happy summer!

It's been almost a year since I made this blog. I remember when I first started it, I totally thought that I was going to post every other day and get lots of views and everything. But it turns out running a blog is actually work... Creating recipes, taking and editing photos, writing the post, etc., all takes a lot more time than you might imagine. I kept at it for a few months, but let's be real, I am not a recipe blogger. I can reblog 100 pale vintage photos on Tumblr every day, but hell, this has proven to be too much work. Especially the "creating recipes" aspect. I am pretty good at throwing lots of ingredients together and having them taste good, but I'm way too lazy to actually make note of portions and directions. Besides, now that I'm gluten-free and that it's summer, basically all I eat is a grain plus a protein plus fresh veggies (aka zucchini...we have so much zucchini...), in a sauce of some sort, and that'd be awfully boring to post. See, I'm good at stir-fries and curries and the like, but I can't, for example, come up with dozens of unique and clever uses for zucchini. To me, zucchini is either grilled, in bread, or in a stir-fry — unless I find an interesting recipe in a cookbook that doesn't require me to be too creative. 

I've really enjoyed my experience cooking throughout the past year. When I started this blog in August, I really didn't know anything about cooking (see this "recipe" I posted where it's clear I don't know how to cook potatoes at all). I feel like I've learned a ton about cooking and a plant-based diet in just a year. I gained full-control of my health and went off medications for the first time in six years. I've gotten in touch with my body, learning how different foods cause me to feel (who would've guessed that my depression would nearly disappear at the removal of sugar from my diet!). I also have learned to take decent photos when I have the time and energy to do so. It's been a great learning experience.

In April I decided to cook my way through the book Veganomicon, and I'm not done with it, but I've sort of reached a standstill - I've completed nearly all of the recipes that are seasonally appropriate. While I think I was pretty good at cooking in March, I believe it was when I started using that cookbook diligently that my food-preparing abilities reached a new high. I mean, I was using ingredients I had never even heard of, making entrees I had never heard of (e.g. using corn husks [?] to make tamales [??] ). If it weren't for Isa and Terry, I think my eating habits would be a lot different! Thank god for unique, delicious, plant-based recipes.

My summer has gone surprisingly well. I got together with a friend who I hadn't seen in several years and we spontaneously flew on a last minute trip to Seattle to visit two of our friends who we hadn't see in six or seven years. I passed my driving test, on the second attempt. I've gone to some concerts. I've hung out with friends. I've read lots of books. I've thought about my future. You know, the usual. This week I'm meeting with a local vegan personal chef, to discuss the possibility of me being her apprentice (I'm like 99% sure it's going to happen, but I can't say so until Thursday), and I'm pretty excited for that. Not only does she cook dinners, she also prepares weekly meals for people, teaches cooking classes, and gives talks on nutrition. She's pretty much the only one of her kind in all of Southern Maine, and her business has been roaring lately, so she definitely needs help. She's really sweet and so knowledgable on plant-based nutrition and cooking that it was would be such an honor to learn from her. I'm very excited to start! I'm also hoping to work at a natural food store, but there aren't very many near me, so who knows if I'll actually get a job at one. I sure hope so, now that I realize how expensive it is to fill up a car with gas!

So anyway, what does this mean for my blog? Who knows! Maybe I'll turn this into a blog just for writing my thoughts. No one actually reads it, so I don't have to worry about being embarrassed. I suppose if I ever have a fantastic recipe, I'll still post it here. I don't have any idea. But I do know that it's almost 2:30am and I should have gone to bed hours ago.

here's the link for the photoset on Flickr for this Hawaiian themed dinner you see here! The photos have explanations in the descriptions.

Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake with Mocha Frosting (+My Vegan Anniversary!)

Lately I've been noticing people mentioning their first or second or third or twentieth anniversaries of being vegan, which made me wonder when I actually first went vegan. I knew it was sometime in 2010, but it wasn't until I looked through old PhotoBooth photos of me eating Italian ice that I realized it was sometime around May 20th, more or less, that I decided to try it. I mostly did it to test myself, to see if I could do it, and I posted a photo on Facebook every day, calling it "The Ten Days of Veganism". I didn't realize I'd like it so much that it would turn into over 1,000 days and counting. It's actually pretty funny looking back on it now because this was during my Nevershoutnever! fangirl phase (as you can see from my necklace, I always had to wear at least two or three peace signs), and I definitely only tried veganism because peta2 did an interview with Christofer Drew. Please note I do not support PETA and I no longer listen to Nevershoutnever! (except for on occasion when I feel nostalgic. I still know every word to every song... I stopped listening to his music after Harmony when his personality changed a lot, but apparently he's become super chill now and really into vegan food so he seems pretty cool again! LOL OKAY ANYWAY)

