Fooooodddd

Happy Monday! I wanted to do a quick recap of food that I played with this weekend.

Honesty time:
On Saturday morning my mother and I went to breakfast, and there were no vegan options. Everything had egg in it. However, I stayed as vegan as possible. I ordered granola pancakes with fruit on the side.

After breakfast, I made my way to Pasadena for a 5 mile hike. My friend set a pace that felt more like a light jog up the mountain, which was exhausting. Then after taking in the sights at the top, we ran back down it, which was SCARY but awesome. I am still very sore after that adventure. Here are a few pics:

This was just a test run so I could learn the route, because next weekend I'm going to take a group of people up here. I'll have better picks next weekend. The view is amazing!

Lunch was a Vega One Nutritional Shake made with almond milk and a LARABAR.

Dinner was a delicious Roasted Veggie Taco Bowl. This recipe was semi-homemade thanks to Fresh & Easy, and I used some of the veggies I had leftover from the pizza I made the night before.

Ingredients:
- Tri Color Quinoa
- Mango salsa
- Guacamole
- Zucchini sliced into long strips
- Red Peppers sliced into strips
- Sea salt
- Black pepper
- Lemon Pepper
- Black Beans
- Chipotle in adobo
- Jalapeno Hummus

While my oven pre-heated to 450, I cooked the quinoa and mixed it with the mango salsa and let it sit while I cooked everything else. In my opinion, quinoa can be a bit earthy, but I find that when I mix citrus in it like lemon or salsa, it takes on a really nice flavor.

Once you've mixed your quinoa, slice the veggies into long strips and coat with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon pepper. Then spread them on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes.

Next up is the black beans. Just open up a can and cook them on the stove top. I love the smokiness that chipotle in adobo gives food, so I chopped up one chipotle pepper and added it to the beans.

The bowl is all about layers. I started with quinoa at the base, black beans, roasted veggies, guac and topped it off with the jalapeno hummus. It was an explosion of flavors! Soooo good!

Sunday:

Breakfast: Key Lime Pie LARABAR

Lunch: Taco Bowl Leftovers

Dinner:  Vodka Penne Pasta with roasted Brussels Sprouts. The sauce was amazing!

This recipe was tweeted by Kris Carr, founder of Crazy Sexy Wellness earlier this week, and I thought it was the perfect meal to make for Sunday dinner with my parents.

She used a Brown Rice Pasta, but because my Dad is so hesitant about me being vegan, I used regular penne pasta. Everyone loved the recipe!

For the Brussells sprouts, simply cut off the bottoms of each sprout and chop in half. Mix them with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Heat oven to 400 and cook for 13-15 minutes or until they brown a bit. Once the Brussells sprouts are finished cooking, hit them with a bit more lemon juice.

Sorry for a poor quality of pics. I will start using my camera instead of my iPhone.