End Of Week Wrap-Up, New Lookville Photo, And Must Try Recipes

Namaste friends! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend- who has a Three Day Weekend? I do!
This week has been jam-packed for me! Between work and social engagements I was one exhausted chica yesterday and spend all evening and night watching Season 1 of The Hills on Netflix!

And, thank you for all of your comments about how un-coordinated you are! Well, most of you! It made me feel a lot better. I too like to dance in my room!

Thursday afternoon my friend Colleen called me up and we found a happy hour that we could get $3 margaritas at- can't beat that! We sipped our drinks, devoured chips + salsa, and chatted for a good 3 hours. It is so nice to sit outside in this great spring weather! I didn't get any pictures with her! So, here is an old one:

coincidentally also with margaritas
We remembered that our friend Adam was going to be at another bar for Chuckleheads. Adam had the idea that there were no real comedy clubs in Lubbock so he started hosting a sort of open mic night for any comedians or funny people that wanted to get up on stage! He hosts Chuckleheads every month and neither of us had been to one yet, so we decided to check it out!
Also, our friend's band S.O.A.P were playing:

They are so talented! I got my dance on and was one of two people dancing! Funny what a couple of these can do to you...

Michelob Ultra and an Oh Baby shot
Chuckleheads came on after the band and it was absolutely hilarious! A lot of my friends signed up to go on stage but I was too nervous...I am the type of person that needs to write things and advance and practice them in front of the mirror, then in front of my mom. Ha ha! 
I am planning on writing some jokes and going on stage at the next event though- it will be at the end of June. I have a joke in the works about how people always ask me, "What are you?" (as in race or ethnicity), and when I say "I'm Indian," they ask, "What tribe are you from?" ha!
Living in Texas and having brown skin, most people think I am Hispanic and cannot believe that I don't speak Spanish. I once had a woman come up to me and ask me something in Spanish, and when I told her I didn't understand, she told me that my parents hadn't taught me well!

Moving on,
My friends and I ended up staying out until 2:30 in the morning! I used to be able to do that on a regular basis, but now it is pretty rare for me, especially since I work from 9-4 every weekday. I didn't drink too much that night, but I was still a little dehydrated when I woke up (after 4 hours of sleep).
Cue:

and lots of it!
And that reminds me of this fun chart I made last year for GraphJam, How to tell if you have had Too Much Wine:

And speaking of being dehydrated, Faith did a wonderful post on staying hydrated and the dangers of dehydration on her blog- check it out!

I also posted a new look to Lookville this week:

PS- Jo, did you get the invitation to Lookville that I sent you? I am hoping it didn't go to your junk mail folder. I  have 4 more invitations to give out, if anyone wants one! Again, Lookville is just an online community where you can upload pictures of outfits or clothing items and get advice on how to match things, what would look good with a certain item, or whether or not you can pull off a certain trend! I've been finding it very helpful :)

Moving on again,
I have been eating a lot of raw fruits and veggies lately, and it feels great!
A ton of broccoli,

x3 over the past few days
Apples with cinnamon,

and other miscellaneous items,

These were turned into a delicious juice for increased bioavailabilty after Thursday night ;)
If I eat 5 carrots, an entire pineapple, or half a head of broccoli, are you still interested in seeing those pictures? Or, would you rather see the other non-single-ingredient things (more like recipes) that I eat?

Speaking of recipes, I recently tried 2 new recipes from Averie's blog.
First, I made her amazing Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls. The only change I made was to replace the vanilla with half the amount of almond extract.
These came out really well! The dough was a little too sticky to work with though, and I was too impatient to stick it in the fridge before I worked with it.
Instead, I flattened the dough on a sheet of saran wrap:

Sprinkled with the chocolate chips:

and wrapped it up to knead it without touching the actual dough:

Then, I rolled it out into a log so it would be easy to portion:

and thus the balls were made!

my recipe made 12 instead of Averie's 17, because I kept tasting the dough before I made the balls, and also because some of the dough was stuck in my blender under a blade and I could not remove it! I have a Hamilton Beach tiny blender and the bottom does not come off. It is Very Hard to clean :(
I'm surprised I was able to grind the ingredients in it!

I also made Averie's Vegan Slaw Horseradish Relish Dressing (that's a mouthful!) And the only change I made was to use dill relish instead of sweet.
I served up the dressing with some delicious veggies:

Lima beans, chopped broccoli stalks, endive, and purple onion. I wanted tomato also but we were out of it.
This was so delicious- I can't believe I waited so long to make this recipe.

