What A Vegan on A Budget Eats

The name on everyone's lips, Roxy!

I figured I'd start my Holiday post off with a typical morning with Roxy. When I decide to blog, she lays on my lap, and stretches out so she takes up most of my upper half! And she always primly crosses her legs, she's so cute, who can move her? Roxy manages to be really pushy in the cutest way possible.
I figured I'd show some cheap meals I've eaten recently. It is so much more satisfying to be on a budget in the summer, when produce is so much cheaper. I got an English cucumber on sale for eighty cents, and it has been used in two meals, and the rest will be used in a third meal. Not bad. It is harder to get a lot of fresh produce in the winter.

Smoothie rising!

I've been drinking green smoothies with spinach, and frozen mango and pineapple, two of the cheapest frozen fruits available at Trader Joe's. I should have gotten some bananas, because it's a little off on the texture without that creaminess, but still totally edible.  This is another cute postcard from Caroline. I've hung them around my apartment, because it's killing me having blank walls. I can handle little furniture, but blank walls kill my soul. But enough digressing, back to the food!

Golden perfection!

For dinner one night I made oven fries spiced with curry powder and a little extra turmeric. I dipped them in sweet chili sauce, which was an amazing combo. I couldn't get enough of these flavors. Potatoes are the perfect base for spices and flavors.

Chickpea of the sea melt!

I cooked up some dried chickpeas, and I had this delicious chickpea of the sea melt for breakfast for two days. Perfect with some melted pepperjack FYH slices. I like my chickpea salad heavy on the mustard!
With the rest of the chickpeas, I made hummus which I used for three meals and one snack, so you can't beat that value. I had gotten dried chickpeas on sale at Sprouts for ninety nine cents a pound, so for less than a dollar I got five meals and a snack.

Avocado love!

Here's one of my hummus and veggie sandwiches. This one has cucumber and avocado and lots of black pepper. I love starting the day this way.

Where's my malt vinegar?

I had a tiny amount of frozen steak fries, and I added some of the Trader Joe's handsome cut fries to the mix. Spicy ketchup and FYH ranch for dipping. The handsome cut fries are maybe the best frozen fries I've had. These are the fries that need malt vinegar! They are thin, but not too thin, and they have the skin on. They are exactly the fair fries where I first tried malt vinegar!

For dinner last night, I of course didn't make what I had kind of planned, instead I cooked a tiny amount of dried black beans I had lurking, and made these delicious twice baked potatoes. Mid day I started craving baked potatoes something fierce, but the beans were already cooking, and also I needed to use this avocado. So, I decided to make twice baked potatoes with black beans, corn, scallions and cilantro. And I also added some nutritional yeast and less than one fourth cup of vegan shreds. These were sooooooo good! Even as a vegan, I used to think that twice baked potatoes needed a ton of earth balance and vegan cheese to be good, but these had no vegan butter and very little cheese and were AHMAZING! These are something I will make even when I'm not on a budget.
To be honest, it feels really good to be eating simply. While I was staying with Derek, I didn't do a lot of cooking for a plethora of reasons, so I was eating a lot of take out, or frozen foods. And my digestion felt it. So, eating all homemade is making a huge difference. It's so funny, when I was a kid, we NEVER ate out, and NEVER ordered pizza. All treats were made by mom. I used to wish we could go out to eat, or get a pizza or something. Or, I wished we could just once have cookies from a box, like normal people. Now, I'm almost a carbon copy in the way I eat. Life is so funny that way.
Happy Monday!