B is for Broccoli

So, B is for broccoli and today I made spicy garlic broccoli over rice.

Yey! It turned out quite delicious. I made a sauce with cornstarch, vegetable broth, garlic, red pepper flakes, maple syrup, soy sauce and sesame oil. I mixed really well until the cornstarch was unlumpy, and poured over top of the broccoli. I then put a lid on it and let it steam in the liquid for a minute or two, stirred a few times and poured it over rice.

I really like soy sauce and maple syrup together, waay better than regular sugar and soy sauce.
Looking forward to tomorrow!

A is for Asparagus

So I missed the first day of Vegan MoFo. My internet decided to be out for the day, but I still made the first dish of the month, Asparagus in a Blanket with Hollindaise sauce.

Surprisingly it was a complete poor planning mistake on my part that turned out awesome. I was planning on making a cutlet of sorts with setian and tofu, i added the tofu and spices to the food processor and went looking for the seitan. It never turned up so, I improvised and added flour until it was a workable dough.

After that, I spread the tofu dough out, wrapped it around some asparagus and baked it at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, flipping at the halfway point. They turned out moist and chewy and with the addition of the vegan hollindaise, quite delicious.

I'm super excited about continuing to cook/bake by the alphabet. If anyone would like the recipe, just ask in a comment and i'll post it.

woah, vegan mofo

So, I just signed up for vegan MoFo (month of food), this amazing conglomeration of vegan bloggers writing blogs on only vegan things at least 20 times for the month of November.  Woohoo. All vegan all the time-for real. I'm going to post at least 26 times because I'll be doing the vegan alphabet. Fun Fun. The deadline for signing up is on November 2nd, so there isn't much time left.
The address for more information is :
http://veganmofo.wordpress.com/



Let the vegan fun commence!

Lava cakes and Expendable movies

So, we gathered ourselves off the leaf strewn floor and marched back to the car. The camping trip was over and the next one was being developed. As for now, I'm chowing down on boxed lava cakes, trying to ignore the very evident sugar high/rush that's starting to take over.

I've recently had some thoughts about my life not being where I want it to be. I live in spirit and sometimes it's only trying to live in spirit. I get this feeling in my chest and i know that my situation has different choices. I can choose to either follow spirit and feel good or neglect spirit feelings and choose something that will make me feel bad. Recently, I've felt guilty without any preparation for it. Just thinking about situations or before i go to bed and my mind is going in a million different directions, I'll feel like I'm making a bad spirit decision. I talked it out with the love of my life and I think I've spent so much of my spoken life trying to reassure others with lies and/or truths that I've neglected that my soul requires true words spoken to keep it going. You don't think about all the white lies you tell or the justification lies you slip in to make others feel better or situations feel right until they buildup to overwhelming proportions and you can't sleep anymore.

So, here's to the truth.

Pan-America

So, it looks like the new idea on the books is traveling the Pan-American highway down to the tip of South America. It's definitely a few years away on the books. We both want to travel, or at least I've talked about it incessantly until he agreed that he wants to travel as well. We're already fantasying about outfitting a, as of yet, nonexistent  Toyota Tacoma with one of those fancy autohome tents that go on top of a rack. They're really neat, they have a hard top and one of the ones we like have gas rams that pop the tent up in 3 seconds. Really awesome. They have four season tents, so we'd have no problems going from amazon to mountains. The other idea is to go bounce around the national park system here in the United States. Since he has a service connected disability we get a free park pass so, we definitely should take advantage of it. What's really cool is that the vehicle setup would be the same if we stay in the states or go to South America. So, we could stay here for a few years and then head down the pan-american highway and be completely outfitted.

On other news, J's mom is coming into town today. This is the first time he's seen her in years, the first time for me meeting her as well. He's a mix of energy/excitement/tinge of nervous. I'm excited because he's cleaning the house with no prompting from me. Oh, and last night our bike closet roof started leaking and dropped plaster down on the bikes. Yey for old apartment buildings!


And now to start helping in the cleaning parade.

fun til death!

