Vegan Shakshuka Recipe

How I made vegan shakshuka to meal prep.

Makes about 3 servings. 

Recipe:
1 yellow potato diced
1 block firm tofu crumbled
1 ea Tofurky Italian "sausage" diced
1/4 of a red onion diced or sliced
1-2 Tbsp shakshuka seasoning (HERE)
2-4 Tbsp tomato sauce

(could add diced tomatoes if you have them on hand too)

Instructions:
Cook diced potato in air fryer 10 min at 350F.
Fry onion for a couple of minutes on medium heat.
Add "sausage," tofu, cooked potato.
Add seasoning. (could add more turmeric to make the tofu "egg" look more yellow)
Continue stirring until everything is hot, just a couple minutes.
Add tomato sauce to help everything stick together, I don't like mine to be runny though. You can add as much or little as you like to get the consistency you want.

I like to serve in a tortilla or with a piece of toast for breakfast. It would probably be awesome with some naan bread too. HERE's a vegan recipe for that.

Thanks for reading.
Alaina

Vegan Thai Spicy Noodle

Here's how I've been making some Thai spicy noodles at home.

Inspired by this recipe HERE.

Sauce:
1/2 Tbsp red pepper flakes
1/3 cup canola oil
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 1/2 tsp chili paste
6 Tbsp soy sauce
6 Tbsp agave syrup
*My sauce is slightly different from the linked recipe. I switch the two oils because I'm not a super fan of sesame oil. And I use agave syrup instead of honey because I'm vegan.

Heat canola and sesame oil with the red pepper flakes on the stove for a minute or two. Then strain out the red pepper flakes so you have like a pepper infused oil leftover. Once strained, add the oil back to the pan and add the remaining ingredients. I turn off the burner after I add the oil back in. Set the sauce aside in a bowl or something so you can use the pan for the rest of the recipe.

Recipe:
Thai Kitchen rice noodles (14 oz box, I use about half)
2/3 of a green bell pepper sliced
1/2 of a red onion sliced
1 block super firm tofu,cubed + coated in 1-2 Tbsp corn starch
+ sauce (above)
Start your noodles. I use about half the box. I just use Thai Kitchen brand because that's what is available to me, but if you can find fresh wide, rice noodles, that would be awesome!

Fry up some bell pepper and onions for a couple minutes. I like mine to still have some crunch.
Add cubed tofu once the peppers and onions are starting to char a little bit. I use super firm tofu and coat it in a couple Tbsp of corn starch before to help it fry up a little crispier.

Add noodles once cooked and drained.
Add sauce. Make sure you stir it up right before pouring because it does separate. You might not use it all. I use about 2/3 of it. Then I put the remainder in the fridge for a day I just want to make a single serving or two lighter servings.

This makes 3 servings for me. When I'm ready to eat the leftovers, I put it in a pan on the stove with a splash of water and cover it for maybe 3 min, stirring occasionally because the noodles can stick to the pan when you're re-heating it.

Thanks for reading.
Alaina

How We Paid Off Our House in Less Than 5 Years

If you're looking for the #1 best tip ever for paying off your mortgage quickly, this is how we did it:

Make your mortgage the #1 priority. 

We made our mortgage payment our number one. Every month deciding what we can pay on the mortgage was our biggest budget decision. It was NEVER just another payment.
When we sat down to create a budget, the mortgage payment was everything leftover after bills, food, etc.
Every single dollar over what we needed to survive, we put toward the mortgage.

Background:

We bought our house in May of 2015 and got married one month later. We had zero debt before we moved in together and we both lived at home with our parents. 

We didn't have a big wedding. It definitely cost us less than $500, but I can't remember exactly what it came out to. We got married at the courthouse, I ordered my wedding dress on Ebay for like $30 after finding the dress I liked at the mall and trying it on. We held the reception in my parents' beautiful, big backyard. My parents gifted us the food, we had a buffet and a table full of my mom's homemade pies! My mom helped me with decorations, it was a rustic theme with like mason jars and burlap, etc. My husband borrowed the chairs and tables from his work. We got a couple kegs, that was actually the biggest expense haha. And we wouldn't have changed a thing, it was perfect. My only regret is that we didn't film it! 

