I heart crappy creamer

One of the things with debatable health benefits that I will NOT be giving up is coffee. And I don't drink it black. I prefer a white chocolate mocha or something full of sugar and calories like that, but I can't afford a daily trip to Starbucks (I would go somewhere independent but I live in North Las Vegas...not many options here.) When I brew coffee at home, I still want it to be sweet, so I use whatever flavored creamer I can find on sale. The kind we most recently had was Baileys Cheesecake flavor...YUM!! My friend Andrea, who is a Nutritional Therapist, would say "tsk tsk" and shake her finger at me, and I'd laugh. But seriously, I have learned so much about healthy eating from her! You can check out her website, or "like" her on Facebook. So, I know the creamer is full of preservatives and chemicals, but I'm just going to have to be ok with that. We all have our vices.

This morning we were out of creamer (!) and I thought I'd treat myself to Starbucks with a Living Social deal I found. Then I realized I was serving with the preschoolers at church and needed to hustle just to get there on time! I had some coffee with sugar and half & half at church. Hmm, half & half is pretty good. And healthier than the flavored creamer. As a middle ground, Kyle picked up some "natural" creamer at the store. So Delicious also makes a coconut milk creamer that is really good, and vegan. We'll try that next time, but it's only available at Whole Foods (which is a bazillion miles away) and I needed coffee for tomorrow morning!

Today, for breakfast I had an apple with peanut butter, and then lunch was leftover coconut curry.

During Esther's nap, I made some gluten-free, vegan pumpkin "doughnuts" that are not really doughnuts at all. The recipe says you can make mini doughnuts or "doughballs." I've looked at all the thrift stores in the area for mini doughnut pans, but haven't found any yet. I've made this recipe a few times on a cookie sheet and they turn out more like cookies. It's ok...they still taste great, even to people who don't now they aren't "normal" food. Today I put them in a mini muffin pan, but I think I'll stick with the cookie sheet from now on because they kind of fell apart when I tried to get them out of the pan. It's best to let them cool before eating because they are pretty, well, doughy. These are super tasty, have no sugar, and make a nice treat or snack. For the chocolate, I use Trader Joe's dark chocolate truffle candy bars, which I discovered when I was nursing Esther. It wasn't too difficult to find dark chocolate without dairy, but almost all of them have soy lecithin. This is the best candy bar I've found and I use it in place of chocolate chips.

For dinner we had a vegetable soup. I used some turkey broth that I had frozen from Thanksgiving as the base. I know that's not vegan, but I had it in the freezer and didn't want to waste it. You could easily make this soup with vegetable broth. I put the broth in a pot then added diced onion, garlic, potatoes, celery, carrots, s&p, basil, rosemary, garlic salt, and celery salt. After it's done simmering until the potatoes are soft, you can add cooked pasta or rice, but we just had it as is. You'll notice these are the same veggies as yesterday's dinner. I just wanted to show that you can use the same ingredients to make a different meal. I used to find myself buying a package of something, using it for one dish, then tossing the rest. I'm trying to be more budget conscious now! The kids didn't say, "gross, this is disgusting!" so that's a success in my book!

We have enough soup leftover for lunch tomorrow. Tomorrow is also "back to reality" day...Isaac goes back to school, Kyle goes back to work, and I have to take down the Christmas stuff. We'll see how all this chopping and planning goes!