Monday Musings

Happy Monday folks! Well what a weekend! Saturday I woke to a text from the gym that I work at asking me to sub a conditioning class at 8.30am. Sheesh I was barely awake but I went in, and made it there with just 1 minute to spare! Not how I like to teach a class but hey it was short notice and I DID make it on time :) Great class, and I'm eager to get more experience again so I am glad I rushed my morning routine and went in.

The rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful with the usual stuff, and some TV watching. We've recently discovered the TV series Dexter. We don't have a cable service, haven't for over 2 years now so I guess we've been living under a rock, but no-one told us about this great series! We've been watching the DVD's and just finished series 3. Loving it! I love serial killer stuff so this is right up my alley! If you haven't watched it yet you should!!!

If anyone has any other good TV or movie recommendations let me know! As I said I loved Dexter, so I like that kind of show. But I like Sci-Fi and anything to do with the occult, vampires, zombies etc. We watched Zombie land movie recently and we both really enjoyed that! Comedy is always top on our list!

Saturday night we went out with friends Greg & Julie to Veggie Grill in West Hollywood (Sunset Blvd). They also have locations in El Segundo and Irvine, and I understand they are trying to branch out further! Hope so cos their food was DELICIOUS! We had the All-American Stack and the V-Cheese Burger. Each came with the side of slaw which we subbed out for veggie chili and sweetheart fries (sweet potato fries) and made our own chili fries. Great wholesome food, and we got our first taste of a new vegan 'cheese' called "Daiya" which rocks!!! We're not vegan, just vegetarian but any little switches we can make towards a more vegan lifestyle helps and this stuff rocked on burgers!!!

After the main meal we shared a piece of carrot cake which was surprisingly awesome too! Now I say surprisingly because here in America they tend to over-cinnamon everything which means just about every desert is sprinkled with the stuff drowning out the other flavors, so annoying. But the Veggie Grill carrot cake was soft, moist and very low on the cinnamon allow the others flavors to mingle into a mouth party! Worth the extra calories! I did manage to snap a photo (above) but forgot to snap a pic of the food which is a shame cos it was awesome! 

Forgetting to take pics seemed the theme of the weekend 'cos Sunday we headed out to do something we keep saying week after week we'll do - SUNDAY BRUNCH. In the nearly 10 years we've been here we've done brunch a handful of times, with friends and usually at someones house, but never just the two of us locally. So Sunday we headed out with coupon in hand to Souplantation for brunch. Wow totally different experience without baked potatoes! They do so many different brunchy options we just sampled a little of everything (that was veggie). The breakfast potatoes are good, though Bob wasn't overly keen as he's not big on peppers. Scrambled egg was weird, not sure if it's just a Souplantation thing, but it was almost a slab of 'scrambled' egg. I guess I'm used to light and fluffy scrambled egg or something? Cos that stuff did NOT taste like scrambled egg. I did enjoy the Courgette/Zuchinni frittata, which was basically quiche without the pastry, nice though - far better than the 'scrambled egg'. Bob had some of the potatoes and scrambled egg in a burrito which he seemed to enjoy and then I went up for another look around and spied someone with waffles. Not a huge waffle fan but I crave them occassionally and this was one such ocassion, cos once I saw them I was on a mission. Eventually found them and had those with some maple syrup. Weird seeing the concoctions people make in that place though! lol! There was some cereal, oatmeal, soups and the standard salad bar plus all the usual muffins etc. We did comment that it was odd there was no toast or bagels but we enjoyed it thoroughly. Bob kept saying that it was weird to be out eating at that time, and it felt like we were on vacation, lol!

Later we headed off to Whole Foods in search of Daiya cheese from last nights meal. Which basically means a good browse around, filling our basket with veggie foods and then spending a ton of money. We did ok though only hitting the $100 mark, usually we are way over that stocking up for the months ahead! We did track down the cheese though and were eager to try it out so we made french bread pizza for dinner with the new cheese and some new italian style sausage we'd bought. Have to say the cheese is VERY convincing and tasty, the sausage not so much. I'll stick with Tofurkey italian sausage thanks, but I am eager to try the apple/sage sausage and chipotle sausage :) I think though I came to a decision at dinner - I am just not a pizza person. I ate it, but really didn't enjoy it that much. I'd much prefered a plate of pasta loaded with veggies and the sausage then a sprinkle of cheese. I've been having issues with bread lately and this was no exception as I was fairly bloated and uncomfortable again all evening. Crazy thing is I rarely eat it, but I need to start taking a step back when we eat out and think of better options for food and what I'll enjoy more now AND later! lol. 

After dinner we watched the Supercross races then the final episodes of Dexter season 3. All in all a great weekend!

hope you all had a fun weekend!

Di