The End is Near+Kelp Noodle Stirfry

Well guys, here we are again, at the end of another year. I hate being cliche, but where the heck did 2012 go? I feel like as I get older, the years fly by so much faster than when I was a kid. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s crazy to me that I’m practically done with college!

I’m really excited for 2013. I have no idea exactly what will happen, which scares the type-A planner in me, but it’s exciting to think about all the things that could happen this year. For one, I’m finally turning the big 21 in July. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not big into drinking or anything but it’ll be nice to be able to order a good drink in a restaurant sometimes, or enjoy a cool cocktail at home. Also, I might possibly be graduating in December–crazy talk! I really want to get all my credits done in time so I can graduate a semester early and get started on my first big girl job. I know a lot of people would rather stay in school as long as possible but I’m so excited about my future career (hopefully as a meteorologist) that I want to get a head start!

I don’t want to drag this post on forever, so I’ll just share some brief highlights from the year with you and then give you a delicious, quick recipe at the end.

January

I finally got a Twitter, I experimented more with raw recipes and I overcame my hatred for hot tea. 

Raw carrot cake bite with peanut flour frosting.

February

I tried a bunch of new-to-me products, did a raw food challenge and went to a father daughter dance with my sister and dad. 

Dressed up for the dance.

March

I reevaluated my recovery journey and eating habits, got an internship at a local TV station and made a bunch of recipes over spring break.

Enjoying the sunshine during spring break.

April

I celebrated Easter with the fam, tried Zevia for the first time and got ready for summer food & fun. 

Coloring Easter eggs.

May

I finished up my sophomore year of college, made my first pancakes from scratch and celebrated my blog’s first birthday. 

Peanut flour pancakes with homemade strawberry vanilla jam.

June

I talked about why I eat healthy, made a goal to stop counting calories and moved to a new house. 

Eating applesauce on the go.

July

I embraced my love of healthy fats, made my go-to meal for the first time and celebrated my 20th birthday. 

The delicious vegan cake I enjoyed on my birthday.

August

I tried vegan sushi, almost saw the President and started budgeting my grocery shopping. 

Vegan sweet potato tempura sushi rolls.

September

I overcame my fear of coconut, had jury duty and embraced fall. 

I also did my first giveaway!

October

I participated in Vegan MoFo, started my addiction to kabocha and broke some fashion rules.

My first Fashion Friday post.

November

I shared my Christmas wishlist a month early, proved that vegans can get protein too and spent Thanksgiving break writing papers. 

Almond cake vodka on Thanksgiving.

December

I proclaimed my love for the Whole Foods salad bar, stressed out about finals and had an enjoyable (while sick) Christmas.

It was a white Christmas after all!

 And now for the recipe! I don’t know about you, but after Christmas, some nights I’m feeling lazy and I just want a quick dinner to throw together so I have more time for family game and movie nights. This stirfry recipe comes together in 10 minutes and is easy to customize to your tastes. I used kelp noodles as the base because I love their texture and how they can bulk up a meal without adding any calories but you can use rice or soba noodles if you prefer.

Coconut Curry Kelp Noodle Stirfry (vegan, gluten free, grain free)

1/4 cup light canned coconut milk (can use full fat)

1 tsp curry powder

red pepper flakes, to taste

1 tbsp peanut flour (or peanut butter)

1 tsp coconut aminos (or tamari)

1/2 cup kelp noodles, rinsed and dried

fresh or frozen veggies (I used shredded carrot slaw and fresh green kale)

1/4 cup fresh or frozen pineapple (or chopped fresh orange)

1/2 cup shelled edamame

In a small bowl, stir together coconut milk, curry powder, red pepper, peanut flour and aminos until thickened and combined. In a medium pan over medium heat, cook edamame, veggies and pineapple in a small amount of coconut oil. Add in kelp noodles and stir sauce over noodles. Cook for 5 minutes or until mixture is hot and sauce thickens up a bit. Serve topped with shredded coconut, chopped peanuts, pumpkin seeds or a drizzle of sriracha. Serves 1. 

What are some of your favorite memories from 2012? What’s one new thing you tried this last year?

Recipe submitted to Healthy Vegan Friday #23.

Alter Eco (Review+Giveaway)

I can’t tell you how excited I am to do my first official review and giveaway on my blog! I’ve always loved entering giveaways on other blogs so now’s my chance to give back…and one of you gets the chance to win some really delicious stuff. Let’s get to it!

Alter Eco is a company that works with small-scale farmers all over the world to produce the products they sell. All their products are responsible–socially, environmentally and health-wise, and they’re organic, fair trade and minimally processed. I love supporting a company that does the right thing for people and the environment, no matter the cost. October is actually Fair Trade Month, so what better way to celebrate than with a fair trade product?

