushrooms, onions, artichokes, and even a seaweed salad on top! Oh my goodness, it was the best salad ever!

The soup bar had a winters harvest soup that looked amazing, but I was really disappointed! It was very bland; tasted like nothing. But since I'm not one to waste what should be a good soup, I poured some salt, pepper and hot sauce on it, and tried to eat at least half of it. Sadly, the seasonings didn't even help it. Whole Foods -- that was not cool. Don't serve bland soup!

Finally, back at home with Mom and Dad, we had Mom's great home cooking: Enchilada's, Mexican rice, and salad. Mom made the enchilada's with green sauce instead of red, with refried beans and roasted veggies on the inside. The rice was her own recipe and had in it olives, swiss chard, green pepeprs, and corn. Exactly what I needed after a long week of traveling all over the Eastern Seaboard and eating on the go. SOOO good!

March 16. Day 16.

Every time I visit my schools in New York City I get to stay and visit with my friend RJN who I have known since high school. We've known each other since 1998 and I love her!

Tonight she took me and her mother to Toros Turkish and Mediterranean Cuisine. Last night, Indian and tonight, Turkish! This is totally working out perfectly!

Since all three of us are vegetarian/vegan we ordered a bunch of appetizer dishes for the whole table:

Coban Salad

This is one of my favorite things ever -- chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. They seasoned it with a light oil and herb dressing.

Red Lentil Soup

This lentil soup was the perfect spiciness with a hint of spearmint! That was an interesting taste to experience in soup, but it was quite delicious!


Hummus and Falafel

Classic fave. I eat hummus for pretty much every meal of the day.


Imam Bayildi (Stuffed Eggplant)

I had never had an eggplant prepared like this, but it was so good! It had lots of garlic in it, which I love love love.

So far my East Coast cities are treating me pretty well with the vegan foods.

March 15. Day 15.

After visiting one of my schools in Pottstown, PA today, I picked up some groceries for lunch and to hold me over for the next couple days. This is my go-to plan whenever I'm traveling on long trips like this and don't want to eat out for every meal.

Carrots, spinach, grape tomatoes, hummus and pita.

This is an awesome picture (if I do say so myself!) of my delicious and easy little lunch.

For dinner I was with my very close friend S from my Philly days. We went to Karma Indian Restaurant on Chestnut Street, and it was all so good I only remembered to take a picture when I was practically finished!

I got the Bhindi Subji, which is okra and tomato,and it was so good. I love okra! I know that might sound weird, but I do! I had been craving Indian food for a long time so it was the perfect choice by S! Thank you!!

For dessert we went to our old favorite gelato place where they always have a ton of non-dairy sorbetto flavors. I got grapefruit and pear. It was like I was eating the actual fruit, it was so good.

March 14. Day 14.

A lot of driving today. Not a lot of exciting veggie goodness.

Quick breakfast of toast and oranges with MIL and FIL before leaving Vermont.

Lunch at MY mom and dad's house which consisted of leftover spaghetti and salad.

Dinner with Dad at the Japanese place in the mall food court -- yum! Best part of my day. Even though I had over five hours of driving ahead of me, seeing Dad and getting Japanese soba and avocado rolls together was totally worth it.

And then I drove... and drove... and drove... and got lost in the Bronx.

That part was so stressful I had to pull over at a rest area once I got back on the highway and get some junk food.

Technically, it was "vegan," meaning I actually looked at the ingredients and saw no dairy, but it's still junk food and had no nutritional value whatsoever. Oh well, I was just thankful to have finally found my way out of the Bronx at 10:00 at night!

March 13. Day 13

I think I'm about half-way through my month of non-stop travel! Only two more weeks until I can get back into my own kitchen!

Meanwhile...

Today we are still at MIL and FIL's house and are eating good home cooking in Vermont. For her birthday breakfast we made MIL home style potatoes and french toast. I ate the potatoes and some plain toast. (For garnish, I added spicy mustard, ketchup and salt and pepper.)

