Thanksgiving is long past but a friend just sent me some pictures from our vegan feast, and I got so excited that I wanted to post them. It was the best Thanksgiving ever!
(Can you tell I’m counting down the minutes until 5 o’clock hits?)
Neither of these are great photos (I’ll try to get Sarah to send me more!) but here is the menu!
Wine-glazed brussels sprouts, Coconut/ginger/macadamia nut mashed sweet potatoes, whole-wheat rosemary/cranberry/fig stuffing, baked tofu (using an artisanal technique that I’ll explain some other time—it involved 7 lbs. of salt and just as much flour!!), ginger/cranberry sauce, raw carrot/kohlrabi salad with sesame dressing, baked sweet potatoes, and for dessert, homemade cinnamon/vanilla soy ice cream with apple/pear crisp.
YUM!!!!!!!
And here are the chefs (me & Sarah, left to right), after hours of nonstop cooking and too much red wine!
I hope Christmas dinner is just as successful! My mom decided that each member of the family would prepare one dish (so there wasn’t too much pressure on any one person). I think I might make the wine-glazed brussels sprouts from Thanksgiving—they were amazingly delicious. You can find the recipe here (and yes, I’m vegan but eat honey on special occasions). We subbed smart balance light for the butter in the recipe, and didn’t need the added thickener.
Almost there!
Just got back from a lunchtime powerwalk. It was great! I guess cold weather is good for something 
During the summer it’s no fun walking around out there in the concrete jungle. I work on 42nd street a couple avenues away from Times Square (which is NUTS during rush hour), and walked up to Central Park and back down Madison Ave—around 2 miles. Beforehand I enjoyed a yummy lunch of my last perishables (1/2 an avocado and a bag of sugar snap peas) with a Sunshine burger (which totally ROCK if you haven’t ever tried them—they’re a soy-free veggie burger with grains, beans, seeds, and spices). I’ve tried to replicate them and never quite succeeded! This lunch wasn’t super-big but I had a big breakfast (the last of my cinnamon puffins cereal—probably 2c., or 250 calories’ worth, which is more than I usually have—with plain soy yogurt and sunflower seed butter—I was out of fruit 
), and then mid-morning I had a few squares of Ghirardelli super-dark chocolate (a friend gave me a bar for Christmas and I couldn’t resist!) so I wasn’t super-hungry. I did just have some Primal Strips pepperoni soy jerky for a snack, though (don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it!)
My legs feel 1,000 times better this morning after doing yoga again last night. I really think yoga is the only cure for yoga soreness—ironic but true.
Good morning!
I didn’t give a very thorough review of my first Yoga to the People class last night, so I thought I’d talk about it a little. I did Power Flow 1 (the site has 7 free 60-minute power flow classes). Overall I liked the class; the instructor does a good job reminding you not to judge yourself and to focus on your breath. But his voice got a little grating after awhile (at least to my ears). He does a good job building the poses to moments of serious tension, and then building in vinyasas and downward-dog for release. There’s a lot of background noise (it sounds like it’s a live class that was taped), which can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether you’d like a louder class environment vs. a quieter, more introspective practice. I also found some of the class hard to follow, which could be because the instructor used different pose names than I’m used to. But overall, a great way to get in some activity when I’d just be sitting on my butt otherwise
I stayed up WAY too late last night (2AM) in that pre-holiday buzz (compounded by Robot Chicken and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy reruns…this is why I didn’t have TV for 3 years!!!), and ended up having some post-yoga coconut sorbet and plain cinnamon puffins, which I really didn’t need, but when you stay up too late dinner wears off (and sweet tooth often kicks in!)
I’m catching a train at 6 tonight so I need to get in some activity during my lunch hour (or I will seriously go crazy on the train). I’ll check back later!
Today ended up being a great day despite the frigid temperatures: I got a great review at work (plus a $30 amazon giftcard!) and had quite a productive afternoon! I sipped on a coffee throughout the day which definitely helped . . . I also think, oddly, that the cheeseless pizza lunch helped! When I eat something heavy in the middle of the day I find it VERY hard to concentrate afterwards. I need to remember that I work a desk job and that there’s really no need to eat too much at my desk.
I had planned to go to a 7:15 Hatha class but when I got home from work my boyfriend was getting some food ready so I decided to eat with him: Amy’s southwestern veggie soup (YUM!), a sliced red bell pepper and sugar snap peas with hot pepper sabra’s hummus (DOUBLE YUM), 3 pcs. of tofurkey with some Annie’s Woodstock dressing on a wrap, and a couple bran crackers w/ sunflower seed butter. Yum yum yum.
Anyway, I didn’t want to go to the yoga class right after eating AND I was reluctant to spend any more $ today (lunch was expensive!), so, in keeping with the intention of this blog I tried my first free class from yogatothepeople.com. I didn’t follow the whole thing (probably 30 out of 60 minutes) but it was a GREAT way to get started! I did my own thing (with some abs and forward bends) for another 10–20 minutes, and now I am definitely sweaty and happy
A month or so ago my friend (who is a photographer) asked me if I would do a photo shoot for one of her new concepts. I was reluctant becuase my stomach would definitely be showing in these shots, but I decided to do it, and today I got the photos from her. At first I was SUPER uncomfortable looking at them because in a way, it was coming face-to-face (literally) with my body as it is now. But then I looked through them a second time (a couple hrs. later) and was really proud of myself! I’ve come a long way in this past year. Even if my body hasn’t changed, my whole attitude is changing; I’m not waiting until I’m in “good shape” to do stuff like the photo shoot. I also donated my hair (almost a foot!) to Locks of Love (something I thought I’d only do once my face was smaller). But cutting off all that hair gave me a new energy and style and now I’m SO glad I didn’t wait!
I think the REAL reason I was reluctant to cut my hair is that awhile ago, a college friend remarked “I don’t think you should cut your hair. I think it’ll accentuate the things that you’re trying to hide” (i.e. my rather round cheeks). Maybe I should have put “friend” in quotations. It’s amazing how we internalize offhand, inconsiderate comments like this!! I waited years before cutting my hair!
Anyway, by now you’ve probably noted my penchant for random photographs (and cheesy messages from them), but they’re good reminders for me and maybe that will help someone else too. These 2 are from a trip to Paris this past Spring—I’d never been before and was blown away by how beautiful that city is. The first is a view of the city from the Eiffel Tower at sunset, and the second is a view of the Sienne that I can’t get to flip for some reason…oh well! The message: it will never matter what the world sees in you as much as what you see in the world. Cut your hair if you want to—don’t listen to anyone else!!!
We had a department lunch today out at a yummy midtown Italian restaurant, Figaro.
I enjoyed a nice light lunch of a personal-size spinach/sundried tomato pizza with no cheese. I had called ahead to see whether the pasta was vegan, but unfortunately it was all made with egg Doesn’t matter, though; the pizza was great!
Also had a small piece of french bread to start.
My favorite vegan pizza in NYC is from Cafe Viva Gourmet Pizza & Pasta on the Upper West Side. They make a whole-grain GREEN TEA CRUST with caramelized onions/tofu/pesto topping; it’s to die for!! I used to see pizza as junk food and never touch it, but in the past few years I’ve discovered healthy alternatives (like homemade pita pizza!) that have let me enjoy it again
I think I’m going to go to another Hatha class tonight; yoga might be the only cure for my yoga-sore legs!! It’s SO cold in NY right now that my muscles get even tighter when I walk around outside!
Hope everyone is having a great afternoon! Only 26 hours left until I’m heading to VA for Christmas!
