My Journey to Health and Happiness

Trinidad Head

2009-09-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks of summer, I took several hikes around Trinidad Head. It's about a mile long loop that's straight up and straight down, and takes about an 40-60 minutes to walk. When it's sunny, the views are gorgeous. Even when it's all fogged over you can hear (and feel) the waves crashing against the head, and can hear seals, sea lions, and birds calling from the rocks beyond the Head. Above is Trinidad pier, where I take my water samples.

This granite cross stands at the top of the Head and replaced a wooden cross erected on June 11, 1775, by Bruno de Hezeta, commandant of an expedition up the northwest coast, who marched with his men and two Franciscan fathers from the shore of the bay to the top of the Trinidad Head and took possession in the name of Charles III of Spain. The inscription reads "Carolus III Dei G. Hyspaniarum Rex, June 9, 1775. Replaced by Club Women of Humboldt Co. Sept. 9, 1913." It took a bit of searching, but now that I know the story behind it, it's a lot cooler!

The old light house. I'm not sure how you get down to it, but it must have been quite the climb to get groceries!

First Week's Lunches

2009-08-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

This year I finally bought a Laptop Lunchbox and have been taking my lunch with me everyday. I was worried that it would be too small, but it's amazing how much food you can stuff in there!

Monday: I forgot to take a picture but I packed millet breakfast bread, black beans, steamed kale, and a plout.

Tuesday:Soba noodles with sesame sauce and local broccoli, a local pear, local bok choy, extra sesame sauce, and more millet breakfast bread.

Wednesday:Orange tofu with rice, steamed local broccoli, local Asian pears, and wild harvested local sea palm with almonds.

Wednesday:
Veggie enchiladas made with local corn, zucchini,onion, and peppers, salad with local raw corn, zucchini and canned beans, millet breakfast bread, local plouts.

First Week of School

2009-08-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Made it through the first week and I'm ready to start another tomorrow! I worked out a few kinks in my schedule and now everything should be finalized.

Monday:
Geological Oceanography 10-11. I've had this teacher before and as long as you put EXACTLY what he says as an answer, you're golden.

Plant Physiology Lab 2-5. As above, I've had this teacher before and he is really great. You can tell he got into teaching because he loves to teach and is really excited about the subject matter.

Field Cruise 5-8. Continuation of last semester's and last summer's class. This semester we'll be writing the paper, submitting it to the 2010 Ocean Sciences Conference and preparing a poster and our presentation for the conference. We originally planned to submit our paper to the AGU conference, but since the deadline is in two days, we decided to be reasonable. I'm very nervous and excited about publishing a paper and presenting it at a national conference, but I'm looking forward to the networking opportunities. Also, I've heard that a lot of people come to this particular conference to look for undergrads to take on as Masters/Ph. D. students! Fingers crossed!

Tuesday:
Plant Physiology Lecture 10-11. Same teacher as the lab instructor. I'm looking forward to this class.

Work 12-5. So glad that they were able to keep me this year with all the budget cuts!

Wednesday: Same as Monday minus field cruise.

Thursday: Same as Tuesday.

Friday:
Geological Oceanography lecture 10-11.

Geological Oceanography Lab 2-5 at the Trinidad Marine Lab. Same instructor as the lecture. I'm really looking forward to this lab. Last Friday we spent our lab barefoot on the beach in the sun measuring the beach profile. There's just nothing better than that.

I'm also taking an online course called "Sound Mind-Sound Body." From the syllabus:

"This online course is designed to provide students with a broad introspective examination of health and wellness that incorporate the mind, body, and soul. The course is organized into the following three sections, which represent the Ancient Greek triad of Mind, Body, and Spirit, and embody the "Sound Mind in a Sound Body":
Mind - Cognitive Health, Hostility, Mood, Social Networks and Support, Stress and Health, Time Efficiency
Body - Alcohol, Caffeine, Nutrition, Physical Activity, Sleep
Soul - Existential Health, Humor, Music, Passionate Living, Spirituality"

I think the class will be very interesting!

I'm also very excited because today, for the first time since moving out of my parents' house, I am doing laundry in my own home!! My mom and dad came up yesterday with a washer, dryer, and small chest freezer and got them all installed and working for me. I'm still moving the freezer around trying to find a good spot for it (I think I may have to find an 'OK' spot for it...) and then I'll fill that sucker up with casseroles and frozen fruit and tofu and hopefully have lots of meals that I can just pull out and heat up during the week so I can keep from getting take out. Thanks Mom and Dad!!!!!

For now I'm off to pick up the house and get it ready for the new week, do some class reading (why can't they make textbooks read like 'smut' books? I'd have no problem reading them then!), and folding my freshly laundered clothes. Take care everybody!

Looking forward

2009-08-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

School starts on Monday and I don't feel ready at all. I am looking forward to having a schedule, a fixed routine to follow, but aside from that I'd really rather have a couple more weeks of vacation. Normally I enjoy school (sometimes not when I'm in the midst of a round of tests), but with the state budget cuts increasing my tuition and decreasing my financial aid, quality of classes, and hours my department can pay me to work and the 2 days a month of staff furloughs that may or may not mean classes won't meet (not even the teachers know what is happening), this year is just looking like it will be a big mess. All that on top of general class stress. But I do think I'll enjoy my classes (geological oceanography, senior project, field cruise, plant physiology, photography, and sound mind-sound body), and I'll have almost all my friends in most of the classes.

I'm trying to get all my "domestic" things done now, or within the first few weeks of school and get them out of the way. I've been doing a lot of canning, and plan on doing tomato sauce, blueberry syrup/jelly/pie filling (haven't decided yet), apple sauce and apple butter in the next few weeks. I want to freeze a bunch of blueberries, muffins, bread, casseroles, brown rice, and other similar items to have for quick meals during busy weeks. I'd also like to do at least one more batch of dried apples as well, but we'll see how it goes. So far this year I have preserved:

-1 sandwich bag of dried apples
-1/2 sandwich bag dried cantaloupe (from two melons! Wow they shrunk up a lot!)
-1 sandwich bag of dried pineapple
-4 12-oz and 10 8-oz jars of strawberry jam
-9 pint jars of dill pickles - thrown out because they were so salty you couldn't eat them!
-9 pint jars of dill pickles from a different recipe - probably going to be thrown out... :(
-18 12-oz jars of white grape jelly with grapes from my parent's vine

One thing I am excited about starting school for is my new lap top lunchbox! I've wanted one for several years now, and I finally broke down and bought one with a carrying case and an extra set of inner containers. I'm trying to lose weight before the wedding and I think the compartments will help with portion control and will keep me from buying food at school.

Did I mention wedding? Why yes, I did! David and I have decided to get married (really for real this time!) next summer after over 7 years of being together! We are shooting for June 12th, which will give us about a month after graduation (we will both walk in May, although David will have classes to finish up in the fall semester) and about two months to enjoy married life before David starts classes in August for his last semester at HSU. After that we plan on moving out of California for greener pastures and to gain residency in another state before I begin my graduate and Ph. D. work. I'm very excited, but am trying to keep a level head and focus on my school work for now.

That's all for now. I'm off to make next week's meal plan and enjoy one of my final free afternoons in the sun.

Where has the time gone?

2009-08-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Hmmm...anyone still there? I can't believe it's been so long since I've last written, but there were many reasons for it. Since I last wrote, I went through one of the toughest rounds of finals I've had in my college career, suffered from depression caused by the stress (happily with medication and relaxing over summer I'm feeling much better!), went on a two day oceanographic cruise collecting sediment samples, spent half my weeks processing roughly 1200 samples and sorting through them to find individual foraminifera, had a wonderful 4th of July weekend with my parents, decided to finally really for-sure this time get married next summer and started planning that and in general have been vegging out on the couch watching Doctor Who. Whew! So I'm sorry it's been so long, but hopefully you can forgive me!

For right now, that's all I have to report. I'll be writing again more frequently though, I promise! Until then, I'll leave you with a couple pictures from the oceanographic cruise.

This is the box corer we used to collect the sample. This device is solid steel and weighs a ton. It is lowered to the seabed where it buries into the mud to collect a 50cm long core. The arm M. is standing on swings down to cover the bottom of the core as it comes up so you don't lose the sample. I'm in the red shirt stabilizing M. as she primes the device (which is a bunch of fun on the high seas!)
M. and I wait for the box corer to return from 150m depth to the surface where we will "tag" it with lines at the end of an 8-foot pole and use the lines to control the corer back to the deck and make sure it doesn't swing back and forth, damaging the sample and anything in it's way. It takes two of us on each side to control it. I'm in the grey shirt.

1 year

2009-03-07T11:26:00.001-08:00

In all the stress and craziness that has been my life over the last several weeks, I let my one year Veganniversary and the 1st year anniversary of this blog go right on by. It doesn't seem like it's been that long at all! So what's changed over the last year in terms of my health? I don't have exact numbers but:

Weight: I started out at 236lbs, increased to nearly 245, dropped to 219 over the summer (26 lbs!), and since the holidays and all the stress, I've been hovering between 225 and 230lbs. So over the whole year I've lost a total of about 6 lbs. Not great, but at least it's a drop!

Cholesterol: Starting out this year I had an overall cholesterol of 201, with LDL at 122 and HDL at 43, which is just over the high side of normal. I don't have the exact numbers to share, but my last blood test in January came back with "normal cholesterol levels", and the doctor didn't mention anything about it, so I'm going to assume that I have dropped my overall and LDL numbers and raised my HDL levels to within healthy limits.

Blood Sugar: It's still kind of in the air if I'm pre-diabetic or not. One doctor keeps saying yes, while two others have done blood tests and said 'no'. I've tested my fasting blood sugars a couple of times with David's monitor and have generally been between 75-85, which David tells me is good.

Triglycerides: I started with triglycerides at 181 (a good number is 150), and again don't have actual numbers, but the last blood test came back in the normal range and the doctor didn't say anything about me being high.

So it seems to me that switching to an entirely vegan diet has really been great for my health! In addition to the numbers, I haven't truly been sick since going vegan (besides from the sniffles for a day or two here and there). Before, if I came down with a cold I would be incapacitated for nearly a week; having to miss school and work and often ending up with the early stages of pneumonia and a deep rattling, hacking cough that would last for months. I've also found that generally my "cycles" have been less painful (sorry guys). Before going vegan and definitely before going on birth control, I would have to miss school because the cramps were so horrible. And let's not forget that my face has cleared up and I've had much more energy throughout the day!

And how was it, switching to a vegan diet? Looking back, not that hard! For the first couple of months, I craved cheese and cheese is still my biggest temptation. There was a day when I just craved a cheese burger so bad that I went to Carl's Jr. and got a Western Bacon Cheeseburger. I have to admit, I devoured that thing and it seemed like the best thing I'd ever tasted. But I paid for it for the next week or so with an upset stomach. There has been a couple of times when I have been tired of not finding anything at a restaurant and it has just been easier to eat something with cheese or milk in it. I'll admit it hasn't been a perfect vegan year. But after eating animal products, even in small amounts, I've found myself feeling icky, sluggish, and just in general not as great as I do when I'm eating vegan.

This blog has really helped me through the last year. Although it doesn't seem like I have a lot of readers (if you're out there and haven't said 'hi' yet, please do!), I have had people stop by from nearly every U.S. State and from other countries like Canada, Russia, Spain, Finland, and the UK. Wow! Hopefully y'all found something helpful or interesting on your way through.

Over the next year I want to continue to focus on eating more raw fruits and veggies, whole grains, and in general eat with "could I eat this straight out of a garden" in mind. Now that I have access to a dehydrator and some canning skills, I want to spend my summer preserving local fruits and veggies to enjoy all year round. I've also been toying with the idea of doing a juice feast, but I'm not sure about that yet. I'll just see how things go and try to listen to my body.

I hope everyone continues to stop by over the next year. And this wouldn't be a post about anniversaries and yearly milestones without saying:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT JUDY AND AUNT TAMI!!!!!!!! I hope both of you have lovely days enjoying your friends and family!

At the grindstone

2009-03-01T08:52:00.001-08:00

Just in case you thought I fell overboard on one of my research cruises, was suffocated by the ever growing mound of homework and scientific literature, or got lost in the library never to find my way out again, I'm here for just a moment to say "I'm OK". Very busy, but OK.

