Friday Follow Me

Here's a couple ways to stay up to date with me and my blog. I also have included MyFitnessPal username for those who are interested in my fitness .

Follow me on Twitter @SouthnPurpleVeg
Follow me on Instagram as southernpurplevegan
Follow me on YouTube as
ashleyncolin80s
Follow me on MyFitnessPal as southernpurplevegan

Hope everyone has a great day.

Same Old Not Anymore

I am so happy to start out with that my Blogger+ app got an update. Now I am schedule my posts ahead of time , so there well be more posts now. Now that the app is updated , it will make my routine easier. As for my routine I usually sleep in until 9 but that is going to change.

I am going to wake up ealier and go with my mom to Curves. She wants to go but she wants me to be her workout buddy. I cant say no I mean I want to help support my mom with her wanting to get fit. Plus I am still in between jobs right so I have lots of time. I am still looking for a job but I have a commitment coming up in June. So I might have to wait until that commitment is done with.

I am hopefully that I will find a job that is decent. If not at least start applying for school and start on getting a degree. Enough rumbling, today I walked 1.3 miles with my mother. It felt good , afterwards I went home and had a smoothie that was protein based.

It is a basic smoothie I make all the time and it's really good.I make it with a personal small blender to save time and to make sure that there is enough for one serving. This is usually what I drink after a really long workout or I have a coconut yogurt with apples.

What's your favorite post work out drink or meal?

Let me know.

Wacky Wordless Wednesday

Not really a post today just a random picture from adventures of me and dirp man. I have a few posts to type up today and things to do.

Have a great wacky wednesday!

Changing Generations

Growing up in Oregon until the age 9 maybe a fact as to why I was raised to have the choice to be vegetarian. My wonderful mother was vegetarian and she gave me the choice to choose if I wanted to eat meat or not. I am not going to lie I have had meat before and I just felt it was wrong to be eating an animal for food. When there are better choices and options, I had this view at the age of 12. I was eating vegetarian most of my childhood , so needless to say I was raised vegetarian with open views. By age 13 I decided to announce that I was going vegetarian, it was simply to do because my family figured I was vegetarian in the first place.

As you can see vegetarianism was always part of my life for me , it has always been around me. As for my two cousins which are in the same age group they were raised differently than me and we didn't meet until I was 9 years old. So to them my diet and style of eating was consider different to them than what they were used to which was the Standard American Diet. I remember my mom who was vegetarian at the time had to sneak vegetables into there food because they didn't like the taste of them. This went on for a few years, in fact I think until the past few years did they started to like vegetables.

It blew my mind when I found out  that my oldest cousin who is merely only 8 months different in age from me was vegetarian. Growing up he never , I NEVER liked any type of vegetable. I mean if anyone asked him to eat a vegetable it was like giving him a death sentence. Honestly I don't know how or why , he went vegetarian but most of all. I am very proud of my cousin because he understands me and my views. Now there is my last cousin which is his sister, me and her get along in a certain way. We never really got each other and she's my only female cousin in my age group but that doesn't matter.

My youngest cousin recently went vegan within the past month, I believe. I am not to clear on the details all I know is that her and her boyfriend both decided to go vegan after watching Forks Over Knives. I am actually shocked over her going vegan , it was something I would never imagine in my lifetime. However I am surprised but very proud of her. This made me think wow a whole generation of my family doesn't eat any meat, which is amazing. Simply because my family is not use to eating plant based diet.

It shows you that things do change over generations , and that they do not stay the same. I mean even my boyfriend who grew up on Standard American Diet has even decided to go vegetarian. We age close in age ; the same generation needless to say. All of the people I have mention in this blog post; I have never asked them to go vegetarian nor vegan. Maybe expect my boyfriend which he was willing to do over 3 years.

This post was to show how proud I am of my family and how things change over generations. Do you have anything like this in your family? Leave me a comment below.

Time Flys

It's been awhile since I blogged, and I feel bad for not posting anything. I have written down a lot of stuff via paper and meaning to transfer on to my blog. I have been wanting just to write things down first and then typing them up later. I have new things to let everyone know about like I am eating wheat again but in very very small portions.

It seems that I can be very sensitive to wheat depending on a couple of factors, like if I eat it more than twice in a day I have problems. This has made things easier for me to make meals with being said. I have also been cooking from scratch making my own recipes and have so much needed learning experiences. With these learning experiences it made me understand why I love cooking. It's a simply joy of creating something and figuring out the flavors to match with the food.

Needless to say it sparked something in me to want to be a chef and will I have looked into going to school for it. In Texas there is a culinary school just for vegetarians & vegans. Which I was very excited about and have looked into but is expensive. Plus my family doesn't want me to be a chef because I will not make any money.

