Indy Food Blogger Katey Velgis Shares Some of Her Favorite Places to Dine

Katey Velgis, the Carmel-area food blogger who created the popular Instagram account @SiblingsThatEat with her brother Josh, gives us the scoop on everything she ate in a week.
Katey Velgis and Her Brother Josh Carmichael

As told to Stephanie Groves

If you aren’t following Katey Velgis, the ultra-chic, vegetarian Yelp Elite food blogger who created @siblingsthateat with her brother Josh (who lives in Chicago), you totally should. Katey took us inside her world for a week and gave a firsthand account of all the food she noshed on, including buttery biscuits from Root & Bone and her favorite chopped salad kit.

MONDAY 

My typical morning begins with me dragging myself out of bed. It takes roughly four alarms before I eventually get up. This girl is not a morning person, but who’s judging? To be honest, I have never understood those people who can roll out of bed at 5 a.m. ready to conquer the day.

After eventually getting myself up, I always make a large pot of Folgers Black Silk Coffee. However, since we moved last week, my husband has a longer commute and wakes up earlier, so he has had the coffee ready and waiting for me. It is a beautiful sight. The smell of coffee in the morning—I’m not sure if there is anything better in the entire world. Coffee is definitely one of my love languages. The funny thing, though, is that although I like dark black roast coffee, I use a lot of creamer. To be honest, I have creamer with a little coffee.

If it’s a special day, or if we are running late (more common), I may just pop a K-Cup into the Keurig. If I’m really feeling fancy, it may be a Nespresso kind of day, but then the difficult decision becomes whether or not I want a Vertuo or Original line pod. And then if I make a Nespresso pod, then I’m going to want my frothed Silk Vanilla Almond Milk. This is the best way to make it, but often these additional steps combined with my morning sluggishness have me default to the good, old-fashioned coffee pot. Yes, we have four different coffee machines in our house. Did I mention we love coffee?

We just moved to a townhome in Carmel last week after living in Downtown Indianapolis for four years. Everyone asks how moving is going, and my response is, “It is a work in progress.” Currently, we are sleeping with our mattress on the floor and haven’t been to the grocery store in over a week, so we have been living off leftover pizza, peanut butter, and bread, the essentials. This sounds like it may be a struggle, but we are pretty used to eating pizza and peanut butter on a daily basis. Going grocery shopping is a difficult task, I tell you. When we moved, I told myself I was going to start ordering my groceries on my app for pickup at Kroger. I feel like this will help me save time in the store buying unnecessary junk food as well as helping me stay within my weekly budget. 

On Mondays, we like to meal prep for the week because Sundays are for cleaning. I feel like cooking and cleaning needs to be separated since they are both so time-consuming, and anything to lessen my “Sunday Scaries.” Today, I decided to meal prep some chickpea taco bowls. I found a recipe on Pinterest that served as my inspiration, but I ultimately took matters into my own hands and free-styled to make it more interesting. I cooked the chickpeas on the stove with taco seasoning and added onions, bell peppers, and jalapeños. I made some quinoa in our rice cooker and then topped the bowls with some cheese, sweet onion salsa, cilantro lime sauce, and a bit of sour cream—DELICIOUS.

Also, we recently started juicing. I hate the way that sounds, and what stereotypes people have about me for saying that, but I actually really enjoy it. Eating fruit always seems like a chore to me, so I have found that juicing is a good way to get my daily servings in. After I have the meals prepped and the juices done, I am ready to take on the week. 

TUESDAY

Tuesdays are said to be the most productive day of the week because you’ve moved past Monday and you’re in full GSD mode: Get Stuff Done! And by that, I mean work from home in my PJs, which is how I have actually found myself to be the most productive. To be honest, I think I was built for WFH. That is exactly what I had to do. There was stuff in our house that still needed to be fixed by our builder. They arrived around 9 a.m., and I was not prepared for this. I am usually in my PJs until noon now since I have been working at home for the past 18 months.

I don’t usually eat breakfast until around 11 a.m. The first few hours of my day I am strictly running on coffee. My favorite, quick breakfast item to eat is an Eggo Thick & Fluffy Whole Grain Waffle topped with a generous amount of peanut butter and syrup. If you don’t put peanut butter and syrup on your waffles and pancakes, you are doing it wrong. It’s a complete game-changer too when they are chocolate chip waffles or pancakes.

