Eating Out Vegan at Chain Restaurants

When Brixx Pizza closed in our town, it left a bit of a hole for our family. We don't eat a chain restaurants much, but Brixx was an easy option when we were eating out with friends or nice place for the boys to take their girlfriends on dates. Parker has never dated a vegetarian and Dema dated one vegetarian, but it was still nice to go someplace where everyone had easy, yummy options. 

Fortunately, Blaze Pizza was being built as Brixx closed their doors. Blaze is even better, in some ways. Most of my family loves to pile on the toppings so it is nice to not have to pay per topping. The staff has always been great about the vegan thing and since you talk to them about what toppings you want they can put just the right amount of everything on your pizza.

Josie likes to add a lot of toppings to her pizza. This one has red onions, mushrooms, spinach, pineapple, zucchini, kalamata olives,  chopped garlic, artichokes, vegan cheese, spicy red sauce, and oregano. She loves that they also have healthier drink options like hibiscus tea.

Dema is more of a simple topping guy with black olives, pineapple, and vegan cheese.

 Dema is the one in the family who just wants two or three toppings on his pizza and they can do that too.

This was my pizza and was very similar to Josie's.

This was our first visit so I didn't know about the arugula and other post-cooking toppings. I always add arugula now. We like talking to the friendly staff and deciding in the moment what toppings we want, but we've also used the online app to order ahead.

Josie had a birthday sleepover for her 11th birthday. Usually, we are at the beach for Josie's birthday so she hasn't had a party with her friends for years. Only one of the girls was veg, but I ordered vegan Blaze pizzas online and picked them up. All the girls loved them and it was much cheaper than other pizza options we've done for other parties in the past!

At the same time Blaze was being built, there was another restaurant in the same area with a similar look. Rob and I finally checked it out. CoreLife Eatery is now added to our go to list. It was so nice to be able to grab a quick bowl of veggies and quinoa goodness! It isn't as vegan friendly as you would think but the handful of options seem pretty solid.

Sriracha Ginger Tofu with Ancient Grains from CoreLife Eatery.

The kids, especially Josie, have been asking to check out CoreLife. I'll let you know how they like it.

Update: Huge thumbs up from Josie. We went just the two of us and we got a Sriracha Ginger Tofu with Ancient Grains bowl (see green beauty above) and a Shiitake Mushroom Roasted Tofu broth bowl. We "shared" them both, but Josie definitely ate more than half of both. So good!

Ugh!

Anyone else out there feeling frustrated, angry, hopeless, or triggered by the craziness happening in the US these days? I need to vent and don't feel like FB is an appropriate space right now. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said, just need to type it out.

So the grown men who report being sexually abused by priests when they were children should just sit down and shut up? They should never come forward? If they couldn't do it at X age, then so sorry so sad? Get over it? Take the political aspect out of it for a second. I get that this is very politically charged. Those of us with daughters, let us think about our daughters for a second (or sister or female friend...whatever you can relate to). Can we imagine a horrific scenario where something could happen to them and they didn't want to tell us? I can. I've been that teen and I had a mother who was trained to deal with situations of abuse, who was extremely understanding, and her job had her working with people who were abused. I still didn't want to say anything. Fortunately, because many women (and some men) have paved the way so my daughter feels comfortable telling me (because things have already come up...nothing to this extent, but inappropriate comments or touching that made her uncomfortable and she has told me right away) right now. But, will she feel the same way when she isn't living at home or if I was no longer around? What if I was the type of parent who blamed her for what she was wearing or if she drank alcohol or just being around men or not going home early enough or all the hundreds of reasons we put the blame on the woman (or man in some situations)? Or the type of parent who didn't want to make waves and didn't want to upset a powerful family in my community. I'm not talking about this particular case, but I can completely empathize with women who do not come forward or come forward years later.

What I don't understand is the men who I know have treated women in similar ways (or worse) who are acting like they are "allies" without dealing with their own behavior. Don't pretend that you are "one of the good guys". I'm not saying you should all be locked up and throw away the key, but just come clean, look at your past behavior, vow to do better. Then you truly can be a good guy and can be there for others.

I am guilty of not coming forward. So many different times. For myself, for my friends...I was there to listen, but I never believed anything good could come from me "getting someone in trouble" or "ruining someone's life". Here we are. My sons and my daughter are growing up with the same misogyny and culture that values "powerful" white men over all else. It makes me want to scream. It makes me very angry at my young self. I makes me want to hide in a hole and never speak to another human being again.

So, here are pictures of the wonderful canine beings that I am so fortunate to care for and have in my life. They are helping me through these days. I hope you have someone or something helping you through. I hope you know you are not alone. I hope we, as a species, can come out better on the other side of all this stuff.

Unity, a sweet greyhound we care for and she cares for us right back.

Ruth Bader Greyhound, a gentle soul who was pretty skittish when we first started watching her and her lab mix sister, Hadley, but it has been such a joy and privilege to see her fun-loving personality emerge as we get to know her better.

Pens to Lens 2018 - The Monster Who Ate the Boy

Speaking of food at our house, we don't usually allow any non-vegan food in the door. We also have several short films and music videos shot at our house over the last few years. We were kind of shocked when one of the directors brought meat, as a prop,  to a shoot at our house. Dema was in the film, but didn't actually eat the meat. It was still tough for us to even let it in the house. This director is lucky we love him and believe in his vision. So, if seeing meat consumed in movies bothers you, please don't watch, but if you can get past that...check out a short Pens to Lens film from this year called The Monster Who Ate the Boy. Dema plays the boy. Because of everyone's crazy schedules and Brian, the director, not wanting to come back on multiple days...we ended up shooting into the the wee hours of the morning. We all got a little punchy and a lot tired. Parker was working as crew and did the lighting. Josie stayed up very late entertaining the actors between takes. It was a long day for Josie and Parker because they got up early that morning to work on another film, but they love it so much! Dema was a great sport about one of the very messy scenes which was shot at around 3am!

