I'm back!

Actually I've been back, but I've been really lazy about blogging recently-- oops. haha. While in TX, we visited Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. (Sorry that we weren't in Houston, Stacey! Thanks for wanting to give suggestions :D) While in TX, my diet consisted a lot of toasted bagels and chips and pico de gallo (haha). BUT! I was able to go to a few veg establishments!! Hooray!! Here we go--

Spiral Diner! (Dallas)

My dish: neatball sub! I loved the texture of the neatballs!!!! The sauce was a bit on the sour side, but other than that, it was really good! On the side is potato salad. It tasted strongly of dill which is a good thing because I love dill! :)

My mom's dish: Spring Roll? Wrap? I don't remember, but it was super good! This was my first time having seitan at a veg restaurant and it was unbelievably good. oh dear.

My dad's dish: Tofu Mitch Club. This was good beyond words!!! ohhh. My mouth waters at the thought :)

Here are my omniparents with their veg food! :)

We shared :)

After that, I was super full, but I wanted to get something for the road ( I mean, how often can I get fresh baked vegan cookies[that i haven't made]?). So cookies it was!

Chocolate Chip Cookie(!): ZOMG. I loved the chewiness factor! Totally yummy for my tummy! The amount of chocolate chips was perfect too. Hooray!! I was really sad when this ended :(

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie: yum.Yum.YUM. That pretty much sums it up :) It was less chewy than the chocolate chip one. I really enjoyed this cookie.

If I could have eaten at Spiral every day of vacation, it wouldnt have been enough. :)

Next up: Mother's Cafe (Austin)

My dish: Chili melt with the veg cheeze sub. Layered tortillas, brown rice, black beans, and nutty chipotle sauce. It was pretty good, though the cheeze got to me in the end *shudder* =/

My dad's dish: barbecue tofu, black eyed peas, and mashed potatoes. The barbecue sauce was a bit peculiar. They use peanut butter, so it tasted sort of off (to me at least). The mashed potatoes had an interesting flavor and texture. I can't really describe it, but it wasn't that great.

My mom's dish: artichoke enchiladas(veg cheeze sub), brown rice and black beans. It was alright, but I don't think I like enchiladas in general-- too mush-ish.

For dessert, we ordered the Peanut Butter Chocolate Tofu Pie to share. It was alright-- a little too (dare I say it?!?!) tofu-ey.

Overall, Mother's was pretty meh for me. Not great; not bad. Just meh.

We spent New Year's Eve in a hotel room which, very conveniently, had a kitchenette. We put it to good use by using the stove to heat up some Thai noodles. This was from some random Thai place in Austin. (Rice noodles, tofu, and mushrooms in a sweet/sourish lemongrass broth) Yum!

My last veg restaurant was New Start Veggie Garden in Dallas. It's an all vegan korean buffet.

My plate consisted of broccoli (good. not great), sweet and sour chik'n(pretty good), a pumpkin-rice noodle dumpling(YUM), brown rice nori maki(pretty good), a potato croquette(good but on the bland side), miso soup(standard), Mapo tofu(bland), and brown rice with some veggie meat dish that I don't really remember(it was good though!)

Nachos: They had these all individually 'built' at the buffet. These were comprised of veggie beef, salsa, tomatoes and a tofu "cheez" that was pretty good, albeit lacking in salt.

Pumpkin Tofu Cheesecake: This was pretty odd. To begin with, the piece was about a 3/4" square. It was also really dry and sort of bland. The pumpkin overwhelmed it and made it pasty. BLECH. Not recommended.

Citron(I think) Tofu Cheesecake: Once again, these pieces were roughly 3/4" squares. Haha. This kind tasted better than the pumpkin one. It was sweeter and more creamy.

I liked this place, and so did my parents (they enjoyed the asian food after having meals and meals of Mex and Tex Mex haha)

On a non-food related note, check out this super cute squirrel that we saw in San Antonio!

Have a great day! :)

Not here. Just kidding! But seriously.

I had a (vegan) luau party last night, and so I absolutely had to post the pics before I left! Here we are, the fab (albeit blurry) four.

We had so much food, it was crazy. All of it was awesome though. ^_^

For dinner, we barbecued skewers. They were really good, and we all had fun stabbing veggies and tofu and chickenless strips onto them poles (can't you tell it's summer by my use of horrible english? haha).

BEFORE DINNER! This was an everything skewer. On it were zucchini, summer squash, teriyaki marinated chicken-less strips(haha, tricked the omni's with this one!) and tofu, mushrooms, and pineapple.
Oh-so-good.

I loved the tofu the way that it was marinated (random teriyaki sauce that I made with pineapple, soy sauce, brown sugar, mirin, chili, garlic, and a splash of water)! It was really, really good. In fact, when we were skewering, my VERY omni-friend said "I'll try some tofu..." (with certain hesitancy), but then after she took a bite, I asked her if she liked tofu, to which she replied, "I like tofu the way YOU make it." (*claps and cheers in her head*) Hey, I'm not tofufreak for no reason. ^_^

AFTER DINNER! haha, actually this was before I REALLY finished eating. In this picture, there are only 5 skewers. But by the time ACTUALLY finished, there were more like 8. haha.

Guess who made vegan ice cream and vegan pizzelle cookies-turned-ice cream cones! That's right! ME! ohhhhh yum! The ice cream (from V'con) flavors were chocolate and vanilla bean(I used vanilla paste so you could actually see the specks of seeds, though the picture doesn't quite show it). But anyways, both flavors are quite delicious. I think my favorite is the vanilla, though, because the chocolate used melted chocolate which didn't quite blend right which resulted in a slightly less creamy chocolate-flecked ice cream. Next time, I'll probably end up using cocoa instead of melted chocolate.

For breakfast, I made brownie waffles from V'con and also Hello Kitty waffles (from VWAV)!

These are the brownie ones, in case you couldn't tell. ;)

Meet My Melody, Hello Kitty's bunny friend. Aww, so cute!

Hello, Kitty! Hello Kitty! Here she is, in all of her waffle-y, carb-y glory.

Aren't they so cute? These are the teddy bear ones. I have no idea what his name is, although I have a feeling that I used too.

Okay, this really will be my last post until I get back from Hawaii. So for real this time, see you in two weeks!

woohoo. hello world

hmmm. so this is interesting. ive been checking out like all vegan foodie blogs and am quite fascinated. ive decided to go vegan, not like it's that much of a change for me anyways. to be ironic, my first picture will be one of seitan instead of tofu :) it is a stir fry that i made with seitan, rehydrated wood ear and shittake mushrooms, lily flowers, ginger/garlic and spices. YUM! more later...