The whole breakfast was wonderful because it was a special meal for W's mother who was celebrating her birthday, and that's all that matters.

For dinner, I made sure to grill a veggie burger next to the real burgers. Pretty simple cooking today. All is well.

March 12. Day 12.

The day started with a quick breakfast at Mom and Dad's before we hit the road again. Hot tea and a bagel with smart balance spread.

Quoted from www.smartbalance.com - "Our buttery spreads contain our unique natural blend of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and saturated fats designed to help improve the ratio of good HDL cholesterol to bad LDL cholesterol. Plus, you’ll get extra nutritional support from the Omega 3s, vitamins, calcium, protein and plant sterols that we add to many of our products."

It's good for you, and dairy free!

Later, at the in-laws house, W's mom had a smorgasbord laid out on the table for us, and we added some chips and salsa and hummmus. In addition to those items we brought, I was able to eat the roasted red peppers, olives, peppercinis, carrots, crackers, bread and baked pasta MIL had made with no cheese!

March 11. Day 11.

First of all, it's really annoying to have a three hour delay at the airport when all you want to do is get home and have some good veggie cooking by Mom. Second of all, airport food is ridiculously expensive; and as we have discussed before, there are slim to no vegan options in airports. However, here is my airport vegan eating guide for the A gates in SFO airport:

Before we even knew our flight was delayed we had to get something to eat for breakfast and find something for lunch to save for the plane. This was an interesting endeavor since the restaurant choices in this section of the airport are seriously lacking.

The only option I found was a pizza place (Firewood Cafe) and ordered a mushroom pizza with no cheese to eat right away and a garden salad for the plane. The pizza actually wasn't that bad! I mean, it wasn't exactly what I wanted to eat for breakfast, but I was starving and it was going to have to do. In a pinch, you can always order a veggie pizza, no cheese. I feel like I've been eating those a lot lately...

On the plane finally (four hours later!) I had the salad, accompanied by some pretzels I had previously purchased for the trip. Some tomato juice completed that meal. W had bought a sandwich, and he shared my pretzels. By the time we finally got to Mom and Dad's house I was starving for a real meal. Mom of course had saved supper on the stove for us -- homemade vegetable soup and garlic bread! It's so wonderful to be home in a veggie-lover house.

Forks Over Knives - Official Trailer

This movie comes out on May 6. I can't wait to watch it and I can't wait for America to watch this! It's all about our country's unhealthy diet of meat and dairy and how all of these diseases we're dying from could be avoided if we just ate a healthier, plant-based diet!

March 10. Day 10.

I have been traveling for ten days already, only eighteen more to go. It's getting kind of exhausting finding healthy food on the go. Today for lunch I knew K and D would be doing their own thing; there were no more left-overs, and I had eaten all my frozen Amy's burritos. What to do, what to do! I had W back at the house too. I was reluctant to get another ten dollar salad at Whole Foods, and was almost tempted to just get a bunch of Fresco Bean Burritos at Taco Bell. Okay, I know Taco Bell is part of the dreaded Fast Food Chain, but those Fresco Bean Burritos are so good! And apparently they only have 300 calories each and something like 9 grams of fat each. I don't know, I don't count calories. But all it is is beans, sauce, and tomato/onion salsa. Good. I'm afraid to look up what the exact ingredients are because I might find out the beans aren't vegetarian...

Anyway, I decided against Taco Bell after all and chose Subway instead. Seems a little healthier right? I got the veggie five-dollar footlong on honey wheat bread. Took half of it back for W and there was lunch. Cheap and pretty good for you too.

By the way, today is our five-month wedding anniversary! We decided to celebrate by eating dinner at a restaurant of our favorite food genre lately -- Korean Soon Dubu! We LOVE Korean food! As we have already seen this month, I got Korean takeout last week when I was by myself. This was much more fun with W. We found a great little place in South San Francisco right by our hotel by the airport. It was packed and we were warmly welcomed by Mom herself. Oh, the name of the place is "Mom's Tofu House."

