I Has a Secret

And when one has a secret, what better thing is there to do with it than tell it to the entire Internet?

My secret: I've been a vegetarian for roughly fourteen years and there are still vegetables and other vegetarian staples I don't like. Major ones.

I can't stand cooked peppers. I'd marry them raw, but I won't go near a dish that contains cooked peppers and eat around them or pick them out because their oils seem to permeate the entire thing.

Beets freak me out. I can't say I don't like beets because I don't think I've ever actually eaten one, so I'll say they freak me out. This is weird for me because I would usually try anything my parents ate and my mother is quite fond of the beet. Now it's built into my head that beets must be pretty bad if I wasn't even willing to taste them. I know that's illogical, and plan to try beets sooner or later, but here we are for now.

I don't like sweet vegetable salads. Fruit is great in fruit salads. Vegetables are great in salady salads, but I refuse to desegregate my appetizers. For me, few things ruin vegetables more than the addition of craisins and mandarin orange sections.

I refused to eat squash and gourds (except zucchini and pumpkin pie) for about ten years. This, however, was completely "reasonable". When I was a teenager, I spent the weekend at a friend's house. Her entire family was omni, but her mother knew I was a vegetarian and went through loads of trouble to make special food just for me, including a pumpkin-gourd-squash-thingy that had to have been the most disgusting thing I'd ever tasted. Her mother had gone through so much trouble and seemed so proud of it (it was presented very well, just tasted like shit) that I had to eat the whole thing. Since then, I hadn't been able to even look at squash until I recently made myself do the Herbed Winter Vegetable Roast. Thankfully, I picked the right dish to reintroduce myself to squash because now I'm hooked.

I don't like most beans, but I'm getting better about them. They just have to be seriously firm, or really mushed up. If it looks like a real bean but turns to mush in my mouth, eurgh.

I don't like most melons either. Watermelon wins but cantaloupe, honeydew and all things cantaloupe and honeydewesque kind of make me flee the area. That includes a cantaloupe and honeydewesque fragrance.

I don't like hummus. Or tahini. I love babaganoush, falafel, whole chick peas and sesame seeds, so I don't quite get it.

I know VeganMoFo is supposed to be all about the love of veganism and vegetables (and their related products), but maybe this will help me purge my demons and learn to embrace some of the vegetables I've been hating on for so long.

What about you? What vegetable aversions do you have that you'd like to overcome? Will you give one of them a shot this month? My goal this month is to make at least one thing containing beets in some capacity (and eat it, not just give it away!).

Vegan =/= Healthy

In my experience, there are three types of vegan food (OK, there are lots more than three, but please bear with me for the sake of simplicity): Healthy Food, Last Resort Food and Holy Crap This is Real Food Food.

Healthy Food - I think this is the food most omnis think of when they think vegan. It's often raw, is basically just processed fruits and vegetables and may contain grains most omnis have never heard of. Usually tastes "healthy" and may smell like hippie.

Last Resort Food - How many servings of mashed potatoes have we all eaten, not because we love potatoes (though I do!), but because there was nothing else without meat in it on the menu? French fries? Onion rings? "Garden salads" consisting of a plate of lettuce and three cherry tomatoes? This is the food we eat because there's no other alternative where we are and it begs the question "How many side dishes does it take to make an entree?"

Holy Crap This is Real Food Food - Veggie dumplings. Jerk seitan. Hearty soups. Sesame tofu. Stuffed mushrooms. Curries. This is food that's awesome, regardless of your nutritional preferences. Put it together and you get real meals, with courses and everything.

When I prepare and eat the Healthy Food, I almost feel virtuous. Here is tasty food that I can eat without any fat and calorie-related guilt. Not only that, but in many cases, it's pure, unadulterated food. I can look at what I'm eating and know exactly what all the components are. I can even identify the herbs and spices. They're not hidden under thick sauces or breading. The vitamins and enzymes are largely intact. It makes me feel like I'm getting the most out of my food. It also makes me feel like a "real" vegan; omnis probably don't have much use for raw lasagna. I get a lot of my Healthy recipes from the message board on therawfoodsite.com. If you're in NYC, Quintessence is a nice raw, vegan, organic place. The food is both tasty and presented well. You don't walk out thinking "Shit, I could have not-cooked that at home and saved $20".

