englandsword

I'm having a great time with my brother! It's his spring break, hence the title of this post. Actors don't get spring break. I started off Sunday with a nice breakfast bowl of lentils, broccoli slaw, broccoli, and nutritional yeast. I added a couple pieces of my kabocha squash . Breakfast of champions, and not in the ironic way! We went and walked around Beverly Hills for a couple of hours and checked out expensive stores. My brother ate lunch at Nate and Al's and I just tried one of the pickles. We saw this store - "Jimmy Au's for Men 5'8'' and Under." This is my brother insensitively mocking men 5'8'' and under. He is 6'5'' so he does not feel their pain. We saw Battle: Los Angeles in the dome theater at the Arclight in Hollywood. I probably have permanent hearing damage but it was still fun. I will admit, I love big-budget action shoot-'em-up movies and I see them all. For dinner we went to Hugo's Tacos. I got...

I had such an action-packed weekend that I have three blog posts ready to go! I'll be featuring more cute outfits, some awesome recipes, and... more. Today we'll talk about SOUP (I post a lot about soup...) and I'll show you another bar-hopping outfit. I went out three nights in a row this weekend! And because it's me, that means lots of dancing and no drinking. On Friday, after sleeping in, wiped out from my Voyeur visit on Thursday night, I had sketch comedy rehearsal and that night I went to a bar called Rush Street in Culver City with some actor friends. It's a sports bar, so a totally different feel from Voyeur. First I tried a green shirt with some jeggings and heels. But I wasn't feeling it so I tried on a neon green dress I've had since fifth grade. Can you tell how short this thing is? So short, it's more like a shirt now. So I paired it with some leggings and Chucks. Can I just be self-indulgent for a second and say I love my hair? This is Fri...

I made a big pot of deeeliiicious soup today. It's vaguely based off of a recipe from Everyday Vegan. Vegan Broccoli Cheese Soup 1 onion, diced 2 stalks celery, diced 1 head broccoli, chopped 5-8 cups water or veggie broth 2 tbsp miso 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (or 1 tbsp tahini) 1 tbsp Braggs (if using water and not broth) Saute onion in soup pot. Add remaining veggies and water, bring to boil. Water amount depends on how big your head of broccoli is (I had a lot, so I used 8 cups). Lower heat to simmer and cover, cook ten minutes or so, until veggies are tender. Transfer into a blender and puree. An immersion blender would definitely come in handy if you have one (I don't). Add miso, nooch, and Braggs, stir well and enjoyyyy. This soup really does taste a lot like Panera-style broccoli cheese soup. It tastes great with tahini if you have it, but this is a great low-fat version (I said fat-free, but it really means no added fat). It would also be nice to leave some floret...

I had a super simple dinner tonight. Sometimes you just need to keep it basic - broccoli, mushrooms, and onion. I stir-fried about 1/4 onion I had left over with a bag of mushrooms and a bag of broccoli from TJ's and flavored it with a little rice wine vinegar and Chinese Five Spice powder. Just based off a quick analysis of the nutrition, this entire dish (a whole bag each of mushrooms and broccoli!) is about 170 calories, 22 grams of protein, 12 grams of fiber, and 25% of your RDA of iron. Oh yeah, and negligible fat and no cholesterol. Let's compare this to 170 calories of a chicken breast with the fat removed - according to Spark People, about 2/3 of a breast. The chicken has 36 grams of protein, 2 grams of fat, 92 mg of cholesterol, no fiber, and only 6.3% of iron. And of course that's not even to mention all the other nutrients that are more plentiful in the broccoli and mushrooms - more calcium, more Vitamin C, A... I could keep going. But I just think this is...

I've been having a great stay here in Kansas! Yesterday I went with my mom and step-grandma to see The Kids Are All Right, a new movie with Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. It was really good and gave us all a lot to think about later. Two nights ago my mom and I made an awesome stir-fry. Spicy Tempeh Stir-Fry 2 cups maitake mushrooms 1/2 onion 1 block tempeh, chopped 3 pattypan squash, diced 1 bunch kale, chopped 4-5 tbsp Neera's Vegetable Chutney Stir-fry the onion and mushrooms first, then add tempeh, then squash, and kale last. Add chutney to taste but watch out - this brand is spicy. This is the chutney we used second from left. All the way on the left is the pasta sauce we used for last night's dinner. Last night's dinner was super quick - we stir-fried some mushrooms and a whole head of broccoli, then added the entire jar of pasta sauce, two bags of Pastaslim noodles, and a few slices of chopped up Field Roast Lentil Sage deli slices. The ...

I have become a broccoli snob. I didn't even realize it until last week when I was sick. I hadn't been getting a whole lot of vegetables in my diet, mostly because I was so dizzy every time I stood up that I wasn't going to the grocery store or cooking very much. So on the occasion that I did muster up the determination to walk to Ralphs, I bought a bag of frozen broccoli. When I steamed it up the next day, I discovered that it was totally disgusting. I grew up on frozen broccoli. My mom always made sure we had a vegetable with dinner, but it was usually frozen and often broccoli. I never had a problem with it, but for the last year and a half or so I've eaten so much fresh broccoli that I became a total broccoli snob and now I can't stand the frozen stuff. It's mushy and tasteless! I couldn't even finish my steamed broccoli, so to make it edible I covered it in barbeque sauce and baked it at 450 for 30 minutes. Much better. I bought two stalks of fr...