Fresh Spring Rolls

Edit 1/12/14: Here from Pinterest? Good day to you! This is my most viewed blog post, due to many repins on Pinterest. I know I'm not very specific with my ingredient amounts, so please feel free to leave a question in the comments if you need help. Also, if you ended up making these, I'd LOVE to see a photo! Thanks! -Angela

Happy (technical) spring to you! The weather here still has not let up! It's proving difficult to sustain sanity while I wait for sun and warmth, but I did kick off the season with one of my favorite recipes! Have you ever had fresh spring rolls? They are one of my most favorite guilt-free snacks. I went to a dinner party last night and they were my contribution. And why yes, I'd love to share my recipe with you: ) 

Fresh Thai Spring Rolls:

For the rolls, combine the following:
Carrots
Cucumber
Iceberg Lettuce
Cilantro
Basil
Black Pepper
Sea Salt
Maifun Rice Noodles
Juice of 1 lime
TBSP of peanut oil
Then soak spring rolls wrappers in warm water until soft, and roll!

Whisk these ingredients to create the peanut sauce:
Peanut Butter
Sweet Thai Chili Sauce (red)
White vinegar
Brown sugar
Juice of 1 lime
Soy sauce
Just keep tasting it until you reach the desired taste and consistency. (I barely use any brown sugar or vinegar, but lots of PB and sweet chili sauce).

These can't sit around all day. Make them and enjoy immediately! So delicious: )

Living the Frugal Life

This post is brought to you by CampusBookRentals.com! I'm personally done with school, at least for now, but I know many of you still are at it, so here's another resource when looking for affordable textbooks!

CampusBookRentals.com provides lots of great perks:
-save 40-90% off of bookstore prices

-free shipping both ways
-can highlight in the textbooks
-15 days grace period
-flexible renting periods

Campus Book Rentals also recently launched a program to rent your old books to other people. They've found that you will make 2-4 times more than if you sell your book back to the store (and in my experience, the store won't even buy it back half the time). Learn more about this at RentBack.com!

Couldn't find straight up photos of me with textbooks, but here is a flashback - studying for my first set of college finals! Seems like forever ago...

So before I let you go, let's talk about Operation Smile for a minute! Did you know that a cleft palate can cause ear disease and dental problems? It can also impair speech and make it difficult to eat and drink. Approximately 1 in 500-700 births result in a cleft palate.


Operation Smile mobilizes a world of generous hearts to heal children's smiles and transform lives across the globe. They believe that all children deserve to live their lives with dignity, and that for those suffering from cleft lip, cleft palate or other facial deformities, dignity begins with a smile. Driven by a universal compassion for children, they work worldwide to repair childhood facial deformities by delivering safe, effective surgery and related medical care directly to patients.


Campus Book Rentals donates to Operation Smile with each book rented!

Not only are you getting a great deal on an originally overpriced book, but you're donating to a great cause. As you start looking at books for summer classes or selling back books at the end of the spring semester, consider CampusBookRentals.com so you can spend your hard earned money on other, more important things!

Kate Nash

On St. Patrick's Day I got to see Kate Nash in concert for the very first time! I feel like I've loved her forever, so I was ecstatic when I found out she was coming to Grand Rapids! Here are a few pictures: )

She is so beautiful and wonderful and has the best voice you've ever heard. She is also a great advocate for women and mentioned more than once that certain words in her songs were "non-gender specific" and how if you're a woman and you want to make music how you shouldn't be afraid and you should just go for it! All this in a British accent, btw.

Her band was also all girls! As was the opening band, Supercute! If you haven't listened to Kate Nash, take this opportunity to check out her new album, Girl Talk. Her old albums are brilliant as well!

Check out Plan USA, the charity she is working with! They are doing great things.

Are you a fan yet?!

