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! :)

And the theme of this year's Christmas treats is......

...Chocolate and Cherries? I suppose so, considering the fact that I made 3 chocolate cherry cakes!

The first one consisted of two of the cakes as it was two tiers. This was for my friend to take to his family Christmas celebration. :)

Tada! In case you can't tell, I love taking side shots of my cakes :D

Cake #3! This one was a bit less grandiose-- but still quite delicious! teeheehee.

Moving past chocolate and cherries (on second thought, keep the chocolate!), here we have chocolate swirled cheezecakes! woohoo. I love the little chocolate cages!

And last but not least, the annual rugelach! This year's flavor is blackberry cinnamon pecan. Hooray!

I know this isn't food, but I had to post pics of these anyway because HELLO I got Christmas flowers!!!! From the same friend that now has the cake =)

I is a happy child :)

** I promise I'll get around to posting recipes for everything that you guys comment on, like the crackers from Thanksgiving (EEEOOPS.) yeah. Thanks to all my faithful friends who still visit! I'm sorry that I've taken such a long hiatus! I'm sorry to say that I'll be taking another hiatus for a little while because I'M GOING TO TEXAS!!!! woohoooo!!! :D so see you guys in a bit!**

Veg Hawai'i: Part III of III: Tofufreak eats KAUA'I!!!!!

Well people, it's now the very last installment of my trip. Thanks for reading about my travels! Enjoy!

Friends, you are looking at heaven on a plate. Pan fried cheese-free risotto cakes with grilled asparagus and balsamic reduction with a drizzle of basil oil and fresh salsa!!! This was REALLY SUPER GOOD. This was probably one of the best meals that I had on all three islands.

On our last morning, I went to the Lotus Root (albeit a little bit ruefully; I was unable to make it to the Blossoming Lotus :'( ) . I got a breakfast burrito that had scrambled tofu, YUMMY seasoned potatoes, black beans, and salsa. What I really loved about the LR was the fact that they had NOOCH IN A SHAKER !!!!!! That was really exciting ;)

LOOKIE WHAT I GOT!!!!!!

RAW COCONUT FUDGE!!!! OH. MY. GOODNESS. Words cannot describe this at all. It was super rich (this was only a half-piece) . Chocolate, Coconut, (and some kind of nut that I can't remember, for the life of me) . I would go back for THIS piece of fudge. Really. Really. Good.

Brownie!!! How good does this look?!?!?! Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets. It was moist; yes, but other than that, it lacked chocolate-ness, despite it's color and abundance of chocolate chips. :(

Mint Chocolate Cookies!!! I was a little apprehensive of these at first (I mean, mint and chocolate; sure, but mint, chocolate, and OATS?!) Needless to say(hehe I broke off a corner; couldn't resist!), they were VERY extraordinarily scrumptious!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Blondies!!! GAHHH!!! These were the best things that I bought!!!! SOOO yummy. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Choco-Macadamia Nut- Coconut Cookie!!!!! This one was particularly rich, toothsome, and textured.

Can you see why I was in a sugar coma for about a week? lol.


For lunch on the way back home, I had a tuna-free tempeh wrap that I bought at the Lotus Root. It was light and refreshingly good, especially when compared to the EXTREMELY oily airport chinese food that everyone else was having.

Thus ends my journey to the lovely islands of Hawai'i. Hope you enjoyed!

Veg Hawai'i: Part II of III: Tofufreak eats O'ahu

Sorry for so few pics on this island; I got lazy :P Plus, many times, my food was narrowed down to boring choices like the ubiquitous BOCA burger or (even a veggie sandwich that was just lettuce, ketchup, mustard, and onions on a bun!!!! gahhhh!) and things of that nature, so I just took whatever pics I could.

Check out this hilarious pic my brother got! It looks like their spirits are coming out, lol!

Gasp! The horrors!!

We spent a lot of time driving around, so lots of times, we had snacks on the car to satiate our hunger after the activity(ies) of the day. I used to love eating puffcorns or whatever those puffy popcorn-esque snacks are called, so I was pretty excited upon eating Veggie Booty. It is really quite delicious! It's made with spinach and kale too so that's a plus! ^_^ AND........I finally got to try Tofurky and Soy jerkies! Tofurky is DEFINITELY the better choice, as soy jerky has a weird aftertaste. I also bought some roasted edamame, 'cause that stuff is just SO GOOD. Yeah, if you haven't tried it before, I highly recommend you go and try that NOW!!!

This was a bamboo roll at some random Japanese place that we went to. It was pretty good, consisting of avocado, cucumbers, assorted roasted Japanese veggies, nori, and some other stuff wrapped up in the ever-so-chic soy wrappers that seem to be all the rage now.

