I know I haven't posted in forever. I recently hit 6 mos vegetarian, but have nixed the vegan thing, at least for now.

Here's what I had for dinner. It was so easy and yummy, I want to write about it so that I know how to do it again!

Rinse and drain a can of great northern beans. Put them in a pot.
Add to it a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, and half a can or so of water, so that the mixture is not-too-thick/not-too-thin.
Heat it up on the stove. Try not to burn it!
When it's heated up enough, toast two (or howevermany) pieces of rye bread. Spread with margarine and a little bit of dijon mustard.
Put the bean mixture on top of the toast, and eat with a fork as an openfaced hot sammich.

Yummies!

So, I'm trying to think more seriously about the veganism thing. It may sound silly, but I kind of had a realization recently, while talking to linda. I said, "it's been easier than I thought, to give up cheese", and she said, "that's because you're still eating it". And what I'd meant was that I've cut back pretty hard... but she made a very good point, and I've been thinking about it a lot.
It's been easy to cut out milk. I don't buy it anymore. I buy ricemilk. I drink water at my parents' house. Eggs, maybe they're in some things I still eat for now, like morningstar farms corndogs, but it's not like I'll fry one up or hardboil one, and I'm avoiding buying new products which contain it.
But cheese! That is the hard one. I went to taco bell today, and got a bean burrito made fresco style, and a mexican pizza with beans instead of meat, and no cheese (which somehow at first translated to "covered in chicken and cheese", but we made it right. This was a different TB than the "she will cut you" one). And it was MAGNIFIQUE, and as far as I'm aware, vegan. So, score one for the cheese-avoidance.
But now I'm at my parents' house, helping to watch my 3-and-a-half year old nephew, and mom and dad wanted to order a pizza. They were going to order a plain cheese one, which I thought was weird. They like pepperoni. I asked my mom why they were getting just cheese, and she said it was for my benefit. I told her they could order half pepperoni if they wanted. But my dad came in and started making this big deal about how wouldn't the meat be contaminating my part? Etc. I know he was just kidding, but it was awkward. Before that point, I'd considered asking for a medium with no cheese and just veggies, but the whole thing made me feel so odd, I didn't do it. I know that's my problem, and not theirs, but still.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, "cheese is an effing big part of our lives, which we may not realize until we're trying not to eat it".
Which is why that has been the hardest thing to cut out. It's come to the point where my love of it isn't really the issue anymore. It's that in some situations, it's so hard to avoid without people looking at you like you've lost your mind. And I need to get over the fear of that.
I've bought tofutti pizzas. I have amy's non-dairy burritos, silk yogurt, and even found vegan mac-n-cheese in a box. But the hard stuff all happens once I walk out of my front door.

So, that's what's been going on with me.

tonight i made shake and bake tofu for the first time, with stellar results. here i will share how i did it, for my own future reference, and so you, the viewer at home, may try it yourself if you've not already.

ingredients :
-1 pkg extra-firm tofu (mine was trader joe's brand)
-vegetarian barbecue sauce (mine was kraft original, which is supposedly vegan)
-1 envelope vegetarian shake 'n bake
-cooking spray

procedure :
-drain tofu by placing a collander on a plate, the tofu in the collander, a small plate on top of the tofu, and two big cans (i.e. cans of beans) on top of that. allow to press for 15 mins. if it still seems pretty wet, it should be ok.
-slice tofu into roughly 1/2 inch slices. (i got about 7).
-pour some barbecue sauce on one plate, and the shake 'n bake coating on another. one at a time, thinly coat each slice of tofu in barbecue sauce, then coat in shake 'n bake. place on the baking pan. (mine was a toaster-oven pan covered in foil).
-when all tofu is coated and on pan, spray tops of pieces with the cooking spray.
-bake in toaster oven on 400f for 15 minutes. when time is up, cut off a little piece of tofu to make sure it's done to your liking.

i ate it with greenbeans, and it was awesome. the texture was firm, it didn't fall apart, and i think it helps that i'm getting used to the taste of tofu in general. i liked this a lot and will definitely be making it again in the future. tomorrow, i will find out how the leftovers hold up!

ETA: using barbecue sauce wasn't my idea, it was a suggestion on the box!

tonight i bought some vegan gourmet cheddar cheese at food lion. i figured, follow your heart makes the vegenaise, which i am a HUGE fan of, so maybe VG wouldn't suck? besides, i'd heard good things about it.
i took it home, opened the package, cut off a little piece, put it in my mouth, and immediately had to rush to the trashcan to spit it out.
( cut for the benefit of those sensitive to depictions of bodily functions! )

in better news, i bought tofurky slices, and they are really good! they smelled kind of like cat treats at first, but are very tasy. a+!

and jay made these awesome eggplant-and-other-veggie patties for dinner, and they were soooo good... and now they've got the gears in my head turning, thinking about veggie burgers i could make!

so, good times.

