Cinnamon Rolls Where are you?

Since my tooth cracked I started to eat more soft things, just out of habit even though I have a permant replacement in. With saying that I have been searching for cinnamon rolls, I have looked everywhere that is in my area of Houston and no luck. 

Literally I went to five stores in one day looking for the cinnamon rolls and none to be found; but yet the ones I can't eat where to be find.  However just recently I found some friendly cinnamon rolls at Target.... they look good..... I cooked them.. 

....however they are not the best cinnamon rolls. So I have decide that I am going to have to make my own cinnamon rolls for the next time because these didn't past me very well neither did they for the boyfriend.

Posion me no more....

Finally back on track to my version of normal. I was gone for such a time, a lot has happen that has made me grow.  For instance my allergies were not the only problem I had going on, it happen to be that I had a tooth that was decayed from a bad filling when I was younger. 

Unfortunately because it was a bad filling; my tooth ended up cracking one day when I was at my training for being a supervisor at my job. It was the worst pain in the world to have, which to come to find it was really a blessing that it cracked. Due to that simple fact that under the gumline an infection was growing that was causing a lot of my health issues. 

Since I have had that tooth removed and a replacement put in, I have physical felt much better than I have in a long time. My allergies don't bug me as much as they used too, and I am not getting as sick easily anymore. 

Which has slowly but surely allowed me to head back to a health lifesytle. However now I am so much more concern about sweet things and crunchy things to protect my teeth. I have decided with what has happen that some of my posts will change according to whats going on. 

For those who read this blog, did you ever have a tooth crack?

Release Hot News #VeganMoFo2014 is coming

Hello, everyone this is start of VeganMoFo aka Vegan Month of Foo; its the time of year that a team of bloggers unite to kick up this wonderful blogging event. They are such a wonderful team of people that in fact you don't have to be vegan to be of it but you do have to post 100% percent vegan recipes during the event. 

This year is the 8th Annual Vegan Month of Food (aka VeganMoFo) is ready to take the internet by cats and dogs. September 1,2014, is the date that several hundred bloggers and now including instagrammers from all over the globe will commit to posting vegan food for at least 5 days a week for the whole month of September. Most dedicated participants try to blog all 30 days. Food writers, bloggers and home cooks will write about what they eat, what they cook and even what they imagination to cook with the intention of showing off the wide and delicious world of vegan food. Some participants use VeganMoFo as a motivation to tackle massive culinary projects, some choose a theme for each day or for each week; while others take the challenge on of daily posts from the seams of their pants!

Ha! that's me this year I'm doing this from the seams of my pants, yes I do have a theme but it's on the fly when it comes to writing up posts. On to the press release info, early I mention that instagrammers are part of this even this year. This is something new to the VeganMoFo event, in fact there is a hashtag you can you during the event which is #veganmofo2014. That way if you are curious what vegans are eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - you can take a look and will be amazed at the variety meals and foods. I mean there will be everything from summer produce, family dinners, green smoothies, mountains of cookies, waffles, and ice cream. 

Local blogger Ashley Nikole of Southern Purple Vegan is one of the blogs participating this year. She first began Southern Purple Vegan back in 2011 which focused on her love for vegan food, local restaurant reviews, food recipes and much more about her journey in Texas. 

An alphabetized list of all participating blogs and Instagram accounts will be posted online at the Vegan MoFo Headquarters International (http://www.veganmofo.com). There you will also find information about generating an RSS feed to help you keep track of all the food writing. Vegan MoFo can also be followed on Twitter @veganmofo. VeganMoFo is a grassroots event that has evolved from an international community of vegans who love to cook, and are passionate about sharing their love of vegan food with the rest of the world. First organized by famed vegan chef and cookbook author Isa Chandra Moskowitz (theppk.com), Vegan MoFo has been gathering more and more enthusiasts each year. Anyone interested in food should definitely go online and check it out. And be prepared for a growling stomach!

Wow! Did you get all that awesome information? Isn't it exciting?????! My theme is slightly random, I'm keeping it interesting needless to say I have three themes at one time. My main theme is dinner with a movie, which I pair a vegan meal to the movie I am watching, my other theme is vegan lunches for work and last but not least my 3rd theme is my love for vegan food finds/grocery hauls. I might even include a few vegan friendly places around my area I live.

