{CLOSED} Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes: Delicious, Affordable, Vegetarian-Friendly Buffet {Review & Giveaway}

Once upon a time, in February of 2009, I made the decision to stop eating meat. Since Scott is not a vegetarian, that often means we have to compromise when dining out...myself moreso than him, since many restaurants are not necessarily vegetarian-friendly. Thankfully, Sweet Tomatoes (also called Souplantation in some areas) is one place we don't have to compromise!

I love dining at Sweet Tomatoes because it takes the worry out of choosing veggie-friendly foods. Ever go to a regular restaurant and try to find something vegetarian? A little secret I learned early on in my venture into vegetarianism is that most soups have a beef or chicken base...even soups you'd think are vegetarian, such as broccoli and cheese, french onion, and even straight vegetable soup. At Sweet Tomatoes, vegetarian items are clearly marked as such, so I never have to worry about finding meat in my food.

At $8.49/each (at our location), the price is most definitely affordable!

The abundance of vegetarian options is just amazing, and with their online nutrition guide, you can plan in advance to make smart choices. Here are some items I sampled on our recent visit to Sweet Tomatoes. Each one of these is meat-free and many are low-fat or fat free!

Cherry Balsamic Blue Tossed Salad, Green Chile Ranch Salad, Southern Dill Potato Salad (low-fat), and Aunt Doris' Red Pepper Slaw (fat free and vegan!) - with a side of beets (I <3 beets), vanilla nut coffee (YUM), and strawberry lemonade. Across the table you see Scott's caesar salad. NOT vegetarian -- caesar dressing has anchovies in it.

Santa Fe Black Bean Chili (low-fat - but with just a dab of sour cream, cheese, and chives) with Quattro Formaggio Foccacia

Blueberry muffin, Cherry muffin, and Cherry Nut Butter

My favorite DIY dessert -- chocolate brownie muffin (served warm) with low fat frozen yogurt!

Not pictured above (since the pan was empty when I went to the soup bar): Sweet Tomatoes has one of the best vegetable soups I've ever had! They call it Vegetable Medley. I recently got the recipe from the company and while it takes quite some time to make soup from scratch, it's pretty easy to make....and since it's so good, I want to share it with my wonderful readers!

Vegetable Medley
© Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation

VEGETABLE STOCK:
11 ½ cups water                                                               In a pot, combine ingredients and bring to a boil.
2 ½ cups V8 juice                                                             Simmer for 90 minutes with a lid. Strain broth
1 cup ½” diced celery stalk                                            through cheesecloth.
½ cup ½” diced brown onion
5 peeled garlic cloves – finely diced
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons vegetarian base               
2 teaspoons table salt
½ teaspoon white pepper

SOUP RECIPE:
11 ½ cups vegetable stock                                           In a pot, combine ingredients and bring to a boil.
1 teaspoon canola oil                                                    Simmer for 10 minutes with a lid.
2 cups 2” long fry cut carrots
2 cups ½” cubed red potatoes
1 ½ cups ¼” sliced brown onions
1 ½ cups 2” long fry cut turnips
1 cup ¼” sliced celery
1 cup 1” sliced green beans
1 ½ cups cauliflower florets                                       Add ingredients to pot and simmer for 5 minutes
1 cup ¼” sliced green cabbage                                  with a lid.
2 cups 2” long fry cut zucchini                                   Add ingredients to pot and simmer for 5 minutes.
1 cup 2” long fry cut yellow squash                          Season to taste with salt and pepper.
1 cup corn
¾ cup peas
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme                                                         

Yields approximately 1 gallon.

And check out these nutrition facts! You get a whole lot of flavor for very few calories:
Serving Size: 1 cup
Calories: 90
Calories Fat: 11%
Fat: 1g
Saturated Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 520mg
Total Carbohydrates: 14g
Fiber: 3g
Sugar: 2g
Protein: 2g

If the items I tried today don't sound appealing to you, here's some more information on Sweet Tomatoes vegetarian options:

Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes Vegetarian Specials
Throughout the year Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation restaurants offer guests more than 45 different vegetarian options, many of which are also vegan, along their 55-foot salad bar and among their soup, pasta, fruit and dessert stations. The all-you-care-to-eat buffet offers something for everyone and is a great opportunity to encourage not only kids, but everyone, to try new things, whether they’re an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan. Vegetarian and vegan offerings are marked throughout the restaurant and also highlighted within the nutritional guide, available inside the restaurant and online, so guests can check out the choices before even stepping foot in the restaurant. And with a featured rotating monthly menu, which always includes a vegetarian offering, there is something new and exciting to try each month. 

