Weekend Reading...

Between hanging out in my backyard for far too long sniffing my bacon-making neighbor's air and running 13 miles today...I am all tuckered out. 

All the big plans that I had for today (clean my ENTIRE house, make us at least a $1000 and then if I had time probably change a few people's lives with my kindness) have evaporated into laying on my couch, moaning about how tired I am and watching 'The Sopranos.' 

So here is my list of things to read/do this weekend if you find yourself with a few minutes to spare....

'Madonna's Diet Is The Hardest I Have Ever Tried.'

A reporter tries to live by Madonna's eating rules for a week and sarcasm ensures. 

Just a tidbit from the article - 'One time Madonna told Spin’s Bob Guccione Jr. that “straight men only think about how you may dominate them in some way and make their dicks shrivel up or something.” In that aggressive yet very fun spirit, I start my day off with corn in a plum-paste sauce.' 

'36 Things You Will Naturally Understand If  You're From Colorado.'

As a transplanted Coloradoan, I get this list. 

So if you live in Colorado and didn't see it on your Facebook newsfeed this past week, check it out.

"18. At some point, Casa Bonita made you think that cliff diving was a viable career option."

 Truth

"Male Species I Just Can't"

The ever so funny Whitney did a blog post about guys she dates. 

You know...cuz it's funny to categorize whole groups of people.

Sorry single ladies that this is what you deal with. 

Lastly, I might be making myself some vegan coconut bacon this weekend. 

 via

It's coconut flakes with bragg's amino acids, liquid smoke and maple syrup and supposedly is a vegan substitute for bacon. 

Let's just say that I am not getting my hopes up....but OMG....what if I found the perfect substitute for the baco's I used to eat straight out of the container as a kid!

Hope y'all are having a great weekend thus far! I have big plans as you can see.

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

Weekend Reading...

Happy weekend to you!

I am about to head out on an 11 mile run in 80 degree heat and then spend the rest of the day collapsed in a heap on my couch wondering what the hell just happened.

Here is a round-up of some of my favorite things around the web this week that I thought you might enjoy...

18 Important Life Lessons To Learn From Knitting

Learn from LIFE magazine how a wife should & should not undress

Bake these yummy looking raw almond butter cups

Make and immediately eat this amazing raw vegan pad thai. We had this for dinner last night and the sauce for it was so good. I am forcing my husband to eat it again tonight. 

 Freak out over this infographic about '10 Places To See Before They Are Gone' 

Read about that one time in 2010 I wore high heels to Target

Read about blogger 'Two Third's Hazel' awful dating story

Get some blogging lessons from the very funny Erin at 'Living in Yellow' 

Well....that's it for me. I have put off running long enough. Wish me luck and enjoy your weekend everyone!!

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

The Blog Post With Terrible Transitions...

See what I did there with that title? 

I played off of a popular book series, 'The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo.'

That's the kind of hip blogger that I am. Bringing in pop culture references a few years past its prime. 

And here begins my blog post featuring not so great transitions...

TRANSITION!

When I was like ten years old, I painted my nails a light blue thanks to a nail polish set from Limited II (wasn't this the best store ever? I shopped there pretty much exclusively during the ages of 9-12). I showed my dad my fabulous nails and he told me that he didn't like it and it looked like I was dead. 

Hence when at the age of ten, I learned that your fingernails turn blue after your die.

Well, this stuck with me for 20 years and I purchased some light blue nail polish again a few weeks ago and finally talked myself into it today.

I hate it and I can't help but think that I look like I am dead. I tried to take a few photos, but they are pretty bad. Not my nicest painting job, so no photos for you.

By the way, I feel like it is some sort of universal law that as soon as you paint your fingernails, you simultaneously have to go pee, get hungry for a sandwich and your puppy also has to go pee RIGHT NOW! I painted my nails and all of sudden, like some weird trifecta all three happened and I botched up my nails. It's cool though because I am taking this color off in like a day or two.

TRANSITION!

We have this semi random container of millet that we are trying to use up so tonight I made us a plate of millet topped with a 'cheezy' mushroom gravy. 

