Breakfast of Champions!

Don't let the simple ingredients fool you... sometimes this is just what the doctor ordered and is a great way to start off an early day headed to the lab.

Banana Boat

1 banana

nut butter of choice

chocolate chips or whatever other delicious things you have on hand (coconut, more nuts, fruit!)

Assemble...

EAT!!!

I'll post later today just figured I'd throw this in because chocolate in the morning is always a good idea :-D.

Oh Rainy Days

VEGAN MOFO DAY 4!!!!

I have a love hate relationship with rain... if there's a thunderstorm or downpour I'm in love if there's the obnoxious ominous clouds and a puny little drizzle I'm not too happy. Today was one of those days... the days when it's pitch black when you wake up, your heat wasn't as toasty as you'd like and you just can't get out of bed. I would love to say I made the following concoction for lunch or an early dinner however I didn't get started making dinner til about 7:30ish and didn't eat til 10pm, which isn't great I know but hey I'm a college student. The point I'm attempting to make is that this soup should be your new go to soup... for on a gloomy day, when you're sick or just need a good pick me up, I swear to god that this is that good and super easy to make!!

While I'm posting this recipe... I am a firm believer in NOT sticking to recipes 100%! Use what you've got on hand, what you feel like or whatever. Also although I am a kale addict (no seriously I eat kale like it's candy or something) I'd never had it in a soup before today. If you've tried it and didn't like its texture, I'd strongly recommend trying it in a soup at some point. It brings out a brightness of flavor and literally melts in your mouth. Give it a shot!

Pick Me Up Soup!!!

1/2 acorn squash roughly chopped (or whatever you have on hand)

1 onion - diced (any size)

1/2 head garlic - minced

2 inch piece of ginger, grated

2 scallions - diced

1 can cannellini beans drained and rinsed

vegan veggie broth (preferably made either from scratch or Better than Bouillon Veggie Broth I swear it's the secret to amazing soups and risottos!)

dash each of cumin, paprika, cilantro, salt, pepper, lime juice

1/2 head of kale chopped into bite sized pieces

Add acorn squash, onion, garlic, and half of the ginger to a pot and saute until squash softens. Next add the veggie broth, scallions and seasonings to taste. After cooking for a bit add more ginger and the beans (I don't know if matters whether or not you wait to add the rest of the ginger but I did and it was delish!) Cook until the squash "becomes one with the broth" (ie when the broth gets super thick and the squash kind of disappears). Throw in kale and cook for about 5 minutes more.

EAT!!!

I also am procrastinating terribly over one of my labs so I helped a friend make mushroom broth! Having never made broth before it certainly was a learning experience. First - they take a LONG time to cook! We also got a late start but I am convinced that late night cooking with good friends is the cure to college stress... it's a theory that's yet to be corroborated but we'll see :-). Anyways here's a picture of the glorious broth soon to be morphed into something even more amazing!

Why I'm Vegan

So I'll get to the food in a bit, but I decided to address the single most question I've been asked in my 10 years as a vegetarian and 2 as a vegan: "Why?" I'll be honest as a small child I don't think I made the connection between animals and meat. It wasn't that I was clueless it just hadn't really crossed my mind that the burger I was eating used to be a cow. I think I probably figured it out somewhere around 1st grade and it was something I couldn't get out of my head. On my 10th birthday a local hospital was having a vegetarian info session and I BEGGED my mom to take me (similar to the way I begged for puppies or ponies :-D ). She happily obliged, however so many years later all I remember about that night was that they had raw tofu tastings. I don't know about you but I still can't stomach a plain old piece of raw tofu!! Anyways that scared me 0ff of being vegetarian for a few years, but my heart still broke every time I'd eat meat. My mom saw this and we started eating more plant based until I finally made the jump a few days before Thanksgiving as sort of a trial run. I remember thinking that it'd be ok if I ate turkey because it was a holiday and a special occasion, and as soon as a piece hit my plate a wave of nausea hit me. What had started as a personal challenge quickly became a part of me and my beliefs.

Becoming vegan was a bit harder of a jump to achieve. It was a goal that I'd had in mind for a while, but it really hit me my sophomore year of college. I had recently been diagnosed with arthritis and was starting to feel the effects when I was watching a telethon that featured "Crazy Sexy Cancer." I was blown away, here was this lifestyle that I'd always been intrigued with proving to help the body protect itself. The next day I had my last non-vegan meal (eggplant parm with tiramisu I should add) and I felt the same way I did after I made the decision to go veg - it was right for me. Of course there were cheese cravings every now and then but those quickly subsided and I realized that my taste buds changed and food tasted better and I liked foods I had hated before. I haven't noticed too much of a health change since going vegan, just how nightshade veggies effect my pain levels (they have a tendency to increase joint pain when eaten in excess).

Long story short for me there is no easy answer to "why are you vegan." People ask wanting to hear that you've lost weight, cured the common cold, saved a slaughterhouse or stopped global warming, but when it comes down to it this is just the right lifestyle for me. It might not be right for everyone but I can't imagine living any other way!

Anyways back to the food! I figured since my recipe today was a pretty large fail I'd start out with a story :-). I'll start by saying I have never cooked dried beans before. Call me lazy but canned beans are just too damn convenient!!! Anyways one of my friends makes them all the time and just "throws some stuff in a pot" (her words) and it ends up delicious. I decided to give it a shot with some squash I had lying around and some black-eyed peas. Needless to say I learned a few lessons:

1) Don't add beans to slightly cooked vegetables that turn to mush when cooked.

2) Beans have a much stronger flavor when you cook them yourself so be sure to have equally as strong spices!

