Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Black Friday Thanksgiving

We celebrated our amazing Vegan Thanksgiving on "Black Friday". Instead of joining all the crazy shoppers we decided to stay in and cook a great meal (since our actual family Thanksgiving food was a little boring). Everything turned out so good. 






Monday, November 21, 2011

Butternut Pluto

Momma Veg's "Food Crafts"

I was looking for Halloween food craft ideas for MoFo when I came across this Thanksgiving Butternut Pluto. I thought it was really cute so I decided to try it out. I think it turned out pretty good. I'm going to use it as a Thanksgiving centerpiece then after Thanksgiving is over make it into a delicious butternut squash soup. 








To make your own...
http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-952428-butternut-pluto-t/

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

EarthyVeg’s THREE CITY ADVENTURE - DAY THREE


CITY #1 – NEW YORK CITY

Day Three


This time we decided to take the train to the World Train Center. This train was on the opposite side of the track from the NY Penn Station train but looked more like a subway train than the nicer train to Penn. It was a little less expensive too. We walked around the World Trade Center area for a while. We made the mistake of going on Monday so it was a busy place around there. We couldn’t see any of the memorial because it was closed off and the area was still under construction. Disappointing. We looked online to get tickets to see the memorial but since it had just opened they were already sold out for months. 





Next we headed to lunch at Red Bamboo. We shared the Vegetable Tempura and Roast Beef Sandwich. We hadn’t had tempura in over a year and this made up for it. So good… I still don’t know how we ate the sandwich because the tempura was so filling. We even made room for 2 scoops of vegan butter pecan ice cream.  All I can say is waiting for the subway was hard. I was so full. 


Red Bamboo

Vegetable Tempura

Roast Beef Sandwich

Butter Pecan Ice Cream

After Red Bamboo we decided to go to Whole Foods to grab something to take back to the hotel for dinner later. We grabbed an avocado wrap, chips, and 2 cookies.



Whole Foods Avocado Wrap

We got back to the hotel a little earlier than usual to pack and get ready for our next adventure…… Philadelphia.




Tuesday, November 15, 2011

EarthyVeg’s THREE CITY ADVENTURE - DAY TWO


CITY #1 – NEW YORK CITY

Day Two

I found out that Broadway Cares was going on at the same time we were going to be in New York so we headed there first to see what it was all about. They had a lot of great stuff but I was able to refrain and didn’t buy anything. 




Next we headed to Teany’s for lunch. Teany’s has become a tradition for us when we are in NYC. The first time we went years ago Moby was actually the first person I saw when I walked in. He had just gotten himself some coffee and was headed outside to drink it when we came in. He told us to sit anywhere then gave us menus before going outside. How cool was that! I hear he has sold out to his partner now. This trip to Teany’s I ordered the Turkey Club (another tradition). Momma Veg order the Vegan Chickn Melt but they were out of chickn so she ordered the BLT instead. It was basically my sandwich without the Tofurky and extra slice of bread. We shared and the Turkey Club was just as good as I remembered. 


Teany


Turkey Club

Instead of getting a dessert at Teany’s we walked to Babycakes and shared a pumpkin cupcake. If they would have been any cheaper I probably would have ordered another one. So good. 

Babycakes


Pumpkin Cupcake

Next we walked to Soho to visit one of my favorite tea company’s Harney & Son’s. I could have bought a ton of tea but since we were on a multi-city adventure I didn’t want to add anything to the luggage. 


Harney and Son's tea

Next we stopped in next door at Kate’s Paperie (another tradition). This was a new location for them and honestly we miss the location we visited years ago. Next up Pearl River, Anna Sui (love the décor), Kidrobot and then back to Peacefood Café to eat dinner. The day before we had hoped to try nachos but since it was a dinner special we decided to go back and get them. The Macho Nachos had daiya cheese (again I missed the cashew cheese sauce from Spiral Diner), and the Mushroom Duxelle Pizza that we added daiya cheese to. It was ok but wished we had gotten something else. 

Macho Nachos

Mushroom Duxelle Pizza

Then it was back to Newark. 





Monday, November 14, 2011

EarthyVeg’s THREE CITY ADVENTURE - DAY ONE

CITY #1 – NEW YORK CITY

Day One

We arrived at Newark Airport about noon and took the airport train to the parking area to get our courtesy shuttle to our hotel. We decided to stay in Harrison, NJ while visiting NYC. If you want to save some money and don’t mind taking a 20 minute train into NYC from Newark, this is a great place. I was having trouble finding a hotel in NYC under $200 that looked semi decent. I don’t really want to stay at a Hampton Inn for $250 a night. Expensive! While searching on Trip Advisor I found the posting for the Hampton Inn and Suites in Harrison, NJ. They had a free shuttle that would pick you up at the airport and take you anywhere you wanted to go within a couple of miles. Awesome. It is across the Passaic River from Newark Penn Station so all we had to do was take the train into New York Penn Station every day. The hotel was only $150/night. The trip for each of us was $10 roundtrip on NJ Transit. That saved us about $80 a night. How awesome is that. The only slight down side is that you are at the mercy of the shuttle. If it is already busy you might need to wait 15-20 minutes for a pickup. Luckily the few times we had to wait were at the hotel. 




The first stop once finally making it into New York City after depositing our bags at the hotel was lunch at Peacefood Café. To say we were hungry was an understatement. I’m surprised that I remembered to take a photo before inhaling it. We were trying not to eat too much so we would be hungry for Candle 79 later that night. We shared a mushroom panini and the chickpea fries. They were both good but the chick pea fries were a little too much. We ate way too much of it!




Peacefood Cafe


Mushroom Panini


Chickpea Fries

After eating lunch we headed over to the New York Public Library. The last couple of trips to New York we forgot to visit this beautiful library. I wasn’t going to miss it this trip so we decided we better take care of it the first day. As you can tell from my photos it is a gorgeous place. 




After the library we hung out a little in Bryant Park, walked around Times Square for a bit then headed to Candle 79. Maybe we should have saved Candle 79 for the next day because once we got there I was tired, hot, and not in the mood. We had such a hard time figuring out what to get. Finally we decided on the Angel Nachos (disappointing when you have had Spiral Diner’s, which are amazing), and the stuffed avocado salad (good). The real treat of the evening was the dessert. The menu said it was the Cherry Crumble but since cherry season was ending they replaced them with mixed berries. It was still awesome. I really wanted to order a second one but stopped myself. It is only the first day in NYC. I didn’t want to over indulge too quickly. 



Stuffed Avocado Salad

Angel Nachos

Cherry Crumble


After Candle 79 we took the train back to Newark.







After MoFo

I can't believe that it has already been two weeks since MoFo. I had only intended to take a couple of days off then start posting about my vacation in September/ October. Wow.. the days just fly by. I'm finally putting the finishing touches on my drafts and plan to start posting tonight. 


Momma Veg and I enjoyed doing MoFo and plan to do it again next year. (This time with a little more planning.) I didn't have time during the month to check out everyone's blog posts but plan to take the time now to catch up. Here are some of my favorites so far (besides all the Texas blogs and posts by Vida Vegan Con alumni). MoFo has given me the chance to discover more blogs and I am very grateful. 


MUST VISIT BLOGS SO FAR......




 http://forkandbeans.wordpress.com

Has really cute "food crafts" and great recipe ideas. This is definitely a can't miss blog. I look forward to each new post.


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                   http://airyway.blogspot.com/

Great MoFo! Took very close photos of food and you had to guess what it was. Loved it!

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MORE GREAT BLOG LINKS COMING SOON...