The house we bought was a foreclosure, and we got a great deal on it at $103k, and we put $1,000 as our downpayment. We got a 15 year mortgage, and our monthly payment was about $1,000. We also live in the rural midwest, so things are cheap here. Just 10 miles east and the house would have cost us an extra $50k, but lucky for us my husband's parents already lived in this town and my parents owned property here too where they planned to move in the coming years anyway. So living in this town wasn't a big sacrifice for us, even though my husband works 50 miles away in the city. 

My dad gave us this tip: buy a house you can afford on one income, that way if either of us were to lose our job, we'd still be able to afford it. That's how we were able to more than double our monthly payments and pay it off so quickly. 

We did some work on the house before moving in too. We got new flooring in some places, painted everything, graded and seeded the yard, and other little things here and there. We got our appliances on Craigslist. And since we got married soon after we moved in together, we waited on a lot of the small kitchen appliances and dishes, etc. because we knew we'd get a lot of those as wedding gifts. We literally owned two plates and two bowls from the dollar store for that first month of our marriage. Justin actually got me a pots and pans set for Christmas the year before we knew we'd be moving out, our parents and grandparents got us glasses and silverware, etc that Christmas before so we had been slowly getting ready to move out for awhile. We had also been accumulating random furniture during our years still living with our parents too. 

We made some bigger purchases, but nothing too crazy. We did need a lawnmower when we first moved out, so we got one with 0% interest and had it paid for in three months. We bought an entertainment center for the living room in that first year, and a new couch in 2018 right before Eren was born. We replaced our Craigslist washer and dryer when the Craigslist dryer went out, but got a big discount on them because they were returns. 

So we had been preparing to move out for awhile. 

These are all the things we did to pay off our house in under 5 years:

