Update | Friday Thoughts

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With graduation rounding the corner quicker than I had realized it would be, I'm finding myself experiencing some anticipated, but still not welcome, anxiety. I am extremely excited to start working in the field I've been passionate about and studying and preparing for for the past four years, but it's a bit scary. I've been trying my best to focus on the present and just deal with things as they come, but I still find myself constantly thinking about the future and what I'm going to be doing after graduation.

In an attempt to calm myself down, I've been trying to schedule some "me time" whenever I possibly can within my schedule of going to class, my internship, working at the coffee shop, and babysitting. Today is one of those me-days. I have an unexpected day off! I was supposed to babysit from 6:30am-2pm, but I was told I actually wasn't needed for the day, and since the schedule was already made for the coffee shop & I requested off for babysitting, I wasn't scheduled to work there either.

I started the day kind of sluggish, but in a good way. I set my alarm for 8am (even on a day off, I feel like I'm wasting the day if I sleep past 8. I know... I'm working on being less crazy about this). I guess by body is getting used to my routine of waking up earlier than that most days, because I naturally woke up around 7:30. I tossed and turned for a while, trying to snag a few extra minutes of sleep, but my body was already awake and it was not going back to sleep for anything.

So I laid in bed for a while, talked to Chris, checked twitter and instagram, and snuggled with Benji - the normal situation before I got out of bed, ate a banana, got all ready for the gym, and then whined and complained to Benji (yes, my cat) about not wanting to walk outside because it was 12 DEGREES OUT. Eventually I made myself feel as guilty as possible about not going, and dragged my butt over to the gym and had a mostly cardio-focused work out.

I came home, showered, and ate this delicious breakfast:

...which was VERY easy to make:

1/2 cup chopped zucchini
1/4 chopped avocado
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp (or more) of your favorite hot sauce
a pinch each of salt, pepper, onion powder, and paprika
1 tbsp chia seeds

Cook the zucchini over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until they start to brown. Scramble in the eggs. I usually whisky the hot sauce directly into my eggs, but you can add it separately if you want. Add in the spices and cook your eggs to your desired done-ness. I usually cook them VERY dry. Add the zucchini and eggs to a bowl, stir in the chopped avocado and chia seeds, and enjoy!

I would have liked to add some chopped tomato and some onion instead of the onion powder to this as well, but I don't have any on hand at the moment. Today is a day for doing anything and everything that calms me, so grocery shopping might be on the list for later today. Yes, grocery shopping is definitely something I consider me-time. I love it. I'm also a big fan of cleaning, which is another thing I will be tackling today. And lastly, reading. It may be reading for my abnormal psychology class, but the book we're required to write a paper on for Tuesday is actually extremely interesting, so it doesn't seem like a chore. Maybe I'll do a review on it for the blog... who knows.

If you've made it to the end of this unnecessarily long blog post, thank you for reading. Sometimes you just need to let your thoughts out, and this blog is one of my outlets for that. I hope you're all enjoying your Friday!

xo Sam

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Recipe | Roasted Eggplant and Sweet Potato Quinoa Burger

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As promised, here's the recipe for the burgers I used for my burger-bar set up for me and Chris on Valentine's Day.

Yields 10-12 burgers, depending on how big you make them.

1 small eggplant, chopped
2 sweet potatoes, chopped
1 large white onion, roughly chopped,
1/2 cup quinoa cooked in 1 cup water
1/4 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp chipotle hot sauce
1 tbsp spicy brown mustard
couple tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 350°F

Spread your chopped sweet potatoes on a lined or greased cookie sheet. Season with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and half of the paprika. Pop that in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. When the sweet potatoes start to soften up, remove them from the oven and add the chopped eggplant and onion to the mix. Season with some more olive oil, the remainder of paprika, salt, and pepper. Cook together for another 15-20 minutes.

While your veggies are cooking, prepare you quinoa - 1/2 cup dry quinoa to 1 cup of water (or vegetable stock). Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

When the sweet potato and eggplant mixture is cooked, remove from the oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes before adding to the food processor.

Once cooled, Add the veggie mixture to a food processor with the 1/4 cup vegetable stock. Pulse until the mixture is at your desired consistency. I liked mine to be slightly chunky, but this step is totall up to you.

Add the veggie mixture to a big mixing bowl. Throw in the oats, cooked quinoa, hot sauce, mustard, and some more salt and pepper. Mix together thoroughly and form into patties.