I suggest that everyone head over to Averie's site. Not only is she a goddess in the kitchen, she is training for her first fitness competition, and I absolutely love her blog!

Questions:
Have you tried Goji Berries? I bought some for the first time and I'm not quite sure what to do with them besides put them in a trail mix or eat them plain. They have a very interesting flavor...it is growing on me though! I also made a tea with them:

Goji berries, hot water, and stevia to sweeten it.
Any ideas or recipes that I could use for these goji berries? 
Also,
Do you want to see pictures when I chow down on a whole cantaloupe, or several carrots? Or, would you rather see the highlights and recipes?

Unintentionally Almost Identical Tuesday and Wednesday Eats

Try saying that 5 times fast!
Hello bloggettes! How are y'all today! TGIAF, am I right?
And hello to my new readers! Thank you for commenting and letting me know you are out there! And thank you even more for sharing your kitchen disaster stories with me :) It was much appreciated!

This is actually my first time blogging on a weekday morning! I brought my laptop to work to accomplish this... I was too busy watching Notting Hill (didn't like it! Sorry Julia Roberts!) and drinking too much wine hanging out with my boyfriend to make time for uploading pictures. Sometimes real life takes precedence, right?

I found it funny yesterday (Wednesday) that everything I was eating somehow mirrored what I ate on Tuesday...let's take a look:
Tuesday Breakfast:

A slice of my newly beloved California Complete Protein Bread + a Green Goddess with half a frozen banana and 2.5 cups spinach.
and, 
Wednesday Breakfast:

the same smoothie-recycled photo- plus 2 slices of Sara Lee 45-calories and delightful bread with Earth Balance:

Unintentional, I'm telling you! The only reason I had this bread was because I had forgotten to thaw out some more California Bread...
next,
Tuesday Lunch:

a glorious carrot mountain! and lotsa these...

equally glorious raw veggies! 1/2 a head of broc and 2 stalks of celery
then after work I was craving protein and had a Morningstar Black Bean burger with a slice of tomato:

delicious, minus the second to last bite I dropped on the floor :(
interestingly enough, I had packed for
Wednesday's Lunch:
more broccoli, celery, and chopped carrots...but then it turned out that there was an Employee Picnic! I had RSVP'd to it quite a while ago with a request for a veggie burger that I was sure they would mess up. Last year I also signed up for a veggie burger and was unceremoniously given a greasy, gray, meaty hamburger. I told the cooks it wasn't correct and they spent 20 minutes (Seriously!?) trying to convince me that it was a veggie burger and urging me to "try it!" Finally everything got sorted out, but I wasn't looking forward to going through that fiasco again this year!
Luckily for me- there was a separate table for veggie burgers this year!

I ditched the bun and added the veggies from the condiment stand to the veggies I had packed (sans broc). The chips up top- they were saved for my boyfriend! His favorite- Jalapeno flavored :)
The burger was Boca- funny how I can tell them all apart by brand... and funny that I had a veggie burger two days in a row!
After work Tuesday I got on Netflix and streamed a workout video: SELF Bikini Ready Body. It was actually great! I was a bit wary at first when the instructor had me marching in place to warm up... but it turned out to be a rocking workout! I literally held my 5lb weights in my hands and didn't get to put the down for a good 20 minutes! My arms were burning afterwards- it felt great :) On Wednesday I tried to find another workout on Netflix but am apparently not coordinated enough for aerobics... I must have done 7 minutes of 4 different workout videos before I finally put Jillian's 30-Day Shred in. I was feeling ambitious and decided to try Level 2 for the first time. Apparently that was also a mistake...I gave up about half way through and took a shower. I'm sure I could get though that workout the next time I try it but I was frustrated at my Netflix/me being uncoordinated fiasco and my heart wasn't in the workout anymore. Does that ever happen to you?
Moving on to
Tuesday's Dinner:

Spring Mix was the star of this! I topped it with a chopped up granny smith apple, several sliced strawberries, and drizzles of both agave nectar and oil from my hot mango relish jar. I had World Market sweet & spicy tortilla chips with flax on the side.
And dessert:

2 squares of Lindt Dark Chocolate with a Touch of Sea Salt chocolate.
and for
Wednesday's Dinner:
Spring Mix was also the star, this time topped with black beans:

(plus wine on the side), and with Idli! I experimented and threw a few black beans on top of each idli before they steamed:

and of course I needed some spicy hot chutney sprinkled on top! That looks like a ton of idli but I only used 1/4 cup of the rice flour mix! It expands quite a bit. It's a great low-cal meal though (if you are looking for low cal meals)- this serving of idli was only 200 calories with 8 grams of protein and no fat! calculated without the beans
For those of you who do not know, Idli is a steamed cake made from a fermented batter of rice flour and ground lentils. I posted more about how I make them here. Just scroll past my graduation pics and you will see the process from start to finish!
Dessert:

a tootsie roll that was handed out during the picnic! (picture taken at work!)