Of course, the food has to taste good if I’m going to buy it. I actually have bought Alter Eco products before I was contacted by them to do a review and giveaway, so I knew ahead of time that I like what they have to offer. However, I had no idea that they had so many products, including grains and sugar.

In my review box, I was sent royal rainbow quinoa, Hom Mali jasmine rice, mascobado cane sugar; dark coconut toffee, dark quinoa, dark blackout and dark almond chocolate. Can you say yum?! I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get my favorite dark mint chocolate bar but I was excited to try their new-to-me products.

The goods. Thanks, Alter Eco!

I started with the chocolates, being the chocolate lover that I am. Unfortunately, I couldn’t try the coconut toffee chocolate bar because it’s not vegan (it has butter and whole milk powder) but it sounded delicious and I’m sure my family will enjoy it! As far as the other bars go, they were all great. I’ve had the quinoa bar before but it never gets old, with its little crispy bites of quinoa mixed throughout. The almond bar was good with a hint of sweetness, and I think it would have been even better with a touch of sea salt. And the blackout bar was really rich and fruity, and not too bitter for an 85% cocoa content bar.

The quinoa was really delicious and nutty, but my favorite part was the color. I’ve only ever had pearl quinoa before (the beige kind) so it was cool to try quinoa with shades of red and brown. So far, I’ve used it to make breakfast quinoa bowls (mixed with almond milk and protein powder and topped with nut butter and fruit) and also the pumpkin spice latte quinoa granola I shared with you last week. I’m planning on buying this quinoa from now on because it’s so colorful and I like that it’s organic.

The color makes this quinoa granola even better!

I really love Alter Eco and their mission to be fair and sustainable while still making tasty products. The best part is, their stuff is fairly inexpensive and can be found at Whole Foods and other health food stores. If you want to know more, you can check out their Facebook and Twitter pages!

The winner will be chosen on Monday, October 8th at 12 pm using a random number generator so you have until then to enter! All you need to to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me what Alter Eco product you’d like to try most (check out their website to see all they have to offer). For extra entries, you can follow me on Twitter @fashion_ash or follow my blog on WordPress and just leave a comment saying you did that. Good luck!

Birthday Weekend and Pineapple Fried Quinoa

Hey guys! Sorry I’ve been slacking on the commenting lately, but today is my 20th birthday and the start of my unofficial birthday weekend so I’m probably going to take the weekend off from the computer but I’ll try to comment here and there if I have time. I’ll be back early next week with a birthday weekend recap but for now, here’s a quickie recipe I threw together for dinner last night. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen the tweet and picture I had for it. Anyways, it’s super delicious (and spicy, of course!), easy to make and totally customizable to your tastes.

Like fried rice but fresher and healthier!

Pineapple “Fried” Quinoa (vegan, gluten-free)

1 tsp tamari (gluten free) or reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tbsp fresh pineapple juice

1/4 tsp sesame oil

ground ginger, to taste

curry powder, to taste

1/4 cup fresh pineapple, chopped

1/2 jalapeno, sliced and seeded

handful pumpkin seeds or cashews (optional)

1/3 cup quinoa, cooked

protein of choice (I used flax tempeh and edamame)

Cook quinoa according to directions on package. In a small bowl, stir together tamari, pineapple juice and sesame oil until combined. Add in ground ginger and curry powder, to taste. In a large saucepan or wok, heat a little olive oil and add in your protein. Cook until browned. Stir in pineapple tamari mixture, fresh pineapple, jalapeno, seeds/nuts and quinoa and stir occasionally, for 5 to 10 minutes, or until quinoa is browned and a little crunchy. Makes 1 serving.

What are you doing this weekend? What do you like to put in your stirfrys?

This recipe is being submitted for this week’s (August 12) Healthy Vegan Friday.

Best Of…January!

Hey everyone, hope you had an amazing weekend! I’m glad to hear that my simple fudge recipe was a hit–it really is delicious and healthy!

Oh, and by the way, I updated my Eats and More page, so now it has tabs for different recipes and is easier to navigate! Check it out if you have the time!

It’s that time of the month again…no, not that time of the month 😉 It’s time for my monthly Best Of… post! I really have fun putting these together and I’m so glad I started doing these just a few months back because they’re a good way to recap my month.

Best Controversial Post: Yum vs. Yuck

Edamame got a lot of lovin'--but am I weird for loving it in guacamole?

Of course, everyone has their own food preferences and that’s totally okay! I hate a lot of things a lot of bloggers seem to love (like ketchup and eggs) and I have weird preferences (I love almond butter but can’t stand peanut butter). It was just cool seeing what people like and dislike as far as food goes.

