Category Archives: Healthy Vegan Friday

Pasta With Cauliflower “Cream” Sauce

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Hey everyone! Happy Friday! I hope you all had a great week :) I’m jealous it’s not my weekend yet but it will be soon enough I guess. In the meantime, I have a fun new recipe to share!

Here’s a hint:

Well, I guess you already knew it was vegan ;) I still had some cauliflower mash left and decided to get crazy with it and turn it into a “cream” sauce for pasta! I used to love fettucini alfredo and thought this would be a fun, healthy version of it!

Check out this gorgeous bowl of creamy pasta! I used gluten free angel hair pasta but you can use whatever you like. I’m just an angel hair girl :)

Pasta With Cauliflower “Cream” Sauce

Ingredients:

1 serving pasta of choice (with some cooking water reserved)

1/2 cup cheesy cauliflower mash

1/2 cup steamed spinach (and other veggies of choice)

salt, pepper, garlic to taste

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

Directions:

1. Cook pasta according to package. Drain and reserve some of the cooking liquid.

2. Heat cheesy cauliflower mash in a small saucepan. Thin sauce with pasta cooking liquid to desired consistency. I like mine thick and creamy. Add nutritional yeast and mix well.

3. Add veggies to sauce and add pasta last. Season with salt, pepper and garlic to taste.

This pasta is rich and creamy and decadent with absolutely none of the guilt! Definitely give this a try, I think you’ll like it!

I’m also submitting this recipe for Healthy Vegan Friday!

That’s all for tonight my friends! Have a great evening!

Mini Grocery Haul and Some Soup

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Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! Sunday is officially my favorite day of the week. I get to enjoy the laziness of it AND I still have the next day off! It doesn’t get any better than that. And today I made sure to make the most of my Sunday. By 9 am I had already made quick trips to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and by noon I had a big pot of soup finished and ready to shove into my face ;)

First I’ll show you my small grocery haul. This was mostly stuff to fill in.

Cauliflower, mirepoix, Earth Balance sticks (for baking), Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips, Candy Cane Joe Joe’s (These are hard to find in stock so when you see them you grab them! I am going to use them in baking I’m sure), Daiya backup, zucchini, peppermint extract, medjool dates, hummus, macro sushi and potatoes.

So a little after I got home from grocery shopping I decided to not be a lazy ass and to actually make the pot of soup I was intending to make this week. Believe it or not, I’ve never actually made a home made veggie soup before so I was kind of making it up as I went along. It came out so delicious, I’m so happy with it!

Here it is simmering away on the stove. I’m a big fan of really chunky soup so I chopped up my veggies nice and large so I can actually taste them. I’m so happy with the results and I figured I’d share my recipe with you!

Chunky Veggie Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large clove garlic, minced fine

2 large carrots, diced

2 large stalks celery, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 medium-large white potatoes, diced

2 medium zucchini, diced

1 small head cauliflower, chopped

1 can red beans, rinsed and drained

6 cups vegetable broth or water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Once your oil is hot, add carrots, onions and celery.

2. Cook until translucent, 5-7 minutes then add garlic. Saute another minute or two. Add potato and cook for another 2-4 minutes.

3. Add your broth or water, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Drop heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add cauliflower, zucchini and beans and simmer until veggies are fork tender.

4. Ladle into bowls and enjoy!!

Check out this gorgeous, hearty bowl of soup. It’s nice and chunky, just the way I like it. You can cut everything smaller if you like but I prefer large chunks. I made mine even easier by getting the container of pre-chopped mirepoix from Trader Joe’s and just dumping it in the pot with oil to saute rather than chop everything separately.

I’m also submitting this soup recipe for Healthy Vegan Friday this week! It is a perfect recipe with Thanksgiving and some cold weather coming up :)

I hope you are all enjoying your day! I spent a little time with Delilah before and now I’m just going to relax and hang out for the rest of the day. I see some tea in my future too :)

Tomorrow is my follow up appointment at the Dr. to get my test results. I think she is also planning on doing another vitamin D test to see if 4000 iu per day is enough. Hopefully I get good results all around! I’ll let you know!