Here's some of the fun things I've been up to (all taken from my friend Amanda's camera):

From Left: Me, Jason, Lerin, Matt, Amanda, and Monica during a research outing on the R/V Coral Sea. We were using a CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth (really pressure)) sensor package to create a heat budget of Humboldt Bay.
My picture of the CTD from a previous cruise. Isn't she pretty?

Discovering I've completely forgotten how to roller skate at Paula's 30th birthday party. I'm the blurry feet at the top of the picture because I was desperately trying to just stay on my feet. From Top to the right: Me, Lerin, Amanda, and Jason.

Chillin' with the Oceanography Society. I haven't been able to make all the meetings this semester, but I try. Top row: Pono, Rich, Jason. Middle Row: Me, Jeremiah. Bottom Row: Erin, Monica, Amanda. There's a lot more of us, but that's all that could make it to the last meeting of last semester.

Cleaning up trash at the Bay Street Beach in Eureka. We spent at least a half hour trying to get all this rope cut off and untangled. From Left clockwise: Lerin, Justin, Me.

After two hours, we collected six bags of trash, the lining of a truck bed, and two large rusted pieces of metal from a car. This is a much better idea of how many people are in the club, although many people couldn't make it that morning.

Amanda, Monica, Jeremiah, Lerin and I all went out to dinner Thursday night to detox after a four and a half hour class. The food was decent, fairly cheap, and we stayed for two hours and had a great time. This year has really been the first that I've had classes with other oceanography majors, and I've been really surprised with myself at how fast I'm making friends. Normally it can take me years to become friends with someone, and most of the people in the photos (with the exception of Justin), I've only met last fall. But I guess when you have the same class schedule with the same group of people that you see every day, all day you make friends pretty fast.

But don't start thinking that it's been all fun and games. I'm at school/work twice a week from 8am to 8pm, and from 8am to 5pm the other three days. I'm also driving up to Trinidad once a week to take water samples, and have had tests and papers due almost every week (in fact, I have two big papers due in the next couple of weeks, and will get a physics test back on Monday). I've also been looking for an internship in my spare time (haha!), and trying to meet with a career counselor (who thinks I'm a lazy and non-serious student because I didn't start looking for an internship when I was 13 and am just partying all my time away and not paying attention in class because I have a 3.3 GPA) to work on my resume so I can finally contact the people that another contact mentioned might have a position for me. Oh, and of course taxes, FAFSA, and scholarship applications.

The good news is that I needed to go to the doctor a couple weeks ago, and even with all the stress in my life right now (read: horrible junk food eating that's been happening), I've only gained about 12 pounds since Thanksgiving, my cholesterol's in the healthy range, and my blood pressure is excellent. I also haven't been sick at all, although I have been battling off a small cold the last week or so. Although my weight is pretty much the same since I went vegan a year ago last month, there's been a huge difference in my blood work results, my blood pressure, the amount of energy I have to do everything, and I haven't been really sick since I went vegan, just the sniffles here and there. Let's see if I can't keep it up!

Alright, I must go now and continue to write at least 10 pages of a review paper of harmful algal blooms (HABs) on the California coast, and the link with various physical conditions. It's actually pretty interesting, and is a continuation of my last semester's biological oceanography project, and a stepping stone in my senior thesis project. Hopefully I'll learn something through this project that will help me link what I find in my weekly water samples to larger environmental conditions that may help predict when a HAB will occur here in Humboldt County. I'm so glad that I am studying oceanography. It truly is something that I've always been interested in, and the more I learn, the more excited I get to learn more. I couldn't be happier, even if the course load is insane.

Menu Plan Monday

2009-02-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning with extremely bad back pain, and so have spent the majority of the day on the couch. The plus side is that I got a decent amount of homework done. The down side is that I got almost no house work done and it was nearly 7:30 pm before I could get up and go grocery shopping for the week. I hope that my back is better by the morning. I can't afford to miss any work or school!

Monday: "meatloaf", mashed cauliflower, steamed swiss chard, corn
Tuesday: veggie jumble (GoV), make sweet millet breakfast cake for the next several mornings
Wednesday: Class from 8am to 8pm. I'll take leftovers to school and eat lunch and dinner there
Thursday: Taco Soup from Better than Peanut Butter and Jelly
Friday: Mexican Bulgar pilaf and leftover soup
Saturday: Rubens made with Seitan corned beef from Everyday Dish TV

Check out Organizing Junkie for more menus.

Vegan Doughnuts

2009-01-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Back in November I went to a class put on by CCAT about making vegan doughnuts. David even went with me, which was a big surprise. The story went that Rosie's grandmother and mother would make the kids doughnuts on the day of the first rain of winter every year as a special treat. We made doughnuts and frosting, ate them, and then came home, full and happy, and having every intention to blog about the doughnuts.

And then I lost the recipes. How could I post about delicious doughnuts and not post the recipes? But now I've found them and all is well with the world.

Rosie's Mom's Vegan Doughnuts:
Fluff with a fork:
2 C white wheat or spelt flour (the wheat ones fell apart very easily, but were still delicious)
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. soy powder or flour (we used flour)
1/3 C raw sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Add:
2/3 tbsp. oil
1/2 C soy milk

Knead. Roll into a sheet about 1/2 inch thick. Cut out doughnuts (we used a glass and a bottle cap) and deep fry. Turn when pale brown (about 1-2 minutes). Place on paper bags to drain. Frost, sprinkle with sugar, or just enjoy plain.

Vegan maple icing:
2 tbsp. oil
3/4 C powdered sugar (make sure it's vegan or use raw sugar and grind into a powder)
pinch of salt
enough pure maple syrup to make the right consistency

Beat everything together until smooth.

Vegan Chocolate Icing:
2 tbsp. oil
3/4 C powdered sugar (make sure it's vegan or use raw sugar and grind into a powder)
pinch of salt
1/3 C cocoa powder
enough soy milk to make the right consistency

Beat together until smooth.

These were so good! I keep trying to justify making a batch but there's just not a good enough occasion (not that you need an occasion to eat doughnuts!). I guess I'll just have to wait until the first rain.

Whoa, Nelly!

2009-01-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been an eventful two weeks. It kind of seems like the world was just waiting for me to go back to classes to start up again.

Our dog, Boots, died on the 19th. He was old (not quite sure how old since he just showed up on our doorstep one day), blind, deaf, and was having trouble walking around. Several days before he died he pretty much stopped eating, and on Monday he went outside, laid in the sun, and passed away.

On the 20th, classes started again, and there was no "ease into it" period. We were pretty much thrown straight into the deep end. Yikes! I'm taking second semester physics, physical oceanography, library research and writing, field cruise, and working on my independent senior research project. After spring break I'll be taking Lost Arts of Living (basically canning, candle making, darning, that sort of thing) through CCAT. So basically, I have two hard "traditional" classes (midterm, final); a class with a 30-40 page paper due at the end; a class that will span two semesters and summer where the 12 of us design an experiment, write a proposal, reserve the R/V Coral Sea, conduct the experiment, analyze the samples, write a research paper, present the paper at a national conference, and potentially try to get our paper published in a scientific journal; a project that consists of taking water samples every week, analyzing them for the presence of harmful algae bloom species, writing a scientific paper and defending it in front of a panel of my professors; and a class just for fun to help me balance my science self with my domestic homemaker self. Whew. Yeah, I have my work cut out for me alright!

Then there's also tracking down scholarships and filing the FAFSA, taking the GWPE (must pass to graduate), and following up on a lead for a potential internship (thanks Aunt Tami!!!!). Which means I also need to put together a good resume and gather up some letters of recommendation. Not to mention the Ocean Club, which is in need of a treasurer and I am thinking of going for the position (I must hate myself). Oh, and then there's the PG&E Marine Sampling Project that's still going on!

I'll try to post more frequently, but really, I'm not sure I can even promise a post once a week. This weekend I have 7 scientific papers to read and report on, type and post the meeting minutes for Field Cruise (I stupidly volunteered myself to be secretary of the meetings), not to mention make and devour yummy Superbowl snacks (not sure if we'll actually go somewhere to watch the game since we don't have tv, or just stay home and eat food anyway). I'll also write up a post soon about what David and I did for my birthday soon.

Please Hang On

2009-01-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

I am alive, I promise. But it's only halfway through the second week of classes and I'm already drowning in work. I will try my hardest to update this weekend.

Menu Plan Monday

2009-01-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today is the start of my last week off before classes start up again, so in preparation I made a menu of a couple weeks worth of meals/lunches. I also made up a "storage" menu of things I want to get made and put away for quick meals before I'm bogged down with homework, essays, research projects, and deadlines.

To Store:
-Backyard BBQ Sauce from Veganomicon. I'm going to try doubling the recipe and canning it. I expect to get about 4 pints worth.
-Bran Muffins with Raisins from Joy of Vegan Baking.
-Pumpkinberry Muffins from VegNews.
-Carrot Ginger Muffins from Garden of Vegan.
-Lemon projects from this post

Meals:
From Better than Peanut Butter and Jelly (BPBJ)
-Taco soup
-Sloppy Joes and sweet potato fries
-Southwestern Pasta Casserole
-Tacoless taco salad
-Beans and franks
From Garden of Vegan
-Veggie Rice Balls
-Zucchini and Broccoli Toss
-Chimichangas
-Veggie Jumble

Lunches/snacks:
-Tofu spread from BPBJ
-Roundup Rice Cakes from BPBJ
-good ol' leftovers

Remember to check out Organizing Junkie's Menu Monday for more recipe ideas, and GeekyPoet for all veggie menu ideas. Geez...I think I better get started!

Lemons!

2009-01-09T13:22:00.000-08:00

My parents have a lemon bush (really it's like....5 or 6 trees that have grown together and are now trimmed into a hedge, but anyway), and most years the lemons are left to rot on the bush, because really, what can you do with that many lemons? Some years we zest and juice them, but often we end up with more than we use, bags of zest and juice get lost in the freezer, and there are many more lemons left rotting on the bush.

Before leaving to come back to McKinleyville, my dad gathered twenty pounds of lemons (a small fraction of what was out there) for me. So what am I going to do with all these lemons?

-Limoncello
-Preserved lemons
-Lemon cordial
-Lemon butter/curd (if I can find a good vegan recipe)
-Zest and juice for future use

Which means I should probably get started clearing off a work space and getting to it.

Back From the Holidays

2009-01-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been very busy. The trip over 299 to my parents house was alright, we ran into some snow and ice, and lots of rain, but David and I both made it over and to Red Bluff just fine.

Christmas was pretty relaxed, and for a Christmas that we had agreed would be no presents, everybody got some really good gifts. I gave baskets of homemade/canned applesauce, blueberry syrup, and bread and butter pickles, as well as some loose leaf tea, candy cane sugar scrub, and a cookbook of my favorite recipes. I also put together a CD of some vegan podcasts for my grammy so that she could see (or hear) that I'm eating a healthy diet. My mom and I made vegan truffles, but they didn't end up in the baskets because I forgot to grab them from the fridge on Christmas day, so I had to eat them all myself. Darn.

For Christmas dinner, I ended up making everything I planned on. We also had stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, and there was turkey for the rest of the family. Everything turned out really good, and besides from a small incident, everyone got along real well and I for one thought the day was very nice.

We would have taken the next few days to relax, but my little sister has decided that it is time for her to move away from home, so we spent the next several days getting her packed up (and fighting, and bickering, and being upset and pissy....). On the 1st, we set out on a nine hour drive to San Luis Obispo. We unpacked her into her new home (that she's sharing with five other girls), took her to dinner, and then took off. Mom, Dad, and I left first thing yesterday morning for an eight hour drive home. I feel like we left under bad terms, but I think I'm the only one that feels that way, at least at this end of California.

My grades posted the day after Christmas. I earned two A's, two C's, and a credit for a PE class. I'm not exactly happy, but I passed Physics and Chemistry, so they are out of the way and I can focus on next semester, which will be even worse than this one was. I'm already looking forward to summer break.