What we want from each other

I smell my husbands farts and not seeing him, am afraid that I’m the one in the crowd smelling like shit. It’s a mixture of dog shit and unwashed body, so it’s very possible it’s me. I talked to my mother today. Yesterday Maggie called me. She was shopping or shoplifting, with her you can never be too sure, at Lord and Taylor. She called to just talk. Throughout the whole conversation ,which only lasted a few minutes since Justin and I were quite ravenous, I kept waiting for her to tell me what she wanted. She never did for what she wanted was to talk to me.
Later that day I was replaying the conversation with her in my head and realized that she only wanted to talk to me. I pointed it out to my husband that I was so out of practice with having friends, that I assumed when anyone called me it was because someone wanted something. Rolling that thought around in my head, I started to analyze the other conversations I have with people. I realized that I fall into the category myself of only calling people when I wanted something from them- an emotional response, a vent, advice, a favor.
Today I tried to correct that habit I’ve gotten myself into. I woke up before my husband, which is usual for us. I can’t wait to move into a house. Not because I dislike our car, but so I have rooms to be in while he’s sleeping. Rooms to write, make coffee, do yoga, talk to myself. I got dressed, unfolded myself from the car, and started texting people. First, I texted my cousin in the hopes he would play frisbee golf with us (yes essentially wanting something from him). Then, I texted Maggie asking her how her morning was -not wanting anything from her ( I’m trying). I also texted my ex-boyfriend from a while ago, honestly I don’t know why I still contact him, we hadn’t talked in a long time and out of the blue a few weeks ago he tells me his circle of friends back where he is, found the porn we made years ago and was distributing it. Somehow through that exchange I began talking to him again. I asked him something literary related because that’s the only thing we have in common anymore. After a few back and forth responses, we both gave up. Lastly, I called my mother. She’s usually the brunt of my calling for something, so I tried something different and called for the hell of it. Of course she wasn’t there.
After attempting my selfless deeds for the day, and none of them panning out, I returned to our car in the hopes that sleep would overtake me. As with the spirit of the day, that as well didn’t pan out. Eventual we roused ourselves up, got dressed and made our way out to the frisbee golf course. As soon as we are done playing, my mom calls me back.
As soon as we start talking I begin to look for clues as to what she wants. She’s telling me about her day, staining benches, getting ready for parties, not looking forward to having to travel for her job. She asks me about my interest in Isaac Singer. She doesn't want anything from me. And I’m having a hard time talking to her because I’m trying to figure out what I wanted from her in the first place. I get really excited talking about Isaac Singer, can tell she’s not super interested in it and my interest in the conversation is wavering. She makes sure to remind me the make sure we get the paid bus tickets before we agree to the job we’re doing coming up. The one where we get to drive a 14’ Uhaul from Asheville, to DC with Noami. It’s one of those reminders that make me roll my eyes, because we have such different points of view of people. She’s always concerned that people are going to screw her or me over. She has an unhealthy distrust in everybody. It makes me sad, because I wonder what made her so apprehensive. Sometimes I’ll compare our lives and realize I don’t really know her life that well. I’ve never been her friend, always her daughter. I remember one time in high school telling her that she’s the type of person I would have beat up. Yeah, cause I was a super beat people up type of person.
Anyways, I’m sitting on the phone listening to my mom and grateful that she has to leave, so we can both gracefully exit from the conversation. We’re going to go visit her in a few weeks around my birthday. I’m trying really hard not to get my hopes up. I did that a few times and on my 21st instead of getting homemade lasagna for my birthday, she bought Chinese take-out (worst thing when you’re going to be drinking all night). Instead of getting lasagna for my 22nd birthday, I got spaghetti. And this year for my 23rd I’ve asked again for my favorite food for my birthday again, and I wonder what we’ll get.
The downfall of the lasagna ritual was the day I went vegan. She had a hard time doing a vegetarian lasagna, but when I crossed the no dairy no eggs threshold, the cooking function in her brain blew up a little bit. The few times I go over there now, I expect spaghetti and I’m never disappointed. I’m always confused by how hard it is for the average person to understand how to cook vegan food. Many popular food items can be amended to suit a vegan. Cook with oil, for instance.
So, when I do finally get off the phone with my mother, I realize that my experiment in calling others for the hell of it, is a bit of a failure. Or, at least something I’ll have to really focus on to accomplish. With being married now, I’m being to work more self-sufficiently. Most of my want for human communication is satisfied by my husband. What little conversation or stimulation I need from others, usually comes in the form of requests, or questions I know they’ll have the answer to. It's difficult to change a routine that we start for ourselves.