Mucho Tex-Mex

After some initial qualms about returning to veganism, in particularly the difficulty of doing so when surrounded by a Tex-Mex loving, omnivorous family, I'm happy to report it's going really well. Much easier than I thought. And that includes Tex-Mex. Because we do eat a lot of it.

If frozen margaritas weren't vegan, I would be so screwed though.

At Polvo's, the Michoacan salad, loaded with huge chunks of ripe avocado.

Chipotle sofritas bowl, and a good book.

A birthday lunch at Chuy's for Olivia, who turned 5.

Guacamole soft tacos. The rice is also vegan. The refritos I'm not sure about, because I don't eat them anyway.

Cheers to vegan Tex-Mex!

Georgetown Christmas Stroll

One evening before Christmas, we met my parents for dinner at Polvo's.

I had the Papas Monterrey - potatoes grilled with peppers and onions, with a side of guacamole. It's always a little off putting how Polvo's uses soy sauce to season their veggies. It's not what I am ever expecting in a Mexican restaurant.

After dinner we went up to Georgetown, where my parents live, for their annual Christmas Stroll on the town square. All the buildings were lit up and the streets were closed so vendors could set up their tents.

I love Christmas lights. I am in favor of leaving them up year round.

The kids found a tent selling wooden weapons. Sorry, little Daryl, no crossbows in our home please.

Light-up light sabers. These did come home with us.

After sipping some hot chocolate, it was time to take two sleepyheads home.

Cathedral of Junk

This morning we headed to Polvo's for some breakfast tacos. We started off with chips and salsa. The best thing about Polvo's is their roasted salsa. All the charred bits of tomato and peppers make it almost black.

Olivia is enjoying her salsa, but doesn't the design of the table make it look like she's intently playing cards?

My tacos, with spinach, potatoes and onions.

After stuffing our bellies, we visited the Cathedral of Junk. I'm not sure how to describe it, really. A guy started building it in his backyard...and it grew...and grew. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Elevate Me Later

This morning I made Olivia a sensory bag. It's pretty easy. You just squirt a bunch of hair gel into a ziploc bag, add food coloring, stir it around, and seal it up. It's fun for little ones to poke and squish. They can also practice tracing letters on it.  

Olivia thought it was neat. I'd love to make a giant sensory bag for the backyard. Doesn't that look fun? Maybe some day!

Later we went to a playground. Jackson said he needed to climb to the very top of the bars so he could get a good view of everything. He stayed up there for quite awhile.

Jackson wasn't the only one seeking higher elevation.

Before coming home, we stopped at Polvo's. I had my usual, avocado salad. Their new location in North Austin needs to work out some kinks with their service, but the food was great as always.

Any big plans for the weekend? Have a good one!

4th of July Recap

Hey all, how was your 4th of July this year? Tony had a four-day weekend, so we headed up to Oklahoma to stay with his mom for a few days.

On Saturday, I met up with an old friend in my college town. We went to the splash pad so we could visit while our kids played. Having endured a 6 1/2 hour car ride, Jackson and Olivia had tons of pent up energy and could have played under those sprinklers all day! But we left at lunchtime to go meet up with some other friends and their new baby girl. She is a super cutie! As a bonus, we ate at my favorite restaurant in Norman, Pepe Delgado's. This was the kids' first time eating there.  

They liked the food, but they were not in the mood to sit and let Mama and Daddy visit for very long. I wonder if Pepe's would consider installing a splash pad out back?

At Grandma's house, Jackson spent most of his time playing with her dog, Boone, who is 17 years old. Jackson loves him so much. Whenever we ask him if he is excited to visit Grandma, he says, "I go see Boone! I play with Boone! I throw the ball with Boone!" As you would expect with a 17-year-old canine, Boone isn't doing so well. Sadly, we know this is probably his last summer. So I made sure to take lots of pictures of Jackson and his buddy together.

On the last night of our visit, Tony's mom and cousin surprised us by offering to babysit so we could go run around without the kids. There's not much to do in the small town where my mother-in-law lives, so we found ourselves back down in Norman at a bar where I spent many, many evenings in college.

I celebrated my 21st birthday in that very booth! Ha. I'm a sucker for nostalgic experiences like this one, but it was also surreal. Nothing has changed. I mean, literally every fake potted plant in the bar was still in its exact same location. 

Afterwards, we walked around the OU campus and passed by my favorite house in town. I always called it the Italian villa. It looks like it belongs to a ministry group now. Maybe someday they'll sell it to me and I can have it transported brick by brick to Austin. Ha, maybe not. But it's sure pretty. 

On the hour-long drive home from Norman to Grandma's house, we saw fireworks the whole way. A lot of small towns were having their displays on July 3rd for some reason, and we unintentionally timed our drive so we got to see them. That was nice. 