I had blood drawn at the doctor's while I was home to finally get this diabetes thing put to rest. They did an A1C and a thyroid test, as well as a regular blood work-up. After a little confusion (they lost my blood work), I received a phone call yesterday with the results. I haven't gotten the exact numbers yet, but they said everything was perfect except my iron was a little on the low side of normal. I'm assuming that means that I lowered my cholesterol and lipid levels from what they were in February. The doctor said my iron level was nothing a supplement or two, or a week or so of some iron heavy foods wouldn't fix. So good news; I don't have diabetes or anything wrong with my thyroid. Bad news; there's still no reason I should be this overweight or gain weight so easily. Maybe that's just how my body is, but I'd still like to look for a medical reason before I resign my self to a lifetime of obesity.

Well, I think that brings everyone up to speed. I spent some time thinking about my words for 2009, but I'll do a separate post for that.

Christmas Dinner

2008-12-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, I think I know what I'm making for Christmas dinner. Of course, knowing me I'll be changing my mind right up to setting the table. But for now:

~~Au Gratin~~ Herb Scalloped Potatoes from Vcon (I should have opened the book to find out what they were actually called first). I made these before when I had some friends from high school stay with us a few days. I was the only vegetarian out of the four of us, and everybody loved these, so I think they're family safe.

My Spinach-Artichoke Dip. Not for dinner exactly, but for snacks before dinner, or at the very least for New Years.

Turkey Roast. Just saw this on EverydayDish and thought it looked really good. I might go with something else though....

Mushroom gravy. Because it isn't a holiday meal without buckets of yummy gravy.

And of course there should be plenty of stuffing and vegetables and rolls and possibly sweet potatoes floating around the dinner table, but Grandpa is in charge of all that, because he makes the best stuffing and sweet potatoes ever. Not the sweet potatoes with the pineapple in it though (or is that the one my dad makes...), the kind with all the yummy pecans on top. Mmmm. Hopefully he can use some EarthBalance and Veggie broth and my sister and I can enjoy all of it too.

And just for kicks, I found this in my picture file the other night and thought it was great. My mom would kill me if she knew this picture was on here, so everybody pipe down. This was taken a couple of years ago before her work's themed Christmas party. Nevermind my dad's shoes and the cat beds.

My mom is a hottie.

Mmmm...Spinach-Artichoke Dip

2008-12-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of dips. HUGE. I have been known on many occasions to make dip and eat it for lunch with crackers. New Years and Superbowl Sunday are my favorite days of the year because they are "snack-um" days, where my family and I eat nothing but appetizers and finger foods all day. So, when I say this is in the top 5 best dips ever, you need to take my word for it. And if that isn't enough, this dip was devoured by my ocean club, most of whom refuse to believe that vegan food can be any good at all. So I waited until they had all eaten half the bowl and then spilled the beans :-)

This recipe is a combination of this one, and one given to my family by some friends.

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

2 cans artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1 small package frozen spinach, thawed and excess water squeezed out
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz. vegan cream cheese
8 oz. vegan sour cream
3/4 cup soy parmesan cheese (or ground almonds)
1 small can mild diced chiles
oregano and paprika to taste.

Mix everything together and bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, until bubbly. Or dump everything in a small crockpot and warm on low heat.

Weekly Meal Wrap-up

2008-12-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

This week was finals week, so I didn't really make a menu at all. But it's all over with now and I'm free from classes until January 20th. Like everyone else, we're also a little short on cash (nothing major, just not a lot left over for extra things), so I've decided to try to use up my massive stock-pile of food in the pantry and only buy fresh fruit and veggies from the store. So far, so good. This week we ate:

Navy Bean Soup. It never got made last week, so I made it this week. I added some liquid smoke to the recipe, and ended up adding a lot of extra salt, but it was great!

Homemade Bread. This loaf didn't raise very well, but I think my yeast may be dead. We ate it with the navy bean soup.

Vegan egg-salad sandwiches. I need to experiment a little more, but it was pretty good between slices of homemade bread.

Sausage, potato, and cabbage soup. I had some leftover homemade vegan sausages, half a head of cabbage, and some potatoes left over from the last farmers' market. Not the best soup ever, but it was warm and filling and a great way to use up some odds and ends.

Eggplant Parmesan. This would have been absolutely wonderful, except for one thing. I forgot that I'm not a fan of eggplant. For some weird reason I was craving eggplant though, and since it was on sale at the co-op, I figured it was perfect to use up some odds and ends. I'll probably try the recipe again as lasagna or with zucchini and summer squash.

Tonight and tomorrow David is at work, so I'll probably just be using up more leftovers and cleaning out the fridge. We're traveling to our respective parents' houses on Monday or Tuesday to spend Christmas with our families. I haven't decided what I'm making for Christmas dinner, but for sure there will be at least a couple of cookies and spinach-artichoke dip.

Now that I've realized that Christmas is less than a week away, I need to go finish preparing gifts and pick up a couple of gifts still.

Looking Back

2008-12-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

Before I started writing here exclusively, I kept a blog on livejournal. Last year, I wrote this post that I pretty much forgot about until yesterday:

Just like everyone else this time of year, I've started to reflect on how far I've come this year and where I want to go next year. I never really make resolutions, because it seems like they never really last past Jan. 15th anyway. But I got an interesting e-mail the other day from one of my vegan newsletters, and it's stuck with me. Basically the jist of it is this:

If you had to pick just one word to focus your life for an entire year, what word would you choose?

One word to summarize and reflect on for a whole year. There's thousands of words in the English language, and many of them are good ones to focus on. But eventually I narrowed it down from the e-mail's list of 65 words to three related words to focus my life on for an entire year:

Health

Self-Love

Release

Health is not just losing all this extra weight, but focus even more on healthy eating. Pay attention to serving sizes, make a real effort to eat a vegan diet for the majority of the time, exercise so I don't feel my heart pounding after climbing stairs or so I can lift equipment, drink at least 2 liters of water a day, use lotion on my hands, feet, and face, make a bigger effort to stop using chemicals on my body and in my house. These aren't all resolutions, but just things that I want to give a bigger focus on in my life and even if by next year I'm just a little bit healthier, it's better than nothing.

Self-Love is a big one that I need to focus on. I'm sure most of you know, I don't have a very good self image. Although part of me tells me that how I feel isn't true, a large part of me assures me that I am fat, ugly, stupid, lazy, worthless, selfish. And for as long as I can remember, I've always felt this way about myself. I want to focus on loving myself the way I am now, with the extra weight, hang nails, zits, dry skin, not working a "real" job, putting my schooling as a priority over supporting myself and I want to focus on and find more self-love as I lose weight and become healthier. Stop letting my baggage get in the way of what I want to do; surf, kayak, hike, swim in a bathing suit, mountain bike, rock climb because I'm too fat or not in shape enough to do these things.

Release closely follows Self-Love. I want to focus on releasing all the baggage that I've been carrying around for years, all the stuff that's made me resent people, allowed little things to hurt me because they just pile on top of other little things, made me sabotage relationships and friendships and opportunities because they can't really be what they seem to be. I also want to focus on releasing all the habits and emotional baggage that has contributed to my health being the way it is. And release all this weight :)

So I cheated a little by picking more than one word (although the e-mail said that it was OK to pick up to three if you just really couldn't narrow it down), but I think that they're all closely related and feed back into one another. By working on one, I should begin to work on the others, etc. And it's better than a resolution since I'm not setting myself up for failure by saying I have to lose X amount of weight, or work out so many times a week or whatever.

Looking back at that post, I can help but be a little awed that the focus words I chose truly were the main themes of my year. I was preliminarily diagnosed with metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), which set me on a course to figure out if I actually have it or not (it's still up in the air), become fully vegan, and I ended up losing about 25 pounds so far this year (mostly during my Alaska road trip, in which our stove broke and we were forced to live off trail mix, rice cakes, and peanut butter for several days until we could get it fixed). I can't say when it happened exactly, but I have found a great deal of peace with myself over this year. I still have my bad days when I beat myself up about things that aren't true or possible (trying to be superwoman/perfect), but overall I have become very happy with myself and my decisions that I've made in my life. I've also found that things don't bother me as much anymore. I can let things go more easily, and while things that are said may still hurt, and I might still be upset by them, I get over them faster and easier.

It's amazing how at peace I feel. Sure, I get incredibly stressed out by classes, midterms, projects, and now finals, but I've been getting better and better at accepting the stress (maybe crying for while), and then moving on and using that energy and stress to get things done. I've learned to accept that everything happens for a reason, and to release my desire to control everything in my life.

I will be doing this again for the new year. I haven't decided what my new word(s) will be; I will get done with finals and then spend time meditating on this to figure out where I need the most work, or to find a word that feels right at this time. I think this is much better than a new years resolution, and maybe I will get one of Beautythatmoves' mantra quilts to display my word over the year. I can't remember (or find) the e-mail where this idea came from, but if anyone does, please let me know and I will link to the original authors. If you would like to participate, here is the list of words to get you started:

Compassion

Delight

Generosity

Effortlessness

Wealth

Gratitude

Abundance

Creativity

Willingness

Change

Growth

Freedom

Mastery

Kindness

Health

Presence

Acceptance

Courage

Confidence

Self-Love

Action

Forgiveness

Forgive

Release

Trust

Knowing

Patience

Friendship

Fun

Grace

Laughter

Love

Expansion

Exploration

Adventure

Openness

Discipline

Awe

Awareness

Risk

Gentleness

Choice

Spirit

Prayerfulness

Power

Allow

Artfulness

Attention

Beauty

Joy

Focus

Ritual

Heal

Order

Clarity

Pioneer

Peace

Laziness

Yes

Deliberateness

Commitment

Savor

Integrity

Listen

Menu Plan Monday (well, Sunday really)

2008-12-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

This next week is a little less stressful than last week, but it's the week before finals, so it's not entirely stress free. There's a lot of crock pot meals this week, and lots of yummy comfort food. Be sure to check out Menu Plan Mondays and Veg*n Menu Plan Mondays for more ideas!

Sunday: A big pot of Apple Cinnamon Amaranth Grits for breakfast/brunch and Cheesy Bean and "Cheese" enchiladas and Spanish rice for dinner. Making snickerdoodle cookie dough, freezing some and baking some for Wednesday. Also baking Hannah's garlic bread for tomorrow night.

Monday: Leftover Amaranth grits for breakfast, leftover enchiladas and rice for lunch. A slight variation on my usual baked penne, salad and garlic bread for dinner. Putting 5 Grain Cereal into the crockpot for breakfast tomorrow.

Tuesday: 5 Grain Cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch. Making Almond Tofu for dinner again (I can't get enough!!!)

Wednesday: Leftover 5 Grain Cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch (I may actually take 2 small "lunches" since I'm at school from 8am-8pm). Taking snickerdoodles and maybe popcorn to Oceanography club after class. If David and I are hungry when we get home, we'll have nachos.

Thursday: Leftover 5 Grain Cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch. Bringing snickerdoodles or some other snack to share to class. White Bean Soup in the crockpot with leftover garlic bread. I used to love my grandpa's white/navy bean soup in my pre-vegetarian ham eating days, so hopefully this will taste just as good. I may add a little liquid smoke to the soup.

Friday: Early morning class today, so probably nothing or just a granola bar for breakfast, same old leftovers for lunch. If we don't have mass amounts of leftovers still in the fridge, I'll make myself some rice salad (cutting that recipe at least in half) and baked tofu for dinner.

Saturday: Lots of chemistry studying happening today, so just leftovers for breakfast and lunch. Mashed potatoes, squash, and Smothered Tofu Steak and Onions for dinner.

Because I'm a stressed out college student going into finals, I don't have a lot of time to do a bunch of baking for Christmas parties and gifts, so I'm planning on making up a batch or two of cookie dough on the weekends and freezing them to bake up real quick throughout the week.

Back soon

2008-12-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been almost a whole month! School has gotten the best of me and unless I get a few short minutes this weekend to write (not looking good), I will probably be hidden away in my textbook hidey-hole preparing for two presentations next week and finals after that. I'd write more tonight, but I just finished a 15 page scientific research paper that I am using for both a class project and my senior thesis proposal, so my little fingers are bushed.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying the beginning of the holiday season!

Getting Down to Business

2008-11-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks I haven't made a menu or done any real grocery shopping. Which meant that we were running to the store nearly every night, and not eating very well. There were many nights of take out, pizza, chips and dip, or a scrounged up meal.

