.

For Mothers Day this year we headed to Orlando, FL for the day! The documentary I wanted to see, Pom Wonderfull The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, was not playing within 100 miles of Jacksonville, so we decided we would use Mothers Day as an excuse to drive down to see it in Winter Park and have some yummy Vegan meals while we were there. So I researched on Happycow.net and made my choices for lunch and dinner....

We went to Ethos Vegan Kitched for Mother's Day Brunch! Very cool place, will totally be going back there EVERY time we are in Orlando.

Darby's tofu scramble burrito with fake sausage gravy!

My vegan French Toast with Potatoes!

Darby and Evan at the movie theatre in Winter Park (Maddie was absent as her grandpa Harry passed away suddenly days before, so she had to travel to Virginia with her dad's family for the weekend to attend the funeral.)

Evan found a Mini and posed with his bottle of Pom Wonderful! (Both sponsors of the documentary, yes we are nerds for this photo!)

After the movie we went to the bookstore where I bought 3 new Vegan cookbooks and Evan spotted some nesting Ospreys! We then visited Infusion Tea in College Park for some vegan desserts (as suggested by Greta!) Before driving back home, we headed to the Loving Hut for a very filling buffet style vegan dinner.

My Mother's Day present! A new 14 cup food processor! :)

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Misc Spring 2011 Events...

Wow, this year has flown by so fast! Here are some misc pics from some stuff I have missed posting on my blog. :(

We aquired a new pet in January! This is Blitz, our new Nanday Conure.

In January Evan and the Scott Jones dancers performed at Walt Disney World on Downtown Disney's big stage!

In February Aubrey and Brandon visited from Las Vegas and took me with them for 4 days of fun at the Daytona 500 and Cocoa Beach! This pic is of us at the Daytona Internatinoal Speedway (both of my drivers crashed early on, boo.)

In March, Darby and I celebrated our 4th Wdding Anniversay...sent me this edible arrangement to the offce, how sweet!

On April 10th, Evan turned 9 years old! Him and his birthday cake at Olive Garden with the family.

Evan started another season of San Mateo Little League for the Storm this spring. They will play games through the first week of June.

We had a fun Easter (even though Monaw was out of town). We suprised Presley with this Piano along with her Easter Basket from us.

She is getting so big!

Maddie and Devon have been dating 2 years now. They attended the NJROTC Military Ball together this spring. They looked so great in their green and black.

School year is almost over, this was taken at Maddies end of year NJROTC banquet. She got alot of awards and ribbons to add to her uniform for next Sophomore year.

Eat your Vegetables!

Darby made spagetti with ground beef sauce on Jan 28th, I didn't intend for that night to be my last meal with meat....but it was. I hadn't realized how little meat I had been eating around that time until about three days later when it hit me that I hadn't had anything with meat since . So I thought, well lets see how long we can keep this awareness up and challenged myself to try it for 2 weeks. I didn't miss meat at all and I felt so much better!

So being the OCD Jess that I am, I had to research the whole vegetarianism thing to make sure we weren't depleating ourselves of any vitamins or nutrients, etc. Now after many trips to the library for books, watching tons of documentaries and some newly aquired magazine subscriptions later, I feel like I got a handle on this whole thing! The entire family has been on this new lifestyle journey too (with an exception being the Mexico cruise where I let them eat whatever they wanted). Besides that, they have really embraced it! It's going on 4 months now, with no turning back!

We have also eliminated a lot of animal bi-products from our diet too, so I guess you can say we are Vegan"ish" as well:

Replaced mayo with Follow Your Heart Vegenaise.

Milk replaced with Soy, Rice and Almond milk (depending on recipe).

Butter replaced with Earth Balance Organic Vegan spread and sticks, also cooking with a lot more EVOO, Sesame and Canola Oil.

Added new pantry staples like Flax seed, TVP, Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole Wheat Patry Flour, Ener-G Egg replacer and Nutritional Yeast to name a few.

These all things that we've made at home:

Marinating tofu for a nights dinner.

Vegan Tempeh Enchiladas with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream!

Vegan Pizza recipe with Pesto and Tofu Ricotta cheese!

Walnut meatballs with Bechamel sauce over fettucini!

My meatless Shepards Pie!

A batch of homemade Indian spiced rice!

(Fake) chicken tostadas with coconut milk and cilantro corn!

(Fake) Chicken parmesan with veggie fettucini.

TVP sloppy joes with chickpea gravy over mashed potatoes with corn.

Tofurky Keibasa spagetti, Evan's favorite!

Schezuan Spicy Tofu stirfry!

Broccoli and Spinach pasta casserole.

Trying new things at breakfast has been fun too!

In addition, I make a fresh batch of granola every week!

French toast in a soy milk/chickpea flour batter with fake bacon.

Tofu fritatta with roasted potatoes anf fake bacon.

Mexico Cruise 2011

For Spring Break this year we needed to take a much overdue FAMILY vacation...so, we booked a cruise on the "family funship" and headed to Mexico! My sister Paulette and her fiance Doug, booked too at the last minute and joined us along with Doug's best friend, Jason and his fiance!

We took a 6 day cruise out of Mobile, AL on the Carnival Elation where we visited Yucatan Progresso and Cozumel. Also had some pretty crazy wild fun days at sea too!

My sister and I enjoying breakfast on the deck!