What's In Your Pantry?

A note of thanks

2011-07-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

So, I have been away stu[dying] for the Bar Exam. And over the course of the summer, many of my fellow Bar-takers and friends from school have been posting hilarious/sad-but-true/insane blog posts of many people venting about the process of studying for the Bar. Today's buzzworthy post is this little gem, and I can't say I haven't felt exactly like the author the last few days.

The July 2011 California Bar Exam starts a week from today and lasts 3 days. In the next week, I still have four new areas of law I have yet to cover, and I'm still desperately trying to review/memorize the other 12 areas of law I've gone through once. I got what I thought was the flu in June, gave myself a few days to rest then, only to be in the ER a week later with a serious bacterial infection, which my doctors are still completely stumped by. Then my husband, around the same time, became hobbled by bone spurs in his ankles, making it all but impossible for him to walk, and is now waiting on surgical options in San Francisco. All in all, this means that I lost about 7-10 full days of studying, (including a few days where I think I just had a panic attack and quit life). I got so behind on my online syllabus with my Bar Review course that they have, to date, sent me 3 emails expressing their concern with my progress and that they feel I am jeopardizing my chances passing the Exam unless I pull it together and turn in my homework. I'm pretty sure these e-mails triggered 2 out of the 3 "freaked out to the point of paralysis" days. I have also had serious trouble sleeping, initially requiring the use of sleeping pills, and most recently, a small dosage of melatonin at night.

I write all of this to say that I completely understand how my peers feel (I am very honestly and truthfully concerned I will not pass the Bar exam this time), and that I, too, have wanted to snap at people who flippantly say "Oh I'm sure you'll do fine!" whenever I whine about the exam. Its true, non-lawyers and non-law student friends really don't understand what its like (I give exception to my medical professional friends, whom I think can relate). And its hard to swallow their well-meaning but ill-advised comments at a time when running out of binder clips is enough to send me into a fit of rage.

But in my personal experience, my friends, family, and community have gotten it far more right than they have gotten it wrong these last 2 months, and for that I am eternally grateful.

My mother has been a wonderfully encouraging champion and has given me lots of pep talks until most recently, when I calmly and rationally explained my fears about failing the Bar. She listened quietly, sat there for a minute in silence, and instead of waving off my concerns, just said "You know, if you do fail, its not the end of the world. We just take it again. We hope we pass the first time, but if we don't, we take it again. That's it." She then proceeded to say, "I feel bad, because I feel like maybe I should have been more worried with you instead of just assuming you'd pass and telling you so all this time." She's also only called me twice this summer, when I was sick. Otherwise, she's let me be the one to initiate contact, so that I could do it at my leisure, and when I felt I needed it. God bless her.

My brother and Dad have similarly followed suit. My brother has sent a few welfare-check e-mails to tell me he loves me. That's it. My non-lawyer friends have also only called a few times to check in. Many have resorted to cards, e-mails, and text messages, thinking a phone call would be too jarring. Many others have prayed with me, prayed for me, or have simply put a hand on my shoulder after church telling me that I have been in their prayers and that they love me. Its as if everyone around me is saying "We understand its hard right now and we want to give you all the breathing room you need to cope with this situation the best way you know how."

But you know what is the best thing my friends and family have done this summer? They haven't left me out of the loop when something wonderful OR equally terrible has happened to them. Despite the fact that I look/sound like Gollum most days, I have gotten joyous phone calls about engagements, pregnancies and babies being born this summer. I've gotten news about cancer diagnoses (yes, multiple), accidents, and financial meltdowns. All of this news was shared with me without any expectation that I would have the time or emotional stamina to talk very long, or be able to do anything about it. Rather, it was shared in the spirit of "you are still a valued person in my life, with whom I want to share this with, despite the fact that you are a zombie and can't do anything other than give me a few words of congratulations or solace." It was an affirmation that I'm still part of a community, that life does wonderfully and terribly go on, and that I am still trusted enough to share in the joys and burdens of their lives. How wonderful.

And my husband. How could I have gotten through this death spiral without my Mike? He's successfully taken the Maryland and California Bar exams in the last year, so he intimately understands what I'm going through. But more importantly, he's been 100% there for me. Literally. Mike is still looking for a full-time job, but he intentionally decided against taking any contract work that would take him out of the house this summer. He's also passed on applying to jobs that would start anytime before August. When asked why, he kindly, but firmly, responds "My job this summer is to support my wife."

Last year when we told my parents we wanted to get married, my mom suggested we hold off on the wedding until after I took the Bar Exam, because she didn't want adjusting to living together to distract me from studying. (We are old school and did not live together before we got hitched). Mike wanted to be as respectful of my parents wishes as possible, but to this assertion he confidently told them, "Being married is going to help her studies, not harm them. Its going allow me to take even better care of your daughter during the Bar Exam, because we will be living together and I will be able to be around 24/7 to take care of her. She will be my family, my first priority." And its why we got married in March during my Spring Break.

I know most of us don't want our partners hovering all day long, and I know even fewer have that luxury in the first place. But I truly can't imagine going through this summer without Mike nearby. Even when I'm out of the house studying somewhere, the knowledge that I can leave at any time and go home to my husband for a hug has gotten me through more afternoons that I can count. Money has been tight and I know Mike is eager to work, but its been absolutely priceless to have him around. And when I was carted off to the ER with a 103 fever in June, and required 24 hour care at home for a solid week, my mom said Mike had been absolutely right to fight for an earlier wedding.

I've cried into the left armpit of Mike's shirts more times than I can count this summer. He just pats my shoulder, changes his sodden shirt, turns on the humidifier so I can breathe through my snot-clogged nostrils, and tells me its going to be okay. And when he tells me he understands, I know he does. He prays for me several times a day, either silently from the other room, or with me when he thinks I'm slipping into despair. And when I stomp through the house in ripped, stained wife-beaters and teal clearance PJ pants I bought for $3.74 because none of my clothes fit right now, he tells me I'm beautiful.

I've turned to my husband countless times this summer to apologize. For being mean. For being short-tempered. For not making any sense. For making him eat the same thing 4 days in a row, simply because all I want is rice and scrambled eggs for dinner. For never being home. For driving him nuts when I am home. For not doing any laundry, dishes, recycling or vacuuming in 2 months. For dragging him to Walmart at midnight because I need a specific kind of legal pad and highlighter. For going to Target in a daze and coming home with a bunch of junk we don't need, like teal PJ pants.

In other words, I'm definitely married to the one God made for me. The other day when I said "I'm sorry I'm such a psycho," Mike responded: "You've been this crazy the entire time I've known you. I've always known you were a nutbag. None of this is news to me. I knew you you'd drag me to the grocery store at 2am for tuna fish, or that you wouldn't shower, or that you'd want to yack about nonsense for 3 hours before going to bed every night and then complain that you were tired in the morning, before we got married. In fact, I knew all these things about you before we even started dating. I knew what I was getting into. And you're still absolutely the perfect wife for me."

So yes, studying for the Bar is horrible. Yes, its hard for people to understand what we're going through. But more often than not, our friends and family get it right. They know we're going through something awful and they want to help however they can. And despite all evidence pointing to the fact that we're huge, selfish assholes, they still trust us to share in their dreams and heartbreak. And they do so while letting our crazy hang out.

So thank you friends.

Thank you family.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Pass or fail, I couldn't have done it without you.

I wanna go back to Paris!

2011-06-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

Let it be known that j'adore Paris and that I REALLY want this trip:

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/06/goes-to-paris/

Its what I dream of while stu[dying] for the Bar Exam.

Bar Hell

2011-06-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm studying for the CA Bar. Its horrible. Don't ever go to law school.

In the meantime, I just found out our little tiny wedding got blogged!

Check it out at La Petite Coquin!

Paging Mrs. O'Brien

2011-04-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Hi. Remember me? I have been away for a while. What with law school, supporting Mike through his Bar Exam, planning our wedding and finding a new place to live, things have been too crazy to blog. But I wanted to come by and share some photos from our big day and say "hi." I hope to be back to blogging soon.

All photos by our amazing photographer, Megan Holly Clouse Photography.

Reflections in the Eye of the Storm

2010-11-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Oh dear loves, thank you for your kind words of encouragement regarding my last post. Its funny and surreal to get a message from a friend and a stranger at the same time, saying the same thing: be you, be lovely, be happy. Friend and stranger: you are both right. And in the midst of the hurricane of sh*t that is my life right now, I had a clear moment last night. An "eye of the storm" moment, if you will, about what this is all about and how incredibly lucky I am.

I sat up against a pile of pillows in bed last night, returning panicked e-mails from my students, in an apartment filled with junk and dirty dishes, and, for some reason, I just stopped and stared at a wall for a while. As my mind went blank, I heard my TV blaring in the living room and started to laugh at the fact that Mike was listening to a law lecture at 11:00pm, simply because after fighting with his computer cables and laptop all day, he'd FINALLY figured out a way to play his MPRE lecture on the television.

I looked over to the other side of my bedroom and saw that somewhere between my window and bookcase, Mike had found an open spot on the floor to place a pink hamper of clean laundry that he'd washed and folded for me during the day.

On my nightstand, I found the small cup of foam earplugs he keeps handy so that he can hold me and still keep his sanity while I snore in his ear, curled up like a baby koala. Often times, the poor guy snuggles with me until I get nice and sleepy, goes off to his own place past midnight, and then returns at 7am to hold me for a few minutes and shake me awake for class.

Even the mess I'd been fretting about, I realized, were remnants of a happy couple living a happy life. Dirty dishes from a Sunday pot roast I'd happily made and he'd happily eaten. A pair of dirty coffee mugs sitting on the table after we'd decided to break into the new pumpkin spice coffee at 10 o'clock at night. A Costco-sized bag of his favorite Sunkist Gems sitting in the middle of the living room because there was no place else to put them.

The bottom line is, amidst the crush of school, work, cleaning, cooking, wedding planning, fuming and panicking, I'm happy. Ridiculously so. And I'm so, so lucky. I love him, he loves me, and we're just two people who want wake up and do all this everyday for the rest of our lives.

And that's why I'm excited to get married.

I know that Mike and I are together now after all these years because God wanted this for us. And despite the whirlwind nature of our courtship, despite what it looks like on the outside, we choose faith. We choose to have faith that God knows what He's doing, we choose to have faith in each other, and, in agreeing to this batsh*t crazy scheme, our families have also chosen to have faith in us.

Nothing brought this home for me more than a tear-filled conversation with my mom. I was going on and on about trying to bridge the culture gap, and how hard it was to meet everyone's expectations. I told her I didn't want something minor to end up offending one set of parents because the other set didn't understand where we were coming from. And I didn't want her to feel sad because we weren't going to do certain things the way most Korean American brides do them.

You know what she said? These are words I hope every bride hears from her parents, and if not, I hope you hear it here from me and take it to heart:

"You know what Yooli? All of this? The money, the time, the effort? All of this is just so that we have the privilege to bear witness to the fact that God made someone just for you. Do you know how lucky you are to have that? I don't care what Mike's parents want or don't want. I don't care about what other people might think. And I definitely don't want you to feel pressured to do anything for my sake. Mike is enough. You guys getting married and living happily ever after is enough. If no one else shows up to the wedding, if the food sucks, if it rains...As long as Mike shows up and you two get married and I'm there to see it, then that's enough. I love Mike, I love that he makes you happy, I love that he's joining our family. And that is enough for me. So don't be stressed, don't get upset, and don't pick fights. Make wedding planning fun and choose to be happy."

You're right Mom. I am happy, and I choose to be happy about my wedding.

I've fretted about my wedding dress and how my chubby arms will look in pictures for hours. I've obsessed about how my ceremony photos will look horrible because I hate my side profile. I've even wondered if we could do the ceremony facing the church because of that. I've fretted about our budget, the food, being too mainstream, being unreasonably DIY-indie-bride, and about whether or not I was becoming a Bridezilla.

And today I choose to not do that anymore.

I'm going to don a white dress and probably pay a ridiculous amount of money for hair and makeup on my wedding day, not because of pictures or my guests or what wedding magazines say I should look like. It will be for the man smiling at the other end of the church who would have thought I was beautiful no matter what I had chosen to look like that day. And I'm going to cry even if ruins my makeup and the resulting pictures, because if I'm crying writing this post, then I'll surely be a hot mess on that day.

I choose to be happy.

About my life.

About my wedding.

About my choices.

About my husband-to-be.

Because, as my mom says, at the end of the day, I still get a life with Mike. And he's enough.

Gluten Free Pantry?

2010-10-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

So, Mike (the fiance) has always had a sensitive gut. He can't eat cheese (although he can eat all kinds of fresh dairy) and often gets a stomachache for almost no reason. The truly sad part, however, is that he's gotten so used to having stomach problems that he doesn't really think of it as being abnormal. Fortunately for Mike, he has a fiance that notices these things and starts thinking about them.

I've noticed that Mike usually gets an upset stomach when we eat out. He hardly, if ever, gets sick when I cook for him at my place. I try not to eat overly processed foods, I strictly monitor my soy intake (my motto is to "eat soy on purpose," instead of eating it unwittingly), and I believe in eating lots of healthy fats (grassfed butter, coconut oil, olive oil). We only eat grassfed/organic/pastured meat and eggs at home, usually raised within 75 miles of us.

However, I think the biggest difference in my diet at home is what starches I eat. I like to eat whole starches, like sweet potatoes, squash, corn, potatoes. The dominant grain in at my house is organic brown rice (hello, I'm Korean). And if we do eat bread, I try to eat sprouted whole grain breads (I LOVE Alvarado Street Bakery breads). When it comes to pasta, I almost always eat organic brown rice pasta (you can't tell the difference!). It digests beautifully for me without any bloating.

But there are still times when Mike gets sick from eating at home. So I kept watching and observing and found that on the days we ate rice or vegetable starches (like sweet potatoes), he seemed much happier, didn't get nearly as bloated, and never got sick. But on some of the days we ate wheat-based breads, Mike would either get a bellyache or feel really bloated and sluggish. Particularly when he ate too fast and didn't chew his food well enough. So I started to wonder if perhaps he had a gluten intolerance or some kind of gut damage caused by gluten.

I gently eased him off a lot of wheat-based foods, tried not to eat out too much, and when we did, stuck to Korean take-out, sushi, Chipotle burrito bowls, and breakfast with hashbrowns. Interestingly, Mike wouldn't get sick eating Korean or Japanese foods (i.e. rice-based cuisine), but got sick 50% of the time we went to Chipotle. After thinking about it, I wondered if it wasn't the chips we were eating with our burrito bowls. Chipotle serves flour tortilla chips fried in some kind of vegetable oil (which is hard to digest for some people). So this week, we went to Chipotle, split a burrito bowl, and didn't get chips.

Guess who had a happy belly?

So now I've decided to try cutting wheat and gluten out of our diets as much as possible to see if that might help ease some of Mike's stomach discomfort. I don't think we're at a point where I can cut it out completely, but I think if we drastically reduce the amount of it in our diet, Mike's gut might begin to heal a bit. All that irritation in his digestive system can't be good for him.

For the most part, I can make gluten-free treats for Mike just fine ("here's some ice cream.") But we do like to make sandwiches for lunch, especially when we're busy, so I set out to find some GF bread options. It doesn't take long before you realize that GF bread is impossibly expensive, but uses some fairly basic ingredients. It just takes some patience and finessing to see what works.

I tried Food for Life's Millet Bread, which is just brown rice flour, tapioca starch, millet flour and xantham gum. The bread was dense, but chewy and sweet - good for PBJs and french toast. But at $4.39 a loaf, it was a bit much for a small loaf.

So I looked at some GF bread recipes on the internet, thought about ways to lighten the bread, and then turned to see what the bulk bins at my Co-op might yield. I kept reading about sorghum flour being a mild-tasting GF favorite, so I picked a bag of that up for $3.29. Then I got some brown rice flour, tapioca flour, garbanzo flour and potato starch based on the ingredient list of 4 different GF baking mixes I found in the baking aisle.

I came home and thought about my ratios. Using a few GF flour mix ratios online, I put together the following bread mix:

Yooli's GF Flour Mix #1

1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup garbanzo flour
2 teaspoons xantham gum
1 teaspoon guar gum
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

The xantham and guar gums stand in for the gluten in the bread recipe, giving it some sticky/gummy structure. I put everything through a fine mesh sieve to break up any lumps and evenly incorporate the flour.

Then I started to think about how to give the bread height. I read some recipes that called for yeast to help make the bread rise and give it a bread-y aroma, so I decided to incorporate that into my recipe. Then instead of adding beaten eggs, I decided I would add the yolks to the batter first, giving everything a good whipping in the Kitchenaid, and THEN fold in stiff egg whites at the end. This, I hoped, would give the bread more fluff.

Finally, I began to think about flavor. I almost regretted using garbanzo bean flour because it has a grassy, vegetal flavor that's hard to mask. And brown rice flour, on its own, has a slight bitter aftertaste. (The sorghum flour is very mild, albeit slightly chalky, so that was fine. And I knew the tapioca would give it lightness). I think in the future, I'll swap out the garbanzo flour for quinoa or millet flour, but I wanted to add some protein to my bread, both for structure and nutrition. Perhaps flaxseed meal might do the trick too.

Anyhow, because I knew I had some bitter/vegetal flavors I needed to mask, I immediately decided the bread needed to be a tad sweeter. So I added agave nectar, both to activate the yeast in the hot water, but also because it makes baked goods moister. Then I added 3 tablespoons of white grape juice concentrate, just because I had it on hand, and because I know lots of commercial GF breads use fruit juices to sweeten. I also added some milk for its natural creamy sweetness, and beat a little powdered sugar into my egg whites to keep them stiff and add its own hint of sweet.

After mixing and messing about with the batter (and yes, GF bread goes in as a thick batter, not a dough), I nervously baked a pan in the oven for 40 minutes and got a surprisingly beautiful, nice, sweet loaf of bread. I can definitely still taste a trace of garbanzo bean flour, but only because I know what it tastes like. Mike tried a bite and found it a little bit odd (mostly because it didn't taste like wheat), but said it was tasty. The bread is really moist, yeasty and satisfying. I kind of want to experiment with this and add some cinnamon and raisins to it for a breakfast bread. And I definitely want to try this with millet.

So, while I want to tweak this recipe a bit more and try some other flours, I think this is a great bread to start with.

GF Bread #1

3 cups of my GF flour mix (see above)
1 tablespoon of dry active yeast
1.5 cups warm water
2 tablespoons agave nectar
3 tablespoons white grape juice concentrate
1/4 cup of milk
2 tablespoons of coconut oil, melted
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites, separated
A pinch of cream of tartar
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
1.5 teaspoons of cider vinegar

1. Sift GF flour together into a clean bowl.
2. Mix agave nectar, warm water, grape juice concentrate and yeast into a bowl and allow yeast to bloom for 10 minutes.
3. Place 3 egg whites into a clean mixing bowl and whip with a pinch of cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add tablespoon of powdered sugar and whip a little more until stiff, glossy peaks form. Scrape out egg whites into a separate bowl and set aside.
4. Add flour mixture to your standmixer bowl (the one you just beat the egg whites in) and once the yeast is nice and frothy, add to the flour mixture, along with the egg yolks, milk, oil, and vinegar. Beat on high speed until mixture resembles a thick cake batter. If it is too thick (i.e. cookie dough), add a little more water until it reaches the right consistency.
5. Carefully fold in egg whites in 3 installments and then scrape into a greased bread loaf pan. Cover with a rag and let rise for about 20 minutes. During that time, heat your oven to 375.
6. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the bread has a high, crusty brown crust.
7. Immediately dump out of the pan and allow to cool 15 minutes before slicing.
8. Slice and wrap in plastic and freeze. Thaw slices as you need them.

Up, down, and around.

2010-10-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

Oh heyyy...

What's up y'all? Things have been pretty crazy around here. I have been teaching an undergraduate Political Science class, going to law school full time, tending to future hubz, and trying to plan a wedding at the same time. Turns out, its not easy to do all of this at once, much less blog about it.

Blech.

Anyways, we've accomplished the following in the last few weeks:

1. Perfect tiny white church with a gorgeous view, booked.
2. Reception venue with a gorgeous view, booked.
3. Hotel block, booked.
4. Transportation, booked.
5. Multiple purchases from Zappo's ("But I'm buying shoes for the WEDDING!")
6. Save the dates have been designed (by moi) and printed
7. Scheduled our wedding luncheon tasting.

We've made good progress on the following:

1. Got quotes on wedding insurance (our church "strongly" suggested slash demanded)
2. Contacted several photographers. Should be ready to sign a contract in a few weeks.
3. Started taste-testing some wines for our reception.

Things I've started thinking about in earnest:

1. Cakes. Got a good lead on a tasty, inexpensive bakery, but perhaps cupcakes? Hmm...
2. Hiring a day-of coordinator. A little bit of a splurge, but worth it, I think.
3. Hair and make-up artist.
4. Invitations! (Argh, I can't find anything I like!)
5. DIY craft projects (escort card board, sign-in poster, favors, church decorations)
6. Flowers (bouquets, centerpieces, pew decorations, etc.)
7. Out-of-town guest bags.

Things that bum me out:

1. Wedding dresses! Thought I wanted a really simple dress, but turns out the ones that are the most flattering are rather intricate. Currently, I'm devastated because I fell in love with a dress that is WAYYYY out of my price range. Sigh. Must keep looking to see if I can find a lower-priced alternative.

2. We are having a small, semi-elope-y kind of wedding with just our families and a few close friends. However, not knowing how many of our extended family members will come, or which of our friends want to bring dates keeps me up at night. Because its a slightly destination-y wedding for us (meaning its not in our hometowns, nor in D.C., where we used to live), some days I feel like we're going to have 5 people show up, and then on other days, I feel like more people will come than will fit in our tiny little church.

3. Finding a pastor to marry us. My parents speak very little English, so I have had my heart set on a bilingual pastor to marry us. But its hard to find someone who is perfectly fluent in both languages. The only person I could think of was my youth pastor from high school, but he had already been asked to officiate a wedding just a month before we'd asked! Sigh. Back to the drawing board to find a Korean-speaking pastor...

4. Trying to find a reasonably priced videographer. With both sets of grandparents too elderly to travel to our wedding, Mike and I were hoping to share our wedding day with our grandparents through video footage. While it would be easy enough to buy a camcorder and stick it in someone's hand, we wanted to get something more professional made for our grandparents. We're both the eldest grandchildren and Mike and I both love our grandparents to death, so it seemed like a great idea....Until we got quotes from local videographers. Holy crap! Its as expensive as hiring a photographer! Hopefully we can find someone in the next few months who can work with our budget.

