mom in NYC!

My mom came to visit me this weekend here in the Big Apple! Although she grew up in Brooklyn, she hasn't seen NYC from her daughters college-kid eyeballs. We were both really excited before she got here, so I decided to meet her at the airport. From there are weekend took off, although with a slow start.

Wednesday:
I met mom at the airport, than we rode the subway back to the village. We walked to her hotel (very nice!) and checked her in. After, we walked around a bit, although it was about 7 PM. We parted ways after a bit, because I had to go to cycle practice at the gym (more about that in a later post). Mom walked around a bit, towards uptown after I left her, then we both went to sleep.

Thursday:
My cousin was also in town this past week, with one of his friends. Tyler, Kris, and I all met up in the morning so I could show the boys around the village before class. We walked around, and ended up at my favorite place in Soho for a late breakfast. I left the boys before class, and met up with my mom's cousin Paul and her after class. We went to our normal vegetarian place called "Gobo" on 6th ave, and I got soup. Mom and Paul both got the veggie burger, which they enjoyed. Our lunch was delicious. After, we all walked down 14th st. to the Highline, my favorite park. After a brief relaxing sit in the park, I went back to do some homework before I met up with Mom again.
After some homework, I met Mom at her hotel, and we went up to Grand Central Station. We walked around, looked at things, and walked through the famous market. Next, we decided to go to a small dinner at a french chain. It was delicious and exactly what we needed before heading out to the Empire State Building.

We met up with my friend from home, who now goes to Columbia, at the Empire State Building. There isn't much to say in words that pictures can't say, the view is beautiful and amazing.

NYU! The white thing in the middle is the Washington Square Arch.

Friday:
Mom and I got up, exercised, then went to lunch at one of my dining halls. I figured we could go for a meal to show mom what it's like, and to grab just a salad before we went off on our day. Afterwards, we went to the 9/11 Memorial. It was a bit of a horrible day outside, very cold and foggy. The memorial was interesting, sad, but very powerful especially with the weather.

Next, we walked around Soho and stopped off at the Cartoon Museum. I've never been there, and although a small place it was really interesting. They had a lot of Batman comics, but also an Archie bit.

For dinner that night we met up with a lot of family. Seven people in total came to eat at Angelica's Kitchen, all from my mom's side of the family. Tyler and Kris were part of that, so it was good to talk to some young adults from my family. I had a small order of the daily sushi, and a small order of what's called a "dragon bowl". Although the food was incredible, the company was even better. I highly enjoyed seeing my family, since it's a rarity.

Saturday:
We went out to see another part of my mom's family in Long Island for lunch. Lunch was at Red Lobster, which I've never been to. I kept my mouth shut about the food choices, and enjoyed spending time with extended family. The important part was my mom's enjoyment in spending time with family she hardly gets to see. After lunch we took a drive over to Jones Beach, a beach in Long Island. It was extremely windy yesterday, so we mostly stayed in the car. However, because of the storm clouds and the sunshine, the beach was beautiful. You could see all of the dark clouds illuminated by the sunlight, and the empty beach lit up as well. It was really really nice, I wish I got a picture.
After returning to Manhattan we rested a bit, got dressed up slightly, then headed uptown to Blossom Cafe for mom's last night in the city. Blossom Cafe is an upscale vegan restaurant, and somewhere I've always wanted to go. Words can't describe how amazing the meal was...

A starter of black eyed pea cakes, my gluten free zucchini lasagna, and my mom's veggie burger with french fries. Everything was amazing, absolutely delicious and spectacular. But our meal hardly compared to our dessert..

Chocolate ganache cake. Oh man... as my mom says "that was the best cake I've ever had in my entire life." And so you know, she's not always a fan of vegan desserts. It was moist, light in the right places, heavy in others, and extremely perfectly chocolatey. The ganache on top was sweet, and the crumbs on the outside of the cake really made it perfect. I may bike up to Blossom Cafe just to get some of this cake in the future...
After our amazing meal, we walked along central park west towards fifth ave, where we caught the subway and walked back to our separate beds.

Sunday:
After a weekend of activity and fun, I had to sleep in and relax a bit until mom was done jogging. We met up before lunch, dropped her things off at my dorm, and went to lunch with my roommate. I picked out a Thai food place, that seemed to be pretty healthy based off the yelp reviews. Not that far from our dorm, this place was called Pukk. It ended up to be spectacular, and I think I'll go again before the year is through. All three of us got lunch specials, which included a vegetable soup, an appetizer, and an entree.

Mom got spring rolls with fried rice, and I got a green salad with pad see ew. My roomy got the green salad with pad thai, which she also really liked. The food was really good, and almost perfect sizing.
After lunch, mom and I strolled through Soho, then ended up back at my dorm where we said goodbye. It was very sad to see my mom go, but I know I'll see her again when I go back for Spring Break. I'm glad (and hope) she enjoyed NYC and seeing tons of vegan food, and even more family. I now have my fridge stocked with leftovers, which I'm very excited about. More on how biking is going next time. I'll leave you with a picture of something I found in Union Square:

*I was not contacted by any restaurant, and all opinions on this blog about any food source are all of my own.

vegan at NYU 102

I recently discovered how to make an amazing dinner by combining dining hall food, and a few trader joe's products. There's no name for what I created, maybe vegan gumbo? or, stew? not sure... would like to know what other people think.

Basically all you do is get an entire thing of vegetables from the dining hall:

Throw it into tomato sauce on top of the stove:

Then keep on adding!

Then, add the spices while the pot is still on the stove:

Then go ahead and throw in some black beans, and heated up rice into the mix:

Keep the stew/gumbo/dish heated until your vegetables are soft, and everything is mixed.

This made a HUGE pot.. I can probably eat it for at least 5-10 more meals... It's incredible.