For dinner, we went to one of our favorite fast-casual spots: We had a media event at BIBIBOP Asian Grill for the grand opening of their Keystone location on September 30th. BIBIBOP’s mission is to focus on wellbeing and affordable Asian fusion. It is essentially a Chipotle-style restaurant but different because it is Asian food. Think kimchi, tofu, and noodles. It is modeled after the dish Bibimbap, which is sometimes Romanized as bi bim bap or bi bim bop and is a Korean rice dish. The term “bibim” means mixing rice, and the noun “bap” means rice. This bowl is typically a bowl of warm white rice and is topped with namul, kimchi, gochujang (spicy red chili sauce), or soy sauce. If you haven’t been here yet, I highly recommend it. Everything they have is gluten-free and is fresh and a healthier quick option compared to other fast food places.

In my bowl, I ordered Japchae sweet potato noodles, organic tofu, black beans, potatoes, red cabbage, carrots, corn, cage-free egg, and kimchi.  

My brother and I started our food Instagram and blog @SiblingsThatEat during the pandemic in the summer of 2020. We have been foodies since day one, and always took pictures of our food no matter what. Literally hundreds of pictures on our phone, maybe even thousands, so we thought, “Why not just post them?” The phone always eats first. Our hope when starting it was to support local businesses and engage with our communities through our passion for food. One of our favorite things to do is to try new places. We have met so many amazing people through our page so far and are always looking forward to the next meal!

RELATED: 6 off-the-menu items you’ve got to try this fall

WEDNESDAY 

Today we had another meeting for our house to go over our warranty coverage. Again, I can’t believe there are so many homeowners in the world because it is hard. I feel like this is 100% something that should be taught in school, especially the loan and credit stuff needed to even buy a house. Sorry, rant over. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Anyway, between the warranty meeting and work, I didn’t have time to eat breakfast.

At 11:30 a.m., I was already hungry since I didn’t have my usual peanut butter waffle. I toasted my leftover nachos from Sunday. They had “Impossible” burger crumbles on them. If you don’t know what I am talking about, Impossible Foods is a vegan meat replacement and it has been life changing to me as a vegetarian. I have been vegetarian for almost four years now. My number one reason for making this change was my love for animals, and I also feel like it is more sustainable for the environment. 

For dinner, I made spinach and cheese ravioli with red sauce, and a side salad. We like to buy salad kits at Kroger. Mostly because I don’t like salad, and this comes already prepared with all the yummy things like fattening dressing and tortilla chips. Our favorite one is Dole’s Chopped Sunflower Crunch Salad Kit. If you haven’t tried it already—you need to! It is so easy to throw together, and it makes the perfect side or even a meal if you add protein. My favorite meals to make at home are always Italian, maybe because it is mostly carbs. My family and I are supposed to go to Italy in December as long as everything stays how it is right now. I can’t wait to try all the amazing food. I have a feeling I am going to be coming home a few pounds heavier! Isn’t that what vacations are for? 

After dinner, I decided to run some errands at Hobby Lobby and World Market. My decor taste has changed drastically since moving into our last place. Our current furniture and decor is all grey and black. I am now into earth tones, so I’m trying to brighten up our space with browns, creams, rust, and green. As I mentioned before, our house is not anywhere close to being done. There is not one thing hung on the wall, but it is giving me projects to work on and something to look forward to.

THURSDAY

 Thursdays, in my mind, are known as “Friday Eve,” and one step closer to the weekend. It is always my busiest day with work meetings, so it usually flies by. 

I started the day off watching the TODAY show on NBC, while snacking on my waffle. I rotate between watching the news and listening to music, whatever I am feeling that day. Today, chef Bobby Flay made vegetarian chili from his new cookbook, “Beat Bobby Flay.” It has been warm lately, but I’m excited to make this recipe once it starts cooling off in the next couple of weeks. Is there anything in this world that screams fall more than a warm cup of chili? 