Have a great day everyone!

Vegan MoFo Day 12: Fun Friday MoFo Style!

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Happy Friday Friends! I didn’t do a Fun Friday post last week because I was knee deep in recreations but I decided as I transition into my new theme of my cleanse, I figured I’d do a fun friday post! I’ll show you what diet I’m about to embark on and all of the recipes I happened to find right before and I can’t wait to make after! It seems kind of silly to be planning things to make after, but I’m also planning on making appropriate adjustments to the recipes so I don’t undo all of changes (hopefully!) that I accomplish.

So I’m going to be going on an Anti-Candida diet starting this Sunday. I have had a suspicion of yeast overgrowth for a while now. I decided to take this questionnaire to assess my symptoms. Well, I scored a 382. 85+ is considered severe. So I guess you can imagine part of my urgency to get this started. I’ve been getting headaches every day, nausea every day, I’ve had a hard time holding meals down (and sometimes I can’t, sorry if TMI), severe anxiety, joint and muscle discomfort, skin problems, and lots of other fun things. Clearly it was time to start making changes and thanks to the advice of Gabby, I decided to pick up the Complete Candida Yeast Guidebook. It is a bit overwhelming (500+ pages of info overwhelming) and the information is confusing and extensive, but I’m confident that I’ll figure it out. I liked this book because it focuses mostly on a veg lifestyle and gives you lots of veg options. A frustrating thing about this diet plan is that everyone will have different opinions about what you can and can’t eat. It is a pretty restrictive diet in the most strict phase of it, but the plan in this book seems doable. If I follow other plans I’ve read I’d be eating all veggies all the time and I feel like that can’t be healthy.

I’m going grocery shopping on Sunday and I’ll show you my haul of ACD food and supplements :)

And of course since I decided I wanted to do this diet (which I’ll explain in more detail on Sunday) I have found all of these amazing recipes that I want to try but will not be able to until I can add things back into my diet. I have pinned them all to revisit later though :) I figured I’d share them with you now though!

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How gorgeous is this bowl of Cinnamon Bun Granola from Angela and Oh She Glows!? I have always loved granola but rarely ever eat it. I am also a total cinnamon freak. As I’m sure you can tell I add it to pretty much everything. When I saw this recipe I got so excited… and then a little sad that I’d have to wait so long to make it! Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait!

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How about this 5 Ingredient Pumpkin Fudge from Lauren at Oatmeal with a Fork? I can’t think of anything I’d rather have in my fridge than this gorgeous and tasty fudge. I have some pumpkin set aside to make it as soon as I can add sweet things back into my diet. Yum!

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Are you sensing a theme here? Baked Pumpkin French Toast from Ashley at Edible Perspective. I mean really, come on. This looks decadent and amazing. Must. Try.

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Oh Chocolate Covered Katie, how you spoil us! Pumpkin Pie Reeses!? I don’t even have words for how amazing this is.

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Last but certainly not least is this gorgeous No Bake Pumpkin Mousse Cake from Gabby over at the Veggie Nook! I was so amped when she posted this gorgeous recipe! It is like a cross between pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Yum! Definitely must try this when I’m able to!

And speaking of the lovely Gabby, she is one of the hostesses of the Healthy Vegan Friday Blog Party that I participate in when I have a recipe yummy enough to submit. This week I submitted my Healthy Cookie Dough Sundae recipe!

So that’s all for today! Let’s drool over all of the yummy things I won’t be able to eat for a while but will definitely make at some point! I won’t be posting tomorrow since I have a wedding but I will be back on Sunday with an ACD grocery haul and some more specifics about what I will be eating on this diet.

Have a great Friday night and Saturday my friends!