So as you can see there has been a lot going on plus I have been looking for a job. The job hunting has been going on for about 4 months and so far no luck. Which is very sad, I have experience but yet not able to find me a job. So please excuse me if me nor dirp man posts anything sometimes time flys and life gets in the way.

Truvía® natural sweetener Product Review

Truvia is something I have known about for a year now. I was given samples back when I lived in Oregon. However I am doing this review because I have never told you how good Truvia is. I received this sample from Influenster's VoxBox program, which is pretty cool.

I actually like Truvia for a couple reasons like that it tastes just as sweet or sweeter than sugar. I just recent found out on Truvia's website that this product is also gluten free, kosher and it has no effect on the glycemic index. Which makes me even more happy because I honestly don't like the effects of sugar. Plus I love that people with diabetes can also enjoy this wonderful replacement for sugar.

I put in my coffee every morning that I make coffee, just a little goes a long way. I have learned by personal experience but it does go good in coffee. However sometimes it can be too sweet for me on occasion but I do like over sugar. I haven't tried baking or cooking with it yet but Truvia has some recipes on there site. I figured in the future that I could try some of the recipes in fact here's there information so you can learn more about Truvia; you can go to www.truvia.com or Truvia's Facebook.

Here's the skinny as my cousin would say when asking for information. This was my take on what I think of about Truvia natrual sweetener. I was not paid to review this product nor give a good review , I was simply given a sample by Influesnters VoxBox program to test complimentary.

Happy Sunday

Sorry about the lack posts but for some reason my blogger+ app; I bought hasn't been updating. So I have been blogging but it hasn't been post them. I will retype them up and post them; I hope ya'll have been having a great week.

I have had a very interesting week , I could say. I will fill in the details of what has happen recently in multiple posts. It has been one of those weeks, lots of learning experiences from cooking and a couple of personal success. I successful made my first vegan baked good and my moms picky boyfriend said "that they were good".

That's a up close photo of the final product of the cupcake. Which I am very pleased with it but the cupcake itself was from the The Sweetest Vegan. I love her YouTube channel check it out, it awesome. As far as the frosting it's actually fudge from the cookbook Chloe's Kitchen. They were delicious but room to improve my baking skills.

Have you made anything from Chloe's Kitchen or from The Sweetest Vegan? Let me know leave a comment below.

Meatless Monday, My Attempt At Meal Planning

So it's Monday, I am up early this morning so I figure I would give a crack at meal planning. The reason behind this is, well I either lost or had my grocery money pick pocketed yesterday. It's embarrassing for me lose money, it has never happen to me. So I have a very low budget this week; meal planning seemed perfect for this week

Believe it or not after 2 hours of attempting to meal plan; I came up with nothing. Then I started to look through cookbooks while watching the thunderstorm early this morning. It came to me that I love Mediterranean food and any fusion dish. So I figured this week I would attempt to challenge myself to make fusion dishes.

I have a little bit of fresh produce on hand such as : farm fresh muti color carrots, farm fresh eggplant, farm fresh cucumber, farm fresh baby bok choy, three avocados, four bananas and two onions. So I figure I am pretty set for a couple days , and excited to attempt to make my own fusion dish this week. I figure I would attempt at making a creamy dish with one of the avocados, and as for everything I am not sure.

I am thinking that I am going to wing everything else and see how it goes. I figure that's the best way to cook this week since I am without a computer. Hence no pictures on this post , I am learning how to blog from my iPhone. Any suggestions on what to do with the muti color carrots?

Wordless Wednesday Why I Love So Delicious Ice Cream

No post today just a wonderful picture of what I recently found in my So Delicious Ice Cream.

My New Comfort Food

Personally I usually don't like vegan cheese , honestly I never cared for it. However I have been missing my mac n cheese from when I was vegetarian before I got a milk allergy. I guess this craving come from me growing up with mac n cheese , it's slightly a comfort food even a southern comfort food.

Mac N Cheeze

After trying multiple vegan mac n cheese's including frozen one's , I found Amy's Gluten Free -Dairy Free- Soy Free  Rice Macaroni made with Dairy Free Cheeze. Guess what the Cheeze in this Mac N Cheeze is Daiya Cheese; which I was excited!  It was just like having really mac n cheese from when I was a kid , I  love it so much.

I made this Amy's product without any problem in fact it was very easy to make that I had to give it a well deserved side dish. I made myself some sauteed garlic green beans and serve a little bit of Cajun jalapeno pepper for kick; and no I didn't add them to the green beans. The Cajun jalapeno pepper were on there own with the dish.

My dish after everything was done.

Needless to say that I will be making this meal again and again in the future. I love Daiya Cheese now thanks to Amy's Products , it has finally won me over on a vegan cheese.