 Vegan friendly, pretty delicious but not so photogenic.

I swear there is millet in there underneath the mushroom gravy. 

We just like us some gravy okay?

TRANSITION!

I have been wearing my hair curly lately (as I talk about here & here) thanks to Miss Jessie's curl cream. 

Miss Jessie, call me already! I am so ready to be your spokesmodel!

I have decided that me and Shakira are going to bring back big, sexy, curly hair. 

TRANSITION! 

Tonight after our millet feast, we went on a walk along the beach and took a few photos...

TRANSITION!

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

Blog Vomit - Round II

I haven't been hanging around here much lately so I would like to extend my apologies to all my readers (hi mom!) about that. I get a little bit introverted at times and just want to hang out with me, my husband and my puppy and not share a thing about my life. Other times I want to go, 'Look at me, look at me! I did something cool and/or I made some yummy vegan mocha fudge sauce!'

I am trying to not be quite so introverted and I think that my husband wants me to stop talking just to him about the delicious vegan mocha fudge sauce that I made.

There really isn't any cohesiveness in today's post, just a little hodge podge of what has been happening lately around here...

a) Two weeks ago we took our 'little brother' to Stone Mountain, Georgia to climb the giant stone mountain there. As someone who grew up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the idea of a 'stone mountain' in the middle of nowhere didn't make any sense. When it was described to me the first few times, I was like, 'So it's a mountain made out of entirely stone? No dirt? No grass? It's just hanging out without a single other hill around it?' 

And yeah, it is just hanging out and people climb it.

 

Just hanging out with our thumbs out on top of a stone mountain. If you look real close right over John's right shoulder, you will see downtown Atlanta.

b) I woke up at 6:30 am today (yeah me!). I have been crazy productive thanks to all the caffiene I started to ingest at such any early hour. The big downside of getting up so early though is that by 4pm, I have already eaten all of my alloted calories for the day. 

Damn you vegan mocha fudge sauce!!!

c) Have I mentioned yet that I made a vegan mocha fudge sauce today? It is crazy delicious. 

 Photo and recipe courtesy of the 'Love Food Eat' blog

I tried it in both a cup of hot coffee with a little almond milk and then in a big glass of almond milk with just a little bit of coffee. I think that the best way to enjoy it though is going to be by having some on top of pureed frozen bananas like a vegan ice cream sundae. Oh and with strawberries!! 

It is taking a lot of willpower to wait until tomorrow to enjoy that.

d) I was originally going to do an outfit post today but after further review of the photos, I decided that I hated my outfit. But I did love my hair, so here are a few photos of what my hair looked like yesterday. 

I have been wearing my hair curly now almost exclusively because of my new favorite product in the world. 

Miss Jessie's Pillow Soft Curl Cream

Miss Jessie's, I will happily be a spokeswoman for you because this curl cream is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. 

But please, stop making this smell like dryer sheets.

e) Yesterday my 'little brother' and I went and saw 'The Croods' together. It was really stinking adorable. I cried so hard during that movie that I had to hide the tears streaming down my face. As visually beautiful as it was, definitely not worth the extra $75 to see it in 3-D.

f) We are having people over this weekend for a BBQ/law school final studying session. Wives and girlfriends are coming over and this is the first time that I have ever had another female in my home since college that isn't a family member (that sounds so weird to write but it is true). I have suddenly grown very self conscious of where I live and am trying to look around trying to figure out what needs to be cleaned/fixed. There are so many things that we need to do, but since it is a rental, our hands are tied/super lazy on some things. All I know for certain though is that our copy of 'Everyone Poops' will be proudly displayed on top of the toilet. 

That's about all I got for now. See ya tomorrow!

~With Love, Ashlee~

I'm Hungry

So one of the things that happens when you run a race is that they have professional photographers all over the course taking your photo.

They have nice cameras which really show a lot of details. 

Too much details. 

We got an email from the race photographer on Monday evening with all the photos that we were in. There were a few dozen and we each went to our separate computer and looked at our individual photos.

Our photos were bad. Real bad. Mine were really really bad. So bad that I cried. 