Wow, I can't believe I'm posting that photo on the internet. Anyway, in celebration of my anniversary, which is roughly some time around now, I made a vanilla cake topped with a delicious mocha frosting. This was the first time I've baked anything gluten-free that was my own recipe, and I am more than happy with the results. I'm still not a huge fan of the flavor of gluten-free all-purpose flour, but I'm figuring out how to cover it up. If you want to make this with regular all-purpose flour, use 1 cup and leave out the xanthan gum. Also, this is a single-layer cake, so you can feel free to double it if you want.

Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake with Mocha Frosting

• 1 cup + 3 tablespoons gluten-free all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons canola oil, or other mild-tasting oil
• 5 tablespoons pure maple syrup or agave nectar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon coffee extract
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk

1) Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly oil a circular 8-inch cake pan.

2) In a medium bowl, combine flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3) In a separate medium bowl, mix together oil, syrup, vanilla, coffee extract, vinegar, and non-dairy milk until completely combined.

4) Add dry ingredients to liquids and mix well, until no lumps remain.

5) Pour batter into prepared pan and spread as best you can, smoothing out the top. Bake for 28-32 minutes, or until golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

6) Cool on a wire rack in pan for 10 minutes, then carefully remove from pan and let cake rest on rack until completely cook.

Mocha Frosting

• 8 Medjool dates, pitted
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil (not melted)
• 2 teaspoons coffee extract
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons coconut milk (or other non-dairy milk if necessary, but coconut is best)
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup or agave nectar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

In a blender or food processor, blend all ingredients until very smooth (you'll probably have to stir it a lot in between pulses). If you need to, you can add more milk until it reaches desired consistency. Chill until ready to use.

Reflecting on My Health & Diet in 2012

I can't believe it's already a new year! 2012 seemed to go by so quickly. I spent the first half of the year totally focused on my trip, fundraising, shopping, daydreaming, you name it. After I got back from Europe and had finally accepted the fact that I live in America and not a beautiful city in the Mediterranean, I began to spend most of my free time researching nutrition and plant-based diets. Up until this summer, I was still eating Oreos, Ritz Crackers, and all junk food that can technically be classified as "vegan". I had never heard of seitan and spinach was my least favorite food (which is a shock, considering I eat it at least two times a day now). There were a few things this summer that sparked my desire to try a true plant-based diet. While I was overseas, I do remember the food being one of the most fascinating aspects of the trip. Everything we ate was so pure, whole, organic. I had always hated tomatoes, but in Greece and Italy the tomatoes tasted like an entirely different food. And so did the cucumbers, potatoes, peppers, apricots, cherries, plums... When I got home, I knew I had to find those flavors again and that was when I discovered I can get equally delicious fruits and vegetables at farmer's markets and farm stands. All of these exciting new ingredients challenged and inspired me to eat differently.

 

Another reason I started a plant-based diet was to get my health in order. Rewind back about a month or two before my trip. I was finishing up all final preparations to travel (I had my suitcase packed weeks ahead of time of course) when, in a matter of days, my entire body broke out in an awful rash. It didn't itch or hurt or anything, it was just there, and it was the most traumatic thing I could imagine as I was preparing to leave for three weeks on a trip where I had hoped I could truly be myself and make new friends. I rushed to a dermatologist who said I had developed psoriasis as a reaction to the Remicade I was on for Crohn's disease (which is awfully ironic, considering Remicade is often used to treat psoriasis). He prescribed some lotions which certainly reduced the patches, but it became a battle of chasing the psoriasis around my body, as it would come and go in spots but never truly go away. I had the most difficulty treating it on my scalp, and I began losing hair - lots of hair; eventually, I couldn't even go out in public without wearing a bandana or spending an hour trying to cover each bald patch with bobby pins. Anyway, this summer, as I dealt with the realization that I had been diagnosed with a second chronic auto-immune disease, I knew it was time for me to do something on my own.

