Are We Ever Truly Settled?

Well, it's been almost four months since I picked up and moved from my beloved Minneapolis to the amazing DC metro. I love my apartment and I love my location, so I think I'll be here for a couple of years. Therefore I'd like to make it a bit more homey feeling by painting a couple of walls. I'm thinking about doing that this weekend. Just a couple of accent walls, nothing fancy.

It's weird, I feel like that's the last thing on my to-do list since moving. I've hung curtains, gotten some extra furniture, hung the pictures and unpacked the last box. What am I going to stress about and write lists for once that's taken care of?! I guess I'll have to find a hobby. :)

Speaking of making things homey, let's talk comfort food! I've discovered this great recipe on my friend's (and fellow animal activist) blog. It's a vegan mac & cheese. I'm getting to a point where it's hard to tell how things taste from a meat eaters' palette. I mean, I think this tastes like delicious, creamy mac & cheese. But if you taste it side-by-side with the cruelty-filled version, would it taste strange? It's been over a year for me, so I don't know! What I do know is that I LOVE this version and not a single animal suffers for it!

Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese

Ingredients:

Full package of macaroni
1/2 cup margarine or vegan butter equivalent
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 cups boiling water or vegetable broth
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs. soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup (or less) canola oil
1 cup nutritional yeast flakes
Cajun seasoning to garnish (I topped with a little cayenne pepper, as that's all I had)

Directions:

Begin process of cooking the noodles.

While you're doing that, make the sauce:

Mix the vegan butter and flour and melt on a very low heat until they are thoroughly mixed.

Add the boiling water or vegan stock, salt, soy sauce, garlic, turmeric.

Bring to a very low boil.

Then add vegetable oil and nutritional yeast and mix.

Combine the noodles and the sauce in a large baking pan and sprinkle Cajun seasoning on top.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Running My Butt Off....Literally?

I'm running another marathon! I'm super excited to have a goal and something to work towards. AND something to get my butt out of bed and out for a run in the morning. One of my friends from high school who now lives in Florida is running the Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon in December, so I decided to bite the bullet and run the full marathon. The one problem is it's on a Sunday and since it's the week before Christmas, I don't think I'll be able to get Monday off. So the flight home the afternoon after the race is gonna be a rough one. And my two mile walk into work the next morning ain't gonna be so pretty either. But who cares?! I'll feel so good after completing marathon #4, that it won't matter. I'll be walking on air. :) (I know, that's total b.s.)

Along with my running, I'm also altering my diet. Which is something I should have already done, but I'm focusing more on veggies and less on cookies. I wish I didn't love baking so much! But I need to do this to optimize my training. I've never trained for a marathon as a vegan.

I found this great recipe for a mock tuna salad - it's a chick pea salad, but is so tasty. It was on Compassionate Action for Animals' website -- that's the animal advocacy group in Minnesota that first got me interested in the cause. Tonight's dinner was a delicious chick pea salad sandwich with steamed fresh green beans with sauteed onions. YUMMERS. Recipe below. See ya on the roads!

Chick Pea Salad

• 2(15oz.) cans chick-peas, drained
  
• ¾ cup vegan mayonnaise
• 2/3 cup minced celery
• 1/3 cup minced dill pickle
• ¼ cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2 teaspoon soy sauce
• ½ salt, or 1 tablespoon miso
• pepper, to taste

In a medium bowl, mash the chick-peas coarsely with a fork. Mix in the remaining ingredients, using ½ cup mayonnaise at first, and then adding more as needed. cover and refrigerate. Use on sandwiches or on a bed of salad greens. (Note: makes a big helping, may want to half the recipe!)

Typical DMV Love Story

Well, it's Saturday. Normal people use Saturday as an opportunity to sleep-in and relax. But not those of us who recently moved to Virginia and need to get our car registered and a new driver's license. I tried going a few weeks ago. They open at 8:00am on Saturdays, so I woke up around 7:30, got all dolled up for the DL picture, and showed up a little after 8:00 to a ridiculous line out the door and not a single parking space in the lot. I got annoyed and left.

This morning was round 2. I got up at 6:30 and got all dolled up for the DL picture, and arrived around 7:40. So did about 70 other people. Oy. The line moved relatively quickly, though. And by 8:40, I was in the door....with my ticket to sit and wait some more.

They finally call #C210 and I go up to the counter. I get the most disgruntled DMV employee in the history of time. She HATES her job, I promise you that. I mean, she did us the favor of showing up to work...but didn't think we worth a shower. Or a change of clothes. Or a comb through the hair. And she actually stopped working on getting me logged into the computers on several occasions, so that she could pick up her cell phone and text message someone. Um, really? I was sugary sweet, since I was just desperate to get everything taken care of, but it took everything in me to maintain that compsure.