Computer Nightmare

Going to sleep at night with a computer on can really give someone weird dreams especially when it doesn't go to sleep. I learned this lesson last night when I was attempting to download Microsoft Office 2010, again for the fifth time. It didn't download it got stuck on the screen saying it was downloading, so I went to bed and woke up. It was still on that screen, so I turned the computer off and eventually it decide to download Microsoft Office 2010 after three hours.

Needless to say waiting for 60 days to get Microsoft Office back on my netbook has been a pain in my butt, simply because I haven't been able to do anything. I have been attempting to use Internet based resume builders for posting on the Internet to get jobs, but these builders make your resume the same like everyone else's. That is why I'm so excited to have Microsoft Office back, because now I don't have to use my mom's computer for creating a resume. 

It's really a good thing that I got Microsoft Office to download today;after I got it downloaded my mom told me that her laptop had died. Isn't that a crazy the same day that I finally get Microsoft Office to download my mom's laptop battery completely dies on her and I was about to finish my resume too. My resume is on my mom's dead computer right now so I'm kinda of glad  that I did use the online resume builder, simply because I have some of the information to create a new resume.

Even though my actually almost finished resume is on my mom's computer, I need to whip up something today. I have an awesome friend from high school, we're in choir together; she's going to help me with my resume tomorrow when we meet up. We haven't seen each other since I graduated from high school which was about five years ago. So I'm a little nervous but purely excited to see her , plus we live 5 minutes away from each other we didn't know this until last week.

What do you think of the online resume builders?

Wacky Wednesday at IKEA

Credit

Veggies I know I have been a bad little blogger , forgetting to blog  oops. I have been focused on loosing weight and trying to get myself ready for my family reunion next week. I always post on Instagram,  I usually post picture through out the  day instant of blogging it's easier right now. I got a infection in my middle finger on the right side from a hang nail and it's painful to use that finger.

However I had to write a post today I was in a blogging mood and I went to IKEA in Houston; it was fun. I found out today that IKEA has a cafe inside it which I never knew about until today. I was thinking right away that the cafe wouldn't have any vegan options well I was actually wrong. The IKEA actually had a section of there menu which was for vegetarians and they also listed a vegan option. 

A Picture that I love it's really bright in colors.

I decided to get the vegan option to be on the safe side because I have never eaten at IKEA's cafe. The vegan option was a daily soup that sometimes would be vegan. Well today was my lucky day it was vegan and it was chili; I was actually glad it was chili. It was way to hot today for a soup so chili sound good and in fact my mom who was with me recommend that I get fries too. She made the recommendation for me to put the chili on top the fries and have chili fries, it was the best idea. 

The chili was actually really good in fact it was even better over the fries, I know it was totally junk  food but it was good. The chili had LOTS of vegetables in it and beans so it was very filling. I was hungry when I was eating it so I didn't really look at the food.I did find a couple piece's of furniture that I liked that I will be getting later, me and my mom will buy our stuff at the same time to save on shipping. It's only $59 dollar to where we live which is awesome!

 I hope this wasn't too long of a post or boring. I would like to know what you would like to see me blog about I am not sure if you would like me blogging about my weight loss and my daily meals. Please let me know.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Weight loss update & Weekend Fun pt.1

I have alot about this weekend to post so I am going to break it down into two post's so that I don't scary you off with alot of words. However I did good this week on weight loss I lost 4.4 lbs but gained +1.8lbs so I figured I am still doing good with my weight loss journey. I didn't really keep track of what I eat this past week but this upcoming week I'll start posting what I eat week to week while I lose weight.

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Beside's the weight loss update , I had a great weekend. I am going to break down my weekend into multiple post's for this week because I splurged and got things that I normally don't get. I loved that I got to go to the Farmer's Market on Kirby in Houston; I am not sure if that's the right street or not. It was beautiful weekend , great weather and beautiful tomato's.

My mom showing how big the tomato is compared to the others.