5. Body image issues. Relates to the wedding dress I guess. Sometimes I struggle with self-confidence and self-worth issues when it comes to getting stuff for the wedding. Photographers, dresses, shoes, hair, make-up - all of this stuff costs money. A LOT of money. And there is a small voice inside me that says its absolutely ridiculous for me to spend this much money when I'm not a size 4. "What's the point of getting something nice? You're just going to look fat anyway. You might as well save yourself the money and go with something cheaper," the little voice snickers. I felt like this especially when I was sitting at the bridal salon wearing a very, very pricey dress. "Really? You really want to spend that much money when you look like that?" The natural instinct is to crash diet these last 5 months before my wedding, but I know better. I have to tell myself that my family, my friends, and future hubz love me and will be happy for me as long as I'm happy about the way I look and feel. And if that means a $200 dress or a $2000 dress, it wont matter. So take that evil voice!

Did you guys deal with any of this stuff? What did you do? Any advice would be appreciated!

Sigh. Must go to bed. Early class.

Just so damn good.

2010-09-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

I don't have a photo of this recipe, because I don't even have time to find my camera and take a picture of it. This recipe is just *that* good.

I have been obsessed with corn lately. I mean, I have always loved corn - canned, frozen, fresh off the cob - you name it and I'll eat it. But about two weeks ago I bought a bag of fresh kettle corn at the farmer's market and FLIPPED. OUT. Mike had to gently remind me that I could "have some more kettle corn TOMORROW" if I stopped shoveling fistfuls of it into my mouth at once. The first week I bought the small bag and it lasted 3 days? This week I bought the medium sized bag and it lasted....24 hours.

Then last night I decided to make a batch of cornbread. I didn't have anymore cornmeal in the house, but I did have a bag of cornbread mix. So I made that to eat with some chili and we ate the whole pan except for one small square.

Today, I had a really long day. A REALLY long day. I came home dehydrated, tired, cranky, and absolutely CRAVING more cornbread like a zombie wants brains. Brains.....BRAAAAIINNNSS....

Since I didn't have any mix or cornmeal in the house and needed to go to the store anyway, I decided I would make a kick-ass homemade cornbread. Something dense, rich, and moist, with just a teensy hint of honey, and wheat-free. But its hard to make a 100% cornmeal cornbread that isn't a complete crumbly mess so I looked at a bunch of different recipes and came up with something on the fly that ended up being one of the best cornbreads I've ever had. Ever.

Part of it was the method, and part of it was the freshness and quality of the cornmeal (Northern California folks, look for Giusto's Organic Original Cornmeal in the bulk bins of your grocery stores!) My cornmeal was so fresh that the cornbread SMELLED like popcorn-y goodness coming out of the oven. Amazing.

Without further ado, here it is:

Amazing Cornbread

2 cups medium-ground yellow cornmeal
1 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt + 1/2 cup water (or replace milk/yogurt/water with buttermilk)
1/2 stick of butter
1/4 cup honey (1/2 cup if you like a sweeter cornbread)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs, beaten

1. Grease a 9-inch pan, pie dish, or skillet
2. Gently heat milk, water, yogurt, honey, and butter together until steaming.
3. Turn off the heat, add the cornmeal and salt and whisk until smooth.
4. Set your oven to preheat at 400F and walk away from the stove for 15 minutes. No cheating.
5. Come back to the stove and whisk 3 eggs into the cornmeal mush until a smooth batter forms.
6. At the very last second, add your baking powder and baking soda and whisk quickly to incorporate. (Your batter should become fluffy and increase in volume).
7. Pour batter into your greased pan and pop in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean in the center. Top of the bread should be crusty and brown, inside should be steamy and moist. Serve with more honey and butter.

Seriously y'all, my inner Paula Deen got crunk on this cornbread. I used whole milk and full-fat yogurt, along with honey, to keep everything nice and moist, but I really think the key is letting that cornmeal soak. It gets inside the grains and plumps everything up so its just nice and moist. I never understood people who crumbled up cornbread into milk for breakfast, but THIS is definitely a cornbread that would be excellent with a cold glass of milk. I cannot WAIT to have more of this tomorrow!

Uh, is this thing on?

2010-09-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Jeeeeeminy, has it really been over 6 months since I posted? Man, I suck as a blogger!

But I have a good reason. And its not just Big Bad Law School this time! Its a good reason!

I fell in love.

And I'm getting married!

Here's the story in a nutshell:

Mike and I met at a Fourth of July BBQ in 2006 back in Washington, D.C. We went to the same church, so for the next 7 weeks, he walked me to my car after service and asked me out. I wasn't really interested, so I kept coming up with excuses. By the 7th time, I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I finally agreed to go on one date with him on Labor Day 2006. It didn't go well. But he asked me out again anyway and I politely declined, stating that I would rather be friends.

Usually, "let's just be friends" is code for "have a nice life." But after about a month of awkwardness at church, Mike and I actually became friends. He lived near me so we started to hang out all the time. He was my go-to pal for late-night ice cream runs, rodent disposal, and venting phone calls.

People kept asking us if we were dating. We weren't. People kept asking if we were ever going to date. We said we were just friends. And on and on it went, until he started dating someone else, and I began applying to law schools. I eventually moved back to California for law school and Mike stayed behind in D.C. to finish his own law degree. We kept in touch over the phone and he was a great support to me during that first year of school (more venting phone calls), and I lent an ear (and a mouthful of advice) whenever he had problems with his girlfriend.

By March 2010, Mike had ended his relationship and I found myself with a free plane ticket to DC for Spring Break. Through a series of odd events, I ended up crashing on his couch for a few nights and playing a witness in his mock trial. We talked, went to dinner, and hung out with mutual friends. It was just like old times...except it wasn't.

Something had changed - there was a spark. But neither of us knew if the other felt the same way, so we both kept quiet. He drove me to the airport, I went home to California, and promptly came down with a serious case of the flu.

He called every night and texted throughout the day to see how I was feeling. He laughed at my hoarse Miley Cyrus voice and kept me company while I laid in bed for a week. Every night the phone conversations would go longer and longer, until we were on the phone 3-4 hours a night - with a three hour time difference. The poor guy never got any sleep!

After about six weeks of talking every night, he finally called me on Mother's Day and blurted out that we should start dating. I had just woken up from a nap so I was rather taken aback. I think my exact words were "okay, I accept." Then we had a detailed discussion on what it would mean to be boyfriend/girlfriend. After all, we had been friends for 4 years and there would be no "getting to know you" period. Nor could we go on dates since he was 3,000 miles away in D.C.

So that day we decided two things: 1) We were in a serious relationship (Yooli: "So does this mean you're my boyfriend?" Mike: "Yes." Yooli: "And I'm your girlfriend?" Mike: "Yes." Yooli: Okay.") 2) Mike would fly out over Fourth of July to see me in the midst of studying for the Bar Exam. And just like that, I was in a long distance relationship.

Two weeks later, Mike called to tell me that he loved me and that we should think about getting married. I said I felt the same way. He was graduating from law school the following week, so I secretly booked a flight and planned to surprise him at his graduation party. I got in late and missed the party, but hid in the party room until he came back to clean up. I stepped out from behind a wall to say "hi," at which point he dropped his vacuum and yelled "HOLY CRAP." We kissed for the first time in the middle of an empty room and spent Memorial Day weekend holding hands, talking, and walking around the city that had brought us together.

By June, we decided that Mike would move out to California after he took the Bar exam in July. At that point, we told our parents about our plans to get married and oddly, they were fine with it. (As for all of our mutual friends, the response was a unanimous "FINALLY!!!") Mike flew out for Fourth of July to visit, which was coincidentally the 4 year anniversary of our first meeting. And in an odd twist of fate, we spent the day scoping out a church to get married in.

3 weeks later, Mike took the Bar exam and I flew out to D.C. to pack up his apartment. We drove to his hometown - Grand Rapids, Michigan - for 8 days where I met his family and had a lot of fun. Then we drove cross-country to Los Angeles where he asked my parents, on my mother's 54th birthday, if he could have my hand in marriage. My parents speak almost no English and this was their first time meeting Mike, but he gave such a simple, heartfelt speech that he won them over and they gave their blessing.

We drove up to Davis in mid-August so that I could start my last year of law school and got engaged right before we went out of town for Labor Day weekend - the four year anniversary of our first date.

So now, less than 5 months later, I am engaged and planning a wedding. What with dealing with a 3-hour time difference, law school, a full-time summer job, flying back and forth to DC and going on a month-long road trip, I haven't had a lot of free time, nor have I cooked much of anything. Thus, the lack of blog posts. But now that we're back and relatively settled, I'm getting back in the groove and introducing this sugar-and-soda-addicted Midwestern boy to the wonders of wholesome natural foods. (So far he loves the food and has lost 2 inches in his waist!) So I think the blog should be back in the swing of things pretty soon.

The only thing I will warn you ahead of time is that I am also a bride in the midst of planning a wedding, so this blog may veer into wedding planning territory from time to time. But I think you'll enjoy the ride.

Anyways, that's what's been going on here. Blogging is about life, and if I've been too busy enjoying it to blog, well, then I think I'm doing alright. :-) I'm happier than I have ever been and am so happy to share the news. Love you all and thanks for tuning in!

Things I Love About Having a Home Gym

2010-02-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

I know this is going to sound super obnoxious, but...

I love having a home gym.

My apartment looks so ugly right now with this beast of an elliptical standing near the front door, but I live alone, I'm single and I don't care how it looks!

I got the elliptical because I wanted to get serious about working out regularly and strengthen my knee (ellipticals are the best because they don't tax your knee as hard as a treadmill and if you take your hands off, it works your core AND your balance - all things that are essential for knee therapy). But once I got the damn thing assembled and started working out on it, I began to realize even more benefits.

Check out my ugly, but sweet set up.

The elliptical is right next to my air conditioner, my front door, and my sliding glass door, which combined with the fan on the machine means I'll never have to work out in a gamey, dank room again!

I also set it up in view of my TV to play my favorite shows and DVD's while I crank away.

And the machine also has an iPod hook up with speakers, so I can bump my jams without getting tangled up in my headphone wires.

But the absolute biggest bonus about working out at home is actually one that I didn't expect. See, I figured having a GINORMOUS piece of fitness equipment that I could barely afford staring me in the face would force me into working out everyday. Which is true, but really, the beauty of it is that working from your living room is so incredibly freeing.

(So then why not just use workout DVDs you ask? Well, I can handle a tape every now and then, but the truth is, I'm just not a huge fan of cardio DVDs. If I'm doing tapes at home, I really prefer yoga or pilates. Which still leaves me with the need for a good, sweaty workout).

Here's the thing. Going to the gym is totally fine. But until I started sweating in my own home, I never realized how self-conscious and preoccupied I had been at the gym. For instance, whenever I go to the gym, I always wear loose shorts or track pants with a man's t-shirt, because I don't want people to look at my love handles or jiggly arms. I also try to mop my sweat every 20 seconds and control my breathing so I don't look like a panting idiot. Stretching and crunches? I do them in a hurry because I don't want to monopolize the mats. Water and bathroom breaks? Yeah right. People are always waiting for the ellipticals - if you leave, you're probably going to lose your machine. And then there's always making sure you're not losing your keys, wallet, cellphone, iPod, magazine, water bottle, towel...you get my drift. (And God forbid you forget to charge your iPod...)

Then there's the whole issue of trying not to compare yourself with others. Let's be frank: I'm turning 29 in a little over a month and I'm sharing an extremely crowded gym with 18 year old sorority girls who clearly play sports. That means tanned, blonde, California girls sprinting on the treadmill next to you in booty shorts and a sports bra. Everyone should love their body, but Jesus help me, its hard not to feel down on yourself when that's all up in your face.

And you know how you get SELF or Fitness magazines and they have those little tear-out cards to take to the gym? I cut those things out all the time. And sometimes I even take them to the gym with me. But I have never once used them. Why? Because at the last minute, I'll feel self conscious about trying to find a ball, 2 dumbbells and a mat in the corner of the gym just so I can lay out a bunch of cards showing me what moves I should be doing. It just screams "I don't do this often" doesn't it?

Anyways, I'm sure I've noticed each of these things about myself separately, and I know they are totally lame hang-ups, but they all kinda welled up at once during my first few workouts. The last 3 nights, I've worn a sports bra and shorts/leggings to work out in, not giving a hoot about what I look like. I've worked out whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted. I've panted loudly, moaned, and made weird sounds on the machine. I've had the AC cranked to Arctic temperatures and poured sweat all over the place. I've cried while watching the Olympics coverage. I've watched terrible movies and blasted even more terrible music. I've taken pee breaks, water breaks and even 10 minute breathers just because I could. And I printed 4 awesome elliptical workouts off FitSugar and taped them to the wall next to my machine for reference.

And afterwards? A shower, a collapse on the couch, a snack, or just checking my email is mere feet away.

In short, I am in love!!!!

Only time will tell how solid of an investment this machine is, but so far, I have no complaints. According to the reviews, its supposed to last a good 4 years, which averages out to a little over $150 a year. If that's true, then yeah, I'll pay $13 bucks a month to have this kind of freedom. Don't ask me how I'm going to move it after I graduate from law school, but for now, its so worth it!

Meet the new addition to the family!

2010-02-24T23:40:00.001-08:00

Hey loveys!

Wow, things have been just buzzing around here! I'm so tired y'all - February is always just a madhouse at law school. We have so many events, competitions, blah blah blah. Last week was especially cray-cray because I had two days of back to back shenanigans.

First up, we had our annual charity auction for the King Hall Legal Foundation, which funds grants for law students who want to do public interest work. There's a silent auction for a variety of things (like a dinner for two with wine, cooked by yours truly) and then a hilarious live auction that is conducted by funny students and our professors.

I was especially proud this year, because the event was co-chaired by my gay, Theo, (on the right with flowers) and my other friend Scott. They're so adorbs y'all!

Everyone gets dressed up, there's an open bar, its a great cause....which means people start spending money recklessly and get a little tipsy. I lost out on a few wine tasting trips, but looked cute for the evening:

We all had a "jolly" good time and I awoke the next morning to get ready for event number two: a pub crawl in San Francisco for our friend Claire's birthday! I was not the designated photographer for that event and don't have pictures, but there was definitely a costume theme and I was definitely dressed as a Korean women's speedskater.

Things got pretty crazy and we all had a great time. I woke up on Sunday morning looking and feeling pretty haggard (thanks Liz for letting me stay over!). My friends and I walked to Starbucks to get a bagel and some coffee, we sat around watching Olympic curling for about an hour, and then motored back to Davis.

The weekend wasn't a complete loss, however, since I got a long-needed pantry reorganization done. I went to Cost Plus World Market and the Co-op to stock up on glass spice jars and mason jars to reorganize all the bags of crap I get from the bulk bins every week. I also found a place for my three million teas. Observe:

I also had to rearrange some furniture and vacuum (which I HATE doing) because I needed to make room in my living room for....

Say hello to my little friend!

Okay, not really little - its actually ginormous and came with an even bigger box and 9 tons of packaging. But 5 hours of assembling, one nervous breakdown, one trip to the hardware store, one panic attack, and $20 dollars worth of tools later, I have a functioning elliptical!

I know what you're thinking: how does a broke-ass law student afford an elliptical? Well friends, I got an unexpected tax refund this year and added some money from my part-time job to pay for it. Thanks to Costco, I got this Reebok elliptical for $599 and free shipping to boot. Two things that suck however. One, you have to buy a separate AC adapter for the damn thing or use 4 D batteries for the console. Two, the assembly was HELLACIOUS. I mean, technically this was supposed to require two people and I did myself, but gawd was it a pain!! If you consider buying this thing, either use the 800-number to hire a guy to assemble it for you or have a husband/boyfriend to take care of it. I'm POOPED after putting this thing together and I'm pretty handy!

Did a test run tonight while watching the Korean women's speedskating team get ROBBED in the relay race. (Disqualification my ass). This machine is pretty decent, I have to say. It has a fan, an iPod hook up with speakers to play all your jams, a bunch of different workouts, lots of resistance settings, and 3 manual incline settings. It runs pretty smoothly, although it creaks just a tad but basically every home elliptical I've seen does that - even ones that cost way more than my machine. I got a good sweat off it and I think I'm really going to enjoy having some fitness equipment in my house.

After all that drama, I needed to have a good - albeit late - dinner. Tonight's mess was just a hodgepodge of things that needed to get used up in my fridge. Nevertheless, it hit the spot!

Roasted brussel sprouts (tossed in salt and pepper and olive oil, with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese at the end) and Japanese sweet potato coins tossed in coconut oil (SO GOOD). Both roasted at 385 for about 30-40 minutes. There's also a side of some dino kale sauteed in olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, salt and a little water to wilt. And finally about 4oz. of grassfed organic beef sauted in a pan with canned tomatoes, Worchestershire sauce, onion and garlic powders, salt and pepper. All washed down with green juice! (Kale stems, romaine, Meyer lemon, ginger, fuji apple).
Such a random mix of food, but all so simple and delicious. Why can't brussel sprouts be in season all year round?! They're so stinkin' good.

Arite babies, I've gotta head to bed. Lots of stuff to do tomorrow and I need to get ready for ANOTHER weekend of activities. Hope you're all having a great week!

Things I Love, Things I Crave

2010-02-16T03:02:00.000-08:00

Its 3am and I'm still up. No, its not because I can't sleep. I just took a very deep nap this afternoon, so I'm quite perky and alert at the moment. I was catching up on some schoolwork, sipping on a cup of tea, listening to some gentle music, and then...my mind went adrift.

The last few days, I feel like I've been feeling things more deeply. Do you ever go through periods where you feel more in tune with the world? More absorbent somehow. Its been these little things, these little moments, that have sent my senses spinning.

Last night, I opened my bedroom window to let in some air. I took a deep breath, listened to the quiet and felt the chill brush my shoulders. At that moment I was immediately transported to an open skylight in a rickety attic room in Paris. I was a junior in college and it was my first time living abroad. I had discovered anise flavored cigarettes and a mysterious architect on a train, so naturally, there were many things to ponder. I loved leaning out that roof-top window, feeling the misty rain on my face and admiring the twinkling streetlights.

(Source)

Then I was leaning out another window, in another rickety attic room. This time, I was 22, freshly graduated from college. I had moved to Washington D.C. to seek my fortune and to be with my first love - only to find myself single and brokenhearted ten days later. I was such a wreck. I spent so many nights standing at that window, taking gasping, panicked breaths to hold on to the threads of my sanity. Poor me.

And then, suddenly, I was looking out the window of a small flat in a quiet college town, a million miles from anywhere I thought I'd be. But there I was, taking in another gulp of night air, smiling at the girl in Paris, aching for the other in D.C.

I was here, and there, and there. All at once.

And so it goes tonight. Another late night, a little Django Reinhardt, and a steaming cup of tea. How many nights have I spent this way? What is it about these little, secret rituals that we always return to, no matter where we are? And why do these moments burrow so much deeper into our psyche? I remember so vividly sitting in my apartment in Washington, alone, listening to Andrew Bird and sipping my very first cup of Mariage Freres Marco Polo tea. I was 25, I had just painted a wall pink, and I was very pleased with myself.

I guess I've just been craving the things I love. Stillness. Quiet. The cold night air. And the curl of steam coming off a simple white mug.

What do you crave? What do you love?

I'm craving more crashing waves, more salty sea air. Grayish, gloomish skies with a beam of sunlight bursting through. The cold, briney slip of a fresh oyster. The sparkle of a dry champagne. Cows dotting green rolling hills.

I want long peaceful drives with my hand out the window, fingers playing with the wind. I want to curl up in bed on a rainy day and re-read East of Eden until its dark out. And then I want to bake gingerbread, sticky with molasses, and think about delicious writers who have long passed.

I crave big cafe au laits in crowded, bustling coffee shops - the kind where everyone has to sit just a little too close. Because that's where delightfully juicy stories are bound to come out - hunched over tiny tables and in between fits of hushed laughter.

So many things to love. So many things to crave. But for now, there's always my tea and the night air.

So watcha been eatin' boo?

2010-02-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much guys for your sweet emails, tweets, and comments on my last post. As always, my readers are so supportive! I am quite literally flying by the seat of my pants here - I don't know how long I'm going to eat this way, how I'll feel in a week, a month or what - but making any kind of change to your diet, especially in a public matter, is always a little nervewracking. Thanks for stickin' by me!

So with that said, I'm sure there are a lot of questions about what I'm eating. Well, I'm not eating THAT differently to be honest - I'm still eating whole grains, nuts, and veggies that are organic whenever possible. But I've been eating maybe 1/2 cup to a 1 cup of homemade whole milk organic yogurt with some fruit and nuts. And I've been using butter and coconut oil for most of my cooking, with olive oil coming in third. The Earth Balance has been discarded (it was getting a little old anyway) so its been nice having buttered toast. I grate a little raw cheddar on my scrambled eggs or have cheesy toast now and then.

The biggest change has been adding in meat to at least one entree a day. And when I say meat, I mean grass-fed or pasture-raised, organic and local meat. I am so incredibly lucky to live in Davis in that we are within 100 miles of anything you could ever need to eat. I went to our Farmer's Market this weekend and got fresh pastured eggs and fresh homemade pork breakfast sausage. Then I went to the Co-op and bought amazing pasture-raised organic chickens raised 15 minutes from here at Soul Food Farms - which are the same chickens served at Chez Panisse - for 30% off! And incredible dungeness crab caught right off our coast 80 miles away for rock bottom prices ($5.50 for a whole crab. A WHOLE CRAB!)

The thing that has invigorated me about this weekend's shopping is how awesome it feels to eat locally and consciously (whether its meat or not). I am so incredibly lucky to live so close to my farmers, and yet I have to admit that with my busy schedule and with how great our Co-op is about sourcing its organic produce locally, its become automatic for me to just do most of my shopping there instead of going to the Farmer's Market. Boy, have I been missing out! It was refreshing to talk to the person who made my sausage, gathered my eggs and pulled my leeks from the ground the day before. Eating meat and dairy requires even more diligence and questioning than veggies (how are they raised? how differently do they taste? should I cook it differently?) so its forced me to strike up more conversations with my farmers and purveyors. And its been awesome! I got a free cut of meat this week from my butcher because he wanted me to try something new. And my pork farmer gave me his e-mail address because he didn't have something I was looking for. "E-mail or call me - I will get you anything you need." God bless him.

