My Summer Vacations / According to Instagram

Sorry it’s been so quiet around here lately. This lucky girl got to go on not one, not two, but THREE extended weekends in a row so far this summer.

The first weekend I went with two of my friends to Vermont to attend the Wanderlust yoga festival. The following week, Jim and I had a wedding to attend in Philly so we hit up the city of brotherly love for a few extra days. Lastly, over July 4th Jim and I did our now annual trek to Boston to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. We love Boston during July 4th because majority the historical sites important to our country’s independence are right there and we are big time history nerds.

I’m finally back in Brooklyn with no joke, around 800 photos to sort through.  I suspect that’s going to take me a while, so for now I wanted to share some of the highlights of each weekend via Instagram.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom // The lodge where we took our first yoga class / Vegan, gluten-free pizza by Pizza for the People / Our pre-hike “hydration” / Gorgeous view at the top of Stratton, which made the difficult hike worth it!

Left to Right, Top to Bottom // The Philly skyline on our first day / Eastern State Penitentiary, by far one of my favorite highlights of summer so far / Vegan ice-cream at Little Baby’s Ice Cream / The Sphinx at the Penn Museum at Penn University

Left to Right, Top to Bottom // The Old State House in Boston, where the Boston Massacre happened (our hotel was across the street! / The Museum of Fine Arts / Brunch at North Street Grille in the North End on July 4th / The Cheers Bar!!

Are you on Instagram?  If so hit me up!  My handle is @BrooklynBliss.

Advertisement

Blogging Breaks and Traveling Pink Lips Vegan Cuts Box Giveaway Winner

image credit: www.wesleyumcwausauwi.org

After the Seed and my work travel to San Antonio, I’ve been crazy busier than expected. All good stuff, but my work hours have been longer, my social calendar more packed, and I’ve just had zero time to blog!

This all bums me out, but I have a lot of great stuff that’s happened since my last post, as well as coming up in the next several weeks so I’m expecting July will be jam-packed with lots of post content.  Between me leaving for Wanderlust in Vermont this week, a long weekend in Philly for a wedding and Jim and my annual 4th of July trip to Boston, I’ll have no shortage of updates once I return from this hopefully short-lived blogging break.

In the event you still want to follow along with me on my travels, you can always feel free to check in with me on Twitter or Instagram.  I’m still relatively active on those during my blogging breaks.

In the meantime, with all this business I totally spaced out and forgot to announce the Traveling Pink Lips VeganCuts giveaway winner!

And the winner is (drum roll please)…

Erica Wollman!

Erica, please contact me for Holly‘s (at Traveling Pink Lips) contact info so you can claim your prize.

I hope everyone’s been enjoying their summer so far and you’ll hear from me again soon!

Come See Me At the Seed This Weekend

If you are in the New York City area this weekend, be sure to check out the Seed Expo.  I’ll be speaking!

The Seed is a huge vegan event being held from May 18th and 19th here in NYC at 82 Mercer. There will be lots of delicious vegan food, products, services, world-renowned speakers, films, and more. Best part about the Seed is it’s designed around a more “veg-curious” crowd, meaning if you are not currently vegan but are interested in the lifestyle, it’s a great place to come on out and see what it’s all about.

To my surprise, the organizers of the event have invited me to be a featured speaker! I’m on at 4:15 on Saturday, and will be talking about how to successfully transition to a cruelty-free wardrobe.

Will you be attending the Seed? If so I’d love to meet you so let me know!

Headed to San Antonio

This Brooklyn girl is currently en route to San Antonio for a big convention for work.  Wish me luck!  Last time I went to San Antonio on a work trip I broke my foot doing karaoke.  I think I’m the only person on this planet capable of doing that.  Luckily I’m now banned from doing karaoke at work events, so I think I’ll return the end of this week in one piece.

In the meantime, this entire week will not be quiet on Brooklyn Bliss.  I have a few surprise guest posters lined up, as well as a giveaway!  So stay tuned and I’ll be back the end of this week.

