Many omnivores obviously have problems connecting the slab of steak on their plates with a living cow being raised in unbelievably cruel conditions on a factory farm thousands of miles away. Then there are the people who do see the connection – and they just don’t give a shit.

According to The Huffington Post, some Chinese chefs have started deep-frying live fish so customers can eat it while it’s still breathing. Here is the accompanying video, but please keep in mind it might be disturbing to some:

Even though I’ve been vegan for years and have in turn learned about the horrors of factory farming and other animal cruelties, every so often I’m surprised by just how terrible people are. For those of you who don’t want to venture to watching the video, the fish is grasping for air on the plate while people poke and laugh at it. Are there honestly people in this world who are so inhumane that they don’t understand the pain this fish is going through, having lived through being cooked and eaten alive?

I used to be a big pasta whore. I ate spaghetti or some other type of pasta dish every other night or so when I was in high school. It’s easy, cheap, fast, and carbs really are a comfort food. I loved alfredo, but I just didn’t eat it that often because I much preferred marinara, and after becoming vegan, I didn’t even care that I couldn’t have it anymore – I couldn’t have been less concerned with finding a substitute.

I stopped eating pasta when I decided to lose weight. Don’t get me wrong – carbs are healthy, and I cringe anytime I hear someone say they’ve cut them out completely. I can’t imagine how terrible my life would be without whole grain breads and pastas. However, I have greatly limited my intake. And, unfortunately, now that I’ve tried VeganYumYum’s Hurry Up Alfredo, I’m going to have a lot of internal struggles when it comes to trying to convince myself I don’t need pasta every single night.

It is so freakin’ delicious!!! I did deviate from the recipe slightly – I went to my cupboard only to find that my cashews had turned rancid. I only recently found out you’re supposed to keep nuts in the refrigerator, and hadn’t yet moved them. So I just used almonds instead. Cashews are buttery, whereas almonds are a little more hearty, so I’m sure it changed the taste, but now that I’ve gone with almonds I doubt I ever even try the cashew version. It was unbelievably creamy and filling, and it’s hard to believe it was as simple as just throwing the ingredients into a blender. This single recipe has made me want to buy the new VeganYumYum cookbook (once I’ve got money that is – being a broke college vegan means limiting cookbook purchases). Has anyone tried this yet?

Since I was young enough to be able to eat pasta, my family and I have paired alfredo sauces with peas. It almost seems unnatural to have one without the other. I’m the same way with mac n’ cheese – I have to eat it with broccoli.

Here’s a picture of the sauce cooking with the pasta. Admittedly, I probably used to much sauce, but who cares? It was good.

Wow. And, psst, notice there’s a whole almond in there. I blended for a couple minutes, but I don’t mind chunks of nuts. It just adds texture

When I was at Greenlife a couple days ago, I picked up kiwi berries because I’d never heard of them. They’re adorable, and sweeter than normal kiwis. I don’t know much about them, and I’m not sure if I’d buy them again (I’m becoming very conscious of how far food travels to our plates and how environmentally destructive this is), but they were definitely interesting.

Like my creek rock??

namaste

Hey y’all! Sorry I have been seriously neglecting this blog. I had a family emergency early last week and had to go home immediately, then I came down with a pretty nasty cold, and now I’m having another little health issue I have to deal with. So there hasn’t been much time for blogging, plus I hate when I try to write and any negativities I’m experiencing come out in my writing. I’m normally a very positive, happy vegan, and I really want that to come across in my posts.

Going to a doctor’s office stresses me out more than anything else in the world, so to cheer myself up after my visit this morning I hopped on the bus and visited a local health food grocery store, Greenlife. The people there are so friendly, and the vibe so naturally comfortable that it makes grocery shopping a super-fun adventure. Usually I just go to Ingles, which is closer and cheaper for basics, but I felt like something special (plus I was out of vegan mayo & cheese).

I filled up my backpack with goodies like Veganaise, a tangerine, squash, local turnips (!!), frozen breaded mushroom bites for my mushroom-loving boy, 2 packages of ramen (soba and garlic pepper), Rising Moon Organics Garlic & Chanterelle Mushroom pasta sauce, dried rubbed sage, elbow macaroni, Tofurkey Cranberry & Stuffing deli slices, tofu, garden veg tempeh, Mango Soy Delicious Coconut yogurt, strawberry kombucha, kelp noodles, Tom’s of Maine deodorant stick, and locally made hemp lip balm. But this post is going to be focused on a frozen meal I bought to eat as soon as I got home: Sukhi’s frozen Vegan Chili Chicken (soy nuggets with vegetables in chili sauce).

