Oh, hi there

I did not mean to abandon my blog, dear readers!

I’ve been incredibly busy and quite disoriented since moving this summer (just to a new apartment) and then starting the professional phase of my dietetics program. I’ll save you from the details and more excuses.

I love this blustery, rainy fall weather. Especially because it means it’s comfort food season! To me, Indian curries fit that description perfectly. I’m making an improvised veg curry right now from some eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper we got from the farmer’s market and coconut rice. I found a couple of amazing sounding recipes online for another time while getting ideas for dinner. I’ll save them here so you can also benefit, if you’re inclined.

Baby Eggplant Curry

Zucchini curry

I think getting my hands on some coconut meat is my next culinary endeavor. How delicious do both of these dishes sound?!

Are you excited about fall? What are some of your favorite cooler weather recipes?

Friday Love List

I love the idea of making a list summing up a few things that made my week or that I’m looking forward to and want to try to do it more often. This week my loves are:

1. This delicious Lavender kombucha. It’s a refreshing, calming tonic when I’m feeling stressed with assignment deadlines. Super low in sugar, though it tastes slightly sweet, and good for your digestive health, too!

2. Haifa Falafel. I get take-out from here probably around once a week. Their sandwiches are the BEST (I’m partial to the majadra) and come stuffed with fresh, shredded vegetables and the prices are super reasonable for the large portions. I always share my sandwich with my boyfriend and get a side of hummus and/or a fattoush salad.

3. Not having any major pressing assignments to do over the weekend! I actually have some time to relax and do something purely for fun.

4. VegFest is coming up on the 21st and will be featuring speakers such as Dr. Neal Barnard, and Scott Jurek, as well as food vendors and The Herbivore Clothing Company, all the way from Portland, OR! This will be my first VegFest and I’m pretty excited. Starting on the 22nd Ann Arbor will also be having its first Veg Week, with events happening at different locations. I plan on going to the kickoff night and trying to make a few of the talks, such as the ones by Joel Kahn, M.D. (whose article I linked to my last post) and Swaroop Bhojani, PhD.

As always, I like to leave you with a couple of links to articles I found interesting or relevant this week. A friend posted this op-ed by David Katz, M.D. about the rise of “nutrition expertism” (I just made that up) on Facebook today. What do you think? Do you agree there are too many nutrition “experts” out there without proper knowledge or credentials to be giving that type of information? I’d have to say yes.

And also, this is a brief review of an article I used in my symposium research project. Good to see it get some recognition from the American Diabetes Association.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Cram week

Please pardon me while I have a very busy week. The symposium I am presenting a poster at is this Friday and my partner and I have been working like madwomen around our already busy schedules to wrap everything up, make all the final edits, and make our poster look great! Earlier in the week we had a (now comical) stressful day of technology mishaps where nothing we tried to do on the computer went right! Luckily, my partner was able to work things out late Monday night and the rough draft of our poster looks amazing. She’s good like that. Final draft should be done tonight!

On top of that I have an exam over the weekend (thanks, art professor!), an assignment due Sunday (thanks, feminist theory professor!), and an exam over nine chapters that I have hardly had the time to read Monday. So even though I’d like to breathe a sigh of relief and have some cocktails Friday after the symposium, I have to get back to work immediately Saturday.

During busy times I resort to eating lots of giant salads from Whole Foods salad bar, majadara sandwiches from the delicious Haifa Falafel restaurant, and things I can throw together in minutes, like wraps made with sprouted grain tortillas with lots of vegetables, hummus, and avocado inside. The thing I always miss most while very busy is shopping for groceries and cooking at home. I know as a future dietitian I should be the queen of knowing how to maintain eating home-cooked, healthy meals even when busy, but I am still learning and trying to find that balance.

If you are great at having a healthy meal routine I’d love to hear how you make it work. I know all about the wonders of slow cookers, pressure cookers, and making a week’s worth of food over the weekend, but again, these are all habits I haven’t established despite my best intentions yet. YET.

Sunday Night Dinner

Maybe this will become a thing? I don’t know. I just know that I have made Sunday dinner two weeks in a row since I’ve had this blog and all of a sudden I feel compelled to document it.

Tonight’s dinner wasn’t the fanciest, but it was quite good. I decided to make the Black Bean, Zucchini, and Olive Tacos from Appetite for Reduction.

If you aren’t familiar with Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s cookbooks, I suggest you check them all out from your local library. They are all amazing in their own way. Appetite focuses on low-fat vegan cuisine for when you want something lighter but still flavorful and delicious.

Welcome!

Hi there and welcome to my brand spankin’ new blog! This has been a long time coming in my mind, but I recently got motivated enough (and a tiny bit more confident) to actually figure out how to start. I’m still learning this thing, so please be patient while I begin adding content and mess around with the layout. My camera is also MIA at this time, so until I get it back posts will be lacking photos, unfortunately.

I hope to share with you some of the things I’m learning on my path to becoming a registered dietitian, the delicious vegan food I make and eat in my very non-fancy kitchen, probably some food politics topics because I can’t help myself, and maybe a bit of other life stuff as it comes along.

I mostly want to create community with others interested in plant-based nutrition and living life with compassion for animals, so please say hello and introduce yourself.

This also might be a good place for a disclaimer: I’m not (yet) a registered dietitian or a doctor, so I cannot give you personal health advice. Anything I share on this blog is for informational purposes only and should not be seen as a substitute for the opinion of a qualified health professional.