3) I need to pay more attention to the "stuff" my friend throws into her beans!!

Anyways I've added a picture but I'll leave out the recipe this time because well you don't want to make this!

Also I went out to my favorite Mexican place, Tortilla Sams, for dinner and got their fabulous Big Tofu Burrito. It doesn't look like much but let me tell you it is shear heaven on a plate!! I can never get my tofu to come out this successful, but as soon as I do I'll let you know!

Quick and Easy!

So, I've practically given up on finding good vegan options in our Campus Center food court. Last year there were a few days where I'd discover the salad bar chock full of stuffed grape leaves, hummus, pitas, and tabbouleh, while other days there'd be barbecue tofu and broccoli as an entrée. Imagine my surprise this year to be greeted with a "Chef's Salad" filled salad bar with practically no vegetarian options... it was a salad bar filled solely with pre-mixed salads filled with cheese and meat. Then they decided to shrink the salad bar to half its original size, taking out the fruit section :-(. NOT COOL. But hey a girl's got to eat, and they had a burrito bar today and had TEMPEH as a filling option!!!!!!!!! While the burrito itself wasn't fabulous, I am genuinely impressed with my school's catering company for putting forth a great effort and hope they continue to do so in the future!

For dinner I played the "I don't want to go shopping so let's see what I can make out of random things in the pantry" game. Fun times :-). Anyways I ended up choosing one of my favorite quick and easy standbys that can be made with things I usually have on hand. It's Susan from the Fat Free Vegan's Ridiculously Easy Chick Pea Curry!! Fat Free Vegan is another blog I'm hopelessly addicted to and have had great results with every recipe of hers that I've tried. Today I doubled the amount of chickpeas, tossed in some cannellini beans, added way more curry powder than was called for and subbed basmati rice for quinoa (because I'm out :-( ). The result, as always with Susan's recipes is a deliciously healthy meal. I usually like to serve it over sauteed kale, but once again I really need to go food shopping!

To summarize:
Cost: about $5

Servings: about 5 generous

Special Ingredients: Curry Powder (but you should have some on hand!)

Rating: 10/10!!!!

Jumping into Vegan MOFO Head First!!

I've tried to get this blog started on more than one occasion... and have never really had the will power to keep it going (or actually get more than one post at a time!). Those days are over... in theory! I'm challenging myself to cook a new food every day for an entire month. My goal is to find inspiration from fellow bloggers and to not post food that I can't link to or create my own recipe for. My three goals (other than continuing to blog) are going to be creating food that is 1) DELICIOUS, 2) healthy, and 3) wicked freaking cheap (as I'm a broke college student!).

In the spirit of Halloween, here's the delicious cake I made for a few friends. If you haven't already been to the consistently drool-worthy www.chefchloe.com , I suggest you head over there right now!!!! While you should really read her blog in entirely (you'll have meals for weeks!) I'd highly suggest her chocolate cake recipe as well as her pumpkin penne. I've made both in the past few days (although forgot to take pictures of the pumpkin penne) and both were AMAZING. I usually hate cake but this one is absolutely perfect. I wasn't thrilled by the frosting, but then again I added pumpkin liquor to mine which made it way too sweet for most. The pumpkin penne was to die for!! I subbed butternut squash in for pumpkin as I had some fresh and slow cooked it until I had a super creamy and delicious sauce. I left out the sage and the pecans just because I didn't have any on hand, but I'd love to try this recipe again when I do!!

Of course, as promised here are the pics!!! I'm not much of a photographer but I'm just using my phone for now... if you can't tell from the pictures it was delicious :-)

Let the Adventure Begin!!!

Ok so I know I've failed at this blog lately (or well since as long as I started it) but the thing is I've been busy! College and drama tend to do that to me. But as I look out at the summer ahead of me, my first as a vegan, I am determined to blog with one food adventure per day. Absolutely determined. Maybe it has something to do with the stream of Julie and Julia commericals that are starting to clutter cable, but it's kind of an interesting thought. Cook a new food each and every night. Maybe I will try to cook my way through Vegenomicon or La Dolche Vegan or Vegan with a Vengeance, who knows? It's kind of exciting though!! Some days will be boring as all hell, sorry in advance, but lately I've been trying new foods and have been pleasantly surprised at what I've found. I LIKE different ethnic cuisines and "weird" food. Before I made the transition to vegan from vegetarian, I strongly disliked tofu (ok I was too damn stubborn to actually try it), had never even HEARD of tempeh, seitan, or TVP, and was convinced that a perfectly balanced meal could totally consist of a sliced tomato sprinkled with garlic salt and a massive chunk of mozzarella. And while I have still been known to scorf down a tomato or two (or three), I have given up my massive cheese habit. How I survived so many years on just cheese and eggs for protein astounds me (all that cholesteral eww).

Anyways my veganversarry is coming up (September 14th) and I am feeling much better about myself and what I eat. I love cooking good food for great friends, and will hopefully be able to find a good variety of carnivore satisfying food over the course of this summer. I am also going to be cooking healthier alternatives and trying to limit my sugar and flour intakes as well. We'll see how it goes, expect loads of failures as well as a few successes but an altogether amusing ride!

Origins

I love to cook, I've always loved to cook for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, it allowed me to cross the generational gaps and connect with my grandparents, and now it's a way for me to connect with my heritage. There's just one problem: I'm a vegan. In many ways, this is fitting as I've never been one for rules and always like to mess around with recipes and ingredients. So I started this blog, to help me remember all of the amazing things I make and hopefully to give anyone out there some ideas too.