[Vegan MoFo] being vegan on a budget

Welcome fellow vegan mofo-ers as well as regular readers! This is my second year of participating this exciting, sometimes overwhelming, vegan blogging event, though it'd be the first from this blog. I wanted to do last year also but I was heavily pregnant back then and didn't have much energy left to keep up blogging every day. I'm happy to say that this year I'm joining in the fun with the cutest boy in the world (I know every parent says that. Bear with me), and the cutest cat named Mochi :)

this was when he was about 4 months old
(no. he didn't start solid yet. it's a Japanese custom of "pretend eating"
to wish for the abundance of food for the rest of his life)

With the cost that associated with pregnancy and the new expenses, we've decided it's time to tighten our wallet and be strict with our budget. We'd love to give him the best education possible (as well as the deepest love from us) after all, and for that we don't mind giving up one day of dining out or a few (or many).

According to the budgeting website the Fun, Cheap or Free Queen, 100 dollars per month per person for groceries is their benchmark for budgeting, so that's what we've been aiming at, which comes to 75 dollars per week for three of us and a cat. The grocery budget includes, not only food, but anything and everything else that you buy from a grocery store.

I don't know how 75 dollars per week for groceries sounds to you, but I know that this is not enough to frequent Whole Foods and buy vegan goodies often.

Not that we have Whole Foods or Trader Joe's in our vicinity anyways :(

I do purchase vegan specialty items once in a while though, using the money set aside for other uses like craft supplies, entertainment etc. After all, food can be an entertainment, right? :)

So this is what I'm going to write about for this year's vegan MoFo: everyday vegan meals on a budget. We'll see what vegan meals I can come up with within this budget, including baby food (although I'd like him to be, he's not a vegan baby however. sorry). The meals I'll be making won't be grand and scrumptious as most of the vegan recipe bloggers make. My hope is, however, to show that vegan meals don't have to be "special". Vegan meals can be accessible to anybody (vegan or otherwise), quick to make and tasty. I'm not even a great cook.

OK. This post won't end without a picture of food. hehe.

This is vegan chili with black beans topped with avocado. The baby had black bean spread and avocado on rice. yum!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my vegan mofo posts (and beyond!) 

Mochi in a box

Mochi loves going inside a box as much as the cat next door. And I like watching her in a box as much as any other cat mamas :)

Baby food - 7 month old

We've introduced many new foods this month. Some LO loves, some he doesn't :( Here are the summary of the foods he tried this month.

Oatmeal cereal

LO didn't like it at first - probably because it's bland? - but he likes it when it's mixed with fruit. Phew. I really wanted him to like this cause rice cereal seems to have a constipating effect on him. Oatmeal cereal became a staple for his breakfast. We love Earth's Best Organic Oatmeal Cereal!

Tofu

He didn't seem to enjoy it at first :( He should've been used to the taste of soy from soy based formula, though. I thought, perhaps it was the texture he didn't like because I gave him pureed firm tofu (I couldn't find silken tofu at that time), which was drier and less smooth than silken tofu.

And I was right! I found silken tofu at a different store, pureed it and gave it to him, and this time he loved it :) I'm glad because tofu will become one of the important protein foods if I'm going to feed him vegetarian meals.

I usually microwave tofu for a minute or two, and process it in my baby bullet. At the time of this writing - the age of 8 month - I just mash it with a fork instead of making it really smooth.

Carrots, peach, daikon radish

He loves them all :) Daikon radish becomes sweet when steamed for 15-20 minutes, which makes a fun baby food IMHO. It's a staple baby food (and beyond) in Japan.

Spinach

LO liked it at first, but after a few sittings, he started to show dislikes to it. Now he doesn't eat it at all even if mixed with rice or other vegetables :(

Kale

However, he likes kale! I thought kale would taste more bitter and he'd prefer spinach to kale but the reverse was true for him. Maybe because I ate a lot of kale (but not spinach because there were some food poisoning incidents) during my pregnancy?

I was teased that our baby loves tofu and kale - yup, it sounds like my son! lol

By the way, we took him for his first swimming the other day.

Isn't this adorable?

oh and huggies swim diapers are awesome!

Mochi lately

Since I merged my craft blog with Mochi's blog, she has been a bit quiet, which obviously is not the case in her real life. So here it is. Mochi lately....

