It’s been a fun weekend here so far, but nice to relax a bit catching up on laundry and mentally preparing myself to battle the weekend crowds at Trader Joe’s today. Friday night I stepped out with four vegan friends for a girls night at Blue Nami Sushi where the rustic decor and inspirational menu was fun!
We started by sharing the fried tofu cubes with mushroom broth dipping sauce and sipping wine.
Then shared a massive plate of vegan rolls.
It was nice, we chatted about vegan frustrations, planning the Sacramento Restaurant Vegan Chef Challenge in October and another girl was also a member of the Sacramento Team Veg running group, so we got to share training tips and talk lots of running. We also learned that their tempura batter has milk in it which is an unusual bummer for a sushi restaurant.
I’m still on a huge breakfast smoothie kick and had to get creative adding broccoli stalk and other random fruits on hand in this one since I need to grocery shop!
But frozen banana, Garden of Life’s Vanilla Protein and Greens powder, and pumpkin pie seasoning made it more like a thick and delicious treat.
I also created an odd lunch salad with chopped sweet peppers, tomatoes, and organic kidney beans for lunch since I’m running low on fresh stuff.
It was delicious with Hampton Creek’s Just Caesar dressing and nutritional yeast.
Last night we went to a friends really nice backyard BBQ pool party to hear their band play and catch up with friends.
Ugh, it was hot and my hair frizzed early! Thankfully it cooled off in the evening and became more tolerable. I’ve been to a couple of parties at this house now and they’re always amazing – the owners really enjoy entertaining and preparing lots of food for it – they even had homemade rice crispy treats on a stick colored to look like watermelon slices for the kids. I was bummed they weren’t actually watermelon slices!
But they’re also huge meat eaters and the pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres were all meat and cheese and very heavy to have before a big meal, not even a hummus and veggie plate or any fruit or veggie option. It was a little sad to watch all the kids at the party stuff on lots of meat and cheese slices between swimming. Dinner was okay though, I was able to make veggie and guacamole loaded fajitas with mango salsa and piled on the fresh fruit and corn and avocado salad.
Hubby and I shared two of these plates and they were the prettiest plates at the table. And there was plenty left to go back for seconds which made me happy.
And lunch today was remixing my kidney bean salad leftovers from yesterday. Yeah, I need to grocery shop!
Running is going, I got a decent gym training run in yesterday and slightly bonked my long run today tapering to 6 miles.
I planned to longer and faster, but my legs felt really tired and I didn’t want to push it too hard. It was a tough week last week with heat, work stress, and other stresses, so I went with it and will rest a bit for pushing the distance more next weekend.
The list:
I listened to this episode of the Rich Roll podcast with Dr. Neal Barnard during training runs this week and it was eye opening to what an inspirational person Dr. Barnard is and the daring changes he’s driven in patient care and medical school practices, and had such a fascinating upbringing. Also great studies on what’s fueling type 2 diabetes – worth a listen and very inspirational.
The 7 best vegan blogs you’ve never heard of. Actually I do follow and enjoy many of these already and they all make me wish I had more time for mine lately.
Always excited to have more vegan makeup options.
Oh my, these sound amazing!
Thank you Millennials for driving positive change!
Thought before running with a friend I can relate to.
What is with people making things look like watermelon? It was national watermelon day so someone at my husband’s work got a watermelon sobert cake (which wasn’t vegan.) My husband was a little ticked, because even if the cake was vegan, he would of preferred the real watermelon.
Agreed! I prefer the watermelon – not junk food made to look like watermelon! What kind of message is that sending? And the rice crispy treats looked like a serious PITA to make compared to serving simple and fun watermelon.
You’re so lucky to have vegan friends! It must be Cali, because Alex is the only vegan I know in the Chicago area. I could join some vegan groups but they’re all in the city and I live in the burbs.
Great links!
It’s nice having local vegan friends for support, maybe start a local group on Facebook?