At $5.29, it was expensive, and usually I don’t buy frozen meals at all. But I knew I was going to get home well after noon, and that I’d be pretty hungry since the cold leftover pizza slice I had for breakfast probably wouldn’t hold me over much. I was very impressed. Normally, frozen food to me is tough, flavorless, and unfulfilling. It’s boring. But this meal wasn’t only hearty, but was also spiced perfectly, and the naan that came with it was superb. It tasted fresh! (Plus it was awesome with a little melted Earth Balance smothered over it!) It honestly tasted as if someone had just cooked it up. Despite the price, I would highly recommend this product to fellow vegans. Here are a few pics, sorry about the poor quality, but I was starving!

Do any of you have a favorite frozen meal you’d like to share?

Wow! I’ve really neglected Vegan Mofo this past week or so. Sorry about that folks! I’m sick, and school is busy, but doable. I’ve been cooking a lot too, but, unfortunately, I haven’t been taking pictures. So here’s a very wordy look at stuff I’ve been eating this past week.

First (one with pictures!), I found a vegan cheese sauce I really like from healthy vegan blog. It’s super easy to make, and it was so good I made it twice in one night. Also, the ingredients are so basic that most people probably have them on hand. Just be sure to keep a little extra soy milk on hand to thin it out.

Cheese fries!

I’ve got the hang of making oatmeal raisin cookies, and decided to move on to chocolate chip cookies. I asked a friend for a recipe she and I had used last year to make some delicious butterscotch cookies, and turns out it came from the PPK. I had to add a bunch more flour, but the cookies turned out amazing. It’s really a shame I didn’t snap a picture because they were beautiful, not to mention addicting. My friend and I ate the whole batch in little over a day! In fact, he ate four as soon as they were cool enough to eat. I’m pretty sure I’m sticking with this recipe for life.

I finally went out and bought a casserole dish (can’t believe I didn’t have one before now!) and made a vegan mushroom-spinach lasagna from Veganomicon. I cut the recipe in half, which was definitely a good thing, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to cook but half of it.

Other than that, I’ve basically been on a spaghetti kick, which I’ve been known to do from time to time. Chunky mushroom sauce, organic whole wheat noodles, and topped with nutritional yeast. Yum.

After Vegan MoFo ends in a few days, I still plan on making Ahimsa a little more food-centric. I bought two new cookbooks on Amazon earlier this week (Vegan with a Vegence and Vegan Brunch), so stay tuned for my reviews of some of those recipes.

namaste

Karmalily

Today’s post is going to have to be short and sweet. I’m a master of procrastination and as a result I’ll be trading sleep for writing a research paper tonight.

I’ve injured myself cooking before, as I’m sure most people have, but this weekend I practically tattooed myself. I tripped as I was pulling a baking sheet out of the oven, and jabbed it into my right forearm. The result:

The letters ESSE are now branded onto my arm, and my friends and I have had a good laugh over it.

Has anyone else had any cooking injuries they’d like to share?

Having had my eye on Veganomicon’s Chickpea Cutlets recipe for a while now, it’s pretty sad that I’ve had the cookbook well over a year and just now got around to making it. I’m mainly disappointed because I found out how good they were, and learned that I’d been missing out all this time.

The recipe is ridiculously simple, and the end result was really… meaty. It sort of reminded me of chicken patties. I tried these babies two ways based on that “chicken-ness”: as a sandwich, and with gravy and greens.

The sandwich was super-simple: two slices of whole wheat bread (I didn’t have any vegan buns), vegan mayo, crunchy lettuce, and the smallest bit of Dijon. It turned out lovely:

The next night I tried them Southern-style. I’ve never made vegan gravy, but a local restaurant makes the best I’ve ever had, and since eating there a couple weeks ago I’ve been craving it. I used a recipe from About.com since I had all the ingredients handy. It turned out good and thick. I got sort of lazy with the greens and just heated up a can of kale I had. It was a really good hearty meal.

I also really like how well these freeze. It would be simple to double the recipe and stick the extras in your freezer, especially since one can of chickpeas is two cups, and the original recipe only calls for one.

Does anyone have a favorite vegan gravy recipe? Now that I’ve mastered that one, I want to move on to even better gravies!

I’m very, very new to baking. New as in, I baked my very first cookies (by myself – I’ve made them with help) 2 or 3 weeks ago. I made another batch of oatmeal raisin cookies last week using a different recipe, which were much tastier. This week I wanted to make butterscotch chip cookies using the awesomely-vegan Food Lion brand. I made butterscotch chip cookies last year with a friend, and they turned out great. So imagine my disappointment when I pulled this out of the oven:

I used a recipe from ChooseVeg, which looked pretty simple. I’m not sure what happened unless the recipe just isn’t that great or the butterscotch chips were old or something. They tasted alright, and my roommate also approved, even if they were hideous. I still had a little more batter left, so I thought, “what if I just make them bigger?” So I did.