The things that are in this mix:
-onions
-zucchini
-mushrooms
-broccoli
-cauliflower
-peas
-bell peppers
-baby corn
-spinach
-tomato sauce (tomatoes!)
-black beans
-brown rice
-pepper
-garlic salt
-nutritional yeast

This gives you tons of different types of vegetables, a complete protein, whole grains, and a bit of B12 vitamins from the yeast. I can't rave about this enough.... So simple, not time consuming, and utilizing the dining halls. This recipe is also gluten free, as well as vegan.

Enjoy! :)

banana pear vegan gluten free pancakes

I think I've found my new favorite breakfast dish this morning..

Banana, pear, vegan, gluten free, three-servings-of-fruit, pancakes. I made these up based off memory of pancakes I made after my stomach procedure- but I added some pears that I had on hand. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
-1 ripe banana
-1 cup almond milk
-1 cup all purpose gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
-2 tsp baking powder
-1 packet truvia (or 1 tbsp sugar)
-1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
-1 tbsp applesauce
-2 pears for topping

Method:
-mash banana and mix with almond milk
-mix in all other ingredients except pears

-turn on stove to low setting (3.5 out of 10 on my dorm stove) and place greased pan on top
-chop pears as small as you'd like, and place in batter

-pour pancake batter onto heated pan, and cook until bubbly or golden brown (or darker) on either side

Enjoy topped with maple syrup or just plain! These are a delicious way to start my homework filled, superbowl Sunday :)

surprising nutrition facts

This semester I'm taking an intro to nutrition and health class, which so far I LOVE. I'll most likely be sharing lots of tips and information from that class throughout the semester, and hopefully beyond. Sorry in advance for the amount of text that is in this post- I promise that next time I'll have more pictures and less words.

Although I've learned many new things, one thing really aggravated me about food labels. I'm not a calorie counter, but I am conscious of checking nutrition facts before consuming a packaged food. I'll use the exercise we did in class to share what I learned:

take for instance a "100- calorie" vitatop. (I actually have no idea what this is- apparently it's a breakfast food that is the top of a muffin fortified with tons of vitamins.. it's supposed to be healthy, but so processed?)

The package reads that there is 100 calories in it, but when you do the math and calculate out the calories based off the protein, fat, and carbohydrates you come out with 126 calories. *to do the math you calculate the grams of these nutrients times how many grams per calorie there is (9 cal/gram of fat, 4 cal/gram for protein and carbs), then add them all up.

So, this vitatop that is advertised as 100 calories is truly 126 calories- which is a lot more than they perceive their product to have. You may be thinking that 26 extra calories is not much- but every processed food you eat is most likely lying to you about the calories. Food Labels are allowed to do this because:

-Food labels are allowed to round, but must have 20% accuracy within the true amount of calories. Therefore a 100 calorie product can say they have anywhere from 80-120 calories. Similarly, a 500 calorie product can say that they have anywhere from 400-600 calories. It adds up..
-If there are more than 5g of fiber within the product, food companies are allowed to deduct calories from the total amount (hence why the vitatop goes outside the 20% range). This could be good and bad, depending on your calorie needs.

Knowing this, I'm not going to go out and count calories, or calculate every amount. I feel more aware and, honestly, frustrated that food companies are allowed to show their food labels incorrectly. For people who are watching their weight, and count the amount of calories they eat- they are being lied to. I'm not sure if the government or USDA has tried to change these rules, but I'd sure like to see someone try.

Besides my frustration of food labels, my friend from home sent me my birthday present:

A new matching scarf and beanie set! Purple and white- although the colors in the picture are a bit funky. I'm in love :), and have already worn it out today to drop off my food compost. I'm off to do some homework.. :)

gluten free vegan brownies

Before I left California, I stopped at my favorite grocery store; Berkeley Bowl. If any of you live in the Bay Area, and haven't made the trip to Berkeley Bowl you are missing out. Now that there are two, it's a lot more convenient to get to. The new Berkeley Bowl is right near my work, in walking distance, so it's perfect.

Besides veggies and such, I picked up something to indulge myself with;

certified gluten free, certified vegan. I was skeptic- I'm not a big brownie lover, but I do enjoy them sometimes. This mix is made with brown rice mostly, along with other things.
I decided to try it today, since I don't have that much homework yet (I may be the only college student that never procrastinates... EVER). I opened up the package to find an inside package with huge chocolate chunks! I didn't get a picture because I was so excited! I have rarely found a brownie mix that comes with huge chocolate chunks to mix.

Even the batter looks creamy and delicious. I may even be brave enough and say it looks luscious..

One hour later (after 30 minute cook time, 30 minute cooling), going to a meeting in my dorm led by one of the biggest teen celebrities (comment if you'd like to know who!) and slicing the brownies, I was left with this;

I forgot to take a picture while they were still in the pan... but someone got to them before I even saw the whole pan full while I was at the meeting. I sliced these up to freeze them, so I can enjoy them for awhile. Before I did I tasted it, and man oh man, these brownies are GOOD! Gluten free texture, but non the less amazing. With the melting chocolate chunks, they are even better. I'm so impressed and so happy with them, that I even went to amazon and bought a six pack of their best sellers. I'm most excited for the coffee cake :).

Before I sign off and go to sleep, I'd like to say that I'm taking the Intro to Nutrition and Health class here at NYU. If you can't tell, I LOVE nutrition and looking into aspects of food. I'm almost pretty sure that this is what I want to do, but I also want to look into potentially journalism and maybe some sort of sports or physical therapy interest. You may see me talking more and more about nutrition throughout this semester. I'm very happy that I'm enjoying one of my classes here.

Also- a disclaimer- I was not contacted or talked to by "The Cravings Place"- all the opinions on my blog are my own.