I got my all-time fave - Kimchee Soon Dubu with mushrooms and veggies. It was one of the best I've had yet. The mushrooms were amazing. I'm picky about my mushrooms and when they put portabelos in the Soon Dubu it totally ruins it. Not this time, they only used the best mushrooms. Yum. The ban chan was fresh and perfect. I asked for more of the kimchee of course and gobbled up the seaweed salad, pickled root and broccoli. The menu said a recent study found kimchee to be one of the healthiest foods in the world! I'll have to check up on that later... but for now, I agree it's one of the tastiest.

I really should just live in Korea, because I could probably eat Korean food every day for every meal. Japanese food too... mmmm.

How am I still hungry??!

March 9. Day 9.

I love Whole Foods Salad and Soup Bar.

The thing about Whole Foods Salad and Soup Bar is that they are SO expensive. I mean, for what it is, it's expensive. For just a quick lunch on the go? It's expensive. I went there to grab lunch for W and me, thinking I'd get a salad to share and maybe a soup. I piled on the veggie goodness --beets, cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, quinoa, cabbage, chives, garbanzos, olives, artichoke hearts! -- and got a small vegetable soup on the side. Oh, look! There's some fresh Korean Kimchee! I'll take a tiny container of that too!

By the time I checked out, it cost me $17.38 for those three items. $9.03 for the salad alone. For seventeen dollars at home, I can buy enough ingredients to make soup and salad for a week! And this was just one lunch! I feel like that's a little much for essentially a fast food lunch. Even though everything of course was delicious and fresh, it kinda makes me mad enough to stop going to Whole Foods. Granted, the salad was big enough for the two of us, but even when I buy salads for myself, they're still pretty spendy.

I really shouldn't be complaining. It's healthy food after all, isn't it?

March 8. Day 8.

Nothing too exciting today in the Vegan area. Basically, since I'm traveling and staying with friends and family, I just eat a lot of snacky type foods, fruits and vegetables. I eat out a lot, and it's the same old thing unless I find a vegan/vegetarian restaurant like some of those last week... amazing...

Anyway, so today I just ate my usual cereal and rice milk, apple, orange and banana for breakfast. Boring. Lunch - boring (leftover pho noodle soup from Sunday.)

Dinner we went out with all the cousins and family at a famous steakhouse in town. In short, I ate a lot of potatoes: yam fries, truffle fries, and potato fondue without the fondue. I also got the side order of hummus and Indian bread, so by the end of the meal I was thoroughly stuffed.

I found some really good recipes in Aunt K's food magazines that I can't wait to try when I get home... someday... One of them is something involving Ginger Bok Choy, and it looks delicious, I can't wait to try it.

Until tomorrow...

March 7. Day 7.

I am TIRED today. The first day back to work after being sick is always rough, and today is no exception for me. I didn't need a DayQuil, but I was just feeling really run-down and out of it.

However! My appetite is definitely back. I couldn't stop snacking all day! On the drive in between schools, I nibbled on Triscuits in the car. Back at K and D's I first ate an Amy's Vegan Black Bean Burrito for lunch.

Delicious! ...but it didn't stop after that. A few Kettle Chips here, and some pineapple slices there. A little while later I found some chips and salsa. Oh, and a few cherry tomatoes thrown in there too.

By the time dinner actually came around you would think I wouldn't even be hungry, but how could I not stuff myself with this amazing meal?

We all worked on this meal together: fresh baby artichokes, steamed and dipped in various sauces; tofurkey sausage, polenta and salad. YUM! The artichokes are from Pezzini Farms in Castroville. I stopped there the other day and got twelve for $1.00. That's right! A dozen artichokes for ONE DOLLAR!

These are the fresh artichokes growing right on the plant! Right where I parked my car! I could have picked them if I wanted, but I just went inside and bought the already picked ones.

After all the snacking and artichoke-a-rific dinner, I am finally full.