She's a girl. She loves flowers.

Can I eat these? (NO!!)

oh hello!

dreaming about playing in the real field, chasing real butterflies perhaps

Found her here when I woke up the other day

what?

Cards #1

I've made these to hone my card making skills. I borrowed a bunch of card making or papercraft books from my local library and made some that interested me. There are so many ideas and inspirations! I'm so happy I've finally decided to dive into this craft.

Here are a few of them:

I know - some lines are not very straight. practice. practice.
Made to learn layering.

Learned to use vellum paper and to layer cards with a string rather than glue.

These were just practice pieces and not so much of my style. But for the next two, I was able to show more of my tastes.

Made to practice a little peeking window in the front of the card. When it opens,

This card is for my husband's relatives who kindly gave us some baby gifts.

The next one is my favorite of all the cards I've made so far.

For a friend of mine who's having a baby soon.

I thought using black in a welcome baby card was uncommon but would make a cute and chic card, and I wasn't wrong. I learned to use buttons, ribbons and layered pieces of paper in this card - so fun! I hope she likes it.

I found that when I have a recipient (or at least a real occasion) in mind, the cards turn out to be more of my style, even for practice pieces. And it's way more fun!

The designs of these cards were inspired by the book I love card making: 25 projects that will show you how to make cards easily and quickly by Amy Gooda. It was a great introductory book to card mking. Not overwhelming but covers a wide variety of skills and ideas.

Summer Events

late June

It was Mr. J's birthday! This is the card I made for him. I basically followed a card I found in the summer issue of Paper Creations magazine, using the materials I had at hand and a little bit more I bought at Jo-Ann. I think it came out fitting to a summer birthday, didn't it?

The original card had a heart charm at the center of the scallop. But I found these charms with inspirational words at Jo-Ann, and thought "knowledge" was appropriate for Mr. J's goal this year, so that's what I chose. He liked it a lot :)

His "birthday pie", vegan coconut and cookies & cream no-bake pie. The coconut cream was so soft and silky, I loved the texture a lot. I thought it tasted better a day or two days later.

July 4th

Happy Birthday America!

We went to my in-laws' to watch fireworks. This was little J's first 4th of July, and a neighbor brought this 4th of July pinwheel for him Isn't that cute?

Check out Mochi, who's peeking in the background lol

At first, he was mesmerized by the twirling pinwheel, but then a few seconds later he got scared :( A lot of new experiences over the 4th of July weekend probably overstimulated him a bit. He enjoyed the fireworks, though. It was too loud to watch it outside, but he enjoyed seeing the colorful lights and booms through the window.

July 7th
On July 7th we celebrate Tanabata in Japan. This is the day when the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi, who are lovers but separated by the Milky Way, are allowed to meet once a year. It represents the day their wishes come true. So we celebrate the day by making wishes.

I made a few pieces of paper that's 2" x 9", and we wrote our wishes on them - one for each of us and one for the family. Then those were hung on our (fake) bamboo tree. A real bamboo branch is used traditionally but we already happen to have this bamboo tree at home, so we use this instead. We could also hang other paper decorations like stars but we were too tired from the 4th of July trip so just made wishes. Maybe next year I can show you more decorations. It's a bit like a Christmas tree, isn't it? In the meantime, I hope our wishes come true! :)

baby food - 6 months old

Month 2 of starting vegetables and fruits!

This month we started bananas. I thought kids love bananas, but to my surprise, he didn't! He made this sour face like "what on earth are you giving me mama?!" lol Later, I learned that mixing avocado with banana will work when kids don't eat bananas, so I tried. It worked. It had an interesting taste to me, like melon cream? But he liked it. That all matters.

But he got constipated (bananas are known for causing constipation), so I didn't give him bananas any longer. I don't think it's necessary at this stage anyway.

We've also started barley tea (mugicha) this month. At this stage, I was instructed to give him some other fluid than breastmilk or formula. Little J, however, didn't take water as much as I'd like probably because it doesn't have much taste. I don't want to give him juice yet because I think juice contains too much sugar. I was wondering what would be a good alternative to water....