Now, you can either bake the burgers off in the oven, since it's already heated up. Or you can sear them up in a pan with some olive oil. If you choose the former option, they'll take about 10 minutes on each side in a 375° oven to get a nice golden brown color. On the stove, they'll take about 5 minutes on each side over medium heat with about a tbsp of olive oil.

Enjoy!

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Update | Valentine's Day Recap

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I wanted to make a Valentine's Day-related post on the actual holiday, but since I don't get to see Chris very often, and I was working a lot of the weekend that he was here, I didn't want to take any more time away from our time together if I didn't absolutely need to.

So anyway, our Valentine's Day was nice. Chris got here around dinner time and I had a whole spread ready for him. A sort of make-your-own veggie burger set up with allllll the fixings necessary to make a delicious burger with a side of homemade fries. Of course, I made some sangria to wash it all down with. We dined on my roasted eggplant & sweet potato quinoa burgers (recipe will be up SOON) and fruity wine while watching Breaking Bad and snuggled up on the couch with Benji. A really great night, if you ask me.

The rest of the weekend was just spent working and enjoying each other's company as much as possible before he had to go back up to school yesterday to avoid the weather that was expected last night and this morning. 

I really am so lucky to have such a great guy in my life who supports everything I do and never stops making me feel like a million bucks. Travelling to a different continent to find someone outside of my family who loves me unconditionally was worth every mile.

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day!

xo Sam

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Opinion | My Stance on Cruelty-Free Makeup

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When you love make up as much as I do, it's important to remember that your love for animals and your love for cosmetics are not mutually exclusive passions - you can find great quality make up without violating the rights of animals.

As a vegetarian and overall animal lover myself, I am 100% against animal testing. Call me crazy, but the idea of having rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals blinded, poisoned, and even killed just to test out some cosmetics is disgusting to me. If an ingredient has the possibility to be so dangerous that you can't test it on humans, why would you want to put that out into the market, anyway? This is something I just don't (and don't really want to) understand about cosmetic companies.

A lot of well-known brands that you see in the drug store, or even high end make up stores, are often owned by a bigger parent company. The parent company will have its own rules and regulations about animal testing, but the subsidiary brand is usually free to do what it wants in terms of animal testing.

In my opinion, if the brand I'm about to give my money to doesn't condone animal testing, isn't selling their products in China (where animal testing is a LAW in order to put a product on the market), and isn't purchasing their ingredients from a company who is actively testing on animals, then I'm okay with supporting that brand, even if their parent company tests on animals. I think it's important for the parent company to see their cruelty-free brands are just as, if not more, successful as their animal testing counterparts rather than just boycotting all of the brands associated with that parent company.

To stay educated, I do my research. It takes more than just reading the label on product packaging, because there aren't strict guidelines on labeling a product "cruelty-free" like their are for labeling organic produce or non-GMO products. A brand can slap on the cruelty-free label if they didn't test the FINISHED product on animals... that means they could have tested the individual ingredients on animals, but as long as the finished product isn't, it can be considered cruelty free. Pretty lame, right?

Here are a few of my cruelty-free "bibles" when I'm doing my research. The ultimate one is the Leaping Bunny because they have the highest standards when it comes to companies registering with them to be considered TRULY cruelty-free. Since not all truly cruelty-free companies are registered with this company, it's still important to sniff around for those hidden gems.

My Beauty Bunny

Vegan Beauty Review

Leaping Bunny

Humaely Chic

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are the main websites I go to.

With all this being said, I know for a fact that I have some non-cruelty-free cosmetics in my collection. For example, Revlon used to be against animal testing, but to expand their market, they decided to start selling their products in China... there go my favorite lip products! Same thing goes for Rimmel. I feel the need to point this out because these brands, and probably a few others, have been featured on my blog in past posts. As someone who is very passionate about ridding the make up industry of animal testing, I don't want to advertise or support brands that no longer hold up to my standards in regards to being cruelty-free.  I don't have a huge make up collection, so it's not difficult to weed out these products. 

In my future beauty posts, I will stay up-to-date on which brands remain cruelty-free and which have veered off the path (hopefully no more of my favorites will venture out to the Chinese market!) and I will post accordingly.

Keep those wittle fluff balls safe! They don't even need make up- they're cute enough without it!

xo Sam

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