Vegan shopping at Aldi

My husband and I have decided to keep an eye on our grocery spending- turns out going to Whole Foods on an empty stomach isn't very friendly.



So I decided to see what Aldi could offer to vegans. I was pleasantly surprised. Here is what I picked up this past Sunday:



2 cans tomato paste @ .39 each

big can pinto beans @.999

regular can kidney beans @ .59

can corn @.55

2 cans stewed tomatoes @.55

24 oz jar medium salsa @1.49

chili powder @ 1.09

frozen hashbrown patties @ 2.99

Apple Crunchies cereal @ 1.49

Choco peanut butter cereal @1.89

2 lbs red grapes @ 1.58

peanut butter filled pretzels @.99

adzuki bean and brown rice chipes @.99



With tax I spent $16.81.



I supplemented this with some produce and tortillas from our local gocery store. My total for the week is $27! What a bargain!

Lazy Sunday

Keeping up with a blog is harder than expected! I am a dedicated lounger and the thought of typing a post can be exhausting! So here is a mega post from the past week or so.

I found this sushi kit when I visited my sister in Peoria:

I was intrigued. Inside was seaweed wrappers, soy sauce, and brown sushi rice.

I filled each wrapper with cucumber, carrot, the rice, and avocado. Clearly, this was my first attempt at homemade sushi. It tasted great, though.

Valentine's Day provided me with a wonderful opportunity to make my first raw dessert!!

I made chocolate lava cake from Ani Phyo's Raw Desserts book. Well, it wasn't totally wrong because I used cocoa powder instead of cocao powder, but the taste was awesome. I can't wait to try more raw desserts!!!!!

The raspberry sauce really made the cake!

In closing, I leave you with a big bowl of delicious kale. I ate an entire bunch! I LOVE this recipe. Heaven in a bowl.

Give Away at Ginger is the New Pink

Check out this awesome giveaway on Lauren's blog!

Banana Coffee Cake, Brunch, and BBQ Tofu

I had a mini hiatus due to a combination of laziness and a mini business trip. I went on a three day trip to the Special Olympics Illinois Winter Games for work. Now I'm back in action!

Last weekend I made a Bisquick coffee cake, replacing the egg with banana. This was a much better use for our 5 lbs of Bisquick than our attempt to make pancakes with the mix.

It's turning into a weekly tradition to have our friend Natalie over for brunch on the weekend. This time I made a variation of Egg McVegans. Even though we didn't have any vegan cheese, this recipe was still great. I used tempeh bacon instead of the vegan sausage it calls for.

One night for dinner I made the super easy Crockpot BBQ Tofu. I served it with mac n cheeze with veggies and a biscuit. A nice vegan take on a traditional family dinner!

YUM YUM overload

I spent Sunday doing laundry at my parent’s house in exchange for being their personal bartender. I have the title of making the best mojitos anyone has ever had (no one had ever had them before) but I totally ruined that reputation on Sunday. Not sure where I went wrong…

Anyway, on Sunday evening I made a thai inspired meal for the hubbub and myself. I mixed a can of light coconut milk with Thai Kitchen red curry paste, added veggies and Trader Joe’s beefless strips and served it over brown jasmine rice.

The curry was a little milder than I would have liked, but overall this was great. Next time I would replace the beefless strips with tofu to introduce some more texture into the dish.

My mom gave me some fresh ginger while I was over on Sunday, and I decided to make Ginger Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking. These came out awesome- really refreshing and a great way to start off the morning!

I started off Monday morning with a banana, papaya, blueberry, lettuce and green tea smoothie. It was the first time I added cold tea to a smoothie and although I went overboard, I could tell that in moderate amounts it will be a nice addition.

My new love is carrot spaghetti!!!! I saw this recipe on Vegweb I had to try it. I actually don’t like carrots that much, but this intrigued me. You peel the carrots, sauté them in olive oil, add onion and garlic, and salt and pepper and let cook.

The recipe said to add marinara sauce and enjoy, but I was worried about straight up carrots, so I mixed in some pasta. Next time I am going to do all carrots.

Have a good rest of the week!

Saturday Brunch

Our friend Natalie came over for brunch this morning. I made a casserole last night and baked it in the morning. It had whole wheat bread, tempeh bacon, tofu, potato flakes, and vegan cheese. I got the recipe off someone's blog but now I can't remember who's! This was an indulgent treat after my boot camp class. I served it up with a raw kale and tomato salad and coffee.Yay for veganizing recipes!

A Lunch and Dinner

Hello! TGIF to the max. I am running on 4 hours of sleep and 400 pounds of stress! Damn my type A personality. Anyway, on to the food! For lunch one day I had an organic apple (nothing beats a freaking organic apple. pure and fresh) and a sunshine burger in a pita with lettuce and hummus. woohoo!A few nights ago I veganized a recipe I found on the interwebs. It was something like bisquick, milk, parmasean cheese (I subbed in nutritional yeast), a ton of veggies and maybe something else. This was TOTAL bollocks. It never really firmed up. It was an ooey, gooey, messy pile of nasty. Epi-nasty.

I'm looking forward to actually getting some sleep tonight and to an enjoyable Saturday and Sunday. I hope to have some better recipes from this weekend to post!