Random Sunday

Today, me and dirp man decide to try loving hut. It happens to be about 30 mintues or less from where I live. So we head off looking for loving hut because dirp man want something to satisfy his chicken craving. So here are some photos of what we ate.

The first photo is dirp man's Golden Nuggets; he though delicious. I personally thought that the Golden Nuggets were good.

The second photo I picked out the wontons they offer, I was feeling in the mood for something crunchy. The wontons did fix that craving after one; the wontons were not my favorite.

The third photo is of the BBQ sandwich that loving hut offers. Dirp Man and I love this sandwich in fact we both fought over who was going to eat the sandwich. We end up splitting the sandwich to be fair. The flavors were excellent , it was very delicious.

Review: Pat Greers Kitchen Pizza Bella

Since I have gotten back to Houston , I noticed that the area I live in is almost avoid of anything vegan friendly. However one day at the Farmer's Market in Upper Kirby area I got to meet the lovely Pat Greer , she makes raw vegan food. I was excited because I love raw food it makes me feel so clean and light. After I found out about her food , she gave me a card of hers and said to stop by sometime.

 I would do this but her location isn't very close to where I live. So I decide that I had to find away to get her food, so I went on the mission to find her food near where I live. In fact I did ; I found out that My Fit Foods down the street got deliveries of her food each week. Two times a week to be exact which are Thursday & Saturday if I remember correctly. Enough of the back store of how I found Pat Greers food , on to the review.

Pizza Bella in it's Container.

So until I found Pat Greers I have never really tried raw vegan food except for a every few times. Since this was going to official be my first raw dish, I decide to get the Pizza Bella. I figured I want to find an alternative to "normal" pizza , so I gave this a shot with not knowing what it was going to taste like.

Pizza Bella 

First thingthat comes to mind about the Pizza Bella is that it's "Out of this world delicious". I love that the pizza portion of the Pizza Bella is made of a Portabello Mushroom; which these are my favorite type of mushroom. So I knew that it was just going to get better, and I was right in my opinion. The flavors of the Pizza Bella are just perfect I almost couldn't tell that it wasn't raw because all the flavor's blend so well together.

I would say that next time I go back to My Fit Foods , if the Pizza Bella is there I would get it in a heartbeat. Pizza Bella fills my pizza avoid without feel bloat or guilty about eating wheat, it's a win for me. I mean raw pizza vs cooked pizza , I am not seeing a reason not to love the raw version instant. I have bought more of Pat Greer food after this Pizza Bella, so I will follow up with reviews of the other Pat Greer products that I have tried.


Here's information where the location is:


412 W. Clay St. Houston, TX 77019
Website: http://www.patgreerskitchen.com/

On A Mission That May Be Impossible

So me and Dirp Man are on a mission to eat at every restaurant that offer's a vegetarian or vegan meal options in the neighborhood; we live in. This will be something that we  think may be possible, however it will take time to accomplish.

Me and Dirp Man live in the Houston area , so yes there are vegan friendly options. Never the less the part of Houston we live in isn't very vegetarian or vegan friendly;we live in the far west of Houston. Needless to say found a few options but not many. 

The reason behind this mission is, well I mostly want to find those gems in the area we live in. For Dirp Man he wants to learn where he can go to get food; he's new to vegetarianism. So far I know of a couple places, but not many.

Here's a sneak photo of a Mediterran restaurant down the street from where I live; Dirp Man and I will be going back soon. So the review of the restaurant will come soon may in two weeks or sooner.

Meatless Monday

So I am already meatless at everyone of my meals but I decide to post what I ate for Monday. I didn't make anything due family wanted to get Mission Burrito and I couldn't turn it down. For those who don't have Mission Burrito near them it's like Chiplote but 10x's better and more choices.

It's always so delicious and very vegetarian/vegan friendly , they do serve meat so if you want to make sure that they isn't any trace of meat; just ask for them to switch out there gloves before making your food. Now on to the best part of this post the food, well I only got a few shots of my food before I decide to attack it. I was pretty hungry by the time we got home, however the burrito was huge so I end up eating only part of the burrito.

The girl who made my burrito knows me pretty well so when I come in she always puts a smiley on my burrito because she is vegetarian. This girl loves that I am vegan in Texas , she said " I think that your brave to be vegan here in Houston because it's hard to be vegetarian". It's always nice to get nice feedback or nice words from a stranger.

Back to the HUGE burrito , I even compared it to a medium size loaf of bread so you can see how big it really is. Once I started to attempt to eat it, the paper plate I was eating it on end up not being such a great idea; it turn into a gigantic pile of food.