You might be wondering, "Tofufreak, what IS that?!" Perhaps you remember my last post in which I spoke of the ramen-type noodles. This was a different flavor, made in the coffee pot on our last morning in O'ahu (clever, I know ^_^) This version has dried chinese mustard greens with dehydrated seitan that rehydrated once the water was added! hehe; it was very exciting!

Check out that fruit! I love Hawai'i for this reason. The pink glass in the back is ..... FRESH GUAVA JUICE! It is so amazingly good and difficult to describe. This was my breakfast everyday at the hotel we stayed at. Called "the healthy" breakfast, this plate of fruit+juice cost...... $17. Seriously. It actually would have been cheaper to go out and buy the fruit and juice, but oh well.
Sorry for the shortage of pics! Kaua'i has the Lotus Root pics which will make up for these!

Veg Hawaii: Part I of III: Tofufreak eats the Big Island

Because my family went to three islands, I will do 3 separate posts on our travels/eats. Hope you guys enjoy!

Here is a picture depicting the pre-trip excitement that my brother and I both shared! haha. This was taken on the airplane on the way to Honolulu.

Au Bon Pain Mediterranean wrap, (I believe) no feta, please! Oh, and a bag of potato chips too. Nummy. There was some kind of hummus and sundried tomato spread or maybe it was a roasted red pepper spread or something. I don't know. At any rate, it was pretty good! (Dallas/FW Airport)
Lookie what I found at the airport store! ABC Company's Vegan cookies! I was super excited and wanted to buy one of each flavor, but I restrained myself and limited my selection down to this lemon poppyseed cookie. It was really really good! Too bad I can't seem to find them anywhere else other than the Health Food Store.

Pickup dinner that I ate around 10 PM upon arrival in Hawaii. Cold noodles and veggies with sauce. Good portions, good price, can't recall the place.

This is my first lunch on the Big Island. Pretty boring. Inari sushi with a seaweed salad. We bought this from a Foodland or something like that.

For our official dinner on the Big Island, we went to Huggo's. I can't remember what this was called, but it was just ok. It consisted of grilled onions, portobello mushroon, asparagus, a black bean and corn salsa stuffed tomato, and a wild rice pilaf with a balsamic reduction. Meh-ish. The view was really lovely though.

Since we lived in a condo, we were able to store things in the fridge and cook! We took advantage of that on several occasions for breakfast. Here are examples of what I had for brekky:

This was basically my breakfast most mornings on the Big Island. Plain, but good. Plus, it was lower in calories so that I could indulge later in the day!

Apparently my uncle rarely cooks, so this noodle soup was an extra special soup! My relatives brought Ramen-type noodles from Taiwan. They are completely vegan, not fried, contain no MSG, and are perfectly delicious! We added tofu blocks and bean sprouts. Mmmm!

One thing that I loved about Hawaii was the fresh fruit. It was all so good! This is (very) fresh papaya. SO DELISH(with lemon squeezed on top)!

After going hiking (I think) we stopped by Hilo to find lunch. I can't believe we came across this place by chance! This is probably the best place on the Big Island. I loved and will love Abundant Life Natural Foods for the rest of my life.

This cookie that you see here is undeniably one of the best cookies in the world! I kid you not! I literally would go back to the Big Island just to get this cookie! It was soft, moist, nutty, oaty, chewy, wheat-free, dairy-free, egg-free, sugar free, and YUMMY! yea. sigh... Oh yeah, the shake in the back is a carob shake. (I though of VeggieGirl when ordering) :)

This is the grilled tofu salad of some sort. I believe my uncle got it? I don't know. At any rate, it was good.

My parents ordered this East Meets West Sandwich, which consisted of tofu, sprouts, vegenaise, and some other stuff. My mom liked the tofu lots. :)

I ordered the ginger tempeh burger. This, to date, is probably THE best burger I have ever had. Really good.

On our last night, we went to Sansei Sushi. They have some veggie options, as well as karaoke, if you're interested in such things. Here's what I had:

Blah. Miso soup. Pretty Average.

HAHAHA! This cracked me up so much! My relatives are Buddhist vegetarian, so they don't eat onions/garlic/green onions. Apparently that's all this dish had on top, so they brought out a block of pure, unadulterated, naked tofu!

I finally had a chance to try natto! I thought of Kamutflake girl when I was ordering this natto maki. :) I forget what the other roll was. In the back is some veggie tempura.

This is the grilled veggie roll with grilled squash, carrots, zucchini, and shiitake mushrooms.

These were the cups that they used for tea. The same advice was printed on the back in Kanji Japanese/Chinese. Clever, no?

And here I shall leave you with these words of wisdom. Tune in next time for eats on Oahu!