The current lineup of meat-free options is as follows (check with your location to find out for sure what's available):

June 17-28 Vegetarian Menu Offerings:

• Cherry Balsamic Blue with Toasted Walnuts Salad
• Southern Dill Potato Salad
• Aunt Doris Slaw (vegan)
• Sweet Tomatoes Onion Soup (vegan)
• Vegetable Medley Soup
• Curried Yellow Split Pea Soup
• Spicy Garlic Alfredo Pasta
• Mac & Cheese

Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation also offers to-go options from the buffet, as well individual take-home desserts, such as as these delicious lemon sugar cookies (also vegetarian)!

You get 13 of these yummy cookies for just $1.99!

Want to find out if there is a Sweet Tomatoes or Souplantation near you? Check their locations and menus page to find a location near you, and see what good food they're serving!

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GIVEAWAY!

If you have a Sweet Tomatoes or Souplantation near you (you're so lucky!) and would like to go with a friend for FREE, you're in luck! One lucky reader of Angelica's Awesome Adventures will get TWO complimentary meal passes (does not include beverages). 

MANDATORY ENTRY (Must be done for any other entries to count):
Have you ever been to a Sweet Tomatoes or Souplantation restaurant?

EXTRA ENTRIES (Comment once for each unless it says otherwise): 

• Become a fan of Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes on Facebook
• Follow Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes on Twitter
• Join Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes Club Veg for promotions and coupons! (Enter email address in upper right corner.)
• Become a public follower of Angelica's Awesome Adventures on Google Friend Connect (check the right sidebar to do this)
• Subscribe to Angelica's Awesome Adventures by Email (Subscription must be confirmed to count)
• Become an Angelica's Awesome Adventures Facebook fan (Comment with first name, last initial)
• Follow Angelica's Awesome Adventures on Twitter (@angelicasmommy) (Comment with your twitter username)
• Tweet the following (CAN BE DONE ONCE DAILY). Comment with a link to your tweet.
  
Delicious veg-friendly fare at Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation - win FREE dining passes @angelicasmommy http://bit.ly/lNGvl6 Ends 7/8 #giveaway

• TWO BONUS ENTRIES: Add my button to your blog and send me a link to where it can be found.
• THREE BONUS ENTRIES: Blog about this contest with a link back to this giveaway and send me a link to your blog entry.
  

Please leave your email address in your comment or make sure it is visible in your profile!

Contest ends on JULY 8, 2011 AT 9 PM EST. Open to US Residents only and the prize cannot be mailed to a P.O. Box. Winner will be chosen by random.org and contacted via email. Winner must respond within 48 hours of the email being sent or another winner will be selected. (Please make sure you check your spam and junk folders frequently to make sure you don't miss out!)

Disclosure: I was not financially compensated for this review in any way. Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation provided me with a review package through the their PR agency for the purposes of this review and will also handle prize fulfillment. Thanks to Sweet Tomatoes/Souplantation for providing the review package and giveaway prize! All content in this review is my opinion.

My Year as a Vegetarian

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! While most of you are spending this day celebrating the many loves in your life (and I am too, though Scott is away on business), I am also celebrating this day as the one year anniversary of the day I became a vegetarian.

Strangely enough, though I am the only vegetarian in my household, it was not my idea to embark upon this journey. On Valentine's Day last year, Scott had planned to prepare some delicious meals for us -- sausage, eggs and pancakes for breakfast and followed by grilled steak for dinner. We had both been more conscious of our eating habits at that point, eating organic foods and free range chicken and beef, but during our breakfast that morning, Scott put his fork down and said, "I am suddenly disgusted by the idea of eating animal flesh." And so our vegetarian journey began.

He stuck with it for awhile but slowly began adding meat back to his diet. I never felt the desire to. I had been a vegetarian (and even a vegan) during my late teens and early twenties and had contemplated going back to a vegetarian lifestyle, but had never been motivated to do so. But on that day, armed with my new knowledge of nutrition and faced with the expense of buying only free range meats, becoming a vegetarian seemed totally natural. Honestly, I have never looked back, craved meat, or regretted the choice.