On the actual holiday, we were making the long journey back to Texas. When we got home, we thought about taking the kids in search of fireworks, but Austin and many surrounding towns cancelled their displays due to the drought and wildfire hazard. I think a couple of small towns still had displays, but we were pretty tired and we thought the fireworks might scare Olivia since she's still so small. So we decided to go grocery shopping and then come home and relax.

Look what was buy one, get one free!

Such a lovely sight to behold. Had to stock up on fruit, too. Nectarines and pineapples were cheap this week. And of course I always need a supply of bananas on hand for my little monkeys.

Olivia is quite a fan of the pineapple. She's had a little cold for a couple days, so I'm glad to see her getting her vitamin C.

Today was the last day of Tony's mini-vacation. We thought about cooking out, but it was hot and we were lazy. Also, Tony has caught Olivia's cold, and he thought some spicy food would be good for his sinuses. Off we went to Polvo's. The Michoacan avocado salad was one of my first meals when we moved back to Austin because I missed it so much. It's what I always order.

So there you go -- no parades or barbecues, but a fun and relaxing July 4th, all the same. Hope yours was, as well.

Easter and Recent Restaurant Meals

Hey all. Thank you for your well wishes last week. Stomach bugs suck. I hate puking. I didn't even puke when I was pregnant. I hope I don't get sick like that again for a long, long time. I am feeling much better now. Thanks again.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you had an enjoyable one. This year my parents sent some Easter baskets for the kids to tear into when they woke up. These were the parent-pleasing kind of Easter baskets -- full of clothes and toys, no candy. I'm sure next year Jackson will be old enough to know that there ought to be some candy in that basket, and we will have a hyper little monkey on our hands.

We also colored a few eggs. Jackson was super serious about the whole process. It was a big deal. I was smiling at his looks of intense concentration.

He was quite proud of the finished product.

Olivia didn't know what to do with a bunch of eggs. I'm with you, lady.

Since we are not a fully vegan home, the eggs didn't go to waste. Tony made them into egg salad to eat for his lunches.

Since recovering, I've been back in the kitchen a little bit. But today, I thought I would post some pics of restaurant meals that we ate while we were living in the hotel and getting moved into our new house. We ate out a lot. Typically we try to only eat out once a week. But I don't feel bad about it at all. There are so many great Austin restaurants that I missed.

This was my first meal in Austin. Yes, it has cheese on it. In my excitement, I forgot that the veggie enchiladas from Chuy's arrive covered in cheese. So I forgot to tell the waiter "no cheese." No worries; it was easily scraped to the side. Olivia ate the beans and rice.

Watermelon mojito on the side. Oh yes.

While Chuy's is Tony's favorite Mexican restaurant in Austin, mine is Polvo's. They are awesome. They have like 16 different types of enchilada sauces. Not all vegan, but still. There's also a self-serve salsa bar with black salsa. The charred skins of roasted tomatoes is what makes it black. I've tried to duplicate it at home but I think there is some kind of unicorn magic involved. I can't stop eating it. Jackson knows what I'm talking about. He needed his own bowl.

I am not normally a person who goes to a restaurant and orders a salad, but I have dreams about the Michoacan avocado salad. Can you ever have too much avocado? I think not.

Another day, we were driving around looking at houses and I stopped to get smoothies for me and Jackson at Daily Juice, my favorite juice bar. I used to go to the one on Barton Springs that is just a juice bar, but there's another one further north that is an actual sit-down cafe and serves raw food. I've not eaten there but I need to try their food sometime. I've never been to any kind of raw cafe. Have you? How was it?

I had the El Paraiso, with mango, pineapple and other good stuff. It was turned green from spirulina. Like sucking down a cup of sunshine. Green sunshine.

Jackson made short work of his strawberry-banana smoothie. In New York we rarely made smoothies, but I know we will be drinking more of them now that we are back in a hot climate.

Finally on my most-missed list, there is Magnolia. We used to live across the street from this 24-hour diner. After several days on the road, eating little besides Larabars and fast food was getting old. At least Subway and Burger King serve veggie patties, but I don't know if they are vegan, and I definitely ate too many French fries to count. I was craving vegetables like never before. Magnolia was there to help.

That is one of their dinner specials. It's tofu, spinach, summer squash, mushrooms, peppers, and spinach, cooked in a coconut curry sauce. Next to that lovely mess of veggies is half an acorn squash, with some kind of pecan topping baked onto it (in the picture it sorta looks like a portabello mushroom, but that's actually the blackened pecan crust you're seeing.) It is a huge plate of food and I was more than happy to take home the leftovers and finish them for lunch the next day. Tastes so good.

Well, I am off to check on the tempeh I am BBQing for dinner tonight, and try to clean the bathrooms before Olivia wakes up. I feel busier than ever these days so I may not be blogging as regularly, but longer posts like this one when I do blog. We shall see. Hope you all have a great evening.