My Weekend According to Instagram

This past weekend Jim and I enjoyed an extended one, getting to show my college bestie Gina and her boyfriend Mark around town. We covered a lot of ground in three days, and I’m still getting through the few hundred photos I took over the course of the weekend.  Next time I need to learn to stick to one camera and not three!

Here’s some of my favorites I managed to snap on my iPhone and post to Instagram as we were out in about.

We enjoyed coffee from Caffe Capri EVERY morning.  They seriously have the BEST coffee in Brooklyn // Stopped for brunch at Champs Diner

We did some serious art gawking, especially at MOMA // Spotted this book at Poseman’s Books in the Chelsea Market and am convinced I need a vegan version of this Mondrian inspired cake for my upcoming birthday this July

Enjoyed beyond fantastic weather this entire weekend, especially during our visit to the High Line, where I spotted this fantastic mural // There were some new installations along the park that weren’t there during my last visit.  This one in particular was stunning, the mirrored glass made the side of the building blend into the sky

Are you on Instagram?  Hit me up!  My Instagram handle is @BrooklynBliss.

Three Day Weekend

After the insane work week I’ve had, I’m super stoked to have a three day weekend effective immediately. One of my best friends from college is passing through NYC with her boyfriend, so Jim and I get to play host and show them around our amazing city.

So far we’re keeping our plans pretty casual, but know for sure we’ll being doing a museum hop and shopping. Based on the forecast, we should have perfect weather.

Have a great weekend!

Eating Vegan Paleo / Baked Sweet Potato with Beans and Greens

For the past several months since I’ve gone grain-free, I’ve been on the search for really quick, easy to make “lazy day” meals that will keep me satisfied without hitting up Seamless for takeout.  These types of recipes are especially important for me when my work schedule gets insane and my days really long.

While perusing Pinterest one day I came across this recipe on the Kitchn and have been hooked making variations of it ever since.  The formula is pretty simple.  Take a baked sweet potato, and stuff it with a tasty combination of beans and greens. Depending on how you cook the potato, it can be ready to eat in 10 minutes start to finish.

If I have some extra time, I’ll actually roast the sweet potato in the oven (which takes an hour).  Otherwise, if I’m being super lazy it just goes in my microwave on the baked potato setting.  The beans and greens get sautéed in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and maybe some onions or shallots while the potato cooks.  They also can be mixed and matched depending on what you are in the mood for.

Here’s some examples of the different variations I’ve made:

The Original

(i.e. the Kitchn version)- Sweet potato, kale, white beans.

The Mexican

Sweet potato, spinach, black beans and top with salsa and avocado.

The Italian

Sweet potato, broccoli rabe, chickpeas and a squeeze of lemon juice. (shown above, this one was AMAZING)

The Clean-Out-the Fridge

Sweet potato, whatever greens are in my fridge, whatever beans are in my cabinet.  It can also include other “leftovers” from that week.  One particularly good version included some leftover lentil salad I had made for the bean component.

The possibilities are pretty endless.  Plus it’s pretty damn tasty.

What’s your favorite “lazy day” recipe?

The Big Chop

At this point in time it’s no secret, I chopped off all my hair!  It happened last Wednesday at Adelaide Salon here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  It’s not that often I make a drastic hair length change like this, so to commemorate the event, photographer Joel Stigliano tagged along to document it.

My long time stylist Casey (who also did my dip-dye) did the honors.  I wanted to donate the hair to Locks of Love, and I had so much hair it resulted in two ponytails we chopped off.  All in all I think it was about 10 inches we took off.

The style I wanted was an inverted bob, which is longer in the front than it is in the back.  Casey took her time really perfecting the shape and when it was done, it was perfect!  Very flattering to my jaw line.

Also, for anyone wondering, the best way to cut curly hair is when it’s dry so you can see the natural curl pattern.  That’s why Casey’s cutting my hair prior to us washing it.