That's not to say that being the only vegetarian in a non-vegetarian household hasn't been without challenges. It means some nights I prepare two different meals. It means more dirty dishes when I make spaghetti and meatballs, since I either make veggie meatballs or just have plain sauce. For the longest time, I've been supplementing my diet with soy products, but as I've moved toward reducing the amount of soy I eat as well as the amount of processed foods, I've had to search for alternative sources of protein. (Beans, eggs, dairy, and cheese are all great if you are a lacto-ovo vegetarian.)

In terms of weight loss...you'd think a vegetarian diet would make it easier to lose weight, right? It seems logical, if you're cutting out fatty meats you should be able to easily drop the pounds. Let me tell you though, it's very easy to be a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables. While fruits and vegetables are acceptable vegetarian foods, other meat-free items include: cookies, cake, doughnuts, ice cream, chocolate...you get the idea. While those foods are all fine in moderation, eaten in excess, they can prevent you from losing weight. I'm a good example of this. This time last year I was in the low 260s. Today I'm in the low 250s. I got down to the 240s the middle of last year and gained some back because I started to let things slide.

As of today, I'm working hard to cut back on those unhealthy "vegetarian" foods, eat fewer soy products, and eat more fruits and vegetables. Today my lunch is a very delicious salad made of vegetables from our local farmer's market...organic romaine, organic carrots, organic broccoli, organic cucumber, roma tomato and mushrooms...with a dash of oil and vinegar and an ounce of cheese (for the protein). (Want to save a ton of money on produce? Farmer's markets are GREAT.)

I also quit the Couch to 5k program in week 7 last year. I'm proud to say that I'll be starting that again on Saturday! Doing that, combined with eating better vegetarian foods...maybe next year I'll be a much healthier vegetarian!

As with anything like this, if you're wanting to make a major diet or lifestyle change, it's best to consult with your physician. ...but if you have questions about vegetarianism, feel free to comment  and I'll try to answer as many as I can. I'm not a nutritionist or any kind of expert, but I can comment from my own experience.

Operation Lose the Baby Weight: Week 10

I'm back from hiatus! Yay! February turned into a monumentally busy month for us.

Okay, so I skipped a few weeks in the Operation Lose the Baby Weight saga. I also skipped a few weeks of eating healthy, which is why I have gained two pounds since the last update. Big sad face to me.

The good news is that about a month ago, our whole family made the monumental decision to become vegetarian. Well, Scott and I have -- we serve vegetarian foods at home, but Angelica still eats whatever is on the daycare menu. We don't force the school to give her a vegetarian option because I believe the decision to be vegetarian is a personal one. I made this choice once before, in my late teens/early 20s, and at the time it was a complicated situation since I was still living at home and not yet supporting myself. Diet choices were limited to what was put on the table back then, and I didn't always have a say.

So you'd think, eating vegetarian means that you're getting lots of veggies in, and theoretically losing weight, right? Well, in the past month I have discovered that the following are also vegetarian options:

Cake Cookies Ice cream Tortilla chips Chocolate covered peanuts Cheese (and lots of it)

(...and so on.)

The good news is that being on a vegetarian diet has helped me accomplish my goal of reducing the sodium in my diet, thus reducing my blood pressure to a normal level...all without a change in activity or the need for blood pressure medication! I didn't have terrible blood pressure, but I was diagnosed with prehypertension back in December last year, so it's great to already be seeing the positive effects of this lifestyle change on my health.

So, having recapped the past month, my goal for this week is to start integrating exercise into my daily routine...at least three times this week for 30 minutes. I think that's an achievable goal.

For anyone looking for a really good, vegetarian option, look no further than this -- I made this by accident last week when Scott was away on business and I was trying to throw together something tasty that a toddler would eat, but would also be healthy at the same time.

Black Bean & Rice Taco Pizza

1 cup brown rice, cooked
1 cup black beans (I used dry beans to eliminate sodium but canned would work as well)
1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar)
1 tablespoon taco seasoning (I used a low-sodium kind)
1 tablespoon fat free refried beans
1 tablespoon hummus (I used red pepper)
2 whole grain pitas

On the pitas, add in this order:
Hummus
Refried beans
Rice mixed with the taco seasoning
Black beans
Cheese

Cook in the oven at 350 for 5 minutes, cut into triangles and enjoy.
(There will be left over rice and beans.)