Inland Empire Los Angeles Vegan Thanksgiving Options

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Momma J in Meal Plans, The Family, vegan

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Inland Empire Los Angeles Vegan Thanksgiving Options, Vegan Thanksgiving, vegan thanksgiving los angeles, vegan thanksgiving meal plan, vegan thanksgiving options inland empire

I’ve often thought about the transformation of tofurky through the years. I remember many moons ago, when the first tofurky came out, my mom excitedly ran to the nearest health store and brought it home for our Thanksgiving feast. After waiting forever for it to cook, we finally displayed it on the dining room table and got ready to eat. What happened after that first bite kind of resembled the scene where they eat blue soup in Bridget Jone’s Diary. I’m not that big a fan of fake meats to begin with, but we all thought it tasted pretty gross. It could have been our lack of cooking skills, the fact that I’ve never really liked the taste of meat, or that tofurky was a new product that has come a long way since then, but in the end, we gave it to the dog and ate Thanksgiving spaghetti instead. The dog wouldn’t touch it, and also went for the spaghetti.

A lot has changed since then, and tofurky is pretty tasty now. A friend made it for me a few years ago and I actually really enjoyed it. We’ve been so busy that we were tempted to make something similar this year, but then decided on Chef Chloe’s Vegan Pumpkin Penne Pasta with Sage instead. It’s one of our favorite holiday meals and something I look forward to every year. For our full Thanksgiving Menu, check out my post from last year.

I also wanted to share some Inland Empire and Los Angeles area vegan Thanksgiving treats, in case anyone would rather go out this year.

Babycakes: I know it’s dessert, but they have a lot of Thanksgiving treats on their menu.

Cafe Gratitude: Will be hosting a free Thanksgiving feast, more info here.

One World Vegetarian in Covina will be serving a Thanksgiving special, and I if you call in advance you can purchase a vegan turkey for your Thanksgiving meal at home. Reservations strongly recommended.

And Native Foods usually has a wellington that they serve, but they may be done with orders.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Here’s to a year of health, happiness, family, and tasty food. 🙂

Catching up!

21 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by Momma J in life, The Adventures of Little T, The Family, The Travels

≈ 4 Comments

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fall family activities, fall family vacation ideas, Fall family vacations

I realize this post is a little late, but I wanted to catch everyone up on what’s been happening in our little home.

Most of all, things got busy with work and I found myself waking up at two in the morning on most days, thinking about my to do list until I finally decided to get up and work until I could sleep again. It was a little crazy, but the hard work has paid off and now I’m finally getting to a place where I have a healthy balance of work and home.

We did take a weekend in October to visit Riley’s Farm, the most amazing fall vacation destination. Our family goes every year, it wouldn’t be fall without a trip to our favorite apple picking place.

We usually stay at Serendipity Ranch Bed and Breakfast, but it seems they are getting more and more popular, so they were booked by the time we had called (ack!). Instead we stayed at the Highland Springs Resort, and drove up to Apple Valley from there.

We started out the trip by surprising Little T with his cousin, who showed up at our house after Little T had gone to bed. He put his sleeping bag in the room, and was there when Little T woke up, which immediately made for the best day ever.

After an epic early morning light saber brawl, we went to see the Halloween decorations at Disneyland. When we got to D-Land, Little T’s other cousins R and N were there, he was in heaven. The highlight of the trip was having their faces painted at the Pirates League. Little T insisted on being the scariest pirate ever. :p

In that last photo, he was trying to make a scary face.

We played at Disneyland for a little longer:

And then drive over to the Highland Springs Resort that night. In the morning, we explores and waited for Papa J and Grandy to arrive, then made our way to pick apples.

Power nap time!

After naps, my girlfriends and their families arrived, and our Aunt S. 🙂 we went to Riley’s farm to watch the Sleepy Hollow show. I have to say, we actually won the apple bobbing contest this year, and we were way too excited about it, but it’s the little things in life, right? 😉

Team apple!

The next morning, the kids went around waking everyone up. We toyed with the idea of letting the childless adults sleep, but then decided against it.

At breakfast, everyone shared their favorite part of the trip. Little T is such a cutie pie, because now he asks every day what our favorite part of the day was. 🙂 I’m so glad he picked that up, it’s nice to hear what he enjoys every day.

And that’s the shortened-written on my iPhone version. But it was a great time, and I’m so glad we have this tradition to keep.