Vegan MoFo Day 5: Eminger Berries

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Happy Friday friends! You made it! I hope that most of you will be enjoying a 3 day weekend this week? Sadly I am not as I have to work my first 10-6 studio Saturday but it should be fine. I’m excited to have Sunday and Monday off though (my days off every week as long as I don’t have a Sunday wedding). I’m hoping to get some fun meals done over the next few days because I’m sad to admit today’s is a bit lackluster (photos especially). I’ve been getting home after dark and my beloved natural light is all gone so the photos are pretty bleak with ugly lighting. Sorry!

I’ll also admit that I just felt completely lazy after work. I put this recreation together mostly because it was super quick and I did half the work before. Please don’t hold it against me ;)

So, what is an Eminger Berry? I don’t know if any of you recall but many years ago there was a show on the Food Network called Road Tasted. I’d link you to it but there is no info on the page :X It was hosted by Jamie and Bobby Deen and they traveled the country to check out really cute family owned food businesses. I watched it because I hoped that maybe one day I would have my own business that could be featured on a show like that :)

Anyway, I digress. In the Portland, Maine episode they visited a place called Eminger Berries. Unfortunately I can’t link you to this page because they are no longer in business :( Their beautiful, HUGE cheesecake stuffed strawberries were featured on the show. The best way I can describe these were GIANT strawberries completely covered by literally a handful of cheesecake and then dipped in chocolate. They looked decadent and delicious and definitely like something that I’d want to try. So I did. Kind of.

Well, nope that’s not cheesecake. It IS Chocolate Covered Katie’s Healthy Cookie Dough Dip though!! I’m VERY picky about cheesecake and eat it on very rare occasions (like my birthday!!) and remembered how much I loved shoveling this dough on strawberries when I made it the first time. It was a pretty easy substitution!

They are very simple to make. Basically all you do is wrap the strawberries in the cookie dough and press it on there. If I wasn’t so tired (read: lazy) I would have drizzled them with chocolate and made them pretty. These look pretty yummy though. Other than subbing the cheesecake with cookie dough dip the main differences are that these aren’t mutant sized strawberries and this treat is actually HEALTHY. This dip is made out of chickpeas. The only ingredient that lowers the healthiness of it is the sugar but as a rare treat I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Oh and I subbed out the peanut butter for coconut butter in the recipe again.

This pic is just so you can get the full impact of the yumminess. The cookie dough may have a bit of a tough time sticking to the berry depending on how dry it comes out but no worries you can just jam it back on there ;)

I wish I could show you the original berries but there doesn’t seem to be much of a trace of the company online anymore. Trust me though, their product was beautiful… it must have been if I remembered it so many years later!

So there you have it. A tasty snack that can look beautiful if you aren’t lazy, ha! I promise I’ll have something way more exciting tomorrow. Can’t promise about the lighting though, wah!

After a few week hiatus I finally submitted a recipe for Healthy Vegan Friday! I submitted yesterday’s Raw Apple Chips recipe, yum!

I hope you all have a great night! I’m settling in and watching Wipeout and basically laughing my ass off. Have you seen this show? It’s freaking hilarious and I won’t lie, I kind of really want to be on it. I think I need to put the audition on my bucket list ;)

Good night friends!

Fun Friday!

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Hey everyone! Sorry about being such a downer yesterday. I know that lately my posts have been a little down because of my trouble with that company and from the hectic summer work schedule but after starting The Happiness Project today I’m going to focus on the happy things in life. I am fortunate that I have a lot of things that make me happy :)

So, what better way to celebrate Fun Friday than to talk about things that make me happy!?

Oh hi Tyler! How can you not be happy looking at that sweet face? It has been so nice to have him around all week :)

He says hi everyone!

I feel bad I don’t have the source of this photo because I pulled it so long ago, but how adorable is this?! I’m going to try and get my brother and sister in law to do this as their holiday card this year ;)

Isn’t this Strawberry Watermelon Cocktail beautiful?! It screams summer :) That reminds me I still have some of my Farmer’s Market watermelon left. Breakfast tomorrow! But I digress ;) This drink is gorgeous and I definitely want to try it! I’ll probably try it sans rum to start though.