It goes without saying the quality of the food I've been eating has been unbelievable. I've always eaten well on veggies, but the meat, cheese and dairy I've gotten lately has made it feel like I'm eating in a fancy restaurant at every meal. (Which isn't a stretch since most of the fancy Bay Area restaurants get their meat and produce from the same people I buy mine from!) With stuff this high quality, you just don't want to let anything go to waste. So I've also been reaping the benefits of eating EVERYTHING from my meat - particularly broth. Who knew broth could be so amazing! Food waste in all areas of my life = DRASTICALLY down.

Well, enough babbling for now - here's a hit parade of what I've been eating!

My sourdough starter! Needs a few more days

Gravity defying homemade Greek yogurt

My first batch of homemade kimchi. My mom would be very proud.

Felt very much like a school kid, but was craving Salisbury steak!
With mushroom red wine reduction, mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts,
and peas and carrots of course!

Meet my pork farmer - Mr. Bledsoe! Isn't he cute?
Apparently he fired someone once for slapping and yelling at his pigs.

And here's the gang at Good Humus Farm
who I get amazing produce from!

Yup. A whole 2lb Pacific Dungeness Crab for $5.45.

Incredible organic, grass-fed beef from Eel River Farms!

My fat bitches!
Coconut oil, olive oil, avocado and homemade nut butter.
Butter and eggs are in the fridge!

Can't forget the chocolate.

Been drinking a lot of the mushroom water for digestion.
Divine Grape is my fav!

Savory strata with homemade wheat bread,
Green Darner Farms eggs, spinach, shitake mushrooms,
Strauss Family Farms organic cream, parmesan cheese.

That's not dye - that's just how RIDICULOUSLY yellow those yolks are!

Different colors, different sizes - just the way God made 'em!

Best. Eggs. Ever.

This made the most amazing roast chicken!
24 hour brine, slathered in herb butter
and then roasted in a dutch oven for 80 minutes
at 425F on a bed of root veggies.

Which is now the the most delicious chicken broth ever!

Joining the group of delicious beef stock I made last week.

But it hasn't been all health food...

...if chocolate FLAVORED chips are any indication.
But gimme a break - it was Valentine's Day!

Catch you guys later! Hope you're enjoying your day off!

Dear meat and dairy - welcome back!

2010-02-13T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hey loves,

Sorry for laying low for a bit. Lots of things have been going on! I am relieved to announce my blood tests came back within normal range for thyroid hormones and my blood sugar was excellent. I still need to see an eye doctor to check for glaucoma, but I am confident everything will be okay. My eyes are still a bit wonky, but the pain is gone and I'm hoping its something some drops and a new eye prescription will handle.

But that's not to say my recent health scare didn't make me reassess my situation. As many of you know, I don't eat a lot of meat or dairy. I stopped eating a lot of meat last year because I just found that I was craving it less, couldn't afford the good meats, etc. I stopped eating dairy, and subsequently cut out a lot of soy, because I wanted to reduce the amount of mucus in my body. My sinuses tend to get clogged pretty easily so I was doing it to avoid that. But that isn't to say I didn't love cheese and yogurt and butter.

Anyways, since the beginning of the year, I've been inordinately stressed, my hormones have been completely off their rocker, and my hair has been falling out by the handful. I've had pretty bad acne for about six weeks straight, my skin has been a patchy mess, and I've had chronic insomnia to boot. Until about a week ago, I was having trouble sleeping 3-4 nights a week!

And then my eye started to freak out and I hit the roof.

Something was off. I knew that much. And with the fear of thyroid disease lighting a fire under my butt, I turned to what I believe makes up 90% of our health: my nutrition. I took stock of my pantry, my habits, my nutrition, my stress level, my workload and did a lot of reading. I started reading up on hormones, adrenals, thyroids, diabetes, blood sugar management, and talked to some friends who I trust with regards to nutrition and health. And while there are a lot of opinions out there with regards to nutrition, pretty much everyone agrees organic foods, whole grains, moderate-to-low soy, eating mostly vegetables, and good fats like nuts and avocado are good for you. The biggest difference seems to be the role of meat, dairy and animal fats in our diets.

When my blood tests came back normal, I was relieved, but I was even more convinced something was wrong. I thought "how can I get a clean bill of health and still feel so bad?" I knew then that drugs and doctors were going to be less important to fixing what was wrong with me than what I was putting in, and doing to, my body on a daily basis.

After reading, thinking, talking and praying about it, I decided to take a chance and bring back meat, dairy and lots of fat into my diet, at least just for a while to see if it would make a difference in how I felt. A few friends wondered if my hormonal shifts couldn't be attributed to the relatively low amounts of fat in my diet - animal or otherwise. I took stock of my diet and realized that unknowingly, I had cut back a lot of fat in my diet overall. I realized that the only fat I was eating at home was a tablespoon of nut butter or 1/4 of an avocado here and there.

After reading more about animal fats and how they can help hormonal balance, and reading recent posts from HEAB, I decided to take a chance and bring those things back into my diet, as well as more healthy fats like coconut oil, avocados and nuts. I felt comfortable bringing back meat since I had spent a few weeks eating some high quality meat and seafood back in November to help support my knee. I really think it made a big difference for me, in terms of pain and recovery time, so I was open to trying again. But I knew if I was going to do it, like last time, it would have to be the best quality, most humanely raised, and nutritious meat available.

This time, I also decided to bring back dairy because a friend mentioned that both cultured and raw dairy acted in our bodies completely differently and didn't create the kind of reactions that pasteurized dairy did. Having enjoyed raw goat cheddar from time to time without any issues, I decided to go with it and bought some organic raw cheeses and made that crockpot yogurt. (Wow, have I missed yogurt!)

A lot of the reason I haven't posted in the 10 days or so is because of this little experiment. I know a lot of my readers are vegetarian and vegan, and I didn't want to suddenly come up in here with pictures of meat dinners and scare you guys off without giving a good explanation and trying it out first.

Its been a little over a week now, and I do honestly feel better. The number one improvement has been sleep. Gelatin and dairy is supposed to help you sleep so I've been either having a homemade broth-based soup or a cup of homemade yogurt before bedtime and I've been sleeping like a baby. I've been staying pretty vigilant with probiotics, drinking lots of kombucha, yogurt, natural pickles and sauerkraut at every meal to help digest all this new food. So far so good. The raw cheese has given me zero problems and I've been enjoying having some good butter on my toast. My hair has stopped falling out (thank GOD), my skin is clearing up finally, and I think all the cold-pressed, organic coconut oil I've been using to saute my veggies and moisturize my skin has helped. And no, I haven't gained any weight - yet, anyway.

Oh, and meat isn't the only thing I've been doing differently. I've been making some good grain and nut adjustments for health purposes too. I've been soaking and then dehydrating my nuts (oven set to WARM with the door cracked open), and pre-soaking my grains and flours in an acidic medium to make them more digestible too. I made a pre-soaked almost whole grain bread that was outstanding yesterday - I'll post the recipe soon.

I just want to end this post by saying that I am in no means advocating one way of eating over another. At the end of the day, I think everyone should do whatever makes them feel awesome. I'm not sure exactly how long I'm going to eat this way, or if its a placebo effect, but right now, this is making me feel better, look better and sleep better. And that's what matters to me. If eating another way makes you feel amazing, DO IT! You'll never hear me say anything different.

And no, its not just about diet. I've also cut WAY back on things that stress me out, and pacing myself with regards to school work. If it doesn't get done, fine. I'm not going to lose sleep over that shit anymore - literally. I've been pretty sassy with people in the last 10 days, just saying NO a lot more often and being protective of my quiet time. I've spent many hours this last week making good wholesome food from scratch for myself and even skipped a morning class because I was sleeping so deeply that I felt like I deserved some more. And I'm currently looking at getting some fitness equipment for my apartment. Our college gym here is a zoo 90% of the time, the Vitamix is paid for in full ahead of schedule and I think I can get an elliptical for a really good deal. The Excalibur dehydrator may have to wait a while, but I think I'll get more use out of a home gym. (Thank god for research jobs!)

Anyways, that's it for now. Hope you guys are enjoying your long weekends. And Happy Valentine's Day! Love you all. XOXO.

What it is yo?

2010-02-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

Hi pies! (<--- miss you Erin!)

I got my miniSD-USB thing in the mail AND charged my camera battery so this post finally has pictures! And thanks for all your sweet support concerning my recent health shit-uation - its kept my spirits up! I had blood drawn today and hopefully we'll get some info by Wednesday of next week. The doctor still wants me to go see the opthamalogist so they can check for glaucoma of all things, so that freaked me out a little. But I'm not going to get worked up about it - God holds my eyeballs in His hands. ;-)

Last night, I got back from a 2 hour seminar class exhausted and just needed some hot oat loving. So I opened a new bag of Bob's Red Mill Scottish Oats (which I picked up after I saw Kath rave about them). Definitely "doughier" as she puts it! I cooked them in some water and added chia seeds (way too much) and banana. I also added a plop of Amazin' Butter, but more on that in a sec...

The oats were good, except I added too much chia seed (tried pouring them from a bag). Didn't want to waste the food so I just ate it.

In other Vitamix news, I finally got the nerve up to make nut butter. Was scared I was going to break it, etc....but no more! I decided that on my maiden voyage I needed to make something totally awesome so I made an almond based nut butter with every kind of awesome nutritious seed I had in the house, plus cold-pressed coconut oil. If you decide to make this nut butter, I would probably read through the instructions first. I give you...

Amazin' Nut Butter
yields approx. 2 1/2 cups of nut butter

2 cups raw almonds
1/2 cup raw flax seeds
2 T EACH chia seeds, sesame seeds, hempnut seeds
2 T agave syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup canola oil (or just omit coconut oil and use 1/2 cup canola oil)
*Optional: 1/2 rough chopped nuts or whole flaxseeds for crunch.

1. Melt coconut oil just until its clear, then add canola oil. This will keep the coconut oil from becoming solid again at room temperature. Stir together and set aside.

2. Dump all the nuts, seeds, agave and salt into your Vitamix. Pour oil on top. Using your tamp, start the machine at Level 1, Variable 4 and then move to Variable 10 after a few seconds. Be tamping the whole time.

3. After another 10 seconds, still constantly tamping, switch to Level 2. KEEP TAMPING - KEEP PUSHING FOOD INTO THE BLADES. Remember your Vitamix has an automatic shut-off so if the motor gets too hot, it will stop itself before anything goes wrong. So don't be scared. Just. keep. tamping. You should be tamping on Level 2 for about 3 minutes at least.

4. The longer you process the nuts, the more oils will be released, resulting in a creamier (read: spreadable) nut butter. If you don't care so much about using it for sandwiches but like adding your nut butter to other things, you can stop at about the 3-4 minute mark. The consistency will be like cookie dough (yummmm).

5. If you're like me and you want a creamier nut butter, just keep tamping for about another minute or two. Check the consistency now and then. Your nut butter will be warm, so it will likely thicken up upon cooling, so take that into consideration.

6. I admittedly got a little scared at about the 5 minute mark. So I just left the nutbutter in the jar and let the machine cool off for about 20-30 minutes and came back to it. Technically you don't need to do this since it has that motor override, but I just felt more comfortable that way. IF you decide to do that as well, PLEASE remember to start your machine back on Level 1 and THEN move to Variable 2.

7. All told, I think I tamped for a collected 7 minutes. At this point, you can scoop out your nut butter (use a spatula or rubber coated spoon so you dont scratch the blades) and then stir in your additional chopped nuts or flaxseeds. This again, is something you could do with whole nuts in the Vitamix, but you get kind of an uneven distribution because the mixture is so thick. So I chose to mix in by hand.

Mmmmm mmm good! I gave my gay a cup of the buttah as a gift and he just ate it with a spoon over the course of 2 days and now wants more. So you tell me if its good! ;-)

But don't think with all my Vitamix excitment I've forgotten the amazing $6.00 crockpot. I know I've been trying to avoid dairy, but when I heard about this, I just had to try it. What is this you ask?

Guess?

Now can you tell?

Yup! That's friggin' yogurt in a crockpot y'all! And it could not. be. easier. Or cheaper!

You just heat up your milk in the crockpot for a few hours, let it cool for a few hours, add your starter yogurt and walk away for 8-12 hours. Its the most low-tech thing I've ever seen! And it totally works! I have not tried it with lower fat milk yet bc I guess the whole milk is the least finicky, but I'll try it in the future and let you know.

Crockpot Yogurt
yields 64 oz. yogurt

1/2 gallon of whole, organic milk (I used California Pastures Organic Valley whole milk)
1/2 cup of plain yogurt (I used whole milk Strauss Organic)
1 heavy bath towel or blanket

1. Pour milk into the crockpot and leave on LOW for 2.5 hours.

2. Turn off the crockpot and leave the milk to cool for 3 hours.

3. After 3 hours, take your milk's temperature. The ideal temperature is between 100-110F degrees.

4. Take out 2 cups of milk from the crock and whisk it with 1/2 cup of yogurt until completely combined.

5. Pour yogurt-milk mixture back into the crockpot and whisk to combine. Replace the lid, cover the crockpot with your towel or blanket, and set in a warm place for 8-12 hours. (I put mine near my furnace).

6. My yogurt, after 8 hours, was VERY mild - almost no tang and very sweet. Perfect for babies. In fact, it totally reminded me of YoBaby yogurt. Since I like more tang in my yogurt, I let it go for a few more hours. At 10 hours, it had moderate tang and so I bottled 2 jars of it for the fridge. When you are scooping the yogurt from the crock, gently scoop shallow spoonfuls from the top to disturb the whey as little as possible (otherwise you get a thinner yogurt). The remaining third was much more watery because of said whey, but I set that to drain to make homemade Greek yogurt, which is also looking pretty fabulous! You can use the whey that results to lacto-ferment veggies, like cabbage, into sauerkraut!

Recycle your glass jars for yogurt storage!

Ghetto Greek Yogurt Straining System!

What do you do with that much yogurt you ask? Well, you can eat it, add it to smoothies, and if you have an ice-cream maker, make your own tart homemade fro-yo! And the cost savings are unreal. I got my organic milk at the Co-op on sale for $2.99. Then I bought a 16oz. tub of really good local organic yogurt (you can totally just any plain yogurt) for $2.29. Since I only used 1/4 of the tub, that puts me at about $.57. That means that for my 1/2 gallon of organic plain yogurt, I spent $3.56. That's at LEAST half the price of an equivalent amount of good quality organic yogurt - not counting the portion I'm turning into pricey Greek yogurt. And mine was local too - milk from Chico and yogurt from Marshall - all less than 100 miles from here.

Well, time to get ready for the highlight of my day - blowing my yogurt savings on sushi dinner with friends! Have a great weekend guys!

Oy.

2010-02-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Hey dears,

Sorry I've been gone again. My brother was visiting Cali for two weeks (he's spending a year teaching English in South Korea) and came up to visit last week. Then I suddenly got this wonky eye situation the last three days that has kept me pretty much in glasses, half blind and trapped at home. (I'm typing this largely with my eyes closed so forgive any typos.)

Basically it feels like my left eye is bulging and it hurts really bad like a pulled a muscle. I have no idea what caused it, but I can't really see very well, I have some depth perception issues and I have to rest my eyes every 20 minutes or they start to burn and I get dizzy and nauseated.

I spent the better part today on the phone with my student health center, the insurance company and the local opthamologist to see who I had to clear what with in order to get seen. Ugh I hate insurance runaround.

The only highlight of my day was that Theo drove me to get some dinner at the local Korean restaurant and listen to me whine for about 30 minutes. I asked him to look at my eye, to which he responded "its like half hanging out of your eye socket." Lovely.

I worked myself up into a lather, however, because I remembered an eye situation my mom had last fall as part of her thyroid condition. Mama Choi suffers from Grave's Disease, which is a type of hyperthyroidism. Eye protrusion and eye related problems are one of the most predominant symptoms, after goiters. I started reading up on Grave's Disease symptoms and started freaking out because it seems to describe pretty much everything I've been feeling or noticing. Hair loss, insomnia, anxiety, skin problems, increased hunger - but these are all really common feminine symptoms so I didn't really think much of it. But combined with the eye thing, now I'm really worried.

So now I think instead of paying $200 out of pocket to see the opthamologist, I think I need to see a general MD first, and have a blood panel done to screen for thyroid and diabetes-related problems, since those diseases run in my family. I should have had that done anyway, but now I'm super worried.

I didn't want to jump to conclusions or be a hypochondriac, but I started reading up on local holistic MDs and natural supports for hyperthyroidism, especially because Grave's Disease is often treated with frightening things like radioactive iodine tablets. (Excuse me??) Even if I dodge the bullet this time and my eye thing is a fluke, I feel like I should read up on this stuff for future reference.

As for the natural supplements, I wasn't going to invest in a buttload of weird supplements without consulting a doctor, but a reputable natural health and nutrition guide at my Co-op very conservatively recommended a high potency multi-vitamin and a good B-complex supplement, as well as kelp, brewer's yeast, Vitamin C, probiotics and lecithin. It also recommended that I cut out stimulants, like caffeine, and try avoiding dairy.

These all seemed like things I already should be doing, but I've admittedly been a little sloppy with my vitamins and nutrition the last few months (hello finals and Christmas!). Soda, for one, has crept back into my diet (bad Yooli!) and I've been meaning to get a B-complex for a long time now.

So anyways, I invested in a new multivitamin and a new B-complex, and indulged myself in a few bottles of Raw Kombucha (mmm, Divine Grape!). Tomorrow, I will see the doctor and I will resolve to get back to juicing more regularly. I will also pay more close attention to my diet and start journaling my mood and symptoms daily. I will also resolve to get my ass to the gym. (I've been SO lazy on that front).

I'm trying to remain optimistic and not worry myself into a tizzy (what good would that do anyway??) But its definitely made clear I should be even more aware and vigilant about my health and nutrition. Its sad when a health scare has to kick your ass into gear, but better late than never! Anyone else have a recent health kerfluffle?

Peace y'all! I'll keep you updated.

A wee clarification

2010-01-27T02:37:00.000-08:00

I wanted to acknowledge this again on the blog because people have stopped to ask me about it:

I am not a vegan. I am not a vegetarian. But I tend to eat mostly vegan/vegetarian foods.

I got the question because I post a lot of vegan recipes and methods of veganizing foods on this blog and on my Twitter feed (click here to follow me on Twitter). A lot of the reason I've taken to doing this is because many of my readers are vegans or dairy averse. Other reasons are because I love the challenge of cooking without meat and dairy, and veganizing something (particularly baked goods) tends to lower the fat/calories.

I gradually transitioned over to a 90% organic, mostly vegetarian/vegan diet over the last year for many reasons. I believe in sustainable agricultural practices and local eating. I feel better eating when I'm eating more fruits and veggies. I don't really miss milk and butter for the most part, although I do like meat from time to time. And that means while I do buy meat occasionally, I try very hard to eat wild seafood or humanely raised meat - which is quite expensive. Thus, from an economic standpoint, eating meat at home has become the exception more than the rule.

But I'm not perfect. Sometimes I eat fast food, sometimes I buy conventionally products, and sometimes I'm too busy or tired to care where my food came from. And I don't like offending anyone or making them uncomfortable about my dietary choices. So when I'm visiting my family and my mom puts a lot of time and effort into making me a delicious meal that includes meat or vegetables that I know she got a little too cheap at the Asian grocery store, I don't complain. She supports the eating and shopping choices I make in my own home and I figure I deserve to give her the same respect when I'm in her's.

So that's it in a nutshell. I know some of you have mentioned that in the early days of my blog, I did feature a lot of meat recipes. But that's because What's In Your Pantry? originally started as a blog geared toward eating well on a small budget. So I regularly featured things I found on sale in my local grocery store or at the farmer's markets. But as my eating philosophies and methods have changed, so has this blog. So I'll hope you meat eaters will stick around. Most of the stuff I blog about is good for you, its pretty easy, and usually wont cost you an arm or a leg (Vitamix excluded).

That's it for now. Ciao!

Slow and damp...

2010-01-22T02:56:00.000-08:00

That's basically what I've been feeling like lately. Northern California (and Southern California, for that matter) have been pelted with ridiculous rainstorms for the past week. Trudging from the far parking lot halfway across campus to get to class in the pouring rain blowing in all directions is miserable. Even worse is the fact that no one carries rainboots or galoshes around here (why would they??) and even the places that do are sold out. Plus, you all know about my sumo calf + tiny ankle situation from posts past so that all makes for rainboot disaster.

On top of that, I got into a fender bender today. No one else was involved and I'm not hurt - it just sucked. It was pouring, it was hard to see, and I happened to turn into the ONE left turn lane around here that is demarcated by its own cement divider instead of a painted line. I didn't see that it was a cement line until I was up on the damn thing, so basically, my car rode a skinny median for about 20 feet until I could stop it. Outwardly nothing appears to be wrong and I can drive it fine, but while my car drives straight, the steering wheel is off center. Totally bizarre. I probably bent something down there. Oh well. I'm thankful no one is hurt and my car is drivable. PTL (Praise the Lord).

I've been lazy and forgetting to snap photos of my eats so I don't have any pictures for you, but I have been eating lots of yummy food, thanks to some fallback recipes of mine and the many brilliant bloggers out there!

The Vitamix has been my constant companion. I even dragged it to my friend's house for Sunday night dinner (Mexican Night!) and treated the gang to amazing Frozen Meyer Lemon + Mandarin Margaritas! Basically, I juiced 64oz. of Meyer lemons and Satsuma mandarins and sweetened with a mix of agave syrup and stevia to make a fresh sour mix. Then I blended it with tequila, plenty of ice and (SECRET INGREDIENT ALERT!) a dash of guar gum. The guar gum keeps the mixture from separating and getting all icy. Because everything stays mixed together, you can suck it through a straw like a Slurpee.

The Vitamix also made a huge bowl of delicious roasted tomato salsa, sofrito base for bomb Spanish rice, the BEST vegan nacho cheese, tons of sorbet (tonight's version was coconut milk, frozen pineapple, mango and banana), protein smoothies and raw soup.