Questions:
Do you tend to eat the same things each day, or do you prefer lots of variety in your diet? I have a tendency to get hooked on a certain meal and eat it a lot- but for the sake of my blog I have starting varying things more often so that I'm not posting the same pictures every day! I love variety though- and I absolutely love to try new foods. I can honestly say that I have never met a fruit or a vegetable that I didn't like! mushrooms do not count as veggies in my opinion  :)
and, Are you coordinated? Do you like to dance? 

Semi-Raw Indian Food FAIL/ Carrot WIN

Hey Y'all! How was your Monday?
I am currently suffering from a severe case of Gossip Girl withdrawal. Today is the first Monday in a quite a while that I have not had a new episode to watch!And I won't until next season! welp
In my time of need I turned to delicious food. For breakfast I had some new bread to try: Alvarado Street Bakery California Style Complete Protein Bread.

(last iPhone pic-promise!)
I topped it with some peanut butter and Blackberry conserve that I picked up at World Market yesterday.
Isn't it adorable?!

and just 50 cents.
Lunch also involved a World Market find- Sweet and Spicy Tortilla chips with flax. I had them alongside broccoli and my Raw Beet Carrot Walnut Pate.

The chips were super good! They were really flavorful and reminded me of those Food Should Taste Good chips- but twice the amount for the same price :)
And the pate...not so much. I think I am through with beets for a while. I had an unpictured beet-carrot-ginger juice last night and it sort of put me over the edge. Also through with pink pee.. TMI?! hahaha
I actually hadn't had raw broccoli in a while and I forgot how much I love it! I need to buy it more often.

After lunch I got so immersed in some data entry at work that I finished it too fast! On days when I don't have too much stuff to do I try to stretch out little tasks to fill my day, and I forgot to do that today! So around 2pm I was finished with work, caught up on Google Reader, and even left so many comments on Lookville that I became a Top Adviser for today! I got on Facebook chat for a while then snuck out an hour early :)

After work I hit up the health food store here in Lubbock, Well Body, for some nooch! I have been out of it for too long. I also got some buckwheat groats and wheat berries. Not sure what I'm going to do with those yet- any suggestions?

Once I was finally home I pulled up 2 recipes I've been eying for a while: Raw Indian Style Samosas and Carrot Mountain from Gina's blog.
I slightly modified the samosa recipe by adding 1/8 cup minced onion to the wrapper as well as not grinding my flax because I don't have a grinder.

While it dried away in the oven (at temp 150*), I prepared the filling. I changed it up quite a bit though!
I used:
1 cup cauliflower
1/4 cup peas
1/2 TBSP minced garlic
pinch of garam masala
pinch of hot red chili powder
pinch of salt

The filling tasted great!

 I set it aside and got to work on Gina's Carrot Mountain/ Gajar Halwa recipe.

I have been eating carrot halwa my entire life and really like it- but it's often so sugary that I can't eat much before I feel gross. So, I've been looking forward to trying a healthier version!
I halved the recipe and changed the spices a bit:
instead of nutmeg I used allspice (did not have nutmeg)
instead of saffron I used cardamom pods (did not have saffron and my mom makes it with cardamom!)
quarter the amount of vanilla
used 7 drops of Stevia (did not halve it because my drops aren't very sweet for some reason- NOW brand)

and soymilk instead of almond milk!

MMM...

I think I ate about 1/8 of this while it was cooking! Sooo, so, so good!
It was slightly less sweet than I would have liked (I think almond milk would have been sweeter than soy milk), so I drizzled 1 TBSP of agave nectar over the top before I ate it. 
Perfecto!
Thank you for the recipe, Gina!


After a while the samosas were ready to put together. Unfortunately the crust was falling apart and very soft- again, I think it was the non-ground flax seeds that I ruined it with!
This was the best one:

And all together with a dab of Hot Mango Pickle in the upper left...

3 samosas, half a carrot mountain-dare I say a carrot hill? (the rest for lunch tomorrow!) and some extra stuffing in endive leaves.

The verdict? The samosas were horrible! Well, the wrappers were... They were bland and somehow slimy tasting even though they were dry. I ended up eating the stuffing out of them and eating the rest of everything else. I also had more stuffing leftover in the kitchen and devoured that with more hot mango pickle.

