Chicago Marathon Val

Hello!

I’m sitting here blogging with a very contented stomach.  I ate very well today and I enjoyed every minute of it!

First thing when I woke up, my sweet husband offered to make me a juice… while I blogged on the computer in bed… of course I couldn’t say no to that!

It was Mike’s first time juicing all on his own, and I think he had too much fun with it   Juicers are definitely a man’s best friend… they are so powerful and it really is fun to watch them juice the heck out of whatever you put into it!

He made it from carrots, celery, lemon, and apples.  Great job, Mike!

Then we picked up my mom and grandma from the train and came home to sample our one, lone tomato from our balcony plant. It was a bit disappointing to see such small results after putting in the work over the course of the summer, but according to Mike’s dad we are too high up in our high-rise for the tomato plant’s flowers to get pollinated…. anyone have any ideas how to have better luck growing veggies on a high-rise balcony?

We literally had about an inch of the tomato, each!

Small, but so good! It’s so amazing how drastically tastier the “real” tomatoes are compared to the store bought kind that travel hundreds of miles to get to your kitchen.

After Mike and I went to The Chicago Diner for the first time back on The Inaugeral Val Day, I’ve been raving to my family about how spectacular it was.  I was dying to take my mom and grandma there, since they are both flexitarians and have a  great appreciation for good vegetarian/vegan food.

We started off my having  the raw nachos, which Mike and I loved the last time.

The raw flax seed chips are soooo good, but the  mock chorizo was a bit spicy for my liking!  Luckily this was ok since I was so in love with the “cheese” and “sour cream” on the nachos!

Since I may as well be the marketing director for The Chicago Diner – I’m so obsessed I feel as if it is my duty to notify mankind of its fabulousness – I took pix of all of our meals for your drooling viewing pleasure.

My grandmother got the homemade black bean burger, which she really enjoyed!

Mike and my mom both got the quinoa and avocado tostada. Mike seemed to love his, and I know my mom felt the same way since she kept talking about how it was “the best meal she had ever, ever had”   I tried theirs and can vouch that it was good stuff!

And getting to my meal…. I had such a hard time deciding what to eat since everything on the menu looks so wonderful, so to pay a tribute to the Greek side of my husband’s family, I went with the vegan gyros!

The gyros were amazing. The “lamb” was, in my opinion, much better than real lamb (which I’m not a fan of)… it was almost TOO much like the real thing and I actually would have preferred to have a tad bit less of it since it was so, so meaty tasting.

The vegan tzatziki sauce was FABULOUS… just as light and refreshing as the real deal!  And the sweet potato fries, as you can imagine, were just perfect.

Mike and I told my mom and grandma that we absolutely had to spring for dessert so we split two slices.

Lemon Coconut Vegan Cake:

And this is our absolute favorite… Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

As I said before, this is the only cake I’ve ever had that truly rivals, and may in fact surpass, my wedding cake as taking the award for World’s Best Cake! Not bad for being vegan, eh?

After lunch, Mike dropped us off downtown while he went to play in a baseball game.  I just had to take a picture of the gorgeous copper pots on display at Williams Sonoma… love these!!

Does anyone else  have an obsession with all things copper or is it just me??? I fell in love with everything copper at the store…. napkin rings, ice buckets, the works!

We grabbed a quick drink at Borders – I got a decaf “mambo” tea, which was a fruity blend.  I was so thirsty and it hit the spot!

When I got home later this afternoon, I excitedly broke out…. my new DEHYDRATOR!!!! I am going to post more about this once I have the final product to share with you, but let’s just say that I am thrilled to pieces to finally have a dehydrator to call my own!!!

I made three different things in the dehydrator today, but it takes 1-2 days for them to be fully dehydrated so I’ll chat about this more tomorrow or Tuesday.

Basically my “dinner” involved a ton (I mean, TON!) of snacking on these dehydrated recipes.

And also this guy….

A lemon cucumber! Have you ever seen one of these?

So pretty inside!

First I tossed the cuke slices with some balsamic vinegar and salt. This was good, but needed something more….

I had these chips from Good Health, and wanted to give them a shot.  It occurred to me that if I put these two together it would =

Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips!!!!It was such a great idea to combine them together!!! I loved these flavors together…. I haven’t had salt & vinegar chips in years, and haven’t missed the bad ingredients in them at all. However, this tasted really fun together and I loved the short ingredient list in these Good Health chips.

The chips were made from:

1) whole potato flour

2) expeller processed sunflower or safflower oil

3) tomato and spinach puree

4) garlic

5) sea salt

Not bad huh?  These chips tasted more like fluffy popped chips (kinda like Pirate’s Booty from Whole Foods) and was a lot better than regular chips for this reason… it was not the least bit oily or greasy.

I had a very hard time stopping myself from eating the whole bag, so you know they must be good! And I’m not even a chip girl!

The nice guys over at Good Health have offered you an awesome discount on their products….

In order to get 25% off their goods, just type in “Marathon” on their website for the promotion code!  They also have a ton of other fabulous flavors – avocado oil chips, sweet potato chips, etc!

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Gratitude Journal:

1) It was lovely to sleep in and wake up to a freshly made juice by the hubby!

2) I had a fun day with my mom and grandma at lunch and in the city!

3) I also had a blast with my new dehydrator!

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Have a wonderful week everyone!

Tzatziki dip and a Discount for Chips!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.