11
Jul
Jill’s Restaurant Vegan Buffet + The St. Julien Hotel | Boulder, CO
Recently, my partner Chris (Conscious Chris) and I headed out on a 12 -Day road trip. You can watch it all on my road trip video playlist on my youtube channel.
Along our trip, Chris and I touched down in Boulder, CO for a few days. It was my first time in town, his second, but even with that, there was still so much ground we both had to cover. Fortunately, even with our last minute booking, we were able to score a room at the St. Julien.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-KmrW4FyGc[/embed]
Included in my road trip video playlist was a video (above) with a mini hotel room tour and our experience at the all you can eat vegan buffet discussed below. Especially coming from the various Super 8's and Priceline express deal booked rooms, this whole experience was even more than the paradise we expected it to be. 
My favorite item at Sunday brunch growing up -- french toast! Not only does this recipe no longer require eggs, it does not have to be fried, either. Want to know my secret to the PERFECT low fat vegan french toast? BANANAS!
This past weekend, Chris and I took an impromptu trip to Big Bear, CA to spend the Fourth of July weekend with my family and enjoy the festivities held at the lake. My mom surprised us with homemade bread on Saturday morning and Chris had a brilliant idea -- let's make french toast!
Chris recently celebrated his 27th birthday (well actually it is today!), so of course I put together a few gifts for him to celebrate. I decided I would share the gifts on my page + an extensive vegan male gift guide for you all in case you need a bit of help in treating a special someone in your life. Father's Day is just around the corner, so this is definitely going to help ya'll out!
Let me know if you try any of these out, or if you have any more ideas to share for me to add :)
What I Got Chris:
Melt-in your mouth good yet they ain't too sweet! This is the second batch that I have made in the past 2 weeks and they are already almost gone. Not only are these brownies da bomb (dot com), they are also jam packed with plant protein, oil-free, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, sweetened with dates. Phew, that was a mouth full, and I definitely need a big deep breath after that one.
There is of course a 
The day had finally come where Chris and I had our parents meet :) It was nerve wrecking for me, and I am not sure why. His parents are so kind and personable, and I already knew that they would hit it off, but I guess it was just one of those things, a step in our relationship that I had butterflies in my tummy for. I did not vlog the day for my YouTube channel as I was not sure how they would have felt about it, and it was one of those in the moment events we had to be fully immersed in. We all sat out on our back patio on our couches and just chatted for hours about everything. Well, more so our parents, Chris and I got up here and there cause I needed a break LOL but trust me, after all the cooking and bouts of stress, you would too.
Okay so onto the food....we blew it out of the park! We rocked this vegan brunch spread and our parents were thoroughly impressed by all of the food, especially the bagels and lox, it made us so happy <3 We always want to be able to show that vegan food is delicious, easy, and so fun to make & share with your loved ones. Being able to show people new and creative ideas we have in the kitchen is something that I honestly find so much joy in. Both his and my parents are not vegan, so of course it is even more of a plus that they loved the food. I mean, they all are so open to our lifestyles and have made positive changes in light of our own, but anything we can do to give them that extra push, we are going to do it!
Here is a summary of the brunch that we served to our parents, I hope you can try these recipes! They were actually very easy to make, and I was surprised by how less of a stressful night/morning it actually was. The most time consuming part was the bagels just because of the rising time and extra time for boiling, but other than that, we were able to prepare things ahead of time (two days ahead for the lox, night before for the bagel dough, night before for marinating the veggies, and salad), so that the morning of we just put the final touches.
