Scrumptious delights over honeymoon

First day arriving in LA after a 12 hour flight.... we got to watch the sunset from the observatory. Absolutley breathtaking - great we to start our honeymoon <3

Our first breakfast, had to take hubby to IHOP (never been before and he was craving pancakes and a proper All-American breakkie) Waiter was super nice and accommodated me by making me roast veggies on top of hash...

LOVE LOVE LOVE this place, it's on the side of a road. Tiny place but they do the best burritos... of course I had the Veggie Burrito with the horchata. Delish ... gobble it up and forgot to take a photo...

This was our first brunch, yummy panini on foccacia, spinach tomatoes

Found a farmers market, I LOVE farmers market. This was a stall that sold Soy Candles, yea :) picked up two... and they didn't break in the suitcase.. hurray

 Found a local Vegan Vendor :) had a sample of everything, awesome!!

 Now this is what I'm talking about!!!!

OMG to die for!!!!! Trader Joes please come to Hong Kong, anyone know if you can buy these online??

 Me and my lil nephew...adorable boy

Yay, M Cafe - went here after Alicia's recommendation on her blog TKL and went with the Vegan Benedict. It was ok, but I thought the 'hollandaise' and tempeh bacon was a little too much for me... my sister had a veggie wrap which was amazing!!

 Vegetarian Burrito in a diner next to the Americana...love that place. I think i had burrito overload in the states hahahaha

Fresh & Co. in NYC - didn't see this when i lived there 5 yrs ago so must be new, had a falafel wrap. Delish

 Saw this in St Marks place, grabbed a rice crispy treat :)

Vegan choices at Whole Foods in Columbus Circle...
Man, it is so easy being Vegan in the states....

Quality Meats - Hubby really wanted a steak so I couldn't say no... me with my Green Goddess Salad. was damn good.

Buckwheat pancakes at Brooklyn Diner in the city....

The most comfortable shoes in the WORLD and I am NOT kidding. I have a major problem wearing flats as it always hurts my heel at the end of the day. Saw a bunch of ppl wearing these in LA so I finally picked up a pair. And for every pair you buy they donate to kids in need!!!

Blosson NYC - Vegan restaurant. Silly us thought we could just get a table walking in on a Saturday night, sadly no. But they had a table an hour later, yay....

 Pumpkin Ravioli

 Post reduction seitan - Hubby's choice. Wasn't the best but I think it's because the seitan was a little too much....

 I had the Spinach Phyllo with Kale, delish

 Butternut Squash

First breakfast in San Franciso, Mexican Vegetarian Eggs, without Eggs and Cheese...LOL

Organic -  Restaurant in San Francisco. Last dinner here, and it was delicious. We had a curry with summer rolls, hubby had some kind of Chicken dish....

Vegan Breakfast in Korea, mushroom congee with burdock, bean sprouts and some other root veggie

 After all this eating you would think i'd be 200 pounds, but funnily enough managed to lose weight while on holiday. Think it may have been the combination of healthy food and lots n lots of walking!!

Back from amazing honeymoon

Hello blog, oh how i've missed you ...
So we're finally back from our honeymoon and it has been chaotic trying to clean up and do the laundry fro the whole trip. It's been hard to find some time to get to my blog. I need to organize some of the amazing photos we took and places we ate as great recommendations for others who will be travelling. It's been an amazing month, seeing new things, eating delicious food and spending time with loved ones.
Haven't been able to post my food porn from the trip yet, will have to do that sometime this weekend so I can always remember how much great vegan food is out there in the states...c'mon HK we need to catch up!
Alot of the restaurants have inspired me with great vegan recipes that I can't wait to try and I was able to pick up some great Vegan cookbooks and a few books on Macrobiotic eating.
First heard about this from TKL, and its definetly sparked my interest to incorporate alot of these techniques into my cooking. But still learning how to do this, another challenge. How long will it take to understand the Yin and Yang of all foods I cook with, balance the flavors and ways in which to cook them... another great reason for me to blog my journey with this too

Best places we got to eat vegan has to be LA - even if its not a vegan restaurant there are so many veg options to choose from and all the restaurants are more than willing to accomodate, even IHOP hahahahah
I think my five year plan will be to figure out how hubby and I can move to LA.....fingers crossed

**Photos to come shortly.....

Honeymoon

Yay today's the day we fly out on our honeymoon, LA, NY, SF, Korea!!!!!

Can't wait to try all the yummy vegan restaurants in these places...photos to come shortly

More recipes with freshly picked goodies

Sadly I wasn't able to go to the farm this past weekend and check on my little crops, would've been nice to make it though since I'll be out of the country for the rest of the month. But I know they're in good hands and the owner of the land will water them for me... but my folks did go and they brought back some fresh cherry tomatoes and some lettuce! ahhhh what a treat. It is amazing how different fresh produce tastes, who knew cherry tomatoes were so dayam sweet! They're like little balls of honey exploding in your mouth...