Bloglovin'

I'm sure many of you have heard that Google Reader is going to discontinue service as of July 1st, which is a huge bummer because that's mainly how I read the blogs I follow. Of course, that's how many of you follow me as well. I'm going to look into other options (and I'm sure a few will reveal themselves), but for now, please consider following me on bloglovin'. I promise to update more when the weather changes. Like I said the other day, I haven't been feeling the inspiration lately!

I have many fun things planned this year including looking into buying a DSLR camera (higher quality posts for you), traveling to Turkey and Greece, sharing many more outfit posts, and hopefully hosting lots of giveaways. I'd love to have you here, so I hope you'll stick around!

What are your St. Patrick's Day plans? Are you Irish? Irish I was, but I'm not! Heh. Anyway, here are my plans:

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Spring Is Coming (and Winter)

Just wanted to say a quick hello and let you know that I should have more time and energy to update soon. Here are a couple photos from Laughfest, which ends on Sunday. We've had a great time so far volunteering and attending, but I am a little tired!

Reasons why I don't have time/energy:

• I have a cold. Or it might be allergies. I can't tell but I hate that I have the sniffles/the watery eyes/the sneezes.
• Laughfest, although a wonderful event, is taking up lots of my time! 

Reasons why I will soon:

• Spring is almost here!!! The ugly black snow has finally melted and the sun's been out way more.
• With nice weather comes better photo opportunities. I wanted to do "what I wore" posts so many times in the last few months but gave up because I'd be wearing winter boots and a coat in every one of them. I can't wait for spring clothes!
• If you noticed the title of this post, Game of Thrones season 3 starts on the 31st!!! I am soooo pumped. 

World Record Holders

Good Saturday to you! I am a "lead" volunteer for a great event we have in Grand Rapids called Laughfest, which runs this year from March 7th - 17th! Laughfest supports our local Gilda's Club, named for SNL great Gilda Radner who was diagnosed with cancer, and as a result lost her funny. She eventually made the most of the remainder of her life but unfortunately lost her life to the disease. Luckily, her legacy lives on! Gilda's Club is a free and open place for those grieving to find their funny and be a part of a great community! Anyway, Laughfest directly supports this great organization and I'm volunteering for my third year, which is coincidentally the third year of Laughfest.

To kick off the festival, we always attempt (and succeed, obviously ) to break a world record! This year it was the most people to wear a fake mustache! Very fun. So my friends and I helped out:

Can you believe it - they actually ran out of mustaches! The previous record was 648 set in St. Louis. We more than doubled it with 1,544. And we would have had over 2,000 if the mustache supply was adequate!

Tonight several of my friends and I are going to see Joel McHale! I'm super excited because the rest of the festival is volunteer mode for me, where I may or may not get to see the show (crossing my fingers extra hard for Wayne Brady)!

Have you heard of Laughfest where you're from? And what do you have going on this weekend? Remember to smile!

My Giveaway Prize Arrived!

I recently won a fun "winter essentials" giveaway from Hey Miss Pickle, and my prizes arrived yesterday!!! (I actually have an additional prize too, a credit to Stranger Bird Vintage, so I'm waiting for the perfect piece to pop up in her shop). Anyway - here's what I received!

The contents were neatly contained in this lovely mesh bag from lolobag. This bag is super fun!

This is the loot! I'm excited to try the Nivea lip moisturizer! My lips are very picky and I currently use carmex, which is just stinky.

Stevie was very interested.

Hey Miss Pickle's adorable little zines! These are so cool and creative. Thanks for sharing: )

A pretty nail polish, some lovely bracelets, and two hair clips as well!

A brooch that was made out of recycled paper! Sustainability!

Here is the necklace from IndigoBean! (Sorry about the spit stains on the mirror). I love it! Thank you!

Thanks Miss Pickle! I LOVE everything! I'll let you know when I pick out my piece from Stranger Bird Vintage as well! Happy Hump Day!

Foodagram

I really do enjoy remembering the great things I ate, so I take pictures and make them pretty on Instagram. Haters, they gonna hate. And I'm gonna drool.

