I don't care.
I may not be a real girl because I don't like Oprah and I can't watch more than 10 minutes of The View. That being said...
I do think it's great that a whole lot of people who knew nothing about vegans or even thought about what they themselves eat are having a whole new world opened up to them. I'm not sure how many of O's many followers will take the 21 day plunge without their own personal chef.
Don't get me wrong. I love it when anyone explores new things and tries to better themselves. I think it's great the she's so moved by the book that she read she's starting to think about what she's eating and where it's been (or what it used to be). I'm just a little tired of reading about her being so ground breaking.
I don't mean to sound like Passover dinner (you know, bitter). I just feel like this is leading up to a big story in O magazine. The story that goes on about the emotional journey she went on for 3 weeks and ends with day 22 and the chicken dinner she had to celebrate. It was free range and all.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope O is vegan forever. I hope housewives and househusbands around the world make Chickpea Cutlets for their families every Thursday.
And I hope they invite me over. I'd like to not cook next Thursday!
So many things are going on right now but first, as always, the food! The picture to the left is General Tao's Tofu that everyone in the world has made. I can't believe how good this turned out. It''s one of those meals that I never thought that I could cook. It was so easy too! And good, which really is the most important thing.
I'm starting this diet/exercise/health thing through work. It's called Kinetics. You get a journal to keep track of exercise and food and you get a "coach" to talk to and help you with any questions, basically your own personal cheerleader. It's a great idea. I have this weird problem where I hate the idea of letting people down. So, I'm hoping that having to check in with someone will help me keep on track. The one thing that I'm worried about is that the plan is 40/40/20 (protein/carbs/fat) and all of the recipes are "meaty". There are some vegetarian ones but they rely heavily on milk and eggs. I did some searching on the internet today trying to find recipes that will work. It's just a lot of thinking and math after a 10 hr day at work! I'll work it out.
I've done so well with vegan cooking for the last week I don't want to give that up. Actually I refuse to. I can figure this out.
Lastly, I found out that I'm going to New Orleans in October. I'm super excited. More on that later. Now, sleep!
Well, I didn't go any place on vacation and I still want to move away somewhere. I just feel like I'm a little bit lost right now. The worst part is I don't even know what I want. I just feel like it's not THIS. Does this make any sense? Mid like crisis? Lack of passion? Just an off rainy day? Just restless today? PMS?Who knows. I'm tired of thinking about it.
I've moved around enough to know that no matter where you go it's always relatively the same after 6 months. Unless you put big effort in to changing you-it all ends up being the same.
On the vegan foodie note I had an amazing dinner on the fly tonight. No pictures, it tasted much better than it looked. I made a Mexican version of the chickpea snacks the other day. I took the left overs and put them in a dish then put corn and can tomatoes on top, threw it in the oven until hot. Dished it out on a plate then added some guac. and a couple of olives on top. Not too shabby.
Not to get all Annie but maybe the sun will come out tomorrow and dreams of blowing this Popsicle stand will fade.
This has probably made a million rounds but I just got done watching Garbage Island and it's the saddest most fascinating thing I've ever seen. I can't stop thinking about all the plastic in the ocean. It's really sickening. Be warned before you watch that sailors really do swear like a sailor.
On a lighter note (not the smoothest topic change) I made pizza tonight for dinner. Thank you Trader Joe's for the $.99 pizza dough.This picture is before cooking. The colors were so much brighter
First I need to figure out what I can do with all my plastic. Obviously not throw it out. Looks like there's going to be a lot of wacky planters around the apartment.
Most of the recipes in the book are vegan or easily converted. I have to admit that I haven't made too many of the recipes in the book but, it's an interesting read just the same.
Isn't it a given that one of Lao Tzu and the Taoists' favorite recipes would be "Taoist Carrot Stew"?
So, I was supposed to be cleaning today and got distracted by taking pictures. First up is a pic of the shoes I wrote about yesterday. Don't worry, all man made materials. I love the green ones, so spring-y. The black ones didn't photograph that well but they're cute, trust me.
Okay, now my first food porn attempt. I made Pineapple stir fry the other day. It tasted a lot better than it seems to look in this picture.
Yesterday I found this easy vegan chocolate pudding recipe and it is pretty good. I think next time I'll add a little vanilla and less sugar. It made a lot of pudding so guess what I'm having for dessert tonight? I made the Bean Balls from "Veganomicon". They were pretty good but I didn't have enough kidney beans so they were a little mushier than they should have been. I froze a bunch of them for easy dinners later. Way to plan.
Maybe I need more human contact? I'm used to talking to people all day. One run in with my landlord doesn't seem to cut it.
I did make up for lunch. Dinner rocked. I have to give up the peanut butter ghost soon but for now I'll keep using it. I made some whole wheat thin spaghetti then defrosted a block of tofu and dusted it with a flour, Chinese five spice powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. I fried it in a rather unhealthy way. After I drained out the spag. I took the pan and threw in a little bit of olive oil and a minced garlic clove after a few minutes I added a little soy sauce, water, peanut butter, red pepper flakes. I'm out of limes so I added juice of 1/2 a lemon. Once that was sauce-y I put in a can of peas. Put the spag. on a plate topped with some of the (drained) tofu and poured the sauce on top. YUM!