Best WIAW: Flavor Flav

One of my new favorite oats combos.

I almost chose my latest WIAW post, where I featured a bunch of new-to-me products, but then I realized that was on February 1, aka not in January. Duh, Ashley! It was a good one, though. This one was good too, because I showed some new flavor combinations I’ve been enjoying lately. It’s hard to choose between WIAWs though, because it’s the best day of the week, in my opinion 😀

Best Recipe: Raw Carrot Cake Bites

Tiny desserts are always the best!

Another raw dessert recipe to add to the repertoire, and it’s one of my favorites so far! I especially love them topped with peanut flour paste. Definitely making these again, hopefully over spring break. The only issue with them is it took forever and a day to grate the carrots!

Best Decision: Join Twitter

Tweet!

I’m still learning the ropes, but I love it so far! Thanks to all of you who have followed me, and hopefully I remembered to follow you back! It’s becoming an addiction of mine, I swear…

Best Undocumented Eat: Mad Greens Dionysos Salad

Ninja phone shot for the win!

When I went home last weekend, my mom took me out to eat at Mad Greens, one of my favorite restaurants, for dinner when we came back up on Sunday. I love them because they have salads bigger than my head, and really creative names (like Annie Oakley and Don Quixote). This particular salad is one of my faves, because it’s a Greek inspired salad. Of course, I ate up all the kalamata olives (and edamame, which I added instead of feta) first and then tackled the yummy greens. I got it with tofu, which wasn’t too great, next time I’d probably get portobello mushroom for the protein instead. But I still devoured it, no shame!

Best Outfit: Cardi, Skirt, Tights and Booties

As usual, I look pissed in my outfit shot. Just pay attention to the outfit!

This was from when I was still at home, as evidenced by my spacious bedroom and the mini Christmas tree in the background. I loved this outfit best because I’m obsessed with the skirt/tights/boots combo for fall and winter. So much cuter than a pair of jeans!

What was your favorite part of January? What was the best decision you made last month?

Rawsome Sauce

Hi guys, how have you been? I can’t believe it’s almost the weekend again–my winter break has practically flown by! Luckily, I still have about a week and half left of it before it’s back to school time again.

It’s only been a couple of days and I’ve already accomplished some of my goals! I was honestly not anticipating that at all but it feels awesome to have already made some progress.

First of all…I got a Twitter! I really liked what you all had to say about it, so I decided to get one of my own. You can follow me @fashion_ash, and I will definitely follow you back!

This wasn’t one of my goals, but I also got a brand new phone. It’s my first real smart phone and I’m already in love with it! The only thing I don’t like is how quickly the battery dies, but I guess that’s pretty normal. Oh, and it’s a Droid phone, so any of you out there with Droids–do you have any suggestions for apps I should get?

I love my new myTouch, aka my baby 😉

Speaking of my phone, if you look in the screen shot above, you’ll see that the temperature was 62 degrees today. Say what? Yes, Colorado is being crazy with the warm weather. It actually got to 65 today at my house, and we live in a forested area that’s pretty shaded, so that’s saying a lot! I’m not complaining though, because I’m sure more snow is right around the corner.

At lunch today, I came up with something new–mango softserve! Only it was more like mango Dip-n-Dots 😀 Mango isn’t as great for blending as bananas are but I didn’t break the food processor so that’s a plus.

Simple, quick lunch of mango softserve, plain Greek yogurt and peanut flour sauce.

The other goal I accomplished was making yet another raw recipe! It’s officially my fifth raw recipe, and one of the best so far–the raw brownies do hold a special place in my heart though 😛 I based them basically off my raw blondies, except using plain almonds, no protein powder and no added sweeteners, plus the necessary ‘carrot cake’ ingredients. They turned out really delicious, and I think I’m gonna enjoy my first one tonight with a frosting of peanut flour sauce. So it won’t be totally raw, but still yummy!

Awww, how cute are these tiny carrot cakes?

Mini Raw Carrot Cakes (vegan, raw)

1/2 cup raw almonds

1/2 cup dates (I used about 8 California pitted)

3/4 cup grated carrots

1/2 t cinnamon

pinch sea salt

3 T raisins

Process dates and almonds until mostly combined. Add a little water to thin things out if necessary (about 2 T). Grate carrots and squeeze out any excess moisture. Add carrots, cinnamon and salt to food processor and pulse until it forms a smooth dough. Add in raisins until combined. Pack carrot cakes into muffin liners (makes 5 small, or 3 larger cakes) and keep in fridge. Frost with raw cashew ‘cream cheese’, peanut flour sauce, nut butter or enjoy plain. 

