I haven't really cooked anything from my books yet. I've just been too busy...sad, I know. :( I plan on making these Garbanzo Tacos tonight and a Tofu-Veggie Lasagna from Student's Go Vegan Cookbook tomorrow. I'm also making some chocolate chip cookies tonight - we've made these before and they are DIVINE! The boyfriend has been begging me to make them again.

We're going to go see a basketball game tonight, so hopefully I'll still feel like cooking afterwards. Otherwise, it's peanut butter and jelly again. :P Which I don't necessarily mind - I love me some pb&j.

Posted by Lena at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

I'm so excited - my cookbooks were finally delivered yesterday! Hallelujah! I have to go to work soon, so I don't have long to post, but my first thought: Holy cow, Vegan Planet is HUGE!

I've been flipping through them, and I can't wait to start trying out the recipes. Hopefully I can do something with one of them tonight, if I'm not too tired from work. Woo!

Posted by Lena at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

This is the last time I order from Amazon and take advantage of the "great deal" of Super Saver Shipping...I ordered my books early on the 17th, and they still haven't been shipped. All of the books were labeled as "available to ship within 24" hours, and my likely arrival date is somewhere between the 26th and the 30th. I should've just paid the few extra dollars to get regular shipping, or (better yet) just bought from somewhere else, like Barnes and Noble.

So, in the meantime, while I waste away without my cookbooks (hah!), I've been busy trying to scope out vegan (or at least vegetarian) friendly places at the mall where I work. Since I have to eat lunch or dinner there a couple times a week or bring my own from home, I figure it's worth my while to see what they have. The answer is, of course...not a whole freaking lot. Frullati has an awesome fruit salad - they give you a huge portion for $3 - and they have really good breads and muffins, all of which I'm sure have egg and/or milk products, though. There's a Taco Bell, but there's something about that place that just gives me the willies. Great Wraps has hummus wraps, but their hummus is NASTY. Ugh. I shudder to remember it, and I didn't think that hummus could conceivably be anything other than wonderful.

There are a couple of other places that serve wraps, but I'm not sure about the ingredients in them or the ingredients in their dressings. I guess I need to get on to that!

It looks like I'll probably be packing my meals, which is okay. It'll save me money and I won't have to suffer through the "Aw man, I don't want to eat that AGAIN" of food court life.

Posted by Lena at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

Sometimes it takes just that one bad experience that definitely helps to push you over the edge to a more animal-friendly lifestyle. Last night, the boyfriend and I went to O'Charley's - probably THE singlemost vegetarian-unfriendly place on the planet. Every single item on the menu (except for spinach artichoke dip) contains some kind of meat. Even the salads; they all have chicken on them. So in order to eat vegetarian, you have to special order something. Pretty sad, huh?

I figured that since I'm viewing my transition into veganism as a process rather than an event (can't remember where I read that), and that lemon-artichoke chicken looked so damn good on the menu, I'd get it. BAD, BAD IDEA.

1) I ended up feeling so guilty that I was eating chicken, that I could only about 1/3 of it.
2) Because I felt so guilty, it tasted awful. (Or maybe that was an independent factor.)
3) All night long, I kept imagining little baby chickens peeping in my ear: "Why did you eat my mommy?!"
4) Not to mention, everything else on the plate tasted gross. The mashed potatoes (full of bacon, of course) were awful and the vegetable medley was way overcooked and mushy. Yech.

By the time we got back to my apartment, I was feeling so sick that I promptly drank half a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. And I'm still paying for it today - I feel awful! My stomach is an absolute mess. I guess when your body's really ready to give up meat finally, it lets you know. Man, I never, ever want to do that again. At least Chris enjoyed his dinner!

So I ordered 4 books from Amazon yesterday. The three I'd already mentioned in a couple of posts ago, plus Vegan Planet. I wanted to order many, many more but I figure I'll try my hand with these first. :) And I should REALLY wait before I order Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, because a girl cannot subsist on cupcakes alone (hmm...or CAN she?). My books should be here sometime next week. Woo!

Posted by Lena at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

...But I can't help but be annoyed when my new roommate, upon hearing that I'm transitioning into veganism, immediately says: "You better take LOTS of vitamins then!" with a kind of laugh at the end. Not a funny ha-ha laugh, but kind of a "is she nuts?" laugh. This from a girl that was eating a dinner that consisted only of ground beef, cheese, and hard corn tortilla shells. People that live in bad health glass houses should not throw stones, methinks. My dinner of homemade hummus with lettuce and tomatos on wheat pitas and a side rich tomato basil soup may not have looked amazing, but it was a lot more nutritionally balanced than tacos!

I guess it's something that I'll have to get used to. The boyfriend told me to not really pay any attention to it, but it bugs me that people would automatically think that I think I can live off of twigs and berries. I've done my research, and I told her that you can actually live a wonderful and nutritionally balanced life without any animal products in your diet, but I'm not sure she heard me.

Irk...

Anyways, back to the hummus. My new food processor came today and I had to break it in. I used Rachel Ray's spicy hummus recipe and it was easy-n-delicious! The boyfriend liked it, too. We had a tiny bit left over that'll make for a good snack tomorrow.

Rachel Ray's Spicy Hummus

1 (14.5 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
2 rounded tablespoons tahini sesame paste, found in both dairy and dry specialty foods sections
A drizzle extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed pepper flakes
1 teaspoon (1/3 palm full) ground cumin
1 teaspoon (1/3 palm full) ground coriander
1 clove garlic, crushed
Coarse salt
1/2 lemon, juiced

Combine beans, tahini, oil, pepper flakes, cumin, coriander, garlic, salt, and lemon juice in food processor bowl and grind into a smooth paste. Transfer to a small dip dish and surround spread with warm pita wedges.