I’m also really looking forward to experimenting more with my dehydrator. I have the weekend off and figured it would be a great time to pull it out and get some fun things in there! I’m going to go through some Raw “Cook”books tonight and make a list of ingredients I need. You all know how much I love making lists ;) Blame the Virgo in me!

I’m also excited because Vegan MoFo is around the corner and like a good girl, I actually thought of a theme for my posts this year! I am so excited about it and will definitely fill you in more when the time comes :)

I’m really excited that Fall is creeping up on us! My plan was to try and get a Fall E-book ready to release on my birthday but since I’m still in busy season at work I don’t think that is a realistic goal. I DO, however, have an idea for a winter themed e-book that I will definitely have time to put together! And don’t worry, you’ll still get those fall recipes!

For this week’s edition of Healthy Vegan Friday, I’m submitting my VaVaBar recipe! I love this bar so much, the orange and coconut are perfect together! Yum!

Alright friends, that’s all for this Fun Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great day and that you enjoy your weekend! I’ll be back tomorrow with some yummy, clean food :)

Fun Friday

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Hey everyone. Sorry I’ve been weird lately, been going through a lot here. My little problem has turned into an all out war and will result in some drastic measures being taken. I’ve been lied to over and over and I’m pretty much over it and I’m going to try and get my money back a different way and then it’s time to cut ties.

It’s been a tough couple of weeks and I’ve been getting through them by focusing on all of the small things that I’m looking forward to and that I’ve been able to enjoy in this time. I figured I’d share some of them with you for this Fun Friday post.

I have wanted to read this book since Bianca started talking about it and posting about the recipes. It’s about Scott Jurek who is an ultramarathoner. He talks about his training and his running and also provides super yummy sounding recipes. While I can’t run because of the impact I think this will be super inspiring and I’m looking forward to trying the recipes.

My friend told me about this book about a year again and then I heard about it again when Sage mentioned it. My friend is letting me borrow a copy (hopefully I’ll get it tomorrow!) and I can’t wait to read it. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut right now and I’m hoping that this book will help me to flip the switch and start living a more fulfilled life.

Check out these cool DIY Necklaces! I love them and I can’t wait to try and make one :) I am hoping to try it out soon since I feel like crafting may help me get into a zen place.

The ladies are going at it again tomorrow when Sarah Kaufman and Ronda Rousey will fight the main event title fight in tomorrow’s Strikeforce fights! Of course I’ll be working when it’s on but I’m going to DVR the fights so I can watch them later. I’ve been looking forward to this fight for a while!

Finally, for this week’s Healthy Vegan Friday I’m submitting my Carrot Cake Smoothie recipe. This smoothie is so delicious, it is by far one of my favs! I hope people will try it because it is amazing and the healthiest way I can think of to eat carrot cake!

Sorry I’ve been kind of down lately but I’m just drained from this whole experience. It makes me sick that all of my hard work can just disappear in a second by the hand of a greedy company. Hopefully I’ll get some resolution soon… I guess if I don’t I have to suck up a major loss. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

I don’t think I’ll be able to post tomorrow since I’ll be working a wedding and moving my groceries and clothes for the week to my brother’s house. I will see you here on Sunday though! Hope you all have a great night and a great day tomorrow!

Yummy Veggie Un-Fried Rice!

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Hi everyone! I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to post this weekend, it turned out  that I had even less time at home than I thought I would. On Saturday I left at 11 am and got home at 11:30 pm. Yesterday I left my house at 9:00 am and got home at 11:00 pm. Needless to say I’m exhausted and I’m also quite sunburned. I worked for a few hours today and now I’m home relaxing before my training session :)

I’m finally able to submit my entry for Healthy Vegan Friday this week! Sure I’m submitting on a Monday but better late for the party than to not show up I suppose ;) I feel almost silly writing up a recipe for this dish because it is really simple but it’s so good and one of my diet staples!