Last week was a "Hell Week" (sorry Grammy, but it really was!) for me, with several exams, quizzes, and presentations due. And a trip out in Humboldt Bay on the pontoon boat (which means getting very wet, since you're on a flat piece of metal on two pontoon floats with a motor! Rain gear and muckboots are a must!). The highlight of the week was a class on making vegan doughnuts. David came with me and even he said they were yummy. I'll post more on it later.

But this week should be better, and I have Tuesday off (yay!!), so I'm planning on making some real meals again and preparing for the next round of tests.

Sunday: David's having a poker night again with friends, so we're having snack foods for dinner
Monday: "Chicken" Parmesan made with breaded tofu
Tuesday: Leftover baked tofu with roasted veggies
Wednesday: Soba noodles with sesame sauce
Thursday: Almond Tofu
Friday: Lemon Dijon Tofu and Potatoes
Saturday: Any leftovers that weren't eaten for lunch during the week.

For lunches I'll take leftovers and harvest salad. I'm thinking about adding some roasted beets to the salad as well, or I may use them all in the roasted veggies on Tuesday night. I've also really been craving spinach dip, so I'll make up a batch and eat it as a snack with crackers throughout the week.

I'm off now to clean off and paint a couple of boards I picked up at the recycling center to make shelves with. My shot glass collection is feeling very sad all packed up with no place to be displayed. Be sure to check out Organizing Junkie for more Menu Plan Mondays and Geek, Poet, Housewife Wannabe for all veggie menu plans!

Happy World Vegan Day

2008-11-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

As soon as I finished typing the title, I glanced out my kitchen window and spotted a huge, perfect, vibrant, arching rainbow reaching across the sky. I tried taking some pictures but my camera decided to be difficult and not actually capture the beautiful colors on the dark grey backdrop. Then, as I watched, a second perfect, whole rainbow appeared around the first. They stood there for a few minutes like giant concentric half-rings, and then slowly faded away. I'm taking it as a sign that World Vegan Day is approved by nature and that everyone should celebrate by eating vegan for today (or tomorrow, or a randomly picked day of your choosing, y'know, whatever).

It also reminded me that I'm happy to be alive, and healthy, and able to experience such beauty like the rainbows and other little moments throughout every day. Sometimes when I begin to feel crushed under the midterms, term papers, presentations, thesis's, politics, collapsing economy, and the massive amount of housework that has built up while I am busy putting it off to take care of other things, it's hard for me to be grateful for what I have and just live in the moment. But usually right when I need it most, nature tosses a little bit of beauty my way and reminds me that life isn't always this stressful.

Now that I've been completely sidetracked from what I was originally going to post about, but have been rejuvenated, I'm going to make myself some dinner, study some physics, then come back and try again. I hope everyone got to experience a little moment of beauty today!

I need a new major

2008-10-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

I spent four hours today hunched over a microscope searching for diatoms and dinoflagellates. My eyes are tired, my back and neck hurts. I have a presentation on Monday, a physics test on Tuesday, a bio ocean cruise later on Tuesday (and VOTING, everyone should be VOTING on Tuesday!!!!), a chemistry quiz and qualitative analysis of an unknown sample due on Wednesday, a bio ocean exam on Thursday, and then finally, on Friday I get to put together kabobs for the Oceanography Society's table at the football game on Saturday. Whew. Oh yeah, and another presentation the following Wednesday.

I'm still alive, and I promise a real update is coming soon, but for now, I'm going to rest. Happy Halloween everyone!

Away at Sea

2008-10-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a long weekend, and overall, not a great one. So, instead of blogging, I'll leave you with this. We had a friend visit us while we were out on the R/V Coral Sea yesterday. Oh, a do me a favor and watch this on mute, since there's just a lot of boat sounds and us sounding like idiots (a group of us were "chumming" when this guy appeared, so we weren't exactly at our best).

Stockpiling for the winter

2008-10-16T18:22:00.000-07:00

This year, for whatever reason, I've felt the urge to store the harvest. Pack it away for the winter months when food isn't as abundant as it is in the summer. Which is a little odd, since I've always been able to get summer produce in winter by going to the store. But not this year. Whether from my efforts to eat more local food, wanting to prepare for the lean times that look to be ahead of us, or from wanting to be a homemaker in some small way, I've spent the last several months buying extra produce from the farmer's markets and storing it for later.

So far I have (all local):
* 2 quarts + 3 pints tomato sauce (sadly already all used up :( )
* 6 pints applesauce (3 cinnamon, 3 plain)
* 11 half-pints blueberry syrup
* 5 cups blueberries in the freezer.
* 10 lbs. potatoes of various varieties
* 4 lbs. dried bean mix
* 3 quarts + 3 pints bread and butter pickles
* 7 long lasting squashes
* lots of garlic
* 15 oz. + 1.5 lbs. pumpkin puree

I've also done some baking for the freezer, but have had to back off since there's no more room in my tiny freezer! I have:
* whole wheat bread
* 2 loaves pineapple zucchini bread
* 1 dozen peanut butter oatmeal cookies

Overall, definitely not enough to truly make it through the winter if I was only relying on my stockpiling abilities, but I feel like we could survive pretty well over the next several months on my preserved food as well as the non-local staples such as rice and flour I always keep on hand if something happened to keep us from being able to buy food easily. It seems a little silly, but it's made me feel more independent of rising food prices and like I am providing for my little family.

Lucky to Study

2008-10-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

Although this week was less stressful than last week with all it's tests, we got our tests results back this week, which added some stress. I didn't do as well as I wanted to, but I consistently did much better than average, which is good when the grades are curved at the end of the semester. Overall, I'm happy.

In the next week or so I'll start taking plankton samples from the Trinidad Pier to analyze for community structure and to monitor for harmful algae blooms (HAB). This project will be my bio ocean final project, my senior thesis project (comparing community structure between Humboldt Bay, Trinidad Head, and Big Lagoon), and a part of a state wide program monitoring HABs. Yay for multitasking! As of right now I'll only be sampling once a week (Tuesdays) and analyzing on Thursdays. I may start sampling on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I need to see how much of a time commitment this is going to be. But the good news is, I love looking at all the little critters under the microscope! So hopefully the hours of peering through the eyepiece and getting headaches will be worth it.

A perfect sampling day.

Speaking of headaches, I've had a massive one all day today that started last night. Aspirin has been keeping the headache to a dull squeeze instead of ice picks drilling through my skull, but it's still been pretty painful and annoying. The weather has been changing the last couple of days, which usually seems to trigger my headaches. Hopefully it will be gone tomorrow.

In the mean time, I'll leave you with some pictures from Trinidad Marine Lab, where I'm lucky enough to study oceanography twice a week.

A Jr. Gull on Trinidad Pier.

I get to grab a quick snack of native blackberries on the walk back to class from the pier.

Looking north from the cliffs across the street from the marine lab.

Before lecture starts, a classmate catches some waves.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-10-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Fall is by far my favorite time of the year and now that the first round of midterms are over, I can focus on cooking yummy fall foods. Almost everything this week will be local from the farmers market or homemade.

Sunday: David requested chili dogs. I'll be using veggie dogs and some leftover frozen chili from Vegan Lunch Box.
Monday: Lasagna rolls. They were so good David wanted them again right away.
Tuesday: Stuffed acorn squash, sliced vegan sausages with a quick tomato sauce
Wednesday: Something quick like pasta and sauce or leftovers
Thursday: Soba noodles with roasted broccoli and either a peanut sauce or a soy sauce based sauce. (idea from Vegetarian Times)
Friday: Seitan porkchops with apples and ginger, roasted beet salad, butternut squash
Saturday:Leftovers

Head over to Organizing Junkie for more menu plan mondays. Remember, this month is Vegetarian Awareness Month, so add a couple of extra veggie meals to your plans!

Fall is in the Air

2008-10-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

I love fall. There is no better season than fall. Crisp days, orange leaves, apples, squash, beans, hot apple cider, geese, storms, Halloween, the big Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Yep, fall is definitely my favorite time of year.

The last two weeks have been test after test after lab report after speech after test. I don't generally like waiting until the night before a big assignment/test to start preparing, but this time I was continuously staying up after midnight starting to study for a test the next morning. But the good news is, I think I did fairly well on everything. I already received my grade on the Chem II exam; 70/100. The average was a 56 and he said if he were to curve each test, a 56 would be a C-, so it's like getting a B. Not too shabby considering I haven't been successful in chemistry since high school (Mr. Null just explained everything so it made sense!). Talking to classmates it seems like I did about the same as everyone else on my physics midterm; I think I pretty much aced bio ocean, and my speech...well, I didn't black out this time, but I wish I had. It wasn't pretty. I'm not sure why I'm having so much trouble in this class, I did fine in Speech, but for some reason I get out of control nervous whenever I'm giving a speech in this class and everything goes right out the window. Oh well....

Tuesday before class I hiked out to the cliffs across from the marine lab and sat in the sun and worked on homework. The ocean was perfectly flat and there were barely any clouds out. Thursday, after the Bio Ocean exam, I had some extra time so I went for a hike up Trinidad Head. We had a storm moving in, so the waves were fairly big and beautiful. I planned on heading back out there yesterday when the waves were supposed to reach 17 foot swells, but the storm didn't move in as planned and the waves weren't nearly as high as predicted, so I decided to wait.

The storm not coming in though meant yesterday morning was a beautiful day for Pastels on the Plaza and the farmers market. Since it's fall, and fall is my favorite season, we bought five squashes (3 pumpkins, an acorn, and a butternut), lots of honeycrisp apples, some broccoli, local dried beans, local mushrooms, and beets. Afterwards we went to the Big Blue Cafe on the plaza and got pancakes.

This morning I baked the pumpkins, then froze the puree (about 1 1/2 pounds) to use later and roasted the seeds. I'll probably get a couple more pumpkins next week and do the same thing. I might also try to cube some squash for freezing, but the ones I bought this week are already spoken for.

I love fall....

Menu Plan Monday

2008-09-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

The ribs and bubble and squeak recipes from last week were amazing. The ribs tasted a little funny, but I think that's due to the BBQ sauce I was using and will definitely be making them again after I make up a big batch of my homemade BBQ sauce. This week the meals will be quick, easy, and mostly comfort food since I have a Chemistry II exam on Friday that I am completely not ready for.

Breakfasts this week: will be oatmeal with apples and walnuts (a favorite), blueberry muffins from the freezer, smoothies, or soy yogurt with berries and nuts (I've also tried the company's coconut milk yogurt, which is very good, but just doesn't have the protein that soy yogurt does).

Lunches: No-tuna melt (another favorite)/salad or dinner leftovers

Monday: Taco Casserole (a new recipe but a dish that we both like), spanish rice and salad
Tuesday:Vegan Mac n cheese - study food (not sure if I'll use my quick and easy recipe or try a new one)
Wednesday: Leftovers or something simple, I won't be home until 7:30
Thursday: Cuban Style Black beans and Papas Chorreadas (potatoes with tomato-cheese sauce)-- crock pot recipes

Friday: Lasagna Rolls, bread, and salad
Saturday: Curry with tofu, cauliflower and random veggie scraps over rice

Weekend Days

2008-09-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was spent down at the beach with the Oceanography Society picking up trash for International Coastal Clean-up Day. We first stopped at a beach that already had five crews working on it, so we cleaned up in the dunes for a little bit (lots of bits of rope tangled in the grasses), then headed to a popular bonfire/party beach and spent two hours digging nails and broken glass out of old fire pits. We also found a large iron pipe of some sort and a wheel.

After I got back, David and I headed down to the North Country Fair on the Arcata Plaza, a two day festival started in 1973 to celebrate the diversity in our area and the beginning of fall. There are tons of art/craft, food, and information booths, and there's always live music playing somewhere in the plaza. We're planning on heading back down there today to maybe pick up a couple of things we saw yesterday for Christmas gifts and to enjoy some more music.

But since yesterday was spent away from the house, there's also the weekly cleaning, homework, laundry, menu planning, grocery shopping, and making pickles to take care of. I like trying to get most of the chores and homework done on Saturday so Sunday is left free to do cooking, canning, knitting, reading-for-fun (there's other books besides textbooks?), and spending the one day a week together that David and I both have off.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-09-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the meals this week are quick and easy ones that David and I both enjoy. Be sure to head back over to Menu Plan Monday to see what everyone else is cooking up.

