Month: April 2011

Austin/Easter

/ Kelly / 1 Comment

Eep! My poor, neglected blog. I’ve been so busy! Austin was fantastic; I got to spend time with lots of lovely people, basking in the sun and getting a tattoo (more about that later!) and eating tons of yummy vegan food (Mother’s Cafe! Whole Foods! Counter Culture! Other places! Etc!). Then I got back to Wisconsin and froze to death (lie) in the cold and the rain and the FROST ON MY WINDSHIELD, HOW DARE YOU MOTHER NATURE.

Buttttt anyway. I don’t have photos of my Austin eats, because, quite frankly, I was too busy cavorting and finding moonlight towers to photograph my food. However, when I returned to WI, the one consolation for the nasty weather was an Easter package from my marvelous parents. Mumsie and Daddy sent me a bunch of goodies from Pangea! I got chocolates, jelly beans, soap (Mum, do I smell?!), lip balm (perfect timing, because I just ran out of my Crazy Rumors!), and a cute pin.

Easter basket?!

Yay! Thanks, padres! The truffles are delicious; they have little bits of hazelnut in them, and they remind me of one of my favorite pre-vegan candy bars: Kinder Bueno bars. My friend Justine and I fell in love with these bars when we were in London way back in 2004, and we’d always try to pick up a box of them whenever either of us returned to Europe. Alas; they’re not vegan. But now I know I can approximate their flavor with these tasty truffles!

Now I am getting ready for yet another trip, this time to California! It’s a work trip, but I am serendipitously stationed close to where my grandfather lives, so I will get to meet up with him and his wife. :) Yay! How are y’all?

Lovely Blogging and Cop-Outs Galore

/ Kelly / 6 Comments

A couple days ago, I was pleased as punch to notice my humble little blog listed next to the One Lovely Blog Award over at Greyt Vegan Life. I always enjoy Christina’s posts and comments, and if you haven’t checked out her blog, you definitely should. There is food, and adorable animals. What more could you want? Oh, there’s also this – Christina’s take on the VegNews controversy. My feelings are quite in line with hers, so you should go give her perspective a read. (Cop-out numero uno.) Now that VegNews has issued an apology that, um, actually apologizes for their deceitful ways, I hope things will take a turn for the positive – all that negativity was getting me down. Here’s to turning over new leaves, changing for the better, etc etc etc!

Aaanyway, back to blog awards. I am now tasked with sharing seven random things about myself. And it’s a good thing, too, because I don’t have anything else to share with you today. :P

1. I can’t imagine having kids at any point in the near future (I still feel like a kid myself!), but occasionally I get really excited about the prospect of being one of those hippie moms who uses cloth diapers and makes all her own baby food and carries her baby around in a sling. I’m totally going to use “I need to puree fruits and veggies!” as an excuse for buying a Vitamix. :P

2. I’m currently 3/4 of the way through Dune, and I think it’s an absolutely fantastic book. I’m a big sci-fi/fantasy fan, and I’m kicking myself for not having read it sooner!

3. My family has two dogs, Tamale (a chihuahua), and Mistletoe (a mini dachshund). Missy ruptured a disc in her spine and now wears diapers and tools around in a sweet doggie wheelchair/cart. My pups are back in RI, and I miss them terribly! I hope to adopt a pupper of my own in the very near future.

4. The only time I skipped school in high school was to attend an all-day showing of the three Lord of the Rings movies. I wore a homemade Eowyn dress, stood in line for hours, and got on TV because my friends and I sang a LotR-themed parody of ‘Jingle All the Way’. My dad dressed up as Gandalf, and when he arrived at the theatre and walked across the parking lot, everyone in line started cheering. It was easily one of the geekiest, most fun days I can remember.

5. My sister is four and a half years younger than I am, but people frequently think we’re twins or that she’s older than I am.

6. My friend and I started this sweet Tumblr, and you should check it out.

7. I’m going to Austin next weekend! The fella and I are traveling to Texas to visit various friends, and I am SO excited to escape the never-ending Wisconsin winter. Any recommendations for awesome vegan eats in Austin? I found this list, and it looks like there are tons of options! Yay!

So, I’m supposed to pass this on to 15 lovely blogs, but I’m too tired and lazy to do that right now – plus, I think many of you have already been officially designated as lovely. :) If you haven’t, though, consider yourself awarded – for reals! (Cop-out numero dos.)

Thanks again, Christina!

Shirataki & Seitan

/ Kelly / 8 Comments

I do not consider myself a picky eater. Sure, I don’t care for bananas, raisins remind me of bugs, and balsamic vinegar turns my tummy, but it’s not like I’d refuse to eat any of those things were someone to offer me one of them or use them [sparingly] in a dish. (Unless it was some sort of balsamic-raisin-banana hybrid, in which case I’d politely refuse and vomit quietly in a corner.) And, truthfully, I used to be much pickier – I didn’t like squash or sweet potatoes or pasta as a kid. Pasta! Oy.