Last Resort Food can sometimes be pretty great; I've had many a fabulous emergency salad. But for every good salad, I've had three that were just lettuce and too much dressing (or worse, overpriced, bitter greens and too much dressing). And let's not forget the places that don't even make salads (or if they do, they all have meat in them).

This past Sunday, I went to Saint's Alp Teahouse with some friends to celebrate a birthday. The first bummer was remembering they make their milk teas with actual milk, so my favorite taro was out (Gobo uses soy milk. Vegans and lactose intolerants rejoice!). I ended up with jasmine green tea, which was actually really good and I'll definitely get it again. Most of the bubble tea I drink doesn't actually taste like tea. This did. I like tea.

The next bummer was the realization that everything on their menu was either a beverage, had meat in it or was deep fried. I guess I should be thankful there are any vegan options on the menu at all, but really, who wants to eat spring rolls and "crispy bean curd" when they're minding their health? Not me. I ended up with the samosas, kind of hoping they'd be baked, but they weren't (duh). They were pretty tasty, but I've definitely had better.

Holy Crap This is Real Food Food practically makes life with living. Without places like Red Bamboo Soul Cafe and Buddha Bodai, I know I'd personally feel rather out of the food loop. The food at these places is so tasty that my omni friends suggest going there instead of the other way around. And it's not all about the "fake" food. Dishes like Black Bean Ginger Stir-Fry and Bean Curd with Organic Mushrooms and Basil are filling and wonderful without even a hint of wannabe meat, fish or dairy.

There was only one thing I disliked about my favorite restaurants: the knowledge I'd never be able to come even close to making anything like what they serve at home. Then I got Vegan With a Vengeance and Veganomicon. Now I can make "real" food like Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh, Chickpea Noodle Soup and samosas at home. This fills me with unadulterated joy. I don't know how to artistically "plate" a meal yet, but I'm getting there!

And I think it should be noted that there really isn't much healthy about (for example) General Tso's Mock Chicken. Sure, it's tofu, but it's deep fried and smothered in a sugary sauce (mmm....sugary, sugary goodness). A lot of people are under the impression that food must be healthy if it's vegan, but a quick flip through the Veganomicon will tell you that's not the case. An egg and dairy-free chocolate cake is still a chocolate cake (a yummy, yummy chocolate cake). It's important to be careful about what we eat, vegan, vegetarian, omni or whatever. We won't be much help to the animals we're trying to protect if we OD on fried vegetables, after all.

And now I'll hop off my soapbox.

Dehydrated is the New Black

Back when I was on the Master Cleanse, I started researching healthier alternatives to my vegetarian lifestyle and got very interested in raw veganism. On the message boards I read, it seemed like everyone and their grandmother had dropped about $57889205 on a fancy dehydrator and it felt like I just couldn't be healthy without one (I'm impressionable!) so I got one similar to this on eBay for $30 including shipping. I wasn't going to drop $200 on a machine I might use twice and get bored of!

Well, I've been using it for about a month and I'm not bored yet.



So far, I've used the dehydrator for fruit, vegetables and even to make crackers with varying degrees of success. Apples, plums and other fruits all came out fine. The crackers stuck to the drying racks and were a total mess, so I think I'll spray them with a bit of oil next time. Vegetables have been far more difficult than fruit.

Many moons ago, I was stuck in Penn Station, waiting for a train at some stupid time of night and absolutely starving. I found a place that sold celery chips and bought them out of curiosity while completely expecting them to suck. They were awesome. I loved them. And haven't been able to find them since.

So, of course, when I got my dehydrator, my first thought was "OMG I'M GOING TO MAKE CELERY CHIPS AND IT WILL BE THE BEST EVER! HOORAY!!" (this was closely followed by "OMG! I can BBQ tofu (or maybe gluten), stick it in there and make my own pseudo-Jerquee!)

So I dried some celery (among other things) and it kind of came out looking like potpourri. Tasted all right, but didn't look or feel particularly appetizing. So I checked the original celery chips' website and noticed the other ingredients in the chips were canola oil and sea salt, two things I happened to have on hand! So next time I loaded up the dehydrator with celery (and carrots and cucumbers) I brushed half of them with oil and sprinkled with salt and kept half of them plain.