Then I remember. My twitter mommy friends back in Japan give their little ones barley tea! Barley tea does have some flavor (like roasted taste, which I love) and doesn't have sugar or caffeine. That would be perfect. I had a stock of barley tea bags at hand so I made a pot of it. I poured some into his newly introduced straw mug, thinned it down with water (about 1:1) and to my relief, he drank it more than water!

And now that he mastered drinking from a straw, he loves gulping his tea :)

Next month, we're going to try tofu (yay!), carrots, peaches, green beans and potatoes. I hope he'd love his veggies and tofu. He's a tofu loving veggie mom's son, he's gotta love tofu!

ps. Needless to say if you thought barley tea is a good idea too and are thinking about giving it to your little one, please make sure with your pediatrician first :)

My Papercrafting Adventures Have Begun

I've been toying with the idea of getting into papercraft for a while. After all, I love seeing all those cute papers, embellishments and stamps. The paper department was one of my favorites to work when I had a part-time job at a craft store a while ago. I felt excited (and a bit overwhelmed) by looking at different patterns, colors, textures... oh my. I haven't actually got into this craft, however, because I didn't want to add even more tools and materials to my current craft tools and materials that have already been flooding our house. So I was just grazing the paper goodies at stores hoping one day I'd start working on them.

And that one day has come.

Lately, it's become difficult to find the time to work on my crochet or knitting projects. Of course, I can find a time here and there while my baby naps. But I don't see an obvious progress if I crochet or knit this way. I don't feel like I'm creating anything. Lack of an evident progress makes me a bit frustrated. Then, here comes the card making. I could actually complete (or almost complete) a card project while the little one is sleeping. My creative side is satisfied :)

Now I'm finally at a point where I can show the cards I created. The above photo is the father's day cards we've sent to my father and my husband's. I wanted to make them cheerful and a bit classy. I think I was able to achieve that.

This one is for my hubby for his first ever father's day. I wanted to make it like his son made it. My husband loves maps. And maps show that he's guiding his son's life journey, so I thought it was appropriate. What do you think? :)

If you've checked out my etsy shop lately, you'd notice that I've been working on my new product line. And here it is - paper goodies! I'm still working on new skills to have fully decorated cards in my shop but expect some paper goodies like gift tags to show up in my etsy shop pretty soon! I'm so excited, and I hope you are too :)

Related to that, I'm clearing out my current inventories of crochet and knitting items. You can get great used craft books and my original cat blankets at a great discounted price, so hop over to my etsy shop to have a look. thanks!

Finally, this doesn't mean I'll stop crochet or knit. I still have so many things I'd like to make. It's just that it'll take a little longer to complete one project. Please come back here again to check out what I've created if you read my blog because you're interested in crochet or knitting!

What I made for LO so far

Here are some of the things I made for my LO while pregnant (which I finally get around to post). In no particular order...

Playful Baby Loop Rattle

 Cowboy Boot-ies

I added this star mark for fun (per hubby's suggestion)

Isn't this cute on him? Unfortunately, though, they were difficult to put on because the ankle sections were a bit small. Oh well, they're really cute just to look at. Totally worth making them. I'd like to make a size that fits him now and a matching cowboy hat.

b19-31 Jacket with raglan sleeves, hat, and booties with cables

sleeves in making. Look how small they are!

These are in 3 month old size. However, since LO was advised not to go outside for the first two months (it was a flu season), there weren't many chances he needed a sweater like this. I should've made them in 6 month old size. I still love them though :)

Berry Baby Hat

I wanted to make this hat even before I was pregnant! So it was definitely on my to-make list. I chose purplish blue to make it like a blueberry but everyone says it's an eggplant hat LOL

oh well....

Stripes and Dots Blanket

There aren't many projects that I chose the exact (or almost exact) colors that the pattern calls for, but these colors are just so perfect I just used the colors in the pattern. And I love it!

I actually had a lot more projects in my queue. But because 1) I had no idea what the baby would use and 2) I was sick for the first couple of months and then was really tired for the last few weeks, I couldn't make as much as I wanted. Babies grow so fast. A few projects I wanted to make wouldn't fit in terms of size and needs anymore, which is too bad. Especially my LO is a tall baby - he's already as tall as an average 9 month old baby at the age of 6 months! But there are a lot of cute patterns for a year old and up. I look forward to make those in the near future :)

Why does only the baby get all the fun?

Caught Mochi secretly playing with little J's toy lol