Monday: Pasta and Spicy Sausage, salad, whole wheat bread.
Tuesday: Ribs with bubble and squeak
Wednesday: Spaghetti and meatballs
Thursday: Baked tofu and left over bubble and squeak
Friday: Leftover veggie/tofu/whatever stir fry
Saturday: Leftovers/take out/whatever didn't get made during the week

After watching Fast Food Nation, David's given up red meat (I'm hoping he'll give meat up all together, but I'm just going to wait and see what happens), and is more open to vegetarian dishes, so meal planning has become easier. That and he works four nights a week, so I can save meals he won't like for those nights.

Busy and Relaxing Day

2008-09-14T15:30:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to bed around 10, and didn't wake up this morning until 9. I was hoping to be up earlier, but I figure my body must have needed the sleep, and I didn't have any pressing plans for today, so it really didn't matter.

I got up and got dressed, and spent an hour knitting (well, most of it was spent taking out a couple of rows so that I could do them over again correctly) while reading blogs. Then I emptied the dish washer, ate leftover almond tofu for breakfast, loaded up the dishes that didn't get done last night, and ran the dishwasher.

After I got the kitchen all cleaned up, I dumped everything needed for a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine and got that started, cut up and salted cucumbers and onions to make bread and butter pickles, and made a batch of watermelon raspberry lemonade to freeze for later. David and I sat down and made a grocery list, then he left for the store, and I've just now finished up the pickles and am waiting for them to finish processing in the water bath. I made three pints and a quart out of about 10 or 11 medium cucumbers. They taste so yummy though, so I might need to pick up more cucumbers next week at the farmer's market and make another batch.

Once David gets home, I'll start making pineapple zucchini bread and blueberry muffins. We're having pancakes and eggs (tofu scramble for me) for dinner tonight, so I plan on making up a bunch of extra pancakes and freezing them for quick breakfasts later this semester. My poor little freezer is packed to the rim, so after getting all the bread, muffins, lemonade, and pancakes in there I'll probably be done squirreling away food until we use some stuff up.

I have to admit, it's a little weird now opening my cupboards up and seeing things I've made myself and ingredients to make things, but nothing to eat right now (except fruit). I'll need to remedy that soon, and at least stock up on a few things that I can make a quick lunch or snack out of when I'm busy with school, but I like knowing that most of what I'm eating now is homemade and/or local.

Trying New Food

2008-09-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Since going vegan I've ended up trying lots of new food that I never thought I would, like tofu, seitan, tempeh, soymilk, and nutritional yeast. All of which I've come to love now. I've also tried many new fruits and veggies like leeks, parsnips, and kombucha squash. Some highlights were:

Cherimoya. A white fleshed fruit from South America, it tasted something like strawberry-banana yogurt with an almost pudding like texture. Not bad, although the big seeds were a pain to constantly spit out (maybe I was eating it wrong?). It's also called a custard apple.

Picture from Cook's Thesaurus

Kiwano Melon. The inside was bright green and was similar to jello. Tasted like a mix of lime, kiwi, and cucumbers. I won't be having this again, although Sarah loved it and just about ate the whole thing in one sitting.

Dragon Fruit. Very pretty fruit from South America (this particular kind with the purple flesh is from Costa Rica). It tasted like peppery kiwi, and all the little black seeds made it feel like kiwi as well.

Menu Plan Monday

2008-09-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

With last week being so stress filled, and this one not looking much better, I went with mostly comfort food this week.

Monday: Baked penne with zucchini, mushrooms, and olives with some Teese vegan cheese on top.
Tuesday: Orange Tofu, brown rice (making extra to freeze and use as quiche crust next week), steamed veggies.
Wednesday: Late school night, so probably leftovers or something quick and easy like spaghetti
Thursday: Seitan Stroganoff over brown rice
Friday: Almond Tofu (yes, two Asian tofu dishes in one week, but what can I say, it really is my comfort food!)
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Leftovers or simple throw-together dinner. Baking muffins and making one or two quiches for breakfasts over the week.

Head over to Menu Plan Monday and see what other people are making this week. There's so many tasty looking ideas out there, I'm bummed that there aren't more days in the week (weekend days of course, so I wouldn't have more school....)

School Life

2008-09-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

Last week was a stress filled and busy one, and while I'm hoping that the semester gets better from here, I'm having my doubts. What's worse is that Monday was labor day, so my week wasn't even as long as it could have been.

The week started out OK on Tuesday, with Physics and Biological Oceanography (bio ocean) and bio ocean lab. Nothing too bad here, just three hours at a microscope cataloging and drawing different diatom and dinoflagellate species (such as these guys; aren't they cute?).

Both of these pictures belong to the Center for Integrated Marine Technologies since I didn't get any good pictures through my microscope.

Wednesday, however, found me a basket case as I went through work and chemistry lecture a nervous wreck due to a chemistry quiz and oceanography speech on the plastic in the North Pacific Gyre. I won't know how I did on the quiz until tomorrow, but I don't have high hopes. And I'd love to say that I needlessly worried about the speech and pulled it off wonderfully, but I really can't say that since I BLACKED OUT and have no recollection of the speech at all. I remember the guy going before me sit down, and the guy going after me standing at the front of the room starting his speech, but between that is just a vague memory of staring at my cue cards wondering what the heck language they were written in. Talking with a classmate later, I seemed to have done OK, since he said my speech was the most coherent and informative of all the other speeches. I'll take his word for it, at least until I go over the speech with my professor (and chair of the department and former boss) and get my grade sometime this coming week. David was fantastic and just held me while I cried and slowly calmed down after getting home.

Thursday was a little better, with mostly a repeat of Tuesday. My bio ocean professor (and faculty advisor) has offered me a job monitoring harmful algae blooms off our coasts as part of a statewide study. I would love to take it, but am going to wait until I know a little more about what the job requires. She is also going to help me turn the job into my senior research project that I must complete before I graduate, so that's a big bonus. And it's much closer to my field of interest than the PG&E sampling is, so unless the hours are crazy I'll probably end up taking the job. After class I headed over to the Oceanography department mixer, which was fun, but I don't do too well with lots of people. I'm glad I went though, since I'm now signed up with the Oceanography club and talked to many people about the PG&E marine sampling project and hopefully some of them will apply.

Friday I muddled through physics lab and a chemistry lecture and headed home. I don't think I've ever been more glad for a weekend. I didn't get much of anything done (like housework or canning pickles), but I've spent a lot of time relaxing and detoxing from my week, and I have my homework done, a weekly menu planned for next week, I started knitting a washcloth (and have restarted it 4 times already), and have started reading Diet for a New America, which is turning out to be very good in a kind of depressing way....

I'm off now to do some more knitting and am hoping next week will be better.

Ups and Downs

2008-09-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

The stress from school and work is already getting to me. I woke up this morning feeling cranky and just generally depressed. Poor David was tip-toeing around all morning before he went to work trying not to set me off. Hopefully this is just a short term thing, and in a day or two I'll be back to normal.

We went to the farmers market today and picked up lots of goodies. Flowers, cantaloupe, blackberries, raspberries, apples, peaches, cucumbers (for pickling), grapes, plums, and asian pears followed us home today. I'm going to make some bread and butter pickles and possibly try to make some apple-plum butter, and once the peaches ripen completely I'll peel them and freeze them for smoothies or pie.

Now that I have my computer back, I can also show you some pictures of what's been going on over here:

Freshly canned tomato sauce.

Picking blueberries at the local pick-your-own

Getting roses from David

Much Needed Rest

2008-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

I'm so thankful today in Labor day and I don't have classes or work. Saturday and yesterday were spent climbing over rocks and getting drenched by incoming waves, and crawling through stinky Humboldt Bay mud. But everything is taken care of now (except some paperwork, which shouldn't take too long and I'll probably do tonight), so with the exception of two lab write-ups (mostly finished) and physics homework, I have the day to take care of housework and to just relax and possibly start some knitting.

Menu for this week:
Today: Make chili con "carne" (from Vegan Lunch Box) in crock pot, make a loaf of bread, and bake potatoes for tomorrow. I'll be freezing most of the chili and using some for dinner tonight and lunches throughout the week.
Tuesday: Baked Potato Soup (from Veganomicon) with homemade bread
Wednesday: Leftovers since I won't be home until almost 7pm
Thursday: The Oceanography Mixer is tonight so I'll be eating there or eating leftovers when I get home.
Friday: Pasta Primavera with Miso Dressing
Saturday: South of the Border Couscous salad
Sunday: Homemade pizza/calzones

Lunches (and snacks) from last week:
Monday: 4 "ham" roll-ups (veggie ham spread with vegan cream cheese and rolled), 1 plout, 1/2 nectarine, sweet potato fries, peanut butter oatmeal cookie, and one rice cake with peanut butter.
Tuesday: Slice of veggie meatloaf, colcannon (kale and mashed potatoes), mushroom gravy, granola bar, 1 lemon drop, an apple, and some carrots.
Wednesday: 7 pieces veggie sushi, 1 cup edamame in shell, soy sauce, apple, carrots with peanut butter, 1 lemon drop
Thursday: Slice of veggie meatloaf, colcannon (kale and mashed potatoes), mushroom gravy, 1 C blueberries (picked locally), granola bar
Friday: Didn't eat lunch (bad!), had a granola bar and an apple.

Student Life

2008-08-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

Yep, I know I must be back to school now. It's 11:30 pm, and I have to get up tomorrow at 4 am to go out sampling marine algae. I'm still up because I have a bio oceanography, physics, and chemistry lab that I need to do write-ups for, a speech to prepare, 6 chapters to read, tons of homework problems to do, and sampling equipment and paperwork to gather up and prepare. And it's only the first week.

Oh boy.

Preserving Summer

2008-08-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

Some how this summer I got bit by the canning bug. With school starting tomorrow, I doubt there will be much time for me to continue, but I don't feel too bad about what I got done:

2 quarts + 3 pints tomato sauce
6 pints applesauce (3 cinnamon, 3 plain)
11 half-pints blueberry syrup (much more than the recipe said I'd get!)
5 cups blueberries in the freezer.

I have some cucumbers from the farmer's market that need to be used up, so I may try a can or two of pickles some night after classes or after I collect samples next weekend. Or I may put away the stockpot for now and focus on learning to knit in my free time (yeah right, what's that?).

Blueberry Syrup (from Ball's Preserving Website):
8 cups blueberries , crushed (about 3-1/2 lb)
6 cups water
1 Tbsp lemon zest
3 cups granulated sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
3 (16 oz) pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands (I used half pint jars)

Combine blueberries, 2 cups of the water and lemon zest in a large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and boil gently for 5 minutes. Transfer to a dampened jelly bag or a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth set over a deep bowl and let drain for at least 2 hours.

Prepare your boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use.

Combine sugar and 4 cups water in a clean large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar, and cook until temperature reaches 230°F (my thermometer only went to 220, so I just guessed...). Add blueberry juice and bring back to a boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Pour hot syrup into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process the jars in the canner for 10 minutes. Remove onto a clean towel for at least 24 hours before checking the seal.

Last Week of Freedom

2008-08-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Only two more days and then my days of freedom are over. It's so sad! And I still have so much to do! Things kept coming up, so I never ended up picking blueberries, but if the weather is decent tomorrow I'll go out and see what I can get. I'll also need to pick up some more canning jars, since I'm almost out of the pints and the quarts won't fit in the pot I'm using for a canner. Never to fear though, some of the quarts will be used to make jack-o-lanterns in October and others will probably be used for soup/cookie/brownie mixes.

Monday and Tuesday I spent several hours meeting with my faculty adviser for the PG&E project, and have gotten all the paperwork caught up for that. I wish the Feds would figure out how to make a decent spreadsheet, explain what exactly they want, and eliminate at least half of the paperwork! I guess it gives me experience in filling all these stupid forms out, and how to keep good scientific records and notes, but really, for what we're doing I shouldn't have to be keeping track of all this. If I would have known I'd be doing all this I don't think I would have taken this position, or at least I would have tried to get a better hourly wage. If I can get a group together, we'll go out next weekend at 6:00 AM to collect samples for the third quarter. Not what I want to do with my first weekend of the school year, I can tell you that.