Tonight, I made my version of "raw pumpkin pie in a bowl" soup. I looked at Gena's recipe and Natalia Rose's recipe in Raw Food Detox Diet and tweaked it to my taste. Here's my recipe:

Raw Pumpkin Pie Soup
serves 2-3

3 cups of raw butternut squash cubes
1.5 cups of carrot, apple, and ginger juice (8 carrots, 1 fuji apple, 1-inch nob of ginger juiced)
1/2 cup So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk or nutmilk (or see recipe below)
1 teaspoon cinnamon, maybe more
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (adjust this to your liking - I like a lot of nutmeg!)
Fat pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of agave syrup (go easy, agave is SWEET - taste as you go)

1. Throw all of the ingredients in your Vitamix, except for 1/2 cup of the carrot juice. Blend until smooth, adding the remaining juice if you like a slightly thinner soup. If you don't have a Vitamix, steam the butternut squash until soft and blend in a regular blender or food processor. If you don't have a juicer, just use a bottle of Odwalla carrot juice and add some powdered ginger.

****

This soup was sooooo good. Incredibly fresh tasting and yet warming from the spices!

I ran out of my So Delicious coconut milk but had 2 Thai young coconuts in my fridge so I set out to make my own homemade version. So far, I've been really pleased!

Homemade Coconut Beverage
yields about 60-ish ounces

2 Thai young coconuts - water and meat
6 cups of water
1 teaspoon guar gum, maybe more depending on how thick/creamy you want it
Stevia or agave to sweeten
*Optional: 2 tablespoons coconut butter (I used Artisana Raw Coconut Butter) or coconut cream

1. Throw everything in the Vitamix and let it rip until smooth and creamy.

I basically add enough water to fill the jar of the blender and adjust the guar gum until its as thick as I like it. Then I poured everything right back into my coconut milk carton with a funnel.
I haven't really tried drinking it straight up, but it works awesome in smoothies (especially because of the built in guar gum) and baked goods. If you don't have access to fresh coconuts, I'm pretty sure you could make a delicious alternative with a can of coconut milk, water, sweetener and guar gum.

****

As if the Vitamix wasn't working hard enough, I snagged a CrockPot at the thrift store for $6 bucks the other week. It looks like a bunch of y'all are also showing the crock some love so I thought I would share this absolutely delicious black bean soup recipe. It was done from dry beans in 4 hours on HIGH. Yes, it requires a little pre-sauteeing of veggies in the pan, but its mostly for the flavor. I think if you wanted to skip that step, you could use veggie broth instead of water. Either way, its friggin' delicious. I didn't bother making the crema, but as a cumin lover, I bet its amazing.

The crockpot also made amazing refried beans. Just add 1 pound of dried pinto beans to your CrockPot, add 5 cups of hot water, 1 bay leaf, 1 chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of chopped garlic, and 2 chopped chipotle in adobo. 4-6 hours later, or whenever the beans are nice and soft, add salt and mash with a potato masher until the beans are as smooth as you want.

And if that wasn't enough to keep you occupied, I give you moist, delicious vegan brownies with no added fat except for the chocolate chips! Sooooo good!

Vegan Brownies
yields 16 brownies

1.5 cups unsweetened applesauce (I used Santa Cruz Organic Blackberry Applesauce)
1/2 cup agave syrup
1.5 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2/3 cup vegan dark chocolate chips
Pam

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Dump all the ingredients except the chocolate chips into a bowl. Stir until combined.
3. Fold in chocolate chips. Batter will be thick.
4. Spray a 9x9 pan generously with Pam and then spread brownie batter evenly into the pan.
5. Bake for 25 minutes and then cool on the counter. Slice and enjoy!

Well, that should keep you all busy for a while! (Seriously, make. brownies. now.) I'll peep you laters!

P.S. How much are we all going to miss this gorgeous chica?? I'm dying inside, but so proud that she's going on to bigger and better things! We love you Erin!

Vitamix Ice Cream

2010-01-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, THREE posts in one day is a little extreme, but I just had to post these two soft serve recipes I made on the fly in my VitaMix tonight to combat a MAJOR sweets attack. I didn't have any fruit during the day today (which is a little crazy for me), so I was in need of a fix. They are both TERRIFIC!

First, I made this chocolate blueberry treat that's low sugar, non-fat, low calorie and filled with antioxidants. I added:

Chocolate Covered Blueberry Soft Serve
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup dairy-free milk (I used So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
10 drops liquid stevia

And tamp away with the plunging tool for my VitaMix. You can alternatively use your food processor and scrape along the way. Yielded a heaping bowl of deliciousness for 140 calories.

But I wasn't done yet. After I got my chocolate fix, I felt like something fruity and my sweet tooth wasn't satisfied yet so I made ANOTHER soft serve.

Tropical Green Sorbet

1 cup of ice
1/2 cup frozen mango
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
1/4 cup non-dairy milk (again, the unsweetened So Delicious Coconut Milk)
Juice of 1/2 a Meyer lemon
10 drops of liquid stevia
2 big handfuls of baby spinach

I tamped that baby away got a HUGE volume-riffic bowl of amazing, creamy, dense, bright green fruit sorbet. Giant bowl of fruits and greens for around 100 calories.

I have been using this So Delicious unsweetened coconut milk for about a week now (it was on major sale at my store) and I really like it. It doesn't really taste coconutty (although I don't mind coconut) and 50 calories for 1 cup. It has a very creamy mouthfeel because of the added guar gum in the ingredient list, which is why I think I've been loving it so much in my soft serves and smoothies. Deb, the Smoothie Queen, has a great post up about guar and xantham gums and how they thicken your smoothies and drinks if you're interested. HEAB is also a big fan of the gums.

A note about making successful blender ice cream is that there needs to be a binder. Most of the time in smoothies, we add banana to make it thick and creamy. In the absence of something like that you either need to use some xantham and guar gums OR use a fruit that's naturally high in its own thickening agents.

Both of the recipes above use fruits that have their own gelling properties - blueberries and mangos. I'm sure the guar gum in the coconut milk helped to make things creamy, but ultimately, most of it came from the naturally occurring fibers and gelling agents in the fruit themselves. Cranberry, rhubarb, and banana also are good for getting a velvety texture. Other fruits will give you a much more icier mouthfeel. So play around to your liking.

Where's the beef?

2010-01-13T17:08:00.000-08:00

Yess, I found my camera cord! Hope you're enjoying my vacation pictures. I so rarely get to go away on a personal vacation that I'm quite giddy about the fact that I went away for two whole days just for my personal sanity. I felt very grown up and old - but in a good way for once!

Anyways, I have been Facebooking and Tweeting about this one for days, so without further ado, here is my recipe for VEGAN. CORNED. BEEF. SEITAN! I don't know what the deal is but I have been craving Reubens like crazy lately and it seems to be a common craving lately around the Web. Maybe its the cold dreary weather? Who knows. And who cares, when you can have it whenever you want it with this gem of a recipe.

Vegan Corned Beef Seitan
yields enough to make 4-5 Reubens piled high

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup refried beans (I used Trader Joe's refried black beans)

- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

- 1 cup water or broth

- 2 tsp salt

- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp carraway seeds
- 1/2 tsp black pepper

- 1/2 tsp cloves

- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp molasses (optional)

-1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes

- 1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten

1. Get a steamer set up in a pot with plenty of simmering water. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another.

2. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with your hands to combine everything.

3. Shape into a rectangle (about 8" x 5") and double wrap in foil and double fold the seams.

4. Steam for 50 minutes. Add more hot water to the pot if needed. Seitan should swell and puff up against the foil pretty well. If not, steam some more.

5. Remove from steamer and allow to cool on counter for 20 minutes. Then slice for....

Vegan Reuben Sandwiches

- Sliced vegan corned beef

- Sauerkraut (I blot mine and then saute in a dry pan for a few minutes)

- Thousand Island dressing (1 tbsp Vegenaise, 2 tbsp each Dijon and Ketchup)

- Rye bread (I used Rudi's Organic Light Jewish Rye)

- Pam

1. Microwave your corned beef slices for 1 minute to warm.
2. Pile on your sandwich goodies and plenty of dressing on the bread.
3. Spray pan and top of sandwich generously with Pam and press lightly to grill and brown. Panini maker would also work great here. Serve with a huge pickle and moan. (TWSS).

After eating a few Reubens over the last few days, I still had a chunk of leftover corned beef seitan. So I decided to throw my leftovers together tonight to make something that tasted like a cross between a Reuben, corned beef and cabbage, and a Big Mac.

I layered spinach and Romaine in a big bowl. Added a layer of drained sauerkraut and pickle slices. Topped with leftover roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts I had heated up in a pan with chunks of the corned beef seitan (cook until the edges of the seitan are nice and crisp). I topped it all off with some Thousand Island dressing I thinned out with water to a vinaigrette consistency.

Uh, I don't know what to call that, but it was insanely good. The brussel sprouts just killed it - so creamy and sweet.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, let me introduce you to a stranger who followed me home to my kitchen last weekend:

Read it and weep! I'd been fantasizing about a VitaMix all during Christmas but told myself to hold off until my birthday in April. But then I happened to be at Costco, they were selling them on special with an extra long warranty, I had got a TON of new work from my research gig and I just really wanted it. :)

I made a deal with myself that I would not buy canned/packaged soups or chilis this year (easily $75-100), not buy Jamba Juice smoothies, try make my own nutmilks as much as possible and aim to use the darn thing at least five times a week to justify the expense. (So far I've been using it more like 2-3 times a DAY). I also put back $80 worth of towels, socks, tank tops, canned soup and sheets that had been in my cart before I found the VitaMix display. All in all, I think it will pay for itself within the year, especially since I have 8 years of warranty on this thing (I think normally you get 5 years) and I paid $60 dollars less than the website listed price.

Am I in love? Yes. Is it amazing? YES. What have I made with it? Smoothies, milkshakes, vegan broccoli cheese soup, vegan tortilla soup, ranchero/enchilada sauce, choco-blueberry softserve, cake batter, chocolate nutmilk, salsa...you name it. Between the VitaMix and the juicer, I've been eating RIDICULOUS amounts of produce, which can only mean good things for my body. Look forward to many more smoothies and treats in my future!

Well, its time for this insomniac to take a nap! Bye loveys!

Mini-Break: Point Reyes, CA

2010-01-13T17:01:00.001-08:00

Check out zee wittle slide show! Such a great spot for R&R. Can't wait to go back!

Excuses and an announcement!

2010-01-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

Hey loveys!

So school totally started yesterday! I had to stay up super late the night before because I had more research to get done for my professor and because I'm a slacker and didn't get my school supplies together sooner. This semester I am taking Evidence, Marital Property, Environmental Practice, California Environmental Issues, Public Benefits Law and Public Interest Law. All my professors are awesome, and one of them was my boss from last summer, so things are looking up!

Made it through the day fine and met up with the ladies for first-day-of-school margaritas. It had been so long since I'd spent quality time with my breezies! It was really fun and we had lots of margaritas and food. Sucky thing was three out of four us felt nast when we got home. Never going back there again!

Today, I didn't have class and it was a rainy day, so I just kinda putzed a bit, baking cookies and eating lots of roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts. I have been playing around with a new corned beef seitan recipe for a few days and was really pumped about blogging about it (it makes KILLER vegan Reubens!) but I have, once again, lost my camera cord somewhere. ARGH. So that post, along with my mini-break photos, will have to wait a few more days. And there may be a few more photo-less blog entries. But no worries: I ordered a new SD-USB adaptor for my laptop so I won't have to go running around looking for my cord anymore!

My teeny tiny announcement is that I've decided to embark on a personal writing project this year. This has come as a result of a lot of personal experiences, thought, reflection and talking to my spiritual twin Bayleigh over the past year. The project is still in its nascent stages - I don't know specifically what I am to write or what form it will take - but I wanted to announce it more for myself. Like shoving a stake into the ground and saying "okay, I'm doing this!" I do know this initial project will be Christ-focused, so I probably won't really talk about it much more on this blog, but might entertain the idea of creating a separate blog for it. If you'd be interested in something like that, please send me some feedback.

I feel really good about this because its something that has been incubating and swimming in my heart and mind for a long time. I started to feel the pull more urgently last year, beginning in the summer, but I was too busy and the timing didn't feel right. But as this year has opened, I've felt more serious, more prepared to carry it through despite the craziness that is law school, and thankfully, my schedule has worked out in a way where I only have class three days a week! That will leave me, hopefully, a few extra hours a week to unplug from the study of law to try and put to words the countless, swirling feelings that God sends spinning through this wacky head of mine. If there are any of you out there who are working on something similar or want to share experiences/encouragement, let me know!

Okay bebes, that's it for now. I have a mountain of reading to do and have a LOOOOONG day of class tomorrow, so I'm gonna jet. Hope your weeks are going well!

Happy New Year

2010-01-09T23:48:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. Happy 2010! I hope all of you had fun and safe holiday seasons. Like many of you, I am gearing up to get back into the swing of things, as classes start on Monday. I know I haven't been blogging much lately, and to the 3 readers I have left, I apologize. But I kinda hit a life wall during the holidays and needed a break.

As you saw from my last blog entry, this last semester was really tough on me and I got home completely burned out. I spent three days laying in bed, staring at the wall, eating junk food and freaking out my mom because I was so zoned out. My brain felt like pudding...I just couldn't handle anything. Then we found out my grandmother in Korea had been hospitalized, my dad turned 60 (which is a huge deal in Korean culture), we had the holidays, family events and then I flew back to Sacramento on the 30th to watch my dear friend Teresa get married on New Year's Eve. The wedding was gorgeous, but I was just spent from everything else and woke up New Year's Day with the worst cold I've ever had. I spent the next three days laying in bed sick as a dog, and then had to drag myself out on the fourth day to meet a research deadline. I pulled an all-nighter on Monday night to meet my deadline and then laid on my friend's couch Tuesday morning a complete wreck. Not only was I physically worn out and ill, but I was in a heinous mood, I was complaining and whining, and I was starting my year off on the wrong foot.

So I decided I needed to do something just for me. So my gay and I booked two nights at a lodge in tiny town near Point Reyes, a beautiful pastoral/coastal area in Northern California about 90 minutes from Davis. I did a load of laundry, packed my bag and drove off Wednesday afternoon for 48 hours of relaxation. I did do a little bit of work while I was there, but I didn't mind it because my surroundings were so beautiful and peaceful. We drove to the coast and looked at bleak, gray beaches that stood in stark relief to lush, emerald green hills dotted with sleepy-eyed cattle. I felt like I was in France or Ireland. So amazing. I also got time to see my friend Colleen before she moved to Vermont for a few months and ate lots of fabulous organic local foods in adorable tiny towns.

I got back yesterday and have been resting and getting over the last vestiges of my cold. My apartment is a mess, I am not really ready to start school, but at the very least, my terrible mood and black attitude is gone and I'm finally ready to acknowledge the turning of the calendar. 2010 kinda snuck up on me before I was really ready for it, and I just needed a few days of suspended animation to pull myself together.

As for resolutions for this New Year, I don't have that many. I agree, as I often do, with the amazing Andrea that 2009 sucked ass. I have gotten lazy and complacent over the last few months. Additionally, a few pounds crept up on me over finals and the holidays, I wasn't really happy with the way I looked at my friend's wedding, my workout schedule became non-existent and my eating habits got pretty manic - great on some days, horrible on others. So I want to just get back on track with my health and nutrition, and I know that's going to help my mood and attitude too.

Academically, my gay and I have made plans on being more accountable to one another about our work schedules and help each other be more consistent with our studying so that we're not freaking out as much before finals. I'm hoping to enjoy school more and not be so grim about it. Law school is a privilege. Its a privilege. Its a privilege. (I keep telling myself that.)

I also want to stop thinking so much about Yooli. I spend too much time analyzing myself, obsessing about things I should change, and I just want to enjoy life some more. And I want to focus on enjoying my relationship with God more, as opposed to trying to figure out all the time what God is trying to tell me and what I should do next.

What are your resolutions?

I'll post some pictures of my trip tomorrow and stay tuned for a new addition to the WIYP kitchen!

Wheeeeeeee~!

2009-12-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

Uh, yeah, hi guys! I fell into a deep dark hole called "finals" and JUST finished last night when I turned in my last memo at 11:51pm. This semester has absolutely been the longest, hardest one yet. (TWSS!)

Anyways, I just wanted to stop by and say MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

(And to my Jewish friends, Happy Belated Hanukkah! Did you know that my mother unwittingly sent out hundreds of blue cards covered in menorahs as her Christmas card this year? Her response: "What's Hanukkah? I just thought they were unique and pretty cards that were on sale last week!" So now we have an entire church congregation scratching their heads and a bunch of confused Jewish neighbors wondering why the Chois sent them a Hanukkah card wishing them a Merry Christmas.)

So, in the words of my crazy Korean-speaking mother: "Mully Cuh-rees-mas."

Because its not Christmas...

2009-12-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

...unless I'm clowning other Koreans.

For your listening pleasure...

Changin' it up!

2009-12-05T18:47:00.000-08:00

Hey loveys!

Its officially finals time, so you know what that means on this end - cah-razy time! And to make it even wilder, I took a big gamble and flew HOME to study for finals. I have 10 days between the end of classes and my first final, so instead of eating junk food and curling up into the fetal position in my apartment, I decided to come home to Los Angeles and try to study here. I'm curious to see how this will turn out. It could be great or it could be disastrous.

I flew home with 2 suitcases. One huge one full of all my books and notes, plus a second one filled with clothes and...my juicer. Yup, just couldn't handle going 10 days without the joooooooce. I went 5 days without it over Thanksgiving and couldn't handle it!

I was a super nerd and also packed a whole bunch of stuff I couldn't live without, like my new coffee tumbler, 3 kinds of tea (Nutcracker Sweet, Gingerbread, Egg Nog), my organic dark chocolate, and I even smuggled my liquid stevia in my cosmetics purse. Y'all I'm not even kidding, I prayed that my stevia wouldn't get confiscated!

Success! Jesus saved my stevia. And when I got home and unpacked, my parents looked at me like I had 9 heads.

For lunch, my mom took me to a noodle place inside a Korean market. We ate and then she treated me to some kabocha squashes, Thai young coconut and some juicing veggies. Then I went to shop for some clothes for my grandma in Korea (please keep her in your prayers, she was just diagnosed with Parkinson's disease) and came home.

Later, I took the car and did a Whole Foods/Trader Joe's shop for myself. I love being near a Trader Joe's, but MAN was I missing the Co-op today! Our Co-op sells everything a Whole Foods would but its locally owned, has way more local produce and its way cheaper! For instance, GT raw kombucha at our Co-op is never more than $2.69 but the Whole Foods was trying to pimp them out for $3.69! Geez. Instead, I settled for a locally produced kombucha that was on sale, a small pouch of raw mesquite powder for $2.99, a few scoops of raw oats and bought the new Tropical Fruit Larabar to try out. Oh, and Silk Creamer for my gingerbread lattes! ;-)

The trade off for Whole Feezy prices was gettin' some raw almond butter at Trader Joe's, as well as some of their new Smooth and Creamy hummus. I ADORE the TJ's cilantro jalapeno hummus, so I'm going to try this smooth and creamy business to see if its any better. I also bought some of their candy cane tea, which I'm pretty sure is exactly like the Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane tea (good Lord, how many teas do I need!?) Your girl also pimped some organic carrots, bebe spinach, bananas, sprouted wheat bread, Tofurkey slices, Ak-Mak crackers, olive oil spray, a few bottles of my fav berry flavored sparking water and Goddess dressing.

Total was about $40.00 for the week from both stores, plus tons of raw veggies at my mom's house for juice and snacking.

I really want to try to stay away from crappy junk food and eat well during finals, so here is my meal plan for the next week:

Breakfast
Organic rolled oats blended with bebe spinach and banana, topped with raw almond butter, flaxseed meal and mesquite
Organic strawberry banana smoothies with bebe spinach, flaxseed meal and soymilk
Almond butter and banana sammies with honey
Avocado toast with poached egg

Lunch
Tofurkey sammies with bebe spinach, hummus and/or avocado
Almond butter and banana sammies with honey
Bebe spinach salad with fuji apples, avocado, Tofurkey and Goddess dressing

Snacks
Persimmons
Satsuma mandarins
Hummus and veggies/crackers
Roasted kabocha squash
Organic dark chocolate

Beverages
Veggie juice
Homemade gingerbread lattes
Candy Cane tea
Nutcracker Sweet tea
Coconut water
Berry flavored sparkling water

Dinner
Probably Korean food with my parents.

Desserts
Kabocha squash with mesquite and almond butter
Fruit
Banana soft serve (Yesss, mom has a food processor!)

Hopefully planning ahead and staying with my parents will not only be good for my grades, but good for my body, since its not unusual for me to be pounding Red Bulls and eating Denny's and nachos for every meal during finals. Fingers crossed.

Smell ya laters bbs!

Tutorial: Vegan Worchestershire Sauce

2009-12-02T23:43:00.000-08:00

*Edit: Something went wrong in the upload the bottom half of me is missing from the video for some reason. Sorry! I'm still getting the hang of this stuff! Also, I said 1/4 teaspoon of cloves in this recipe and that is WRONG - I meant 1/8 teaspoon, which is about a heavy pinch.

An easy, cheap and VEGAN Worchestershire Sauce recipe.

Pancake WEDNESDAY

2009-12-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

Howdy! Today is a "lighter" day here in law school land because I don't have my first class until 2pm. So I slept in, did the dishes and thought about what I wanted to eat for breakfast, er, lunch.

I have really been craving some pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes lately and was set to make them for myself until I remembered my can opener was broken. (I went to THREE stores yesterday looking for a can opener and they were out - what gives?) So I looked forlornly at my cans of pumpkin and decided to make banana chocolate chip pancakes instead.

I really like the fluffy consistency of my oatmeal protein pancakes but I have been off protein powder since I gave up cow dairy, so I made up something as I went along and I think they turned out pretty darn tasty. These are bit denser than your average pancake, since they're whole grain, but once you slather them with toppings, you won't notice (or care).

Instead of syrup, I decided to make some ABU based on the ubiquitous the PBU recipe. I threw 2 tablespoons of raw almond butter into my food chopper with 2 tablespoons of almond milk and 1 tablespoon of agave syrup.

Topped with chocolate chips and banana slices! (Remember to throw on the chocolate chips while the pancakes are still hot so they get nice and gooey!)

Ahhhh...Washed down with a homemade gingerbread latte, could you ask for a better brunch?

Vegan Oatmeal Pancakes
Makes 4 pancakes

Dry ingredients
3/4 cup of rolled oats, ground in a food processor or blender until fine
1/3 cup of whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Wet ingredients
1 cup dairy-alternative milk - I used almond milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon agave syrup (or your sweetener of choice)

Egg replacer
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal + 3 tablespoons of water

Directions
1. Mix up your egg replacer in a small bowl and allow to sit for a few minutes until thickened.