The stuffing was delicious but the gajar halwa was truly the star of the show! I can't wait to have the rest tomorrow! Even though the samosas were a bust, I loved the filling and will probably make it again soon! I should have just rolled it up in a tortilla or something- I will do that next time.

I don't think I have ruined a recipe this badly in quite a while... What is your worst kitchen disaster? And best recipe?

Raw Beet-Carrot Pate, Fashion, and Ask Me Anything

Hello Everyone!
Happy Sunday :) I am so mad- I left my camera at work on Friday and barely have any pictures to show you! But, I can guarantee you that you do not want to see some of the junky foods I've been putting into my body. Yikes! It may or may not involve pizza and cheap Mexican food... I wonder if I used not having my camera as an excuse to eat like that??
But of course I couldn't leave y'all hanging so I created a wonderful recipe yesterday evening and photographed it with my boyfriend's iPhone- that camera isn't too bad!
Introducing: Raw Beet-Carrot Pate
I had 2 beets to use up and wanted to make something fun, so my friend and were brainstorming ideas and looking up recipes. None of the recipes looked too appealing to me, until I got to vegweb.com. I saw a link for Delicious Beet-Carrot Pate. Unfortunately, their website was down or under construction or something!

Never fear, I ran with the title and created my own recipe:
1 beet, peeled and shredded
1 carrot, shredded
1/3 cup walnuts
1 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 teaspoon curry powder
A splash of water to blend

I don't have a very good blender, so I grated my veggies in the food processor first- you may not need to if you have a VitaMix or some other fancy blender :) Add all ingredients to the blender and process until smooth!

Simple and Delicious:

My pate was a little thinner than it should have been because I needed extra water for my blender. Again, if you have a nicer blender, I don't think you would need as much water as I used (about 1/3 cup + 1 TBSP).

The curry powder was amazing in this and really brought out the walnut flavor! This would be amazing with any raw veggies, and I would like to try it spread on romaine leaves or rolled up in swiss chard!
I had a small plate with carrot sticks and tortilla chips:

Nom Nom.

Later in the night I checked back on vegweb.com and compared my recipe to theirs. Their recipe used carrots, beets, bell pepper, and tomato, and sunflower seeds. Sounds great! I can't wait to experiment with this recipe and try a few different things with it. I highly recommend VegWeb though! They have a plethora of amazing recipes and I ended up bookmarking about 10 of them last night!

Now all I need is a dehydrator... I cannot afford an Excalibur (sigh...) but I saw a few cheaper ones online- what do you recommend?

Moving on,
Last week I got some online e-vite to a join a website called Lookville. It's a site where you can post pictures of yourself showing off your outfit and ask questions like- "do you think these shoes go with this dress?" or "what kind of jewelry would you wear with this?" I'm sure it's not a new concept and I was going to delete the e-mail... but for some reason I randomly joined!
I have been having a blast looking at what other people wear, and posting pictures of myself!

Would you be interested in joining this site? It is by invitation only right now, but I have 5 invites to give out! Let me know if you are interested :)
I am by no means some kind of fashionista, but I do like to shop for cute things and would like to start dressing better- now that grad school is around the corner!
Every year I tell myself that I will not wear jeans every day and that I will dress up more- it never happens. Not that there's anything wrong with jeans- I just want to look more put together every day!

And..since I don't have any more pictures to share, I thought I would remind you all that I'm on FormSpring! So, feel free to Ask Me Anything!

Finally, I did not realize that my site required a word verification to comment! How annoying! I am going to remove it now- sorry about that! Please let me know if it's still there when you comment :)

Questions:
Can you recommend a dehydrator that will not break the bank? 
and
Do you like to see recipes on my blog, or would you rather just see what I eat every day? Or both?

Taming the Beast

Hello Lovelies! Happy Hump Day!

Don't you love Mean Girls? I love it so much that I have 2 copies!
I have been eating lots of delicious foods lately...here is one breakfast I have been enjoying:

I have been sneaking some of my boyfriends Cinnamon Toast Crunch! I had it with soy milk and blueberries.
Some Bloobs are Bigger than Others... <3 The Smiths
Then yesterday for lunch I had the remaining half of my Raw Sweet Potato Carrot Apple Salad with the addition of 1/3 block of tempeh, crumbled.