I also got my hair cut on Monday. It was almost to my waist, and I wanted to keep growing it out, but it was really damaged, so I chopped it all off up to a few inches past my shoulders. I didn't like it at first, but my head is much lighter now, and I don't feel that I need to keep my hair pulled up all the time. With so many hours in labs, though, I'll probably have it up most of the time anyway.

Yesterday I was called out on a sea lion rescue (which is why the berries didn't get picked yesterday). We ended up not going out until 5:30 in the evening, and drove all around Big Lagoon looking for a place to get down the cliffs somewhere close to where the sea lion had been reported. Eventually we had to use a rope to climb down the cliff where it was about 10-12 feet tall and then walked along the beach for a good half mile at least. We never ended up finding the animal, and the tide had already come in and was starting to go back out, so whatever tracks that might have been left were gone. Hopefully the sea lion's out there somewhere swimming around happily, but realistically he's probably not. So back we trekked and used the rope to climb back up the cliff. I'm feeling a little sore today, but mostly it's from where I was carrying the heavy net on my shoulders.

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I want to pick up the house, pick berries, start the syrup cooking, and take care of a bunch of other little things so that David and I can enjoy our last free Sunday together before going back to the grind. I probably won't end up getting everything done, because I'm lazy like that, but even if I get most of it done I'll be happy.

P.S. Oh, I forgot to mention this before. Before leaving for the Alaska Adventure, I weighed at my parents house and was 243 lbs. When we got back I was 225 lbs., and now I'm hovering between 219 and 222 lbs. (I've been weighing every day, but have started only weighing once a week now). I guess only eating trail mix and hummus for two weeks was a good thing!

My Vegan 100

2008-08-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

Hannah posted this in response to the similar Omnivore's Hundred and I thought I'd go ahead and play along. Probably won't make it by the end of this year, but maybe I'll try to eat all of these before the end of next year. I haven't crossed anything out, because I'm willing to try anything, but I think there's a few things on here I'll probably end up passing on, or at least save until the very last day ;)

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.
5) Pass it on!

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough

Back At Last

2008-08-18T16:31:00.001-07:00

Sorry I've been gone for such a long time! I got back from Alaska July 19th or so, and then only had a couple of weeks to pack, clean, and move out of our old apartment and into our new one. Then we were unpacking, had company over twice, and have just generally been busy. I haven't been on the computer much the last month or so (I know, I'm shocked too). Also, my laptop has a virus, and hasn't been repaired yet, so getting on the computer has been a little trickier than normal.

But life has been very very good. I've spent the last two weekends canning 15lbs. of tomatoes and 10 lbs. of apples from the farmers markets, and tomorrow plan on picking fresh organic blueberries from a local farm and freezing some and making blueberry syrup with the rest to can. I wish I would have asked Cousin Diane a long time ago to teach me how to do all this canning. It's a lot of work, much more than I really thought it would be, but it's a lot of fun and makes me feel good knowing I'm doing something that hundreds of women have done before me and many others are doing the same thing this time of year. In the next few days I'm picking up some knitting needles and yarn from a fellow freecycler and will start teaching myself to knit.

With school starting on the 25th, I'm starting to feel a change in pace though. I won't have much time to do all the things my "domestic homemaker" self would like to (knit, canning, try making soap, baking bread), and am starting to gear up for the stressful, high-paced "student/working woman" self that is going to have to deal with my tough course load. I'll be taking physics, chemistry, biological oceanography, and oceanography seminar for a total of 15 units and about 20 hours of lab every week, not to mention day-long trips on the R/V Coral Sea every other weekend or so. Whew. I can feel my stress level rising just thinking about it! I'm also still the project director of the PG&E Marine Sampling program, and will have all that to deal with and take care of, plus my part time job at HSU School of Business. Most days I will leave the house at 7 am and not get back until 5:30-6:00 pm.

I sometimes feel bad about having to rely on my parents for financial support, but when I think about it, it really is like they're paying me to "work" at school. I'll spend about 35 hours a week between classes and homework (not counting weekend trips), and if I made $8.00/hour (less than what I'm making now at either job), it works out to over a thousand dollars a month that I'm not able to earn because I'm going to school. Looking at it that way, I feel a lot better about it, and it makes me want to do my absolute best, just like I do at a "real" job.

I'm off now to make a grocery list for tomorrow and to see what sort of school supplies I will need.

Going on the Big Trip

2008-06-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow my sister and I are leaving on our month long road trip up the Pacific coast to Alaska. I won't be posting anything to this blog until we get back home, but I will post updates about our trip in a journal dedicated solely to the trip.

Bye for now!

Relaxing at the 'Rents

2008-06-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

I have been at my parents' house the last couple of weeks, and so have not been posting. All of the meals I've been making have been repeats of the best things I've made since the last time I was down here. That way I get to impress everyone with my yummy vegan food. Even my dad has liked most of it, although 99.9% of the time he claims the meal would be better with meat.

I did try a couple new recipes though. The lemon bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking are very good, and pretty simple to make. The lemon cheesecake from the same book would have been excellent, but when we bought the Tofutti cream cheese, we picked up the herbed kind and didn't notice until too late. It's not bad, a little weird tasting, but I think with some little adjustments it might actually make a really good savory cheese cake. I also made up a crunchy chocolate truffle pie, which had a little too much peanut butter in it for my taste, but it was still very good and all the omnivores it's been served to have liked it.

We experimented last night with a veggie lasagna made with the vegan alfredo sauce I blogged about before. In a compromise with the family, I made it with mozzarella cheese. It came out pretty good, but still needs some tweaking. More veggies, more flavor in the sauce, and some Teese should do the trick.

Now I'm focusing on finishing up my sister's late graduation gift, a cookbook with all of my best vegan and vegetarian recipes (she's lacto-ovo vegetarian). I also want to look up good vegan restaurants along the route of our up-coming Great Alaska Adventure, with stops in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Juneau, Anchorage, Denali National Park, Fairbanks, and many little towns in British Columbia. I should probably find some good and cheap camping recipes. Any recommendations?

Oprah goes Vegan!!! - UPDATED

2008-05-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Oprah announced her plan to do a 21 day cleanse involving going vegan. I'm so happy to see veganism being portrayed as a positive, healthy thing in mainstream media, but especially by Oprah who has so much influence. I hope that even if she decides not to stay vegan, that she inspires others to give it a try and if nothing else, is dispelling the myth that veganism is unhealthy, hard, weird and crazy.

I noticed some of her recipes that she gives involve "beef-flavored broth", which is a little confusing. Hopefully what's meant is a vegan beef-flavored broth, and not broth with actual beef in it. I think it gives the idea that vegans still consume some animal products like beef and chicken broth when we don't.

I don't usually watch Oprah (well, I don't have TV anyway...), but I'm looking forward to keeping up with her experiment and seeing what happens. It seems like she's been leaning in this direction for a while, with her shows about puppy mills and with several authors of vegan books.

UPDATED - Now that I've had some more time to think about it, I've found some bigger flaws in this. For one, Oprah is doing a 21 day cleanse, which contributes to the image of veganism as a fad diet that one does for a little while to lose weight and then quits. She's also giving up all caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and gluten which could make others think that this is part of a vegan diet. As far as I know, Oprah is not looking at the animal products she is consuming outside of her diet, so really she is eating a strict vegetarian diet, and is not going vegan.

Overall though, I think this has the opportunity to get veganism into the mainstream in a positive light. I wonder if the FBI is working on planting someone behind the scenes to keep an eye on Oprah in case she starts participating in terrorist vegan potlucks....

Free at last!

2008-05-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last week was finals week and a weekend of PG&E sampling. What a busy stress-filled whirlwind that was. But now it's over and I'm free for the summer!

Meals definitely suffered last week. We ate out a couple of times, had frozen pizza another night. We did have a couple home cooked meals, like chicken sour cream enchiladas and sausage pasta.

I discovered that I'm not a very good cook when it comes to camping though. Or at least I wasn't on this trip. David and I left Sunday afternoon for Crescent City to break in my new tent on a little overnight trip. Since I don't really have any camping gear, I used my tiny BBQ as a heat source to make spaghetti. That doesn't work out so well. The water never boiled, and the spaghetti was a soggy, starchy mess. We ended up throwing most of it in the bear proof trash.

I finally got a chance to bake yesterday. It was David's birthday, so I made him the brownies from Joy of Vegan Baking. The recipe needs a little tweaking. The brownies are very very moist (almost raw in texture, even though I baked it 20 minutes longer than suggested) and have a strong applesauce flavor. They're starting to disappear from the pan though, so I guess they're not all that bad :)

There probably won't be too much home cooking this week either. Next week I leave to go to my parent's house for a couple of weeks to visit and see my sister's high school graduation. After that I'll be taking off for my trip to Alaska, so blogging will probably be less frequent than it is now. Hopefully we'll be able to eat plenty of good vegan food along the way, so there will be plenty to blog about when I get back.

Menu...Tuesday

2008-05-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

I meant to get this up yesterday, but remarkably, I didn't get on the computer at all yesterday until almost nine, and then I only checked my e-mail.

We ended up not sticking to the menu exactly last week, but we made everything but the spicy sausage and peppers. That's showing up again this week. Fortunately, I use those green bags and my produce really seems to be lasting longer. Now I don't feel so guilty about not making meals on the day I plan them. We also threw in the mac and cheese from the cooking class on Wednesday.

Monday: Veggie sloppy joes, local potato salad (potatoes, thyme, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper).

Tuesday: Leftovers. David will be gone until 9 or so, and I'm swamped with finals.

Wednesday: Spicy sausages and peppers, salad, local swiss chard

Thursday: David requested breakfast, so we'll have biscuits and gravy, scrambled tofu/eggs, hash browns

Friday: Teriyaki Tofu, rice, broccoli. I'm using the recipe posted last week by Laura. May just do leftovers though, since I'll be doing PG&E sampling in the evening and David won't be home.

Saturday: More PG&E sampling, so most likely leftovers.

I'm really starting to feel the end of semester crunch now. The next couple of weeks will probably be real simple and quick dinners, but after that I can start experimenting again.

Vegan Happiness

2008-04-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have never been good at social situations. I am much like my mother, in that once I am home from work and school, I don't want to deal with anyone besides my family. I don't want people to come over, I don't want to go places. Tuesday I forced myself out of the house, and I'm so glad I did.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned CCAT (Campus Center for Appropriate Technology) before here, but it is a wonderful group on campus that deals with alternative technologies and sustainability. Tonight they hosted a vegan cooking class with AWARE (Always Working for Animal-Rights & Equality); another club on campus. I was a little surprised at how many people showed up (about 12-13?), considering a lot of the fliers had been torn down around campus. The food was excellent, and the atmosphere was great. All of us hung out in the kitchen (luckily a very spacious one!) and talked, helped out, and ate. CCAT is a really special place, and I wish every one had a place like this in their lives and communities. It really lends itself to making everyone feel at home and accepted. Drop in and sit down to read a book from their library, take a few minutes to weed the garden, sign up for a class and learn about herbalism, lost arts of living, organic gardening, thermal curtains, and a myriad of other skills and topics.

And did I mention the food? Because all of it was wonderful. Well, except for the mashed cauliflower with capers. I tried to be impartial to the capers, really I did, but it wasn't happening. The menu consisted of cheap vegan comfort foods (we are po' college students after all) including raspberry cole slaw, 50 cent tomato soup, mashed cauliflower, garlic and rosemary potatoes, mac and cheese, baked tofu, and thai peanut sauce. The big winners were definitely the mac and cheese, baked tofu, and the potatoes. I made the mac and cheese last night for dinner, and even David ate it and said it was good (but that it didn't taste like cheese).

My organic gardening class (put on by CCAT) is having a local and organic potluck on Monday. I've been thinking about doing a local food month (or just in general), but I'm not sure it's possible. While Humboldt is a great area for omnivores to eat local, there are almost no vegan protein sources and very few grains. For the potluck I think I'm going to make a potato salad with oregano, lemon thyme, rosemary, and (cheating-not local, but organic) garlic and olive oil. For my local food diet, I made a modified 100 mile radius that I'm going to try to work in. I had to modify a little because half of my area would be at sea, so now I'm working in an area roughly south of Brookings and Ashland, north of Willits and Willows, and west of Susanville. I think that gives me enough options, but with more research I may need to change it a little more. As things around the house get used up, I'll slowly start replacing stuff with things grown and (possibly or) made in my little area. I can't wait until the farmer's markets start carrying things besides lettuce and starts.

