It has been a while since I shared a recipe with you all.  So, here is a super easy, quick, flavorful and healthy lunch or dinner idea!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of cooked quinoa
• 2 cups of fresh broccoli
• 1 and 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
• 1 cup of sweet peppers (diced)
• 1 onion (diced)
• 10 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 3 tablespoons of liquid aminos
• 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
• 1 cup of fresh basil (chopped)

Directions:

1. Cook the quinoa.
2. Heat the pan and add coconut oil.
3. When oil is hot, add diced onions and garlic.
4. After you have allowed the onions to sweat, add quinoa, broccoli, walnuts, sweet peppers, liquid aminos, and nutritional yeast.
5. Cook together for about 5 minutes.
6. Turn off heat then add fresh basil.
7. Stir and serve.
8. Enjoy!

I’m back!

Sorry it has been a while since my last post.  I have been on a 3 month vacation.  We went to the Philippines and California to visit family.  We had a wonderful time and I wanted to share some photos with you all.

Photos of the Philippines.

Spending Christmas in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan.

Waiting for my dad to ask one of the workers to find us some coconut hearts.

coconut hearts

BM

treehouse on my uncle’s lot

Puerto Princesa City, Palawan

camias

My child, my father and his pet cows.

Sunrise Mansion
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan

Langonan River

huge jackfruit

Nagtabon Beach
Palawan, Philippines

My favorite fruit: star apple

Prisoner at Iwahig Prison Farm making a wood-burning piece of art.

sunrise

Delicious Filipino vegan food!

Mangosteen, lansones, chico, mangoes and rambutan.

3rd zipline in a week!  With my sister and nephew.
Dumaguette, Philippines

I love mangosteen!

Sabang, Puerto Princesa City, Philippines

Underground River
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines

A bear cat.

Mango smoothie

Riding my first zipline in Irawan, Puerto Princesa City.
The longest zipline in Asia.

2nd zipline at Sabang by the Underground River

A butterfly laying her eggs.

another beautiful sunset…
Puerto Princesa City, Palawan

Island hopping and lagoon touring.
El Nido, Palawan

Island hopping in El Nido

El Nido

Kayaking in El Nido lagoons

Exploring caves
Island hopping in El Nido, Palawan

The Alternative Restaurant, El Nido
(known for awesome vegan banana heart curry)

Dos Palmas Island, Palawan, Philippines

Dos Palmas, Palawan

Sheridan, Sabang, Palawan

Here are some photos from our California trip!

My favorite restaurant, NATIVE FOODS CAFE.

NATIVE FOODS CAFE, Los Angeles, California

The Loving Hut Cafe
San Diego, CA

Temecula, CA

Mission Beach, California

Hi there!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  My family and I went on a vacation to Nevada, Arizona, and then to California.

Bellagio

Fremont Street

Luxor

First we went out to Las Vegas.  My husband and I don’t go on many dates because the only people allowed to watch my child right now are close family friends or family members.  Fortunately, my mother was able to take some time off of work to meet us in Vegas to be our babysitter.   I really enjoyed what Vegas had to offer; delicious food, museums,  shows, and shopping (although I didn’t do too much of it for myself).

Date night with the hubby...Cirque Du Suleil

We didn’t go to any buffets, but we were able to enjoy a lot vegan food from Whole Foods and some pretty cool restaurants like “The Red Velvet Cafe” and “Pura Vida Bakery and Bystro by Chef Mayra”.  I really wanted to eat at the Wynn, but we just ran out of time.  Note: Steven Wynn is a vegan and his hotels have restaurants that are VERY vegan friendly.  They even have separate vegan menus.

Here are some photos of the food that we had at Pura Vida Bakery and Bystro (vegan empanadas, kale soup, tofu scramble sandwich, and burritos):

It was oh so yummy!

If you are ever in Vegas, I recommend you check out the vegan restaurants there, you won’t regret it!

After we left Vegas, we visited my husband’s great-grandfather, which is my daughter’s great, great- grandfather in Arizona.  It was such an awesome visit.  He told stories from long ago, he played cards with the husband, he tried curry for the first time in his life (my vegan curry panang), and he read with Savannah.

3-year-old and 93-year-old reading to one another.

After Arizona, we went to California.  We visited more family members, Disney, more vegan restaurants, and more Whole Foods.  Seriously, we were able to eat healthy throughout this whole trip because of that place!  All of our snacks and to-go meals were from Whole Foods.

Whole Foods!

Ready for Disney.

Watching the parade.

 When we went to Disneyland, we packed a cooler full of nuts, non-dairy milk, multi-grain pita bread, hummus, veggies, fruit, Lara Bars and Kind Bars because I wasn’t sure how healthy or vegan-friendly the restaurants were and didn’t have the time to find out.   Thank goodness for my STRONG husband who carried the back pack full of food most of the day!   Thanks, husband!

Beautiful Temecula Winery.

With my sister, Patricia, at a bar in Temecula.

Mother line dancing. She and my sister looked so cute out there on the dance floor!

We even took a family photo.  There are lots of people missing from this pic though. 

Photo by my sister.
-A Thousand Words Photography-

Looking at these pictures are making me wish I were closer to my family.  I am missing them very much right now.

In Los Angeles, we hung out in Santa Monica and Playa Del Rey.

Santa Monica.

Aunt Annette, me, and Adeline.

I fell in love with this restaurant called, Leaf Organics Vegan Cafe.  I have to say, the food was absolutely delicious!  I am a huge fan of raw dishes, and I was very happy with what they had to offer.  Here is what we had:

Raw vegan appetizer: raw vegan sushi, raw hummus, guacamole, and raw cashew "cheese".

Raw vegan burger.

My favorite: Raw vegan pad Thai with kelp noodles. OMG I loooove kelp noodles!

We also ate at this restaurant called Local 1205.   I ordered a raw vegan falafel sandwich and a raw vegan chocolate cupcake.  I inhaled the sandwich pretty fast, which is why I don’t have a photo of it.  I was pretty hungry!  But here is a photo of the cupcake:  dates, cacao, agave, coconut, avocado, etc.  Delicious!

We also visited Bakersfield for a couple of days to visit some more family members.

Savannah's great-grandmother, father, grandmother, and grandfather.

The child had such a wonderful time entertaining everyone.  She played her favorite songs from her piano book, danced around like a maniac, and showed off her math and reading skills.  She read everyone books, solved multiplication, addition, and subtraction problems, and played on everyone’s pianos.

She is pooped from all of the traveling!

It was difficult to leave everyone because I knew Savannah loved being around her family.  This visit made me really wish we lived closer to them.  I wish we were closer to California.  I really do miss it.

My mommy and my child.

We had a pleasant little adventure, but now we are back home and ready to get back to our comfy day-to-day routine.

I will post a new recipe soon.  I am thinking about raw vegan sushi with Brazil nuts and almonds….yummmm.