I’ve since discovered the joys of squash and sweet potatoes and pasta. In fact, these days, I’m quite adventurous in the food realm – I’ll try anything! I credit much of my foodventurism to becoming vegan – as an omnivore, I never went out of my way to try new foods, but now every trip to the grocery store is a chance to buy a new type of bean or experiment with an unfamiliar grain. In the past, you probably could not have paid me to purchase a product called “seitan tidbits” from the Asian section of the grocery store, nor could you have convinced me that fish-scented noodles made from tofu would be remotely palatable. But omnivore-Kelly is a girl of the past, and vegan-Kelly relishes the chance to try such a delightfully-named product as “seitan tidbits”.

Tidbits!

So… have y’all ever tried shirataki noodles? I’d heard rumors that fresh out of the package they smell like fish, and THEY TOTALLY DO. It’s weird and a little off-putting, but after taking a nice bath in some cold water, the odor of the sea dissipates (thank heavens). Apparently they’re a dieter’s best friend because they are quite low in calories and carbs, but I just wanted to try them because they’re so weird! You buy them in a squishy package from the refrigerated section of the grocery store, and they’re swimming around in fish-scented juice… mmm.

As you can see from that photo right up thurrr, I added my noodles to a broccoli-laden stir fry. Said stir fry also featured the aforementioned seitan tidbits, and let me tell you, this was one bizarre-o stir fry. The noodles were a little chewy, but they tasted just fine. The seitan tidbits, however, were just… weird. I ate one and thought, “Oh, these are okay!” but after chomping a few more, I changed my tune slightly. They were very, very squishy, and they kind of oozed some sort of liquid-y, oily substance. I didn’t even check their nutritional stats when purchasing them, but because they’re packed in oil, they’re disgustingly fat-laden, to the point where I felt a little sickish after dinner. Bleh.

So, for a dish that featured two new-to-me and slightly less than mainstream foods, this wasn’t half bad. (It was only 1/3 bad.) I’m glad I can cross shirataki noodles and canned seitan off my vegan bucket list, and I’d definitely consider using the noodles again, but next time I’ll stick to homemade seitan. :)

Have you ever tried either of these two items? What did you think about them?

In Which I am Helped by Tempeh

/ Kelly / 8 Comments

A couple nights ago, I made the Tempeh Helper from Appetite for Reduction. It was the first time I’d had *anything* Helper.

When I was a kid, my parents (by which I really mean my mom) refused to keep junk food in the house. While my classmates had Gushers and Capri Suns and those adorably small bags of Doritos overflowing from their Power Rangers lunch boxes, I had baby carrots and leaky thermoses of juice and homemade peanut butter and cracker sandwiches waiting for me. While my friends gleefully gorged on Captain Crunch for breakfast, I mournfully munched on cornflakes. While my peers sucked down Coke, I sipped on water. Soda and artificial colors and chips were just not welcome in my house, thank you very much. I always looked forward to road trips with my dad, because I knew he was more tolerant of junk food and would stock up on Pringles and Arizona iced tea. Score!

So, perhaps needless to say, we didn’t really keep any sort of Helper around the house, hamburger or otherwise. Therefore, my experience with Isa’s Tempeh Helper was my virgin foray into being Helped. Rawr!

The help.

I totally ignored Isa’s pasta recommendation for this dish and made it with my new favorite pasta shape, cavatappi. I can’t get enough of those big ol’ spirals! And I think it worked; they paired nicely with my “rustic” chunks of tempeh.

So, what did I think about this Helper experience? Well, it was tasty, but not mindblowingly amazing. I love me a nutritional yeast-based sauce, but I honestly felt that the Easy Breezy Cheezy sauce was a teensy bit bland. The sauce calls for two tablespoons of broth powder, and Isa recommends Frontier’s “chicken” broth powder. I was quite excited to discover that my co-op carries many a Frontier powder (thanks for the co-op membership, mum!), so I happily purchased a small bag of said powder. However, the Tempeh Helper recipe also calls for two tablespoons of the same broth powder, and I felt that the entire recipe (Helper + sauce) was sort of a one note deal – the “chicken” broth flavor overpowered everything else! Now, maybe that’s the allure of the Helper franchise, and perhaps anyone who grew up on Hamburger Helper would take one bit of the Tempeh Helper and be walloped with a massive smack of nostalgia. But my Helper-less childhood rendered me immune to those sort of attacks. That said, it was still a totally satisfying meal, and I’d probably consider making it again… but I’d mix up the spices for sure.

Were you a junk-food-deprived kid like me, or were your parents less strict? Have you tried Isa’s Tempeh Helper? What did you think?

Vegan Bake Sale for Japan!

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

Hey all! This weekend my Google Reader was filled with people excitedly talking about how much money they raised for Japan by hosting vegan bake sales. If you didn’t have a bake sale in your city, you can still help out! The ever-generous and compassionate Katie is hosting a blog-based vegan bake sale featuring dozens of scrumptious goodies. And it’s super simple to participate! All you have to do is:

1. Check out the bake sale.
2. Bid on an item by e-mailing Katie.
2a. Bid again, if necessary!
2b. Repeat step 2a until you WIN.
3. Make a donation to the Red Cross.
4. E-mail your receipt to Katie.
5. Receive baked goods in mail. Eat baked goods. Bask in the deliciousness of compassion!

Hooray!