I just drank pomegranate cherry sobe lifewater, which I really like, and now am reusing the bottle for water. I happened to catch a word on the ingredient statement:
Cochineal.
Noooo, dead buggies in my yummy drink :(
I guess I won't be drinking any more of this!

I'm happy I got paid today, because I really need to go grocery shopping. Today I pretty much had no choice but to have microwave cheese pizza. *sigh*, and weigh-in tomorrow.

i was watching tv this evening, and saw a commerical for the ballpark our team the baltimore orioles playes at, camden yards. it showed a lot of people making little remarks about it, like, "this is the best backdrop in baseball" and stuff (if you've never seen it, it does have a distinctive look). one of the remarks came from a lady holding up a basket with a hot dog in it. "this is a tofu-free zone!" she said with a smile.

what does she (or moreover, the people who scripted the ad) mean by that?
vegetarians not welcome? we wont deal with your hippie BS? meat consumption and baseball go hand-in-hand in terms of american-ness? or something more benign like, "feel free to be yourself here (asuming you eat meat)"?
because i think way too far into things, this is driving me crazy.

(i think this is more of a reasonable thing to be driven crazy by than wendy's baconator commecials. wendy's is very clear about what they mean.... not so with this!)

in other news, i made couscous for the first time tonight. so easy! and yummy! i will probably be making a lot of this. very versatile, as well.

According to peta's "accidentally vegan" page, apple jacks are vegan! Win! *digs in*

I ate entirely vegan today, with really no effort. I have adjusted to ricemilk. After inventing a kickass vegan mac-n-cheez recipe last week (I'll have to write it later), I feel a lot more confident. And today I went to a kosher deli and has falafel and non-dairy ice cream, which was awesome.
I feel that although I have not finished the transition, I identify as a vegan. I don't like reading ovo/lacto veg cookbooks anymore... I can't find anything I want to make, because there's so much dairy/eggs in a lot of these recipes!
Anyway, this is a badly organized post, but the point of it is just that I ate vegan today, and it was easy. Yay!

fairly big stuff happening... i've decided to try going vegan. *hides* no, don't hurt me! i've been reading a lot about how the cows and chickens we use for milk and eggs are treated, and i'm personally just not comfortable with that. i think my ignorance was bliss, but now i know what happens, and i don't like it.
i'm going to do this very gradually.
so far, the plan is this: as i use up the non-vegan things in the house, i'll replace them with the vegan versions. once i am vegan at home, i will worry about being vegan outside the home. so, for now i'm drinking ricemilk at home but cow's milk at my parents' house... that kind of deal. eventually, i will do the cruelty-free health/body care products and all that jazz.
i didn't think it would be wise for me to try to just drop all dairy/eggs at once. when i stopped eating meat, i made a list of all the meat i eat so that i could figure out what exactly i was giving up. it was a short list, and the transition was easy and all-at-once. but i made a similar list of dairy/eggs, and it was almost 2 pages long! i think it would be a huge shock to my system if i made the transition all at once. to do it slowly like this is better for my body and my mind, and i get to do a lot of research in the meantime.

i've bought some products i want to review... mostly good things so far! but i just wanted to post this, to give the current state of things involving me, as far as this kind of thing goes!

yesterday, i went to subway and got a veggie patty sub. i liked the patty so much, that this evening i went back to subway, and bought 5 plain patties to take home with me! it was really amusing, because they rang them up as "kids toys". hahaa!
they're so yummy! and i like the texture a lot. i want to experiment with crumbling them.
i was reading about them online, and apparently both gardenburger and morningstar farms make/supply them.
it makes me happy to have these, because gardenburgers have recently been pulled from grocery stores as part of a voluntary recall on the part of kellog, who recently acquired gardenburger. they'll return to the freezers sometime, but in the meantime, i'm missing such things!

now, the reason for the cheese sadness mentioned in the subject is this: i found out what rennet is... if you haven't yet read up on it, it's cut up pieces of calf's stomach, the enzymes from which help separate the milk into curds and whey. there is vegetable rennet, but it is more expensive, so most cheese seems to be made with animal rennet, and i read -- albeit on a message board thread from 2005 -- that all kraft brand cheese has animal rennet in it. though cabot does not! so, it is out there, but i'm so used to just reaching for the kraft when i go shopping!
part of me feels like ignoring the rennet, but i don't think i can. my criteria is not to eat anything that something had to die to make or that contains dead things. cheese with animal rennet would fit under this category, so i don't think i could eat it and feel good about it.
it's also kind of a weird thing, because even when i ate meat, i didn't eat veal... it didnt feel right to eat babies. but it's from calves that rennet comes. this whole time i have made it a point to avoid baby cows, but i've been eating things made with their cut-up stomachs.
it's not the best feeling. and not a corner i'm comfortable with cutting.
so, in the future, i think i'll be seeking out cheese not made with animal rennet!

maybehaps i shall hit the natural market tomorrow. it's been a while since i've gone!