Check out my Yummy Veggie Un-fried Rice! I’m going to write this recipe up a little differently. Since it is such a customizable dish I figured I’d write ingredient suggestions and easy instructions to throw this simple dish together.

Yummy Veggie Un-Fried Rice

Ingredients:

Veggies (Choose any that you like, 1.5 – 2 cups!)

Broccoli, zucchini, peas & carrots, onion, sprouts, peppers, cabbage, bok choy, corn/baby corn, snap peas, asparagus, celery, eggplant, mushrooms, etc. Anything you like!

Brown rice (1/2 cup – Feel free to substitute with quinoa!)

Protein (Choose what you like, 1 serving)

Tofu, Tempeh, Seitan, Edamame, Cashews

Seasonings (Season to taste, any combination you like! Be creative)

Tamari/soy sauce, Braggs Liquid Aminos, garlic, ginger, citrus (fresh squeezed orange is AWESOME on this rice!), etc.

Optional: Sesame or Coconut oil. I like to keep mine un-fried but if you don’t mind an extra serving of healthy fats in your diet feel free to add a little sesame or coconut oil. They add great flavor!

Directions:

Cook your veggies in your preferred method. I like to steam most of my veggies but will dry fry (maybe with a little coconut oil cooking spray) my onions to brown them. Make sure veggies are chopped into small, bite sized pieces. Set aside.

If using tofu, tempeh or seitan, brown in a non-stick pan (use a little more cooking spray if necessary). If using raw cashews, feel free to toast them up a little to add extra flavor and texture. Add veggies to the pan and mix thoroughly. Once combined, add the rice in and season with flavorings of your choice. Mix the whole thing up again and let it heat through. I like to try and get my rice a little crispy on the outside so I’ll let mine sit in the pan for a few minutes to get a little crust on the bottom (kind of like a paella!).

Enjoy your yummy, healthy, EASY dish! It is as simple as that! Also feel free to garnish with sesame seeds or green onion if you are fancy and garnish inclined ;)

Kind of silly to write a recipe right? My goal for writing this was to encourage you all to try different combinations and find your favorite one! One of my favorite combinations is broccoli, mushrooms, onion, zucchini, peas & carrots, eggplant and tofu seasoned with Braggs or tamari and some garlic or a fresh squeeze of orange juice. It’s so good.

You’ll notice that I prefer to have a veggie heavy dish rather than grain heavy. You’ll get a nice big portion out of it so if you can’t finish it, save the rest for leftovers or for a snack for later.

I’d love to see your combinations if you decide to try it! What ingredients would your un-fried rice have in it?

Hope you are all having a great day! I’m off to relaxation land and hopefully my legs won’t give out in my training session later ;) On the plus side, I’m trying to plan a trip to see my best friend in Florida for his birthday (which happens to be 5 days after my birthday) next month. I hope that it works out!

Fun Friday! DIY and Some Fall Treats!

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Hey everyone! Happy Friday! Welcome to this week’s Fun Friday post :) As usual I picked a bunch of my favorite pins on Pinterest to share with you. Most of today’s pins are some cool DIY projects that I pinned, but there were also a few treats that I had to share! I saw that Sara had pinned a bunch of Fall recipes that looked amazing and I can’t wait to try so I figured I’d share those with you as well :)

How cute are these?! They are canisters for you Holiday Cookies that are made out of Pringles cans! What a perfect and brilliant idea. Here is the original link.

I absolutely love this idea of using a picture frame to make a cupcake tray! It looks so adorable and you can decorate it however you want. It is so different and looks so cute! Check out the original post on Oh! Party.

Check out this super cute DIY Workout Shirt! It looks so cute, I love the back of it! Great way to recycle old t-shirts.

I don’t know if any of you are fans of glitter. Typically I’m not super into it but I love the look of this glittery glass! It is so easy too, I definitely want to give it a try!

This, my friends, is by far my favorite pin of the week! Pumpkin Pie White Hot Chocolate!! This sounds so delicious and is really easy to veganize! I really can’t wait to try this!

