Monday 23 September 2013

June and July Highlights

 I haven't been keeping up with blogging for the last while. The reason is very exciting though. My husband and I went to Europe this summer! I didn't realize how much planning is involved and I only did half of it, phew. A food related and exciting part (for me) of the planning was how we were going to manage eating plant strong while travelling. Luckily, there are many others that have shared this information. I was looking for tips on eating vegan, plant based, healthy and budget friendly. After a lot of research and bookmarking a few restaurants via Happy Cow, our main staples ended up being: oatmeal, bread, fresh local fruit and veg, more bread, hummus, canned beans, pasta, quick brown rice and rye crackers. A few websites that gave me these tips are: Vegan Backpacker, Healthy Vegan Recipes and Happy Herbivore.

In retrospect, it was much easier to stay vegan than (whole foods) plant based since we visited so many cities and had a lot of travel days. I ended up eating more processed foods than I had planned and found it a little difficult to avoid added oils. That said, this trip is probably the only one of its kind we'll do. We were gone over 6 weeks and visited almost 20 cities! As incredible as it was, I do miss my whole foods plant strong lifestyle and am excited to get back at it.

Here are a few food highlights from June and July before we left for our trip. 


Potato chickpea curry. I used the base of Fat Free Vegan Kitchen's Cauliflower Curry Soup and replaced the cauliflower and sweet potato with Yukon Gold potatoes. I do this with recipes when I don't feel like making a special shopping trip for the specific ingredients. This especially works with soups, use a base you like and see if the ingredients make a good fit. Sometimes, you can create something that's even better than what you started with! Or sometimes you end up with a bust, but that is how you find out what doesn't work, which is equally as important in my opinion.


Donut Peach from Kin's Farm Market on top of spinach. 


Kale from my parent's garden. I didn't realize that fresh really is better, until I tasted it ;) 


When my parent's were away in June I pulled out my mom's Chipster and made some sweet potato chips. 


And they turned out pretty good! A little uneven in some spots, but tasty. I microwaved them a little longer than the instructions for regular potatoes adding 30 secs at a time until there were no soft spots left. They were crispy, sweet and oil free! 


I went to a race by myself, it was my first time going alone and I'm glad I pushed myself to go. It was the Canada Day Rock in White Rock. A very hot day, so I'm glad we had an early start. 

I ate the other half before the photo - so hungry! 
Since the post race snacks were pancakes, brownies and birthday cake...I decided to look for an option that would keep me feeling good. There was a small restaurant across from the start/finish line called Karmel cafe. I ordered a vegetable wrap with no sauce and was happy to see some extra veg on the side. Great snack after running on a hot summer day. 

Now that we are back, I plan to write a little about our travels including packing, food and restaurants.