I know it seemed a bit of a waste to cook them and shoulda eaten them fresh, but couldn't resist the taste of them in my pasta. Last night I made up some Brown Rice Pasta w/ Fresh cherry tomatoes, zucchini, portobello and basil. Yum Yum Yum!!!

I still have a huge bag of yellow lentils my friend bought me and have been really into making lentil soup with them, the other day i tried to make french onion soup, and decided to add lentils...so really just became lentil and onion soup... LOL.. soo delicious and perfect since the weather suddenly got cold this weekend... also had to add some falafel on the side....How do u stop falafels from tasting a little 'dry'? Had to put some salsa on top cuz it was a bit on the dry side....

Beautiful Sunday - 5 more days till Honeymoon!!!

I cannot contain my excitement, 5 more days till hubby and I jet off to LA, SF, NY and finally Korea. So many places to see, places to go eat, places to shop and so little time. Basically have about four days in each place so need to make sure we can squeeze everything we want to see. I think we're going to need a holiday from our holiday.....

Past couple of days the weather has just been amazing, the first signs of summer showing, beautiful sunshine clear skies...but yesterday started to get cold again booo. I'm sitting here in front of my computer wrapped up in my terry robe and slippers with a hot cup of chai..... wondering where the suns gone :(

It's going to be cold as heck in the states esp. NY and Korea, but at least by the time we get back home the weather will definitely get warmer...

So since it was sucha beautiful day on Friday I decided to go yet again to my favorite restaurant for lunch. Now they have a rooftop dining area, which I've never sat at and OMG it is fantastic!! You don't get many cute and cozy places like this in Hong Kong. I wanted to take a pic but was sitting alone and felt like a dork...so just took a photo of my yummy dummy sandwich... Italian Veg sandwich (GF) with some kind of mock chicken (which was actually pretty darn good) and sweet potato fries...

I always wonder how they make their eggplant taste so damn good, how are the cooking it... has anyone tried to make a sandwich like this?? And how do you make sweet potato fries like this... i hope they're not fried like regular fries....that would be v bad totally pigged out on em....

When I got home I made some salsa to eat with the rest of my falafel sandwich....have I ever told you how much I like homemade salsa, no LOVE homemade salsa....mmmmm extra cilantro and EXTRA chili!!!

One BIG flop, one success

I have been PMS-ing pretty bad this week so I thought I would let myself indulge a bit and bake something to keep my spirits up. Now alot of the dessert recipes I've found on PPK, AFR have ingredients in them which I can't seem to find in my hood... but I did happen to come across one recipe that looked simple enough.....

Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones Pile Up

Now, I thought i would keep it a little healthier and substitute some of the ingredients in the recipe, ooooohhhhh man was that a BAD BAD BAD Idea!!! I think for baked goods it's really hard to sub some ingredients unless you're quite familiar with how they effect the mix. So instead of using regular flour i sub'd for Brown Rice Flour, the sugar for this organic sweetener and for the chocolate I sub'd for Carob...this is what came out :(

So I guess brown rice flour shouldn't be used for cookies?? the mixture just looked and funny and didnt have the right texture...anyway suffice to say it tasted like s***! Ended up cutting up a fresh pineapple instead.... yum yum, shoulda just done that in the first place

My success for the day..... *drumroll please* Baked Falafel, added one whole chili to the mix to give it that extra kick. I love my spice and everything tastes better with chili (my husband says I should carry chili flakes in my bag since I"m always asking for it in restaurants) !!!

Along with the baked falafel I made some small portobello mushrooms sauteed with garlic and a lil EVOO and a side of baby kale.... I think I definitely got my days worth of nutrients on this one dish...

Bitter taste in my mouth....blech

For the past few days I've had the weirdest bitter taste in my mouth. Everything tastes bad no matter how fresh the ingredients are, no matter how much I stick to recipes. So I've been trying to think what it could be...could it be the after taste of the Chinese Medicine? No, the gluten-free snacks? No, the super green powder in my smoothies? No.....the fruit? Nope not that either... it's just been a bit of a bummer really because it's making everything I eat taste so crap...

So today I just had the last straw, I jumped online to check if anything came up... vegan, bitter after taste... and lo and behold what comes up...

PINE NUTS CAN CAUSE BITTER METALLIC TASTE IN MOUTH!

Who woulda thunk it!! WTF..... pine nuts?? and YES, I have been munching on pine nuts ALL WEEK!!!!!
I've been trying to include fats in my diet and according to the food pyramid I've been portioning like 1/4 cups of pine nuts or almonds a day...

Gross, the article says that usually pine nuts from China can cause this bitter after taste... so the next time you ever have these symptoms stop munching on those nuts..

No more pine nuts for awhile.... now I'm just wondering how long this is going to last for... :(