Only one more week of classes!

Picture from Arcata Community.org

Another week, another menu

2008-04-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

It's the plan anyway. Life seems to have other ideas most weeks. Head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more menu ideas.

Monday: Vegan Dad's sausage and pasta. We will also make a couple of quiches for David and I to grab for a quick breakfast during the week. I'm planning on using this recipe from the Fat Free Vegan for myself, David's will be a traditional quiche with broccoli.
Tuesday: Mushroom Risotto, asparagus or spinach, salad (David's not home until 10)
Wednesday: South Western Spaghetti, salad (I'm making a separate dish with soy crumbles for myself)
Thursday: Mexican Taco Casserole, Spanish rice, steamed kale or spinach for me.
Friday: Left overs. Possibly baking bread and/or cookies. (David gone until 10:30)
Saturday: Left overs or refrigerator casserole (dump odds and ends in a pan and see what happens). (David gone until 10:30)

Last week was a jumble of leftovers and quick meals like nachos (chips, refried beans, avocado, tomato, olives, sour cream), Connie's Barf Chicken (see last post), baked penne with zucchini, and caramelized onions and tofu with apricot teriyaki sauce over sushi rice, with a couple of veggie egg rolls on the side. Between David's and my end of semester crunch and catching a cold, neither of us really felt like cooking anything complicated.

There's good news though; I seem to be mostly over my cold and avoided having it settle in my lungs and developing pneumonia like I always do (knock on wood), and there's only two more weeks until finals. After that I will be preparing things for my summer road trip, and getting the house ready for David to live without me for a month or so (the horror!). There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

2008-04-23T16:30:00.001-07:00

Has it really been three weeks since my last post? Well, time flies when you're having fun. Or having midterms, term papers, presentations, paperwork for work due at the same times, plus looking into buying a house, a couple of concerts, and your and your boyfriend's doctors appointments. And you can probably guess which category I fall under. :) The joys of being a working college student.

I went to the doctor today and she was confident that I don't have pre-diabetes. In fact, she said beside from my weight and my slightly high cholesterol and triglycerides I am in perfect health. Woot! She also said that I was doing great on my diet since I was far from anemic and didn't have any nutrient deficiency. I was a little worried when she was doing the hammer-on-the-knee thing to my right leg and my leg wasn't jumping at all, but then she moved to my left leg and I almost kicked her in the face. Apparently all is well there. Her only advice was to up the exercise more, which if my accidental 3 mile hike on Monday counts, I think I'm good for this week. I certainly wasn't a happy camper while I was hauling myself and my backpack up and down all the hills, but I was impressed when I mapped my route and discovered I'd walked that far in about an hour. Maybe I'll start taking shorter walks a couple times a week....

In a kind of ironic twist, David has been diagnosed with might-as-well-be diabetes. An A1C score of 7.0 is considered diabetic, and his score was a 6.9. He's been seeing a nutritionist, and she's recommended that he cut most carbs from his diet and eat more lean proteins like eggs and meats. She's also recommended that he stay away from most vegan protein sources because they are mostly classified as carbs. Which has made menu planning slightly trickier, but he's been good about learning to cook his own meat.

I haven't been keeping a list of what I've been eating lately, but some highlights include Vegan Dad's Pasta with Peppers and Spicy Sausage, which was excellent. Vegan Dad has now been redeemed. Even David told me to keep this recipe in the rotation. Also on the highlights list were Sour Cream Chicken* Enchiladas, which were very good, but on the second day were so spicy we couldn't eat the rest of them. Next time, less chipotle? Meatloaf and fried chicken also topped the list, but both were too salty for me. I have been using less and less salt, and have been trying to buy more low sodium items, so maybe it's just my taste buds? I've managed to catch a cold in the last few days, so last night I was happy to find vegan cream of mushroom soup and made made favorite comfort food; Connie's Barf Chicken. Not the most appetizing name, I know, but it has stuck since we first made it from Connie's recipe and my dad said it looked like someone barfed in the bowl. Pre-veg*n days, I made it with cream of mushroom soup, cream cheese/sour cream (whatever was on hand), chopped chicken breast, covered in buttered cracker crumbs and baked until everything was cooked and gooey. Last night I used Imagine brand mushroom soup, frozen chicken strips, broccoli, and some cream cheese and ate it over rice. Just what I needed. I also realized that what I liked so much about it was the cream of mushroom soup and cream cheese, so next time I might skip the chicken strips all together and just keep the broccoli instead.

Now I'm off to get yet another cup of tea and study for Friday's genetics exam. Only two weeks left of classes, a week of finals, and then I'm free for the summer and my long awaited road trip!

*You may have noticed that I'm not using Chik'n or qualifying my ingredients as vegan. I am eating almost entirely vegan except for pantry items that were bought before the switch, so just assume that when I say chicken, I mean some sort of vegan product that tastes/is meant to mimic chicken, etc.

Spring Cleaning

2008-04-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Things have gotten better (and worse!) since my last post. David and I got in a large fight that left me sulking my entire three day weekend. I should have been cleaning house, and doing school work, and getting my garden started, but instead, all I felt like doing was moping around and eating massive amounts of carbs. Oops. But after a long talk, things are resolved and back to normal and I am looking forward to actually getting stuff done this coming weekend. I hope.

I've noticed no one ever seems to post about their meals that really aren't all that good. Maybe it's because they're trying to show how good vegan food is. Maybe they don't want to admit they made something that tasted that bad. I'll admit it. Dinner last night, while still edible, is not a repeatable recipe (without some serious modifications anyway). Ketchup and mustard seem to be making it a little better, but I'm not sure I'll be able to finish all the leftovers (and David's not touching the stuff with a 10 foot pole). I found the recipe for the Cheesy Creamy Casserole on Vegan Dad's blog, which usually is filled with yummy looking dinners. However, this one didn't turn out nearly as yummy as it originally sounded. Sorry Vegan Dad. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I'm still not quite used to the nutritional yeast taste, but the orange-y pink color and texture didn't help much either.

I have also accepted Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge for the month of April. No April Fool's joke here people. I don't think it should be too hard for me really, but I will need to purchase some wood and gardening supplies. I've been trying to find suitable wood at the recycling center and on freecycle, but so far I haven't had much luck. Maybe some readers of mine would also like to step up to the challenge? Wink wink.

Well, enough stalling for me. I should start on my school work and finish up baking cookies. But I'll mostly focus on baking the cookies, because who wants to do school work? I mean, really.

2008-03-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh.... A nice bath, a quiet house, flickering candles, and no energy being used (well, except the fridge and the phones...) for an hour. I wish I would have known about Earth Hour earlier so I could have planned a party or something, but I still participated by turning off all the lights and unplugging all my stuff for one hour this evening from 8pm to 9pm. When I first heard about it a couple days ago I thought "Oh! A fun excuse for another candle lit board game night with David!", but then I realized that David would be working. So then I turned to a nice bath and some quiet me time. The ants swarming in the bathroom almost ruined it, but I was in there earlier today with stakes and spray and so far it seems to be working, so I was able to take a long bath ant-free.

You may also have noticed that I put a new picture up in the header. That was taken on Trinidad State Beach this last weekend as David and I were celebrating our 6th year anniversary. We had a really good time. We started our day with breakfast at the Daybreak Cafe. I ordered a tofu scramble with mushrooms, spinach, tomato, and bell pepper with home fries, and David had the Dharma Bum. I thought the food was really good, and it was really awesome to be able to pick ANYTHING on the menu. David, however, was not impressed at all. I guess "rabbit food" takes some getting used to. Then we went off to the beach and hung out for several hours, enjoying the sunshine while it lasted (and it never lasts long enough here!). Later we went to Abruzzi's for dinner. The atmosphere was great, and would have been perfect for an anniversary date. Except they didn't have a single vegan dish, or anything that could have been prepared vegan. We had called ahead, and were told that it shouldn't be a problem, but at the restaurant it turned out that apparently they assumed vegan=vegetarian and that milk and eggs were no problem. It was my fault for not double checking. The food would have been very good (I had steamed veggies on polenta), except I was surprised by how much my tastes have changed, and I couldn't eat much of the polenta (made with milk and butter). David had the spaghetti and said it was pretty good.

Other than that, this week has been a "might as well eat worms" kind of week. No particular reason exactly, just been in a funk. Hopefully this three day weekend working on the house, getting a garden bed set up and ready for planting, and lots of yummy baking should do the trick to pull me out of it. Since I've been clinically depressed in the past, when I get like this I always start to worry a little that it's coming back. But really, I think it has to do with the time of month and just being TIRED of school.

All of that to say, I haven't really kept track of what I've been eating this week. We made the seared veggie burritos from ED&BV, which were very good. I think next time I'll add some more spice to them. Other than that, I've pretty much been throwing stuff in a pan and eating it. And they haven't really been coming out all that great. I've also had absolutely no energy or desire to go to the gym or take a walk or do anything remotely like exercise at all (unless you count walking on the beach for several hours and climbing up and down the terraces at CCAT planting their kitchen garden). Hopefully next week will be a fresh start and I can start getting back on track. I also have my doctor's appointment on Thursday, so we will see what she says about my lab results.

Progress, Not Perfection

2008-03-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

Monday:
Exercise: Relaxed from another long weekend of work
Meals: Apple, toast with PB
Left over Alfredo sauce with pasta
Papa Murphy's pizza (spinach, olives, mushrooms, no cheese)

Tuesday:
Exercise: Nothing besides lugging an ice chest full of frozen samples around
Meals: Left over pizza
Calzones made with crescent roll dough (from a can), Alfredo sauce, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and some "steak" strips. The dough wasn't quite done in all of them, but them were really good!

Wednesday:
Exercise: Housecleaning (and there was lots to be cleaned!)
Meals: Lack of groceries forced me to turn to David's Corn Pops and almond milk...ick
Hand full of almonds and dried apricots
Hummus with roasted bell peppers (from Safeway), Kashi's TLC crackers (not vegan, but very yummy!), 1/2 Dr. Pepper
Enchilada Bake with vegan sour cream and Spanish rice
Popcorn with nutritional yeast flakes

Thursday:
Exercise: None again today
Meals: Leftover enchilada bake with Spanish rice
Sandwiches with chips. David had ham and cheese, I had mashed up white beans with garlic, sprouts, tomato, and lettuce on sourdough bread. Really good.

Friday:
Exercise: It's spring break, I get to be lazy, right??
Meals: Acai Smoothie from Eat, Drink, & be Vegan (ED&BV)
Leftover enchilada bake
Orange Sesame Tofu with steamed swiss chard and coconut lime quinoa, all from ED&BV and roasted Brussels sprouts. Wasn't as good as I had hoped, but it was still alright. Next time I think I'll add more orange juice and less soy sauce and sesame oil.

Saturday:
Exercise: Go ahead, guess.
Meals: Acai smoothie, english muffin with Earth Balance, green tea
No-Tuna Melt with guacamole, apples, chips. This was really really good! I left out the onion, and just sprinkled on some nutritional yeast instead of cheese. A keeper for sure.

Oooh, yummy

2008-03-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just saw this post on VeganYumYum, and I think I need to run out to the store right now and get the stuff to make these for tomorrow. I think I'm drooling....

Enchilada Bake

2008-03-20T15:13:00.001-07:00

For dinner last night we had the layered enchilada bake I found on Fat Free Vegan. It was pretty good but needs a few adjustments.

Enchilada Bake:

1 large bell pepper (red or green)

1 large onion

1 can refried beans (see note on black beans)

1 can enchilada sauce

1 cup salsa (homemade or otherwise, as spicy as you want)

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained (Next time I am using two cans of refried beans instead)

tortillas (any kind, but corn tortillas work well)

optional: 1 medium tomato

sliced olives (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 (F). Dice the onion, pepper, and tomato (if using). Saute the onion and bell pepper in a pan, we did not like the crunchy onions. Spray the bottom of a casserole dish with cooking spray and lay down tortillas. Spread a layer of refried beans on the top of the tortillas. Pour half of the salsa and half of the onions over the beans. Put another layer of tortillas on top of this layer. Layer the black beans (refried beans), green pepper, tomato (if using), and the rest of the salsa and onion on top of the tortillas. Put another layer of tortillas on the top (your casserole should be pretty full by now). Pour the can of enchilada sauce over the whole thing and bake, covered, for about 35-45 minutes or until it's hot and bubbly all the way through.