Brunch Brussel Sprouts

We went on a pretty long hiatus from any real entertaining. Many friends moved away, life got busy, the house was never in good enough shape, cooking for others seemed daunting, but then I made a promise to myself to get out more to support local bands which led to a promise to myself to have people over...nothing big like we used to do, but two or three families. I'm so glad I made both promises because I never regret either. Some days I feel like canceling or some nights I don't feel like leaving the house, but I am so glad I push myself through.

 We've had a couple brunches with a couple neighbor friends and friends we met from doing films. They are all great people and we always enjoy their company. I have to keep myself from taking pictures because I also want to live more in the moment.

However, I do want to remember some of the dishes we make because just like before, I love to try new recipes when we have people over. One of my favorites from our brunch this weekend was Maple Syrup Roasted Brussel Sprouts. One of our friends is gluten free, avoids soy, black pepper, and cucumbers. The cucumbers are pretty easy, but the rest makes me get outside my comfort zone. Especially, the gluten free. I've baked a few gluten free coffee cakes, but since I am no baker, I still have a long way to go on the gluten free vegan baking road. 

We omitted the black pepper in the recipe above, but I don't think we lost anything. I will definitely put this recipe in our normal routine and try it with the black pepper. These brussel sprouts are a perfect addition to any brunch!

Our sweet old rescued greyhound, Gracie. She is super happy to have people over for meals again. She especially loves the younger kids who tend to drop more goodies on the floor for her to snack on.

Blog Like No One is Reading

I'm going to be blogging more. I need an outlet and I want to have a place for my kids to have memory reminders. This means I am blogging for me, not anyone out there. I will keep this public because I don't have anything here I don't mind sharing, but if no one reads it...that's fine.

Here is where our family is right now. We live in a small Midwestern college town where I was born and we've lived here 19 years now. Whoa! It seems crazy when I type it out. We moved here from Maryland (DC area) when I was pregnant with our first (was supposed to be our only) child. 

So that makes Parker 18 years old. He is attending a fabulous community college so he can save money living at home and he has a theatre scholarship (yay, for saving even more money). He homeschooled K-12, except for sixth grade at a public school and, as a lot of homeschoolers in our town, he took classes at the same community college during high school. He used to be a nanny for two awesome kids, but quit this fall to concentrate on school, theatre, and film. He is in a local improv group, interns at a local film production studio, and runs several role playing groups. He amazes me every day and he is so much more mature than most of the adults I know, but I'm hoping he lets go a bit and has some immature fun from time to time, while he still can. He has yet to experience being vegan living on his own, but he has been learning how to cook since he was little and is hoping to find some vegan-friendly roommates at some point.

Dema (Demetrius) is 14 and attending public school for the first time. He homeschooled all, but 4-6th grades (private school) and is now a Freshman at high school. He has OCD and this makes some things more challenging, but he makes friends easily and is a talented singer so this opens a lot of doors. Dema is also very involved in theatre and music so he was able to experience being on stage with his brother several times before Parker graduated. Dema approaches his veganism much differently than his siblings and his time socializing after different productions has taught him how to navigate the vegan choices in fast food/chain restaurants. He likes to bake, but has very little interest in cooking, at this point.

Josie (Josephine) just turned 11 this month and she is still homeschooling. She would be in 5th grade in public school, due to her birth date, but she does mostly 6th grade at home. She is very focused on athletics and tends to be the most competitive person in the house. She is going to guest post soon about her experience at a very well known gymnastics camp and their lack of vegan options, food waste, and more.

Swim/Gym Smoothie - What We Did This Summer

This is from our crazy summer. Josie was super girl giving her all to two very competitive sports and having a blast doing it. Vegan athlete style!

Some days Josie's post-swim pre-gymnastics smoothie matches her leo.

I don't usually make daily smoothies anymore, but Josie swims for two hours and then works out at gymnastics for 3.5 hours. Some days she doesn't feel like eating much between her two sports (she has only an hour between each a couple days a week) so a big smoothie filled with fruits and veggies is in order. This day she noticed that she just happened to match her spinach and blueberry smoothie. The swim/gym smoothie had frozen blueberries and peaches, raw spinach, beet juice, alma powder, ground flax seeds, and unsweetened soy milk.

Local Resistance

Our musician friends, Elsinore, made this timely song/video.  Warning: it is political and there is some language. Please, those of you in the US, get out there and vote!

New (to us) Frozen Vegan Pizza - Convenience Food

We don't buy frozen pizza very often, but I was leaving my 18 (Parker) year old and my 14 (Dema) year old home alone during a very busy week for them. Rob was working on his sailboat in Virginia Josie and I went hiking for a couple days (more about that in a future post) so I stocked the freezer so the boys wouldn't have to cook much while we were gone. One of the things I found was Sweet Earth Veggie Lover's Pizza. It didn't look bad nutrition wise for a frozen meal and they were on sale! The boys didn't get up needing the pizzas while we were gone so Josie and I got to sample it as well.

The verdict? Very tasty and we would definitely buy again. Parker gave an enthusiastic thumbs up and Dema thought there could have been more cheese. I like the unusual toppings and the amount of cheese is just right to keep the toppings on the pizza, but not overpower the taste of the veggies. I haven't had corn on pizza since I was in the Dominican Republic many years ago. Parker was skeptical about the corn, but now he is a convert. Josie is not a huge frozen pizza fan, but liked this one better than most.