Before I begin, if you have a moment to spare check out this article from USA Today:
So far the Vegan Venture is off to a great start. 
I’m going to breeze through most of the day in order to get to the good stuff – drunken spaghetti.
Breakfast – crack and almond milk. ‘Nuff said. (hehe how ironic I used a USA Today mug and I linked to a USA Today article??)
Gym: 40 minutes treadmill (walk/ run intervals); 100 crunches; 50 push ups. Works for me!
Lunch: Green smoothie made with one cup iced green tea (unsweetened), frozen pineapple, frozen mango, and a ton of spinach.
Served alongside an AB&J – Ezekiel bread, raw almond butter, low sugar strawberry jam and the kicker – loads of cinnamon. K, I don’t know if you’re a PBJ fan or not, but if you are, next time add a layer of cinnamon to both sides!!
Snack: Tortilla chips and an oatmeal raisin cookie. I got snacky this afternoon.
Now for the fun part – dinner. Ross and I were going back and forth between two different dinner options before we finally settled on Spaghetti and Bean Balls from Veganomicon. But we couldn’t leave well enough alone. We had to make DRUNKEN SPAGHETTI and bean balls. Brilliant. Absolutely, positively brilliant.
No, those aren’t soba noodles. That is plain ol’ angel hair pasta boiled in half a bottle of old merlot (too old to drink) and water. This was so tasty, so colorful and by far the highlight of the meal. Besides – how fun is it to say that you had drunken spaghetti? 
The beanballs were pretty good too, but I found myself wanting some varying texture. I think next time I may venture off the recipe and include some oats or something of the such to give more texture.
We had our drunken spaghetti and bean balls with frozen broccoli – thawed of course. (Tangent: am I the only one who can only get two servings out of a “family size” 4.5 serving bag?)
I just subdued my intense chocolate craving with a square of 85% Lindt Extra Dark Chocolate. Oh so good.
And oh so vegan!
You probably notice at the end it says “May contain traces of peanuts/ tree nuts/ soybean/ milk”. Having grown up with a severe tree nut allergy, I’ve learned that pretty much every.single.thing. with an ingredient list will say “May contain traces of tree nuts” just as a way to cover themselves in case of a liability. So honestly – I disregard that memo.
So far my first day of my vegan venture was off to a great start. It’s definitely not hard to eat vegan, and it’s easy to make subtle changes between mine and Ross’ meals (i.e. greater portion sizes for him, he can add cheeses, etc.). I’m excited!
Good night!
Hahaha I love your purple spaghetti!! And I definitely never get more than 2 servings from the bags of broccoli that claim to have 4…sometimes I don't even get 2!!
Love the idea of iced tea in a GM, I wonder how green tea would taste? the purple spaghetti looks great too.
runsarah – it was iced green tea, and it tasted great!
Do you use plain almond milk with the "crack"? I need to try oatmeal squares!
Thanks for the article! My mom (whose a nurse) has always pushed milk, milk, milk! Since I've had a lot of tummy issues- I've been wondering if I am somewhat lactose intolerant. I have tried to limit my consumption and I think its helped a bit. Keep us up to date on how your feeling! The drunk spaghetti looks great! I love bean "meat" balls!!
Glad you are off to a good vegan start. That looks like such a great article too, I can't wait to read it.
Hope you have a great night love!
Amanda – I go back and forth between Original Almond Breeze and Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze. Even though there is some extra sugar, I truly like the Original Almond Breeze better, and I can usually find it cheaper and easier than unsweetened vanilla.
Ha, I agree, family sized veggies like that are more like "for 2" in my opinion!
everything looks so great! the drunken noodles are adorable.
Yayyy!! I'm so glad you are enjoying it
And I'm so excited for you!
We were talking about that in my biology class last Thursday! How we're not evolutionarily meant to consume milk after infancy, and how some people lose the ability to digest the dairy sugar as they get older. It's really interesting!
Your spaghetti looks so tasty
i had green monster in the morning!
almond milk, banana, flax, amazing grass, and ice cubes. YUM!
Yay! This is fun. I'm excited to follow your month. I also have problems with dairy, but D's FAVORITE thing is cheese so I do make cheese-based meals 2-3 x/ week. I usually just take Lactaid pills followed by Rolaids after if necessary…it's such a pain. I sometimes think that I would love to go vegan too because of sustainability issues, but I don't find it appropriate to introduce any more dietary restrictions into my life. I have no problem with OTHER people doing it though-I'm a little envious! Good luck with day 2!!
PS–you HAVE to try the low-fat banana muffins/bread from Veganomicon. SO good. And the chickpea salad (I think they call it "goddess garbanzos" from ED&BV.
I saw that article yesterday too, we must've been googling the same things, haha. Great job on your first day. I haven't really started yet but I'm making subtle changes here and there.
Purple Spaghetti looks great! Yeah, for the first day. I 'm excited tomorrow to start ''Vegan Thursdays''.
Not to critize your eating, but isn't butter NOT vegan? The chocolate bar you ate had butter, so then it wouldn't not be vegan?
I would never deny anyone chocolate, so enjoy anyway!
Kara – you are correct, butter is not vegan as it is only cream and sugar.
COCOA BUTTER (the ingredient in the dark chocolate) is not butter. Cocoa butter is the vegetable fat extracted from the cacao bean. Just one site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_butter
So yes, the dark chocolate is still vegan.
Thanks for your concern!