Our can of chickpeas was 15.5 ounces instead of 14.5, but I just added in a little extra extra virgin olive oil and some water. It was the perfect consistency and flavor.

Labels: hard times, omnis, recipe

Posted by Lena at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

The food thing has been going pretty well the past few days. I'm considering myself right now a lacto-ovo vegetarian with vegan tendencies - I'm not going to beat myself up if I want some cheese on that pizza, but I'm going to actively buy non-animal based products, like almond milk and vegan pasta sauce. So it's working out for now.

For dinner tonight, I made some whole wheat pasta with said vegan pasta sauce and a side of steamed broccoli and cauliflower. The veggies kind of ended up tasting like feet, though - not sure where I went wrong there! I still ate them, but it was strange. Probably should've seasoned them better, or maybe they've just been in the freezer for too long. Bleh.

I'm going to be putting in an order on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week for some vegan cookbooks! YAY! Any recommendations? I think it'll be a lot easier for me to work with my own creations once I have a solid base in vegan cooking beneath me, and there's just something about cookbooks that I love anyways.

Definites on my list: Vegan with a Vengeance; The Peaceful Palate; and The Student's Go Vegan Cookbook. There are a couple of others that I'm eyeballing, too. There are so many good looking vegan cookbooks out there!

So, does anyone know of a coupon code for Amazon right now? ;)

Posted by Lena at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

For lunch, I had some delicious vegan chili at Old City Java for lunch today. It was super vegetable-packed, had two kinds of bean, and the TVP was a nice touch on the consistency end. I could've used a little more spice, but I like my chili hot. It was an awesome deal for $2.95, too. I didn't think I'd like the shredded carrots and zucchini that they put in it, but you could hardly taste their distinct flavors. I think I'll be heading back there again soon!

Later, I went today to pick up some non-pantry food and...it was interesting. I felt pretty lost and out of place - I'm used to being able to go in, grab some Lean Cuisine, and hit the road. Our local Kroger is very vegan/vegetarian friendly, so there were quite a bit there, but I guess it'll just take me a while to retrain how I grocery shop. Between Kroger and the Fresh Market, I picked up some various and sundry meal components, but I'm not quite sure how they'll all come together into actual FOOD.

I was trying to be very price conscious, so I didn't buy any of the VERY over-priced (to me) frozen vegan foods. $6 for a vegan burrito? You have to be kidding. I bought tofu (firm), flax seeds, and almond milk for the first time, and I have pasta, rice, beans, vegan pasta sauce, things of that nature. Neither of the stores we went to had an nutritional yeast. I unfortunately didn't buy a lot of veggies, because I wasn't sure what I'd be making, and I didn't want to waste any of my little bit of money on veggies that I might not use. So I think tonight I'll try to plan some menus for the next week and see how that goes. It reminds me that I still want to buy The Student's Go Vegan Cookbook by Carole Raymond.

I'm starting to think it'll be a lot easier on me in the long run if I start lacto-ovo vegetarian for a couple of months and then move to veganism, just to get my vegetable-legs back. It was pretty frustrating today to try to find a loaf of bread without whey! It didn't help that the boyfriend was with me and hates shopping, so his antsiness was making me on edge, too.

In other foodie news, I'm getting a food processor! Yay! This is the one, in Empire Red. It's really awesome because, first, that's an amazing price. And, two, it comes with two bowls - a 7 cup for regular cooking and a 3 cup for small chopping. Oh, happy day! I hope to join it with an artisan standmixer soon! Be still my beating heart!

Labels: hard times

Posted by Lena at 7:44 PM | Permalink | Comments

Not a very good vegan day...I can't wait until I go back to my apartment, away from my highly carnivorous parents. Mom and I went to get pizza and unfortunately, the buffet wasn't being offered right then. They'll make pizza for the buffet by order at no extra cost, and I was planning on getting a thin crust, no cheese, super-veg pizza. :( So mom and I ended up splitting a pizza, but unfortunately "vegetable" is a four-letter word to her. I ended up eating meaty. Blah. I felt guilty and gross afterwards.

I've been running around like crazy today, and that's all I've had time to eat. Hopefully I'll be able to eat a big, yummy salad for dinner or something along that vein. Maybe I'll make a chik patty, too.

In either case, I think my dad might be taking me grocery shopping tonight to pick up some stuff for the apartment. I plan on stocking up on vegan-friendly pantry items - pasta, beans, canned veggies, soups, some fresh baking supplies, and so on. I have a ton of recipes that I'm itching to try out, thanks to vegan*core and Fat Free Vegan Kitchen! Yay!

Posted by Lena at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

I don't think "veggea" is a real word. Okay, okay, it's definitely not. But it makes sense to me. It came about something like this:

Veganism
+
Pangea
=
Veggea
I want to go vegan this year. And sooner rather than later, thankyouverymuch. After years of on-and-off vegetarianism, I feel like I'm ready and capable to make this commitment now, and I think sharing it with other people who know what I'm going through will help me stick to it.

So, part of going vegan is exploring the wide world of fruits and veggies that many omnivores never realize - hence the "pangea" part. And, so, in my own dorky way, it works.

Here's to hoping that I can keep up with this thing better than I have previous blogging projects! ;)

Labels: veggea

Posted by Lena at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments