TV and Dinners

Vegan Day 1: Bread? Really?

Today I learned an important lesson about being a vegan: dairy and eggs are in EVERYTHING.

I woke up starving and a bit uneasy about what I was going to eat for breakfast and dinner, as I haven't been the the grocery store in ages and my cupboards are bare. Literally, they're bare because all of my food was here.

I had a bit of an ant "situation" in my cupboards and had to take everything out, fumigate and start over. Apparently, ants like graham crackers. The one (unopened) sleeve I had looked like an ant farm. Ew. And gross.

My plan was to pack an almond butter and jelly sandwich in my lunch. Quick and delicious! When I looked at the bread ingredients, however, I noticed the last one: nonfat milk. Why? Why, why, why? I quickly regrouped and packed a giant salad instead. Thank heavens for my CSA, which provided 90% of the ingredients for this impromptu lunch:

I topped this with some hummus and was good to go. For breakfast, I realized I had no fresh fruit in my house (I swear, I'm normally more prepared) so I rummaged in the freezer and found juuuust enough frozen fruit to make a smoothie.

This is made of banana, blueberries, unsweetened soy milk and oatmeal (for staying power). Oh, and look at my new smoothie cup! It's it pretty?!? I walked around work all morning yesterday introducing it to my coworkers. They weren't as impressed as they should have been. I mean, it has a screw-on lid. That's fancy.

My breakfast and lunch were tasty but not the most filling meals in the world, so as soon as I got home (from the GROCERY STORE, finally) I speed-cooked exactly what I was craving: rice and beans.

Happy happy. So happy. This is your standard weird ingredient-filled yellow rice (mmm...MSG) topped with black beans I sauteed with garlic, onion, a can of Rotel and spices. Layered on top of that is simple sauteed yellow squash, avocado and salsa. With chips on the side for crunch. So good I didn't miss cheese or sour cream at all. Vegan success! Unless one of the weird ingredients in the rice wasn't vegan. Then, fail.

I'm off to make a very, very non-vegan cake for a work party tomorrow. The positive: I actually hate this kind of cake so I won't be tempted to eat any. Score!

30 Day Vegan Challenge

Apparently I have this thing called a "blog." That I am supposed to write in. Who knew?

All joking aside, I did one of my infamous disappearing acts last week. Whoops! I never really know why or when they are going to happen, just that they are inevitable. Like the sands of the hourglass, these are the days of my life. While I was gone, however, I came to an important decision: I'm going vegan.

Let me qualify this declaration. I'm going vegan...for 30 days. I've always wanted to do a "vegan challenge" but never felt it was the right time for me. For one, National Vegan Month (when you're supposed to do things of this sort) falls in November. Listen. I know going vegan is supposed to somewhat be about reflecting on animal welfare and the meat industry's practices, but having Vegan Month encompass the most carnivorous holiday of the year just seems like a cruel trick current vegans are playing on us all. I mean, right? No one honestly likes Tofurkey. No one.

I think July will be the perfect month for me to successfully pull this off for a few reasons. First: my CSA. I currently get loads of veggies each week which will make perfect vegan meals. Second: no vacations. I'm sorry, but it is hard to eat restrictively on vacation. And third: I've had a bit of stress at work and therefore eating kind of crappy lately so this is going to be a good cleanse for my system in general. I can't wait to eat clean and feel normal again!

While I'm doing this challenge I am going to try to post my meals every day and talk about fun vegan recipes or how to eat vegan in a restaurant. I have a feeling I might accidentally slip up once or twice (honey isn't vegan -- how quickly do you think I'll forget that one?) but I am honestly going to do my best to be as strict as possible. I might be seriously craving a hamburger on August 1st, but I want to have EARNED that beef.

In the meantime, check out this delicious and decidedly NOT vegan dinner I made the other day from random ingredients in my fridge.

So, so tasty. I was in the mood for something pizza-y so I just used a baguette I got from my CSA to make homemade french bread pizzas. For one, I did a basic margarita using some homemade tomato sauce from my freezer, some mozzarella cheese on its last leg and this incredible basil from my CSA. For real, this basil is so potent it has almost an anise quality to it. Yum. For the other, I wanted to use up some leftover garlic scape pesto and was going to simply use the pesto as a sauce when all of a sudden inspiration rained down from up above. Instead of a simple pesto sauce, I decided to make a cheesy pesto topping instead using a tablespoon or so of pesto, a tablespoon of mayo and some mozzarella cheese. I mixed those three ingredients together, spread it on the bread and baked both pizzas until the cheese was melted. It was AMAZING. It really would be a perfect quick appetizer for an informal get together. Inspiration from above (or, honestly, Paula Deen) for the win!

There's Kinky, and Then There's Just F-ed Up
My True Blood recap has been up since Sunday, I was just too lame to post the link until now. Here it is, for all who want to relive the glory of angry twisted-neck vampire rape sex.

'True Blood': Alcide arrives, Bill gets freaky

Tomorrow is Vegan Day #1. Here goes nothing! Now, I'm off to eat some dairy-filled chocolate while I still can. Sweet (non-vampire rape-y) dreams.