2. Mix up your dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately.

3. Combine egg replacer with your wet ingredients, and then dump the wet ingredients into the dry goods. Stir to combine until smooth.

5. Pour onto non-stick griddle and cook like normal pancakes. The batter will thicken up a bit between batches, but don't worry about it - you don't have to add more liquid. They'll cook up fine. Enjoy!

I fought the Bux and the Korean won!

2009-12-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Gettin' back in the swing of it

2009-12-01T18:44:00.001-08:00

Hey loveys!

I had a great recovery day after the long weekend with a busy schedule and lots of good eats! I had an early class so I just ran out the door with a cup of tea and didn't eat anything until lunchtime. But instead of feeling hungry, my body just felt really light and comfortable all morning so I decided to roll with it and have a light lunch.

I came home around noon and fixed myself a really fast salad of bebe spinach, 1/4 of an avocado, a handful of walnuts and 1/2 a block of store-bought baked tofu with Annie's Goddess Dressing. On the side I had some carrot sticks with hummus and a tall glass of juice. Today's juice was carrot, fuji apple, spinach, lime and ginger. Yum!

I made it the rest of the day with a few pieces of candy, a Diet Coke and a few bites of a Korean rice cake my mom sent me. I did some grocery shopping after class and came home craving a big veggielicious dinner so I whipped together one of those really delicious and seemingly simple meals that use up every pot and pan in your kitchen.

I had another spinach salad with some sauteed mushrooms, the other half of my baked tofu and a homemade BBQ sauce as dressing. (When your ketchup gets down to about 1/2 cup, add 2 tablespoons of hot water, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon of molasses, 1 tablespoon of chili powder, a squirt of hot sauce and a few drops of liquid smoke. Shake up your bottle and presto! Amazing homemade BBQ sauce!)

I also made my go-to red lentil soup from this New York Times recipe. I veganized it by using water instead of chicken stock, swapped out the tomato paste with some fire roasted tomatoes, used some juice pulp instead of the carrot, and added a dollop of plain soy yogurt at the end to give it a creamier consistency. So good!! And it takes less than 30 minutes to make. Such a winning recipe!

I also took out my mandoline and shredded up some butternut squash to make a squash latke based on this recipe my Maangch i. All you do is shred up some butternut squash, add some salt to draw out the moisture and toss with a little flour to bind. (I used whole wheat pastry flour). Press into a pan sprayed with Pam, brown over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes on each side and presto! Delicious b-nut pancake!

You know your girl also had to get some more juice in. Repeat from my lunch juice. All together now:

Such a delicious, healthy dinner! This is what I was talking about the other week about my eating: I usually eat vegan or vegetarian out of habit, but I've gotta let a few things slide. I have no idea if the 3 pieces of candy I ate this afternoon were vegan or not, but I'm not going to obsess about it. If I did, I think I'd go bonkers.

Anyways, I've got another vlog installment for you guys later tonight, so stay tuned! (YouTube takes FOREVER to upload these things!!)

WIYP goes hi-tech!

2009-12-01T02:15:00.001-08:00

First vlog ever! Please excuse the way I look, I had just gotten off a plane with no makeup and the webcam makes my head look gigantic.

2009-12-01T00:11:00.005-08:00

Hi loveys!

I'm back to Davis after a wonderful, but disappointingly unproductive, weekend at home. Well, I can't say it wasn't productive, since I helped my cousin finish her college applications (they were due today), but it left me with almost no time to get my schoolwork done. My dreams of getting my Admin Law outline done were dashed. Oh well.

Being at home is great, but its always special occasion eating when I'm back. We had Thanksgiving with our extended family and then lots of Korean food so I felt kind of out of it all weekend. Lots of white rice, cookies, candy, leftovers - I was definitely "hugging my carbs"!

I did get one "normal" meal in on Sunday. I made a run to the store and picked up a few things, like frozen broccoli, bebe spinach, an avocado, some Dijon mustard and a Pom Tea. So I threw together this quickie salad for myself: spinach, tomato, Fuji apple, some warmed up leftover turkey, avocado and a Dijon dressing. Topped with some honey roasted peanuts from my mom's flight! Had my Pom tea and a side of steamed broccoli with Tony Chacheres cajun spice. Nom.

Was crunchy and delicious!

Its going to be a busy week, so I'm off to bed. Can't wait for a big jar of juice in the morning! Hope you guys had a great holiday!

Oh, and I'm going to try and see if I can do a vlog for you guys! Stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T19:17:00.002-08:00

Just wanted to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving - my favoritest holiday ever!

My life is currently a hot mess, what with trying to pack and get all my school stuff together for the long weekend before I leave. Dishes, garbage, packing, etc. You know the drill.

Anyways, hope you all have a safe and savory holiday! Love you much!

xoxo,
Yools.

Meh.

2009-11-23T17:16:00.004-08:00

I pushed myself through the weekend to get more of my paper done. I turned a still-incomplete draft to my professor (which is never a good feeling, even though she was terribly nice about it) and left school feeling pretty tired and bummed out.

I dropped off some Vegan Coco Mole Chili and Vegan Pumpkin Carob Healthy Cookies to a friend to taste test for me (recipe developing) and ran a few errands afterwards (Andrea, Erin and Mama Pea, your packages are en route!). I was almost home when I decided to stop by Cost Plus World Market (I literally live 30 seconds from it!) I went in looking for salad tongs and possibly a new coffee mug, but the tongs were way too expensive, I wasn't in love with any of the mugs, and I was just feeling "meh" about everything in general.

So you know that meant it was time for junk food! I grabbed some blue corn flaxseed tortillas so I could finish off my salsas before I go home on Thursday, as well as some gummy bears and cheesy puffs. I also got some Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt (which is soooo delicious) because I ran out of chocolate over the weekend.

The funniest thing may be my wine purchase. I just really wanted to unwind with a glass of wine tonight, but for some reason I can't seem to find either of my two corkscrews. So idiot here just bought a bottle of screwtop wine because I couldn't handle buying another corkscrew.

I'm home now. I'm probably going to heat up some enchiladas I made over the weekend and some frozen veggies and lay in bed for a while before getting up to read for tomorrow. Sigh. WHEN DOES THIS END!?

I'm so tired. :-(

And now...

2009-11-21T21:31:00.005-08:00

Sorry for the deep post earlier. Well, not really, but here's some fluffery to balance things out. ;-)

It was pouring yesterday and I decided to take a 20 minute drive down to the Vacaville Premium Outlets to do some walking/window-shopping. I'm supposed to get in a good walk every day as part of my knee rehab (but I'm scared to get on the treadmill), so I strapped on my compression sleeve and plodded among the shops and breezeways. I also ended up at the Walmart in the same complex and strolled along the aisles with my shopping cart. All told, it was a good 90 minute romp.

Cash is tight these days, so I wasn't looking to spend any money....But I found a few things I couldn't pass up. First was a pair of boyfriend jeans. I have been looking for a pair since late in the summer but have yet to find any that fit me correctly. Imagine my surprise when I found a pair at Charlotte Russe Factory Outlet. A store for juniors?? Yep. A little stretch, nice color, no ass-cracks or camel-toes - DONE. And CHEAP.

(Please ignore the pile of clothes on the left and the fact that I'm doing a weird squat because I can't stand up straight with my right knee yet).

Now, if this doesn't prove that vegetarians/vegans don't all have eating disorders, I don't know what does. Your girl eats a relatively healthy, mostly vegetarian diet and I am rocking a size 12. There I said it.

As part of my glorious Korean heritage, I am prone to huge sumo-like bulgy calves (and matching bulgy biceps). I have nice trim ankles and pretty small feet, but those calves are like beasts. I'm not kidding - they look my chicken drumsticks from the knee down. So, its always been hard for me to find knee-high boots that fit my legs. Either the calve opening is too small, or the ankle area is too baggy, etc. And now with my knee injury, I didn't think I could even wear boots this season. Until I found these:

Also Charlotte Russe. They're fake leather black riding boots with a stable, low heel, they fit and they were $30. Can't beat that.

Finally, at Wal-Mart, I found this plain black 3/4 sleeve jersey dress in the clearance rack for $9.00. I love plain black jersey dresses, this has longer sleeves for the colder weather and allows me to rock outfits that make me look like Dr. Temperance Brennan on "Bones." (Anyone watch that show?)

(Again, sorry for the weird squatting pose).

ALRIGHT, that's enough procrastinating. Time to work some more. Sigh.

A Christian perspective, if I may....

2009-11-21T18:22:00.005-08:00

I generally try to not involve myself in tense situations because I've learned that it usually makes the problem worse. But I wanted to speak up today because, well, its my blog and I can rant if I want to. (Just kidding). No, really I just wanted to share a little bit of insight into a recent spate of hate-mongering I have seen in the blogosphere with regards to people's dietary choices. With the holidays approaching and as a Christian woman, I felt like it was the right time to say a few things on my heart. If you don't want to hear it, then you should stop reading now.

People's dietary choices are very personal things. And I think every blog I read and every blogger I have befriended have made two things abundantly clear: (1) they assure their readers that they are not certified dieticians or nutritionists (unless they really are) and thus encourage their readers to take what they say with a grain of salt, and (2) they support their readers making the choices they believe are most beneficial to their health. Yes, there are times when we as a community of healthy bloggers may criticize unhealthy habits, but eating a ton of fried food and processed enriched white bread is genuinely bad for you. Ask any doctor. If you're offended by that, I apologize. I really do. I don't mean to make anyone feel alienated by those comments.

Now, lately, there have been a lot of things said to my blogger friends about their dietary choices, particularly those who choose to lead vegetarian or vegan lifestyles. But what's most appalling about this phenomenon is that I've seen a lot of this judging coming from Christians. I generally don't bring a lot of my spiritual life into this blog for a variety of reasons, but as someone who believes in the Lord and wants to lead a life that is pleasing to God, I really want to point a few things out for those "well-meaning" Christians who believe it is okay to preach their personal opinions about diet by cloaking them in the name of the Lord.

First of all, as Christians, we don't have the right to judge anyone. Period. In Matthew 7:2 (The Message version), Christ says:

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own."

Second of all, nowhere in the Bible does it say you have to eat meat. It is true that the Bible says in the New Testament that we are not restricted from eating certain foods. Acts 10:9-15 (NIV version) says:

⁹About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ¹²It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. ¹³Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
¹⁴"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
¹⁵The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Despite what other Christians may say, this is not a commandment to go eat meat. Rather, it was God telling Peter that he was not obligated to keep kosher. This passage is effectively saying that there are no dietary restrictions in Christianity. Peter, as a Jew, could not contemplate eating outside the kosher dietary laws and thus was mortified God told him to go kill all these forbidden animals. But God says here clearly that He allows us to eat whatever we need and does not require us to keep any dietary restrictions as part of our Christian faith. In essence, God is giving us the freedom to choose what we want to eat.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, God tells us to respect the dietary choices of others. Romans 14:2-12 (The Message version) could not be any clearer:

^2-4For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ's table, wouldn't it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn't eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.
⁵Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.
^6-9What's important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God's sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you're a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It's God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That's why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.
^10-12So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I'd say it leaves you looking pretty silly—or worse. Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there one bit.

Given these clear missives from God, I challenge any Christian to try and say that someone has to eat anything with regards to their diet. To me, the beauty of Christianity lies in God's respect for our free will. God gives all humans the right to choose what they want to do - whether its to eat meat, to be a vegan or to even be a Christian in the first place. You choose. You decide.

If a Christian, or anyone else for that matter, makes the decision to be a hardcore raw vegan or to eat meat, it doesn't matter to God. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of killing an animal in order to eat, then don't eat meat. If you believe your body doesn't feel right without eating some kind of animal protein, then fine. God just wants to make it clear that He doesn't require us to eat a certain way to please Him and that He wants us to be thankful for whatever we do choose to eat.

Now a word about health. As Christians, we believe that our bodies are temples of the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT version) says:

¹⁹ Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, ²⁰ for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

For Christians, this means a lot of different things, but one obvious thing is to take care of ourselves and to be healthy. But what healthy means differs from person to person. So as a Christian, as long as you are taking conscious actions to maintain your body in a way that honors God, then He's fine with it.

Judging someone's eating habits - especially when those habits are built on lots of thoughtful consideration towards one's health - is mean-spirited, no matter what your religion or background. But its especially appalling when such actions come from Christians because its just plain wrong.

As we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season, all of us have lots to be thankful for. Among other things, let's be thankful for nourishing food (no matter what form it comes in) and for having the luxury to even have food in the first place. There are so many things we should be celebrating this time of year! Like friends, family, pets, health, life, shelter, love and joy! Let's be happy, gracious and loving towards one another, no matter what we choose to put in our mouths, and enjoy the bounty that surrounds us.

Sleepy squash face

2009-11-19T11:14:00.003-08:00

I pulled another all nighter and I am feeling rough. In fact, during the hour I had between classes this morning, I curled up in the crevice in our basement hallway next to the soda machine and slept for a good 45 minutes.

Just stopped by quickly to tell you that last night I made this recipe for Roasted Kabocha Squash with Cumin Salt from SELF. I followed the recipe almost exactly - the only changes I made were to halve the brown sugar because kabocha is sweet enough and I used raw coconut oil in lieu of olive oil. It was really delicious and nice change of pace from my standard puree. The combination of cumin seed and bay leaf puts the flavor right on the tipping point between Indian and Southwestern. I think a pinch of garam masala or oregano is all you'd need to push it one way or another. Which reminds me, the other half of my kabocha is going to have to turn into Squash Half-Moons in Butter, Sesame and Salt (easily veganized with Earth Balance).

I think people like Mama Pea and HEAB are going to love both of these recipes! Enjoy!

*Yawn*

Busy bee

2009-11-19T00:19:00.002-08:00

I am slammed tonight, but I just stopped by to say that I ate two whole avocados today. Huge ones. Mike and Gena would be so pleased.

One as the main part of my lunch, smashed with salt, pepper and lime juice.

A second in raw chocolate pudding form. (I ate dessert before dinner).

Both were amazing!

Back to toiling on this paper draft. Uggggghhhhhhh!

Tea!

2009-11-18T11:32:00.001-08:00

Speaking of Celestial Seasonings Teas, here is an interview on The Kitchn with CS' head blendmaster! Super fun read - and how good does Pelican Punch sound!?

Night Owl. Hoo.

2009-11-18T00:09:00.006-08:00

You guys are the best, you really are. I love it when I come back from a hiatus from blogging and you guys leave me such amazing comments, Facebook messages and Tweets! Motivates me to blog some more for you'uns. ;-)

After pulling an all-nighter last night, I was muy tired today. I got to school at 7am to try to snag a parking spot close to class and found they were all full already! So I had to park in my usual lot and walk in uncomfortable flats and a skirt in 35 degree weather. Brr. I got to my cubbyhole and fell asleep for a good 30 minutes before class. Hope I wasn't snoring in the stacks!

A big coffee and a good chat sesh with my BFF, Burnett, during my Enviromental Law class perked me up. However, by the time my last class got out at 3pm, I was so done y'all. I drove straight to Target after class to walk around a little bit and exercise my leg (and my debit card!) In all honesty, its easier for me cruise around while holding onto a shopping cart right now, so it was a good 40 minute walk. I tried on a few things off the sale rack, but nothing fit. So I snagged a $6.00 pair of leggings (since I have to wear them under my knee brace), a bag of organic tortilla chips and a can of Amy's spicy chili (which I have been really wanting to try!)

I got home and couldn't decide what to have for dinner. Chili with chips? Or a Greek goat cheese pizza from Trader Joe's? Well idiot here decided to eat chips and salsa while deciding, so I ended up having pizza. I snarfed that puppy down pretty fast, then had butternut squash fries as a "second course" and a satsuma mandarin as a palate cleanser.

I passed out hard for about 3 hours after that and woke up at 10pm to start working again. I skimmed through a bunch of cases I need for my paper and decided I wasn't quite as screwed as I thought I was. (The next 72 hours will be telling, however, since my first draft is due Friday!) So I took a break at about midnight to make myself a snickety snack. (I am a major study/work grazer!)

I didn't have enough veggies today so my body was letting me know. So I made three different cookie sheets of roasted vegetables, since they all cook at different times. First up was the kale chips, then green bean fries and cauliflower florets, and then finally another round of butternut fries. All of it shall be devoured with ketchup.

Buttttttt what I'm most stoked about tonight this tarty green drink:

I call it K-Lime Cider!

This was:

1 1/2 limes, peeled
1 inch knob of ginger
2 organic Gala apples
Stems from 1 bunch of kale

I juiced it all through and mixed it with 1/2 cup of water to get a nice limeade consistency. It was still a wee bit tart for me so I added a drizzle of organic raw agave syrup and served it up over ice in my klassy jar.

For serious, this was SO good and refreshing. Totally hit the spot. (And honesty, I think it could make for an awesome raw margarita!) Next time I might add a spot of cinnamon so that it tastes like key lime pie!

In other beverage news, I am stoked because Target had a huge sale on Celestial Seasonings teas. I didn't notice this until recently, but apparently I really like Celestial Seasoning teas. A lot. I just counted 16 boxes of tea in my house and like 12 of them are from CS. And today, I got the Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea.

I am pumped about this tea because when I was in Tahoe a few weeks ago, the girls and I drank endless cups of Republic of Tea's Good Hope Vanilla Red Rooibos. It was amazing with a splash of hemp milk and stevia, so I looked for it when I got home but balked at the $10 price tag! So imagine my delight when I saw that CS made their own version for $2.00. And can I tell you America, it tastes exactly the same. SO GOOD!! Soothing, nutty, vanilla-y, caffeine-free, and full of antioxidants.

And majestic lions, apparently.

Time to knock out the last few slides on my PowerPoint. Wish me luck on my presentation!

Make-up!

2009-11-17T06:45:00.006-08:00

Here's me actually doing my make-up for once. I don't know what the deal is but no matter how heavily I lay it on, I never look like I'm wearing that much in pictures. Its kind of annoying.

Believe it or not, I have on foundation primer, foundation, concealer, I drew in my eyebrows, I have dark brown eyeliner on top, 3 shades of blue eyeshadow, gold eyeshadow to highlight, bright blue metallic liner under my eye, 2 kinds of volumizing mascara, blush, lipstick AND lipgloss.

I put my hair in rollers, but my hair never wants to curl. Ever. And its just limp as a noodle as always. Grr.

Like my random pink clip that I stole from a flower girl at Donna's wedding? ;-)

Workin' hard and eatin' well

2009-11-17T04:56:00.005-08:00

I have been up all night working on a paper presentation I have on Wednesday. It requires the creation of a Power Point presentation, which I abhor, so its taking me forever. Instead of going to bed at 3am, I decided to take a hot bath and just stay up because I have an 8:30am class and need to get to school extra early to nab a spot in the parking lot right in front of school.

Last night, I had a mean craving for sushi, so I made a Korean-style roll called kimbahp. Its generally a bigger roll with more stuff inside - like futomaki rolls, but tastier in my opinion. I made my version with brown rice mixed with hemp nut seeds and seasoned with rice vinegar. I filled the rolls with cuke, avocado, carrot, takwon (pickled yellow radish) and canned wild Alaska salmon that I mixed with chili paste, sesame oil and sesame seeds. I also made miso soup according to my earlier post.

I stuffed my face had enough left for lunch. So I packed up the rest of my soup and rolls into containers for today. Mmm!

Since I was up so early I decided to make myself a good ol' bowl of oats for breakfast. This was a heaping 1/3 cup (probably close to 1/2 cup) of oats, water, 1/2 a banana and 1 tablespoon of chia seeds. Toppings were 1 tablespoon of Artisana raw pecan butter, a sprinkle of Artisana raw coconut butter and a sprinkle of some chocolate Craisins trail mix I had around the house.

It was too much to finish, but it tasted SO. GOOD.

On the side, I also had my favorite tea of the moment: Celestial Seasoning's Holiday Nutcracker Sweet Tea. Its a black tea with vanilla, nut and cinnamon flavors. It kinda tastes like snickerdoodle cookies and has a natural sweetness. I just have it with a splash of soy creamer and it makes me feel lovely inside.

I'm gonna go put some make-up on since my Sephora Friends and Family shipment came in. (Erin, I broke with my loyalty to LORAC and got the Makeup Forever HD foundation!) The Makeup Forever has lighter coverage than the LORAC so I might go back to it if I need to cover my face more, but the HD is a great light, sheer foundation! Also replenished my fav blush - NARS Torrid. (Am I the only one who doesn't use Orgasm?) Love it so much!

I may even do my hair. Yikes!

See ya bebes!

Eating exactly what you want

2009-11-15T12:32:00.005-08:00

...is the best feeling ever isn't it?

Gay boyfriend Theo and I were planning on having lunch at our beloved Black Bear Diner but he had to push it to dinner. I had already decided to eat a Reuben for lunch and a very veggie-packed dinner, so I just flipped it and reversed it. (Reuben - so random right? I had half of one at BisonWitches in Lincoln, Nebraska and have been dreaming of Reubens ever since! NOM!)

Anyways, I had one of my favorite things: avocado toast! I usually like to smash avocado onto some whole grain toast and sprinkle it with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Today I changed it up and had it on toasted Alvarado Street sprouted wheat buns with Greek seasoning and lime juice. On the side was a carrot and a blob of my fav hummus, Organic Tribe Sweet Roasted Red Pepper.

I washed it down with what my best friend calls my "Oscar the Grouch juice" - carrot, celery, cuke, spinach, apple, lemon and ginger.

I MIGHT have also had a repeat of last night's baked-fry plate: cauliflower, green beans and butternut squash! With requisite pool of ketchup. :) (Sorry for the recycled photo from last night but it was exactly the same!)

Do you guys ever eat your meals in stages? What I mean is, I never seem to be able to wait to get all my food on the table at once, so I eat different courses while I'm waiting for another course to finish cooking. Case in point: Today I made my juice first to start sipping on, then I threw the veggies in the oven to roast for 30-40 minutes. While the veggies were in the oven, I toasted the bread and had my avocado toast with the rest of my juice. 20 minutes later, the roasted veggies are done and I have them last. Is that weird? Oh well.

I put the time between courses to good use. I peeled and cut up the rest of my butternut squash into fries to have on hand for the next few days. I also cut up my cauliflower into florets and prepped my chicken thighs for a quick meal during the week.