We both came to the hard conclusion that we could stand to lose a few pounds. It really took the wind out of my sails. I mean 36 hours prior I had finished a marathon, but after seeing those photos, I got really bummed out. 

It also just so happened that Monday night when we received the race photos, we were in the middle of watching the documentary 'Forks Over Knives' on Netflix. 

In case you don't know, this movie highlights the importance of having a plant based diet (veganism) using scientific arguments on the health benefits that occur once you remove dairy and meat from your diet. I won't get into the details at all because I am not an expert but I definitely recommend that you watch the movie to learn more about it. 

It is powerful but not 'in your face.'

When I was in fourth grade I became a vegetarian and did so for about five years (minus the occasional bacon indulgence here and there. I had a weakness!). In tenth grade I started eating meat again. Once I hit college, I went vegetarian for about a year and then turned to veganism. I was a vegan for about a year, ate meat for a year, became vegan again for about two years, went vegetarian for two years, then ate meat for the last 1.5 years. 

To say that my relationship with animal products is off/on again is an understatement. 

After watching the movie 'Forks over Knives' with my husband though on Monday, we both came to the conclusion together that we needed to adopt more of a plant based diet. We need to get healthy, lose weight and get control of our future.

We are doing it together and I am excited about that.

We are slowly easing into this. We have some dairy in the house we need to eat still and some meat in the freezer we need to cook. We are planning on doing one meal a week with the meat until we use it all up and basically limit our dairy intake by a lot as we slowly get rid of our cheese/eggs/butter. I am most likely going to go full-on vegan once we use up all the dairy and meat, while my husband will be fairly plant based, but still enjoy the occasional burger :)

We will see how this goes and we are really excited about doing this together (probably me more than him though. He just got a new grill for his birthday two weeks ago and grilling vegetables on it isn't quite the same as grilling meat).

So expect some vegan recipes to come your way during the next few months. I actually did a guest post on Kate's blog last week, Scathingly Brillant, about one of my favorite vegan dishes to make (total coinecende). 

Check out Scathingly Brillant (here) to see how I make a yummy Pakistani Dahl.

All in all, I definitely want to eat some bacon right now.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread?

On a whim a few months ago I bought baking raisins (the kind already plump and moist) and have had baking with them on my to-do list since then. I finally got around to it today as my apartment smelled weird and old and I needed something to spice up the air around here.

I found this recipe on www.100daysofrealfood.com. Now it is not 100% vegan as it does use honey as the sweetener. I am a vegan that uses honey, so if you don't, use agave or vegan cane sugar, or brown rice syrup. I wanted to try this recipe out because it uses coconut oil in it. A lot of it in fact. I bought some a few months ago after reading about some delicious things my sister-in-law was using it for and have been really bummed out by it in my own adventures. I have used it only twice...1) Made a grilled cheese for husband with it. Didn't get good reviews as he doesn't like his coconuts and cheese mixing. 2) For frosting. What a disaster. Due to its consistency, it just kept melting and sliding off the cupcakes. I had to add so much powdered sugar to the frosting to get it firm up that my teeth ached after one bite.

Now...this baby just came out of the oven. And wow....adding a 1/2 cup of oil to it just makes it fabulous! I had to improvise from the original recipe as my bread machine turned off by itself half-way through the process and I had no idea when to add the raisins (btw...I did it after the bread rose for about 45 minutes). This bread is so moist. The bread machine massacured my raisins, so there is really not a single whole raisin in it, but raisin bits throughout it. Honestly, this bread takes like the dark rye bread they serve at Outback Steakhouse (I haven't had it in a few years, but I remember it fondly).

So to sum up...coconut oil in baking bread is awesome. No coconut taste and incredibly moist bread. Baking raisins are a joke, but when your bread machine purees them, it gives your bread a rye taste. And somehow after following a recipe for cinnamon raisin bread I made Outback Steakhouse bread. Sounds like a success to me!

Here's a link to the recipe... http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/05/25/recipe-whole-wheat-cinnamon-raisin-bread-for-bread-machine/