During my entire appointment, we had this adorable guy watching us.  Can you believe he’s just a puppy?!  Probably the most well-behaved puppy I’ve ever encountered.

Once my bob was pretty well-shaped, it was then time for color.  I decided I wanted to dye my hair back to my natural brunette.  While I loved the red, it was too high maintenance for me.  Adelaide Salon carries Organic Color Systems which is a vegan line, so I was all set!

After the dye set it was then time to wash, set and dry the curls.

I often get a lot of questions from readers on how I style my hair, so stay tuned next week as Casey walks us through a curly hair styling tutorial!

PHOTOGRAPHY  BY // Joel Stigliano

The Intrepid Civilian Military Combine

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you may be aware that on April 6th I woke up ridiculously early to head over to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum in NYC to participate in the Civilian Military Combine.

If you’ve never been to the Intrepid, it’s pretty cool.  It’s a museum on a retired aircraft carrier.  I remembered visiting it as a kid and loving it.  So when my friend Lindsay from my Crossfit gym asked me if I’d be interested in participating in the event and that it came with free tickets to the museum, I was sold.  I joined Team Down Bottom Position (named after a popular phrase one of our coaches often uses) and signed up for the event.  Lindsay and our teammate Kristi even made us some great shirts to rock during the event.

The Civilian Military Combine is a competition that puts civilians against military personnel in a test of fitness.  It starts off with a Crossfit style “WOD” strength component, and then you move onto a 1/2 mile long obstacle course.

The PIT element consisted of as many rounds as possible in 7 minutes of

• 7 45 pound push presses
• 7 26 pound kettlebell swings
• 7 20″ burpee box jumps

So the goal is to get as many reps as you can in the 7 minutes.  I completed around 89 reps, mostly because I’m slow (or so my coaches tell me).  I’ve been working pretty hard to try to get faster during these types of workouts.  It really makes you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.

After the PIT, you were immediately sent over to the half a mile long obstacle course.  It consisted of a weighted sled push…

Carrying an insanely heavy sandbag up three flights of stairs and back down…

Monkey bars…

Rope wall climbs…

Scaling numerous walls…

Ladder type walls….

Carrying large buckets filled with water through a maze…

And this lovely obstacle at the end.  It was basically two rope meshes, one on top and one on the bottom.  You had to roll your way through it and pull yourself out the other end.  Holy ab workout.

We all finished and had a fantastic time!

Immediately after we finished, we got to explore the Intrepid Museum.  Although it was pretty cold out (it was in the 40’s!), we still had a crystal-clear perfect day to check out all the planes.

Have you ever visited the Intrepid or completed a CMC Event?  If so I’d love to hear about it!

*Special thanks to Chris for getting all these photos the day of the event.

I’m Speaking at the Seed!

I am so excited to finally get to announce this!

The Seed is a huge vegan event being held from May 18th and 19th here in NYC at 82 Mercer.  There will be lots of delicious vegan food, products, services, world-renowned speakers, films, and more.  Best part about the Seed is it’s designed around a more “veg-curious” crowd, meaning if you are not currently vegan but are interested in the lifestyle, it’s a great place to come on out and see what it’s all about.

To my surprise, the organizers of the event  have invited me to be a featured speaker!  I’m not exactly sure which date I’ll be speaking just yet, but will be sure to let everyone know once it’s been announced.  I’ll be talking about how to best represent the vegan cause through what you wear and how to transition your wardrobe to a cruelty-free one.

I’m honored to be included with a huge variety of renowned speakers in the vegan community, all of which you can see here.  I had a near freak out seeing my name directly next to Brendan Brazier.  His Thrive Sports Nutrition Diet and Vega Sport Performance Protein is keeping me on track with my Crossfit goals so he’s been a huge inspiration for me!

Will you be attending the Seed?  If so I’d love to meet you so let me know!