I also busted a Gliding Calm-inspired move and marinated some chicken thighs in the rest of my Annie's Organic Original BBQ Sauce (doctored with a little agave syrup, hot sauce and liquid smoke). I really miss my Sweet Baby Ray's, but the HFCS in it is no bueno. (*Sigh* I wish they'd change the formula - its SO delicious!) I'll probably let those babies marinate overnight and cook them tomorrow.

For those of you who are curious, I used Mary's Organic Free Range Chicken, which is local and came highly recommended from my Co-op butcher. I bought a three-pack of bone-in, skin-on thighs, but peeled the skin off before marinating (I think the marinade gets in better that way). The chicken cost $5.71 for 3 large chicken thighs, which is a bit steep, but I don't eat meat that often anyway. (Can you imagine how much they'd charge for a piece of my BBQ chicken at the Whole Foods hot bar?!) Plus, I got a deal on my massive beef bone - $2.32 for a big bone cut into 2 pieces! The bone is from Five Dot Ranch, a local and sustainable ranching operation. I've only used 1/2 of the bone so far, but got 2 quarts of intensely rich, brown stock out of it. Not bad!

Anyways, time to do some work until dinner. See ya!

A favor.

2009-11-15T10:37:00.002-08:00

Hey guys! I have been getting a lot of Twitter requests lately but there's no way of knowing if you're a reader or an internet porn star, so if you'd like to be added as a follower, please leave a comment or shoot me an email. Thanks!

A tale of two nut butters.

2009-11-15T00:38:00.006-08:00

Arite, so the week I left for Ohio, I ran out of almond butter. But since Trader Joe's is 30 minutes away, I figured I could do without until I got back from my trip.

Well, I lasted all of 3 days before I needed some buttery goodness. Luckily, the Co-op had a few jars of Artisana organic raw pecan cashew butter on clearance for $5.39!! I bought one to try and really liked it on my banana. The only thing is, its not really spreadable on bread or dippable. Plus, its not an everyday kinda nut butter like my creamy, dreamy raw almond butter.

Either way, I left town and came back to a home without almond butter. Now with my busted knee, going all the way to Trader Joe's seems silly. But raw almond butter at the Co-op is almost $10.00!! So I've been trying to make do with the pecan butter, but it just isn't the same. My craving for the AB got almost HEAB-y tonight and then suddenly I remembered I had almond meal in the freezer. I wondered if I could blend it further in my food processor to make almond butter.

I was right!! I scraped the bowl down a few times and got a grainy, thick almond butter that was the same consistency as my pecan butter. Delicious, but unspreadable. Inspired by PBU, I added a splash of almond milk to loosen the mixture up. That made all the difference - the mixture became creamy and spreadable in a few seconds. Plus, the vanilla in the almond milk gave the butter a pleasant vanilla-y flavor.

I immediately cut up a wee organic fuji apple and was about to take my snack plate to bed BUT my body started barking for more veggies. "JUUUUUUIIIICEEE!!!!" it yelled. I had already washed my juicer for the day so I didn't want to make another mess, but the craving was intense. Something green and tart. So I juiced up kale, celery, cuke, a huge lime, apple and ginger. I also cut up a carrot into sticks at the last minute.

The homemade almond butter was amazing on the apple slices and my juice hit the spot. I think I'm going to try to blend the pecan butter up with a little more almond milk tomorrow to make it more spreadable too. Now I'll have more yummy nut butter options for sammies and oatmeal. Yay!

Eating from across the blogosphere

2009-11-14T18:45:00.005-08:00

Oh my fellow blog friends, how would I eat metric tons of vegetables in fun and creative ways for dinner without you?

After my lunch of white noodles, meat stock and a smattering of greens, my body was like "NOPE FRIEND, WE NEED MORE VEGGIES." So a few chocolate chip cookies, some mandarins and a hard nap later, my body was like "FEED ME SEYMOUR."

So I made myself this huge jar of juice to sip on while I prepped dinner. This is 3 huge carrots, 1/2 celery heart, a cuke, an apple, a lime and some ginger over ice. Extra classy points for using an old applesauce jar and a huge 7-Eleven straw to drink with. It was a juice Andrea would be proud of and a glass only Miss Erin would love.

The oven preheated and I threw in some cauliflower florets (including the "tree trunks" - heyyy Gliding Calm!), some green bean "fries" and my first butternut squash fries of the season!! They are "steak fry" shaped today. :)

While the veggies roasted up, I tore some kale for a massaged kale salad - except I realized I had way too much for one salad. No problem, I just threw them on another cookie sheet to make some kale chips with. My standard prep for kale chips is Pam, a sprinkle of Bragg's apple cider vinegar and a little salt. But tonight, instead of salt I sprinkled on some Greek Seasoning that came as a sample in my last Penzey's order. It has salt, oregano, garlic, lemon peel, black pepper and marjoram.

Verdict? Delicious! I put some on my cauliflower too - sooo easy and tasty. The kale chips I had with ketchup a la Kath - as well as everything else.

I made a massaged kale salad from Gena's recipe but with a few tweaks. I massaged some Annie's Organic Goddess Dressing into the kale instead of olive oil and lemon juice and added shredded carrots, cuke, bebe spinach and 1/4 of an avocado. Sprinkled with hemp nut seeds for some extra lovely omega-3's. The Goddess dressing is AMAZING on this salad!!

I've been lusting after Mama Pea's cozy mugs of soup lately and just remembered tonight that I had that sweet potato, ginger and coconut soup in the freezer. So I made myself a small portion and nuked it up in the microwave. Mmmmmm....

Dinner perfection. Thanks ladies for your ideas and inspiration!

Quickie lunch

2009-11-14T12:38:00.005-08:00

Hi guys and gals. I have lots to do today, but I just wanted to share my superfast lunch witcha. I had a sick craving for miso soup late last night after cleaning for 3 hours, but just had a slice of spelt toast + EB instead. Didn't want to get the kitchen dirty RIGHT away, ya feel? So I whipped up a quick miso soup noodle bowl for lunch. Sorry for the poopie pictures, the steam off the bowl was making things blurry. Enjoy!

Quick Miso Soup Noodle Bowl
Serves 1

2oz. Asian flour noodles, angel hair pasta, or rice sticks
2 cups broth
1-2 tablespoons of miso (to your taste)
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cube of bouillion (or 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast)
2-3 mushrooms sliced
1/3 cup of small diced firm tofu
1 handful of baby spinach
2 tablespoons of sliced scallions
*Optional: A little rehydrated seaweed

Cook the noodles, rinse, drain and set aside. To a pot, add the stock, miso, bouillion and garlic together. Once at a simmer, add the tofu, seaweed and mushrooms and cook for 3 minutes. Taste to adjust seasonings to your liking and at the last minute, add spinach and scallions. Place your rinsed and drained noodles into a large bowl and pour the soup on top. Delicious!

Random thought

2009-11-13T19:56:00.004-08:00

While I was at Costco today, there was a woman whose cart had an industrial sized box of stool softener. She was talking to her husband and daughter about how much better the breaded and fried shrimp in the freezer section were once they were deep-fried again. Then she started describing some kind of meal based on deep-fried shrimp (or should I say re-fried shrimp?) and bacon-stuffed twice-baked potatoes (4 boxes of which were in her husband's cart).

At the expense of TMI, can I just say that in the hour since I had some veggie juice and brown rice sushi for dinner, I've pretty much "purged" all the junk food and takeout I've snarfed down in the past week? Talk about stool softeners.

EAT YOUR VEGGIES AMERICA!

Yikes~!

2009-11-13T17:36:00.003-08:00

Hi loveys.

So sorry I have been away for so long. I got really busy with school, then I flew out to Ohio to help my best friend with his city council campaign, THEN I went to Nebraska to watch a Husker game with my law school friends, AND THEN on Saturday night, I dislocated my kneecap. Monday was spent at the med center, and the rest of the week is kind of a gimpy, achy blur. The knee injury really sucks because I'm stuck in a brace and its going to take 6-8 weeks to heal with physical therapy. Perfect.

The rest of VeganMOFO went fine, although I got so busy I was eating frozen Amy's burritos and salsa more than anything else. I have to say, a month trying to be a strict vegan was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. You can't just carelessly eat and take things for granted. Plus, I just mentally felt deprived. Thus, the first few days of November after VeganMOFO, I ate a lot of meat. It didn't make me feel good physically, but 1) I was with a bunch of carnivores and 2) I just wanted to.

I think the moral of the story is, while I eat a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet, I'm not ready to be a full-time vegan. I think my natural tendency is to eat like my Korean ancestors: a lower-gluten diet of whole grains, vegetables and fruit with probiotics from pickled veggies and protein from beans, tofu, eggs and occasionally seafood/meat. In a traditional Korean diet, there isn't too much flour/wheat, we don't really have dairy, and meat and seafood generally tends to be more flavoring than center plate. And I seem to be pretty happy eating this way. So for now, I think I'm going to stick to my organic, mostly vegetarian/vegan diet and be happy. :-)

Now, that said, I want to admit that I've spent the last few days eating whatever junk food and take out I wanted because I was just too tired to cook or care. But as I ate my second ramen of the week for BREAKFAST this morning, I heard my body throw its chopsticks down and scream "ENOUGH!!! FEED ME SOMETHING NUTRITIOUS DAMN YOU!!"

I heeded the call. Realizing that I was going to be too busy and tired to do much shopping in the coming weeks, I decided to do a big shop at Costco and the Co-op today. Dragging my lead foot around Costco, I stocked up on a 10lb. bag of organic carrots, a huge sack of organic celery, organic spinach, cukes, limes, a sack of avocados, my FAVORITE Satsuma mandarins, nukable organic brown rice, cans of wild Alaska salmon, calcium chews, glucosamine-chondroitin supplements for my joints and tank tops. Then I went to the Co-op and bought even more stuff: green beans, cauliflower, mushrooms, kale up the wazoo, fuji apples, 2 ripe avocados to eat right away, kombucha, frozen corn, 6 organic eggs, 2 chicken thighs and a big beef bone.

I can't remember the last time I bought so much meat in one day. But with the torn ligaments in my knee, I've decided to eat a little more meat over the next few weeks to help repair a little faster. Yes, you can heal just fine on a vegetarian diet, but I want to heal FASTER since I have finals coming up in 3 weeks. The chicken thighs and beef bone will turn into a few different soups (gotta love that collagen and gelatin in them bones!) and the salmon will turn into quick salads, sammies and sushi.

But fear not, my diet will obviously stay mostly veggie. The minute I got back from my clunky-footed shopping adventures, I made a HUGE jar of juice (think 30oz. pasta sauce jar). It had like 5 carrots, an entire celery heart, a cuke, a lime, an apple, and 1/2 a bunch of kale. As if my kitchen wasn't dirty enough, I also threw the juice into the blender with 1/2 an avocado to give my body some healing fats. I sucked that baby down while I made the rest of my dinner: sushi!

I nuked a bowl of organic brown rice and tossed the hot rice with some apple cider vinegar, agave syrup, sesame seeds and hemp nut seeds. Then I rolled them up with the other half of my avocado and a cuke. (That sad wrap you see at the bottom is the leftover filling tossed into a sheet of nori because I ran out of rice). Delicious!

I've also got a side of green beans and mushrooms I sauteed to snack on later. How's that for a veggie-rific meal!? Arite, well its time for me to try cleaning up this kitchen, so smell ya laters. (Everything takes 4 times longer with this knee injury!!!)

Who scrambled my pumpkin?

2009-10-18T23:56:00.006-07:00

**Note: I tend to like a spicier pumpkin pie, so there is a lot of ginger going on in there. If you don't like it as spicy or have kids to think about, add a little more sugar and cut the ginger back to 1/2 a teaspoon. Also, the texture of this pie is a little more pudding-like and less firm than conventional pumpkin pies. I think it gives it a wonderful mouth-feel but in case the omnis in your life complain, say its a Pumpkin Silk Pie or a Pumpkin Mousse Pie and they'll shet up. :-)

Hey y'all. I've been super busy and super tired - a.k.a. the usual. I haven't really cooked anything. Have been eating a lot of takeout, Amy's frozen vegan burritos and wraps, and chickpea "tuna" salad.

Last week, I did get to go into San Francisco for a friend's bachelorette party. Sunday morning, before heading back to Davis, I had brunch with my pal Donna. She's been so sweet about my vegan month experiment and found us an AWESOME restaurant, Herbivore. They had a HUGE menu and so many vegan options. I know some of you are coming to town for the Foodbuzz convention - you should check it out!

Donna had green juice (the standard raw foodie Green Lemonade with kale, celery, apple, lemon and ginger). We also split a vegan chocolate donut with chocolate glaze for an appetizer then dug into amazing tofu scrambles! I had the standard scramble with spinach, tomato, onion and mushroom. Donna had the southwestern scramble with a side of beans, guac and even vegan sour cream! Both of us thought our meals were delish. And they were super affordable too - each dish was about $10.00 a plate.

Although I haven't been cooking a whole lot this week, I DID make a nice fall dessert: vegan pumpkin pie! Its pretty easy peasy if I do say so myself. The real key here is to let the pie chill overnight before serving.

Hope you enjoy!

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

1 15oz can of canned pumpkin
1 12oz package of silken tofu (like Mori-Nu)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon clove
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
1 vegan pie crust (I bought an organic vegan spelt crust)

1. Preheat the oven to 415F.
2. Blend all of the pie filling ingredients together (I just put everything in the blender).
3. Fill the pie crust with the filling (don't overfill - there may be some leftover).
4. Bake at 415F for 15 minutes. Pull out the pie, lightly cover with foil (so that the crust doesn't over-brown) and then bake for another 40 minutes.
5. Cool the pie on the counter for about an hour, then place in the fridge to chill overnight.

Have your cake and eat it too! (VeganMoFo Edition!)

2009-10-06T19:00:00.002-07:00

Okay, so I spent $4.00 in the last 24 hours on two squares of plain, vegan chocolate cake from the Co-op. While delicious and totally worth it for convenience-sake, I took a look at the label and found these ingredients:

"Vegan Amazon Chocolate Cake: All purpose flour, water, Florida crystals, canola oil, cocoa powder, distilled vinegar, vanilla, baking soda and sea salt."

Uh, who doesn't have these ingredients in their house??

So you know you yo' girl had to Google "amazon cake" to see what she got. Well HELLO super easy cake! I found the recipe for this cake on a bajillion sites, so I don't think its copyrighted to anyone anymore. Here it is verbatim:

Vegan Amazon Chocolate Cake

1.5 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa [I used Valrhona]
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons corn or canola oil
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Confectioners’ sugar

1. Heat the oven to 350ºF.

2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar, and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, vanilla, and vinegar with 1 cup cold water.

4. Whisk in the dry ingredients, blending until completely lump-free.

5. Pour into a greased 9-inch round cake pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed gently. Cool before removing from the pan and dusting with confectioners’ sugar, or frosting if desired.

I tweaked the original recipe by doubling it (to fit into a huge Bundt pan), and used half whole wheat flour. I also added some maca powder to the batter, since I had some on hand, and used coconut oil in lieu of canola. The whole thing literally 5 minutes to bang together and my house smells nice and chocolately.

Another plus is that the batter is totally vegan, so you can lick the batter to your hearts content! If I was a frosting girl, I might bust some vegan cream cheese frosting. Here's a quick recipe I found if you're interested:

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. package vegan cream cheese, like Tofutti
1/4 c. non-dairy milk (or less if you prefer thicker frosting)
2 tbsp. vegan margarine, like Earth Balance
3/4 c. vegan powdered sugar

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth.

Day 6: Being Sick and Vegan

2009-10-06T17:24:00.008-07:00

Last night I had serious heartburn, a splitting headache, nausea, fever, hot and cold flashes - the works. I felt TERRIBLE. But I had no Pepto, no cold medicine or anything refreshing to drink. All I wanted was a huge Slurpee or a huge bottle of cold, red Gatorade.

So around 8pm, I finally left my house and dragged my butt to the closet grocery store to find something. I grabbed my Pepto Bismol, my Nyquil and went to grab some OJ. But when I got to the juice aisle, I just couldn't do it. I had a perfectly good juicer at home and lots of carrots and veggies to turn into something way healthier, fresher and cheaper than $5.00 orange juice. So I skipped the juice and went to find some comforting sick food.

Dayam being a vegan is hard when you're sick~! I was feverish and Jello cups sounded good. Oh wait, its gelatin, I can't have it. How about sherbert? Nope, it has milk. Yogurt? Nope. Gatorade? I couldn't justify all the sugar and artificial colors. Same with popsicles. Sigh.

I went to the produce section to grab some bananas, but they were green and not organic. Sigh. I felt lightheaded and nauseated, so I just purchased my meds and left. I chugged 1/2 a bottle of Pepto in the parking lot and then followed with a can of diet cola. (My head was splitting in half so I thought maybe some caffeine would help). I was set on going back home, but in my feverish state I knew I wasn't going to make it to school today unless I got something wholesome in my system. So, as tired as I was, I dragged myself to the Co-op 5 minutes away to buy SOMETHING.

I left 10 minutes later with some Rudi's spelt English muffins, some Tofutti cream cheese, an Amy's vegan bean and rice burrito, a square of plain vegan chocolate cake and some bananas. I had an english muffin with cream cheese and a banana as soon as I got home. Then I chugged a bottle of water, took my cold meds and settled in for the night. I couldn't fall asleep so a few hours later, I had my chocolate cake and somehow, that did the trick. I passed out.

I woke up this morning feeling weak, but definitely better than the night before. I had a banana during my morning class, a cup of coffee with soy milk as a pick me up later and then the Amy's vegan burrito (which rocks!!) for lunch. I chugged water all day, took some more Dayquil and got through all my classes today feeling half-alive. After I got off school at 3pm, I went straight back to the Co-op and bought a case of those Amy's vegan burritos (they were on sale and convenience is going to be key this week, I can tell). I also bought another square of vegan chocolate cake (I am not a fan of frosting anyway so plain cake is yummy to me!) and then came home to find a bunch of packages and garbage that had to be taken out. I did a few basic chores, dealt with some school drama and just now sat down to have an early dinner.

I NEEDED something easy and ninja-quick, so I layered a head of romaine, a sliced carrot, a sliced cuke and some yellow bell pepper on a plate.

Meanwhile, I nuked another Amy's burrito.

For dressing, I busted out a single-serving pack of guacamole (from Costco) and a can of salsa verde from my pantry.

In the end, I chopped up the burrito into bite-sized pieces and threw it on my salad, along with the guac and salsa. On the side, I went with nature's Gatorade: coconut water!

How accomplished does your sick-ass girl feel right now? Veggies, protein, carbs, fats AND electrolytes, all in one 5-minute organic vegan meal? Why yes! Gold star for Sicky!

I'm not even gonna lie to you America: I'm also probably going to bust that chocolate cake in a few hours. Drool.

Sigh. Time to do some more work before I pass out. Stay healthy y'all - its rough out there. And please send your thoughts and prayers to Sarah LovIN and her family today. We love you guys!

Day 5: Swine Flu

2009-10-05T19:52:00.002-07:00

I've been fighting the flu since last week, but I think by today, the flu won.

I haven't managed to eat anything today except some stir-fried noodles I made for myself. I regret this decision because I think it was too carby, greasy and spicy for someone in my condition. I have a huge pot of minestrone from Sunday that I've been eating, but I just wanted to eat something different so I used what I had on hand. Chow mein noodles, veggies, some rehydrated soy strips and a lot of chili-garlic paste.

Ugh, I'm like dry heaving just at the thought of it.

Now I'm sitting in bed in a towel (barely got a shower in today), with my head pounding and trying to fight back the urge to puke.

The only thing I can think of that would make me happy right now is a huge slushie. Perhaps its time to find a gas station.

Shudder...

Vegan MoFo III: Pizza Dinner

2009-10-03T15:24:00.006-07:00

The best little tomatoes - Juliets!

As I posted earlier, I made pizza for dinner tonight. I made Matt's whole wheat pizza crust earlier in the day and made two smaller pizzas out of the recipe. One is Vegan Margherita: marinara, tofu ricotta, slow-roasted tomatoes and fresh basil. The other is Eggplant Mushroom: my eggplant sauce leftover from last week with sauteed mushrooms and fresh rosemary from the garden.

Mushrooms with garlic, rosemary and olive oil

Before: Halved tomatoes with olive oil, salt and coriander

After: Juicy, luxurious roasted tomatoes

For the rest of my toppings, I made this recipe for Tofu Ricotta (modified by using only 1/2 the nooch and no olive oil) and slow roasting my tomatoes per Molly's instructions. I also took part of the tofu ricotta and added capers and vinegar to make a more "feta-like" tofu ricotta for the eggplant pizza.

Before: Firm organic tofu

After: Tofu Ricotta

"Feta" Tofu Ricotta

Here is my fail-proof recipe for quick pizza or pasta sauce. (I love making this sauce extra spicy with cracked red pepper flakes and then placing a round of fresh goat cheese in the middle. Bake in a 400F oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is warmed through. Serve with crackers or bread for the best appetizer ever!)

10 minutes for amazing pasta sauce? YES!

Fastest Marinara Ever (yields enough to toss 2 servings of pasta or 2 pizzas)

15oz can crushed tomatoes (I used Muir Glen fire roasted)
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (if your tomatoes are too acidic)
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine
A few shakes of Italian seasoning or dried oregano
3-4 basil leaves, torn

1. Heat olive oil and garlic (and a little cracked red pepper flake for me) until it sizzles. Dump tomatoes, salt, sugar, Italian seasoning and wine into the pan. Allow it to come to a rapid boil, then knock the heat back to medium.

2. Allow to simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. At this point its perfect to toss with pasta. For pizza sauce, allow it to go for another 2 minutes, or until its thick enough so that if you scrape a line in the middle of the pan, it takes a few seconds to come back together. As soon as the sauce is done, turn off the heat and throw in your torn basil leaves. They'll wilt in the residual heat.

For the pizza, I pre-heated the oven to 475F and used greased cookie sheets. I rolled out two pizzas, placed the dough on the sheets and brushed everything with olive oil. Then I added the toppings and baked for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges of the pizza are crisp and golden.

These vegan pizzas were AHHH-MAZZINNGGG!! Obviously you can speed this all up by using jarred sauce and store-bought pizza dough. And you could probably also get the same type of flavors as the slow-roasted tomatoes by using rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes. But the mushrooms, of course, are dead easy and the eggplant sauce is AWESOME on pizza! The rosemary is key y'all.

I had two slices of each with some more seltzer water. Sigh. So happy and tasty.