This week I am submitting my Raw Buckwheat Cereal for Healthy Vegan Friday :) I seriously love this stuff and I hope that other people do too!

OK that’s all for this week’s Fun Friday post! I hope you all liked it :) I’m working a day wedding tomorrow so I won’t be home too late. I’m hoping to be able to post and hopefully I’ll think of something good for dinner so I have something to show you :)

Have a great night everyone!

Fun Friday!

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Hey everyone! Happy Friday! In true This Is What I Eat fashion, welcome to my Fun Friday Post! This week I’ll show you some things that made me laugh, and a few things that I’m loving. Most are from Pinterest, naturally ;)

As most of you know, my best friend lives in Florida. I found this on Pinterest and it made me laugh my ass off and I texted it to him right away and he laughed his ass off too. This describes us perfectly ;) (source: someecards)

 

This one also made me think of him/miss him. In case you were wondering what our friendship is like, these two pics give you a pretty good insight ;) Believe it or not, I found this pic from following “Unlimited Texting” on Facebook. Yeah. I like texting. Don’t judge ;) I actually really don’t like talking on the phone so most of my communication happens through text and e-mail. That’s just a bonus tidbit because I love you guys.

This pin also made me chuckle BECAUSE IT IS SO TRUE!! That is pretty much the only burner I use :X How about you guys, is this your favorite burner too?!

As most of you may know by now, I LOVE putting together really cute care packages to send out in the mail. I also love gift baskets and cute things like that. I have actually thought about starting a gift basket business in the past. Anyway, I stumbled across Sometimes Creative through some very cool pins on Pinterest, including the one above. This one is a “Box Full of Sunshine” and I thought it was so creative and thoughtful. She sent this package to a friend that had been feeling a little down. She packed it full of yellow and orange items to help cheer her friend up. How cute and thoughtful is that!?

I don’t know why this photo is so small but you can click HERE to see the full post. Also from Sometimes Creative, this is a Favorite Things party! She got the idea from Oprah’s favorite things episodes (I’ve never watched much Oprah but I’ve heard of this) and decided to invite a bunch of friends over, and each picks one of their favorite things. They bring 3 of that item and 3 recipients are drawn to take that item home. I thought this was such a cute idea and a great way to get introduced to new foods and products!

This just made me smile. I need to get to the beach soon. I’ve been trying to go with my sister in law and Delilah but it rains every time we try to go! Maybe next week.

I also found this daily workout plan on Pinterest. I’d give you the original link but when I tried to click it on Pinterest it went to a different page. There is credit to the creator on the photo though (which you can click to enlarge). This daily workout looks really great and definitely manageable! I’m planning on doing them first thing in the morning and I’ll do the circuit twice. I’ll also do the jumping jacks on my rebounder to avoid impact on my neck (running and jumping still bother me). I’m really excited about starting this! It’ll be a great way to get the blood flowing in the morning and won’t leave me too sore to work out in the afternoon.

Finally, today is the first week of Healthy Vegan Friday! You are invited to submit a healthy vegan recipe and some recipes will be chosen to be featured by the hosts: Gabby, Shelby and Carrie! The goal is to share vegan recipes that emphasize healthy, fresh, whole foods. I love this idea and am definitely planning on participating. :) Thanks for hosting this ladies!

The first recipe I’m submitting are my Gluten Free Carrot Spice Muffins! I really love this recipe because they are so delicious and warm from the spices. They are great for breakfast with some fruit or as an on the go snack. They taste so good but are good for you :)

That’s all for today’s Fun Friday post! I hope you liked it and I’m definitely going to be on the hunt for some really fun things for next week. I’m in a crafting/DIY mood lately so maybe I can find some fun new projects to share with all of you.

Are you guys going to watch the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics tonight? I’m definitely going to be tuned in. In the past I haven’t been too into the Olympics but since I’ve been more interested in fitness and athleticism lately I’m really excited to watch the world’s best athletes compete.

I hope you all have a great Friday night!