I also have another recipe for you guys…not raw, but still completely delicious. I decided to create a homemade version of cookie butter! I know a lot of you with TJs close by rave about this stuff. I don’t have one near me sadly, plus I know it’s definitely not the healthiest thing, so I set out to create a much healthier, simpler version. And I think I rocked it! I’ve never had cookie butter or Biscoff or whatever, so I can’t tell you how it compares, but let’s just say mine tastes like cookie dough in nut butter form!

I think I may have found a new favorite spread...

Healthier Homemade Cookie Butter (vegan, no cook)

3 T nut butter (I would suggest using a raw, lightly-flavored kind like cashew or walnut, so it doesn’t overpower the cookie flavor)

1 serving cookies of choice (I used 30 Annie’s bunny friends bunny grahams)

water, to thin (about 2 T)

sweetener, to taste (I used 1 packet stevia)

Mix nut butter and cookies together until it forms a crumbly paste, adding in water and sweetener as needed. Makes about 1/4 cup. Store in a jar in the fridge and enjoy as an oats topper, toast spread or fruit dip.

I’m already thinking of more variations, like using peanut flour in place of the nut butter for a peanut-buttery cookie butter!

What’s the weather like where you are? Have you ever tried cookie butter or Biscoff?

WIAW: Goals for the New Year

Hi everyone, and welcome to 2012! I know it’s been a few days already, but it still feels so weird to me that we’re in a brand new year. 2011, especially the second half, just flew by! I can’t believe I only have 2 1/2 years left in college–part of me is excited though, because I can’t wait to get out in the ‘real world’ and be even more independent!

Sadly I missed out on WIAW last week and I did not want that to happen again this week (which is why I’m a little early to the par-tay)! I haven’t been so great with taking food photos, but honestly I’d rather just be having fun at home than trying to document every meal. But I do have a few pics from throughout the week so I’ll roll with that 😀 I also wanted to share a few of my goals for 2012. They’re not exactly resolutions, since I don’t really believe in them, but just things I’d like to make happen in the new year.

My last skinny soy peppermint mocha of the season? Say it isn't so!

• Try out more raw foods/recipes. I’m not going to go completely raw, but I really love how whole, fresh, raw foods make me feel. I’ve made a couple of raw recipes in the past year (check them out here) and I actually loved them more than ‘traditional’ desserts so I’d love to make more. I’d also like to try out some raw main dish recipes (like raw tacos made out of walnuts!) and maybe even a raw dish at a restaurant!

Sweet potatoes make the best lunch! With fresh pineapple and mango and topped with peanut flour paste.

• Improve my GPA in spring semester. Because of my (horrendous, horrible, awful, insert-word-here) stats class last semester, my GPA slipped a little bit. I will admit I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so getting a C+ as a final grade for the first time ever was somewhat devastating. I’m hoping I can pull my GPA back up in the coming semester, and maybe even make it better than before, since I’m taking all classes that interest me.

Switching up my breakfast has never tasted so good! 1/3 cup PB Puffins, plain Oikos mixed with a little organic raspberry jam, peanut flour paste sandwiched in half a banana.

• Get a Twitter? I’m not sure if it’s worth it, but I’ve always been interested in it. However, I already waste enough time as it is on Facebook, so maybe not. But it seems like a good way to stay connected and stalk my fave celebs.

Organic kettle corn and a peanut flour-ed banana make a delicious nighttime snack!

• Get an internship. I’m taking a class this next semester that I need to get an internship at a TV station over the summer, so I’m crossing my fingers that I land one. I honestly don’t care if I have to run Starbucks errands or make copies, as long as I can get my foot in the door in the TV news industry, I will be very happy!

Guys, seriously try this right now if you haven't--Medjool date stuffed with a couple dark chocolate chips. It legit tastes like a cookie!

• Learn how to budget. Now that I have my first job and am getting paid on a somewhat regular basis, I’d like to work on my budgeting skills. I know I still rely mostly on my parents to provide me groceries and such, but I do need to learn in advance so I’m not completely lost when I’m out in the adult world. Oh, and I need to stop impulse buying clothes! I don’t really regret my purchases ever, but I should at least try to wait til they’re on clearance 😉

Cheeseless pizza makes my world go 'round! 2 slices Amy's vegan roasted veggie pizza, side of roasted brussels and a simple almond milk/banana/peanut flour smoothie.

• Have more fun. I will admit that I’m naturally an introvert, and I actually like quiet nights at home vs. going out most of the time, but I’d like to take more risks and hang out with friends outside of class. I do tend to get bored spending a whole day at home, so I do like to go out for some shopping or whatever, but I usually don’t feel comfortable enough doing stuff like that with friends and I’d really like to do more of that this semester.

What is one of your ‘goals’ for the new year? What is the best thing you’ve eaten so far in 2012?