Lunch the other day - Morningstar veggie burger topped with cheese and lots of veggies, notably avocado. Also mozzarella sticks with marinara and granny smith apples, strawberries, and blackberries.

Vegan meal from a Symphony event we volunteered for. I'm not certain of all the ingredients, but the way they cook their tofu is excellent and to die for.

One of my favorite dishes to make - avocado enchiladas. I make the sauce myself and it is so worth the effort. This would be vegan if I didn't put the cheese on top, which makes it even more rewarding! Mmmm.

Someone at work had these! I asked where they got them and they let me try one! I'm so excited because of the viral youtube video from this summer, "Hot Cheetos and Takis."

White sangria. I'm on a white wine kick these days. I think I'd like red more if it was something people drank chilled.

And the vegan banana coconut cake I shared my recipe for. It's so good I can't even

Weekly Wrap-Up

I marvel at his sweetness everyday! We have had him for just over three months now!

Here are my favorite posts from the week:

Alice at Sweet Dreamer traveled to the U.S. and shared her first batch of photos from Disneyland! I loved scrolling through them and am overdue on a visit to L.A.!

♥Elycia recently shared that she is pregnant, and answered some questions about it on her 21-week mark. I have no interest in being pregnant anytime soon, if ever, but I love hearing about her experience! Congrats!

Wow, Katie of Chestnut Mocha posted the most gorgeous photos of spring in South Korea. I want to go there now!

Melissa from So About What I Said posted the results by gender of one college's survey. The subject - what's your favorite color? I can't believe so many people like blue!
Mmm, Jess from Vintage Pie really spoke to me with her post about Italian coffee terms like espresso and affogato. Coffee in Europe just tastes so much better!
Spring is definitely on my mind and way overdue around here, so I love this simple post from Sandra at 5 Inch and Up celebrating her spring favorites.
Finally, green tea donuts? They look amazing! Emma from A Beautiful Mess shared her recipe.

Best thing I ate this week:

All the sushi my belly could handle! Our friend Elise is moving to Hong Kong very soon for work and we had a going away party the other night. She supplied all sorts of treats, including lots of sushi that was amazing and wonderful. Thanks, Elise!

Favorite day of the week:

The day of the party, which was Saturday! Not only did I get lots of great sushi, I enjoyed some ginger ale and whiskeys, AND we played Just Dance 4 on the Wii U. If you haven't played, make a friend with someone who has it because it's so much fun! (And a great workout).

Best purchase of the week:

We bought our tickets to Istanbul this week! We are going at the end of the summer. Now that we all have our tickets, we'll start to plan. Many updates to come!

Something I learned this week:

That my job prospects are looking really good! I think I'm really close to my first full-time salaried position, which is awesome! I feel like I graduated so long ago, so I'm really happy to finally be this close!

Happy Monday. What does your week have in store?

Vegan Banana Coconut Spice Cake

I am very picky about how ripe my bananas can be if I'm going to consume them straight from the peel. Once I can't see anymore green or a brown spot starts forming, they are too sweet for me and I save them for a delicious treat like the vegan banana coconut spice cake I made today: )

What you need for the cake:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed rip bananas (about 2 bananas)
1/2 cup almond buttermilk (1/2 cup almond milk and 1/2 tbsp lemon juice)
1/2 cup vegan butter
2 egg substitutes
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon

What you need for the icing:
4 oz of vegan cream cheese
2 tbsp of melted vegan butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8" or 9" round or square pans.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, spices, and salt. Add banana, buttermilk, vegan butter, "eggs," and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer until well combined.

3. Pour batter into two 8" or 9" round or square pans and bake for appx 35 minutes, or until knife comes out clean. (My oven only took 25 minutes, so keep an eye on it)!

4. Combine icing ingredients and use electric mixer to combine until smooth. When cakes have cooled, carefully remove from the pan and ice the bottom layer first, then add the second layer and ice the top and sides.

5. Enjoy! Serves at least 8.

I hope you had a delightful weekend! I can't wait to enjoy my cake all week!