So half of this burrito was put away in a bag to eat later, it was way too much food to eat. Have you every had anything like Mission Burrito before?

No Excuses But...

Honestly I know I have been lacking on my blog , and simply there are a few reasons to that. I was tried of trying to stay up at night when the computer was available to write up a post. I feel that with my post if I can't post a interesting topic , then I shouldn't post anything at all. 

However going forward I decided that I am going to write anything related to these topics: health, politics on food, food safety, vegan diet, gluten free, movies , zombies and recipes. I know that the list is kinda of big , and some random things too but that is what I feel like blogging about. 

I will commit to blog at three times a week , is because there is only one computer and two people. I am in the process of attempting to get my own laptop or netbook but I don't know when that is going to be. Sorry for this rant but I wanted to give a little insight as to why I dropped off the blogosphere for a week.

Catching Up

I am so sorry for the lack of posts but I have been off in lala land recently. So my mind wasn't thinking about blogging but I do have alot to catch up on here on the blog.  Yesterday I got to see one my childhood friends we have known each other since we were 9. 

It has been four years since I have seen her since I moved away from Texas to Oregon , but now that I moved back I was lucky to see her. It was nice to catch up with an old friend and see that a lot has changed in four years; my friend she now has two little boys and is married. 

Oh boy did that make me to start feeling old , I mean most of the people I knew from high school are now married or have children. As far as me, she got to meet my lovely sweet boyfriend yesterday that she has heard so much about.

That's all I have to post today , I am curious have you ever had a meetup with old childhood friend that just made you realize that your getting older?

Very Carrot Soup

Last week in my house we had about 4 pounds of carrots that need to be use grant we do eat carrot;however in my family we don't eat that much carrots. So I was thinking of making some agave sweetened carrots but I am too lazy to figure out how to do that. 

Source

Since I didn't go with agave sweetened carrots recipe to use up some of the carrots; I decided to make a ginger potato, onion , carrot creamy soup. So I went to work and boiled everything together including a little curry spice. The soup had a very good taste it wasn't bad but it wasn't done yet. I still had to figure out how to blend the soup together to make it creamy ; and I only have like something like a magic bullet 

The Carrot soup has it was being blend carefully.

I had to figure out how to blend a big pot of soup with one little bullet like blender, it worked out but ended out taking an hour just to blend the soup. I was amazed that I even got it done in the first place, it took so long to blend. However the reward of eating the soup afterwards was wonderful it tasted delicious and very flavorful.

Carrot Soup with green onion topping it.

Have you ever made carrot soup before , any tricks to make it easier?

My First Gluten Free Dinner

I got inspired yesterday to make my first home cooked gluten free meal. I was very undecided about what I wanted to make myself since I was so hungry at the time. But then I got inspired from when I had my CSA share back in Oregon. I made this wonderful dish with green beans, potato's and onions plus what ever I had on hand.

Source

The reason why this idea come up was my mom had some fresh green beans in the fridge that she wanted me to eat. Not only that she had fresh green beans, she went to the farmer's market and got quite a few things: local organic green onions, local organic cilantro, local organic salad mix and local portobello mushrooms.

The wonderful dish.

With all those wonderful ingredients minus the salad mix and cilantro , plus adding in a little red onion. I come up with a wonderful dish that was so fricking good, I wish that there was more when I made it. The dish had no oil of any type unless it was in the Dijon mustard that I had used. Which brings me to what I used to create a marinade made of maple syrup and Dijon mustard with a dash of pepper.

My wonderful dish.

I wish I could give you guys that recipe but it was made off the tip of my knife , I will try to recreate the recipe again. So that you too can enjoy this wonderful dish, have you ever made a gluten free meal?

Say Wheat?

I don't know where to start, but what I do know to say is that I no longer eat wheat. I am not gluten free just wheat free ; when I removed wheat from my diet in the past few days. I  have felt lighter and my stomach area wasn't bloated anymore. Plus I started to loose weight again and felt great.

Source

I am very new to not eating wheat so this is going to interesting , needless to say my family supports me in my decision of going wheat free. However I found that I want to tempt myself with things that have wheat and afterwards I am all bloated and heavy.

So being wheat free is one of my many changes to my diet but this is the biggest change. It going to be a journey on how to eat wheat free, so I am going to start weekly posts of my wheat free meals or finds.

Please feel free to leave me any comments or good recipes to wheat free meals.

One Computer , Two People

Sorry about the lack of post's but in my house we only have the one laptop for two people to use. Well the other person that has been using it , needs more than me because they are looking for a new job. I am going to type up alot of posts tomorrow when I am able to use the computer and set them to auto post. 

I have a few new things to share with you in regards to my eating habit/diet it's changing again; I am still going to be vegan but there are changes.