This is just a quick short post I am working on the other parts of this post of this past weekend. I didn't get any photo's of remaining part of the farmer's market except for a few awesome photo's of the things I splurged on.

Beautiful tomato's from farmer's market

What's your favorite thing about going to Farmer's Market, leave a comment below.

Foodie Friday Finds & Fails

I didn't really have anything planned this Friday, so I am going to just wing it. Tomorrow I am going to a Farmer's Market in Houston somewhere, I promise to given information about it and a review. So I have to go see what I have in the kitchen and what I want to make. 

On to the finds & fails of this past two week since I forgot to post last week...First up is spaghetti squash I was so excited to make this but unfortunately it was a epic fail.

Way under cooked but overcooked at the same time.

Next up was a great find at Whole Foods in Sugar land, yes this store is proving me that is plant based diet friendly. I found these yummy pot stickers that were completely veggie.

These were all gone before I got home

The third find is not food related but yet a find of what the weather did in one day here in Houston with a major cell storm. This picture is from down the street from where I live.

Finally a find & a fail at the same time ... Hopping John with homemade cornbread. I learned the black eyed pea's were not cooked all the way which was the fail and find is that I could make it. 

I hope that everyone has a good weekend , let me know if you had any finds or fails this week. Leave me a comment , I love comments.

Review of Marini's Empanada House

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I found a wonderful empanda house right down from my house , it's wonderful. I can walk right  to the place with in a few minutes and get delicious food. I love that it's a family owned business which means that they only operate two locations but serve wonderful food. They are so friendly and excellent  and it makes me feel good that I am supporting a local company.

Inside of a cherry empanada.

They allow you to customize your food however you want it, in fact they have a vegetarian section of their menu , you can make it vegan by omitting the cheese from it when you order the empanada. And the dessert emphana's wow it's like dessert heaven, i was so excited about how many choices their were to choose from. I really like that they have such great selection and of course the food is super good, I want to try the curly fries if possible and maybe a empanada that isn't just the avocado.

Inside of avocado Empanada.

The dessert empanada are sweet however they are prefect amount of sweetness and fried dough. Which I shouldn't be eating that many of them very often, they are very sweet. The price of the place is about average price ($3.00-$7.00) for food because your paying for quality ingredients instant of crap. I am trying more and more to find places that are family owned or local like I used to in Oregon.

Have you ever had a empanada before, leave a comment if you had. I have the information on this restaurant on my vegan friendly tab;Check it out.

Goals Not Resolutions!

Welcome to the year 2012, this is my year. I have decided that resolutions are out and goals are in; simply because we set our self for failure when it's a resolution. With goals you usually hold yourself more accountable for your actions to that goal.

For myself I am setting a few goals that are personal and I will share only five of those here on my blog. The other's will be kept to me and my close friends & family.

So here they are:

1. Removed ANY High Fructose Corn Syrup products from my diet completely.

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2. Do yoga everyday at least 30 minutes per day.

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3. Start college before my next birthday.

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4. Blog more often which means setting time as side each day to write at least 5 posts a week.

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5. Enjoy 2012 because it's my year the year of dragon.

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Is there any goals that you hope to meet this year? Let me know.

Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

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I'll be back on Monday so everyone can have a great New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So like the title says goodbye 2011 and hello 2012. This upcoming year is going to be great for new year since I found out that it's the year of the dragon. Yay!! 

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I haven't really set any goals for myself yet , except that I am hoping to maintain blogging at least 5 times a week and get my butt into college.

What' your goals for this upcoming year? Leave a message I'll reply back to you.

Random Finds and Great Time

Homemade sugar cookie.

 I have really bad allergies right now so I am very out of it. I hope everyone had a great weekend, I know I sure did. I got to see some family that I haven't seen in years and it was nice to see that my aunt was excited to see me. 

I don't really have much time to write up a post but I am going to leave you with some pictures from the past few days. Plus I have some thinking to do since I was offered to go to LA for a couple months so I have a lot to think about.

My mom uses this for smoothie's recipe coming soon.

A one pot chili with avocado (homemade).

Texas Ruby Red Grape Fruit.

Leave a comment below for what you did this weekend ?