To top off the miserable woman helping me, I get over to the wall for the DL picture, apply a quick coat of pink gloss, adjust my hair, and bust out my best "natural" smile. And it's at that point that pleasant DMV lady informs me that they just just changed the law, and you can't show teeth in your DL picture -- they don't WANT you to smile! Ugh. Enter: awkward, closed-mouth smirk. I can't wait to see that awful picture when my DL arrives in 7-10 business days. :)

Eat Up, Carnivores

My mom anxiously called me during a commercial break on ABC's evening news tonight and asked me if the national news aired at the same time in DC as it does in Mpls. Yes, Mom, we get the news here too. It was cute, though, --she saw that the upcoming story was on beef production and thought I'd be interested -- and I was. So I tuned to ABC and was hugely disappointed. The story was a good one -- informing the public of this latest beef recall (380,000 pounds!) and pointing out that the E.coli we're always hearing about comes from - *dramatic pause* - cattle feces. Mmmmm. Gives your Hamburger Helper a little zing, eh?

ABC had the right idea, and even referenced the new documentary, Food Inc and interviewed Michael Pollan (great book, check it out!). The let down came in the G-rating format they chose. If you're going to talk the talk, walk the walk and SHOW America the obscene and graphic images that is our factory farming operations. That's where those neat little burgers on the "barbie" came from. It was just way too mild. I'm sure ABC would hate to cause middle-America to gag on their beef stroganoff while eating dinner & watching TV. I gagged on my veggie stir-fry, just hearing about factory farming. Ugh,

For those of you who want to take the risk, keep eating your animal products. And if something tastes a little funny in your meatloaf, don't worry - that's just cow poop.

Only in DC

Have I ever mentioned that I have a part-time gig babysitting? If not - I'm telling you now. I work at a nonprofit and am not the most financially brilliant person you will ever meet. A second job helps support my food addiction. :) They are a great family who found me on care.com - a website I used for occasional babysitting gigs. But they have me over two nights a week and one day on the weekend, so I don't NEED the additional gigs. It's great. And they live literally 4 minutes from me. Perfecto!

Anyhow, tonight I was babysitting for them (two boys - age 4 and 6) and we decided to play with sidewalk chalk. I rediscovered my love of the chalk. They keep telling me to draw more roads on the driveway, so they can drive their cars. Then of course we need buildings! So I draw a house...a school...an office building...a factory. And I say, "I think our neighborhood is complete!" And the older boy says, "I don't think so". "What is our neighborhood missing?" I ask. And he replies, "What's a neighborhood without a Lincoln Memorial!?" HA. Only in DC would a 6 year old say that! :)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! Since my dad is quite possibly me only regular reader, gotta give him a shout-out. Wish I could be home to bake him something special, but I WAS able to be home last weekend, for my grandmother's funeral :(, so at least I got to see him and give him a card in person. We also enjoyed a delicious dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Acapulco. YUM. My dad and I have always been close...I'm definitely my father's daughter. I get my appetite from him, I get my sweat glands from him and I get my love handles from him....what more could I girl ask for?! :) On a more serious note, I am thankful for everything he has done for me. I always tell him I'll even it out someday, when I put him in the best nursing home money can buy! :)

I'm sure Dad would appreciate my delicious lunch today. I made a pan of stuffed manicotti yesterday. YUM. My mom always made these amazing stuffed shells, so I was hoping to replicate that (sans cheese & egg). I found a pretty good recipe online and tweaked it a bit. I think it turned out great. Might add some fresh garlic next time... (not the prettiest picture, but don't judge a book by its cover!)

Vegan Stuffed Manicotti

1 box manicotti or large shells
1 package soft tofu
1 block vegan mozzarella cheese (grated)
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 pkg frozen, chopped spinach
1/2 onion, diced
1 tsp garlic salt (might try a few fresh, chopped cloves)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 jar of any marinara/spaghetti sauce

Cook pasta, according to box. Mash tofu in medium bowl. Add most of cheese (set aside a handful), tomatoes and spinach. Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté onion for a few minutes - until just starting to brown. Add to mixture. Add garlic /salt, sea salt and basil. Mix well. Fill shells with mixture and place in non-stick pan. Pour marinara sauce over the top and top with handful of cheese. Bake at 350-degrees for about 20 minutes, or until heated all the way through. Enjoy!

Seriously

I was asked by two different people on the crowded Metro today if I wanted their seat. Two different people. I was chosen out of a crowd. Do I really look that bad after my 1-mile speed walk?? People think I'm going to collapse and die if I don't get a seat?? And I was wearing a flowy shirt today, so then I of course panicked that people were thinking I was pregnant. Therefore I had a salad for dinner. Just to be safe.