Vegan Mofo III: Falafel it Out

2009-10-03T14:42:00.005-07:00

**Edit: Sorry, moron here forgot to add the photos!**

So to make up for my life fail yesterday, I decided that today would be different. Today would be a celebration of delicious, local, organic vegan eats to make anyone think "that doesn't sound hard at all!"

First stop: Co-op. Today was a stock-up day. Since its finally feelin' autumnal, I decided to stock up on some dried beans - chickpeas and kidney today. I also got some more local organic brown jasmine rice and something new: soy strips. They are basically big hunks of TVP that you soak and use like meat strips for stirfry or whatever else you'd use chunks of meat for. The only ingredients were soy flour, so I thought I'd add it to my list of acceptable soy to try out. Stocked up on some organic whole wheat flour for cookies and pizza dough. Big cans of Muir Glen organic tomatoes were one sale for $2.00, so I threw that into my cart. I also got my first butternut squash of the season, which I'm super stoked about. Needed some more onions, ginger, Honeycrisp apples and limes too. Got a lovely basket of Juliet tomatoes on sale for $1.85. Also needed to buy a new bottle of olive oil - the amazing cold-pressed goodness that is local Bariani olive oil - so my grocery total was $38.00 for the week.

Second stop: Farmer's Market. Got some more "cosmetically challenged" eggplant for $1.00, three bell peppers for $1.00 (WHY are organic peppers $5.99/lb. at the store but $2.50/lb. at the Farmer's Market?!), some baby zuchinni and a big huge bunch of basil. I spent $5.25 total. :-)

Came home with the week's haul and immediately proceeded to whip together lunch and some prep for dinner. First up: those baked falafels I promised a recipe for.

Ever try to make falafel at home from scratch, only to find they taste like soft balls of cooked hummus? Well that's because true falafel are not made with cooked garbanzo beans. They use soaked, uncooked chickpeas for the base! Just know that dried chickpeas triple in volume as they soak, so plan accordingly.

Oven-Baked Falafel (yields 16 falafel, or 4 servings)

1.5 cups soaked, drained garbanzo beans (1/2 cup dry soaked overnight)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt (I tend to go a little easy, but add more if you like)
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/4 packed fresh parsley (I just ripped a handful off the bunch)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon olive oil
A few grinds of black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of flour

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

2. Combine all the ingredients into a food processor and let it go until everything is blitzed and incorporated but NOT creamy or smooth. Careful not to over-process - you want something that looks like the photo below.

3. Prepare a cookie sheet with foil and spray/brush with oil to prevent sticking. Roll tablespoons of the falafel mix into small balls and place on the sheet. Generously spray/brush tops with oil again to help crisping and browning.

4. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the tops and edges are browned and they feel crisp on the outside. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the counter to maximize the crispiness. Serve and enjoy! (And yes, you can freeze these for another day. Just allow them to cool and pop in the toaster oven for a few minutes.)

Falafel "Dough"

Ready for the oven!

Ready!

While the falafel were going, I prepped a whole wheat pizza crust for dinner per Kath's hubby Matt's recipe. (Note: this thing takes a few hours, so start it in the morning or lunch time at the latest for dinner). I also decided to prep some pizza toppings for my vegan pizza, which I'll post about later.

I ate my falafels with the rest of my dolmades from the other day. So easy and fun. I love eating with my paws! See y'all later for awesome vegan pizza!

Day 2: Kegger Vegan

2009-10-03T11:14:00.002-07:00

I was running out the door yesterday for class, half-starved, so I packed the following:

1 Hickory Smoked Tofurkey sando with Rudi's Organic Double Fiber Bread, organic dijon mustard and some soy-free Vegannaise.
1 Honeycrisp apple
1 La Croix grapefruit seltzer (LOVE!)
1 bottle of water

I wasn't in class for 2 seconds before the sandwich was demolished. I wish I had more veggies or something to report, but alas, I had to settle for a 5-year old kid's lunch.

The day's eats did not get much better than that. I had a job interview to run to after class, so I ate my apple and some BBQ Popchips (I read the label as I was driving on the freeway, and I think its vegan, but if someone knows otherwise, let me know) on the way home.

I wasn't home more than a few minutes before the crew called me for Friday Tankards. We go to this random pizza place in town and have liters of beer every now and then. I had my usual tankard of Anderson Valley Boont Amber Ale, which was delicious.

Afterwards, we moseyed over to a fundraiser slash BBQ for school. I texted my friend hosting the event to see if there would be anything vegan-friendly but I never heard back. So I showed up, paid my $20 not sure if I could eat anything, and immediately began downing cups of PBR, crying "Thank God beer is vegan!"

Which is when law school day spouse Kathleen said "not exactly." And then informed me that some beers are not vegan. She was nice enough to come home and link me to a site called Barnivore, which lists all the vegan-friendly beers and wines they know of. Apparently, lots of times, animal products can be used to filter booze. Check it out! I was relieved to see my beloved Anderson Valley beers are vegan - as is PBR.

Luckily for me, they also had Tofurkey dogs and Smart dogs. I had one of each with sauerkraut and organic ketchup and mustard. (Dontcha love Davis?) I got laughed at for reading the labels off the industrial sized bags of hot dog buns (to check the ingredients!), both because it was dark outside and because I was half-wasted. But the buns were also vegan (as spongey, white and processed as they were). I also demolished a container of guac with Kathleen and ate a fair about of tortilla chips with it. Finally, I also apparently scraped the cheese off a slice of pizza and ate just the crust and sauce for no apparent reason. Not exactly vegan per se, but can I get a pass on that?

I came home feeling SO full and sick. Vegan or not, you can't eat like that every day. It is a good reminder that whether you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you can't build a diet around processed products, junk food and beer. I mean, yes, have the beer (and preferrably not PBR), but I probably would have felt much better with some salad, some grilled mushrooms, or maybe some falafel or something. I could have come prepared, but alas I was lazy.

Its made me realize its hard being a vegan out in the real world unless you're vigilant and prepared. Because I ate processed food all day, I just read labels all day long, worried. Or I would pop something in my mouth thinking it was vegan (like a tortilla chip), only to then wonder "wait, is this really vegan or am I assuming it is?"

It was hard and stressful in one way, but on the other hand, it made you accountable for everything you ate, which is useful.

Either way, I will definitely try to plan better next time. And kudos to the King Hall Legal Foundation on a great Oktoberfest and for making the event welcoming for even the most weird vegan neophyte!

Vegan MoFo III

2009-10-01T17:56:00.003-07:00

Happy October!!

Well, as I posted sometime last week, I have decided to participate in the Vegan Month of Food blogging challenge! Tons of bloggers will be going vegan this month and posting lots of great vegan recipes for y'all. I've been wanting to try going totally vegan for a while now, so this was a great opportunity.

Today, my vegan journey got a little bit of a slow start because I wasn't feeling too great. I was almost late for class so I just threw some Red Vines, a Honeycrisp apple and some peeled, roasted chestnuts into my lunchbag. I came home around 4:30pm ready to EAT and decided to make something tasty and beautiful for y'all tonight!

I made a quick batch of baked falafels - a recipe for which I shall post later on. While the falafels were browning up in the oven, I got started on some vegan stuffed grape leaves, a.k.a. dolmades. I found some brined plain grape leaf wrappers at the Co-op so I picked them up over the weekend.

In a pan I quickly sauteed some green onion (because I was out of regular onions), minced garlic and 1/4 cup of crushed tomatoes with some olive oil. I threw in a cup of cooked brown rice, a handful of chopped parsley, a sprinkle of dried oregano, some salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. The rice mixture should be soft and sticky, but not wet.

While the rice mixture cools, prep your grape leaves. Just pull them out of the jar and cut off the stem at the bottom:

Then add a tablespoon of the rice mixture to the leaf and roll up like so:

I got 12 dolmades total and ate 4 with my falafel. On the side, I made a quick Greek salad with romaine, Persian cuke, 1/2 a bell pepper and capers. The dressing was just some lemon flavored olive oil, a splash of Sherry vinegar, some dried oregano and a sprinkle of salt.

O.M.G. it was so good! My tummy also felt lovely afterwards. Not too full, no bloat and I got my veggies. Mmm! And then you know your girl had to get her dessert on. So I ate a handful of vegan carob chips:

I might have a glass of red wine in a bit. I need to call it an early night tonight - I have a job interview I have to be fresh for tomorrow and I'm exhausted!

Natural Products Review

2009-09-28T00:00:00.004-07:00

Since going organic this summer, I've also been gradually switching to natural personal products. Our skin, after all, is our biggest organ and we're constantly subjecting it to a million different things. Soaps, lotions, shampoos, conditioners, scrubs, masks, ointments, medication, make-up, make-up removers - you get the point. Day after day, week after week, our skin absorbs all sorts of industrially created chemicals. Focusing so much on detoxing my diet seemed silly to me without also taking a close look at what I was slathering on myself day in and day out.

(If you're looking for reasons why greening your personal products might be something to consider, I highly recommend this post from a fellow law student here at Davis who contributed it as part of the Feminine Legal Theory class at our school. Its a fascinating read and chock full of important resources to help you decide what products are worth a second look.)

So I set about trying to make some more informed decisions about my household and personal products. As things started running out, I would replace them gradually with a healthier, greener version. My ragged Tupperwares got thrown out and replaced with glass containers (which, incidentally, are MUCH easier to clean than plastic and stay beautiful forever!) My laundry detergent and dishsoap got replaced with something more environmentally friendly and natural. And now I'm finally getting to replace a lot of my soaps, lotions and creams with natural ones.

I'm not going to lie: a lot of this is/was trial and error. Just because something is natural doesn't necessarily means it works better. And there are things that chemicals seemingly do better than their natural counterparts. So some adjustment IS necessary. But for those of you out there who may be considering a switch to natural products, I decided to list the products I've found so far that work for me. Hopefully it will save you some time and money when trying to decide on your next green purchase.

Household Products

Laundry detergent: Ecos in Lemongrass scent.
Love the scent and my clothes seem to be coming out just fine. Costco also sells large jugs of Ecos in the Magnolia Lily scent, as well as their own environmentally-safe detergent that those of you with bigger families might appreciate. $5.99 for small 50 oz. jug. $12.99 for large Costco jug.

Dishsoap: Seventh Generation Free and Clear.
So far, it seems to work fine. The only difference is that its less "soapy" than commercial soaps, and thus I seem to go through it faster. The bright side is that I never have problems with my water glasses tasting like Palmolive anymore. $2.99 for 25 oz.

Foil: Reynolds 100% Recycled Aluminum.
Yes, it costs more than regular foil. But what's the point of recycling all those cans if we're not going to use what comes out of them? The real perk in buying more expensive foil is that its made me more careful about using it. I use as little as possible and try to re-use it when I can. Cheap? I prefer calling it "environmentally conscious." *wink* $3.49 for 50 ft.

Paper Towels: Replace with dishtowels!
Here's a confession: I LOVE PAPER TOWELS. Can't live without them. But I do realize I can use LESS papertowels by using my dishcloths as often as possible. The key is investing in good quality towels that you actually like looking at. I keep different kinds around - terry ones for wiping my dishes, floursack kind for pots, pans and cutting boards. I try to also treat myself to pretty ones every now and then to make me happy. Target occasionally has really cute ones in their dollar bin and I really love Williams-Sonoma ones for their absorbability. I've also had Crate and Barrel ones gifted to me that I've really enjoyed. Once they get ragged or too stained, I use them for dusting and wiping down things around the house.

Personal Products:

Shampoo and Conditioner: By far the hardest thing to switch to! I have super fine, thin hair and I was very attached to my salon shampoos. After much trial and error, here are the three brands I've tried and enjoyed. Note that natural shampoos generally tend to be less soapy and thus your hair will often not be as "squeaky" clean as you're used to (which isn't good for your hair anyway!). There's also often the feeling that your hair feels "waxy" after washing/conditioning with natural products. I was concerned about that, but I've found that if I'm using the right product, it looks totally fine after blowdrying/styling. Trust me, you'll adjust!

1. Shikai (Volumizing Shampoo and Everyday Conditioner) Builds a good lather and my hair seemed to be happy and shiny all day long. I liked the shampoo more than the conditioner, but they seem to work well together. $6-7 dollars per bottle regular price.

2. Giovanni Organics (Golden Wheat Shampoo and 50/50 Conditioner) Don't know how environmentally safe this stuff is, but the ingredients use organic essential oils and I tried it on sale at our Co-op, which only sells natural products. I really liked this line very much - it seemed the closest to my salon shampoos. And its not that expensive - $7.50 per bottle regular price - and its currently on sale here in town for $5.00!

3. Burt's Bees (Pomegranate Volumizing AND Grapefruit Sugar Beet Super Shiny)
Burt's Bees has become my all-around favorite beauty brand. The Pomegranate and Grapefruit Sugar Beet lines both smell delicious and if you're really into lather, these soap up pretty intensely. The shampoos seem a little thinner than standard shampoo, but it doesn't seem to affect its cleaning ability. Target has been selling shampoo/conditioner value packs for $12.99, which is great!

Bath and Body Products

Bath Soap: Burt's Bees Radiance Exfoliating Bar and Citrus Ginger Bar
I am not a shower gel person. I was raised on bar soap, so it seems to be what I gravitate towards more often. I've used both the Radiance Bar and the Citrus Ginger Bar and can say that I am officially IN LOVE with these bars. They lather up beautifully, smell INCREDIBLE and your skin feels really clean but not itchy and dry. I know they make a shower gel version of both these scents, so give it whirl if you're a shower gel girl. $4.00 per bar.

Body Lotion: Burt's Bees Radiance Body Lotion
It took me FOREVER to find a body lotion I liked. I didn't like the way many of the natural lotions smelled or felt on my skin. Even Burt's Bees makes lots of different lotions but they all smelled NASTY to me. That is, until I found the Radiance line (which I'm completely sold on by the way - you'll see a lot of Radiance products on this list). The downside to this lotion is that it feels a bit sticky at first. But if you give it a minute to absorb into your skin, it feels fine. I decided that the initial stickiness was worth it for the amazing scent and light feel. Plus, I think whatever makes the lotion feel sticky is what locks in the moisture. My skin feels hydrated and supple for hours after application, but doesn't feel greasy. $8.99 for 6oz.

Facial Products

Face Soap: I've recently started just using my Burt's Bees bath soap as my face soap in the morning and its been feeling great! But I use a traditional face soap at night, plus a cream cleanser in the winter when my skin is feeling drier.

1. Earth Science Clarifying Facial Cleanser. This is a clarifying cleanser that doesn't make your skin feel dry or tight afterwards. It features hyaluronic acid, which is an oil-free hydrator. It makes your skin feel really slippery while you're washing, which is why your skin will also feel soapy/slippery even as your rinsing it. Never fear: once you pat your face dry, it feels totally clean and fine. It just takes getting used to at first. $8.99 for 8oz.

2. Earth Science Creamy Cleanser. Good for gals with dry skin. This is a creamy cleanser that doesn't foam up - it feels milky and creamy on your face. I like using it in the mornings if I've exfoliated or washed my face a bunch of times the day before. $8.99 for 8oz.

Face Cream: Burt's Bees Radiance Day Creme. Again with the Radiance. Okay, what gives Yooli? Initially, I was hooked to this line because of the scent, which I love. But I really like this line the best out of Burt's Bees' other lines because (1) it is based on royal jelly as a major component, which is super nutritive and hydrating to the skin, and (2) because it has a lighter feel. I have combination skin, so I don't like anything overly greasy, but as my skin ages a bit (hello 29!), I find that I need my skin products to be more moisturizing and hydrating. Oil-free stuff ain't gonna cut it for this girl anymore - my skin needs some fat! The day cream is light, yet hydrating and it feels silky smooth. Your skin feels dewy afterwards and smells great. They also make an SPF 15 lotion if you're looking for that, but I've heard mixed reviews. They also make a night cream and an eye cream, but I haven't tried those yet. $17.99 for 2 oz.

Acne Treatment: Burt's Bees Herbal Blemish Stick. My skin has been FREAKING out lately and I've been breaking out like crazy. I've been breaking my anti-chemical vow and regularly pickling my skin in benzoyl-peroxide-riddled Clearasil at night. Its dried out my skin AND bleached my pillowcases, so I was ready for a change. I recently purchased this blemish stick on a whim and have actually been impressed by it. It is an alcohol-based roll-on that you roll right onto your problem areas. It smells like licorice and just applies plant oils and herbal derivatives to bring down the inflammation and remove bacteria. I've used it for a few days now and it seems to be clearing up my zits without irritating my skin. Burt's Bees also has a new Acne Solutions line if you're interested in looking into that. $7.99 for 1 roll-on tube.

Go nuts for coconuts

2009-09-27T20:24:00.005-07:00

In the past few weeks, I've seen a few recipes or articles on coconut rice. I've never heard of it before, but apparently you just cook some rice with coconut milk instead of water. Intrigued, I decided to use up the rest of my brown basmati tonight with a can of coconut milk in my pantry. I used 1 cup of basmati brown to a little over 2.5 cups of liquid (1 cup of water + 1 can of coconut milk) and a hefty pinch of salt. The coconut milk is thicker than plain water so you end up needing a bit more liquid than usual. Then you simmer on low for about 45 minutes, and then let steam with the lid on for 10 minutes.

Verdict? Delicious. Nutty and rich and beggin' for a sharp curry to nest above it. So I turned to my fridge and dug up some veggies I had on hand and a package of organic fried tofu made locally here in Sacramento.

I didn't have any green curry paste so I whipped a vegan one up on the fly and, I gotta say, it turned out terrific. Subbing nooch for fish sauce really is amazing! You would never know it was vegan!

Vegan Green Curry Paste (makes 1 big pot of green curry - serves 4)

1 fistful of cilantro
2 cubes frozen basil (probably a handful of fresh basil)
1 teaspoon garlic
2 stalks green onion
1 tablespoon nooch (key, key, key!!)
3 tablespoons of sushi ginger (makes a ginger + lemongrass flavor!)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Juice of 1 lime
1 jalapeno pepper
A splash of water

I stirfried my veggies in a hot pan with some coconut oil, then I added the curry paste and then about 1 cup of coconut milk. I then added a few splashes of water here and there when I thought the sauce was getting too thick. I threw in some scallions and cilantro right at the end and squeezed another lime on top. Adjust for salt and voila! Dinner in no time!

I've gotta get back to work on my paper, but I just thought I'd drop by to say hello! Hope you guys had a wonderful weekend. Mine was bangin'! I didn't really do anything but work, go grocery shopping and sleep, but I was in such a great mood that it was alllll good. Don't you love it when you're giddy for no reason? I'm pretty sure the delectable healthy eats I've been snarfing had something to do with it. Now I know how Erin feels all the time!

Happy Monday kittehs!

Post Script

2009-09-27T14:20:00.001-07:00

So it turns out, the eggplant sauce from last night gets uber thick and rich in the fridge. Just had it as a dip with some pretzel chips - NOM!!! SO GOOD! I think you could also add some more vinegar and sugar and get a caponata thing going. I love 2-for-1 recipes!

Ready, Set, GO!

2009-09-26T19:50:00.007-07:00

Get ready for an epic post today younguns!

So I got up after sleeping in this morning (hey, I went to bed at like 3:30am!) and then hit up the farmer's market. Sometimes I go too crazy and spend too much time and money at the market. So today, I gave myself a $20 dollar bill and parked my car in a 20-minute zone. GO!

I picked up $7 worth of snazzy produce. A big handful of Romano flat beans, a fistful of okra, a few peppers, 3 eggplants (2 of which were from the "cosmetically challenged" bin for $1.00 a pound!), and a big sack of Persian cukes.

Afterwards, I drove to Sacramento to meet Theo at the Korean market. I needed some Thai young coconuts, so I showed up thinking I'd only need a few things. Uh yeah:

I got 6 Thai young coconuts, some Korean snacks, Korean peach iced tea, some popsicles, some instant coffee in a can, a kabocha squash, jicama, 3 containers of organic tofu at $.99 each, 4 bags of organic roasted chestnuts (2 for $.99!!) and these adorable wooden spoons and forks for my lunches.

THEN on the way back, we decided to hit up Trader Joe's since its a hike to shop there on the regular. I showed a lot of restraint:

1 sack of lemons, 1 sack of organic sweet potatoes, 1 bag of organic romaine lettuce, instant chocolate pudding (vegan!), Ak-Mok crackers, frozen basil cubes, 1 can of wild salmon, cilantro jalapeno hummus (obsessed), Pretzel Slims, raw almond butter, 2 bottles of seltzer water, some Pad Thai mix and some frozen pizza for emergencies.

I bought a LOT of food today, but I've been pretty good about eating out of my pantry and fridge lately, so I felt like I needed some new stuff. Plus, ALL of this was under $70 and a lot of it was organic.

Anyways, if that wasn't enough, I got home and picked some figs from the tree at our apartment complex while the washer doing my laundry:

These are the Brown Turkey variety and my personal fave. These are the end of summer batch, so they are extra sweet and ripe. By the time I'd put all my groceries away and the laundry was going, it was time to start thinking about dinner.

If you saw Andrea's post today, she has been talking about doing Vegan MoFo III. Well, I've been talking about doing a vegan month for a while now, but I still had non-vegan stuff in the house and couldn't justify throwing it out. I was almost ready to start when I saw Dre's post so it seemed serendipitous. I still have some goat cheese and feta left in the house, so when I was planning dinner, I decided I had to try to incorporate them somehow into my meal.

I haven't had a leisurely meal alone in my house for a long time, so I decided to take my time and plan a nice little supper. Its so easy to do that when you're not tired, cranky and ready to gnaw your arm off after a long day, isn't it? I opened a bottle of peppery Syrah ("tighter than a nun's asshole, but good concentration, nice fruit") and set out to make a nice appetizer for myself.

I picked something pretty easy: Ak-Mok crackers with lots of goat cheese and assorted toppings. First, I took the ripest figs in my bag and peeled them. They were almost too soft to eat out of hand, so I just chopped them up and made them into a smooshed fig puree. I threw the puree into a ramekin and set aside.

Then I dug out this bag of sundried olives I've had for a while now. They were in the "raw foods" section at our Co-op on clearance. They're over $5.00 usually, and I snagged them for $3.00, but had no idea what to do with them. I tasted one and although they're rich and buttery, boy howdy, are they salty! With the figs, I decided I wanted something salty to counterpoint, so I made a quick *vegan* black olive tapenade.

I pitted a handful and soaked them in hot water to draw out the salt for about 20 minutes. While I was at it, I also soaked some dried tomatoes for the rest of my dinner (see below).

