Vegan Bowls

My Vegan Experiment Day 5 – Vegan Bowls

Hi there:

Today is Day 5 of my vegan experiment in the Crazy Sexy You program and I'm still not hungry.  I really expected to be hungry, have mad cravings and be grouchy as a result of not eating meat or drinking coffee or having dairy or gluten.  But, strangely enough, that is not the case. Instead, I discovered a whole new way of eating: to wit, vegan bowls.

Vegan bowls can contain as many elements and combinations of vegan fare as you can imagine.  Today, I had an Udon noodle bowl for lunch that contained rice noodles, baby bok choy, cucumber, bell pepper, toasted sesame oil, chopped peanuts, cilantro, sesame seeds, and a “firecracker” dressing.  I'd picked it up last night at a local vegan restaurant. It was quite tasty and kept me full until my late afternoon snack of carrots and hummus.

For dinner, I had a “coconut grain bowl” from the same restaurant for dinner. It contained carrot , chickpeas, cabbage, bell pepper, coconut oil, brown rice, tamari, coconut milk, shiitake bacon, and kefir lime.  It was delicious! Tamari is not gluten free, however.  Next time, I'll bring them my bottle of coconut aminos and ask them to use that instead.

I had wanted to start out my day with more of the almond banana oatmeal I'd ranted about last night, but I discovered, much to my dismay, that I am out of rolled oats. I stopped at Starbucks on the way in to work and got their oatmeal and a vanilla almond Chai tea latte.  I forgot to order the drink skinny (i.e. unsweetened). OMG, it tasted sweet enough to kill people it had so much sugar in it. I don't remember it tasting that way before.  It could be that my tastebuds are getting more sensitive.  I won't make that mistake again.

When I got to work, I stirred a tablespoon of almond butter into the oatmeal and added a packet of stevia and some raisins.  It was good, but not as good as the CSY oatmeal recipe.

My vacation trip to NYC is imminent.  Since I only have tomorrow to pack and prepare, I stopped at Walmart on my way home and picked up an electric kettle (the hotel I'm staying at has a refrigerator but not a microwave or a coffeemaker) and a Ninja Pro blender.  I plan to stock the room refrigerator with fruits, veggies, greens, and almond milk, and use that to make smoothies and green drinks while I'm away.  I also plan to bring some oatmeal packets and almond butter and CSY trail mix with me so I always have healthy snacks and breakfast options.

I've already scoped out some cool vegan restaurants in NYC, two of which are near my hotel, where I can get “legal” food for lunch and dinner.  I plan to drag my Dad and my stepmom to a vegan restaurant in Greenwich Village that specializes in Latin cuisine (she's Mexican and he's Panamanian), and my sister to a Korean vegan joint that I can't wait to try out.  Trust NYC to take Vegan to a whole new level.

Ah well, it's past my bedtime and I have a writers group video conference at 10:00a.m. Stay tuned as I'll be blogging about my NYC food adventures each day over the next week.  They are bound to be interesting. I wonder if I'll have a chance to sample vegan bowls while I'm there.

Peace,

LJ