• Budget - we recorded everything - we stuck to a general budget every month for essentials. We went through strict phases, and lenient phases, but I definitely still find value in simply recording what we're spending money on. It keeps my husband and myself accountable to one another, and it helps us at least be able to see if we are in the ball park. Since we use credit cards, it helps us see what the following month is going to look like in our bank account. We stuck to a monthly total budget. It's not like we were only allowed X amount in particular categories, we just didn't go over our monthly allowance overall. If it was the last weekend of the month and we wanted to go out for dinner, we didn't do it if we were getting close on the monthly budget total. More info below. 
• No cable - with cheap streaming services like Netflix, paying for cable just doesn't make sense for our family. We have an antenna for the basic TV channels, plus a couple streaming services, and that's all for TV.
• No gym membership - we own weights, a yoga mat, and have shoes for walking.
• Packing lunches - that's a no-brainer for us. Yeah, it's nice to eat out, but it's not worth it to us. My husband keeps a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and jelly at work. And we both take leftovers occasionally. 
• Limited monthly subscription boxes - when we both lived at home, we had several subscriptions. Over time, we realized those were mostly junk, so we got rid or them. 
• No other debt - no student loans, no credit card debt. I was fortunate enough for my parents to pay for my education and my husband bought his car before we got married. 
• Speaking of credit card debt - Credit cards are good for rewards points and they are more convenient than carrying cash - that's why we use them. I actually save up all of my credit card points to use in January after Christmas time, I usually have about $100 to use on the next credit card statement to help ease the extra cost of Christmas presents. When I got my very first credit card at 16, my dad made it very clear that credit cards are only for convenience. You simply do not put something on your card that you can't pay for right now. Credit cards are short term loans. And by short term, I mean one month until your statement comes. 
• No car payments - Yes, my car is old (2002), but it still works and I don't drive very far. My husband bought his car new before we got married, borrowed the money from my dad, and paid it off in a few months with interest. We don't think it's necessary to have a new car every couple years like so many average, everyday Americans. A new (to us) car for me is the next big purchase we have planned though. 
• Meal planning and limited grocery trips, plus sticking to the shopping list. When you go to the grocery store with a list in hand, you're just less likely to buy a bunch of junk that's bad for your body and your budget. 
• Cook from scratch - I like to think we have a very nice balance of home-cooked stuff and not. We eat out maybe every other week. We eat totally made from scratch dinners, or frozen pizza, and everything in between. 
• Home improvement budget always came from our tax refunds. We have finished our basement, poured a new patio, built a shed, done some flooring, and landscaped at our home, but we always waited to use our tax refunds to pay for those home improvements. My husband is also really handy and we were fortunate enough to have a lot of help from relatives to do our home improvement projects too. Remember to help out your friends and family whenever they need you and they'll be more likely to help you out one day too.
• My husband's Christmas bonus = Christmas present fund 
• Large amounts of extra money go to the mortgage: any leftover tax refund money or other bonuses from work go straight to the house. 
• No vacations - this hasn't exactly been intentional, we just didn't want to take trips with tiny babies these last few years. 
• We did make one stock investment that helped us. We invested a little over $13k, which grew to $28k in a couple of years.
• We had two kids. That might not sound like a budget friendly thing to do, but I personally attribute a lot of our progress to having to grow up and worry about more than just ourselves. I stopped spending so much money on myself, I didn't buy a new outfit every week, or all the latest makeup palettes. I realized life was now bigger than myself. Plus, we just had less time for fun shopping or going out. Ha! We also were very fortunate to have a TON of hand-me-downs for the kids. 
• We never had an emergency fund. Our extra payments were our "savings." For example, if we needed a new water heater, we would put it on a credit card, then pay less on the next month's mortgage payment, and pay off the water heater on the card. We had this extra money already built into our mortgage payments. And if we needed something even bigger, the way we saw it, we could borrow it from either of our parents. It never came to that and of course, that's not feasible for everyone, but that was our philosophy. Sometimes we may have had a few hundred dollars saved, but an emergency fund was not constant in our household.

The Nitty Gritty:
Our income has varied a lot.
My husband does work on salary, but when I was working, I ranged from full time (4 days/wk, 9 hr days) to super part time (3-4 days per month).
Estimates:
Our income together (when I worked full time May 2015-Nov 2018): $3750-4500/month
Our income together (when I worked part time Nov 2018-Oct 2019): $3100-3375/month

$2500 mortgage 66%
$400 groceries 11%
$250 gas 7%
$460 utilities and subscriptions (everything from car insurance and water, to internet and Netflix) 12%
$140 other (gifts, entertainment) 4%
Total spending before mortgage: $1250
Percentages based on $3750/month average.

So I knew we needed $1250 just to survive the month (without accounting for the mortgage). So at the beginning of the month when the mortgage was due, we'd just account for that $1250, and everything else went straight to the mortgage. 
Our average mortgage payment was around $2,000-$2,500 every month. 

And all of this is the reason why I'm now able to stay home with my kids. We made these sacrifices so I could be a stay at home mom without having financial worries. 

This was our goal: I would work while we had two kiddos, then I'd be able to stay home with the two next babies (we've always wanted four kids). And we even got to accomplish that early because we won't be having baby #3 for another year or more. 

I'm not here to tell you this is what you need to do to pay off your mortgage quickly, I'm just telling you these are the steps we took. This is just what we implemented to make it our priority. Every family is unique. I do hope this was helpful in some way. 

Love,

Alaina

One Year Vegan

A few days ago was the one year anniversary of the start of my vegan journey. Although it took me a couple months to fully settle into this lifestyle (trying to use up products in our house that were not vegan, we keep a lot of backups haha), this was the start of it all.

Salad with romaine lettuce, hummus dressing, Morning Star nuggets, & fresh dill. 

.
What have I learned this year?