Once the olives were done soaking, I threw them into my mini-chopper with 2 cubes of frozen basil, a dab of fresh garlic, a handful of green onion, a few pieces of the soaked tomato, a spoonful of nooch, a spoonful of almond butter, a few glugs of olive oil and a splash of Sherry vinegar. I gave it a whirl and added a little water when it looked too thick.

Then I put everything out on a nice tray with my wine to enjoy:

These were BOMB! So good. If you ever make these, make sure you leave out your goat cheese at room temperature for a while - you want it to be nice and spreadable.

Before I sat down to snarf down by appie, I prepped the eggplant I was having for dinner since it needed about 20 minutes to sit in salt. I took two of my "cosmetically challenged" eggplant from the market and sliced them up quickly. I tossed them in a sprinkle of salt and set them in a colander.

How funny is that white one??

I've been really into eggplant lately. I'm not usually crazy about it, but I've been eating it pretty regularly for the last few weeks. Okra too! I guess my body wants something slimy? Who knows. All I know is that I keep gravitating towards it at the store and then when I saw this sauce on Orangette's blog this week, I knew I had to make it.

By the time my goat cheese crostinis were obliterated, it was ready to drain the eggplant. I just grabbed big handfuls of them and squeezed out all the excess water.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, except for a few tweaks. First, I added cracked red chili flakes to my garlic oil:

Then I added the eggplant. You also need about a cup or so of broth. I used the soak water from my tomatoes AND a quickie vegan "bouillion" made from hot water and a big tablespoon of nooch. (Can you tell its been my fave ingredient this week!?) So easy and delicious!

Let it simmer on low for about 20 minutes, stirring and mashing occasionally with your wooden spoon. Right at the end, I added another drizzle of olive oil, 2 cubes of frozen basil and my chopped soaked tomatoes:

I adjusted for salt and pepper, but the sauce tasted too mild and passive for me. Maybe its the Korean in me, but I needed a little zing. So I added a splash of my new Sherry vinegar and a splash of red wine from my glass. Verdict? Perfecto.

I tossed my eggplant sauce with some brown rice fettucini. It was my first time trying brown rice pasta, and I've gotta say - I'm hooked! I also drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil around my plate to look pretty and topped it with my feta cheese.

I've gotta say, this sauce was terrific. The eggplant is so rich and velvety - it coats every strand of pasta to perfection. The feta was also amazing - it gave everything a briney sharp punch that I loved. I think chopped capers would work just as well for a vegan alternative.

Look at that! Doesn't that look heavenly? (And don't mind my laptop in the background).

Happy belly. Happy mood. What a terrific day. Hope you guys are having a fantastic weekend too!

So hottttt....

2009-09-25T22:00:00.003-07:00

Dear Lord, it was hot today! I took a nap in the afternoon and woke up sweaty and dehydrated - so gross! I chugged some water, blasted the AC and then polished off some more watermelon to cool me down.

For dinner, I needed another cold, quick number so I grabbed whatever veggies I had in the fridge and threw together this noodle bowl. It had:

Rice noodles (the same ones from last night)
Shredded carrots
Shredded lettuce
A sliced tomato
Sliced celery
Roasted and chopped cashews
Cremini and shitake mushrooms sauteed in garlic and oyster sauce

I also made a plate of cilantro, green onions and mint to throw into the mix at the table. The dressing for my noodles was a quick mix of:

Oyster sauce
Fish sauce
Water
Lime juice
Garlic
Sambal olek chili garlic sauce
Agave syrup

Tonight's meal wasn't vegetarian because of the fish and oyster sauce, but I have the sauces on hand so I might as well use them, you know what I mean? Plus I had salmon for lunch anyway, so I was on a seafood roll!

Here's the before:

Here's it all mixed up:

So good and so fast. A few hours after dinner, I treated myself to a grape slushie and came home with a bag of organic animal crackers and some Hansen's sugar-free root beer. I know I've been trying to stop drinking soda or ingesting artificial sweeteners, but I've been craving root beer lately and figured it would keep me cool and happy while staying up late researching. We need our rewards, right? I mean, its 3:15am and I am still up on a Friday doing work. Give me a damn root beer! :-)

Arite kids, time to do a little stretching and loosen my back up. I've been sitting in this chair working for hours! Have a great weekend and stay cool!

Its more than a feeling...

2009-09-25T11:37:00.003-07:00

A ninja-quick lunch was necessary today because I have a ton of work to do AND I woke up plain hungry this morning. I've had a hankerin' for some kind of tuna or chicken salad this week, since I saw the last episode of Mad Men. Don Draper *drool* comes home, says he wants somethin cold to eat and his wife hands him a plate of chicken salad and a sleeve of Ritz crackers for dinner. The meal was so simple and homey that I was instantly smitten.

THEN when my friend Theo and I had lunch the other day, he opted for this huge tuna salad sandwich and my craving was reignited. I hate mayonnaise in general, but I really enjoy tuna, chicken and egg salad sandwiches every now and then.

Anyways, I came home from class today a little after 11am and felt pretty hungry. I scanned my fridge, my freezer and finally my pantry to see what I had on hand. In the corner of my canned goods shelf, I saw I still had one can of Bear & Wolf wild alaska sockeye salmon from Costco. The lightbulb went off and in no time flat I had assembled a tasty little treat:

This had:

1 can of boneless, skinless canned wild salmon
2 blobs of olive oil mayo
2 blobs of Dijon mustard
1/2 a large carrot, grated
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 stalk of green onion, sliced
1 Kosher dill pickle spear, chopped
1 heaping teaspoon of capers, roughly chopped
A few grinds of black pepper

I had started to make some toast before I decided what to have for lunch, so I just cut it up into small squares and then threw in a few Ak-Mok crackers to have on the side.

Speaking of which, you've got to see how cute my new plate is. I got it from World Market a few weeks ago but haven't really used it. I love treating myself to a fun new bowl or plate every now and then!

Alongside my meal, I had a Honeycrisp apple, sliced and arranged Gliding Calm-style:

To drink, I also had my new obsesh: Celestial Seasonings Cold Brew Blueberry Green Tea!

Mmmm, makes my water so tasty! Okay all together now:

I was only going to eat half of it...but it was just too good! Even with a baby spoon, small toast squares, apple slices and tasty iced tea to distract, I just keep snarfing that salad down. Its all in my belly now!! Open wide:

It's gettin' hot and heavy around here...

2009-09-24T19:23:00.006-07:00

Hey loveys!

Sorry I have been away for so long. Law school has been a BEAST this semester, and then if that wasn't enough, my laptop had to go in for repairs for OVER A WEEK! I do all my work on this computer, keep in touch with friends through it AND I don't have a television or cable. So needless to say, I was freaking out a bit and dealing with some major withdrawal.

Well, my MacDaddy was returned to me on Tuesday and I've been just trying to make it till, well, now! I'm BEYOND exhausted from this week and got home a few hours ago after a pretty long day. I did the dishes, washed the juicer and set out to make a fast, healthy meal.

Oh, did I mention its like A BAZILLION degrees in Davis right now? My seatbelt buckled burned my thigh earlier. :-(

So yeah, something cold was DEFINITELY on the agenda. Enter: VEGAN SUMMER ROLLS!

These turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. For the "meat" I used Cracked Pepper Tofurkey slices. They seemed like the most neutral and they worked like a charm! My friend Theo and I go to this Vietnamese restaurant for summer rolls now and then, but my gripe with them is always (1) no vegetarian option and (2) the meat they give you is good, but super processed - like its been made into a sausage-like consistency, you know what I mean? So I figured a peppery deli faux meat would work just as well. Theo said he wouldn't think twice if this came out on a plate at a restaurant. I agree - the Tofurkey is mild enough not to get in the way of the herbs and veggies, but gives just enough peppery, chewy, meaty texture.

The real toughie was making a dipping sauce without the ubiquitous fish sauce. I made mine with raw almond butter, rice wine vinegar, sambal olek chili garlic sauce, green onions, agave syrup, soy sauce and sesame seeds. I kept tweaking it but it just didn't taste right. It was just missing that umami - that 6th sense flavor the Japanese always talk about. I had a few options to fix this: something with MSG in it, kelp granules, or.....nooch?

Yep, that's right. I tried nooch out in some Korean stew I made a few weeks ago that usually uses an anchovy bouillion as a base. I couldn't get it to taste right without that little oomph so I threw in a few spoonfuls of nooch, hoping that pseudo cheesy flavor would do it. Worked like a charm!

So into my almond "peanut" sauce went two spoonfuls of nooch. Verdict? Delicious!!! Theo was lapping it up, as was I. Success!

On the side are all the fillers for the rolls: a bowl of rice noodles, shredded carrot, zuchinni, yellow squash, red bell pepper, chopped lettuce, fresh mint from the garden, cilantro, green onions, and Tofurkey slices. Alternatively, seasoned tofu would also taste great!

To make the wraps, just take your summer roll wrapper and give it a few dips into a bowl of hot water. It will feel not quite firm, not quite gelatinous as you put it down on your empty plate, but by the time you arrange all your fillings, the wrapper will have hydrated to the point where you can tuck and roll like a little burrito!

Theo and I snarfed this down in a few seconds, it was so good!!

Dessert was half a Tiger Baby watermelon I picked up the Coop. Perfecto.

Sigh. I feel so contented. The kitchen is clean, I only had to boil some water, and now I can just take a little nappy poo before seeing my friends for the first time this week to catch up for an hour or so. Then its off to do some INTENSE research and write a partial draft of my paper.

Le sigh. It never ends.

But in good news, I got another job interview today! I sent in the resume weeks and weeks ago and so I thought it had gone into a black hole - but I got an email this morning inviting me. Yay!

Smell ya laters. ;-)

When it rains...

2009-09-15T23:45:00.002-07:00

Soooo as if my life isn't crazy enough as it is, my laptop decided to crap out on me Sunday night.

Yes, my beloved MacbookPro decided to go blind Sunday night. The computer is still making sounds, so I know its "working" but the screen is black. Its currently staying with Tech Support and I realllllly hope they fix it without giving me any hassle. Its under warranty so it should be fine right?

*Fingers crossed*

So here I am parked at the computer lab at 11:45pm, trying to get my schoolwork done and feeling like a complete failure of a blogger. I still feel really tired and overwhelmed these days, but my eats are gradually getting better.

Today I had:

1 1/2 mason jars of veggie juice (save your pasta sauce jars!)
1 Honeycrisp apple
1 slice of cold cheese pizza
1/2 tofu-veggie sammich
Roasted sweet potato fries
Roasted broccoli (obsessed!)
1 spelt English muffin with Earth Balance (loving the soy-free spread!)
1-2 handfuls of Barbara's Shredded Oats
1 small package of discount avocado sushi

Kind of a lot of food, but it was a long day at school. Still a little too heavy on carbs, but at least they're mostly the good kind. The only real regret is that slice of cold pizza I snagged from school, but I was hungry. I stopped at 1 slice before leaving campus to get a sandwich.

The big step forward today was bringing back the juice and eating some more veggies. Also, I am SO. FREAKING. EXCITED. about the return of Honeycrisp apples. Wanna know how much I love them? Just try searching "honeycrisp" on this blog and see what you get. Nothing makes me more excited for the Fall than these crispy, tart, juicy, snappy apples. They're only in season a few weeks out of the year, so snag them while you can at the store. Trust me, you will NOT regret it. I consider it a moral duty to spread the gospel of the Honeycrisp!

Arite kiddles, I have to leave school now that its nearly midnight, but know that I'm still alive and love all of y'all.

A hot mess.

2009-09-02T18:38:00.006-07:00

That's what I feel like these days.

Aside from feeling blue, I've also been completely slammed with life in general. I split my time between being panicky/busy and feeling unstable/in fetal these days. Its hard because I have a lot of people and projects depending on me and this is NOT the time to get batty in the head.

My loveys in DC have been sending super sweet and encouraging emails (whaddup Ring of Fire!) and my friends in the Dirty D' are also awesome. But alas, the nature of depression is that its not really *rational* and thus we must trudge on through the mire until we get through the other side.

Aside from being completely exhausted all the time (I laid down for a nap last night and woke up 5 hours later!) my eating has been a complete sh*tshow. I have severely "gotten off track," according to Andrea. Apparently all my body wants is comfort food, which for me is carbs and fried food. And random sweets. And tofu.

I have been making all-too-frequent stops to our local Chinese take-out places getting the tofu special with white rice to snarf down while sitting in bed. I also inhaled a bag of Popchips and even bought a carton of nasty store-brand ice cream last night. I've eaten gobs of guacamole, I ate a can of sardines the other night on tortilla chips, and made spaghetti twice. Oh, and a few Diet Cokes have snuck back into my life!

I really think there is something off about my hormones right now. Aside from PMS, the fact that I've been severely craving tofu has me thinking there's something going on in my body. I've been cutting out basically as much soy out of my diet as possible in the last 2 months, so I don't know if my body hit some critical mass point and was fighting me or if its just something off in my body. I think I need to get checked out because I have a feeling its associated with the other things that have been off about me lately (depression, moodiness, bloating, severe acne).

I started feeling really guilty about my eats, even though I really don't believe in that, especially because I was eating foods that were bad for me, not organic, AND expensive. So I went to the Co-op tonight with the mindset of getting whatever I craved, but they had to be healthy/organic/local alternatives. What I ate today isn't exactly perfect, but when I need to bring myself back from the deep end, it has to be in increments. Otherwise, I'll fall back off the wagon in a day or two and start eating fried chicken.

Enter today's carbalicious eats:

2 big fistfuls of cereal

A big bowl of pasta with tomato basil marinara and goat cheese crumbles

A bunch of these dipped into this hummus:

2 Rudy's organic spelt english muffins with soy-free Earth Balance

4 of these delicious suckers.

I've also made contingency plans for my take-out cravings. I have ingredients for some more vegan enchiladas (with tofu/veggie filling), some microwaveable brown rice and tofu to make stirfries with (instead of hitting the take-out joint), and I made a big batch of baked ratatouille today (just slices of eggplant, zuchinni and yellow squash with mushrooms and onion, baked with a jar of marinara for an hour until soft). I'll throw that into a sammich, over quinoa or chopped it up and toss with pasta for a quick meal. Veggies have been seriously missing from my life lately, so that was my compromise.

Anyways, that's what I've been up to. How do you combat funks/eating ruts/cravings?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIN!

2009-08-30T15:03:00.003-07:00

We can't celebrate one without the other.

Happy Birthday to the most gangsta food blogger on this side of the Mississippi - Erin of Care to Eat.

Sounds like 1981 was a good year, if I do say so myself! ;-)

Epic Day

2009-08-27T03:03:00.005-07:00

Thursdays this semester are going to my marathon long days. I have four classes, beginning at 8:30am and stretching to 8:00pm. I don't know about the upcoming weeks, but today I will definitely be at school during the entire 12 hour period.

Obviously in this situation, planning my food will be key. I've got the veggies washed for green juice in the morning (kale, romaine, gala apples, ginger, key limes) and I will be packing a Larabar and a container of raspberries with bee pollen for a snickety snack. (I bit off of Erin on the bee pollen love - what a great idea to put it on fresh fruit!)

Tonight while I was doing more research, I ran a load of laundry and baked two pans of enchiladas. I have been craving enchiladas like a BEAST lately so I made one tray of vegetarian enchiladas and one tray of vegan enchiladas.

For the vegetarian version, I made a filling of diced zuchinni, mushroom, corn, onion. Just sauteed with garlic, cilantro and a few blobs of salsa. I dipped the corn tortillas in the canned enchilada sauce before filling and rolling. Dumped the rest of the sauce over and topped with raw goat cheddar. 20 minutes, 375F - presto!

Then I made another smaller vegan tray. The filling on this one was just some Mexican-style jambalaya I made the other night mixed with corn. (The original rice mixture was brown rice, carrots, celery, olives, black beans, onion and corn, sauteed with garlic, fire roasted canned tomatoes, salsa, pickled jalapenos, spices (cumin, chili powder, coriander, cilantro leaves) and one chipotle pepper. Add water and simmer for 1 hour over low-medium heat). These I topped with monterey jack Vegan Cheese Alternative.

I'm thinking of packing both trays to take to school with me and feed my friends before our 6pm evening class.

Arite, time to take a nap before class (its 3:30am!!)

Good, Bad, Good.

2009-08-26T21:30:00.003-07:00

I was utterly pooped from school yesterday so I slept in this morning (instead of getting my parking permit). I got to school for my first class, paid $6 for parking (eek!) and got my school on. But before I left, I had this refreshing little number:

That is my green juice's fun, flirty cousin. Look at how light-hearted, capricious and fun she is in comparison to my nerdier, more bookish daily juice. This was 1 carrot, a big wedge of iceberg lettuce (mom sent me back to Davis with some), 2 stalks of celery, a big nob of ginger, 3 key limes and 3 small apples. All organic, all delish.

I wasn't really hungry, so I didn't eat anything until my first class at 2pm, during which I had half a sack of sour gummy bears. Then after my seminar at 5pm, I snarfed a few slices of pizza in the student lounge (there was an event I had to be at). Cheese, white carbs, grease, a few hunks of sausage and chicken - Natalia Rose would probably barf at me.

After school, probably in penance, I went directly to the Co-op to pick up some more kale and romaine for tomorrow's juice (capricious cousin is fun when she visits, but I don't want her there every day).

Its about 9:30pm now and since dinner was pizza, I decided I didn't want to have anything else today except something good for me. Enter:

This is a smoothie made from frozen raspberries, young Thai coconut meat, water, ice and raw honey (filled with bee pollen!) I also added a spoonful of chia seeds and a pinch of xantham gum for a bit more body.

Verdict? Amazing! I was expecting a milkshake but really it tasted like yogurt!! I absolutely love yogurt, but I've been trying to limit my dairy intake so I haven't bought any in a few months. This was definitely a treat! The tartness of the raspberries mixed with the honey and coconut made this taste like a sherberty, yogurty nom nom. Now I know I can make a raw vegan alternative to yogurt whenever I want! Awesome!

I have to go monitor my laundry (first small load of whites since the egregious incident a few weeks ago when some asshat stole all my WET clothes out of the washer, leaving me with 1 pair of terrible camel-toe inducing jeans and no underwear). So I will have to cut this short. Hope you guys had a great day - especially A-Ho on her birfday! I'm feeling MUCH better about life and hope to get to Friday!

Happy Hump Day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREA!

2009-08-26T12:53:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite bloggers, Andrea of Care to Eat!

Get focused.

2009-08-25T06:12:00.004-07:00

Hey loveys.

You guys make me smile so much. Thanks for your messages and e-mails. I pulled myself together around 10pm last night and spent about an hour checking my e-mails and talking to a few friends to see how their first days went. (I don't have classes on Mondays this semester, woot!)

Because I got so sidetracked by the migraine, I decided I had to make up for it and get ready for school at 11pm. I took a late night trip to our 24-hour Walmart to buy school supplies, a few Amy's frozen meals and household essentials. I got back, half-cleaned my kitchen (but including all the dirty dishes!) and prepared my eats for the day. I'm going to be at school from 830am to 5pm today so I knew I was going to be homicidal unless I packed plenty of good food.

I prepped all the produce for today's juice so that it'd be ready to whiz through the machine before I walked out the door. Today's is a huge cuke, 3 local organic Gravenstein apples, a nob of ginger and the rest of my kale. I even have an empty Honest Tea bottle I saved to carry it in! (I'm 90% converted to glassware at this point!)

For lunch, I have to give a special shout out to one of my attorneys from LSNC this summer, Colin. He's a baller attorney and eco-warrior, as well as a locavore vegan. He always packed these glass containers packed with some kind of whole grain and a bunch of veggies, generously covered in hot sauce.

I took a page out of his playbook and put some zuchinni, onion and mushroom to roast, seasoned with hickory smoked salt and chili flakes. While the veggies roasted, I boiled up a handful of quinoa. When the quinoa was ready, I added in a spoonful of nutritional yeast and a few dashes of Tapatio hot sauce to season. I threw the quinoa into my glass bowl and topped it with the roasted veggies. And of course, some more Tapatio went over the top.

To go with my lunch, I packed a baggie of organic carrot chips, organic dried pears, a bag of local organic pistachios and an organic Fuji apple. With a big bottle of water, this should keep me okay until I get home at 5pm.

I also saved half the roasted veggies for another panini to make for dinner. I figure I'll have it with a side of this amaaaaazing soup:

I was at our Co-op the other day and was looking at their hot soup bar selection. I didn't buy any soup, but I looked at what they were offering that day and saw something that intrigued me: Sweet Potato Ginger Bisque. I looked at the ingredients and it seemed like it would be delicious - sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, ginger, coconut milk, jerk seasonings, lime juice.

Well I had all those ingredients at home, so I decided to make a small single lady batch. ;-) I chopped up 1 small carrot, 1 stalk of celery, 1/2 a small onion, 1 clove of garlic and about 1/2 inch of ginger. I sauteed everything in a pot with a pinch of salt, a bay leaf and some coconut oil. When the veggies had sweated out, I added 1 peeled and cubed sweet potato and about 2 cups of water. I let it all simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the potato was soft. I added a pinch of cloves, a few grates of fresh nutmeg, and pinches of cinnamon, cumin and coriander. Right before pulling off the heat, I added 1 tablespoon of coconut cream and a squeeze of fresh key lime to brighten up the flavors. I tasted it and decided I wanted some kick so I also added a squirt of Siracha sauce and a pinch of salt. Once it had cooled a little, I threw it in the blender until smooth and creamy. Perfecto.

The soup kinda tastes like Tom Yum soup you get the Thai restaurant, but sweeter and less tangy. And with the velvety mouthfeel you get from sweet potato. I think its amazing! Definitely going on the rotation now that Fall is coming. Vegan and costs almost nothing to make - woot!

Anyways, with a whole day of healthy food planned out, I feel so much better about myself. I've gained some weight on this being at home slash depression diet of mine - I was walking around Wal-Mart and could fell my tummy jiggling around! Sick. Time to pull it together, especially since my lovey Donna's wedding is in less than 2 weeks! Can't look like a ham in a dress -I've got to do a reading in the ceremony!

And if you're wondering if I ever got to bed tonight, the answer is no. I had to finish my reading and pull my school supplies together so that I wouldn't be the worst law student ever. I'll probably be dead by the end of the day, but oh well. GO BIG OR GO HOME!

Here's to a better day. Thanks again for all your hilarious e-mails. I really do appreciate you guys more than you know. Its been rough, but hopefully we're coming out of the worst. Love yous!