My dermatologist and my GI doctor didn't get along. He wanted me to go off the Remicade, she didn't. My Crohn's had been in remission for two years, ever since I started the medication (also when I originally went vegan..hmm), so I definitely understood her viewpoint; but it was making me go bald, and as a fifteen year old girl I knew I couldn't stay on it. So that was when I started really getting interested in health, nutrition, and various diets. I watched about a billion health documentaries on NetFlix, dabbled in macrobiotics and gluten-free, and finally decided on a plant-based diet: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats. Originally I had thought this diet would restrict my food choices even further, and I suppose it technically has, but it doesn't bother me at all because I no longer consider the things I don't eat as food. To me, animal products are not food - they are a sentient being's flesh, they are products belonging to the creatures who created them, they are not my food. Processed and artificial substances are not food - they look like food, they taste like food, but they are not food. This change made me fall in love with the vegan lifestyle all over again. Cooking became my favorite hobby and I even started a food blog to share my thoughts and recipes. :-)

After a few months of eating whole plant foods and feeling like an entirely new person, I had a endoscopy/colonoscopy, and my GI doctor said that my colon was basically as healthy as a colon could be for a Crohn's patient. She gave me her full permission to stop using Remicade (at that point I had actually not had a Remicade infusion for about four months, so it was pretty much completely out of my body). For the first time since I was ten, I was finally able to go off Crohn's medications. It has been so liberating. But at the same time, it's terrifying, knowing that if I ever mess up my diet significantly enough, I could send my body into a flare up. Since then, I have been working so hard to make sure I eat well, and my diet is improving every day. My psoriasis has been gradually improving too; around Christmas, I noticed that I could wear my hair loose without having any bald patches show for the first time since summer (which was odd since only a few weeks before, the hair loss seemed to be at it's worst). I only have a few patches now, and they are so minimal that I hardly notice them. I don't know if my psoriasis will ever go away completely, but I hope that as I continue to eat better food and improve my lifestyle, my symptoms will continue to diminish. Through these experiences over the past year, I've learned to willingly accept the challenges life presents me, and instead of letting them build up and overwhelm me, to face them head on and give them a challenge of their own.

Pictured above (my favorite things I cooked this week!):

Chickpea Romesco served on Garlic-Saffron Rice from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

No-Bake Brownie Bites (sweetened by dates, best tasting things ever actually) from Vegan Junk Food by Lane Gold

Hamburger Buns from this recipe, using vegan versions (so far this is the best hamburger bun recipe I've tried but it was much more dense then your typical store-bought hamburger bun..it was more like a roll)

Black Bean Burgers also from Veganomicon, served with those fancy hamburger buns and some homemade baked french fries

VeganMoFo Day Eighteen

This post is ridiculously long and not that interesting, so I apologize in advance.

I loved today because I finally didn't have driver's ed! I went on a long walk with my best friend which was lovely because I hadn't seen her in a while. I didn't really take any fantastic photos, but trust me, it was very pretty out today.

We saw like 8,000 geese (actually, 111, if you want to be exact)...flying in the wrong direction. 

I got some herbs from my acupuncturist (I know she has a more official title than that, but I don't remember it) today. They will work along with my acupuncture treatment to hopefully help continue to reduce my psoriasis (amongst other things). I've been surprisingly pleased with the acupuncture so far, as I've been able to fall asleep much easier than before (only a week ago it took me several hours to fall asleep, but now it's significantly better). Even though they look like potpourri, the herbs literally smell like a pile of sticks and dirt, and the tea it makes tastes terrible, but I'm still going to try it anyway because I really trust it will work. Let's see how long I can force myself to drink two cups of this stuff a day.

My cat climbed onto my shoulder and spent most of the evening there. It's cute, but he weighs far more than any cat should and my shoulder killed after a while. Pretty sure the only reason he wanted to be held was so he could get a better view of the food in the kitchen. He's ridiculous.

I finally got to cook dinner again! I got home from my walk just as my mom was starting to cook, so I promptly took over, of course. She/I made Cuban-style black beans, out of the cookbook Vegan Planet. My parents both love that cookbook, and almost everything they've made from it has been great; I don't tend to use it very often though because there's no pictures and I can't stand looking for recipes just by looking at the titles. It's a pretty basic recipe, beans, peppers, onions, and the usual veggies cooked with some chili powder and a few other ingredients (not saying both because it's not my recipe and I honestly can't remember), and I served it on top of a mixed grain mix. It was a pretty perfect meal actually.