The celery still turned into potpourri, but now it was REALLY salty potpourri. The carrots got very hard and chewy, which I liked since I've been off gum for a while, but again, the salt + oil didn't really benefit them much. The cucumbers were by far my favorites. They got sort of leathery but very tasty, but the salted ones were still too salty. One day soon, I definitely want to load the whole thing up with just cucumbers and let it go.

All of the vegetables finished drying at different times, depending on what they were and how I cut them (I'm not very consistent), so I couldn't get a picture of all the dried stuff together (I kind of ate quite a bit of it straight from the dehydrator instead of putting it away). If I just do cucumber next time, that should be more uniform and I'll get a photo then.

Crabby Apple Puffs

This is another recipe of my own invention, made by messing with existing recipes that already worked for me (which doesn't actually require any skill or creativity and makes "recipe of my own invention" savage hyperbole, but it makes me feel like the White Knight in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There).

I call them Crabby Apple Puffs because I soaked the apples in lemon juice, making them quite sour, before pastrisizing them (yes, I do make up my own words often, thankyouverymuch). A lot of the lemon juice baked off, leaving some of them tasting like plain old apple puffs, but a few retained their lemony goodness and they were nice and sour.



When I accidentally used puff pastry instead of phyllo dough for my Halloween cupcakes, I also accidentally cut up far more than I needed. I thawed the extra strips out on Sunday and soaked them in a mixture of melted margarine and brown sugar, like the original cupcake recipe instructed.

The night before, I sliced up four Granny Smith apples and soaked them in about one half cup lemon juice with two teaspoons cinnamon mixed in, inspired by the raw apple pie I made a while ago.

The apples soaked overnight and the dough soaked long enough for me to finish with my zucchini and tomatoes. Then I took the apples, wrapped them in the dough, brushed the pastries with some of the leftover marinade from the apples and popped them in the oven at 350 degrees until they seemed done. The end!

Done was when I tried to put a fork in one of the pastries and everything went mush. I couldn't tell when the pastry had browned because it was covered with cinnamon. And it never got really crisp because of the margarine (which I'd totally skip next time). But the apples were really soft, so they had to get out of the oven.

I cooled them on a rack covered in paper towel to absorb most of the grease from the margarine and they got firmer and crisper as they cooled.

My family, several of my friends and I all ate them up the day they were baked. My mother, brother and I liked them a lot (we all love sour things) and no one threw up from them or anything, so I guess that's victory, right?

Unfortunately, I didn't pay close enough attention to the amounts I used of things or how long I kept them in the oven to write up a formal recipe, but there are loads of apple pastry recipes out there (e.g.: The Heart-Shaped Apple Galettes in Veganomicon), so I'm sure it's no great loss. I will, however, try to be more diligent while playing with my food in the future.

The filling:



Raw:



They look kind of like weird meat dumplings to me now. Ew.

Tomato and Zucchini and Lunchtime, Oh My!

Since I'm pretty new to this whole cooking thing, I have absolutely no eye for American measurements. Thanks to my lab work, I'm pretty good with metric, but that's not how my recipes are written.

This usually isn't a problem since I own a few sets of measuring cups and spoons. However, back when I made the Artichokes in Tomato Sauce, it called for 28 ounces of canned, chopped tomatoes and I wanted to use fresh. How many tomatoes does it take to make 28 ounces? 2.25, if they're gigantic. Of course, I didn't know that and bought ten. I used them in salads and things, but when this past Sunday came around, I still had four enormous tomatoes sitting around. One became lunch with a little bit of Pine Nut Basil Dressing and the rest went into this week's dish: Tomato Zucchini Skillet.



Am I the only one that didn't know about.com has about a billion recipes on it? There's loads of easy, tasty sounding, vegany goodness on that site just waiting to be made. This recipe is a perfect example of just how easy it is. I did everything as written, but omitted the bay leaf and it was seriously easy enough I could have done it in my sleep (though I wouldn't have wanted to because then I would have missed the aroma that wafted out every time I lifted the lid off my pan and that was divine!). The only other variation I might suggest is that if your tomatoes are the size of your head, you might want to cut them into more than eight wedges!

When I first started, I thought there was a mistake in the recipe. How would one teaspoon of oil be enough liquid to cook all that zucchini and tomato? Especially since the tomato was being added last, so its juices wouldn't be used to cook the zucchini. As it turns out, despite looking very dry, zucchini is jam packed with moisture that just comes pouring out when you get it good and hot. I was shocked! So the teaspoon of oil is really just used for the garlic and scallions and everything else pretty much cooks in its own juices. Rock.

