Double Dinners & Dessert

Get ready for a whirlwind of a post, I have been a busy lady!

Plans got switched around once we arrived in Orlando, so I was left with two dinners to attend last night! I decided instead of skipping one or only eating at one, I would go to both and divide my dinner in parts.

First stop – Mellow Mushroom with some AWESOME bloggers! I met up with Ashley, Ryan, Megan, Meghann and Sarah. Love these girls, and with all the stuff going on in my life right now, I cannot tell you how wonderful and refreshing it is to spend some time with these ladies.

Our table split two medium mega-veggie pizzas with no cheese or butter on the crust.

Since I knew I wouldn’t want to go to my next dinner and sit there a couple hours not eating anything while everyone else was, I decided to only have one slice (of which I promptly removed all banana peppers and onions0.

I totally stole these pictures from Ryan’s blog. Ashley, Meghann, Megan:
Me, Ryan and Sarah:

Fun fact: in addition to Megan being my college freshman roomie and going to high school with Ryan (I have to remember to post some old homecoming pictures!) Sarah and I actually have like 30 friends in common from college! Small world!

I jetted off for dinner round 2: brother-in-law’s birthday dinner at Chili’s.

Roman the birthday boy!

Now, in all honesty – I am so glad I took the approach to dinner that I did. Had I skipped out on Mellow Mushroom I would have been incredibly disappointed with vegan options at Chili’s. Had I made only Mellow Mushroom my dinner, I know I still would have ended up munching fries off someone’s plate or ordering a drink, mostly out of boredom, which I honestly wouldn’t have needed.

We had a fabulous waitress who was SO nice and accommodating when I told her I was a vegan. Word to the wise though – do check out the menu ahead of time. Some of the items she suggested (i.e. the black bean burger) actually have egg and dairy in them. I ended up with a side house salad with no cheese, croutons or dressing, but with some fajita veggies and guacamole.

This worked out great. Next time I’d remember to get the veggies just steamed (they were rather oily) but for what I had to work with, I was content with my choice. My two dinners ended up equaling one pizza + salad dinner. Perfect solution!

We came home to dive into the incredibly rich, vegan dessert I made.

It’s based off of Isa Chandra’s smlove pie, but I made a TON of substitutions/ additions (I’ll have to share that later, I left my recipe note sheet at home).

Basically it had a crazy rich and chocolatey coconut milk based filling, topped with peanut butter caramel, roasted maple peanuts and chocolate ganache. It was so rich we cut the slices really small – I think like 16 slices out of one pie?

So delicious! Afterward the boys headed to a movie and I had some great convo with my sister-in-law Jordan (as well as a failed movie attempt when we arrived too late to see Love Happens, but all’s good!).

Breakfast this morning was a cinnamon raising bagel (vegan!) with no pulp/calcium enriched OJ. Delicious!

The rest of the day includes a trip to Ikea to return some curtains, a trip to Whole Foods (obviously) and some more time with the fam before we head back to Gainesville tonight. See you later!