Recently, I learned that you shouldn't trust people's recommendations without doing some research on your own part.
Since going veg (it's been a day over 7 weeks now), I must admit I have experienced the very common phenomena that occurs when you remove fatty animal flesh and increase intake of whole grains and full-of-fiber fruits/veggies... yes, I'm talking about gas. (Not the most pleasant subject, but so far it has been (to me) a notable part of my vegetarian existence!)
And I can't tell you how many people have suggested I try Beano. It's been a lot. I supposed that since they were recommending Beano and not, say, Gas-x or something similar, I assumed there was some specific vegetarian-friendly benefit to it. Now, thinking back, I don't know how many of the recommenders were vegetarian, but if I say I'm veg and describe a problem I'm having, I suppose I expect the suggested solution to be one that fits in with my lifestyle.
So a little while ago, I went and bought Beano, thinking nothing more of it. A few nights later, I picked up the package (still unopened) and looked at it to see if it had gelatin, which it had not occured to me to check for before.
It does have gelatin...
And it also has FISH. Cod, flounder, and redfish. (I think it said redfish... maybe I'm just thinking of redfish/swedish fish candy.. Which IS, best I can tell, vegetarian, incidentally!).
But yeah. Secret Meat in Beano! I did not expect that!
In the future, I will be reading the hell out of labels for things people suggest I try!
I suggest you do the same!

Today I went to taco bell at the mall. I have always LOOOOVED taco bell, and am very happy they have so many veg-friendly options.
Today I ordered a grilled stufft burrito, "no meat, just beans instead".
The guy taking my order leaned toward me a bit and asked, "are you a vegetarian?" I said, "yep!"
He turns and says to the guy starting to make my food, "yo! Don't put any meat on there!", picking up the little meat crumblets scattered across the foodprep area and saying, "she's a vegetarian. If you put meat on, she will cut you!"
LMAO!
I am a bad-ass. If you give me meat, I WILL CUT YOU! Haah!
I thought it was really funny! and a cool way of being shown they gave a damn!
So, that's my tb story for the day :)

Craved taco bell crunchy beef tacos last night :(

ingredients
-instant brown rice to make 2 servings
-a large portobello mushroom cap (with butter/margarine to saute in, if you want)
-a cup or so of fat free shredded cheddar cheese
-hummus (i like roasted red pepper!)
-spices (i used minced garlic, garlic powder, and paprika)

how
-start cooking rice by package directions.
-in the meantime, cut up the mushroom cap into little pieces and saute (in butter/margarine if you want).
-when rice is done cooking but still in the pot, add the sauted mushroom pieces, spices, and cheese; stir until combined and cheese is all melty.
-serve with a dollop of hummus next to it for dipping forkfuls into.


omg. this is the best veg. thing i've cooked.

Last night, I bought and tried nutritional yeast, or "nooch" as some call it. All over the internet I had seen people lovin' on it like it was cheese, and dangit, I love cheese, so I wanted to try it. I found an easy-looking recipe, and off I went to david's, our local natural market to pick up some nooch (that sounds dirty!). Got my other ingredients, went home, and made up the recipe.
It was pretty easy recipe to make; the hardest part was the timing, I ended up having my pot of cooked noodles continue to sit for a while as I finished the sauce. Also, the roux it has you start off by making didn't behave as it should have.
Variations I used were a 13.something ounce box of whole wheat penne (I'm doing weight watchers, and whole wheat pasta is a good thing), and I also added in a can of mushrooms and a can of diced tomatoes.
And... the end result was not so good. Nooch has a really weird taste that's hard to pin down. I didn't find it to be cheesy at all. It tasted kind of musty, actually. For a bit before I actually cooked, I was sampling it by dipping mushrooms into it, and this morning I realized that the stuff stains, because some of my fingernails are bright yellow, and I have some yellow spots on my hands despite washing. I have lots of containers of leftovers in the fridge that I want to just throw out, but I would feel so wasteful! (It is for that reason that I still have in the fridge continers of another failed recipe, one where I used TVP instead of ground chicken).
Vegetarian cooking has been a bit of a struggle for me, lol. For now, at least, I need to just stick to making homemade soup, and none of this fancy business!

Welcome to my latest new livejournal. I'm alice_ash, and I have the habit of creating new journals to go with my various interests. This one is about being vegetarian.
I became a vegetarian on June 11th 2008, following a string of incidents and discussions at work that led me to really stop and think about what animal cruelty meant to me. I'd brought chicken soup (homemade by my fiance, jay/tattooedkingpin) to work one day, and found myself feeling very uneasy about eating it, so I didn't. And I didn't eat meat after that.
And... that's only been two weeks and a few days, haha, but I'm pretty proud of myself :)
So, that's me!