That's one teaspoon of oil for 8-10 servings of vegetables (or 5-6 if you eat this as your whole meal like I do). And tomatoes and zucchini are both fat free, making this a nice, healthy, filling, tasty, pretty (two colors in one dish is kind of a big deal for me) dish you can throw together in about two seconds without feeling guilty about "fast" food. Winner! Will definitely make again. Hopefully, next time I make it I'll be a little less carb-averse because this would go great over some brown rice or whole wheat pasta or even with some bread to sop up the juices.

Tomato Zucchini Skillet
Serves 8 to 10

1/2 cup sliced green onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds zucchini, unpeeled, sliced 1/2-inch thick
3 tomatoes, peeled and each cut in 8 wedges

1. Cook onion and garlic in oil until onion is tender.
2. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and zucchini.
3. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes; heat through.

And in case you need them, here's instructions on how to peel tomatoes (I ignored the seeding bit).

Not Your Mamas Matzo Ball Soup

But it is my mama's matzo ball soup...now.

In a drastic step forward, this week, my mother changed over from traditional matzo ball soup to matzo balls in vegan broth for the sabbath. The two of us are dragging the rest of the family kicking and screaming into a 21st century, where we're no longer dependent on animals to live.

I'm Jewish and my family is rather traditional (I'm also the only vegetarian in a family of omnis). Every Friday night and Saturday afternoon, we all eat a meal together when my father and brother come home from synagogue. True to stereotype, we start dinner with matzo ball soup every week. Also true to stereotype, the matzo balls were always cooked in home made chicken stock.

Up until not that long ago, my attitude toward vegetarianism was "If I don't see it, it isn't there," which suited my mother just fine since she always removed all the chicken from the broth before serving the soup anyway. Needless to say, she was less than happy when I told her I'd no longer eat a soup that had touched chicken (or matzo balls that involved eggs) and I hated going soupless, but we both coped.

Then I brought home Vegan With a Vengeance and showed her the Matzo Ball Soup recipe. She was curious, but that was about it. She said something about not liking the idea of using so much oil to make the matzo balls and that was that.

Then (as I've mentioned enough times to make anyone reading this sick, I'm sure), I decided to break my Master Cleanse fast with VWAV's Golden Vegetable Broth, the recommended stock for the vegan Matzo Ball Soup. It all went down something like this:

Me: Spends what feels like eons chopping vegetables and working really hard to make my first soup. Finally finish it, taste it and completely spaz out at the awesomeness of it. Proceed to run around the house brandishing a ladle full of hot broth and shouting TASTE MY SOUP! IT'S SO AWESOME! EVERYONE HAS TO LOVE IT! THESE COOKBOOK PEOPLE ARE GENIUSES! I COULD MARRY THIS SOUP!

Mom: If it'll shut you up, I'll taste the soup. Does so. There's no chicken in this?

Me: Nope.

Mom: Just vegetables?

Me: Yup.

Mom: Then where does it get the flavor from?

Me: The vegetables.

Mom: Seriously?

Me: Yes. It uses lots of vegetables.

Mom: But it looks and tastes so much like mine!

Me: Yup!

Mom: But it doesn't use meat?

Me: Nope.

Mom: So it's healthier.

Me: Yup. Probably cheaper too.

Mom: Hm.

So she used up her remaining stock of chicken soup (I had a separate portion of the vegetable soup every week), went out and bought a metric assload of the vegetables required for the Golden Vegetable Broth (plus celery and turnip) and secretly replaced our traditional chicken soup with vegan broth!

The rest of the family liked it, but my father complained that chicken soup is the tradition, not vegetable broth. We told him to stuff it and my mother plans on using the vegan broth every week, now. She's still not making the vegan matzo balls, so I've been going without, but it's a start. And since she doesn't object to me making the vegan matzo balls for the family, I'm going to try to make them next week and see if I can't convert us over completely by the end of VeganMoFo.

(Funnily, my mother will never, ever give up her meat, but she's very proud of all the vegetables and things I cook and likes me to bring vegan food to our holiday family gatherings. She also loves to just talk about vegan food and actually sat down and read most of VWAV and VCTOTW. I think it makes her feel enlightened - and she enjoys how Isa and Terry write).

It is Here! It is Here!