For lunch I ate leftover BIBIBOP, but I didn’t have as much left over as I thought. So, around 2:15 p.m., I had a sudden itch to make a pizza with the Trader Joe’s crust that was about to expire in my fridge. I pulled out a can of crushed tomatoes, shredded mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, and baby spinach. The secret ingredient though, is the garlic olive oil that I purchased at Trader Joe’s last week. It just takes it to a new level. If I could only have one food every day for the remainder of my life, it would be pizza. I think of pizza often. I recently conducted an Instagram poll on pizza. I asked people what was a different ingredient that they liked on their pizza, and one that stuck out to me was cream cheese. I had no idea that was even a thing. But, I received several comments that it is an amazing topping. One of my good friends from Iceland said this is offered at their local Domino’s. Who knew?  In my eyes, the best pizza toppings and the Holy Trinity of pizza finishes are Mike’s Hot Honey, ranch dressing, and grated parmesan cheese. 

After work, my friend and I decided to go to 3UP Rooftop Lounge in Carmel to celebrate both of our new houses. What better way than with a bottle of champagne on the rooftop? CHEERS!

FRIDAY 

Since I work from home, I like to change up my environment, so today I decided to go work from a new coffee shop in downtown Indy called Parlor Public House. The atmosphere is absolutely beautiful and a breath of fresh air. The hanging plants and the whole aesthetic of the place are 100% Instagram worthy. I ordered a matcha latte with oat milk, and they made it in front of me. I highly recommend it if you like coffee. If coffee isn’t your thing—you can try one of their cocktails starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.

Since moving to north Indy, we are now trying to go to the local restaurants and breweries. We ended up at Field Brewing for dinner and drinks. I ordered the Veggie Rice Bowl, which included white and brown rice, garden greens, seasonal vegetables, chimichurri, avocado, kimchi, and a scrambled egg. This was possibly the healthiest thing I’ve eaten all week. But don’t let me fool you, I did order my favorite cider from Ash & Elm, Fleeting Youth, and a side of parmesan fries with parmesan ranch. This probably doesn’t surprise you at this point. I’m typically a thin, crispy French fry type of girl, and although these were more like steak fries, the flavor was amazing and the sauce made them complete. My husband ordered the Field Burger with a side of Field Fries.

SATURDAY

Saturday is all about treating ourselves. My favorite brunch in Indy is at Root & Bone in Broad Ripple. If you haven’t been, you are missing out. It is beyond amazing, and will send your taste buds on a journey. Both chefs Janine Booth and Jeff McInnis were on Top Chef, and they only have locations in New York, Miami, and Indy. Their menu celebrates Southern cooking and focuses on farm-fresh ingredients. Not being dramatic, but the Grandma Daisy’s Angel Biscuits will change your life. 

After fueling up during brunch, it’s time for a full day of running errands. Somewhere during the day, a stop at McDonald’s for a $1 large Diet Coke is necessary. Other than that, this is the boring part, so we’ll skip right to dinner.

One of my new favorite restaurant discoveries is Futuro, so my husband and I swung by to pick up some pizzas to go since we were in the area. It wouldn’t be a Saturday night for us without pizza, and Futuro has consistently satisfied every craving we have. They have several different styles of pizza: deep-dish, tavern style, and the “school” pizza to name a few, but our favorite of theirs is the Detroit style. The crispy caramelized crust all around the edges just cannot be outdone, and the crust-cheese-sauce-toppings ratio is built to perfection. Speaking of their sauce, it is truly something special. It has a hint of sweetness, and tastes super fresh. Every one of their creations is amazing, including just the classic cheese. 

SUNDAY

Today was a little different, as it was a “Race Day.” Yes, my husband and I are big Formula 1 fans. The race started at 8 a.m., so we made the infamous pot of coffee. We typically don’t eat until after the race, as my husband does intermittent fasting. After the race, I made the executive decision to make some egg tacos. As mentioned previously, we hadn’t been to the grocery store in over a week and only had a few items in our refrigerator. I found some leftover guacamole from the day before. It was a little brown, but it did the job. Side note: I am not sure if anyone else does this, but I always make an egg for my dog when I make some. After brunch, we went on a stroll around our new neighborhood. I’m so excited it is starting to cool off—bring on fall and the holiday season!

Follow more of my adventures on @SiblingsThatEat! See you there.

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