Here's something that I find kind of weird. When I was a vegetarian I would go through phases where I would cook then not cook. I guess that's bound to happen, I was a vegetarian for 20 yrs. I have a ton of cookbooks and would read them all the time. But, I would feel like if I didn't have everything on the ingredients list I couldn't make the dish. I never really "made up" many dishes.
But, now that I'm cooking vegan dishes I feel this amazing freedom. If I don't have something I'll try and replace it with something that I do have or I'll just take the basic idea but do my own thing. Last week I made bread from scratch because I couldn't find any vegan bread that looked good at the store.
I always put off going completely vegan because I never thought that I could give up cheese. As of right now, the thought of cheese makes me kind of sick. Maybe someday chocolate will make me sick.
Maybe all that milk puss was blocking my culinary creativity?
I am finding it a bit difficult to cook for one person. I feel like I'm going to the grocery store every couple of days. I'm not buying a lot but I feel like I'm there all of the time. I need to work on my meal planning. Oh, so many things to work on!
You're (in this case I'm) going to look really funny if you decide to multi-task by breaking in some new high heel shoes while doing laundry. I have to walk a few buildings down to the laundry room and thought this would be a great chance to break in my new shoes. Let's just say that my landlord talked to me a little longer than normal today.
On the up side my shoes don't pinch so much. I can now wear them with less pain and after a few drinks. Always a good goal. Oh! I now have a whole drawer of clean underwear. Win/Win, I say.
Also, if you forget to eat breakfast (who does that? Me, today) and wait until you're REALLY hungry, just about anything tastes great. I heated up two small wheat tortillas and filled them with pickles, rainbow salad, dijon mustard and half a vegan burger each. Yum!
I promise dinner will be a little more exciting.
Here's a little run-down of some of my great birthdays...
1. 24th- My best friend, at the time, was getting married in a few months and I was going to be her maid of honor. She gave me a letter that said that we were in different places in our lives and I was still going out to bars and she was settling down and getting married. She thought that I was not grown up enough to understand her life choices and should not be in the wedding. Mind you, I wasn't a 50 yr old cougar trolling the bars for young men. I was 24 hanging out with my friends. Sorry to sound so bitter. That one really hurt. But, on the up side that night some friends of mine were playing that night and sang happy birthday in the middle of their set.
2. One year my friends threw me a surprise party. I didn't go. I didn't know...it was a surprise. Yikes! I felt REALLY bad about that. I hear it was a good party though. I think that was 28 or 29.
3. This one isn't that bad for me but it always makes me cry if I think about it. It was just a bad point in life. When I turned 15 my mom was in the hospital (for several months, I'll tell that story sometime. She's one of the strongest people that I know). My poor dad was wearing himself out going to see her in the morning before work and after work then coming home and having dinner with me. On my birthday I thought that I shouldn't have to cook dinner. So, when my dad came home and asked what was for dinner I told him that I didn't cook because it was my birthday. The guy doesn't remember stuff like that, especially during a time like that. He felt so awful. We got to order pizza and he promised that he'd get my grandma to take me to the mall and I could get something that weekend. I never felt so selfish and horrible.
4. My 18th birthday was the day before prom. I was going to prom with the love of my teenage life. A bass player from a local band who thought they were the New York Dolls. His girlfriend, yes he had a girlfriend-they always do-wouldn't let him go. He promised that he would take me out for my b-day. Needless to say we never hooked up that night either. In retrospect this isn't bad at all but in my teenage I-wanna-fit-in-and-stand-out-why-doesn't-he-love-me angst it was soul crushing.
5. My personal favorite is my 5th birthday. My parents meant so well. They got a clown to come to the party. He scared the crap out of me. I think that's what set me up for a long life distrust of clowns. If you need to put on face paint to hang out with children I think that there is something wrong with you.
Whew! There's many more but those are the high-lights. There's been some good ones too, I'm sure. I just have a tendency not to celebrate the day. I don't mind getting older. I just hope that I get wiser too.
I usually have a pretty bight out look on life, honest. I just tend to be negative about May 6th.
So, I figured since it was my birthday, I shouldn't have to do anything yesterday. How can 1 person watch so much crap TV? i don't know but I did it. What's even worse is I don't even have cable. But, powered through. No laundry. No dishes. I think my body actually hurts today from NOT moving.
I'm going to go make up for all of the things that I didn't do yesterday. More, happier and up-lifting, updates later.
I never thought that it was possible but I've got too much time on my hands. I feel some what overwhelmed.
This week is my vacation but thanks to the big oil gods I'll be spending it at home. I'm okay with that. There's a lot of things that I'd like to do this week. I've got a lot of cleaning to do, what feels like a billion loads of laundry, work on/finish the blanket I'm crocheting. I signed up for the Fitness Magazine 4 week makeover and I thought that this week would be a great one to start. Plenty of time, no excuses.
Then there's the soul searching that comes with tomorrow being my birthday. How in the world did I get to be 37? I don't know either.
So, I went in to work this morning to process payroll, I figured that everyone would like to get paid. I know, what a wonderful boss. I was only there for 2 hours or so. Now...
What? What do I do? Where do I start? I have too much energy to nap but I don't really want to clean right now. I'm trying not to get caught up in the procrastination trap that seems to rule my life. I can always do it tomorrow. I think I watched "Gone With The Wind" too many times as a young girl. I can whip up a mean curtain dress.
My Groups
-
Vegetarians and Vegans Updated: 53 minutes ago
-
The V-Word Updated: 2 days ago
-
Vegans Updated: Jul 16, 2008
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