Give a cheer! It's here! It's here!

Just in time for VeganMoFo, I finally have my very own Veganomnomnomicon!

I ordered it from Amazon on Thursday and it was waiting for me when I got home from work Friday. I spent most of Friday night and Saturday reading it just for fun. I love it. It's beautiful. I'm afraid to get sauces on it (but that won't stop me from making every single one!).

I don't think I've ever been this excited about a book that didn't involve wizards, a flat planet or a thousand-year-old man with a gun.* Wooha!

In addition to the billion fabulous recipes, the book has lists of all the tools and ingredients you need to make your kitchen more than a place that holds the microwave and freezer (Actually, neither of the authors even own a microwave. I'm so awed.) and instructions for grilling and roasting vegetables, including which herbs compliment them best. The book seriously has everything.

The only bad thing about it is trying to decide which recipe to try first. Everything sounds so scrumptious! I'm sure this isn't the way Isa and Terry wanted people to pick, but after reading everything, I flipped to the back to see which recipes were "low fat", are supposed to take less than 45 minutes to prepare and are standard supermarket friendly. There are sixteen of these!

Corn and Edamame Sesame Salad
Sauteed Collards
Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes
Escarole with Capers and White Beans
Rutabaga Puree
Roasted Portabellos
Soft Poppy-Seed Polenta
Basic Broiled Tofu
Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans
Creamy Tomato Soup
Plantain and Pinto Stew with Parsnip Chips
Marinara Sauce and Variations
Salsa Verde
5-Minute Mango Chutney
Tropical Avocado Salsa Fresca
Cranberry-Chile Dipping Sauce

I think I've narrowed it down to the Soft Poppy-Seed Polenta, Basic Broiled Tofu, Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans and Creamy Tomato Soup. This week is turning out to be a very tomatoey week, so I think I'll stick with the polenta or tofu. Or maybe the tofu on the polenta. My first combination! I'll just need to figure out (and clean!) the broiler first (it's never been used in the eight years we've had the house and is full of dust).

Bottom line: Veganomicon = awesome.

Thank you, Isa and Terry (and testers)!


* Those would be Harry Potter (JK Rowling), Discworld (Terry Pratchett) and The Dark Tower (Stephen King), respectively.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the Office

Halloween (like most other holidays) has never been that big of a deal for me, but right now, I look at pretty much everything as an excuse to bake. My office had a small celebration and my friends had a gathering as well, so this was a two-dozen cupcake holiday.

I made one batch of Vampire Bites and one of Mummy Cakes. I saw recipes for these posted on Curious Cupcakes this summer and knew I just HAD to have them. Then, Vegan.Chicks.Rock. posted a veganized version of the Vampire Bites last week, saving me the trouble of sorting it all out myself. Win!

So in the end, all I needed was:

A double batch of VCTOTW's Golden Vanilla Cupcakes
A batch of VCTOTW's Old Fashioned Velvet Icing
A can of cherry pie filling
Some phyllo dough, margarine and brown sugar

Sounds easy enough, right? Ha!



I was so in the mood to make something that I actually prepared the icing a day in advance and stored it in an airtight container in my fridge just to have something to do on Monday night. I just couldn't stay out of the kitchen last week. Craziness, I tell you!

Vampire Bites: These came out pretty well and were really fun to make since they're kind of an "advanced" cupcake. Once the cupcakes cooled, I cut a cone out of the center of each, spooned in some cherry pie filling and put the top, flat part of the cone back on, so I had a bunch of closed, cherry-filled cupcakes. Of course, I didn't pay attention to which cones came out of which cupcakes, so none of them fit back on properly, but I think the discrepancy only caused a real problem a couple of times (problem = cherry mixing in with the icing, making the whole cake look like a bloody mess). Icing them was kind of tricky because of the wobbly tops, but I quickly discovered a messy yet practical solution: fingers. I think I've seen other recipes that call for cutting, filling, re-topping and icing cupcakes, so here are my personal steps for icing wobble-top cakes:

1. Spoon the icing onto the cupcake in your usual way.
2. Hold the cupcake in your non-writing hand, with one finger holding down the wobble top.
3. Spread the icing using a finger or two on your writing hand, turning the cake as necessary until your icing is relatively smooth.
4. Repeat as necessary for all cakes.
5. Lick your fingers clean.

