Spring Break : Detox

My husband and I started a week-long Vegan diet today. We're spring cleaning our waistlines, as well as our pantry! After traveling a lot this past month, we both feel a bit... blah. Eating out will do that to you.

Other than the odd recipes I've made for visitors, I've pretty much overlooked vegan eating because... we LOVE cheese. But part of being in tune with your body is inherently listening to it -- especially when it says, "Enough is enough!" And well, all I can say is... we need to take a little breather in the fromage department.

So this weekend, I put together a list of recipes to make over the next seven days. Some are new, some old. Even though I like challenges, I'm not exactly looking forward to this. But as my 6 year old ever so gently put it this morning, "Well at least you can still drink wine!" Yeesh. She is wise beyond her years!

Here's our weekly menu. Feel free to share any great Vegan recipes you like! Lord knows we'll need them... I'm starving already.

• Homemade Falafel (my favorite, secret recipe!)
• My version of Real Food Daily's Triple Decker Club served with sweet potato french fries
• White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup with ciabatta
• Momofuku's Ginger Scallion Noodles served with Salad w/carrot, avocado and ginger dressing
• Sprouted Garbanzo Bean Burgers with Chile d'Arbol Sauce
• Asparagus & Sun-Dried Tomato Tofu Frittata
• Cucumber, Lime and Basil Juice
• Bean tacos with Daiya cheese, non-dairy sour cream and homemade guacamole
• Blueberry Almond Smoothies
• Baked Macaroni and {Cashew} Cheese
• Healthy Chocolate Cake
• Fregola salad with Fresh Citrus, Herbs and Red Onion

Never fear! I'll be sure to share any interesting dishes with you....

[Wish us luck.] It's only one week for goodness sakes! We can totally do this.

Just another lost angel

All this talk about escaping and ironically, that's all I've been doing lately!

There's a lot of craziness going on in the 180|360 world -- stuff that I haven't been able to bring myself to talk about on here. Yet.

Even though I know it's going to be okay (I'm an eternal optimist), it has still been very stressful.

Needless to say, I've been in Los Angeles these past two weekends and I'm off for a photo shoot in Chicago next week. Fun!

I like LA. It's colorful and eclectic. There is so much to see and do, as long as you have the willpower to fight the force of the ocean.

(A periodic recharge by the sea is a necessity in my book!)

This time around, we tried to visit places we'd never been: LACMA, The Farmer's Market, Page Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits, a quick tour of downtown, etc.

I was without a camera (!) most of the time, but managed to get a few snaps here and there.

My children definitely enjoyed going to different museums and it was fun hearing their interpretations on contemporary art. LACMA even has a children's gallery where you can paint! Very cool.

One of my highlights was eating at Pizzeria Mozza (thanks Jora & Alice.) Fennel sausage pizza, the daily special of Lasagne al forno, Butterscotch Budino Pudding for dessert and a perfect wine selection to boot. (I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.) That's one meal I will never forget.

What a bizarre selection of photos and certainly not the best representation of LA! (And that last one of Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall was taken while I was driving. I just stuck my camera out the window and shot. Although blurry, I kind of dig it.) Next time, I'll be sure to take better photos!

Later.... I'll share a completely different side of Los Angeles that we got to experience.

Igliqtuq

The Minimalist Pantry: Granola Bars

Stacks and stacks of recipes greet me every day.

I've gone from making one new recipe a week to one or more a day! In fact, I seem to add to my queue of "recipes to try" at an alarming rate.

Damn you food bloggers, the New York Times and Santa (for all of my new cookbooks!) ;^)

Someone save me from myself...

But to be fair, I'm on a spring cleaning mission. I like to call it my Quest for a Minimalist Pantry. With careful consideration, I'm trying to choose recipes that will use up all of these random ingredients I've bought over the past year.

The first thing I made was Smitten Kitchen's "Thick, Chewy Granola Bars." I have bags and bags of nuts and berries in my refrigerator/freezer that desperately needed to be used before they went off. Plus, one of my other current obsessions is making items I'd normally buy. (Future post alert!)

The granola bars tasted great and were easy to make, although a bit crumblier than I'd like. They were reminiscent of an English Flapjack crossed with an oatmeal raisin cookie. I highly recommend storing them in the refrigerator and eating them cold. Use the link above for the recipe.

This I know :|: Lucky

I am a lucky girl.

Even though I believe we create a certain amount of our happiness and destiny, there is no question that I've been blessed with a lot of fortune.

At the end of my rainbow, I see riches in the form of:

- my family,

- friends,

- passions,

- hopes

- and dreams.

In such a materialistic and insatiable world as this, my hope is for everyone to focus less on the green in our wallets and more on cultivating the green around us.

Green as life and growth,

Green as nature and rebirth,

Green as giving and sustaining others,

Green as the deepest forest and tallest tree.

Let's root ourselves in something bigger than that which money can buy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Wild Child

Well hello there!

Did you miss me? I didn't mean to disappear.

My sister and nephews were visiting and we've been off on adventures. I'm a little worn out at the moment. Phew! Road tripping with 4 children under the age of 6 is exhausting, but I promise I'll be back soon. I must enjoy the peaceful quietness while it lasts...

Announcing...

180|360 Photography is pleased to announce our first "official" portrait sessions in Fairbanks, Alaska this June.

Dates and pricing will be posted soon!

Email: info@180360.com for enquiries or to pre-book.

Self-catering

In Europe, it is very difficult to find hotel rooms that will fit a family of four.

Generally, beds are single sized (often two are pushed together to make a large double) and there's almost always a limit of 3 twin beds (a triple) to one hotel room.

Seeing as this would not do, we started looking into other alternatives and found that apartments (and sometimes even houses) were a better and surprisingly more affordable option for our family.

Not only do we prefer having more space, but I love to shop for and cook food in different cities.

Have you ever watched the show House Hunters International?

My husband and I enjoy watching it, as we hope to live abroad in the near future. It's always interesting to see what homes look like around the world.

In that same vein, I also like to take photos of the places we stay in and thought you might enjoy seeing what a random Roman apartment looks like.

This good-sized, 2 bedroom flat was located in the medieval Trastevere neighborhood, near the base of Janiculum Hill. I'm not sure I'd stay in this neighborhood again (a little too far from city center) -- but all in all, it was a quiet and comfortable place to live for our 4 days in Rome.

We booked this particular rental through Home Away, which lists vacation rentals all across the globe.