Divine! Something weird happened to me as I was eating this. My stomach was growling so I started eating this a little earlier than I usually eat lunch. As I was eating it, my stomach growled more and more- even as I was shoveling it into my mouth, chewing, and swallowing. The growling was so weird- it felt like my stomach was hollow and I even felt hungrier and hungrier as I ate. After I finished eating, I felt like I hadn't eaten anything! Then, after 20 minutes passed, I felt normal and satisfied. Has this every happened to you?!
After work I came home and lounged around with my new laptop (named Lappy Part II- my old laptop was Ramona and then was renamed Lappy after she spent a week at Circuit City getting treated for STDs viruses) and iPad (currently unnamed- any suggestions?).
After a while I decided to tackle this beast for dinner:

More yucca! This tuber looks so intimidating and kind of gross, but I promise, it is not! Once you get past the waxy tough exterior, it is quite nice. I still have not experimented with the other half of my last yucca- it's in the freezer now and I'll probably take it out this weekend.
I hacked this monster into more fries!
I wanted to make my nutritional yeast queso to go with these but I was sadly very low on the nooch:

That is about 1.5 TBSP right there! I worked with what I had and added some paprika, garlic powder, and extra hot picante sauce along with some water to thin it out a bit.

It tasted great and I didn't need to bother with the stove or dirtying a skillet. Or getting cornstarch all over the place- that stuff is so light, it flies all over the place!
Aerial View:

Up close and Personal:

These are wonderful! You must try them.
While the fries were baking, I made the lunch I ate today.
The star was pretty stripe-y beets:

You can probably guess that I made them into my Brown Rice Beet & Carrot Salad with Olive Oil Cumin Dressing that I raved about last week.

(eaten for lunch today ((Wednesday))
I am actually still feeling a bit down- like I have a cold- from last Thursday! I think it's because I haven't gotten a good night of sleep since then. My family being here + Graduation didn't lend to much rest, and I haven't managed to make it up. Finally around 7:30pm yesterday I took 2 Nyquil as a last resort and called it a night.
And then: my boss decides to text me at 10:30pm with some instructions I needed to follow for something we were doing today! Grrr.... The text woke me up and I tossed and turned for the rest of the night. I was pretty frustrated with her at work today but I didn't want to say anything because 1) she didn't know I had taken sleeping pills and I would have been up at that time any other night she might text me, and 2) I am leaving soon and don't want to create any tension at work by saying something like you know, your text woke me up and I couldn't fall asleep again and now it's your fault that I'm tired today. Would you mention something like this to your boss or co-worker if it happened to you?

Anyways,
I stayed in bed as long as I could this morning and then had a quick breakfast of soymilk and Fiber One cereal:

My lunch was the beet salad, and it was just as good as the last time I ate it :)
After lunch we had a meeting at work and it was decided that the goal for the next two months is to make Sonia as bored as possible. Take her work from her. That way, when she leaves, we won't get a ton of things to do all of a sudden and not be able to do it. I like the sound of that! hehe... So, over the next month and a half, I will be given less and less to do, and focus on training my co-workers on what I do every day!
Also...I am taking a little vacation! Well, nothing exotic or far away or anything- I am going to IL to find an apartment and my mom and sister are coming with me! Then I'm going back to Dallas with them and staying for 10 days. I can't wait to go home and spend time with them :)
After I return, I'll only have 2.5 weeks at my job, then 2 weeks before my boyfriend and I make the journey to IL! I am sure that this summer is going to fly by.
After work I was super hungry and my boyfriend hadn't eaten lunch so we decided to have a Very Early Dinner at a new restaurant in town called Red Hana.
We both got the Mongolian Grill and were given little bowls to fill with anything from the topping bar. We even got to mix our own sauce up!
While we were waiting for our food to be grilled, we had the typical MSG salty soup.

I piled my silver bowl with pea pods, broc, carrots, water chestnuts, pineapple, onion, chives, bell pepper, bamboo shoots, and I can't remember what else (basically every veggie offered!), and chose Udon noodles for my base.

Do you use chopsticks?? I love them! I don't think I use them "properly" but I can pick up my food without stabbing it, and get it to my mouth and that's what counts, right?
The meal was great! We both loved the restaurant and the decor was really cute and modern. I loved these fun lights:

I want them!
Of course, since we ate so early- we were done by 5:30!- I was hungry for a snack around 8.
I made a little plate of delights:

From the top, clockwise: Plantain Chips, Shankar Para, Apple, Lindt Dark Chocolate w/ Sea Salt. Shankar Para is and Indian snack- basically sweet dough that is fried... yum. I ended up having a few more plantain chips also.

What are your favorite snack foods? Do you keep them in the house or just eat them out as a treat?