DO NOT SWITCH THE ORDER OF STEPS FOUR AND FIVE!

Also, please do everyone a favor and wash after you lick.

After that, wiggling a toothpick around in the icing made the holes and I wiped a bit of cherry pie filling below each hole to look like the dripping puncture wounds left by a vampire on the prowl. Yum!

I cannot tell you how much cherry pie filling and icing I ate without the cake while preparing them. It's gross. After that, I thought the cupcakes would be too sweet for me to stomach, so I let all my coworkers and friends eat them first. Once they assured me they weren't disgustingly sweet, I ate the last one and loved it. It's a shame I'm the sort of person who won't make the same dish for the same holiday ever again if I'm celebrating it with the same people. I mean really. Who wants to be known as Vegan Vampire Cupcake Girl?

Mummy Cakes: These were far easier and plainer than the Vampire Bites. Once the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes were done baking, all I was supposed to do was cut some phyllo dough into strips, soak it in a marinade of 1/4 cup melted margarine and brown sugar, "wrap the strips around the top of the cupcakes, starting from the center and moving out to the sides and put them back into the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until the filo strips are crisp and golden." No one but me could possibly fuck that up.

Apparently someone in my house (I'm not naming names) doesn't know the difference between puff pastry and phyllo dough. I was told there was phyllo dough in the freezer, found some dough with "P..." on the packaging, assumed it was phyllo and started cutting it up and soaking it. It wasn't until I was actually wrapping it around the cupcakes that I realized just how thick it was and looked at the package. Puff pastry. Great. And, of course, we didn't actually have any phyllo dough, so I just followed the instructions using the puff pastry instead.

Obviously, the cupcakes looked nothing like mummies. Some looked like roses, the rest looked like shit. The edges puffed up nicely, but I was afraid to keep the cupcakes in the oven too long, so the centers and other areas where the dough was really thick ended up nearly raw.

Personally, I liked them, raw dough and all. Maybe I'm weird. Nobody but my mother complained about them, so I guess they couldn't be that bad, but only eight of twelve were eaten (compared to eleven of twelve of the vampires) so maybe they were that bad. The raw dough peeled off the top of the cupcakes easily and I wouldn't have been at all offended if people did that if it allowed them to enjoy the cupcake below, but no one except my mother did. Also, I think the cupcakes turned out a bit more muffiny than usual because the margarine from the topping seeped in as they were rebaked. Still tasty, but muffiny.

(And yes, I did intentionally wait until after midnight to post this so it could count as Sunday's VeganMoFo post.)

Remix Primavera

I was quite the busy bee last Sunday. After I finished making the Herbed Winter Vegetable Roast, I "invented" my first recipe ever. I call it Remix Primavera.

Remix Primavera is spaghetti squash topped with left over vegetables from VWAV's awesome vegetable broth.

I used these instructions to prepare the spaghetti squash, halving it lengthwise, sticking it in the microwave then scraping the crap out of it with a fork. I heated my portion of leftover vegetables for two minutes, also in the microwave, before throwing them on top of the squash.

Total prep time: 20ish minutes



Outcome: Light taste but filling. The vegetables absorb the wonderful flavor of the broth and release some of the liquid when heated up. The squash absorbs the broth, turning the whole thing into a giant pile of yum. I ate it at room temperature because I took it with me to see Across the Universe (I liked some parts, hated others, didn't make me run screaming from the theater, so that's something, isn't it?) and ended up engaged in conversation with the man next to me about the merits of my meal versus his M&M Peanuts. He wanted my Remix. About a cup and a half of the Remix (one whole spaghetti squash + vegetables) was enough to keep me full through the movie, wandering about town with my friends and a concert (The Go! Team, who were awesome, but their openers sucked).

I also roasted the seeds from the spaghetti squash with the butternut and acorn squash seeds (I can't tell the difference between them. Can you?).

VeganMoFo

To hell with NaNoWriMo. Thanks to The PPK, I'm all about VeganMoFo this month (more info here)!

My personal goal will be to post something vegan-related every day this month. I still need to catch up with some cooking and baking I did earlier this week, and I'll just keep cooking and taking pictures throughout the month. I think I'll also review vegan restaurants I go to, cookbooks I get (I ordered three yesterday!), products, etc.

I'm also publicly committing myself to staying strictly vegan for the month (instead of carelessly vegan like I usually am). Good times!