Next time I may also try added a little vegan cheese to the top, but I thought it was pretty good without any. David added some shredded cheddar to his serving. Putting it together took no time at all, and it was easy to clean up (except enchilada sauce always stains all my plastic stuff for a few washes....)

Busy Busy

2008-03-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

Last week was crazy, and I didn't keep track of what I ate at all. I didn't do much in the exercise department. I was sore from a weekend of boating, then double digging in my organic gardening class, and then this weekend I spent my time climbing over breakwaters to collect algae, clams, and marine sediment for (one of) my job(s). Between all that, I am sore, and haven't felt much like climbing on a bike or rowing machine.

Meals have pretty much been using up the stuff in the fridge or from short trips to the store. I know I had roasted cauliflower and pasta again one night, a veggie burger and acorn squash, and two nights ago I tried my hand at a vegan Alfredo sauce that I saw on Vegan Dad and Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan. The recipe originally came from Lachesis on the PPK forums It was amazingly good, much better than I had been anticipating, but there was something missing. I'm not sure what it was. More garlic, a tad more salt? Something else? It was still very good, and I served it up over some whole wheat noodles and steamed cauliflower, broccoli, and baby carrots.

Vegan Alfredo Sauce:

1/2c Earth Balance

2 cups unsweetened soy milk (I don't usually drink soy milk, preferring almond milk, but I think this is probably the best choice here)

1 package Extra firm silken tofu (the kind in the little white box that doesn't need refrigeration)

1-2 tbsp white cooking wine (I didn't use this)

2 tbsp onion powder

2-3 tsp garlic powder

1-2 tsp sea salt

1-2 tsp black pepper (to taste)

pinch of nutmeg

3-4 tbsp arrowroot or cornstarch powder

Mix all ingredients in either in a food processor or blender. Heat over medium low heat until hot, stirring often. Pour a little bit into a bowl and whisk in arrowroot/cornstarch, dump mixture back into the pot and heat until just bubbling. Do not boil. Sauce should be thick.

This makes a lot, and I'll probably end up making calzones with the Alfredo sauce, some broccoli, and lots of garlic soon. Yum yum.

Late Weekly Update

2008-03-11T19:55:00.001-07:00

Well, since I was so busy this weekend between playing on boats and transporting seals and was too tired to post last weeks meals, here they are. Last week was pretty busy and I can't seem to remember everything that I ate. You may notice a few non-vegan items on here this week, that's because I am using up what's in my pantry and fridge and will be restocking with vegan items.

Monday:
Exercise: 30 minutes on the bike
Meals: I remember I had Kashi's Autumn Wheat cereal with raisins and sliced almonds (dry) as a breakfast on the go, but after that it gets fuzzy....
at least 1 liter of water

Tuesday:
Weigh-in: 233 lbs. (Note: this is a different scale than the one in the dr.'s office that gave my starting weight)
Exercise: 35 minutes on the bike
Meals: Kashi Autumn Wheat with raisins (dry)
Peanut butter, raisins, shredded carrots in a whole wheat tortilla, an orange
Follow Your Heart (FYH) vegan cheese, "steak" strips, BBQ sauce melted on a whole wheat tortilla with avocado and edamame mashed on top
Fajita with onions, bell pepper, and more "steak" strips, baked beans.
1.5 liters water

Wednesday:
Exercise: 2 hour walk on Trinidad State Beach with geology class
Meals: Tofu scramble, toast with Earth Balance
Whole wheat pasta salad with roasted cauliflower, seitan, and ground almond and sunflower seed "Parmesan cheese", apple, Autumn Wheat with raisins
Spaghetti, spaghetti squash, broccoli, toast

Thursday:
Exercise: None :(
Meals: Autumn wheat with dried apricots
Slug with cream cheese (picture above belongs to Los Bagels), chocolate soy milk
Whole wheat pasta salad with roasted cauliflower, seitan, "Parmesan cheese", squash, apple

Friday:
Exercise: none :(
Meals: I only remember I had pasta salad with roasted cauliflower and baked tofu with some steamed kale for dinner.

I'm unique just like everyone else

2008-03-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

I went in and had blood drawn last Monday for some tests. I got the results back in the mail today:

Complete Blood Count: normal (no anemia)
Chemistry profile: normal (normal kidney and liver function, normal BLOOD SUGAR, normal calcium, sodium, potassium
TSH: normal (normal thyroid)
Total Cholesterol: 201 (want it below 200)
LDL: 122 (want it below 99)
HDL: 43 (want it above 40)
Triglycerides: 181 (want it below 150)

It seems I'm pretty normal and healthy, which is good. I need to work on cholesterol, but even then, my numbers don't see to be that far from "normal", and with cutting out the dairy, I should be able to bring that under control fairly easily. I'll have to wait and see what the doctor says about the results, but from what I can tell, everything seems to be good news.

I will update more a little later, but I am still very sore from this weekend, spending 22 hours between boating safety exercises and doing a harbor seal pup rescue. The little girl just laid down and went right to sleep in the back of the car and slept all the way to Orick. Next time I promise to bring the camera out with me and post pictures of the cute little guys (the picture above belongs to the New England Aquarium). Also, just in case anyone is not aware; I volunteer with a marine mammal rescue center and am authorized to take marine mammals from the beach and to transport them to the facility. Unless you also fall under this category, DO NOT BOTHER, POKE, TOUCH, TAKE or otherwise disturb any marine mammal you may find on the beach. They are protected by law and can be dangerous, so if you see one that looks sick or is being bothered by people or pets, call your local sheriff or marine mammal rescue, but do not attempt to help it yourself.

Panko Stuffed Mushrooms

2008-03-01T17:57:00.000-08:00

Dinner last night turned out great. I took the panko stuffed mushroom recipe from Veganomicon and modified it to stuff two portobello mushrooms. Then I served them up with seared green beans with chili and garlic and polenta. Very yummy.

Panko Stuffed Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS
o 22 big mushrooms (they sometimes are called “stuffing mushrooms”), washed and patted dry (I used two good sized portobellos plus about 4 chopped button mushrooms)
o 1 tablespoon peanut oil
o 3 cloves garlic, minced
o 1 cup finely diced daikon (I used celery)
o 3 tablespoons mirin
o 1/2 teaspoon salt
o 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
o 1 1/2 cups panko
o 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, plus extra for greasing the pan and garnish
o 2–4 tablespoons water
o 1/2 cup finely chopped scallions, plus extra for garnish
o 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (left off)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350°F.Remove the stems from the mushrooms. Do not discard the stems; chop them up small and set them aside.
Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Pour in the peanut oil and sauté the chopped mushroom for about 3 minutes, until some moisture has released. Add the diced daikon and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring often. Add the garlic and cook for a minute longer.Add the mirin, salt, and white pepper, and cook for about 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat and add the panko in 1/2-cup batches and stir, alternately adding the sesame oil and splashes of water (up to 4 tablespoons) until all the bread crumbs are moist. The mixture should be crumbly but, when you press some between your fingers, it should hold together. Mix in the scallions and adjust the salt to taste.

Grease a baking sheet with a little sesame oil. Stuff each mushroom with the filling and place on the baking sheet. To stuff them, place a little of the filling into the mushroom crevice and then add another tablespoon on top of that, pressing firmly to form a mound. Bake for 20 minutes.

I would have made the filling a little more moist and baked them for a little longer, or possibly broiled them at the very end. But they were excellent. The green beans I just sauteed in some peanut oil and water, added a ton of garlic, a pinch of chili flakes and called it good.

First Steps

2008-02-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

I got in to see the new doctor today. The office was very clean and when I went back, the nurse was nice (although she laughed at me, more on that later) and nothing screamed that I needed to leave and make an appointment somewhere else. We went through all the weight, temperature, blood pressure stuff and since I was in for diabetes testing, she did a finger prick for blood sugar. She told me I better hope I never got diabetes, because I was horrible with the finger prick. The dr. came, was very nice, went through all the family history stuff, talked for a little bit, and she said that she is not really worried about diabetes, but because of the history we will be doing tests. I go in sometime next week to do a fasting blood sugar, lipid panel, and general blood work and go back to discuss the results and get a physical next month (assuming nothing in the lab work is horrible).

This check-up:
Weight: 236.6

BMI: 37.1
Temp: 99.7
BP: 114/70 (lowest I've ever had it!)
BS: 107

The only thing she told me was to try to up the exercise, so we'll see what the lab shows and play it by ear.

This week I ate entirely vegan (except for the leftover pizza) and tried to get in some exercise.

Monday:
Exercise: 30 minutes on bike
Meals: smoothie
left over veggie pizza
1.5 liters water
(Can't remember what I had for dinner, maybe nothing?)

Tuesday:
Exercise: walked home; 15 minutes fast pace,
Meals: whole wheat bagel with vegan cream cheese
pre-made inari sushi from the Depot on campus
whole wheat pancakes with corn and hot dogs mixed in
1.0 liters water, .5 can Pepsi

Wednesday:
Exercise: walked home; 15 minutes fast pace
Meals: left over pancake with vegan butter and peach jam
seitan salad wrap, apple, handful Terra veggie chips
whole wheat couscous with Moroccan vegetables and steamed greens
vegan strawberry milkshake
2.0 liters water

Thursday:
Exercise: none
Meals: left over pancake with butter and peach jam, 1 soy sausage
left over couscous with vegetables, handful Terra veggie chips, 1 dark chocolate kiss
Baked whole wheat rigatoni with zucchini and mushrooms, steamed broccoli
1.0 liters water

Friday:
Exercise: none
Meals: granola bar (may not have been vegan, was in the cupboard)
left over baked rigatoni
will have Panko stuffed mushroom with green salad and seared green beans, maybe some mashed potatoes
so far 1.0 liters water, .5 can Pepsi

Not a bad start. I need to make more of an effort to go to the gym and I'm thinking about buying a locker so I don't have any excuse not to go and work out because I couldn't stuff gym clothes in my backpack. If anyone wants, I will start posting the recipes I'm using and give them some sort of a rating system (how I liked them, how David liked them).

Introductions

2008-02-23T13:39:00.001-08:00

I am writing this blog to document my journey to health and hopefully the prevention of diabetes. Since I discovered less than a week ago that I must start making immediate changes to help avoid what my family history has left me, this blog will document every step.

Currently I am 21 years old, roughly 230 pounds (carried evenly over my body), 5'7" and vegetarian. Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and heart attacks are very common in my family. I have always had trouble with my weight, and even when actively making an effort to lose weight I have had very little success controlling my weight. I am fairly active, although I could move a lot more.

This issue came up from a trip to the student health clinic on campus for a UTI. The doctor noticed a slight yellow/light brown discoloration around my neck (acanthosis nigricans). She asked if I usually had very heavy, painful periods. Yes, before going on BC. Did I have a family history of diabetes. Yes. Did I have trouble with my weight. Yes. Did I notice that I sometimes get very tired and "crash" after eating. Yes. She told me that I have pre-diabetes, and unless I take steps to correct it, I could be looking at Type 2 diabetes in a few years. She recommended the South Beach Diet, exercising 30 minutes a day, and trying Metformin to help my body absorb insulin.

At this point I have not been tested for diabetes. I will be going to another doctor early this week for testing and to find out where I should go from here. From doing some research on the internet, I have come up with this approach that will be fine tuned after my doctor's appointment:

Eat a whole foods vegan diet. Currently I eat no meat, very little fish (once a month maybe), no eggs, and very little dairy. I plan on replacing all my grains, breads, and pastas with whole grain alternatives and work harder at getting in more fiber, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and to cut all milk and cheese from my diet. I hope to still be able to eat sweets occasionally, but I will be cutting the majority of them out of my everyday diet.

Exercise 30 minutes a day. Starting next week, I will make a effort to bike or row 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and do weight training with my boyfriend on Tuesday and Thursdays. I will also start doing yoga for 15-20 minutes everyday.

This blog. Hopefully by documenting my progress and having support from others, I can stay on track and live a much healthier and more active life. I also hope it can help others who are going through similar situations or who are hoping to use a vegetarian/vegan diet to manage their diabetes.

The photo was taken out of my back window in Arcata.