They were even worse. They were absolutely gooey and gross. I really think the problem was with the chips, since in both batches the problems were centered around them it seemed. The recipe I used called for a cup of chocolate chips. Maybe a cup of butterscotch chips was too much?

At least lunch was ok. I had some Thai sesame noodles (pre-made), gimme lean sausage, and some fried bread. My mom loves making fried bread and it’s super easy – just fry a slice of really good bread in a little extra-virgin olive oil, with dried thyme and rosemary. Yumm.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about what might have gone wrong with the cookies?

I’ve been keeping frozen bananas in my freezer to snack on, but then I found another use for them: ice cream. Gena, of Choosing Raw, wrote about making raw vegan banana soft serve back in June. I tried it out last night for dessert, and… wow. It really was as good as she made it out to be, and I think it’s a great substitute for the much-less-healthy store-bought vegan ice creams (not to mention much cheaper).

I had to let the frozen bananas soften for a couple of minutes before processing them, because my cheap food processor couldn’t handle it at first. But after about 2 minutes, I just blended it up for another minute or so (Gena’s original recipe says 5 minutes – I guess it depends on the equipment you’re using). I also made the chocolate sauce to go with it – delicious.

Tempeh is my favorite “meaty” food. I use it in a variety of dishes, and like its cousin tofu, you can transform it into the flavors of any cuisine. For dinner tonight, I wanted something relatively easy so I could focus on steadying (isn’t it a shame that even though I’m on fall break I’m still spending most of my “relaxation” time doing homework?).

I used Andrea’s Easy Vegan Cooking’s Tempeh Salad recipe, and ate it in a pita. It was good, although I should of put some sweet pickle relish in it, and maybe some curry powder. I also opted on the side of more mayo than was in the recipe – I really enjoyed the creaminess. I decided to poach the tempeh before making the recipe (it aids in digestion), used Bragg’s instead of soy sauce, and minced red onion instead of green.

I’ve seen a number of blog posts recently about carrot fries, and was intrigued. All I did was cut carrots into a fry-shape, coat in a little extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper, and bake at 300F for about 20 minutes. They came out just crunchy enough, and they actually tasted slightly like sweet potato fries. I took the traditional route and dipped them in ketchup. I’ll probably be making carrot fries again, and I also think they’re a great way to get children to eat their veggies.

yum!

I feel as though I’ve been slacking off a lot the last few days. School is getting pretty stressful, and I haven’t been feeling very well either (although today I’m doing a bit better!). But those are pretty lame excuses. So here’s a real post for Vegan MoFo.

As much as I love to cook, I tend to get lazy when I’m cooking for one. I just don’t see the point of spending two hours in the kitchen when I’m tired when I can just whip up something simple. However, I love to cook and serve vegan food to other people. I had a friend over for dinner last night (which is sort of becoming a Thursday ritual, and I couldn’t be happier!), and decided to try to make a meal that was even better than the one last week.

A couple holidays ago, I didn’t feel like spending the money and time to make my usual Tofurky, and armed with my new copy of Veganomicon, I decided to change things up a little. I made the Portobello salad with spicy mustard dressing, and remembered how great it was. So I made it again last night since my guest really likes mushrooms, and it was even better than I remember. I think when I made it the first time I might have used too much maple syrup in the dressing, because I recall a very maple-y flavor.  I also made black beans and sweet potatoes, based on the enchilada recipe from Vegan Planet. I added some chopped cilantro, an extra 2 tbs chili powder, and some cayenne powder, and it was incredibly delicious.

For dessert I made oatmeal raisin cookies, which came from Vegan YumYum. I went with that recipe over the one in Veganomicon for two reasons: First, it was cheaper to make the VeganYumYum recipe, and second, I’d read great things about the recipe. Comments on a post, or other bloggers, are a foolproof way to find out if a recipe is worth bothering with or not. They turned out crunchy on the outside and chewy inside – just the way I like my cookies.

Here are the pictures from dinner last night:

Cookies!!

Nice big pile

Roasted portabellos

I loved how colorful this was!

Not the best picture... sorry

And about this post’s title: I really do nibble as I cook. I just can’t resist. I read an article once when I was trying to lose weight a while back that suggested not doing such a thing – you end up eat much more than you realize and putting on weight. However, I really don’t think I could cook without tasting along the way – how else are you going to know how to adjust the seasonings??