• It's not like you lose your vegan status if you mess up. Even though it might seem like it online, there really aren't any vegan police. You'll learn as you go and trying your best to be vegan is still doing a hell of a lot better than all of the standard American dieters out there. 
• Not to get worked up about mistakes. Go out to eat and your only option is salad? But you forgot to ask for no croutons because the brand of croutons you buy are vegan and it doesn't occur to you that every other freaking crouton on the planet has milk in it, until it shows up on your plate.
• There are animal products in everything. Legit, just when you think you've got it all figured out, you'll come across some stupid loaf of bread with an egg wash on top.
• Produce can be coated in shellac (not vegan, bug stuff). And you get all these people online saying, just go to the farmers market, they don't coat their stuff because it's fresh. Okay, maybe that works in California where you can grow shit year round, but here in the Midwest, we only have farmers markets like four months of the year.
• When in doubt, just don't eat it. At a family gathering and there's a tray of cookies? Just don't think about them, you know there's egg in there.
• Food is fun! I look forward to every meal now. I can't wait to try something new. I love cooking different things.
• Speaking of trying new things: I try new things! I don't get afraid of something I've never had. I'll retry something I know I didn't like last time. I am way more open to different flavors. I love trying new recipes and figuring out creative ways to veganize things.
• In the rural place I live, nobody knows what the hell vegan is. Even my dad still gets confused. Went to a restaurant just a couple weeks ago, asked the waitress if there was milk or egg in the fried pickle breading, she told me they came out of a bag... lady, that's not helpful and doesn't answer the question... I really question how people with allergies survive eating out.
• There are different levels of vegan. Some people won't even eat a vegan thing fried in the same oil as a non -vegan thing. That blows my mind. These people must never go out to eat.
• Check all the labels. See a snack you really want, you never know! Check the label. And when you already assume it's not vegan, but it actually ends up to be okay, you'll be even more excited!
• Buy any new vegan products you see. At the store and there's a new vegan hot dog? Buy it. Even if you're not super excited about just another veggie dog, you still want to show there's a demand for vegan stuff. Also, if there's a new vegan item you super love, buy all of the boxes on the shelf because it might not be there next week. :( Like our favorite teriyaki tofu from Aldi. :(
• When in doubt, french fries. But even check those too! Frozen Rally's brand fries are not vegan. 
• Vegan ice cream is just as freaking delicious as dairy ice cream. Yes, it gets more expensive, not gonna lie, but ice cream is supposed to be a treat anyway, right?
• Being vegan can be super cheap. Some of the cheapest items ever are vegan (think rice and beans). But if you get into the fancy stuff (vegan dairy products first come to mind), it can be a little more expensive. Like my husband says anytime we go to the grocery store together, "why is all the healthy stuff cheaper than the junk food?!" Good question, dear, good question. 
• I actually pay attention to nutrition now. I know what vitamins and minerals I typically miss out on and how to fix that. I take a multivitamin plus extras like calcium and omegas. I've taken a multi before, but never did I actually care or know what I was lacking.
• Being vegan really is easy until you try to go out for dinner. Seriously, going out to eat can be a pain in the ass. For this reason, I always try to figure out where we're going beforehand and get online to find their ingredients or allergen menus so I can decide what I'm having ahead of time.
• Finding vegan makeup isn't hard, a lot of brands have vegan sections on their websites these days. You can't just shop for the hell of it as much though (which I've been trying to avoid anyway).
• Avoiding leather is easy when you're a cheapskate and only buy $20 purses.
• I own way too many lip balms. I still have non-vegan ones that I'm trying to get through. Lip balm can be a tough one, so many have beeswax, then just when you think you're clear, you'll find one with lanolin! 
• I'm very lucky to have an accommodating family. My sister has been vegetarian for a few years now. And my mom even went vegetarian just recently! So when we have family gatherings, things are really easy for me. I don't have anyone trying to force me to eat something I don't want to, everyone's very supportive (at least to my face ha).

So that's all of my new vegan knowledge from this past year.

Love,
Alaina